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Issues

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<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff" width="150">Covenant</th>
<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff" width="625">Scripture Passage</th>
<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff">Participants and Provision</th>
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<th valign="top">Abrahamic</th>
<td valign="top">(Genesis 12:1-3) 1Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country…To the land which I will show you; 2And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."</td>
<td valign="top">God promises Abraham and his descendants three things: LAND - SEED - BLESSING. The land promise is elaborated upon in Genesis 15. This promise is reiterated in Genesis 13, 15, 17 and 22 and is viewed as ultimately unconditional. The other covenants mentioned in this chart can be seen as extensions of this initial covenant with Israel.</td>
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<th valign="top">Mosaic</th>
<td valign="top">(Exodus 19:1-8) 4"'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself. 5Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; 6and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel." 7So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the LORD had commanded him. 8All the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do!"</td>
<td valign="top">Under the Mosaic Covenant the Law was given. The Law's purpose was to reveal sin. However mercycame by means of the Levitical sacrifices. They provided a system whereby sin was temporarily "covered."It was God's will for Israel to be a kingdom of priests. This was not fulfilled under the Mosaic Covenant because Israel did not obey God and keep the Mosaic Covenant. Under the Mosaic Covenant, the Aaronic priesthood was created. Only Israelites from the tribe of Levi were eligible. When Jesus came he claimed to fulfill or satisfy what the law required. He was both perfect priest and sacrifice.</td>
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<th valign="top">Davidic</th>
<td valign="top">(2 Samuel 7:8-16) 8"Now therefore, thus you shall say to My servant David, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, "I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people Israel. 9"I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make you a great name, like the names of the great men who are on the earth. 10"I will also appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly, 11even from the day that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. The LORD also declares to you that the LORD will make a house for you. 12"When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. 13"He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14"I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, 15but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16"Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.'"</td>
<td valign="top">God promised to establish the throne of the Davidic kingdom forever. It is an amplification of the "seed" aspect of the Abrahamic Covenant. The land of Israel (promised in the Abrahamic covenant) is also mentioned in verse 10, where God promised to "plant" Israel permanently in the land. God confirmed his covenant in Psalm 89:34-37. In the New Testament portion of Scripture, Jesus claims to be the fulfillment of this promised seed of David, the Messiah.</td>
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<th valign="top">"New"</th>
<td valign="top">(Jeremiah 31:31-34) 31"Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 33"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34"They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."</td>
<td valign="top">The new covenant amplifies the "blessing" component of the Abrahamic covenant, including the fact that "all nations of the earth will be blessed." Jesus initiated the new covenant in the upper room on the evening prior to his arrest and crucifixion and resurrection from the dead. The New Testament portion of Scripture quotes the Tanakh, saying, 8"The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.'" (Galatians 3:8)</td>
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Covenants With Israel-Up Close and Personal

My name is Steven Peter Wertheim. I was born August 3, 1951 in the Bronx, New York—but our family actually lived in the upper west side of Manhattan, where it seemed like everyone was either Jewish or Catholic. Regular fights broke out between us neighborhood kids. As things heated up, invariably one of them" would call "one of us" "Christ killer." I had no idea what "Christ killer" meant, but I knew it meant a fight was imminent.
I asked my parents why those kids were so mean to us. They explained that many Christians hated Jews simply because we were Jews, and reminded me of history, especially the Holocaust.
During Kristallnacht my grandfather's business was stolen from him along with everything he owned. Then the Nazis took him away and my dad, his sisters and their mother thought they would never see him again.1
Mom and Dad frequently told me about the cruelty they suffered from "the Christians." As a child, I knew that I had to defend myself for being Jewish. The Hanukkah story always meant a lot to us, because we knew what it was like to have to fight. It was very satisfying to celebrate our people's victory over those who had tried to assimilate or exterminate us.
When I was eight years old I started going to Hebrew school three times a week and attending synagogue in preparation for my bar mitzvah. If you had asked me, "Do you believe in God?" I probably would have said yes. But I never thought much about what he might expect of me, or vice versa.
My bar mitzvah service was held in a synagogue in Queens, as we had recently moved there from Manhattan. My mother had labored for many months to make sure everything was perfect. I felt embarrassed by all the attention, though I appreciated all the effort and expense.
After my bar mitzvah, my life seemed to take a radical turn. For one thing, having "become a man" made me responsible in new ways. I took on a series of part-time jobs when I was 14. I liked having my own money, but there wasn't a lot of time for playing or doing "kid" things.
I missed my friends from Manhattan and, as a teenager, I did not find it easy to make new friends. My self-esteem plummeted and what little belief I'd had in God disintegrated as I saw no evidence that he cared.
My relationship with my family grew intolerable. There was constant fighting—a lot of yelling alternated with angry silences. Much of that was probably due to normal generation gap issues, but in addition, we were so close that friction was inevitable. Whereas many families have problems with a lack of communication, I felt like we had more than enough. Everything was a family decision; I was brought into every conversation and expected to participate as an adult.
In retrospect, I'm sure my parents were expressing respect for my adulthood, but in fact I still was, and wanted to be, a kid. My brother, who was seven years younger than I, was even more a kid than I was, and with that age difference came a huge gap in our experience and interests. Yet my parents seemed to expect me to be Rob's closest companion, an expectation I was not prepared to fulfill.
My parents' experiences in Germany affected our family dynamic. Many Holocaust survivors were robbed of their childhood, and have a limited idea of what it should be. Plus, knowing so many people who died or lost family members caused those who were more fortunate to be extremely focused on their loved ones. I didn't appreciate what might be behind the tight grip my family had on me. I just knew that I wanted some distance from all that closeness. I couldn't wait to be out of school so I could move away.
I was accepted into a school in New Hampshire. After a year, I transferred to C.W. Post College, which is part of Long Island University. I earned my college degree in History and Education. However, I hated being in debt, and decided that paying off my student loan was more important than pursuing my profession.
I worked in the post office alongside my father to pay off that student loan. And then I only wanted one thing: to escape from New York City. My grandfather, a gentle and generous man, laid out a good sum of money enabling me to buy my first car—an orange Volkswagen Beetle—during the summer of 1974.
That September I packed my bags, and my father and I drove west to Southern California—as far away as I could get. We arrived there a week or so later and checked into a motel, where we stayed for about a week while I went job and apartment hunting.
I quickly got a job as a bank teller. My next task was to find a place to live. My father and I happened upon a building with an apartment for rent on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. I looked at the studio and wasn't overly impressed. The managers, Lily and Burt, were a friendly, middle-aged British couple. Lily and my father established an immediate rapport. Dad confided that he was nervous about my being so far away. Lily assured him that she would "keep an eye out" for me. He obviously enjoyed her and after we left, encouraged me to take the place. I wasn't too keen on this particular apartment, but I gave in.
I took Dad to the airport the next day, knowing that it would be some time before I saw him or any other family member again.
Within a few weeks, Lily and Burt invited me to their apartment. They also invited a couple about my age who had just moved to Los Angeles. The husband was Jewish and originally from New York. Lily and Burt thought we might have some things in common.
I'm an inquisitive person and when I meet new people I normally ask lots of questions. But when I met Baruch and Marcia Goldstein, for some reason I refrained from asking these nice people what they did for a living.
A few weeks later Baruch called and invited me to their home for dinner. When we sat down to eat, Baruch said he hoped I wouldn't mind, but it was their tradition to pray at mealtimes. I didn't care if they prayed, but at the close of their prayer I heard three words that shook me up: "IN JESUS' NAME."
Afterwards, I asked them to explain that prayer. They told me that they were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. In fact, Baruch and Marcia were working with Jews for Jesus. I blurted out, "You can't be Jewish and believe in Jesus!" We had a heated discussion at the dinner table. Still, I thought I should be somewhat tolerant for just one evening. They mentioned that they were beginning a Bible study on Friday nights. I turned down the invitation.
But the truth was, if it weren't for their belief in Jesus, I would like to have been friends with these people. After a while I asked myself, what was the worst that could happen if I went to one of their Bible studies? So one evening in October of 1974 I accepted the invitation. I met a half a dozen or so other people, mostly university students or recent graduates. Some were clean-shaven and conservatively dressed while others were more of the "hippie" genre.
On my way home I couldn't help thinking that these were nice people, although misguided. I started attending regularly. I found my belief in God resurfacing as I heard these people describe what he had done in their lives. I began to look forward to the Bible study.
I let my parents know I was studying the Bible with a Jewish group. They were quite astonished since I had previously made it clear that I had given up on God and all things religious. Nevertheless, they were pleased that my new friends were Jewish and that I had become interested in God. I didn't tell them that these people believed in Jesus. How could I explain it to them when I didn't quite understand it myself?
About three months into the Bible studies, a conflict began growing inside me. Things these Jews for Jesus believed were starting to make sense. Being able to discuss the Bible with others who saw its value and who cared about God—and who were Jewish—meant a lot to me. No one had pressured me about my beliefs, yet I found the Bible to be very convincing.
And that scared me.
All I could think was that my parents would never understand if I came to believe that Jesus was Messiah. I remembered every detail of all the things that, as far as my parents were concerned, had been done to us by "the Christians." I felt I could not afford to think any further about Jesus.
So, in January of 1975, I started absenting myself from the people I had become close to. But after a few weeks, I found it difficult to stay away from the Bible studies. It wasn't just the quality of the people, but what they believed that drew me into a relationship, not only with them but with a God I had never really known before. I began to feel that perhaps I couldn't afford to NOT think any further about Jesus.
I returned to the Bible studies. I remember one Friday night—March 7—I told a friend, "I feel like God is standing at my door, knocking as though he wants to come in and be with me. It seems like all I need to do is let him in, but I don't know if I'm ready."
By this time I had gotten into the habit of praying. I asked God to help me be certain if Jesus was true, and to give me the courage to live according to what was right and real, even if it had painful consequences.
After a restless night I was still experiencing tremendous turmoil. I got in the car with no particular plan and found myself near the beach. It was a rare overcast day in March.
I parked and walked around for awhile. Water, sand, sky…all seemed grey, and it fit my mood. When I left the beach I drove to Baruch and Marcia's house.
I told Baruch I was torn. I knew that Jesus was the Messiah but I wasn't prepared for what would happen if I believed in Him. I couldn't give up my family. At the same time I said that I didn't know what I needed to do in order to follow through on this new belief. He responded that if I really believed Jesus was the Messiah, it would be good if I would confirm that before God through prayer.
I prayed with Baruch, asking God to forgive my sins on the basis of Jesus' atoning death. And I asked God to help me to follow Yeshua (Jesus) and live a life that would please God. Afterwards, I felt a peace that I had not experienced before. But before long the uppermost thought in my mind was that I had to tell my parents.
It was nearly Passover and my brother Rob, sixteen at the time, came to visit me and accompanied me to a seder at Baruch and Marcia's home. We got to the third cup of wine after dinner, along with the Afikomen. Baruch told how Jesus had taken this cup and the matzo that traditionally point to the Passover Lamb, and used them to point to his body and blood. Baruch explained that those who believe that Jesus' sacrifice was an atonement for sin now use the bread and cup to remember what he did for us.
On the drive back to my apartment, Rob asked me if I believed in Jesus as the Messiah. I told him that I did, but that I had not yet told our parents. And I asked him to not tell them either. I explained that I wanted to do that myself.
The next time I spoke with my parents, I felt a strain in our conversation. I asked my parents if Rob had "told them." My mother asked, "Told us what?" I said, "About my believing in Jesus," My mother said that she didn't know what I was talking about. What I perceived as a strain was simply my own feelings of guilt for not telling them what I believed. We didn't talk much more at the time. But that didn't mean the subject was closed.
Two weeks later we had an hour-long fight over the phone. The accusation that I was no longer Jewish alternated with cries of, "Where did we go wrong?" I later found out that following the phone call, my parents wrote me a letter, which basically said that they wanted nothing more to do with me and that they preferred that I not contact them until I came to my senses and stopped the narishkeit of believing in Jesus. Even though they never sent the letter the relationship was stressed at best.
That summer, Baruch and Marcia Goldstein were going to be in New York and they offered to meet my parents. I mentioned this to Mom and Dad, and at first the offer was refused. Later they reluctantly acquiesced. My father told me prior to their coming that he wanted to "throw Baruch off the terrace."
The evening came and the four of them actually had a pleasant evening together. My family even called to let me know how much they enjoyed the Goldsteins' visit.
Within a few weeks my parents and Rob came to visit me in California. We were together for three weeks. It became quite evident to my family that I took my belief in Jesus seriously. They allowed me to tell them what I believed and why I believed it.
During our last week together, my family joined me at the Bible study. After everyone else had left, we sat having coffee with Baruch and Marcia. My father suddenly turned to my mother and said, "Laura, what would you do if I believed in Jesus?" After a moment of contemplation my mother responded, "I'd probably leave you." The discussion didn't last much longer, and neither did our visit. My parents and Rob returned to New York.
By this time, unknown to the family, Rob had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. However, he didn't feel he could voice his decision without risking being thrown out of my parents' home.
In 1975 Jews for Jesus opened its branch office in New York City. In September my family was invited to Bible studies in Manhattan. My father was eager to go and my brother went with him. My mother was not interested but went because of my father.
Eventually, Dad told Mom that he believed in Jesus. Mom did not leave him, but tensions began to heat up. Now that my father believed, Rob no longer feared the consequences of his own faith and confessed that he, too, believed in Jesus.
Up until this point my mother had endured the Bible studies and the "Jesus talk." Now that the whole family had "turned," she let us all know that she didn't want to hear anything more about Jesus.
One Tuesday night my father planned to meet my mother after work, to take her to dinner before Bible study. My mother informed him that she would make her own way home. She went to the subway only to find that the trains were indefinitely delayed. She went back upstairs to take alternate means of transportation home and found that it would be impossible to get home in a reasonable amount of time. She then called my dad, had him pick her up and they proceeded with the original plan for the evening.
That night my mother saw a film about Corrie ten Boom, a Christian who hid Jews during the Holocaust, and it deeply touched her. She realized that her reasons for holding out from what the rest of the family believed didn't have so much to do with who Jesus was as who she thought Christians were. The film helped her to see that people who truly love Jesus also love the Jewish people. Within a couple of weeks, my mother embraced Jesus as Messiah.
Who would have believed that our entire family would be reunited as Jews who all believe in Jesus? Or that I would one day meet and marry another Jewish believer in Jesus?
One day a friend of mine was sent an audition tape from a young woman on the East Coast who was applying to Jews for Jesus. He played the tape for me and I thought, "That's the best voice I've heard since Joni Mitchell. I've got to meet this girl…"
If you would like you can <a href="/staff-page/?firstname=Steve&amp;lastname=Wertheim">correspond with Steve here</a>.
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<div id="endnotes">
<ol>
	<li>See <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v03-n01/i-escaped-from-hitler-twice-the-fred-wertheim-story/">"I Escaped From Hitler Twice: The Fred Wertheim Story."</a></li>
</ol>
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From Generation to Generation: A Jewish Family Finds Their Way Home

