Tag Archives: One Law

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The Equality Puzzle, Part 3

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To be perfectly blunt: I must say the Christians have robbed the Jews! And perhaps what is worse is that this thievery has been encouraged by theologians, pastors, and even Sunday School teachers, where small children are taught to sing the song, “Every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line.”

Every promise in Scripture in some way benefits Christians, but it is not all promised to Christians. Sometimes the thievery has been inadvertent and unintentional. It’s like thinking that the raincoat hanging in the office closet is yours for wearing home because of unexpected showers. Hopefully, you will discover the raincoat belongs to a fellow worker and you will restore it. It is not as if Christians do not have the greatest promise of God, which is 1 John 2:25: “And this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.”

–Moishe Rosen
from his Foreward to Barry Horner’s book
Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged

This is Part 3 of a four-part series. Go to Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t already read them.

I know that Mr. Rosen was addressing concerns with the traditional Christian church and the effects of Christian supersessionism on the Jewish people, but given what I said in Part 2 of this series, he could just as easily have been addressing Christian “One Law” proponents. I know “thievery” seems like a strong term to apply to people who want nothing but to obey God and all of the Torah mitzvot, but from a Jewish point of view, (even a “Jews for Jesus” point of view in the case of the late Mr. Rosen) that’s how it looks.

But Rosen says something curious at the end of the above-quoted statement. He says, “It is not as if Christians do not have the greatest promise of God, which is 1 John 2:25: “And this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.”

The greatest promise of God means that we Christians are the direct beneficiaries of the promise of eternal life. What more do we want of God but what He has already granted us by His bountiful grace and mercy?

However, as human beings, we have a tendency not only to want what we can’t have, but to believe that we’re being shortchanged if, for instance, “Moishe” has been given a unique gift or responsibility that was not granted to “Barry” as well.

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. –Romans 3:1-2 (ESV)

I agree, being a Jew, including a “Messianic Jew,” has many advantages in relation to God. But saying that, and getting back to Mr. Rosen for a moment, I believe there are many advantages to being a Gentile Christian as well.

In the “Messianic” world, there’s a sort of covert bit of jealousy going on, at least with some of the non-Jewish participants, because these Gentiles see the beauty and wonder of living a Jewish religious lifestyle and they desire to live that life as well, but without converting to Judaism. More conservative elements in Messianic Judaism are echoing Moishe Rosen’s words and crying “foul” when One Law Christians demand the right to be obligated to the full weight of performing the 613 mitzvot, including those behaviors that specifically point to Jewish covenant status and Jewish identity markers. Those Jews cry out, (again, echoing Rosen) “Hey, that’s my raincoat. Give it back,” and in response the “Jewish raincoat wearing” Gentiles retort, “It’s mine, now.” as if they’re still singing the old Sunday School song, “Every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line.”

I said clearly in Part 2 of this blog series that there is nothing preventing the Christian who finds meaning and beauty in the Torah from adopting many of the mitzvot in their worship lives. Please, you can joyously light the candles on Shabbos, pray the Shema, and daven facing toward Jerusalem. You can even feed the hungry, visit the sick and imprisoned, help a lame person cross a busy street, and give abundantly to charitable causes. All of these are Torah mitzvot and if performing these deeds brings your heart closer to God, who am I as one lone Christian to tell you that they are forbidden you?

Oh wait.

What did I say? What were those mitzvot again?

I’m trying to clean up something that has become terribly muddied and messed up in translation. In “hosing off” the muddled confusion, I have “discovered” (no, it’s no great secret) that a great deal of the Torah is stuff that Christians all over the world have been doing for uncounted centuries. You want to “obey Torah?” It’s not complicated in its essence. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love justice. Do mercy. Smile at a stranger. Hug a small child with a scraped knee. Honestly, where’s the mystery? How hard is it to obey God? It’s a no brainer.

If, in the middle of all that, you want to order Kosher meals on your next international flight, or wear a head covering to honor the God who is always above you, I don’t think there’s much of a problem. No one is locking you out of the Torah or keeping the God of Israel hidden in a room with a sign on the door that says, For Jews Only.”

D.T. LancasterBut I keep saying that Christians are not Jews and I also keep saying that there are great advantages to being a Christian. But what are those advantages, I mean besides eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord? If there are advantages to Jews that uniquely belong to Jews, can the same be said about Christians?

I should say at this point that even if, beyond having our sins forgiven, coming into a “right relationship with God,” and being granted eternal life, there are no other “special advantages” to confessing Christ and coming to faith in the Jewish Messiah, is it really our place to complain to God about it? Hasn’t He done enough for us? If he chooses to assign additional obligations to the Jew, including the Messianic Jew, that He does not apply to the Gentile Christian, isn’t that God’s right? Maybe we can apply one of the Master’s parables to our own situation by way of an answer.

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.” –Matthew 20-8-16 (ESV)

I know it seems as if I’m contradicting myself because the parable is actually about how God’s love, grace, and salvation are applied in equal measure regardless of what age a person is when they come to faith. That is, everyone, no matter who they are or how old they are, eight years or eighty, when they become disciples of the Master, receives the same gifts from God as equals. Couldn’t this also mean that the obligations of Torah should be distributed evenly to both Jew and Christian as equals?

But look at it another way. The workers who were hired early and worked longer received the same wages as the workers who were hired later and worked less…and the “early hires” were ungrateful and jealous, even though it’s the Master’s money and he can pay as he pleases.

It’s also God’s Torah and He can apply it as He pleases. Are we really going to “get in God’s face” and kvetch about it? Just how ungrateful and ungracious do we want to be?

So what advantage is there in being uniquely Gentile Christian? As Paul might say, “much in every way.”

Instead of attacking Christianity, Messianic Gentiles would do well to focus on what is good about Christianity. This is necessary for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that Messianic Gentiles, as stated above, are Christians. Just as important, though, is the impact this positive attitude will have on any effort to bring Christians to recognize the Jewish roots of their faith.

