Times are Changing

[SimchatTorah]

Previously in Judaism, any belief that Yeshua was haMoshiach meant a rejection of Judaism itself. However, today there is a new trend. As expressed in the largest Jewish magazine in print today, believers in Yeshua must not be rejected from Judaism simply upon the belief that he was the messiah. They have come to recognize that believing in a particular messiah (ie: Bar Kochba, Baal Shem Tob, ect.) does not negate one from being Jewish, albeit even if they believe in a false messiah. Modern Rabbinic Judaism has now admitted that even though many Jews believe in a particular "false messiah", such as the Hassidics, they remain Jews. However, such beliefs as trinity, anti-, and rejection of the Jews as unique people set aside by G-d will deem one as rejecting Judaism. But belief in Yeshua will not deem such an accusation.

Here are a few examples:



"In all his views and actions Jesus was a Jew. As a pious Israelite he fulfilled all the commandments. He saw in God his Father in heaven, had pity on the poor, supported the stumbling, and loved the repentant, in whose place even the perfectly just are not allowed to stand, as a talmudic saying puts it. He was also afflicted with the typical Jewish failings. He never saw the sublime and beautiful in nature, and he never smiled. He carried on his teaching amid tears, threats, and promises...Jesus was the most Jewish of all Jews, more Jewish even than the great teacher Hillel."

---Joseph Klausner, Historian and Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
"Yeshu Ha-notzri" (Jerusalem 1922); "Jesus of Nazareth", trans. Herbert Danby (New York: Macmillan 1925).



"If the many sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels which express his devotion to the have even a grain of historical truth in them, then the charge of 'perverting the people' is just as unthinkable as that of 'blasphemy' (Mk 14:64; Mt 26:65), which none of the four Gospels show him committing. For neither his claim to be the Messiah (Mk 14:61 ff.), nor the usurpation of 'divine sonship' (Mt 26:63 ff.) are considered blasphemy or capital offences in Jewish law."

---Pinchas Lapide
"Israelis, Jews and Jesus", trans. 1979 by Doubleday & Company, Inc., pg. 47




"None of the Jewish historians...deny Jewish responsibility...In fact, Professor Klausner maintains that the Sadducees have a share in the blame...Just as the Jews handed Jesus over to the Roman procurator of the country, since they had no jurisdiction over 'capital crimes', so too the opponents of Rabbi Shneur Salman of Liadi handed him over to the Russuian authorities...If Jesus' crucifixion was a part of the plan of salvation, then the Jews were only playing their predestined role. And if God for unfathomable reasons led them to commit this exalted crime, in order to reconcile mankind...then we deserve indulgence, pity and love - and all Christianity's offenses against us remain unforgivable, till Israel one day finds redemption...We did that deed but I feel no guilt because of it. Therefore I am free to deal critically with the Gospels, as with any other great book that has stamped its seal on world history."

---J. Carmel (born 1901)
"The Bach Passion: Yes or No", Keshet, Tel Aviv, Spring 1973, pp. 46-63



"My heart bled over the loss [in the schools] of this tragic yet so tender book, so lovable and warm in its closeness to life. Alien? I felt no alienation reading it...Its native soil is our own land. If the prophet Elijah rode to heaven in a flaming chariot, why shouldn't Jesus rise from the dead and ascend into heaven? And, as in the case of Elijah, here too it is not the supernatural but the human, all too human, which gives wings to head and heart. Just as the figure of Elijah and his life story lose nothing of their pathos even when we have ceased to believe in his ascent into heaven, so Jesus and his story of suffering are in no way diminished if we can believe neither in his miraculous birth nor his resurrection...Scenes like those in Gethsemane, his agonizing prayer, the arrest at midnight, his outcry on the cross...the masterworks of world literature contain only a few such high points, such fateful moments."

"...If Confucious and the Koran have been translated into Hebrew...why not the New Testament, with its deeper and more human values? When I read the Gospel of Matthew, I understand how easy it is to reinterpret this chronicle of the ancient past into a fully relevant life story which has much to say to us even today."

"...When I speak of the Gospels, it is without any view towards incorporating yet another holy book into our literature. I take no pleasure in a canon, with all the narrowness implied in such a concept. My only concerns are of a literary, cultural and intellectual nature...As a matter of fact, the Gospels are religious writings, and anyone who wishes to be influenced by them in a religious way should be free to do so...There are people who derive religious insights from Dostoevsky. Others may react in a similar way to the Gospels. Why not? What are we afraid of? Or must we be anxious lest Jews once again look upon Jesus as Messiah and redeemer?"

---J. Carmel (born 1901)
"The Bach Passion: Yes or No", Keshet, Tel Aviv, Spring 1973, pp. 46-63



"It will seem paradoxical to the Christian that the Jew can learn from Jesus how to pray, the true sense of the Sabbath, how to fast, the meaning of the kingdom of heaven and the last judgment. The open-minded Jew is always deeply impressed by Jesus' opinions, and he understands that here is one Jew speaking to other Jews."