<blockquote>
One day Mrs. Katz and Mrs. Cohen are sitting on a park bench and Mrs. Katz says to Mrs. Cohen, Did you hear the one about the Goldsteins? They are..."
"Oy, stop it," Mrs. Cohen interrupts, "What is it with you? Why do all your jokes have to be Jewish, with Jewish names and all? Can't you just tell me the joke without the Jewish names?"
"Alright," Mrs. Katz says, "So Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien are going to their son's bar mitzvah..."
</blockquote>
"Comedy, especially standup, is to Jews what jazz is to [African-Americans]: an art form whose vocabulary and attitude they invented and that continues to bear their stamp, even when performed by others."<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a>
Humor has long been an essential part of Jewish culture, from the time of Moses, to Tevye the Milkman, from the Yiddish humor of Sholom Aleichem to the shtick of Jackie Mason and the clever comedy of Woody Allen to the post-ethnic humor of Jerry Seinfeld, Adam Sandler, Jon Stewart and David M. Bader. Over the past 40 years, 80 percent of America's comedians have been Jewish, which is further story to the fact that Jewish humor has both a broad-based appeal and staying power.
This humor is recognizable as distinctly Jewish, not only in America, but around the world. Israeli Jews may have their own brand of it, as do Jews from the former Soviet Union, but Jewish humor is as globalized as our population.
<blockquote>
It was mealtime on an El Al flight. "Would you like dinner?" the flight attendant asks. "What are my choices," the passenger responds. "Yes or no," she replies.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
A Brit, a Frenchman and a Russian Jew are viewing a painting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. "Look at their reserve, their calm," says the Brit. "They must be British." "Nonsense," the Frenchman disagrees, "They are naked and beautiful. Clearly they are French." "Oh please," says the Russian. "No clothes, no shelter and only an apple to eat and they are told this is paradise? They are Russian Jews!"
</blockquote>
Our humor is so deeply ingrained in our subconscious that it's been said that it "in some ways [has] come to replace the standard sacred texts as a touchstone for the entire Jewish community."<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a>
If that's true, then our humor bears examination, to see what it says about us as well as what it reveals about our past, present and future as a people. We live in times that are increasingly turbulent. Is our wit enough to sustain us through them? Is it enough to say simply, as we face tragic terrorist events, major natural disasters and pending catastrophes: "Oh well, at least we've got our sense of humor"?
"Jewish Humor is Neither Jewish nor Humorous . . . Discuss:"
<h3>Defining Jewish Humor</h3>
"What makes Jewish humor Jewish?" Is it just one of those things that you recognize when you see it? Or are there criteria for actually deeming comedy Jewish? Rabbi Joseph Telushkin writes, "What makes a joke Jewish? Obviously, it must apply to Jews, but more significantly, it must express a Jewish sensibility."
He adds, "Jewish sensibility, however, concerns precisely those subjects and values that receive disproportionate attention among Jews. Anti-Semitism, financial success, verbal aggression and assimilation are all particularly significant in Jewish life."<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">3</a>
Besides certain "Jewish" subject matters, the authors of The Big Book of Jewish Humor, Moshe Waldoks and William Novak list some other prominent, consistent subjects and characteristics of Jewish humor: laughter through tears, self-hatred, skepticism, anti-authoritarianism, fascination with the intricacies of the mind and iconoclasm.
And those subjects are often tackled through the use of irony. In an article entitled "Insight on Jewish Humor," the writer says that, "the main characteristic of Jewish humor is the irony that measures the distance between pretense, wishful thinking and reality-the result being self-criticism and self-mockery."<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">4</a>
While Jewish humor is not the only humor that utilizes self-deprecation, we do it with an unrivaled frequency and flair. Sigmund Freud once wrote, "I do not know whether there are many other instances of a people making fun to such a degree of its own character."<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">5</a>
Take for instance the story of Mandelbaum and his wife, Sarah. After Mandelbaum died, Sarah phoned the Jewish Chronicle to place an obituary. "This is what I want it to say," she tells them. "'Bernie is dead.'" The Chronicle employee replied, "But for $25 you are allowed to print six words." "Fine," Sarah said, "Then print: 'Bernie is dead . . . Lexus for sale.'"
This joke reflects our willingness to poke fun at stereotypical Jewish "frugality." But our ability to mock doesn't stop at ourselves. Max Jacob Mintz points out that we also mock our oppressors, other Jews and even our relationship with God.
Jewish humor begins with the fundamental assumption that each of us is flawed and worth poking fun at. Henry Spalding, in his preface to The Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor, writes, ". . . the narrator recognizes himself for what he is-a simple human being, subject to all the foibles of mortal mind and frailties of the flesh. And because he has the moral and intellectual courage to recognize and then ridicule his own weaknesses, he sees no reason to spare the sensibilities of his adversaries for their own deficiencies."<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">6</a>
According to many a psychologist and scholar, this view of humanity and the world, and the humor that comes as a result of such low expectations, is precisely what has seen Jewish people through some of the worst that humanity can dish out. Paradoxically, many also posit that it is this suffering that largely contributed to our being funny in the first place.
<h3>How Did we Jews Get to Be so Funny Anyway?</h3>
At a colloquy on Jewish humor at New York University in 2002, a group of respected Jewish voices in the entertainment industry gathered to identify aspects of comedy that were distinctly Jewish. Forward writer Abraham Genauer reports:
"The group also debated just how it was that Jews became funny. The ability to laugh at suffering was offered as a possible reason, although [Murray] Horowitz pointed out that suffering alone doesn't necessarily lead to humor. 'There's not a lot of Armenian comedians,' he offered as evidence."<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7">7</a>
Yet, as noted above, Jewish humor revolves around those objects, ideas and situations that are familiar to Jews everywhere and indeed, one thing that Jewish people can most universally relate to is our past (and in some cases present) suffering.
From the time of the pogroms in czarist Russia, even to the concentration camps in Europe, not only did our people survive, but so did examples of the humor that bore them through such suffering. The famous Chelm stories are an example.
In the face of disaster, we Jews get going, we look for ways to defy the odds-and if not, we laugh. Rather than merely succumb to the dire circumstances, we learn to fashion our own reality. Though we are sometimes gasping for air in our underwater existence, humor is our life preserver, as the classic joke tells us:
<blockquote>
Scientists discover that a great flood will engulf the world in a few days.
In response, the Pope announces to his people: "Repent and you will go to heaven"
The Buddhists say: "Contemplate and you will achieve Nirvana."
The Chief Rabbi announces, "My Jewish friends, we have three days to learn to breathe underwater."
</blockquote>
But while comic relief has long been a coping mechanism for Jewish survival, the Jewish comic vision often belittles the importance ascribed to suffering. Jewish tradition does not glorify suffering, nor is suffering deemed worthy of deification. Rather it is accepted as the inevitable. "If you want life, expect pain," the saying goes.
So it appears true that suffering had a part to play in the development of Jewish humor. But in the long run, is humor enough to get people through lives that might be filled with pain and misery, or is something else needed?
<h3>Humor: A Doorway to Hope</h3>
Maurice Samuel, a student of Eastern-European Jewry, asserts that shrewd and ironic humor is a source of the necessary inner strength that is a mode for survival. He writes, "There was nothing jolly and hilarious about the destitution that lay like a curse on millions of Jews in the Yiddish-speaking world. . . . They were miserable, and knew it; but the question that haunts us historically is, why did they not disintegrate intellectually and morally? How were they able, under hideous oppression . . . to keep alive against a better day the spirit originally breathed into man? The answer lies in the self-mockery by which they rose above their condition to see afar off the hope of the future."<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8">8</a>
So it seems as though Jewish humor itself might be a means to an end. Mixed in with Jewish cynicism and self-criticism is a yearning for something greater-a world in which justice, mercy, understanding and equality will prevail, not only for us but for all people. A world without suffering.
These days this hope has faded for many of our people. And some are convinced that if anything better is going to come along, it will be a result of our own achievement. The idea of tikkun olam demonstrates this "if it is to be, it is up to me" attitude as many endeavor to repair the world themselves.
But this point of view overlooks some key parts of our history, and it ignores the original hope for the Jewish people that dates back to biblical times.
<h3>A History of Hope</h3>
Our Scriptures tell us that God chose us as a people for himself, to make his name great among the other nations, and to bless us. Nowadays, such an idea brings a smirk or an offhand remark like Tevye's in Fiddler on the Roof: "Lord, I know we are the chosen people, but once in awhile couldn't you choose somebody else?"
Our troubles and tsuris started almost immediately after God chose us. And in those hard times were the seeds for our sense of humor. Telushkin says that our culture and history shaped our values and our worldview to include self-criticism. He points to the prophets as examples:
The biblical prophets repeatedly denounced their fellow Jews for their moral lapses: the Jews reacted, not by hating the prophets, but by canonizing their words and making them part of the Holy Scriptures. This tradition has carried over into Jewish humor....
Horowitz likewise concurs that our humor has its roots in the Bible. But the story of the Jewish people as told in the Bible (see sidebar), while it includes moments of comic relief, is no comedy of errors. It is a serious chronicle of numerous failures on the part of people to please God and God's displeased response. This cycle occurred so many times, that many Jewish people started to lose hope.
Fast-forward several centuries and, as Jewish humor evolved it began to take issue with God or the idea that he had chosen our people for anything but misfortune. Rabbi Marc Gellman of TV's "The God Squad" suggests that a chief earmark of Jewish humor is our readiness to poke fun at rabbis and leaders, and even at God.
The story is told of a middle-aged Jewish woman who asks God, "Is my time up?" God tells her she has another 40 years to live. She then has extensive cosmetic surgery, changes her hair color and as she exits the beauty salon she's hit by a car and dies. Arriving in front of God, she chides him with, "You said I had another 40 years!" "I didn't recognize you," says God.
Max Jacob Mintz suggests ". . . By giving God a sense of humor, these jokes make him or her seem more human, and with shortcomings. This makes them feel that there is perhaps a way of getting closer to God."<a href="#_edn9" name="_ednref9">9</a>
But at the root of all this, one cannot help but wonder if these jabs at ourselves and God don't come from a deep-seated fear that perhaps God has left us or no longer loves us; that we are on our own to fend for ourselves. It's a scary thought indeed and so we reach for our humor, because as Telushkin puts it, "Anything that can be mocked immediately seems less threatening." But is this perception correct?
<h3>Beyond the Laughter</h3>
According to our Scriptures, there is a vast disparity between the way we Jews often view ourselves and the way God views us. The Bible tells us that God has not abandoned us; rather, he has always sought to be actively involved in our lives:
"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me" (Isaiah 49:15-16).
God has not given up on us. In fact, true to his word, God has sustained us, even to this day.
Humorist Mark Twain noted: ". . . the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. . . . Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. . . . What is the secret of his immortality?"<a href="#_edn10" name="_ednref10">10</a>
We may think our self-mockery or our wit or our chutzpah have sustained us over the centuries, but really, what our Scriptures have always taught is that God is the one who has kept us alive and will continue to do so. Skepticism may offer us some self-protection, but those who wished our demise were not stopped by our humor but by the will of God to preserve and protect us. Just as he promised.
<h3>Conclusion: The Punch Line</h3>
Jewish humor works under the fundamental assumption that people are flawed and that in order to survive we must create a reality for ourselves that is more bearable than the one around us. According to Telushkin, "The 'distressed optimist' strikes the right chord in much Jewish humor. By insisting that the world is moving toward perfection, and that the Messianic days lie in the future, Judaism encourages Jews to be optimists. But Jewish history, with its tragic record of crusades, expulsions, pogroms, and the Holocaust, impels Jews to pessimism. Hence, as Jews, we are optimists-with worried looks on our faces."
This attitude is reflected in a joke that goes like this:
<blockquote>
A traveler arrived in a village in the middle of winter to find an old man shivering in the cold outside the synagogue.
"What are you doing here?" asked the traveler.
"I'm waiting for the coming of the messiah,"
"That must be an important job," said the traveler. "The community must pay you a lot of money."
"No, not at all. They just let me sit here on this bench. Once in a while someone gives me a little food."
"That must be hard. But even if they don't pay you, they must honor you for doing this important work."
"No, not at all, they think I'm crazy."
"I don't understand. They don't pay you, they don't respect you. You sit in the cold, shivering and hungry. What kind of job is this?"
"Well, it's steady work."
</blockquote>
We are strangely comfortable as cynics. Our clever repartee comes naturally. Our self-deprecating humor seems to fit our lot in life. Yet what if we have more than humor as a resource we rely on through the difficult times? What if instead of looking to a Seinfeld, Sandler or Stewart for our inspiration, we turn to the inspired words of the Hebrew prophets. They believed that the one who knows all things and is all-powerful is our true defender. What if he is ours? Then, his promises are ours to appropriate as well.
And he says that we have the potential for a glorious future: "'For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,' says the Lord, 'thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope'" (Jeremiah 29:11).
If that's true, then we have reason, not for cynicism but for smiles and laughter, and for deep joy, as our ultimate hopes are realized.
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1.</a> "Laugh and About .0016% of the World Laughs With You" by Andrew Silow-Carroll published in Forward February 22, 2002.
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2.</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060510054937/http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.02.22/arts1.html">http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.02.22/arts1.html</a>
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">3.</a> Rabbi Telushkin, Joseph. "Introduction: What is Jewish About Jewish Humor?" Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews. New York: William Morrow and Co.,1992, 15-26.
<a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">4.</a> <a href="http://www.mazornet.com/jewishcl/humor/humor02.htm">http://www.mazornet.com/jewishcl/humor/humor02.htm</a>
<a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">5.</a> Ibid.
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">6.</a> Ibid.
<a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7">7.</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090108152112/http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.05.03/fast5.html">http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.05.03/fast5.html</a>
<a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8">8.</a> <a href="http://www.mazornet.com/jewishcl/humor/humor02.htm">http://www.mazornet.com/jewishcl/humor/humor02.htm</a>
<a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9">9.</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160715072059/http://www.ilperetz.org:80/graduates/max_mintz.htm">http://www.ilperetz.org/graduates/max_mintz.htm</a>
<a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10">10.</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070613084915/http://www.csuohio.edu:80/tagar/twain.htm">http://www.csuohio.edu/tagar/twain.htm</a>