It isn’t difficult to find good things to say about Christianity. First, Christianity has brought billions of people to Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah and King of the Jews. This is a non-trivial accomplishment. Even some Jewish scholars have recognized the significance of this fact. In Hilkhot Melakhim 11:10–12, Maimonides credits Christianity with preparing the Gentile world for the arrival of King Messiah by spreading knowledge of the Bible far and wide. If even those who do not claim Yeshua as Messiah can affirm the good that has come from Christianity, certainly believers should be able to as well.

Second, Christianity has helped uncountable numbers of poor, hungry, destitute, abandoned people. Myriads of counselees—drug abusers and alcoholics, victims of abuse, troubled spouses—have benefited from a pastor’s biblical advice. From Carey and Wilberforce’s campaigns against satī in India to the modern phenomenon of “adopting” starving African children, Christians everywhere have expended their resources to help those less fortunate. Today, Christian orphanages in India take in abandoned children with nowhere else to turn, just as devout Christian George Müller did over a century ago in England.

Most of these people—the poor, the abandoned, the disenfranchised, and the abused—will never understand how Yeshua fulfilled the Passover. They may never taste matzah. They may never utter a single word of Hebrew or even be able to read the Bible in their own language. Yet they rely, just as we do, on the saving grace of God through Yeshua the Messiah.

-Boaz Michael
from an early manuscript of his forthcoming book
“Tent of David: Healing the Vision of the Messianic Gentile” (pp 50-51)

For nearly twenty centuries, the church has preserved the Gospels of Christ and the letters of Paul, James, Peter, and others, and that “good news” has brought countless millions of human beings into covenant relationship with God. How many people found faith who would have otherwise been hopelessly lost without the church? How many people have been given clothing, food, medicine, companionship, mercy, and kindness by Christians whose only motivation was to serve the Savior and to the will of God? I admit that many terrible things have been done in the name of Jesus, but that’s the fault of flawed and damaged human beings, not the will of the Creator of the Universe. When we actually do His will, it always is for the good.

But you might be saying right now, “So what? Haven’t Christians have always done that?”

I’ll answer that question and more in the Fourth and final part of this series.

Addendum: Derek Leman has written a blog post called Is MJ Guilty of Jewish Elitism? The theme is substantially similar to this series of “meditations” and I recommend that you stop by Derek’s blog and have a read.

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The Equality Puzzle, Part 2

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Part 2 in a four-part series. Go to Part 1 before continuing here.

While Christians and Jews rarely get hung up on who is obligated to what under usual circumstances, there is a “middle area” where Christians and Jews meet and sometimes enter into conflict. Of course I’m talking about Messianic Judaism which, in its ideal, is a form of normative Judaism (modern traditional Judaism and the traditional church will disagree with me here) that allows halakhic Jews who have come to faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, to give him honor and to worship God in a wholly religious Jewish context and environment. It could be thought of as a Judaism like other sects of Judaism in the 21st century, but one acknowledging that the Messiah has already come and will come again.

As I said, the rest of normative Judaism in our world completely rejects any suggestion that Jesus could possibly have been (or will be) the Jewish Messiah King and thus (for the most part) rejects all Jews who “believe in Jesus.”

Christianity sometimes struggles with Messianic Judaism as well, since the phrase “under the Law” is virtually a curse word in most churches. “Jewish Christians” who continue to observe the mitzvot are considered to be a slap in the face to Jesus Christ and his bloody, sacrificial death on the cross, which, after all, was supposed to have freed all men from the Law.

OK, not all churches believe in such supersessionist ideas and many churches are slowly progressing forward, but for a large number of “average Christians,” Messianic Judaism is at least a mystery if not an actual affront to their concept of the work of Christ.

Somewhere in the midst of all this is a group of Gentiles who believe in Christ as Lord, Savior, and Messiah, but who disdain not only the church as a whole, but even the name “Christian,” preferring to refer to themselves as “One Law” or “Messianic Gentile” or some other circumlocution.

Last week in Journey to Reconciliation, Part 1 and Part 2, I said that many people who make up the Hebrew Roots/One Law movement became disillusioned with the traditional church and feel that some form of “Judaism” is the key to returning to the true intent of Christ and the “grafting in” of non-Jewish believers into the Hebraic root. However, it becomes amazingly confusing when large groups of Gentile Christians start attempting to absorb and live out Jewish religious customs and identity markers, often without a very good understanding of the underlying traditions, definitions, and methods of operationalization of a Jewish religious lifestyle.

In other words, many One Law practitioners are only “quasi-Jewish” in appearance and otherwise don’t typically conform to actual Jewish religious behaviors. In any event, a group of Christians practicing modern Jewish Halacha is not the same thing as the first pagan goyim abandoning idolatry and starting to worship in a First Century church established by the Apostle Paul.

It gets even more confusing when, confronted with hundreds of years of Jewish Rabbinic judgments, rulings, and education, some Hebrew Roots Christians either decide to toss the Talmud out altogether or reinvent it for their own purposes. However, any attempt to live out even the semblance of a Jewish lifestyle, either without the Talmud or using it in a drastically altered version, is ultimately doomed to failure.

The ability to even understand how to enact the basics of Torah doesn’t exist without some form of interpretation. Whether you choose to believe in the authority of the Rabbis to make halakhic rulings or not, they did establish a standard of Biblical interpretation and behavior that has served to safeguard the Jewish people for the past 20 centuries. Granted, the Rabbis never intended the vast majority of the Talmud to ever apply to non-Jewish people, but once you commit yourself to a Jewish lifestyle, it becomes impossible to avoid significant encounters with the Talmud.