---David Flusser
"Inwiefern kann Jesus fur Juden eine Frage sien?", in Concilium, X, no. 10 (Oct. 1974), p. 598



There are many more that I can present.

I hope these encourage your soul if you believe in Yeshua as Moshiach. Consider that you are not rejected by Judaism, and those who reject you merely because of your beleif in Yeshua as the Messiah are doing so out of ignorance, and also against the understanding of the Rabbinical council today.

Shalom!!!
Yafet.

[SimchatTorah]

Here's just a few more to encourage your nefesh.
By the way, these were gathered together by a friend of mine who goes by "BrookLaw" if you happen to see her on another forum, thank her for her work in collecting these quotes.



"Jesus was a Jew, Hebrew of Hebrews. Whatever I believe with respect to the imputed miracle of his birth, his mother, Mary, was a Jewish woman. He was reared and taught as a Jew. He worshipped in the synagogue. He spoke no language save Hebrew...Jesus did not teach or wish to teach a new religion."

---Rabbi Stephen Wise
"Challenging Years: The Autobiography of Stephen Wise (New York: Putnam, 1949), p. 281



"Jesus had no other end in view than to animate men with faith in the one God and to urge them on to the practice of all the neighborly virtues and love for everyone, even enemies. May God grant us all, Jews and Christians, that we may follow the teaching of Jesus and his shining example, for our well-being in this world and our salvation in the next. Amen."

---Dr. Elie Soloweyczyk (Orthodox Rabbi)
"Kol Kore' o Ha-Talmud Wehabrith Hachadashah" (1875) III, 9.



"Jesus of Nazareth not only observed the law of Moses but also the statutes of the rabbis. If any of his recorded words or deeds seem at first glance to run counter to this, that impression quickly fades. If we carefully examine his life, we find everything about it in complete agreement not only with the Scriptures but also with tradition."

---Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86)
"Jerusalem" (Leipzig, 1843), p. 357



"The founder of Christianity never had the idea of abolishing the , nor did his disciple Paul...The disciples of the Nazarene chose baptism instead of circumcision for men who did not wish to accept Judaism, and Sunday instead of the Sabbath as the weekly day of rest, to testify that they were not fully Jewish. The Nazarene and his disciples, however, kept the Sabbath most strictly and practiced circumcision, for they were after all Jews by birth and descent, and observed all of the ...Christianity was only founded for the Gentiles."

---Rabbi Jacob Emden (1696 - 1776)
"Lechem Shamayim" (Hamburg, 1757), pp. 35 ff.



"The founder of Christianity rendered a double benefit to the world. On the one hand, he used all his power to reinforce the of Moses, for none of our wise men ever placed greater emphasis on the eternal binding force of God's teaching. On the other hand, he did the Gentiles a great service - if only they wouldn't thwart his noble intention, as certain blockheads have done, by not grasping the true sense of the Gospels - in that he did away with idolatry, freed them from the service of idols, and obliged them to observe the seven commandments of Noah...and in fact he tried to make them perfect by means of a moral teaching which is still more demanding than the of Moses."

---Rabbi Oscar Z. Fasman
"Seder Olam Raba-we-Sutta (Hamburg, 1757), pp. 35 ff.



"To the charge that the Talmud defamed Jesus as a falsifier of the , Rabbi Yechiel in the notorious Paris disputation (1240) conceded that the Talmud polemics referred to Jesus, "but not to Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, who never rejected the ". The fact that Jesus (Yeshua, Yehoshua, Yoshua) was such a common Jewish name largly confirms this hypothesis. Josephus alone mentions a round dozen men who bore this name, while in the Talmud no fewer than twenty-one namesakes of Jesus appear among the rabbis."

------Pinchas Lapide
"Israelis, Jews and Jesus", trans. 1979 by Doubleday & Company, Inc., pgs. 82-83



Shalom!

[SimchatTorah]

My favorite article on this subject was written by Dennis Prager in Moment magazine. Here is his article in entirety for your enjoyment. I truly appreciated this one more than almost anything I have read on the subject....

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Dennis Prager
A New Approach to Jews-for- Jesus

Jews can love and embrace Jews with a variety of messianic beliefs, but not Jews with a variety of deities. What should we do about the Jews-for-Jesus? The general Jewish response, one
of the only things the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform communities agree on, is to ostracize them. We have labeled them a cult and fought their methods of luring Jews to Christianity. We have denied that even Jews-for-Jesus born-Jewish are Jews. We have, for all intents and purposes,
put them in cherem (excommunication).