Jewish Humor in Not-so-Funny Times

Literature throughout the ages is replete with stories of mysterious and enigmatic kings, cryptic characters whose rule is often full of uncertain sorrows, yet strangely hopeful. Aragorn, the ranger-turned-ruler in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one example. There were those who believed in Aragorn's right to the throne from the very beginning and others who refused to submit to his rule until the very end, when he proved himself in battle. For much of the series, his true identity is cloaked in mystery. Is he a gallant king, or an honorable man, or both?
Throughout history, human imagination has been captivated by such figures, and for good reason. Sometimes imagination hints at the greater reality.
The Bible presents us with a mysterious king as well. Some of the most seemingly enigmatic, yet detailed, descriptions of this king occur in the prophetic book of Zechariah, written over 2,500 years ago. Over the centuries, various attempts have been made to explain this kingly figure. Some have concluded that he is the long-awaited Messiah. Others say we can't know anything about him for sure. Still others say he is the carpenter from Nazareth about whom the whole world wonders.
Why did this ancient Jewish prophet obsess over this kingly character? Is it possible to understand this seemingly inscrutable figure? What could his kingship mean to us today? Let's take a look.
<a href="/christ-in-the-passover-livestream-experience/"><img class="d-none d-sm-block w-100" src="https://live-api.jewsforjesus.org/wp-content/uploads/CIP_Callout-dt.jpg" /><img class="d-sm-none w-100" src="https://live-api.jewsforjesus.org/wp-content/uploads/CIP-Callout-mb.jpg" /></a>
<h3>Zechariah’s Prophecy of the Coming Messiah</h3>
Though Zechariah was born during the exile of Israel to Babylon, his writing occurred once the Jewish people were back in the Land. Jewish tradition maintains that the prophet Zechariah was a man of the Great Synagogue, the group that is believed to have carefully preserved the Hebrew Scriptures and traditions during the period after the exile.
Along with remembering the past, Zechariah, whose name means "The Lord Remembers," speaks much in terms of God's promises for Israel's future. According to Zechariah, this future for Israel includes eventual total restoration of the Jewish people to her former glory. Zechariah is trying to preserve hope. And for Israel, this hope is inextricably linked to a king who was yet to come. Zechariah chooses to focus much of his writing describing this coming king.
Most of us today have learned to distrust our leaders. With the United States in the throes of an election year, cynicism, skepticism, and disillusionment are the reigning forces. And yet, deep down, most of us could admit we wish there were someone who had our best interests at heart, a leader who truly desired to improve our lot and could actually make things better. It's the "better" that we all long for.
What Zechariah tells us is that there is such a person. He is the king who is to come, the fulfillment of our hopes for a leader who will not disappoint us. Since that person has been promised to us, it's well worth considering the details of that promise so that we can recognize this king when and if he comes.
<h3>Messiah ben Joseph: The Peaceful Reign of the Messiah</h3>
Israel certainly had her share of disappointing kings. The books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles attest to this history. But in Zechariah 9:9-10, the prophet points to a coming king who is unique.
<blockquote>
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! 
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! 
Behold, your king is coming to you; 
He is just and endowed with salvation, 
Humble, and mounted on a donkey, 
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 
And He will speak peace to the nations; 
And His dominion will be from sea to sea, 
And from the River to the ends of the earth.
</blockquote>
This isn't just any king. The prophet tells the people of Israel to be joyful, to get excited, because the promised one, the one sent from God, the long awaited king, is coming. And so this passage has been interpreted as messianic; that is, it is often supposed that the king in this passage is none other than the Messiah, the savior of Israel.
Traditional Judaism teaches that "the messiah is a G-d fearing, pious Jew, who is both a Torah scholar and a great leader. He is to be a <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-a-descendant-of-david/">direct descendant of King David</a>, anointed as the new Jewish King. (In fact, the Hebrew word for messiah 'Moshiach' means 'anointed one.')"<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a>
<h6>The king is not coming to fight a war; he comes in gentleness and meekness.</h6>
Many Jewish people do not give much thought to the coming of a Messiah anymore, and those who do often picture him as a mighty conqueror, even a superhero-type figure. But here in Zechariah 9, the picture is very different. The king is not coming to fight a war; he comes in gentleness and meekness. He is the king over all the earth, and he has all authority, but he comes in this humble fashion, <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-come-riding-on-a-donkey/">riding on a baby donkey</a>, as opposed to a chariot or even a great horse.
This passage of Scripture provides a picture of a Messiah-king, a deliverer of salvation, gently offering his kingship to Israel and to the world. He is a man of peace for all peoples. He will proclaim peace to all the nations, not just to Israel.
In our world today, peaceful people may win prizes, but they don't necessarily command authority. We've come to expect a certain amount of confidence, even arrogance, from our leaders. We expect them to do what they have to do to maintain order. Especially in Israel and the Middle East, it is difficult to fathom that someone could come to such power on peaceful terms. A king who does not fight? Yet in this passage, that is exactly what is promised.
<h3>Messiah ben David: The Powerful Reign of the Messiah</h3>
Later, however, Zechariah gives another description of the coming king, a picture quite different from that of chapter 9. Let's take a brief look at the context for his statement:
<blockquote>
For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. (Zechariah 14:2-4)
</blockquote>
This picture is very much like an epic battle scene from a movie full of bloodshed and tragedy and triumph. Then, in verses 8 and 9 we read:
<blockquote>
And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter. And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one. (Zechariah 14:8-9)
</blockquote>
Chapters 9 and 14 are the central passages in Zechariah telling of this king who will reign over all the earth. In chapter 9, the king is humble, but in chapter 14, he is a force to be reckoned with. In the latter picture, the king is a conqueror; he comes in wrath, meting out judgment to the enemies of Israel. This is perhaps a more traditional picture of Messiah, a mighty hero who fights on our behalf.
<h6>This passage seems to suggest that this Messiah-king is none other than the Lord God himself, God coming to fight on behalf of his people.</h6>
Mysteriously, this passage seems to suggest that this Messiah-king is none other than the Lord God himself, God coming to fight on behalf of his people. In any case, we are presented with a dramatically different picture of the king here than the one we see in Zechariah 9.
<h3>Two Descriptions, Two Messiahs?</h3>
So the question is, does this king who reigns over all the earth come gently, riding on a donkey in peace, or in great wrath, ready to do battle? Is Zechariah contradicting himself? This is a big puzzle for Jewish scholars as well. But this is not the only place in the Scriptures where we find seemingly divergent pictures of Messiah. For example, Micah 5 tells us <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-born-in-bethlehem/">he is born in Bethlehem</a>, the city of David. But in Daniel 7, the prophet tells us he will arrive riding on the clouds of heaven.<a href="/publications/issues/issues-v05-n01/the-messianic-time-table-according-to-daniel-the-prophet/">as predicted in Daniel 9</a>, or will he come in regal splendor and reign forever, <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-the-wonderful-counselor-mighty-god-everlasting-father-and-prince-of-peace/">as Isaiah 9 tells us</a>? Is he <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-the-suffering-servant/">the suffering servant of Isaiah 53</a> or a royal king portrayed in Psalm 2?
In response to these two seemingly opposite pictures of Messiah, some rabbis decided that there must be two messiahs, the Messiah ben Joseph, who would come and suffer, and the Messiah ben David, who would come as a conquering king.
Another Jewish tradition explains the two contrasting portraits of Messiah like this: "If the people of Israel will be righteous, the Messiah will come in the clouds of Heaven. If they will not be righteous, he will come as a poor man riding upon an ass" (Sanhedrin 98a).
Are such explanations necessary or is it possible that one individual might "fit the bill" of both pictures, someone who would be both a king of peace and a king of power, a humble servant and a conqueror? If so, what would this extraordinary person look like?
<h3>The One Peaceful and Powerful Messiah</h3>
There is still another Jewish view concerning the two pictures of the Messiah-king that accurately fulfills the portrait we see in Zechariah and elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. This view actually predates the other two mentioned. It's the position presented in the New Testament.
The writers of the New Testament were Jewish people, living in the first century, who believed that the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures described one Messiah, a great king who was to come twice, first as a servant, then as conqueror. They believed that Yeshua (Jesus) was the fulfillment of both expectations.
Yeshua was not a typical king. His was a life marked by humility. He was a man of gentleness and peace. But the peace he offered was different from what most people think about; it was a peace that comes from the depth of personal spiritual solutions that Yeshua offered to people who would follow him.
<blockquote>
"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." (John 14:27)
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
"For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost." (Luke 19:10)
</blockquote>
Near the close of Yeshua's life on earth, he called to his disciples to get a donkey with its colt. Just before Passover, Jesus rode into Jerusalem <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-come-riding-on-a-donkey/">on a colt of a donkey</a>, fulfilling the prophecy Zechariah gave more than 500 years earlier. And the people shouted and rejoiced:
<blockquote>
"Hosha-na to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosha-na in the highest!" (Matthew 21:9)
</blockquote>
The people were shouting, "Save us!" They understood that their king had come and that he was offering powerful, life-changing salvation to those who would welcome him. In fact, the name <a href="/publications/newsletter/newsletter-dec-1987/y-shua-the-jewish-word-for-salvation/">"Yeshua" means "God saves."</a>
Though Yeshua did not usher in an age of "peace on earth" as many hoped then and many wish for today, he did offer peace with God to everyone willing to trust in him and the atonement for sin he offered through his death and resurrection.
Yeshua was a man of peace, but he was also a man of strength. He boldly proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, the Son of God, even though he knew that he would be crucified for these claims.
That's because Yeshua also knew that he possessed the power of an indestructible life. Though he was to die, he knew that <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-resurrected/">he would rise again</a>. Consider his words to a Jewish audience:
<blockquote>
"I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again." (John 10:17-18)
</blockquote>
It was a hard claim to believe, and yet many witnessed Jesus' resurrection and were willing to die proclaiming the truth of his life. Today, millions of people around the world wait for his return.
What will that return look like? According to Zechariah, it will be a day of judgment but also a day of deliverance for those who honor the king:
<blockquote>
Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty. (Zechariah 14:6)
</blockquote>
So the king came first to offer his kingship, to give people the chance to enthrone him. One day, he'll come again to take by force what is rightfully his. Like a parent dealing with children, the father or mother hopes the children will obey on their own, so they begin dealing with them gently, but, when the children refuse to submit, the parents insist and enforce their will with resolve. This is the picture Zechariah paints of the king who has come, the one who will come again.
<h3>The Messiah Who Has Come &amp; Who Will Come Again</h3>
The book of Zechariah does not explicitly state that Messiah will come twice, yet we do see two pictures of the king, coming once as a man of peace and again as a conquering king. Without a doubt, these passages should cause one to stop and think. Is it necessary to believe in two Messiahs? Or is it possible that he came to live among us 2,000 ago and that he'll come again to be enthroned as the victorious, reigning king?
In the third and final book of The Lord of the Rings, after a long, wearying battle, Aragorn finally takes up his throne. And Tolkien writes this scene wherein one of the hobbits encounters Gandalf, the wizard he thought had been vanquished:
<blockquote>
"Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?" " 
A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known."<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a>
</blockquote>
Tolkien's words are a good illustration of the yearning in the human soul for a time when all that is wrong will be made right. But it will take an extraordinary individual to accomplish this, a figure like the one portrayed in the mosaic of messianic prophecies we are given in the Hebrew Scriptures and like the one we confront in the accounts of Yeshua's life.
<h6>Those who believe Yeshua is the Messiah have seen how he fulfills these expectations. Because of what he did in his first coming, we can be assured that he will return. Yes, the king will return.</h6>
Those who believe Yeshua is the Messiah have seen how he fulfills these expectations. Because of what he did in his first coming, we can be assured that he will return. Yes, the king will return.
The final question remains: Are you prepared to welcome him as your king? Will you welcome him now?
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1.</a> “In Judaism, who is the Messiah?,” aish.com, November 3, 2002, <a href="http://www.aish.com/jl/li/m/48924282.html.">http://www.aish.com/jl/li/m/48924282.html.</a> 
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2.</a> J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings (New York: Ballantine Books, 1955), 246.

Two Messiahs in Judaism: Ben David and Ben Joseph

<blockquote>
The Feast of Tabernacles had ended. The crowds had dispersed and those who had traveled to Jerusalem from the outlying regions were making their way home. The sukkot were being cleared away along with well-shaken lulavs, bent and broken from the joyous celebration. Jerusalem was returning to its usual bustling pace. People were still talking about the spectacular light that had shone from the Temple and cast a glow upon the whole city. However, it was difficult for the man who sat by the entrance to the Temple courtyard to understand these conversations. He had never beheld the giant candelabra shining into the night. And although he had felt its warmth and heard it crackle, he had never even seen fire. For this man had been born blind. "I was blind when the festival began and now it's over, and I am blind still," he thought. "And so it shall probably be until the end of my days; I shall sit here, begging for a few measly coins always." He nodded in the direction of the sound of someone walking into the Temple. "The Lord bless you," he said to the wind.
Later that day, he heard a group of people approaching. The group paused before him and the blind man heard one of them ask, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?" The beggar steeled himself for the answer to come. He didn't think he could bear it if the rabbi were to say something about his parents, whom he loved and who had always shown him compassion, even though they must have been disappointed that their child was…well, broken.
As these thoughts went through his mind, he heard the rabbi reply, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him." The beggar was astonished and then he had another thought, but he was too afraid to speak it: "This must be the man called Jesus." He had heard rumors and rumblings about Jesus for weeks. People spoke freely about him in front of the beggar, for they must have assumed that just because he couldn't see, there must be something wrong with his hearing. So the blind man had heard plenty. Some had called Jesus a lunatic or a liar, but many were saying that he was the Prophet who was to come, that he was the Messiah, the Anointed One.
The teacher continued, as if to answer the blind man's unspoken question, "Who are you?" Softly he said, "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world."
When he had said this, the blind man heard the sound of someone spitting on the ground, and then there were hands firmly but gently rubbing what smelled and felt like clay on his eyes. Under ordinary circumstances, the beggar was sure he would have pulled away, but he sat there, unmoving, until the man spoke again and said, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." The beggar silently got to his feet and began to stumble in the direction of the pool. When he reached it, he knelt down, drew in a breath and began dousing his eyes with water. And as he washed away the mud, it was as if he were wiping away darkness. The first thing he saw was light, blurred by tears…
</blockquote>
<h3>Season of Joy</h3>
John, a first-century Jewish man who believed in Jesus, recorded this Sukkot miracle.<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a> Jesus' healing of the blind man shocked the people of that day, not only because the act itself was so amazing, but also because the timing of the act was especially significant. It is no coincidence that Jesus performed this miracle immediately after Sukkot, for he used both the healing and the holiday to make some earth shattering statements about himself. Thousands of years later, people are still grappling with the meaning behind this miracle. A close look at the history of Sukkot, how it was celebrated in Jesus' day and the meaning of light in the Hebrew Scriptures, will help us discover what Jesus meant when he said he was the "light of the world." Sukkot—celebrating God's presence and provision
Since the time of Adam and Eve's drastic choice in the Garden of Eden, humanity experienced exile from God's immediate and intimate presence. And then God called Abraham, and promised to make his descendants into a great nation, a nation through whom all other nations would be blessed (Genesis 12). The patriarchs of our faith lived as nomads,<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a> dwelling in temporary shelters (sukkot), looking ahead to the time when God would provide a land for them and restore them to paradise, just as he had promised. Likewise, their successors, upon exodus from slavery in Egypt, lived in sukkot during forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
Though they dwelt in these flimsy shelters for forty years, God provided constant reminders of his care: the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night signified his presence with his people. God also made a holy place for himself in the midst of the people: the tabernacle, a place where the Israelites could be reconciled to him through sacrifices. Yes, we wandered for forty years—but we did not wander alone.
God instituted Sukkot so that we would remember his presence with us during that time, and so that we would rejoice in his provision:
<blockquote>
"Say to the Israelites: 'On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the LORD'S Feast of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days.…after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for seven days; the first day is a day of rest, and the eighth day also is a day of rest. On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.…Live in booths for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in booths so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.'" (Leviticus 23:34; 39-43)
</blockquote>
Yet Sukkot doesn't just look to the past; it also offers us a glimpse of the future, when God's promise to Abraham will be fulfilled and all nations of the earth will be blessed through the nation he first chose. There is a key passage in Scripture that talks about this time to come:
<blockquote>
Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths. (Zechariah 14:16)
</blockquote>
According to Scripture, the joy we experience during Sukkot is just a taste of greater joy to come. "Indeed, the whole symbolism of the Feast, beginning with the completed harvest, for which it was a thanksgiving, pointed to the future. The Rabbis themselves admitted this."<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">3</a>
<h3>Sukkot At The Time Of Jesus</h3>
Those living at the time of Jesus recognized the prophetic significance of Sukkot and so the ceremonies celebrated in those days had prophetic implications. One of the greatest of these rituals was the illumination of the Temple.
Over the years, the Temple became central to Sukkot. In fact, King Solomon chose the Feast of Tabernacles as the time to dedicate the first Temple. As the people celebrated, God's shekinah glory filled the Temple. God showed his goodness and mercy by coming once again to dwell in the midst of his people, just as he had in the wilderness.
Years later, however, the ark of the covenant was captured and the glory of the Lord departed from the Temple. Yet the Temple remained the focus of the feast through splendid ceremonies such as the illumination rite.
According to the Mishnah, four 75-foot candelabra stood within the court of the women. Each candelabrum had four branches, and at the top of every branch was a huge bowl. Four young men bearing ten gallon pitchers of oil would climb ladders to fill the golden bowls and set them alight.
Picture sixteen beautiful blazes leaping toward the sky from those enormous golden lamps. Note that the Temple was on a hill, so the glorious glow was a sight for the entire city to see. The light was to remind the people of how God's shekinah glory had once filled his Temple. And it looked forward to a time when that glory would return.
This time of returning glory was associated with the coming of the Messiah:
<blockquote>
This festive joy, of which the origin is obscure, was no doubt connected with the hope of the earth's great harvest—joy in the conversion of the heathen world, and so pointed to the days of the Messiah.<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">4</a>
</blockquote>
It was believed that in the time of the Messiah all nations would worship God, in accordance with the prophecy in Zechariah and the promise God made to Abraham, that in him all nations of the earth would be blessed. The Jewish people in Jesus' time were expecting this day with great anticipation. With the illumination of the Temple, they rejoiced over greater light that was to come.
<h3>The Light of the World</h3>
And it was into this scene that Jesus entered. Prior to his encounter with the blind man, Jesus was teaching in the court of women soon after the Temple illumination ceremony. Perhaps he was even standing right next to those magnificent candelabra when he declared to all who were gathered there, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">5</a>
Light has always been a sign of God's revelation and his presence. From the burning bush that Moses encountered to the pillar of fire that the Israelites followed, to the shekinah glory that once rested in the Temple, the presence of light has long been equated with the presence of God.
And so light was associated with the Messiah, God's Anointed One:
<blockquote>
But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious,…Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation, You shall increase their gladness; they will be glad in Your presence as with the gladness of harvest…(Isaiah 9:1-3)
</blockquote>
The light was meant to symbolize the presence of God. That day in the Temple, Jesus said that he was the presence of God, right there, in their midst. At the same time, he was declaring that he was the Messiah. He was the Light that the people had been waiting for.
A few days after Jesus spoke these stunning words in the court of the women, he gave sight to a blind man. Perhaps those who had listened to his words and were familiar with the Scriptures, were not surprised at this miracle. After all, earlier in his ministry Jesus had quoted the words of Isaiah 61 as applying to himself:
<blockquote>
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
Because he anointed me to preach [good news] to the poor. 
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 
And recovery of sight to the blind…" (Luke 4:18)
</blockquote>
The meaning of Jesus' words and deeds was certainly not lost on the people. Some chose to accept what he said and believed he was the Messiah, and some chose to reject him, asking, "What kind of Messiah could come from Galilee?" Apparently, they chose to ignore the Isaiah prophecy mentioned above—for where does it say the Messiah, the light of the world, would come from?
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
There are different types of blindness. There is a physical blindness that longs for physical light and there is another kind of blindness wherein a person shuts his or her eyes to things that they do not want to believe. If you look at the accounts of Jesus' life and death, you'll see that he came to take care of both kinds of blindness.
The religious leadership of Jesus' day refused to believe in the Sukkot miracle.
<blockquote>
…They summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God," they said. "We know [Jesus] is a sinner." He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"…Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow's disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from." The man answered, ". . . Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." (John 9:24-33 NIV)
</blockquote>
What the religious leadership had missed, a blind beggar found. "His day of ingathering had dawned."<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">6</a> For him, the joy of the Feast of Tabernacles was a personal reality, for he had been in the presence of the light of the world.
<h3>Endnotes</h3>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1.</a> John 9:1-11 (All Scriptures NASB, except where noted.)
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2.</a> "Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built for himself a house and made booths for his livestock; therefore the place is named Succoth" (Genesis 33:17).
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">3.</a> Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1976, p. 149.
<a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">4.</a> Ibid. 165
<a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">5.</a> John 8:12
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">6.</a> McQuaid, Elwood. The Outpouring. (New Jersey: Friends of Israel 1990), p. 11