Any Gentile who chooses to pray with a Siddur has encountered the Talmud and probably the Zohar. Any Gentile who dons a tallit gadol has encountered the Talmud. Any Gentile who attempts to “keep kosher” beyond the limits of Leviticus 11 has encountered the Talmud. The Rabbinic Sages and their rulings are so integrated into modern Judaism that for all intents and purposes, they are modern Judaism. You cannot adopt any item or element from modern Jewish religious and worship life without encountering and adopting some aspect or ruling of the Sages.

There’s no such thing as a “Bible-only” Jewish life (there’s no such thing as a “Bible-only” Christian life either, since we too have a rich history of tradition and ritual…we just pretend their is). Any understanding and implementation of the mitzvot at all is heavily interpreted and filtered through hundreds of years of Rabbinic commentary.

I mentioned in another blog post that, while Rabbis discourage non-Jews from taking on Jewish identity customs such as wearing kippot, they also recognize that we non-Jews may want to adopt the underlying intent of those markers. There are some Gentiles who refrain from wearing a kippah outside of an authentic Jewish synagogue setting, but who honor God by covering their heads with a hat or similar article when in public. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The Messianic educational and publishing ministry First Fruits of Zion has written an overwhelming number of books and articles outlining the appropriateness and desirability of Christians keeping significant portions of the Torah, including the correct Halacha involved, so it’s not as if we Gentile believers are cut off from the beauty of wonder of the traditions and prayers. However, it is one thing to be a grafted in branch being nurtured by the “civilized” root, and another thing entirely to say that we now own that root and that it is totally ours to do with as we please.

We cannot throw out the Jewish lifestyle without exterminating the historic link that connects Judaism (and thus any Jewish application to Christianity) back 2,000 years to the days of the Messiah’s earthly existence. We cannot take the Jewish lifestyle and morph it into something that pleases we Christians better without destroying the authenticity and the “Jewishness” of that link. In our ignorance or our arrogance, (or both) we are continuing to do what we did in the darkest days of the history of the church; invalidate and destroy the history of the Jewish people and claim its “first fruits” as belonging only to us.

If anyone in Christianity desires to address some form of “Torah observance,” it hardly makes sense for us to reinvent the wheel by redesigning Halacha. If we want to “keep kosher,” for example, the standards for keeping kosher are well established. We don’t need to “fix” them or rewrite them. How could we do better? Where do we get the authority to try to take Jewish life and “Gentilize it?” If some Christians want to pray with a siddur, then you will have to get used to the idea that most of the prayers were written post-Second Temple, and a significant portion of the content originated with the ancient Jewish Sages.

Actually, I don’t blame “One Law” Christians and even the more moderate “Messianic Gentiles” (a category to which I probably still belong, although I think of myself as “Christian”) for being confused as to what aspects of Torah are allowable and which are considered “forbidden” to Gentiles by the Jewish people.

(I suppose now would be a good time to mention that Judaism can’t actually walk into some Gentile’s home or congregation and say, “You can’t do that. Only we can do that.” If any non-Jews refrain from Jewish dress or practices that uniquely identify the Jewish people, it would have to be out of respect for the Jews and the desire to honor the Jewish forefathers who brought the first Gentiles into faith and discipleship under the Jewish Messiah King. If you choose not to show that type or level of honor, then I guess you’ll do as you please.)

For people who are intermarried and interfaith like me, it’s a little simpler in that, having a Jewish spouse, whatever Jewish practices the Jew in the home performs, the non-Jew is involved. Thus if my wife should choose to light the Shabbos candles and say the blessing, I, as her husband, would be able to enjoy the full flavor of the Shabbat entering our home. Of course, I’ve blogged many times in the past about the conflicts and dissonance that can also be involved in an intermarried home, so in some sense, a husband and wife who are either both Christians or both Jews (or both Messianic Jews) have certain advantages.

In the home, there is no problem for the Christian who loves welcoming in the Shabbat, praying with the Siddur, and even wearing tzitzit and tefillin in prayer since, in privacy, it is between the Christian and God. In public, it becomes more “dicey” as I’ve already mentioned, especially once the Gentile individual or group purposefully adopts Jewish practices and dress and then deliberately alters time-honored Halacha and tradition because they believe they have the “right,” and what the Jewish people have established either doesn’t fit, or isn’t “good enough” somehow.

As I said, this issue is already hopelessly confused, which is one reason why I simply put the brakes on my own “One Law” religious practice, put my tallit, my kippah, and everything else “Jewish” in a box, and hit the “Reset” button. If a Christian has to adopt Jewish practices in order to feel religiously significant, spiritually closer to God, or validated in their faith in Jesus, then something is terribly wrong.

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith – just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? –Galatians 3:1-6 (ESV)

Some people get so involved in adopting or adapting the “mechanics” of modern Judaism into their lives that they effectively forget that Jesus does matter. In fact, they forget that he matters more than anything because without the Messiah, we Gentiles could never become Christians and as such, enter into a covenant relationship with the God of Abraham.

But if the Torah is not our “keys to Heaven” so to speak, and if focusing on the mitzvot or our own adaptations of Halacha are not the most significant things in our lives, then on what do we base our hope? Where does our treasure lie? Are we always, as Christians, the “little brother” tagging along behind the older and “cooler” Jewish Messianics?

Absolutely not! But if not, then who are we and, in terms of anything “Messianic,” where is our significance, our role, our purpose in God’s Kingdom. We’ll cover that in Part 3.

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The Equality Puzzle, Part 1

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“For all that You created to revive the soul of all that live…” Tosafos – For example, apples. – 37a

One motza’ei Shabbos, one of the chassidim of R’ Aharon Karliner came to visit him. During their conversation, the gabai brought a plate of fruit before them. The Rebbe picked up an apple, and fervently recited the appropriate brochah, thanking Hashem for the fruit of the trees, and he cut off a slice. He then proceeded to eat the apple.

