Boker Tov.
It is with great sadness that I come to you. Not a week goes by in which I don’t hear of a fellow Jew who hasn’t converted to Christianity. In the most recent case it is a family. Our people are being led away. Why do so many of our people find it easy to be anything but a Jew. Is it because G-d expects His beloved to live up to their part of the covenant? Perhaps it started with one family member not wanting to be pushed aside in this American society, and found it easier to go along and adopt to those around him or her. Assimilation continues to kill more Jews.
Maybe you’re thinking that KILL is a heavy word, you’re right it is. This morning I received a response from someone responding to my comment I had left on You Tube. It was a debate between a Jewish Christian and a Rabbi. You guessed it, a debate rather Jesus is the messiah.
In this response I received, I was told to read the scripture with an open heart. I was also told that my heart has been hardened and until the scripture is fulfilled it would continue to be that way. To ass insult to injury, the individual goes on to tell me that I shouldn’t let others interpret the scriptures for me. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that exactly what messianic Jewish christians as well as christians do all day long?
If you were to read my home page, you would see that I was once a messianic Jew. Yes I was in error of just following misinterpretations right out of the starting gate. For two and a half years I attended a messianic congregation every Shabbat morning. Prior to that I attended a Christian church for two years. I was raised as a secular Jew. We had no knowledge of the Tanakh, Torah, the Holy days… Nothing. One day I started, I mean I really started to read for myself. In my research I found other Jews like myself who had wandered off the path of Judaism. One of the letters I read was from an individual who was raised with a Jewish education. Thank G-d they all came back.
Why do you suppose it is that christians and messianic Jews assume that Torah observant Jews don’t have a mind of their own. All too often our Rabbis are getting verbally offended. If I may I would like to tell you what I feel. This animosity, the bad taste in the mouth of the accusers didn’t happen just over night, but through the centuries. The very thing they accuse me and other Jews of, they are guilty of. Never have I gotten a straight answer when I asked for straight up proof of jesus in the Jewish scriptures. Why? Because he doesn’t have a place in it.
Throughout the Torah and the Tanakh we can read Gd’s dislike for our disobedience. Over and over again we punished through war, plague and the destruction of our two Temples. All along what is it that our Prophets had asked of us? Open our eyes and heart, stop being stiff-necked. For nearly fourteen hundred years the message was repeated, “Return to G-d and He will return to you.” There was no need for all the blood sacrifices, repentance was and still is the highest form for atonement. Yet christians will tell us that G-d changed His program for another. All the punishment we endured, the loss of the Temple and life. Was that all for nothing? No.
G-d did not change His plan for His beloved. Everyone should have a copy of the Torah and Tanakh for themselves. Read from page one, study the prophets and find out for yourself. The church comes along and they want to cut and paste as well as ad lib with our Holy writings. Who has the right to walk into someone elses home and tell them what is and what isn’t? Long before the first christian came along, Judaism existed. Long before eating of his body and drinking of his blood, G-d warned against such abominations.
Wake up people!
Did G-d not warn us? He most certainly did. God tells us to stone the false prophets. God also told us that we would be tested. The moment you are warned is the moment before you will be tested. God orders a prophet to head towards so and so place, “Do not stop and go off the path in which I have sent you. Be careful to do it.” The prophet is walking along when a man approaches and says, “I too am a prophet come along with me and we shall eat.” At this point the first prophet who was directed by G-d Himself should have noticed and recalled what he had been told. He should have questioned G-d and ignored the stranger. He did not and was slain by G-d.
Wake up people!
Often I hear, “If we’re not to accept jesus then why are so many people who are christians, successful and living a plentiful life?” Stop and ask yourself a question. What is successful and plentiful to you may not have the same meaning to G-d. There are many who are alive today that have no relationship with G-d, Jew or Gentile. There is a great deal of wealth in this world being consumed by all makes and models. There are those who deny G-d and there are those who acknowledge G-d.
I acknowledge G-d.
The following is something I wrote in September of 2000 long before I officially knocked on Heavens door.