A Messianic Midrash: The Miracle at Sukkot

Jewish people have always been dreamers. From the time of Joseph, who earned his living as a dream interpreter in Pharaoh's court, to the realization of our dreams for a homeland in 1948, we've dared to believe in things that seemed inconceivable. But what would you do if you suddenly found out that everything around you—your family, friends, your house—was all a fabrication? Furthermore, let's say you were given a choice between knowing that it was all a facade or remaining unaware. Which would you choose?
Such is the dilemma posed to Neo, a gifted computer hacker, at the beginning of the popular film The Matrix. Neo has always had a strange feeling that there was something not quite right about the world. He is in search of truth but afraid of its consequences.
When he finds the answers he's looking for, it's only the beginning of the story.
The Matrix may appear to be simply a well-done science fiction film, but it contains some compelling parallels and themes for us to consider. It questions what we know as reality, and puts to us a choice: to accept that what we see around us at face value, or to explore life's bigger, scarier questions, such as…
<h3>What is the Matrix?</h3>
Through a series of circumstances, Neo is taken to meet Morpheus, an inscrutable character, who tells him:
<blockquote>
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere.…It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
</blockquote>
Morpheus holds out his hands; one contains a blue pill and the other a red. He tells Neo that if he takes the red pill, the truth will be revealed. If he takes the blue, then he'll return to his normal life, believing whatever he chooses.
Neo is asked to accept that there is such a thing as absolute truth. He, like many of us finds this hard to acknowledge, particularly because the truth is often not what he/we would like it to be. Modern-day Judaism reflects this; everything from atheism to Buddhism (except belief in Jesus) is permissible within the spectrum of Judaism so long as nobody steps on anyone's toes. Even though Judaism itself is rooted in absolutes, including belief in one God and in an absolute moral code, or law, many Jewish people in today's pluralistic culture relegate that foundation to the past, preferring to pronounce it as obsolete rather than right or wrong.
We see Neo hesitate, and then choose the red pill. And this is how he finds out that malevolent machines have enslaved humanity and that all he knows to be valid is actually the product of a virtual reality programmed into everyone's brain so they won't realize that they are being used for fuel.
An incredible plot? Certainly. And yet the idea that the world is not as it seems is nothing new. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that everything we see, touch, hear and smell is not ultimate reality. In fact, there is a greater, supernatural reality that is for the most part unseen. The Prophets spoke the words of God: My ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts." As Shakespeare wrote, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." The Matrix portrays millions of people living out their lives with no clue that they are being deceived.
Yet people bear some complicity in their own state. The machines are emblematic of man's hubris (pride); Morpheus states,
<blockquote>
…at some point in the early twenty-first century all of mankind was united in celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI [artificial intelligence]…a singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines.…Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
</blockquote>
The Bible tells us that since the time of Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, people have striven to assume control of their surroundings rather than acknowledging God's sovereignty. We have put our trust in our intelligence, our abilities and our strength, often to our own peril.
Neo has always felt that he was in control of his life. Finding out the opposite is so unfathomable and painful that he asks if he can return to the Matrix. Morpheus says no, and then asks, "But if you could, would you really want to?"
This question highlights a conflict we all have on some level. The universality of this conflict is perhaps why the movie is so popular—it brings into focus choices all of us have to make.
<h3>Reality vs. Illusion</h3>
Neo struggles to free his mind from what he now knows is a lie. He resists because the illusion was much more pleasant. In the Matrix, life was pretty good; he had a good job, a comfortable apartment and plenty of amusement. In what he is beginning to comprehend as the "real" world, things are bleak: humanity is enslaved, few people know what he knows and the comforts and conveniences he previously enjoyed have been traded for a battle against the machines.
The truth is often less pleasant than fiction. Many will take illusion any way they can get it—from getting lost in a fantasy film world to taking drugs—anything to avoid dealing with life's difficult realities.
Cypher, another character in The Matrix, embodies this dilemma between choosing truth or illusion. He's been a member of Morpheus' crew for quite some time, but he's grown tired of the struggle against the machines, tired of the dreary circumstances, tired of listening to Morpheus.
So Cypher conspires with "agents" of the Matrix, who promise to put Cypher back into the dream world in exchange for Morpheus' capture. Cypher's betrayal is revealed in a dramatic scene that takes place inside the Matrix. He sits in a fancy restaurant in front of a thick, perfectly cooked steak with two agents, who ask him:
<blockquote>
Agent Smith: Do we have a deal…?
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.
</blockquote>
Morpheus is the one who originally freed Cypher from the illusion of the Matrix, but Cypher would rather trade that freedom for the lie.
Let's face it: the truth and what we'd like to be truth aren't always the same thing. Can we really blame Cypher for wanting illusion, when the truth was obviously more unpleasant? Can we really fault people for wanting to feel like Cypher—in control of their own world?
The answer is no, we can't blame anyone for wanting to be the captain of their own ship—not if there isn't a better option. We all may as well live in delusion…unless there's a greater hope to be had, and so we come to another conflict in The Matrix.
<h3>Hope vs. Doubt</h3>
Cypher chose to give up on the idea that anything was going to change. But he had two good reasons to be optimistic. We just observed that the first, his belief in the resistance movement, died out. But his second reason to hope was right in front of him; he just didn't have the faith to believe in the person of prophecy.
At the beginning of the film, when Morpheus first frees Neo, he tells him:
<blockquote>
When the Matrix was first built there was a man born inside that had the ability to change what he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us and taught us the truth: as long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free. When he died, the Oracle prophesied his return and envisioned that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, an end to the war and freedom for our people. That is why there are those of us that have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix, looking for him…I believe the search is over.
</blockquote>
Morpheus' belief in "the One" as Neo is called is similar to the Jewish belief in a Messiah, the "Anointed One" who will come and redeem the world. Today, many people explain away the concept of Messiah; they say that instead we are hoping for a messianic "age," an era of peace, not a person. Others have stopped expecting the Messiah altogether. Cypher mirrors this skepticism. Even though Morpheus is convinced that Neo is the One, doubting Cypher even tries to kill Neo to prove that he's not:
<blockquote>
Cypher: How can he be the One if he's dead?
</blockquote>
Cypher's attempt to kill Neo is thwarted. However, later in the movie, Neo does die. But then he wakes up and is even stronger, faster and more powerful than he was before. After his resurrection, Neo and the entire crew are even more convinced than ever that he is the One. Interestingly, it actually takes Neo's death and resurrection to prove his "One-ness."
Does this sound like someone else who came to our world, who also died and rose again? When Yeshua (Jesus) died, many of his followers felt hopeless, but when he rose again from the dead, Scriptures and history tell us that they believed in him even more fervently. And 2,000 years later, there are still millions who believe that Yeshua is the Messiah of whom our prophets wrote.
The prophets predicted that the Messiah, the Anointed One, would suffer and die as a sacrifice for all of our wrongdoing (Isaiah 53), and that he would come again to usher in a new age of true and lasting peace. That's why many ultra-orthodox Jews still await the resurrection of the deceased Rebbe Schneerson, whom they believe is Messiah. But those who believe in Jesus know that he has already been resurrected and so they are waiting for the day of his return when he will fulfill these words:
<blockquote>
"Sing for joy and be glad, O daughter of Zion; for behold I am coming and I will dwell in your midst," declares the LORD. "And many nations will join themselves to the LORD in that day and will become My people. Then I will dwell in your midst, and you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent Me to you." (Zechariah 2:10-11)
</blockquote>
It's interesting that in The Matrix, the last refuge humanity has is a place called "Zion":
<blockquote>
Tank: If the war was over tomorrow, Zion is where the party would be.
Neo: It's a city?
Tank: The last human city. The only place we have left.…Live long enough you might even see it. This is a very exciting time.
</blockquote>
Every person who has been plucked out of the false realism of the Matrix has to decide if he or she is going to hope and believe that the Oracle was right, that the One and Zion are real and that he or she is going to align himself or herself with that reality. The alternative is to do nothing and let humanity perish in their dream world.
<h3>The Choice: Knowing The Path vs. Walking The Path</h3>
How does this apply to us? Virginia Woolf wrote, "Life is a dream…'tis waking that kills us." Many of us are living in a kind of matrix, a matrix that tells us that we are in control of our own lives, or a matrix that tells us that some things just cannot be true for us as Jews, such as the idea that Yeshua is the Messiah.
It's not easy to question our assumptions. Take for example someone like Steve. Steve is Jewish and he has a hunch that Jesus is the Messiah. But he knows that accepting this will affect many of his relationships. His family has raised him not to believe in Jesus. His community has taught him that if there is a Messiah, it certainly isn't Jesus. For Steve to admit that he has found the truth, implies that everyone else in his sphere should be informed by him of this truth. So Steve is hesitant to move further toward faith in Yeshua. But deep down he knows that truth is truth, whether he believes it or not.
There is so much we don't know, but we do know that God has not left us in the Matrix alone. The book of Ecclesiastes says that God has, "…set eternity in the hearts of [people]; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
God has a plan and a purpose for creation that one day will be brought to pass. We can choose to follow him, even though it may involve uncomfortable realizations, or we can continue to ignore that feeling inside us that tells us there is an answer out there that we haven't considered, an answer that will open up a whole new world.
Toward the end of The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo, "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path." The difference is belief. God has sent us the One who can save us if we will only trust in him.
So, which pill will you take?

Taking the Red Pill: Beyond the Matrix to Real Life

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<th style="background: #1295d8; color: #fff;" width="200">Attribute</th>
<th style="background: #1295d8; color: #fff;">Angel of the Lord</th>
<th style="background: #1295d8; color: #fff;">Yeshua</th>
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<th valign="middle">Is seen as God</th>
<td valign="top">Genesis 16:10,13 Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, "I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count."…Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "You are a God who sees;" for she said, "Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?"</td>
<td valign="top">
John 20:28 Thomas answered and said to [Jesus], "My Lord and my God!"
John 14:9 Jesus said to him, "…He who has seen Me has seen the Father…"
</td>
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<th valign="middle">Speaks as if he is God</th>
<td valign="top">Judges 2:1-2 Now the angel of the LORD …said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, 'I will never break My covenant with you, and as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.' But you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done?"</td>
<td valign="top">John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."</td>
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<th valign="middle">Yet is separate from God and obedient to him</th>
<td valign="top">1 Chronicles 21:27 "The LORD commanded the angel, and he put his sword back in its sheath."</td>
<td valign="top">
John 8:38 "I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's presence…"
Note: Even though Jesus spoke with the authority of God, he was still obedient to God. This is seen in the prayer he utters in the garden of Gethsemane, and in his obedience as he died on a cross.
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<th valign="middle">Is sent from the Father</th>
<td valign="top">Judges 13:9 God listened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting in the field…</td>
<td valign="top">
John 8:42 Jesus said to them, "…for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me.
John 6:38 "For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
</td>
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<th valign="middle">Speaks with all the authority of God, gives commands</th>
<td valign="top">Judges 13:12-14 Manoah said, "Now when your words come to pass, what shall be the boy's mode of life and his vocation?" So the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, "Let the woman pay attention to all that I said. "She should not eat anything that comes from the vine nor drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; let her observe all that I commanded."</td>
<td valign="top">
Matthew 7:28, 29 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
Matthew 8:27 The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
</td>
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<th valign="middle">Forgives sin</th>
<td valign="top">Zechariah 3:3,4 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, "Remove the filthy garments from him." Again he said to him, "See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes."</td>
<td valign="top">Matthew 9:2 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, "…son, your sins are forgiven."</td>
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<th valign="middle">Acts as judge and avenger of Israel</th>
<td valign="top">
Joshua 5:13,14 Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he …looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us or for our adversaries?" He said, "No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the LORD." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, "What has my lord to say to his servant?"
Note: Though the text does not specifically call this mysterious man the angel of the Lord, the passage closely parallels Exodus 3 and the following verse.
1 Chronicles 21:16 Then David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, with his drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, covered with sackcloth, fell on their faces.
</td>
<td valign="top">Revelation 19:11-16 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war…and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."</td>
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<tr>
<th valign="middle">Accepts Worship</th>
<td valign="top">Judges 6:19-21 Then Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; he put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them. The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And he did so. Then the angel of the LORD put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight.</td>
<td valign="top">Matthew 28:5-95 The angel [not the angel of the Lord but a different angel] said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you." And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.</td>
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<th valign="middle">Comforts</th>
<td valign="top">1 Kings 19:3-8 And he (Elijah) was afraid and arose and ran for his life …he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and …said, "It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers." He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, "Arise, eat." Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, "Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you." So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.</td>
<td valign="top">Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."</td>
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<th valign="middle">Uses "I AM" to refer to himself</th>
<td valign="top">Exodus 3:14 God [called the angel of the Lord in this passage] said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM;" and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"</td>
<td valign="top">John 8:58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."Makes special promises</td>
</tr>
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<th valign="middle">Makes special promises</th>
<td valign="top">Genesis 16:10 Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, "I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count."</td>
<td valign="top">John 14:1-3 "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also."</td>
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Similarities Between the Angel of the Lord and Yeshua