The chossid sat across the table from the Rebbe, watching his every move. He had always thought of the rebbe as akin to one of the angels, and yet, here was his rebbe, eating a mundane apple just like everyone else would. For a fleeting moment, a thought flashed through the mind of the chossid, “We both eat apples, and we both recite brachos. True, the rebbe recites the brochah with a bit more concentration than I do, but we are both essentially the same.”

The rebbe was quick to notice the subtle change of demeanor from reverence to careful appraisal, and he said to his guest, “Tell me, what indeed is the difference between you and me? I eat apples, and you eat apples. I recite blessings, and you recite blessings. So how are we different?”

“I was just wondering the same thing,” the chossid admitted, somewhat startled and embarrassed.

“I’ll tell you,” the rebbe said. “When I get up in the morning, I look around and see all the beautiful things Hashem has created. I am overwhelmed with the splendor of creation, and the mastery of the universe. I am enthralled and I crave to praise Hashem, but I know that it is forbidden to say Hashem’s name in vain. So, I reach for an apple, which gives me the opportunity to praise Hashem as I say a brochah.

“But when you arise in the morning, the first thing you think is that you are hungry, and you want to eat an apple. You cannot eat it without saying a brochah, so you do so to allow yourself to eat. You say your brachos in order to eat, but I eat in order to say a brochah and to talk to Hashem.”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Eating to Bless”
Berachos 37

Part 1 in a four-part series.

I mentioned just the other day that we believers who grew up in the west, particularly in the United States, seem to be all about our “rights” and all about “equality.” We have a philosophy that is even built into our Declaration of Independence (although at the time this document was written, it really only applied to white landowners), so it is difficult to even conceive of essential “inequalities” between different groups of human beings unless we invoke the terms “racism” or “bigotry.”

But is inequality between peoples true in terms of the Bible’s intent and more importantly, is it true in terms of God’s intent for humanity? On the surface, it would seem the answer is “no.”

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. –Galatians 3:27-29 (ESV)

It would seem then, that the Christian ideal is for anyone who has been “baptized into Christ,” there is “neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female.” We indeed are all equal before the throne of our King and no one is superior or inferior in relation to each other in the eyes of God.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have differences, of course. It would be foolish to believe that men and women are completely identical right down to their physiology and biochemistry. Also, in terms of social status, duties, and responsibilities, in the day of Paul, there were still slaves and masters, equal in the love of God, but still a master held authority over the slave. The Galatians 3:28 “equality” didn’t “whitewash” humanity. There are still differences in biology and in social roles and status.

Which tends to chafe at some people, particularly those who are more politically liberal. After all, no one wants to support or commit acts of discrimination or injustice which lowers one human being in relation to another. If we’re all equal in God’s eyes, shouldn’t our identities, practices, and roles relative to the faith be identical, too?

Not necessarily.

I quoted the commentary on Berachos 37 above to illustrate that on the level of spiritual development, we can exist on very different planes of accomplishment. A tzaddik like the Rebbe obviously has a more highly developed perspective on spiritual matters than the Chassid who was observing him. Their transaction reminds me of another “Rebbe” relating to his own “Chassidim.”

An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.” –Luke 9:46-48 (ESV)

Jesus knew “the reasoning of their hearts” even as the Rebbe in the story above noticed “the subtle change of demeanor from reverence to careful appraisal” of his Chassid. He was also just as quick to point out that there we indeed differences between a Rebbe and his Chassid, just as there were differences between Jesus and his disciples. We are also the disciples of Jesus and just like his students of ancient days, we have a long way to go in our learning and understanding. We are not equal to our Master.

Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. –John 13:16 (ESV)

I don’t think any Christian, regardless of denomination, tradition, or sect, would seriously consider themselves as equal to Jesus Christ, but do we consider ourselves always equal to one another?

Given the nature of human beings, probably not. That is, people have a tendency to elevate themselves at the expense of others. But is this always unjustified? It wasn’t in terms of the Rebbe and his Chassid. But what about between different groups of believers.

In traditional Judaism, Jews do not see themselves as superior to Christians or any other group of Gentiles. They only see themselves as functionally different based on the covenant requirements that were specified at Sinai. This viewpoint is illuminated by a response to an “Ask the Rabbi” question about why Jews don’t proselytize.

It would be discriminatory for Judaism to proselytize and try to convert those not of the religion. That would imply that everybody needs to be Jewish in order to make a relationship with God, participate in the Torah’s vision of repairing the world, and “get to heaven.” Yet this is not so.

The idea of demanding that everyone to convert is probably familiar to you as a Christian ideal. For example, a Baptist group in Florida recently spent over $1 million to distribute a video entitled “Jesus” to every household in Palm Beach County. It’s no coincidence that 60 percent of these homes are Jewish.

Be that as it may, the Jewish idea is that the Torah of Moses is a truth for all humanity, whether Jewish or not. The Torah (as explained in the Talmud – Sanhedrin 58b) presents seven mitzvot for non-Jews to observe. These seven laws are the pillars of human civilization, and are named the Seven Laws of Noah, since all humans are descended from Noah.

Maimonides explains that any human being who faithfully observes these laws earns a proper place in heaven. So you see, the Torah is for all humanity, no conversion necessary.

As well, when King Solomon built the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, he specifically asked God to heed the prayer of non-Jews who come to the Temple (1-Kings 8:41-43). The Temple was the universal center of spirituality, which the prophet Isaiah referred to as a “house for all nations.” The service in the Holy Temple during the week of Sukkot featured a total of 70 bull offerings, corresponding to each of the 70 nations of the world. In fact, the Talmud says that if the Romans would have realized how much they were benefiting from the Temple, they never would have destroyed it!

Of course, anyone wanting to take on an extra level of responsibility can voluntarily convert to become Jewish. But that is not a prerequisite for having a relationship with God and enjoying eternal reward.