God’s Calling I’ve heard the voice, the voice of my Lord He has sent me forth on my way of wisdom and faith, It’s asked of me to be wise And understanding, So I set forth about on my quest open-minded. On the eve of the first day I called to the heavens Wanting to share my thoughts, Lord are you there… Not a sound was heard, As I closed my eyes and laid my head The voice of all creation spoke, My son, my student Remember me… I see and know of your life When you pray I know of your wishes and your worries, I know of what’s in your heart And all that you feel, This journey I set you upon Is to open your eyes and set you free, Never must you forget what I taught you I know of your heart and your worthiness, Help all others and you shall receive The greatest of all gifts… The meaning of your life. -Lawrence Wohl September 2000- Please also read the following – My Jewish heart Lets take a look at what G-d says about false prophets: Deuteronomy 13:1 – 5 - The entire word that I command you, that shall you observe to do; you shall not add to it and you shall not subtract from it. If there were to stand up in your midst a prophet or a dreamer of a dream, and he will produce to you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you saying, “Let us follow gods of others that you did not know and we shall worship them!” do not hearken to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of a dream, for HASHEM, your G-d, is testing you to know whether you love HASHEM, your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul. HASHEM, your G-d, shall you follow and Him shall you fear; His commandments shall you observe and to His voice shall you hearken; Him shall you serve and to him shall you cleave. The false christian messiah warned of false prophets himself (If in fact he actually ever existed) We can see that those who go about warning others (jesus followers) have been deceived themselves. The catholic church is full of saints and statues, yet G-d warns against this. So tell me someone, Who is blind and leading the blind. Let me guess, “G-d knows their heart.” Deuteronomy 18: 17 – 22- The HASHEM said to me: They have done well in what they have said. I will establish a prophet for them from among their brethren, like you, and I will place My WORDS in his mouth; He shall speak to them everything that I have commanded him. And it shall be that the man who will not hearken to My words that he shall speak in My Name, I will exact from him. But the prophet who willfully speak a word in My Name, that which I have not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of gods of others – that prophet shall die. when you say in your heart, “How can we know the word that HASHEM has not spoken?” If the prophet will speak in the Name of HASHEM and that thing will not occur and not come about – that is the word that HASHEM has not spoken; with wilfulness has the prophet spoken it, you should not fear him. There were many things jesus said would come to pass, they have not. His followers state that those things will come to pass in the second coming. There is no second coming! No where in our sacred scriptures [Jewish that is] does it say such a thing. Only by the mouth of G-d shall we live and His voice shall we hearken. Isaiah 55: 1 – 13 - Ho, everyone who is thirsty, go to the water, even one with no money, go, buy and eat; go and buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you weigh out money without getting bread and exert your efforts for that which does not satisfy? Listen well to Me and you will eat well, and your soul will delight in rich food. Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, and your soul will be rejuvenated; I will make an eternal covenant with you, the enduring kindnesses promised to David. Behold, I have appointed him a commander to the regimes. Behold, you will summon a nation that you had not known, and a nation that had not known you will run to you, for the sake of HASHEM, your G-d, for the Holy One of Israel, who has glorified you. Seek HASHEM when He can found; call upon Him when He is near. Let the wicked one forsake his way and the iniquitous man his thoughts; let him return to HASHEM and He will show him mercy; to our G-d, for He is abundantly forgiving.{There is no sacrifice mentioned here is there? No. G-d does not desire that man should perish, but that he should turn from his ways and live. Yes indeed.} For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways – the word of HASHEM. As high as the heavens over the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For just as the rain and snow descend and will not return there, rather it waters the earth and causes it to produce and sprout, and gives seed to the sower and food to the eater, so shall be the word that emanated from My mouth, it will not return to me unfulfilled unless it will have accomplish what I desired and brought success where I sent it.{G-d tells us here that He speaks and that which He speaks come s to pass. We also see the good that comes from rain and snow and that it does the good that He said it would. To HASHEM alone we must hearken} For in gladness shall you go out and in peace shall you arrive, the mountains and hills will break out in glad sound before you, and all the trees of the field will clap hands. In place of the thorn bush, a cypress will rise; and in place of the nettle. a myrtle will rise. This will be a monument to HASHEM, an eternal sign never to be cut down. I ask each of you to consider your ways. The Tanakh does not mention any of the following: 1) Suffering messiah. 2) Second coming. 3) No atonement without blood. 4) Replacement plan or people. 5) That G-d would blind his people and harden their hearts. (how foolish to think a such thing) Shalom and be well.
VERY WELL PUT! It is a sad thing when Jews turn away from their destiny – perhaps it is because assimilation is easier. And just as sad when Jews water down their Jewishness by picking and choosing their observances and marrying outside of themselves. It is hard to sit by and watch a Jew accept jesus as messiah. Either that Jew has forgotten what he or she was taught or they have never been taught. Today is Shavuot – the day we received Torah. It is the day of renewing our vows in our covenant marriage. It is my prayer that G-ds straying bride would return home. TRUTH is hard for many to accept when it comes in so many different colors. Better is the atheist than the Jew who turns to follow a false god!
As legalistic as christians consider Judaism to be is sad/funny. It is their religion that places strict boundaries which were set in place like blinders on a horse by the “church” not G-d.
I agree with the words of your post, well said. Stand firm Malachi and own the place G-d has given you. Live what you believe is truth, to the absolute fullest of it’s purpose.
Thank you Chava. I too have had my struggles in the past as well as in the now. There are endless levels of our Judasim, they are however, echad.