In Our Own Image: Human Cloning

Some survivors do not tell their kids anything. They just don't. Some survivors tell their kids everything. When I was a little boy, I crawled into my father's lap and asked, What is that number on your arm?" He didn't flinch, he told me he was in the concentration camps. He grew up outside of Lodz, Poland, and spent four and a half years in several work camps as well as Auschwitz. He did not explain in detail what he had been through, but he told me more as I got older. I asked him if he went to school, and he said that Jewish kids didn't get to go to high school. He told me that when he was growing up in Poland the week of Passover was terrible; his family never left the house. If they did, the priest would come out of the church with a big cross and kids would throw rocks and call them "Christ-killers."
<h6>Because my parents were Holocaust survivors, I grew up with a keen understanding that I was Jewish.</h6>
My mother's name is Lilly, and she grew up in Maramush, which is between Hungary and Romania. She was in the camps for almost two years. Because my parents were Holocaust survivors, I grew up with a keen understanding of the fact that I was Jewish. There was never a time in my life when I did not recognize the great price our people paid for our existence.
When I got sick as a child I remember feeling a moral obligation to get better. Both my mother and father made me feel guilty if I got sick. I had to be strong and live to defeat the Nazis' intentions. Knowing the pain and suffering my parents endured meant that I could not complain about incidental problems. When I came home one day and said, "There is nothing to eat, let's go out," my father said to me sternly, "There is bread, there is a meal!" How can you tell a man who was so malnourished that eating a full meal would have killed him when he was liberated, that there is not enough food?
I constantly lived with a sense that the Holocaust could happen again. I'd visit someone's apartment or house and immediately I'd look under the stairs and think that would be a good place to hide. Most kids don't think like that. There was also an "us and them" mentality. My father was a very joyous, loving man. But he had a terrible hatred of Germans. He worked through this later in his life, but when I was younger he'd say, "Don't turn your back on a German, they'll stab you in the back." I was raised in a pluralistic American society, and this was contrary to the values taught at school and in my somewhat liberal home. Clashes were inevitable.
I remember once I came home and told my family I was dating a German girl. Now, she wasn't German; she was American. Maybe one of her distant relatives a hundred years ago was German. But she wasn't Jewish, and it was like I had brought an SS guard into the house. My father's family was one of the most important things in his life, and so he wanted to protect us as much as he could.
<h6>My father really celebrated the fact that he was alive. When I asked him his birthday, he told me his age from the date he was liberated from the camp.</h6>
My father really celebrated the fact that he was alive. When I asked him his birthday, he told me his age from the date he was liberated from the camp. He said he felt like he was brought back from the dead, or re-born. I learned to appreciate life from him.
But there was a bad side to being a child of a survivor. Despite his loving nature, my father had a horrendous temper. I remember the intense fury my father would unleash. Only later did I begin to understand that his flood of rage was a result of constantly having to suppress his emotions while he was in the camps.
I felt sad for my father. I felt he was ripped off, that his youth was stolen, that his faith was stolen. I found it remarkable that he was able to survive and to love and to laugh again. It's a great story to the strength of the human spirit, but I still feel like the Nazis robbed him.
In 1967 I went to Israel to work on a kibbutz. One day, someone on the kibbutz found me and said, "There's a police officer to see you." Of course, I was apprehensive. The police officer walked over to me, and started crying and hugging and kissing me. In broken Hebrew, he told me his name was Kozak. When the Nazis invaded Poland, they hung Kozak's sister, my father's first wife. My father had never told me he was married before. He never told me the Nazis hung his first wife.
I decided to visit Kozak in his home in Haifa. I was standing on the street with him and his family, when suddenly an old Jewish man came running down the street, and he said, "Is this Moishe's son?" Kozak smiled and said yes. And the man just fell upon me and he kissed me and he started telling me how much my father meant to him. I learned that because my father was a tailor, he had access to certain things like potatoes from the camp chef. He made sure people were fed. This man said my father saved his life, and the lives of many others.
<h6>That was a very telling moment, to discover that my father was a hero.</h6>
That was a very telling moment, to discover for certain that my father was a hero. When I asked my father why he never told me these stories, he said he didn't feel as though he was keeping it from me, it just never came up.
The Holocaust has shaped much of my thinking and my worldview. I think the idea of humanism died fifty years ago; humanity can no longer believe that we are evolving into a better people. Germany was the pinnacle of humanism, and yet it brought us to Treblinka. If ever there was a doubt regarding the sinful human nature, it was resolved by the Nazis. We can have no more illusions of progress. Humanity is so steeped in its own sin that it was unable to resist even the most blatant of evil.
The person who has suffered through this kind of evil wants to understand how God can allow such suffering. There is a point at which you come to believe that you are allowed to go through the consequences of life, whatever they may be, because there is a greater good that is going to happen. I say that with great reservation. I can't apologize for God; I can't give the correct theological answer to the question of pain, not to the one who has gone through it. It's not that God was powerless. It wasn't that God wasn't able and it wasn't that he didn't care. It's just that somehow, in God's mysterious ways, something good will come of this. I guess I just wait.
When I became a believer in Jesus, I came to my father with a Yiddish New Testament. I opened it up to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. I wanted my father to meet the real Jesus, not the one that's portrayed as a tank rolling into his neighborhood or the one who turned the gas on his parents, but the Jesus that talks about love.
The most perfect demonstration of God's love throughout all of history is the offering of the Messiah. So my father read the story, and for the most part he accepted that Jesus was a Jew and that there was good reason for me to be drawn to him. Then he got to the place where it says, "…forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us." He closed the book and said, "I can't do this, I can't." He looked at me and said, "I would rather go to hell, knowing I could take the Nazis with me, than forgive them." I said, "Dad, they still win that way." He said, "I can't."
<h6>Forgiveness is not absolution, forgiveness is letting go of the hate.</h6>
I once was asked by someone to extend forgiveness to the Nazis for what they did. You can't imagine what that did to me. So much of my identity was wrapped up in the consequences I had suffered because my parents were survivors. I sat down and prayed and said, "God, you really have to help me." I came to a place that my father couldn't come to. Forgiveness is not absolution, forgiveness is letting go of the hate. I don't think my father was ever able to do that. The Holocaust did that. For many of us, it ripped off the ability to forgive. And that's the worst thing.

Jhan Moskowitz, Son of Max and Lilly Moskowitz

My father, Fred, was born in Germany in 1925. The son of a baker, he lived in a village of 2,000 people. The town had very few Jews, ten families to be exact. As a young boy, my father had to look among the non-Jews for playmates.
<h3>School Days</h3>
By the time my father was eight, the Aryan philosophy of Hitler was gaining acceptance by most Germans. His best friends did not want to play with him anymore. His parents, who were prospering in the bakery business, held to the illusion that Hitler would lose his popularity and that things would get better once again for the Jews. Instead they got worse.
My dad's family finally decided to leave Germany for America. However, wanting to leave and getting out of the country were two different things. Because of immigration quotas, they needed to apply to the Consulate for clearance. They were number 48,878 on the list of families waiting to leave Germany.
Meanwhile, on July 2, 1938, my father became bar mitzvah. He was the last Jewish boy in his district to have the ceremony. Four months later came Kristallnacht. His synagogue, along with hundreds of others, was destroyed. Six days later the Jewish children were expelled from the schools. At the same time, Jewish males 13 years and older were being conscripted for "labor camps." My father, small for his age, was overlooked. Before long, entire Jewish families were being deported to the death camps. Yet, for some mysterious reason, his family was spared. Their immigration number came up, and in May of 1941 they left what had become Hitler's Germany and traveled to America.
My father learned the English language quickly and, after having been in the States only two years, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He took part in the invasion of Europe on D-Day. He fought his way through France and across the Rhine River, ironically, into his native Germany, where he was captured by the Germans! My father overheard the Nazis say they planned to shoot their captives, yet for some reason they changed their minds and took my father to a prisoner of war camp. The conditions were terrible, but he managed to survive. The Allies eventually liberated the POWs, and my father was rescued from Hitler once again.
Knowing what my father had been through caused me to be doubtful of Christians, since I held Christianity responsible for the Holocaust. That was until I read the Scriptures and came to realize that humanity is sinful and that those who used Jesus' name to further their cause of anti-Semitism were following their own evil instincts, not the teachings of Jesus. Jesus taught people to love one another, and the fact that Jesus was a Jew further confirms that Christians who seriously follow Jesus' teachings should love Jewish people.
My brother Steve was the first one in our family to become a believer in Jesus. My father was extremely upset about Steve's newfound faith, so much so that when I, too, became a believer in Jesus, I was afraid to tell him. But on September 29, 1975 my father became convinced that Jesus is the Messiah spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures. That night he actually saw a vision of Jesus standing in his bedroom doorway. I believe he needed something that extraordinary to overcome his years of narrow escapes from harrowing experiences. My father once remarked that he escaped from Hitler as a refugee, and then he was liberated as a prisoner of war, but he was never truly free until Messiah came into his life.

Rob Wertheim, Son of Fred Wertheim

Why does the Messiah tarry? When will He come?" These were questions which continually agitated the young Rabbi's mind. [Rabbi Leopold Cohn] According to Talmudical reckoning the Messiah should long since have come; yet, there was the exile, still the bitterest fact of Jewish life, to be accounted for. Can it be the coming of the Messiah has passed and the promise has not been fulfilled? Sorely perplexed, the rabbi decided to begin a study of the original predictions of<a href="/publications/newsletter/newsletter-sep-2011/overview-of-the-major-prophets-how-well-do-you-know-the-jewish-bible/"> the Prophets</a>, but the mere contemplation of the act filled him with fear, for according to the teaching of the Rabbis, "Cursed are the bones of him who calculates the time of the end." And so it was that with trembling hands, expecting at any moment to be struck by a bolt from heaven, but with an eagerness irresistible, he opened <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v05-n01/the-messianic-time-table-according-to-daniel-the-prophet/">the book of the prophet Daniel</a> and began to read.<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a>
Today some might wonder, why so much angst over the Messiah? After all, we have managed thus far without him. Do we really need a Messiah? Perhaps the longing seems to express a childlike hope in a hero on whom most of our people have long since given up. For many, the Messiah seems like little more than an ancient Jewish version of Santa or Superman. But don't miss the deeper emotion this "sorely perplexed" young rabbi felt. His cold fear was simply stated in the sentence, "Can it be the coming of the Messiah has passed and the promise has not been fulfilled?"
What else would drive the young man to push past his fears of the curse the rabbis had laid upon whomever would dare to calculate the timing of such things? Perhaps a greater fear of not knowing, of always wondering if God had made a promise—and broken it. For if the <a href="/publications/havurah/havurah-v08-n04/about-torah-observance/">Holy Writings</a> indeed predicted that the Anointed One would come within certain time parameters, and if he had not come, what other conclusion could one reach? A Messiah who never comes is maybe not such a big deal. But a God who spells out his promises in great detail and is then framed by those very details as a promise-breaker, is frightening, if not tragic, whether or not a person is religious.
The God who is described in the Jewish Bible is by definition all-knowing, all-powerful, just, good and deserving of trust. But what if God is not all these things? What if God is real but a liar and a fraud? It would take a brave person to explore such a shocking possibility. And that is exactly what Rabbi Leopold Cohn was willing to do more than 100 years ago.
Cohn was not the only one who realized the implications of a prophecy as exact as Daniel 9. Another young Jew, Rachmiel Frydland, grappled with the meaning of the passage and the ramifications of the timetable. Frydland, well versed in <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v01-n03/the-talmud-and-the-gospels/">Talmud</a> and Mishnah, also recognized that it would take some courage to study it:
<blockquote>
The Jewish people rarely study the Book of Daniel because many rabbinic Jews were misled attempting to interpret Daniel's cryptic "times." Some were led so far astray that they came to believe in false messiahs, and therefore talmudic Jews frowned on students who studied Daniel with a view of finding out the time of the Messiah. However, religious Jews knew that this book revealed more about Messiah than any other book.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a>
</blockquote>
Frydland, like Cohn, overcame his fears and uncertainties and looked into the interpretation of this mysterious passage. What did the two men discover?
Fact One: the Messiah's appearance was locked into a fixed time
Fact Two: that fixed time was while the Second Temple was still standing
Fact Three: the Messiah had to come from a<a href="/publications/issues/issues-v05-n06/the-genealogy-of-the-messiah/"> specific lineage</a> that was only verifiable through the Temple records
And the fourth startling fact is that the <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-the-suffering-servant">Messiah had to die a violent death</a>. The details of these facts together present some of the strongest evidence that he has in fact already come.
<h3>Fact One: The Messiah's appearance was locked into a fixed time.</h3>
Ever hear the parental refrain, "You'll get your answer when the Messiah comes"? And to the response, "When will the Messiah come, Dad?" the answer is, "Who knows?"
But we can know the answer, in detail. It is in the book of Daniel. This prophet who lived during the time of our exile in Babylon <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-come-according-to-a-timetable/">received a vision that the Messiah would come</a> 483 years after the command to restore Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple:
<blockquote>
…that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. (Daniel 9:25)
</blockquote>
The "clock" on these 69 "weeks" (units of seven years) began ticking when Artaxerxes issued a decree to Nehemiah to rebuild the Temple and restore the holy city of Jerusalem (see Nehemiah 2:1-8). While other decrees went forth, this was the only one that involved both the Temple and Jerusalem. History records this took place in Nisan (March/April) of 444 B.C.E. That would mean the <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v23-n02/when-jesus-was-actually-born/">Messiah would appear by 33 C.E.</a> History does not record anyone, other than Yeshua (Jesus), who was from that time period and claimed to be the Messiah.
<h3>Fact Two: The Second Temple would still be standing when Messiah came.</h3>
Daniel predicted that after the appearance of Messiah, "…the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary"(v.26). We know that occurred when Titus' Roman legions marched on Jerusalem in 70 C.E., destroying both the city and the Temple. The Talmud teaches that at that time people believed that the Messiah had already come. But His appearance was concealed from the Jews until they were rendered more worthy of His appearance.<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">3</a>
Other passages support the understanding that Messiah would come while the Temple was still standing. For example, the rabbis recognized that Psalm 118 would be sung to the Messiah when he arrived.<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">4</a>
<blockquote>
Hoshienu—Save now, I pray, O Lord; O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We have blessed you from the house of the Lord [italics mine]. (vv. 25,26)
</blockquote>
The only way that they could bless the Messiah from the house of the Lord was if the Temple was still standing!
Haggai, who was in Jerusalem as the Second Temple was being built, made the messianic prediction that the "glory of this last temple is to be greater than that of the first" (2:9).<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">5</a> And Malachi confirmed it: "Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his Temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come" (3:1). Twelfth century Jewish scholar, Rabbi David Kimchi, referred to the Malachi verse, saying, "The Lord, the angel of the covenant, is the Messiah."<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">6</a>
According to Daniel, the Temple would not only be standing at Messiah's appearance, but it would then soon be destroyed. That Temple, the Second Temple which was originally built by Ezra and beautified by Herod, was where <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v22-n07/is-jesus-a-rabbi/">Yeshua did most of his teaching</a> and made startling claims for himself. The New Testament records the painful words of Jesus to those who spoke of how beautiful the Temple looked after its refurbishing under Herod: "These things which you see—the days will come in which not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7">7</a> Was Jesus pointing to Daniel's prophecy being fulfilled? Less than 40 years later the destruction of the Temple was so thorough that, to this day, the exact location of the sanctuary is unknown.
<h3>Fact Three: The Messiah's lineage could only be identifiable while the temple stood.</h3>
The coming of the Messiah had another time constraint: it was connected to his descent from the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:10, a well-recognized messianic prophecy,<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8">8</a> indicated that Judah was to retain its identity until Shiloh (one of the names for the Messiah) was to come.
<blockquote>
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; [emphasis mine] and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. (Genesis 49:10)
</blockquote>
According to the book of Ezra (1:5-8), Judah's position was maintained throughout the 70 years' captivity in Babylon. It was also intact back in the Land, until the Romans made the kingdom of Judah a Roman province.<a href="#_edn9" name="_ednref9">9</a> At that time the Sanhedrin was stripped of its authority and, according to Josephus, they [the members of the Sanhedrin] "covered their heads with ashes and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming, 'Woe unto us, for the sceptre has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come.'"<a href="#_edn10" name="_ednref10">10</a> While there was a provincial government in place, about 50 years later (in 70 c.e.) that too ended.
Not only was the Messiah to be from the lineage of Judah, but more specifically from the house of David: "I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David: your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations."<a href="#_edn11" name="_ednref11">11</a> This messianic prophecy clearly refers to<a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-a-descendant-of-david/"> a descendent of David</a>. Proof of such lineage was destroyed when the Temple was sacked. And while we do not have the Temple records, we do have the record of Yeshua's family tree in the accounts of his life by both Luke and Matthew. They both identify that he is from the house of David. We don't know anyone else who lived at that time and claimed to be the Messiah, who is descended from the tribe of Judah and the house of David, apart from Yeshua.
<h3>Fact Four: The Messiah was to be "cut off."</h3>
The Daniel prophecy (v.26) says that after the seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, the Messiah would be cut off, but not for himself. This phrase "cut off" meant to be killed or die a violent death. Some of the Talmudic rabbis understood this: "In Daniel is delivered to us the end [the time of His appearance and death—Rabbi Jarchi] of the Messiah."<a href="#_edn12" name="_ednref12">12</a>
The idea that the Messiah would die was not new to Judaism. Isaiah wrote of <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-the-passover-lamb/">one who would suffer and die for the sins of the people</a>: "…For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken."<a href="#_edn13" name="_ednref13">13</a>Psalm 22 graphically portrays death by crucifixion, a method of execution not known to the psalmist writing 1000 years before Yeshua was crucified.
Could it have happened just as Daniel so carefully predicted? Counting 483 years after Artaxerxes' decree would bring us to 33 c.e. The Temple was destroyed in 70 c.e. That leaves a window of 37 years in which the Messiah from the tribe of Judah and the house of David could come. Not only that, but he was to die a violent death at that time.
<h3>Postscript on the Rabbi</h3>
After studying these Scriptures, <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v12-n06/jesus-as-messiah-in-the-gospels/">Rabbi Cohn was brave enough to open up a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew</a>. He started at the beginning in Matthew and began reading the genealogy of Jesus: "This is the book of the generation of Yeshua the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham."<a href="#_edn14" name="_ednref14">14</a> He read for some 13 hours and later wrote down his reflections:
<blockquote>
I could at last see that the Messiah's name was Yeshua, that he was born in Bethlehem of Judah, that he had lived in Jerusalem and communicated with my people, and that he came just at the time predicted in the prophecy of Daniel.<a href="#_edn15" name="_ednref15">15</a>
</blockquote>
Cohn's conflict was not over at that point. Like most Jews, <a href="/answers/why-do-most-jews-not-believe-in-jesus/">the idea of believing in the same Messiah that the gentiles worshiped was very unsettling</a>. But he went back into the Hebrew Scriptures, reading the Isaiah 53 passage about the Messiah who was to die for his people. Then as he began to pray, he accidentally dropped the Bible he was holding and it fell open to the third chapter of Malachi, which begins with the prophecy of the angel of the covenant who comes to the Temple. The first verse ends with the words, "Behold he has already come, saith the Lord of Hosts."<a href="#_edn16" name="_ednref16">16</a>
The rabbi could no longer deny that Yeshua (Jesus) was that one who had already come. He met all the criteria in Daniel's prophecy. He met all the criteria in the Isaiah 53 prophecy and in Malachi as well. Cohn's search was over.
<h3>Some Final Questions</h3>
God promised the Jewish people a Messiah. And he gave us a precise way of computing the time of Messiah's coming. Why are so many reluctant to find out where those computations lead? Are we more comfortable with ambiguity? Think about it. If Daniel is right and the Messiah came before the destruction of the Second Temple, that means that our rabbis have been wrong for 2000 years. If Daniel is right and the Messiah came before 70 c.e., that means we have to admit that Messiah has already come. And if he's already come, then we will have to deal with him as the one who has come. That leaves very little wiggle room—an uneasy state of being for most of us.
Maybe that's why some might choose to be agnostics. Maybe that's why some might not want <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v12-n04/evidence-for-gods-existence/">to know that God exists</a>, because such knowledge would make a claim on their lives. Could that be why many people are satisfied to allow <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v22-n08/spiritual-but-not-religious/">the notion of God to remain a vague feeling</a> until such time as they see a need for him?
However, our vague feelings about God do not mean that God is a vague being. What if he really has communicated to us in very specific ways? Leopold Cohn and Rachmiel Frydland believed God did communicate specifically. They ventured to follow the biblical clues to their logical conclusion. And once they did, they couldn't turn back. How many are brave enough today to consider such choices?
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1. </a>Dr. Henry Einspruch, When Jews Face Christ
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2. </a>Rachmiel Frydland, When Being Jewish Was a Crime (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1978) p.72.
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">3. </a>John Ankerberg, The Case For Jesus The Messiah, c.1989 Chattanooga, as cited in Franz Delitzsch and Paton Gloag, The Messiahship of Christ, Part Two, p.226.
<a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">4. </a>Risto Santala, The Messiah in the Old Testament In Light of Rabbinical Writings (Jerusalem: Keren Ahvah Meshihit, 1992), p.103.
<a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">5. </a>Haggai 2:6 is applied to the Messiah in Deb. R. 1 (ed. Warsh. P. 4b, line 15 from the top) according to Alfred Edersheim, List of Old Testament Passages Messianically Applied in Rabbinic Writings (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976) p.735.
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">6. </a>Santala, p.102,103.
<a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7">7. </a>Luke 21:6
<a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8">8. </a>Ber. R. 98, ed. Warsh. P.174b; Sanhedrin 98b
<a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9">9. </a>Josephus' Antiquities 17, chapter 13:1-5.
<a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10">10. </a>Ibid.
<a href="#_ednref11" name="_edn11">11. </a>Psalm 89:3,4
<a href="#_ednref12" name="_edn12">12. </a>Ibid. Ankerberg, p.226.
<a href="#_ednref13" name="_edn13">13. </a>Isaiah 53:8
<a href="#_ednref14" name="_edn14">14. </a>Matthew 1:1
<a href="#_ednref15" name="_edn15">15. </a>ISSUES, What One Rabbi Discovered, vol. 5:1.
<a href="#_ednref16" name="_edn16">16. </a>Ibid p.8. Cohn read the Hebrew to say "Behold he has already come," a possible rendering of the Hebrew which is usually translated in the present tense.