From “Jewish Proselytizing?”
Ask the Rabbi
Aish.com

interfaithYes, all men are equal in the sense that all men are descended from Noah, and thus the wisdom and truth of the Torah is for all humanity, but how the responsibilities of the Torah are to be expressed are a function of covenant responsibility from a Jewish point of view. Jews are obligated to the full 613 mitzvot as modern Judaism understands the Torah commandments today, while most Jews consider Gentiles obligated to a subset of the Torah as defined by the Seven Noahide Laws.

Christianity disputes this, not in terms of thinking that we believers are obligated to the full weight of the Torah, but that Jesus removed the Torah obligations for everyone, and replaced them with grace, love, and forgiveness. I don’t believe the Bible supports this particular theology and maintain that while we non-Jewish Christians are not obligated to the full yoke of Torah, the Jewish people do remain a people of the full Torah in response to God and Sinai.

Christians and Jews don’t particularly believe that one group is better than the other and equality between the two groups is less of a concern than incompatibility. They simply see each other as completely different religious entities. Jews are Jews and Christians are Christians.

But if Christians and Jews traditionally don’t struggle over issues of equality or superiority, then where is the problem? We’ll address that in Part 2 of this series.

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What’s Important Now?

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When you try to help others and they don’t listen to you, you have a choice. You can say “it’s impossible to help them” and blame them for not being more open. Or you can view the situation as your own lack of proficiency at influencing and motivating others.

A blame-free attitude is the best path to choose. This can motivate you to develop your skills and talents on how to persuade, influence, and motivate. It could be that what you said is exactly what this person needs. As you enhance your presentation skills, in the future you will influence others to follow your beneficial suggestions.

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Develop your Motivational Skills”
Daily Lift #570
Aish.com

Oh my! This could be applied to every blogger who has ever tried to convince (often in vain) an audience why their point of view is correct and why his/her audience should change their minds and adopt the blogger’s perspective/belief/faith/whatever.

Really, how many blogs and how many comments on those blogs are specifically dedicated to the blogger blaming the audience (or at least those people in the audience who disagree with him/her) for being blockheaded, stubborn, ignorant, and “impossible to help?”

More than I can count, I’m sure.

So what should we do with this piece of advice? Should we redouble our efforts as bloggers, assume that our presentation skills are lacking somehow, and focus on how better to “influence others to follow our beneficial suggestions” in future blog posts?

Is Rabbi Pliskin’s advice here the answer?

A person who feels joy when performing mitzvahs will forget all his suffering and misfortunes. In comparison to becoming closer to the Almighty, of what import is pettiness and trivialities?

A person who experiences joy in doing good deeds will feel greater joy than a person who finds a large sum of money. Why should a person expend his efforts trying to find happiness in areas where the basis is transient and ultimately meaningless, when he has a far better alternative?

I suspect it is the answer, if we were to take Rabbi Pliskin seriously and actually apply his suggestion to our lives in a consistent manner. Unfortunately, we who continue to participate in the blogosphere, either as active bloggers or the observers who don’t blog but who frequently comment on the blogs of others, take ourselves way too seriously (me included). This is true in spite of the fact that there are probably well over 181 million blogs in the world right now. As far as U.S. bloggers are concerned, our “right” to have our say and express our opinion seems to have reached crazy, chaotic, out-of-control proportions, thanks to cheap, high-speed Internet access and the ability to create a blog for absolutely no cost in just a few minutes.

So what’s the answer, what’s the answer, what’s the answer?

I’d like to say “turn it all off,” but I know how difficult that would be in my own case, so I can hardly make that suggestion to others. But Rabbi Noah Weinberg, of blessed memory, makes that exact suggestion, at least in part.

Imagine someone calling you an idiot. Or that you’re stuck in traffic. Or that the boss is hassling you.

When this happens, you can become angry and caught up in the pettiness of life.

The remedy? Take a moment to go outside and walk under the stars. When you witness the vastness of the universe, it puts things into perspective. When you come back inside, you won’t be starry-eyed. You’ll be energized. You’ll say, I’m sorry. Let’s forget it and move on.

Awe helps release you from the limits of the body. You are suddenly in a world of different dimensions, transported into the eternity of beauty, power, majesty. You’ve got an expanded perspective. It’s no longer me versus you. We’re all one. So why be aggravated?

Awe carries us beyond ourselves. In times of war and tragedy – as well as prosperity and joy – people get “bigger.” They treat each other nicer. Pettiness is forgotten.

Anytime you’re in a rut, blast yourself out. Take a walk under the stars. This will unleash the power. You cannot be bored or petty when you are in awe.

The ultimate source of awe is, of course, God. Since we often can’t directly experience God, we usually must “settle” for experiencing the reminders of Him that He has left for us; that is, His universe, His creation.

It’s ironic that when we compare ourselves to the vastness of God and His Glory, we feel very small, and humbled, and yet at the same time, grateful and even exhilarated. We don’t feel jealous that God is so big and we are so tiny. We don’t resent God for being omnipotent while we are so powerless.

And yet let another human being or another group of people claim some heritage, some experience, some relationship that we ourselves don’t have access to, and suddenly we’re deeply envious, hurt, and outraged. We feel victimized. We feel as if our “rights” have been violated. Why can’t we have the same access to what “those people” claim is uniquely theirs?

Yes, of course I’m talking about the current (and seemingly endless) debate between certain corners of Christianity which can be thought of as “Hebrew Roots” or more specifically “One Law” and the various Judaisms, including “Messianic Judaism.”  The struggle is fueled by those who find in the Bible the justification for “One Law” Christians to have the “right” to everything that God granted Israel as a perpetual gift at Sinai, which is the heritage of every Jew on earth today. Naturally, when Jewish people hear such rhetoric, they tend to “push back.”

I suppose this too is an “issue” that we people who were born and raised in the West and specifically in the U.S. have to deal with, since “our rights” are all we tend to think about (or is that “our entitlements?”) relative to what other people have that we want.