I have long subscribed to this approach. Many years ago, I was asked to "deprogram" some Jews-for-Jesus at the request of their distraught parents (one couple, Holocaust survivors, were so distraught they told me they regretted surviving the Holocaust). And I have written a long essay on the theological fraud of being a Christian and a Jew at the same time: Most
Jews-for-Jesus are former Jews who converted to Christianity. To deny that they are Christians is actually an insult to Christianity, to believe in Christ yet deny being a Christian suggests that one is embarrassed by one's new religion.

Over the years I have met Jews-for-Jesus and have also observed them from afar. Some love the Jewish people, Israel, and being Jewish. Sometimes they also lessen Judeaophobia among Christians who have never interacted with Jews. At the same time, some of these people, especially their leaders, are
theological charlatans out to trick Jews searching for God into becoming Christians. They often provide a Jewish front for some Christian conversion efforts.

I believe it is time to try a new approach to Jews-for-Jesus. Though they are hardly the numerical threat to Jews that they are often made out to be, they are also not disappearing, and our unrelenting war against them has not been particularly successful. I therefore suggest that the Jewish community try
this: Divide and conquer the Jews-for-Jesus by separating them into two distinct groups. One group is Jews-for-Jesus who have renounced Judaism and embraced Christianity by believing Jesus is God. The other group consists of those who believe Jesus was the messiah, but not God. These people have not abandoned monotheism, and can be embraced as Jews who have an erroneous messianic belief.

In Judaism there is an enormous difference between erroneously believing that a certain man is the messiah and believing that this man is God. There is, after all, a belief in Judaism that someone will be a messiah, and, at different times, many Jews have believed that someone was the messiah without being read out of the Jewish people. At this very moment, there are some
wonderful Chabad Jews who believe the last Lubavitcher rebbe was the messiah and no one is calling, nor should anyone call, for their removal from the Jewish people.

On the other hand, there is no Jewish belief in a man as God or in a Trinity. That belief is a tenet of Christianity. In order to divide Jews-for-Jesus into these two categories, one being Christians and the other being Jews who have an erroneous messianic belief, and then begin the process of readmitting members of the latter group into the Jewish people, they would have to appear
before a bet din (religious court) and swear before it, God, and the that they will:

* Cease calling themselves Jews-for-Jesus. The term is incompatible with Judaism. No Lubavitchers who believe that the Rebbe is the messiah describe themselves as Jews-for-the-Rebbe.
* Cease associating in any religious forum with Jews-for-Jesus. All their religious activities must take place with fellow Jews who practice Judaism, not with people who practice Christianity with a scroll and a yarmulke.
* Cease proselytizing on behalf of their belief in Jesus as the messiah.
Again, to use the Lubavitcher analogy, Lubavitchers who believe in the Rebbe as messiah do not proselytize other Jews to accept their messianic belief.

Will this plan work? Perhaps not. Perhaps only a handful of Jews-for-Jesus will accept these terms and rejoin Judaism and the Jewish people. But it is worth trying for three reasons. First, redeeming one Jewish soul fulfills a great mitzvah. Second, this pronouncement would clarify for all Jews and Christians that we Jews accept among us a variety of messianic beliefs, but what we do not accept is a variety of divinities. And it makes clear that
Jews-for-Jesus have separated themselves from Judaism and the Jewish people.
Third, it forces those who remain Jews-for-Jesus to come clean. Their Jewish messianic cover has been blown, they are now revealed to be Christians, not Jews-for-Jesus, because only Christians believe in Jesus as God.

We Jews can love and embrace Jews with erroneous messianic beliefs. We can love and embrace Christians. We cannot love or embrace charlatans.

Dennis Prager's latest book is Happiness Is a Serious Problem
(HarperCollins), and he writes The Prager Perspective biweekly. His daily radio show is nationally syndicated. His Web site is dennisprager.com


(This article was in Moment Magazine in the summer of 2000)

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Shalom Mishpocha,
Yafet.

[R' Y'hoshua Moshe]

Shalom SimchatTorah,

It good to see that some of Judaism is recognizing Jewish believers in Yeshua HaMashiach. It sounds like from these posts that we need to open a thread in regards to the nature of Yeshua HaMashiach. It should be a lively discussion. I will make sure that everybody is nice. Although, for future posts we may want to keep them a little more brief. This will cator to more people reading the posts. I read all of the posts on this forum. But, not everybody reads as fast as others. I look forward to your future posts.

Shalom v'ahava achi b'shem Yeshua HaMashiach,

Reuel

[SimchatTorah]

heh, I do tend to be rather long winded at times....

I was also copying/pasting from previous articles I had composed on these subjects to entice discussion here without having to bringo out all of my points in an endless list of posts.

-yafet

[Blake]

Times are ineed changing, I have recently been recognized by the Beit Din in Little Rock as geir toshav with the intention of conversion, all with openly (while carefully) stating my belief in Y'hoshua as Mashiakh but not as G-d.