Four Startling Facts About the Identity of the Messiah

Earlier this year the Jewish world was shocked when the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), meeting in Pittsburgh, called for the increased use of kippot (skullcaps), tallitot (prayer shawls), mikvah (ritual bathing i.e., baptism), observance of the dietary laws and the use of more Hebrew in worship liturgy.
What made this particularly shocking" was that the CCAR is the rabbinical arm of the Reform branch of Judaism in the United States. Reform Jews, in the past, boasted of their freedom from such trappings. To them, these were the elements of "superstition" as practiced by their less sophisticated Orthodox Jewish cousins. Dr. Israel Zoberman, the founding rabbi of Reform Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach, Virginia attributes this about face to "the yearning for spirituality in the midst of assimilation in an Age of Reason.…"<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a>
This yearning is not confined to Reform Jews. Throughout the Jewish community, one can see a retreat from modernism in the search of new spirituality within Judaism.
What is the meaning of this elusive term, "spirituality" and is it any different from other kinds of spirituality?
The dictionary takes us in several directions:
<blockquote>
Spiritual:
<ul>
	<li>of the spirit or the soul, often in a religious or moral aspect, as distinguished from the body</li>
	<li>of, from, or concerned with the intellect, or what is often thought of as the better or higher part of the mind</li>
	<li>characterized by the ascendancy of the spirit; showing much refinement of thought and feeling</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
None of these definitions seems to encompass what Rabbi Zoberman has in mind. The new Reform list of things to do, wear and eat seems to speak more of pietism. Jewish spirituality, according to Zoberman, is essentially proactive. It requires study and adherence to certain prescribed procedures. It is a lifestyle—a mode of daily living—more than a journey.
What has characterized the whole Western world during the last generation of the twentieth century is "spirituality." The term is kept deliberately vague so that it can mean whatever we want it to mean or whatever our "guides" tell us it means.
Alcoholics Anonymous, and all the twelve-step programs that have followed, agree to a definition that has a direct bearing on their understanding of spirituality:
<blockquote>
[We] came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. [We] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a>
</blockquote>
Twelve-step devotees confess to a higher power according to whatever one believes or disbelieves. One AA zealot actually carried a crystal doorknob in his briefcase as the higher power to which he could confess his shortcomings.
Even agnostics have some concept of spirituality. Dr. John Brodsky of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, speaking from a perspective derived from the Society of Humanistic Judaism, cites a definition of spirituality:
<blockquote>
Spirituality is a rewarding emotional state of being, provoked by the intimation of an all-pervasive natural order, combined with an inability to completely decipher this order. Possessed of limited abilities and partial knowledge, the spiritual self recognizes a need to act morally in the interests of all sentient beings.<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">3</a>
</blockquote>
Nevertheless, Brodsky himself rejects this definition by saying,
<blockquote>
Spirituality is a bogus word. Ever since the Enlightenment, when the "spirits" became so transparent as to appear non-existent, imprecise thinkers, fearful that reason might be put in the service of evil, have clung to the concept of spirituality like so many drowning but hopeful angels clinging to a bit of heavenly driftwood.<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">4</a>
</blockquote>
Brodsky's argument against spirituality as a sentiment, a false hope, is understandable. But suppose there is such a thing as a spirit or the spirit which transcends all of human behavior?
<h3>The Spirit</h3>
Within the human psyche there seems to be a yearning for this intangible something more—and to meet that need, believing has become a goal in itself. The ability to believe is carefully cultivated, but according to New Age thought, belief need not find an object. One can be "spiritual" without believing in God. The social effect is the same as having people who love to be in love yet do not seek any permanent relationship, just love. That kind of loving can lead to a rich fantasy life, promiscuity, or both. Just believing is similar. It stokes the imagination and evokes sentiments but does not necessarily find its anchor in ultimate reality.
This search for spirituality—the apprehension of an ultimate reality outside of ourselves—is not limited to Jews. Virtually all world religions are on a quest for a spirituality that they define differently from the others. Not only that, secularists have their own definition for spirituality. We all have friends who look for the spiritual meaning of life in horoscopes, tarot readings, channeling and/or the consultation of harmonic crystals.
One can't help but wonder about the quality of the quest of the many who are seeking spirituality. Some want to know the future, to be able to control the future or to avoid the consequences of what is ahead. Basically, such people are not so much seeking to know the Almighty as a spirit, or to understand his spiritual nature, as they are looking to acquire and utilize the power of whatever is spiritual and powerful.
<h3>Four Paths to Spirituality</h3>
Modern day traditional Judaism differs from the Hebrew Scriptures on how one is to achieve spirituality. The religion created by the rabbis out of the biblical elements contains several routes to the contemporary Jewish "nirvana." Here are four of the most recognizable paths:
<h3>Law keeping and mitzvot</h3>
The path of spirituality in which one follows the Law and does mitzvot (good deeds) is similar to Islam. The Law keeper is not merely trying to keep out of trouble, but sees himself or herself on a path that eventually will lead to some deeper encounter with the divine. Such a person expects to come to the realization of the meaning of life through obedience. Godliness is ascribed to those who diligently keep the Law, at least as many of the 613 precepts as is possible to keep in a post-Temple age. The path to spirituality is also achieved by the person who faithfully performs mitzvot. One of the greatest of these good deeds is to provide for the institutions of learning and the well-being of the religious teachers so that the individual can learn how to properly keep the Law.
<h3>Learning or study, particularly of the Jewish religion</h3>
Learning as a spiritual exercise is not the mere acquisition, appropriation or assimilation of facts. Judaism teaches that it is impossible to comprehend the Almighty, but there is the hope that through study one will catch a glimpse of him or at least gain the wisdom to come to some sort of spiritual realization. Even more, there is the hope that one will receive spiritual insights through study and learning. Rabbinism hints that there are profound truths which are "sod" or hidden. Somehow coming to these truths is like discovering clues along the way of a treasure hunt. The treasure is a higher truth. This outlook makes Jewish spirituality take on an aspect of gnosticism where we end up believing that there are ways to attain higher and higher levels of secret knowledge not known or decipherable by the masses.
Learning can also have its mystical aspects. Jewish folklore is replete with stories of miracle-working rabbis, who were able to perform supernatural acts after they discovered a great spiritual truth. For example, there is a legend that describes Jesus as a sorcerer who learned how to fly. However, a learned rabbi discovered a piece of parchment which he inserted into one of his own veins. This parchment (stories differ at this point) either had the pronunciation guide to the Ineffable Name or some great truth. With this parchment, the righteous rabbi was able to fly higher than Jesus and bring him down.<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">5</a>
In that story, the Jewish view of learning is that certain knowledge leads to gaining magical powers. Some notions of what is spiritual are not all that different from believing in magic. There is a more common view that learning brings spiritual empowerment. Learning is seen as a way of strengthening the soul.
Yet it is not as supposed. A first century Jew, Saul of Tarsus, noted with irony that "they are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 3:7).
<h3>Mysticism</h3>
Mysticism, as expressed through Kaballah and the writings of the Zohar, seeks spiritual meanings through symbols, similes, metaphors and otherwise disjunctive numbers. It ascribes great significance to vague signs. Omens are given concrete interpretations. It is as if the Almighty and his angels were sending secret signals if only one knew where to look. The purpose of pursuing significance in trivia such as astrology and ouija boards is that the seeker wants to become a seer. He or she wants to be able to interpret the mysteries of the world and believes that there are clues to that end.
Then there is the mystique of Gamatria or numerology. The bumbler of numbers hopes to arrange them into a sequence with profound meaning. Those who practice numerology (more recently with a computer and under the banner of the Bible code movement) are not unlike fortune tellers or those casting tarot cards. They find deep meanings in shallow coincidences. Unfortunately, like Law keeping, good deeds and study, Jewish mysticism has as its underlying, unspoken purpose, the seeker's ability to gain some control over his or her destiny.
<h3>The collective sense of identity within one's community</h3>
Judaism is concerned with the individual, yet the orientation of our spiritual forms is most definitely communal. Rabbi Daniel Gordis, dean of the Zeigler School of Rabbinic Studies and vice-president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, points out that,
<blockquote>
Jewish tradition takes numerous steps to argue that communal life is the critical issue for Jews. That is why certain parts of the service, including the mourner's Kaddish, may be recited only if a minyan is present. That is why the Viddui (Yom Kippur Confession) is written in the plural.<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">6</a>
</blockquote>
One might wonder how the collective identity could be spiritual. The Bible contains the idea that the highest form of spirituality is to commune with God. One notion, thought but rarely uttered in the Jewish community, is that there is a "pintele" or small bit of the divine in every Jew. Such thinking leads to the surmise that if all Jews were of one heart and mind, such collective divinity within us would lead us to the Truth.
<h3>Spirituality as Power—but whose Power?</h3>
In the quest for spirituality, all false religions share at least one aspect in common: the practitioner is basically seeking power. This is in opposition to the biblical revelation, where seekers are to give themselves to the God who is all-powerful.
This difference is seen in the Hebrew Scriptures, as the concept of "fear of the Lord." It not only refers to the regard one should have for the Almighty, but also to an awareness and sense of his presence. The God of the Bible is the One with whom Moses was not afraid to disagree and with whom Jacob was not afraid to wrestle. In these divine encounters, both were not only aware of God, but were even more aware of themselves.
Thus Moses says, "O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue" (Exodus 4:10). Moses seems to realize that God could choose to heal his stammer, but God tells him that instead, his brother Aaron, whom he has not seen for 40 years, will be his mouthpiece.
In wrestling with the angel, our father Jacob senses that his life will be changed for the better—transformed—if he can but get the divine wrestler to "bless him" (Genesis 32:26). Jacob holds on fiercely until he gets what he wants.
In modern Judaism, it would be hard to conceive of a God who would be so transcendent that Moses would not talk back and that Jacob would not dare grab hold. Spirituality, in the biblical sense, leads to holiness and understanding that God is wholly other and yet God is not only transcendent but imminent. God is both majestic as well as close in and personal. He is above and beyond, yet here and now.
<h3>Spirituality and God's Spirit</h3>
The religion of the Hebrew Scriptures is one of the few that recognizes that the things of the Spirit are not that much different from the things that concern us. We should not think in terms of the corporeal versus the Spirit or the tangible versus the ethereal. The two are very much related; righteousness in the Spirit leads to sanctification in the body.
The best advice to those seeking spirituality within a biblical context comes from the Almighty himself when he says, "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). We are not to seek spirituality per se, but we are to seek to "know the Lord."
One would think that the basic place to look for such Jewish knowledge of the Lord would be in the Scriptures. In the second verse of B'reshit (Genesis), we are introduced to the Holy Spirit (Ruach Hakodesh). It is this Ruach Hakodesh who gives us the strength to do the mitzvot that God would have us do.<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7">7</a> This includes not just the routine good deeds but even epochal events.
For example, the strength of Samson was not in his long hair but in the Holy Spirit. His long hair was merely the sign of his dedication.<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8">8</a> When it comes to knowledge, this same Holy Spirit who strengthened Samson is our teacher and guide.
<blockquote>
You also gave Your good Spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold Your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst (Nehemiah 9:20).
</blockquote>
The psalmist prayed, "Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness" (Psalm 143:10).
God does not make us spiritual persons with spiritual powers; rather he offers to fill us with his Holy Spirit who then can empower us to follow his Law and do good deeds. Through the Holy Spirit we are guided into all truth and, furthermore, are sealed into a loving community.
We should not be seeking "spirituality" but openness to God's Holy Spirit.
<h3>Spirituality—a Messianic Jewish Perspective</h3>
While biblical faith provides the possibility of more contemplation and meditation than other world religions, it also provides something more concrete. Followed to its conclusion, it provides a knowledge of and a relationship with God. That is true spirituality which enables us to relate to the everyday tasks of life.
Many of those who seek the nebulous spirituality of this age, hope to gain from it power to discern matters and prevail over the human situation. On the other hand, Jesus' teachings expose the powerlessness of the individual which is remedied by belief in an all-powerful God.
Some of us Jews who have come to believe in Jesus as the promised Messiah of Israel began our journey by seeking spirituality. There were those who said of Jesus that his teachings were spiritual and that hearing them made them feel spiritual. Yet that merely showed him as a wise, wonder-working rabbi. It did not answer the deepest question of the human heart: the ontological issue, or simply put, "what is the nature of being?".
The focus of all human spirituality is based on the transition point where life as we know it terminates. At that juncture of life and death, the question of the ultimate nature and goal of life confronts us. It's all explained in the Scriptures. If we are to know the meaning of life, we need to focus on the Giver of life as shown in all of Scripture.
We need to focus not only on Jesus' life, but on Jesus' death. We must focus on the questions of why he died 2,000 years ago, the manner of his death and the spiritual meaning of his death.
Jesus' death at Calvary turned the world upside down as seen through a lens. Yet instead of death ending his life, it began a life for all who are refracted through that lens. Not only that, but because of the spiritual nature of the universe, Jesus was able to bound back from death, not as a disembodied spirit, but as a re-embodied person. This is more commonly called the resurrection of Jesus.
In the biblical religion, spirituality comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit, and being filled with the Holy Spirit proceeds from being redeemed through the sacrifice and resurrection of Messiah. In symbolism, the Jewish sacrificial system taught us the meaning of exchange or substitutionary atonement—shed blood of a sacrifice on the holy altar for the sins of the people. In Jesus' death, we find life. In his resurrection, we are renewed.
But best yet is the promise of the Holy Spirit to believers in Yeshua. When a person comes to know Yeshua they don't seek spirituality but they seek to allow this Spirit, the Ruach Hakodesh, to be operative within them. The Holy Spirit is available to all who are ready to be guided by God's truth.
<blockquote>
However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me; for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you (John 16: 13,14).
</blockquote>
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1.</a> Zoberman, Israel, National Jewish Post and Opinion, June 9, 1999, p. 16
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2.</a> Alcoholics Anonymous statement of belief, Steps 2 and 3
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">3.</a> Personal correspondence between Moise Rosen and John Brodsky; July 1999
<a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">4.</a> Ibid
<a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">5.</a> This is from the widely told story of Yoske Ponderik, circa 1400
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">6.</a> Gordis, Daniel, Does the World Need the Jews?, Scribner, NY, 1997, p. 200
<a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7">7.</a> Good deeds, or literally, "commandment"
<a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8">8.</a> Judges 14:6, 19; 15:14"