But what should we have learned by now as people of faith? What did Jesus teach? To claim our rights? To take what wasn’t given to us? What did he teach that we seem to be forgetting?

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ –Matthew 25:31-40 (ESV)

Did Jesus “teach Torah?” Absolutely! What else would a Second Temple period itinerant Rabbi teach to the “lost sheep of Israel?” Did he expect his disciples to take his teachings and pass them on through imitation and active “preaching?” Absolutely! That’s what disciples do. Do we see Jesus overtly teaching Jewish covenant signs and identity markers to his Jewish audience? Not as such, since each Jew in Roman-occupied “Palestine” would have been raised from birth to know all these things. In other words, for a Jew in that place at that time,  knowing how to tie tzitzit would have been a “no-brainer.”

So what did he teach and what did he expect his Jewish disciples to pass on to the disciples from the nations? (Matthew 28:18-20) What were his most important commandments?

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. –John 13:34 (ESV)

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” –Matthew 22:37-40 (ESV)

That takes us right back to what Rabbi Pliskin said earlier:

A person who feels joy when performing mitzvahs will forget all his suffering and misfortunes. In comparison to becoming closer to the Almighty, of what import is pettiness and trivialities?

It’s pointless to fuss and argue over God and His special relationship with the Jewish people. After all, God gave the nations of the world the most precious gift possible; the life of His one and only son, the unique one, the Messiah, who died so that our sins could be forgiven and who lived so that we could have eternal life with the Father as His own sons and daughters.

The next time someone says something outrageous about religion (or anything else) on the Internet and you want to fight back and stand up for your rights, step away from the keyboard. Go outside. Experience the awesomeness of a thunderstorm or the magnificence of the starry, starry night. Perform a mitzvah such as visiting a sick friend in the hospital or donating a few canned goods to your local food bank. Retire into a quiet place and pray, turning your heart away from your own small concerns or hurt feelings and turning your spirit toward God.

After you have done that, ask yourself, “What’s important now?”

Do I need to take my own advice? Yes. Fortunately, Shabbat is coming up. When sundown approaches, I can put away the Internet and return my heart and spirit more fully to the God of all creation, may His Name be blessed eternally and without end.

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What Are The Jewish Covenant Signs?

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Question:

I have a few Jewish friends who wear kippahs and sometimes when I’m hanging out with them I feel out of place. Even though I am not Jewish, would there be any problem with me wearing a kippah, too?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Well, on one hand, the Pope wears a kippah.

But on the other hand, a non-Jew should not wear a kippah, since that might deceive others into thinking that he is Jewish.

In practice, non-Jews will sometimes wear a kippah while attending a Jewish religious function (many world leaders have been photographed at the Western Wall wearing a kippah), but in general a non-Jew should not wear one, due to the confusion it may cause.

However, since the idea of a kippah is to have the head covered as a reminder of God, you could certainly use some other head covering, like a cap, to serve that purpose.

from Ask the Rabbi
“Kippah for a Non-Jew”
Aish.com

At last spring’s First Fruits of Zion Shavuot Conference during a question and answer session, a gentlemen in the audience said that he sometimes will visit churches wearing a kippah and tallit gadol as a “witness” to the Christians of the permanency of the Torah mitzvot. The person in question isn’t Jewish and when asked at church, will admit he is not Jewish but that, in his opinion, the mitzvot pertaining to wearing tzitzit and many others, apply equally to the Christian as to the Jew based on our discipleship under the Jewish Messiah King.

The reaction from the speaker at the event (I can’t recall who was speaking at that particular moment) was that this behavior introduces a great deal of identity confusion if Christians start dressing like Jews just to make a point. Reading the “Ask the Rabbi” topic I quoted above reminded me of that interaction and confirmed that Messianic Judaism and more traditional Judaism share the same perspective on Gentiles wearing Jewish “sign” markers.

I’ve often heard various Jews in the Messianic movement object to Gentiles wearing tzitzit, keeping Shabbat, and (apparently) observing the kashrut laws, as violating the “sign markers” that specifically identify Jewish people and their covenant relationship with God. The “pushback” I’ve read from One Law proponents and some others in the Hebrew Roots movement is that there’s a great deal of confusion about what Torah mitzvot is and isn’t permitted Gentile Christians, so how can anyone be held accountable to what may or may not be permitted?

From a more traditional Jewish perspective, I suppose the matter is more clear-cut, but in terms of the Messianic Jewish view on the matter, things seem a tad more indistinct. Some more “hard-line” folks in Messianic Judaism seem to believe that Gentile Christians should stay in their (our) churches and behave in no way whatsoever that resembles a Jew. Others, such as the fine folks at First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ), state that many and even perhaps most of the mitzvot are permitted a Gentile, but the vast majority of them are not actual covenant obligations for us.

Opinions seem to vary widely and that’s where the confusion comes in. If you are a Gentile Christian but are attracted to the beauty and wonder of the Torah mitzvot, and you want to express a high level of respect toward Jews and Judaism, what is allowed and what is not permitted?

My personal response, and out of respect for my Jewish wife, was to put away just about everything, my kippah, my tallit, my tefillin, and to abstain from reciting virtually all of the Hebrew prayers (I still keep a siddur on my nightstand, however).

But if I wanted to explore what a Gentile might be allowed that normally is considered “Jewish,” then where are the boundaries and limits, or are they clearly defined at all?

In my search, (which has been rather brief so far) I actually didn’t find much.

In general, a brit refers to a covenant–a pledge of obligation between two parties which is sometimes accompanied by a token signifying the brit. Historically, there have been three signs that point out the three major covenants between God and people.

The first is Shabbat, which was given to serve as a sign of creation: “The Israelite people shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout the ages as a covenant for all time: it shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel” (Exodus 31:16-17).

The second is the rainbow, which was given to symbolize the renewal of mankind after the Noah flood: “God further said, `This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for all ages to come. I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh’ ” (Genesis 9:12-15).

And the last is [circumcision], which was established as the sign signifying the beginning of the Hebrew nation: “Such shall be the cove­nant between Me and you and your offspring to follow which you shall keep: every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Genesis 17:10-11).

Circumcision came to be regarded as the unique sign of our covenant and gradually emerged as a physical symbol of a child’s joining the com­munity of Israel.

-by Rabbi Michael Strassfeld & Sharon M. Strassfeld
“Three Biblical Signs of Covenant”
Aish.com

Really? Just three? Surely that can’t be it.

The Rainbow, circumcision, and Shabbat.

First off, the sign of the Rainbow that God presented to Noah applies to all of humanity, not just the Jewish people so that leaves only two that are specifically Jewish: circumcision, or the brit milah, and Shabbat.

This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. –Genesis 17:10-11 (ESV)

Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”-Exodus 31:16-17 (ESV)

That would seem to leave the field wide open for Gentiles to observe Torah mitzvot that are not signs of the covenant between God and the Jewish people.

But is it really that simple? Of course, not.

As the Aish Rabbi pointed out, even wearing something as simple as a kippah, which is not overtly commanded in the Torah, can create “identity confusion” as far as Jews, Christians, and everyone else are concerned.

Jewish in JerusalemA few “Messianic Gentiles” dress frum but that really isn’t such a problem. It’s more likely to see certain non-Jews wearing tzitzit, either attached to a tallit katan or far more inappropriately, on their belt loops.

I don’t know if it’s a crime, a sin, or just embarrassing to be a Gentile and to deliberately create the impression that you’re Jewish, (even if that’s not your exact intension) but it sure does mess with people’s heads as far as who a Jew is and isn’t.

However, I have to be fair and say that the Messianic Jewish movement doesn’t appear to have a very firm set of standards as far as behaviors that represent “covenant signs” telling non-Jews in the Messianic/Hebrew Roots movement what to avoid (that is, if the non-Jews choose to show respect to Jewish people).

If such standards exist and I’ve just missed them, I’d appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction. If they don’t exist, maybe it’s time someone got around to addressing this issue. If at least some folks are going to make an issue of Gentiles and Jewish covenant signs, then we should all be able to point our fingers to a set of standards that defines what we’re all talking about.

Comments?

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Journey to Reconciliation, Part 1

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Had the Hebrew roots movement started off on a different trajectory, there would never have been a need for me to say this. To most Christians, saying that “the Church is good” will sound ridiculous in its self-evidence. Yet the Hebrew roots movement’s rhetoric against Christianity and the church as been escalating for years and shows no signs of abating. For someone who is just learning about the movement, this rhetoric is often an immediate turn off – and rightly so. There is nothing anti-Christian or anti-church about the authentic core message of the Jewishness of Jesus.

-Boaz Michael,
President and Founder of First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)
from an early manuscript his forthcoming book “Tent of David”

I had only been a Christian for a few years when I was introduced to the Hebrew Roots movement. I probably wouldn’t have entered the movement at all if not for my wife’s involvement (which she has long since exited). I was just finally getting comfortable in my church. I was just beginning to feel like I was fitting in. I was more at ease about participating in discussions in Sunday school. I had been asked to be one of the ushers during services. I was making friends. I felt like I belonged.

But through a long string of circumstances (not unlike the long string of circumstances that resulted in me becoming a Christian after the age of forty), I started attending a “Messianic Jewish” congregation. This was in the late 1990s and frankly, I didn’t know Messianic Judaism or Hebrew Roots (related concepts, but not the same thing) from anything else. But it was new and exciting and they said and taught such amazing things about Jesus, or rather “Yeshua” as he’s referred to in Hebrew. Everyone was nice (just like at church) and it was a small enough venue to where I could meet and get to know everyone fairly quickly.

But among the things I learned about was that our hands are stained with blood. More to the point (and I’m borrowing that phrase from Michael Brown’s somewhat famous book on the topic), the church is stained with blood; Jewish blood.

I won’t take this opportunity to recount to you the long and troubling history of the Christian church, especially in how it treated the Jewish people, the pogroms, the inquisitions, the spreading of the vast net of supersessionism across the world, the frightening twists of such a theology that in part, made the Holocaust possible. Others have chronicled all of this information exacting detail. I have no need to do so here.

But back then, I had no idea.

I began to realize that although I maintained my faith in Jesus, the method of my introduction to the Jewish Messiah occurred in a place that was actively opposed to his being Jewish. It was actively opposed to the Jewish people. It taught that the Jews were no longer the chosen ones of God and that they had been replaced by the Gentile Christians. How could I possibly stand for that? My wife and three children are Jewish.

It was a horrible realization.

So I went to a “congregation” and not a church. I was a “Messianic Gentile,” not a Christian. I only called the Jewish Messiah “Yeshua,” never Jesus. I wore a kippah when I went to worship and donned a tallit gadol when I entered into prayer. I haltingly prayed in very bad Hebrew using photocopied pages of a transliteration of the prayers. I only read the Apostolic scriptures (never calling it the “New Testament”) using David H. Stern’s The Complete Jewish Bible. I read the Tanakh, not the “Old Testament.”

My departure from my old church wasn’t clean. We still attended both congregations. My kids were very well-integrated into the church’s youth group and it would have been difficult to just abruptly detach them from the relationships they had there. I started to talk to my Christian friends about Yeshua, and the Torah, and Moshe, and how Paul was really “Rabbi Shaul” who taught the Gentile disciples to obey Torah.

I was treated politely but the distance began to grow between me and the people who I had just started to feel comfortable around. It didn’t help that the church was going through an upheaval at the time. The board had dismissed the Pastor for not “growing” the church to their ambitions (I still remember Pastor Jerry very fondly) and they hired a dynamic (but not nearly as personable) Pastor who had a degree in “church growth” or something like that. I disagreed with their methods and their reasoning and the rift between me and the church I had come to faith in expanded, finally to the breaking point.