Jewish Spirituality and the Holy Spirit

Jesus as Messiah in the Gospels

Kabbalah" means "received teachings" or simply "traditions" and is derived from the Hebrew "kabel" which means "to receive." It originally applied only to the Oral Law "received" after the destruction of the Second Temple, in the form of the Talmud. However, in the twelfth century the term "kabbalah" was also used to denote various mystical teachings that began to be "received" by the Jewish communities of that day. This second set of "received" teachings is the Kabbalah proper. Though it was fully developed in the Middle Ages, the first seeds of a mystical trend began to emerge in the talmudic literature, written well after the destruction of the Second Temple—from 150 A.D. to 600 A.D.
<h3>The Hekhalot Literature</h3>
The earliest mystical texts of Judaism are contained in the Hekhalot (heavenly places) literature which are collections of fragmentary midrashim—rabbinic writings of the Talmudic period. They center on mystical interpretations of certain biblical passages.
For example, while commenting on the chariot described in Ezekiel 1, Ishmael ben Elijah<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a> describes his ecstatic ascent into the heavenly places where he beholds the divine chariot, the heavenly places and the throne on which God is seated as well as his visions of the divine palaces and his personal experience of the Divine presence. The Hekhalot literature sets the scene for further "heavenly exploration."
<h3>Sepher Yetzirah</h3>
Another important mystical text, developed between the third and six centuries a.d. is the Sepher Yetzirah or the "Book of Creation." This canonical text for the later kabbalistic movement sought to explain the workings and the origin of the universe. It described the sefirot or "emanations," the ten so-called "manifestations of God." Knowledge of these mysteries was thought to confer magical powers on the initiated.
<h3>Neoplatonism and Gnosticism</h3>
Sepher Yetzirah was influenced heavily by neoplatonsim, a late Greek philosophical school that combined elements of Plato with Oriental belief systems. Plato believed that our physical world is not the primary place of existence. He posited a "higher" world where the true forms exist. Our world is, he thought, only a mirror of the true world "above." Sefer Yetzirah placed these ideas into a Jewish framework. The work was back-dated and its authorship ascribed (in typical Kabbalistic fashion) to an authoritative Jewish figure, in this case Abraham.
Gnosticism, another mystical trend of the time also influenced the Kabbalists. Gershon Sholem, one of the great modern scholars in the development of the Kabbalah defines gnosticism as "the possession of knowledge that cannot be obtained by ordinary intellectual means; the possession of a secret doctrine concerning the order of the celestial worlds and the means that provide access to it."<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a>
Gnosticism puffed-up the place of the individual and emphasized that he or she must gain secret knowledge and develop personal power in order to discover the road to self-enlightenment. Although the Kabbalah never removed its adherents from the community-at-large, as other gnostic sects did, Kabbalists latched onto the personal-experiential appeal of gnosticism and grafted the idea into the Jewish context.
And so it can be seen that "from the Talmudic period forward, Jews cultivated profoundly rich and highly diverse forms of mysticism."<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">3</a> With the rise of Islam and the consequent persecutions of the Jews, the religious center of the Jewish people shifted from Babylon to locations in Europe, specifically to Italy, Germany, Spain and France.
It was in twelfth and thirteenth century France and Spain that the Kabbalah finally came into its definitive expression. In his article on kabbalistic texts, scholar Lawrence Fine defines the term "Kabbalah" as "a specific historical movement which originated in the second half of the twelfth century in that area of southern France known as Provence, and in northern Spain in the thirteenth century."<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">4</a>
<h3>The Bahir</h3>
It was the appearance of The Book Bahir at that time, that signaled the first classical statement of kabbalistic beliefs and ideology.
"The Book Bahir, whose few pages seem to contain so much that is pertinent to the mystery of the origin of the Kabbalah, has the form of a midrash, namely, a collection of sayings or very brief homiletical expositions of biblical verses."<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">5</a> The title "Bahir" means "bright" and is taken from Job 37:21 which is the first biblical text cited. The authorship of The Bahir was attributed to Rabbi Nehunya ben ha-Kanah, a talmudic sage of the first century.<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">6</a>
The Bahir caused division within the Jewish community of France, with some hailing it as a brilliant text from times of yore, whilst others, like Meir ben Simon, a contemporary of the early French Kabbalists, decrying the book as heretical.<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7">7</a> The adherents to the Kabbalistic movement in France and Spain wrote, some two-hundred years after the publication of The Book Bahir that towards the middle of the thirteenth century the prophet Elijah appeared in visions to some of the leading men of Provence and that he had inspired them to write The Bahir. The historical evidence strongly suggests that the book was written in France during this time.
The Bahir soon became another canonical text for further kabbalistic studies and was accepted by many as being a work of much earlier date. The "Kabbalah" or received mystical traditions, were being penned, back-dated and received simultaneously! In fact, the precise move that had been made by the rabbis of the Talmud in order to validate their work as hailing from Mt. Sinai, was now repeated by the Kabbalists of France in order to authenticate their "new-found" teachings as given by the venerated rabbis of the Talmud. These men, who were grappling to reformulate Judaism after the destruction of the Temple, are construed by the Kabbalists as mystical genies who promulgated the mystical secrets of Judaism. Lawrence Fine remarks that The Bahir represent[s] the "emergence of a striking set of Gnostic motifs within the heart of rabbinic Judaism."<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8">8</a>
<h3>The Zohar</h3>
The Zohar (Book of Splendor) appeared on the kabbalistic scene around 1250 a.d. Lawrence Fine describes how Moses de Leon "began circulating manuscripts which he had written, but which he claimed were ancient midrashim 'interpretations of biblical texts.'" Moses pretended merely to be copying from a manuscript which, he argued, "had originated in the circle of the second-century Palestinian rabbi, Shimon bar Yohai, but had only recently found its way into Spain. In all likelihood, de Leon opted to write in this pseudepigraphic way out of the conviction that a work of antiquity would be more readily considered to be authoritative truth."<a href="#_edn9" name="_ednref9">9</a>
History has it that one Isaac ben Shmuel, who later became a leading 14th century Kabbalist, arrived in Spain after fleeing Mamluk's attack on the land of Israel. In his diary (Sefer Ha Yamim) we read that he was amazed to hear about the newly "discovered" manuscript of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai.
"The book had supposedly been written in Israel, but Isaac was from Israel and had never heard of it!"<a href="#_edn10" name="_ednref10">10</a> Isaac's diary informs us that he went to see Moses de Leon at his home, only to learn that he had died. His widow greeted Isaac at the door and in response to his request to see the original parchment of Shimon Bar Yohai, she informed him that the document had never existed but that the Zohar had been written solely out of her husband's head.
However, the effort to back-date a kabbalistic text again succeeded. Despite early warnings regarding the errors of the Zohar the book soon became acknowledged as the mystical revelations of the great sage Shimon bar Yohai. In the text, Shimon is pictured in various settings discoursing with his pupils at every opportunity on the great matters of mystical inquiry. The language of the text is Aramaic, "contrived, replete with medieval usages, in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and ideas."<a href="#_edn11" name="_ednref11">11</a> "Behind the veil of the Aramaic, the Hebrew of the medieval era can be clearly detected."<a href="#_edn12" name="_ednref12">12</a> The only Aramaic which Moses de Leon knew was that which he had learned from his talmudic studies. And so it was that one of the most important books of the Kabbalah came into being.
<h3>The Safed Period</h3>
The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 caused a rupture in the Jewish world. The defeat of the Mamluks and the conquest of the land of Israel by the Ottomans afforded the Jewish refugees from Europe an unexpected safe-haven in the Holy Land itself.
No longer under hostile Islamic dominion, a new center of Jewish learning sprang up. Safed was a thriving agricultural and commercial town situated in the Galilean hills about 20 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. Not only that, Safed was the burial place of a number of rabbis of the Talmudic period. In fact, a little outside the town lay the resting place of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, the supposed author of the Book of Splendor-the Zohar.
It was in Safed that the Zohar gained its kabbalistic preeminence. From there Moses Cordovero would compose his lengthy commentaries on what had become the central kabbalistic text. It was also from Safed that Rabbi Isaac Luria would develop his "redemptive" brand of kabbalistic philosophy. The climate of political upheaval and the massive forced removals of the Jewish people had given rise to speculation that the world was in the midst of the "birth-pangs" of the Messiah. Luria was hard-pressed to explain the terrible state of exile that characterized the Jewish people. He expanded the kabbalistic doctrine of the exile of the Shechinah (or Divine Presence) into a mystical theology of redemption and promoted a rationale for the performance of good deeds which was designed to hasten and even produce the coming of the Messiah.
<h3>Lurianic</h3>
Kabbalah would ultimately give rise to Sabbatianism, the messianic movement of the seventeenth century that proclaimed Shabbetai Zevi as King Messiah and in so doing, led Jewry into despondency for decades. Lurianic Kabbalah would also, through the popular mystical Chassidic movement, exert a strong influence on the future thinking of Judaism. Modern Judaism and its raison d'être is heavily grounded in the Lurianic notion that the Jewish people exist in order to prepare the world for the arrival of the Messiah.
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1. </a>A third generation talmudist, lived roughly between 120-200 A.D.
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2. </a>Origins of the Kabbalah; Gershon Scholem, Jewish Publ. Society, 1987, p.22
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">3. </a>Back to the Sources; ed. Barry W. Holtz, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1984, p.307
<a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">4. </a>Back to the Sources; p.308
<a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">5. </a>Origins, p.49
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">6. </a>Ibid, p.39
<a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7">7. </a>The Bahir suggested the possibility of the transmigration or reincarnation of souls, a doctrine foreign to biblical Judaism itself, which teaches the resurrection of the dead.
<a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8">8. </a>Back to the Sources; p.308
<a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9">9. </a>Ibid., p.310
<a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10">10. </a>Zohar, Book of Enlightenment; Daniel Chanan Matt; Paulist Press, Toronto,1983, p.3
<a href="#_ednref11" name="_edn11">11. </a>Back to the Sources; p.313
<a href="#_ednref12" name="_edn12">12. </a>The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia (7th Edition), Ed. Dr. Geoffrey Wigoder, 1992, p.999

A History of the Kabbalah

They didn't intend to start a new religion. They had made a discovery. As far as they were concerned, it was the discovery of a lifetime and they were excited. The way they explained it showed that they had been on a Jewish quest, seeking a Jewish goal.
Pinchas, or Philip, expressed it well to his brother Nathaniel when he told of this discovery, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—<a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-called-a-nazarene/">Jesus of Nazareth</a>, son of Joseph.
<h3>Something good from Nazareth?</h3>
In response, Nathaniel quipped, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
And Philip seriously replied, "Come and see."
But even before that, Andrew had told his brother Simon about the same discovery. He said, "We have found the Moshiach," which is translated "the Christ."
Here we see two different Jews, each speaking his understanding of the same person. That person was <a href="/answers/jesus-cant-be-the-messiah-he-didnt-bring-peace">Israel's promised Messiah</a>.
But exactly what did Pinchas mean when he said, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law…wrote"? Where in Torah did Moses mention the Messiah? While it wouldn't be disputed that many, if not all, of the prophets talked about Israel's coming deliverer, one's thoughts do not readily go to Moses.
<h3>A deliverer</h3>
Yes, Moses did speak of a <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-a-prophet-like-moses/">deliverer to come</a>. Tucked into the midst of the summary of the Law in the eighteenth chapter of Devarim (Deuteronomy), talking about the punishment of false prophets, Moses made a remarkable prophecy:
<blockquote>
"The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like unto me from the midst, of your brethren. Him you shall hear."
</blockquote>
What did Moshe Rabeynu mean when he said, "like unto me"? Did this mean that the Prophet who would come would be an older man? (Moses was eighty years old when he brought the Israelites out of Egypt.) Did it mean that the Prophet would be hot-tempered and impatient? (Certainly Moses was that way.) Did it mean that the Prophet would be trained in the ways of Egyptian royalty? The answer to all of the above is "No." The text describes how that Prophet would be like Moses, as it recalls the experience of a nation that has been memorialized and burned into our consciousness.
<blockquote>
"The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.'"And the LORD said to me: 'What they have spoken is good.
'I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him.
'And it shall be [that] whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require [it] of him." (Deuteronomy 18:15-19)
</blockquote>
How have Jewish commentators interpreted that prophecy? Most contemporary commentators believe that Joshua and other prophets fulfilled the Scripture. However, this was not always the case. The late Rachmiel Frydland, in his book, What the Rabbis Know About the Messiah, pointed out: "Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon (RALBAG), of the fourteenth century, identified the Prophet as Messiah." He went on to give RALBAG's commentary:
<blockquote>
'A Prophet from the midst of thee.' In fact, the Messiah is such a Prophet as it is stated in the Midrash of the verse, 'Behold my Servant shall prosper' (Isaiah 52:13).…Moses, by the miracles which he wrought, brought a single nation to the worship of God, but the Messiah will draw all peoples to the worship of God.<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a>
</blockquote>
The Midrashic passage that RALBAG cites, referring to Messiah as Prophet, states:
<blockquote>
It is written, 'Behold, my servant shall deal wisely, He shall be exalted, and extolled, and be very high' (Isaiah 52:13). It means, He shall be more exalted than Abraham of whom it is written, 'I lift up my hand' (Genesis 14:22). He shall be more extolled than Moses of whom it is said, 'As a nursing father beareth the nursing child' (Numbers 11:12). 'And shall be very high'—that is, Messiah shall be higher than the ministering angels.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a>
</blockquote>
Whether or not one accepts the premise that the Deuteronomy passage predicts the Messiah, what can we know about the similarities between Moses and the Prophet who was to be like him?
<h3>Fear and trembling</h3>
That "likeness" points to a time, a place and an event. The context of Deuteronomy 18 demonstrates that Israel as a nation <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v08-n10/truth-hurts">did not want to confront or be confronted by God.</a> It was a fearful time of thunder, lightning, storms and earthquakes as the whole nation was gathered in the desert. The dark mountain of Sinai seemed to be the center of the storm and seismic activity. The people of Israel were frightened and rightly so, because they sensed that they were encountering something holy and awesome.
That word, "awesome," can hardly contain the meaning and depth of their fear. They knew that they were being summoned to <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v12-n04/evidence-for-gods-existence">meet their Creator</a>, possibly "panim l' panim" (face to face). They were terrified, for they knew from the Patriarchs that no one could look upon God's face and live. Yet here was the Almighty, the King of the ages, coming to confront them. They trembled in one accord, saying, "Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God. Don't let me see this great fire anymore lest I die."
Never was the nation so unified in their desire. Never was a nation so fearful. The fear of the Lord abounded in every heart. Every person knew that he or she was <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v21-n10/the-good-the-bad-and-the-unleavened">unclean before the Almighty</a>, so they spoke as one, asking that Moses be their intercessor—their go-between, their intermediary. Whatever God had for them could be told to Moses, who in turn would tell the people God's message as he had done before in the events leading up to their redemption. And God did speak to Moses, confiding in him that what the people had asked was good.
<h3>A mediator</h3>
Then the Almighty also confirmed the words Moses had spoken about the Prophet who would be the speaker of God's word and the intermediary between God and his people. But the king of heaven added something about this intermediary when he said, "And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him."
So it seems on that most serious day in Israel's history, it was decided that an intercessor should speak for God to the people, and everything the intercessor would speak or require would be God's word and God's requirement. <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v06-n04/do-we-need-a-mediator">God's word and will would be transmitted through that very special intercessor</a>. Thus, the primary way that the Prophet (Messiah) was to be "like Moses" was in the role of go-between or intermediary.
In Bible days, every priest was an intermediary or intercessor who made representation to God on behalf of the people. The priest would bring the petitions and offerings of repentance of Israel and stand in the Holy Place on behalf of the people.
The prophets were also intercessors who spoke to the people on behalf of God. They mediated God's word and often called the nation back to a relationship with the Almighty asking and exhorting the people to turn from sin and return to the covenant relationship.
Kings like David and Solomon were also like Moses in that they led and administered the Law to the whole nation. Because a king is a judge in peace and a commander in war, Israel's kings acted in God's stead to mediate God's will and hence were intercessors acting on God's behalf.
<h3>Sin bearer</h3>
The word Messiah, or Moshiach, means "anointed." Prophets, priests and kings were all anointed to show their consecration. Moses, in a sense, fulfilled all three functions at the same time.
But there was one way in which the Prophet to come, the Messiah, would most resemble Moses. The Moshiach Yeshua resembles Moses the most in that Moses <a href="/jewish-resources/messianic-prophecy/the-messiah-would-be-a-willing-sacrifice">offered himself to die for the sins of the people.</a>
For all of the things that are praiseworthy about Moses' life, one episode is often overlooked. Perhaps the rabbis commented less on this section because of the embarrassment of Israel's idolatry which preceded the following passage:
<blockquote>
"Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, 'You have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.' Then Moses returned to the LORD and said, 'Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.' And the LORD said to Moses, 'Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book." (Exodus 32:30-33)
</blockquote>
In order that Israel might be saved from the wrath of God, Moses stood ready to offer his own life—to take the punishment of the people's sins on himself if God could find no other way to forgive them. He asked God that his life be an expiation for the sins of the people. As a priest he could have made grandiose offerings—thousands of lambs or bulls—but instead he simply offered his own life.
<h3>Shepherds and sheep</h3>
We need to remember that forty years of Moses' life were spent as a shepherd in those same mountains and deserts of Midian. In leading the people, he showed the mindset and attitudes of a good shepherd. The job description of a "good shepherd" calls for the kind of serious commitment in which one must be willing to give his own life for the sheep. Yeshua explained this most succinctly as recorded in the New Testament book of John:
<blockquote>
"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have [it] more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, [he who is] not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My [sheep], and am known by My own."As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep." (John 10:10-15)
</blockquote>
The truly good shepherd puts the welfare of the flock above his own.
When Philip told his brother Nathaniel, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph" he recognized that Moshe Rabeynu and Moshiach Yeshua were alike. But he probably did not realize until later the full implications of what he was saying.
We see that Yeshua was a prophet like Moses, only better. Moses died, but the B'rit Chadasha (New Testament) tells us that Moshiach Yeshua is alive forever to make intercession for us. Yeshua is the one who can lead us out of the Egypt of everyday life. He can break the shackles of the bondage of sin. On life's journey to the promised land (heaven), he can be our guide and provider, and though his provision will not be manna and quail, there will be bread from heaven to <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v01-n10/what-is-shalom-the-true-meaning">feed our souls and restore our spirits.</a>
There is one big difference between Yeshua and Moses: Moses led the people to the promised land, but he wasn't allowed to enter himself. That was because wise and good though Moses was, even he had sinned. Moshiach Yeshua, on the other hand, is the perfect mediator because <a href="/answers/why-did-jesus-need-to-die-for-our-sins">he was innocent, without sin, and took our deserved punishment upon himself.</a> He is waiting in heaven for all those who put their trust in him. When we see Yeshua there, certainly Moshe Rabeynu will be there too, because he was the one who knew and foretold his coming and trusted in him.
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1.</a> What the Rabbis Know About The Messiah by Rachmiel Frydland, (Cincinatti, OH: Messianic Publishing Company, Messianic Literature Outreach, 1991) page 22
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2.</a> See Midrash Tanhuma, (Israel: KTAV Publishing Company, 1989) pp. 166-67