This did nothing but add to the rather negative impression of Christianity I was learning from the Hebrew Roots congregation I was also attending.

I want to make it clear at this point that no one in the Hebrew Roots congregation was hostile or aggressive in terms of Christians, Christianity, or “the church.” They were (and are) all people of good will and faith who sincerely believed everything they were saying. But part of what they were saying is that traditional Christianity had gone astray and was leading many innocent people down the wrong path. The only hope was to leave the church and to form Hebrew Roots congregations that were more in keeping with Torah and the teachings of Yeshua, our Master.

I learned a great deal about Yeshua, Torah, Moshe, and my responsibilities to the mitzvot of God from FFOZ’s Torah Club as it existed back in those days (a lot has changed since then).

I won’t try to describe everything that’s happened in the last twelve years or so. Suffice it to say, I’ve changed quite a bit. I’ve spent a long decade plus investigating, examining, and growing in my faith. At this point in my life, just a few years shy of sixty, I realize how very little I really understand.

Christianity is slowly changing. I know several Pastors of Christian churches who have realized that the replacement theology that has typically been represented and taught in churches is not a sustainable doctrine. They are, much like Anglican priest Andrew White, realizing that we cannot be Christians without knowing that the root of our faith resides in the Jewish people and in Judaism. But that doesn’t mean we have to abandon our churches and our Sunday schools and “reinvent” our faith by creating new congregations which borrow from Jewish religious practices, customs, and identity markers.

I don’t disdain the people in my former Hebrew Roots congregation. I still am friends with them, though we don’t often see each other. I continue to believe that they are pursuing their faith, the Messiah, and the God of Israel in an honest, sincere, and holy manner. The congregation as I left it and as it was every day I attended, never spoke against the church or against Christians. For virtually its entire existence, the congregation met in rooms rented from local churches. One church, which occasionally loaned us the use of their youth building for no cost, felt that helping us was their outreach to the Jewish people (though we had virtually no one attending who was halachically Jewish). All of our High Holiday and other festival celebrations took place in churches. Many Christians, including several Pastors, attended our Passover seders each year.

The church was good to us.

The church is good.

As I’m sure you’re aware, I not only write frequently on topics involving Hebrew Roots and Messianic Judaism, but I visit and occasionally comment on related blogs. I don’t comment on all of them because sadly, some are rather uncomfortable with my opinions and beliefs and some actively speak against the church, Christianity, and Christians. While not all Hebrew Roots congregations (as I’ve mentioned) are characterized by a specific rejection of Christianity, the movement as a whole (and the movement is diverse in the extreme, ranging from highly organized congregations, to fragmented Bible studies and small family living room worship groups) has an identity based on a sense of being victimized by the church.

In my time in the Hebrew Roots movement, I’ve met many people who felt betrayed by their churches and their Pastors. They were (and probably still are) angry and hurt, and their outlook on Christianity is fueled primarily by their emotions and in some cases, by what their Hebrew Roots congregational leaders are teaching to reenforce those feelings.

Again, I want to be extremely careful and say that many, many Hebrew Roots groups are not like this at all, but many, many more are, and the wedge separating Hebrew Roots believers and the traditional church of Jesus Christ is getting wider every day.

Ironically, this doesn’t mean that the relationship between Hebrew Roots as a whole and the traditional Jewish synagogue is getting any closer. Having ties in both the local Reform and Chabad groups, I can tell you that it’s much more likely for a traditional Christian to visit and be accepted in a Shabbat service or Hebrew class than it is someone from the Hebrew Roots movement, especially if the Hebrew Roots person begins “explaining” to the Rabbis what they’re doing wrong, criticizing the Talmud, or otherwise appearing to denigrate (even without meaning to) how Jews practice and understand Judaism.

So where is Hebrew Roots today and what exactly went wrong?

I haven’t sent out questionnaires or performed a scientific survey of the entire Hebrew Roots movement as it currently exists, but based on everything I’ve said so far (and over a decade of experience within the movement, including contact with dozens of congregations), I’d have to say that Hebrew Roots is wholly isolating itself both from Christianity and from Judaism.

Startling, I know. I’m sure I’ll get some “pushback” for saying that.

Again, this isn’t absolutely true of each and every Hebrew Roots congregation, but the movement as a whole, including all of the highly diverse and mixed groups, families, and individuals involved, is drifting further away from unity with both its “Hebrew” root and its “Apostolic” root.

How can this be fixed?

There are two basic populations in Hebrew Roots. The first population, and in fact, the vast, vast majority population, is Gentile Christian. That is, people who are not Jewish who came into Hebrew Roots from the church. Only a tiny minority could be considered authentically Jewish, according to accepted halachah, by having a Jewish mother. Most of the “Jewish” members may have a Jewish grandparent or more distant relative and by virtue of that relationship, consider themselves Jewish, but they were never raised in a Jewish home, never had a traditional Jewish education, and otherwise, never experienced anything “Jewish” until entering the movement.

(I should say at this point that the Hebrew Roots movement has been around long enough to where there are young adults who have been raised in Hebrew Roots, so their background, family experience, and education comes from that source…but that’s not the same as being raised by two Jewish parents who are observant in any form of religious Judism).

How this can be fixed depends on who you are, where you come from, and what you are willing to tolerate. To prevent this blog post from growing beyond all reasonable bounds, I’ll continue this presentation in tomorrow’s “morning meditation.”

There’s hope. There’s a way out of this mess, I promise you. The path leads to our being able to serve God, both Jew and Christian alike. There is a resolution between the church and the synagogue and between Christianity and true Messianic Judaism.

That’s the journey we will continue tomorrow with Part 2.