A Prophet Like Unto Moses

A Look at the Trinity From a Messianic Jewish Perspective

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<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff" width="175px"> </th>
<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff">Theravada Buddhism</th>
<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff">Mahayana Buddhism</th>
<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff">Hinduism</th>
<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff">Traditional Judaism</th>
<th style="background:#1295d8;color:#fff">The Gospel</th>
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<tr>
<th>Meaning of birth</th>
<td>We are reborn from a previous life until we reach nirvana (extinction of all desire and release from suffering). The cycle of death and rebirth is called samsara.</td>
<td>We are reborn from a previous life until we reach nirvana (extinction of all desire and release from suffering). The cycle of death and rebirth is called samsara.</td>
<td>We are reborn from a previous life until we realize our “oneness” with Brahman. The cycle of death and rebirth is called samsara.</td>
<td>We are made in the image of God and come into the world with the capacity to opt for good or evil.</td>
<td>We are made in God’s image but come into the world inclined to sin because of the sin of Adam. Redemption is needed.</td>
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<th>Way to Truth</th>
<td>Follow the teachings of Buddha, e.g., the Four Truths and the Eightfold Path. The written Scripture, the Tripitaka (“three baskets”), includes the teachings of Buddha.</td>
<td>Through the study of scriptural texts running to more than five thousand volumes.</td>
<td>Spiritual disciplines like yoga enable one to achieve the enlightenment and truth needed. Suffering and samsara result from ignorance of self-truth. Vedas are scriptures that hold final authority.</td>
<td>Bible (Hebrew Scriptures). Oral Law provides the authoritative interpretation for knowing how to live. Truth is seen in deeds more than in creed, although a cardinal tenet of belief is the Unity of God.</td>
<td>Bible (Old and New Testaments) as divinely revealed. It is final arbiter, although various creeds give expression to its teaching. Yeshua is the ultimate embodiment of truth.</td>
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<th>Goal of spirituality</th>
<td>Deliverance from samsara through reaching nirvana.</td>
<td>Deliverance from samsara through reaching nirvana is not to be sought for the individual alone.</td>
<td>Deliverance from cycle of death and rebirth and realizing “oneness” with Brahman.</td>
<td>To know God. To serve God and others.</td>
<td>To know God. To serve God and others.</td>
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<th>Way to spirituality</th>
<td>Practice of some disciplines leads to nirvana. No personal God. One can achieve deliverance from samsara and become a Buddhist saint. But this deliverance is only for the few who can attain it.</td>
<td>Seeking personal deliverance and assisting in others’ salvation. Ideal follower is a bodhisattva, one who forsakes his own salvation to aid others. Salvation is not merited, open to all.</td>
<td>Practice of spiritual disciplines such as yoga delivers one from the cycle of death and rebirth by helping one to realize his or her “oneness” with Brahman. Many incarnations and deities may be worshipped.</td>
<td>Observance of mitzvot, study of Torah and other holy books leads to blessing in life. Prayer, repentance, and the need to perform the mitzvot with the proper intention or kavannah are also important.</td>
<td>Faith in Yeshua as God’s requisite for atonement and salvation. Continued spiritual growth and blessing come through living a life of service and love.</td>
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<th>Meaning of death</th>
<td>Leads to rebirth from which we can be delivered by reaching nirvana. Rebirth is not by chance but is based on the universal law of cause and effect (karma).</td>
<td>Differs from Theravada Buddhism in accepting the existence of the individual soul, in which case rebirth is also called transmigration.</td>
<td>Leads to rebirth of the soul, or transmigration, from which we can be delivered by realizing our “oneness” with Brahman or ultimate reality.</td>
<td>Cessation of bodily life and entrance into the “world to come” or some other place.</td>
<td>Cessation of bodily life and entrance into either heaven or hell.</td>
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<th>Afterlife</th>
<td>Until nirvana is reached, after life is rebirth. Nirvana itself is neither continued existence of the soul nor annihilation.</td>
<td>On the way to nirvana, the individual soul may pass through a variety of heavens and hells.</td>
<td>Afterlife is rebirth until deliverance is achieved. Then one merges into Brahman, the All.</td>
<td>Many beliefs, including bodily resurrection. Few teach of a heaven and hell. Generally, Torah obedience leads to life in the world to come.</td>
<td>Bodily resurrection after death and judgment. Heaven and hell are eternal destinies to which all people go based on choices made in this life.</td>
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Comparison Chart: Buddhism, Hinduism, Traditional Judaism, and the Gospel

<h3>A quiet controversy continues.</h3>
While there is not much noise it moves with staccato fury as rabbis confront one another over the question, 'Should Jews seek converts from among gentiles?" One leading proponent of proselytizing said,
<blockquote>
This is my central thesis: that Judaism from its very beginnings was a missionary religion; that our Tanakh and subsequent rabbinic literature underscored the compelling need for such conversionary activity—indeed, the prophets made Israel's mission a clarion call; and that it was only when our enemies instituted severe and often lethal restrictions against us that our conversionary zeal waned. But such restrictions no longer inhibit us. Why not resume our traditional vocation of being champions of Judaism?<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a>
</blockquote>
<h3>Judaism. A missionizing religion???</h3>
Everyone knows that Judaism doesn't seek converts. On the contrary, gentiles who want to become Jewish are discouraged with warnings of a demanding life and of being part of a despised people. According to the rabbinical formula, they must be turned away three times to guard against an impulsive decision to convert. If they continue, then they are instructed in Torah, and if they persist still, they are "baptized" in a mikveh. The conversion requires them to renounce their former religion, regard themselves as being of the lineage of Abraham, view their birth family as aliens or "strangers" and, for male converts, undergo circumcision. It is only those gentiles who insist and persist that are allowed to become Jews. At least, that was the way it was earlier in this century. Yet, Israel had a mandate to missionize gentiles in times past.
<h3>In Bible Times</h3>
The Book of Genesis describes the intention of the Almighty: that Israel bring the message of the One True and Only God to the nations. In God's covenant with Abraham and his descendants, the LORD told the patriarch, "and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a> Not only did the Bible portray Abraham as a missionary, but his descendants also received a missionary mandate.
The rabbinic writers agree. R. Hunia in the midrash on Genesis 12:5 comments,
<blockquote>
Abraham converted the men and Sarah the women. Jacob too made converts: Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, 'Put away the strange gods that are among you.…And they gave unto Jacob all the foreign gods.<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">3</a>
</blockquote>
The commentary goes on to demonstrate that Isaac was a missionary as well. This theme of seeking converts and impressing the gentiles runs through the whole of the Hebrew Scripture.
<blockquote>
Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests.…" 
(Exod. 19:5-6)
</blockquote>
Being a treasured possession is not a passive role. God has a mission for his special people. He assigns the Jewish people to fill the role of priests. In other words, the Jewish people are to serve as intercessors for the nations, mediating at the altar on their behalf.
To serve in this way requires Israel to be a holy people. To be holy means to be set apart and dedicated to the service of God.
<blockquote>
The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. 
(Deut. 28:9)
</blockquote>
The prophetic writings amplify this missionary task. In the book of Isaiah, God promises to make Israel "a light for the Gentiles."<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">4</a> This is also seen in passages of Joel, Micah, Jeremiah and the Psalms.
Have we always been eager to perform the task? The call of Jonah to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh is a case of a reluctant Jewish missionary. Nevertheless, Jonah was reminded by besetting circumstances that God had commissioned him. Even though he took a circuitous route to obedience, he still preached repentance to the Assyrians and subsequently saw gentiles come to faith in the God of Israel.
Noted historians and scholars tell us that missionary policies extended well past the biblical era. They trace strong missionary activity on the part of the Jewish community throughout the Second Temple period and beyond, and the Latin and Greek literature substantiate it. The Idumeans, Moabites and Itureans converted in 140 B.C.E. In the later Second Temple period, Josephus cite numerous Jewish converts in Antioch. According to twentieth-century Jewish historian, Salo Baron, as much as 10 percent of the population of ancient Rome was composed of Jews, many of whom were converts.
<h3>Missionizing in Judaism</h3>
Proselytizing wasn't merely an occasional event in Jewish history. It was the standard way that Jews related to the gentile community, and the efforts were intense and organized.
<blockquote>
As the Jewish center of learning and population shifted to Babylonia, the evidence of intense proselytization continues. The Geonim actually set quotas. We note that Rabbis Judah and Joseph…and Rav Ashi…chided the people for not bringing in sufficient converts.<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">5</a>
</blockquote>
Missionizing that began in Torah times did not end with the Christianization of the Roman Empire. Even in those pockets of paganism surrounded by Christian or Islamic nations, there was unencumbered proselytization. Among the pagan converts were the Khazars in the Caucuses (eighth century) and the Aksunite Kingdom of Ethiopia from whom emerged the Falashas.
Proselytizing continued throughout the Crusades almost up to the Reformation:
<blockquote>
"The six centuries following the conversion of Constantine saw some dramatic evidences of the spread of Judaism…The mass conversion of Arabs to Judaism in southern Arabia under Dhu Nowas;…From the Christian side,…the efforts to ban relations between Jews and Christians as finally formulated by the Fourth Lateran Council [1215], and the constant concerns of the Church about Judaizing point in this direction."<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">6</a>
There is additional documentation that Jewish proselytism continued well into the Middle Ages. The response of the German Tosafists, which was written in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, include the mention of about twenty proselytes to Judaism.<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7">7</a>
</blockquote>
<h3>Why Did Missionary Activity Stop?</h3>
There were many impediments and obstacles to Jews seeking proselytes, including external pressures. At best, Jews lived in gentile communities at the suffrage of the people and rulers. The Jewish way of life was one of anxiously watching events in the dominant culture, ready to leave as soon as the tenuous welcome was withdrawn.
The Roman Empire seemed to favor the Jewish people over other conquered people; however, that tolerance was always precarious. The Roman leaders realized that Jewish people had a loyalty to their own identity that was far stronger than any allegiance to Rome. They also realized that a convert to Judaism was not merely voicing a change in his or her religious opinion:
<blockquote>
The Romans knew that conversion to Judaism meant adherence not merely to a religion but also to a political state; hence, once Judaea was annexed, conversion had dangerous political overtones the Romans could hardly tolerate.…"<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8">8</a>
</blockquote>
Roman intolerance took two forms, the first of which was simply to expel Jewish people from certain provinces. However the Romans rethought that strategy, inasmuch as they did not necessarily wish to lose the benefits that Jewish people normally bring to society. Rather than expulsion, a more workable strategy was to prohibit Jews from making converts.
The first specific ban on proselytizing was by the Emperor Septimius Severus in 198/199 C.E. Severus gave no reason for the edict, and the ban was not effective. Jewish missionary endeavors were specifically banned when Rome adopted Christianity as the official state religion. In 329, a law was passed that Christians who joined the "nefarious sect" were to suffer the same "deserved" punishment as those responsible for the conversion. The punishment was not spelled out, but apparently left to the discretion of individual judges.
Constantius II was more specific in meting out punishment. In edicts beginning in 339, Jewish men were prohibited from marrying non-Jewish women. In 353 Constantius specified that all Christians who converted to Judaism would have all their property confiscated. Thirty years later, Gratian made it illegal to bequeath anything to converts to Judaism. In 388 it became a crime punishable by death for Christian men to marry Jewish women.
Several of the early church leaders seemed determined to prevent the spread of Judaism. Though they could not pass laws, their anti-Jewish propaganda was used to justify ill treatment of Jews and presumably of Jewish proselytes. The vitriolic anti-Jewish diatribes of some of the early church fathers might well have been, in part, a reaction to the success that Judaism enjoyed in making converts of people who formerly professed to be Christians.
The rise of Islam in the seventh century added other obstacles to the missionizing efforts of Jews. In 624 Mohammed began his persecution of the Arabian Jews. By 628, the death sentence was decreed for those Jews who accepted a Moslem convert to Judaism. Moslems who converted on their own would have their earthly possessions confiscated.
The Jewish religion did not respond immediately to these measures; however, centuries of suffering and persecution took their toll. Proselytizing was "dangerous." It was not something done by a Jew who wanted to survive. And the Jewish people are survivors.
Once our leadership saw the high cost of proselytizing, we began to acquire a nonproselytizing stance. We started boasting that we do not proselytize and it became part of our identity. Today we see the internalization of the once external prohibitions in a comment like this:
<blockquote>
But just because Jews actively proselytized long ago does not mean it is correct to do so now. The times are obviously different, and—hopefully—religious "etiquette" also is different.<a href="#_edn9" name="_ednref9">9</a>
</blockquote>
Is it really a matter of religious etiquette or concern for Christians who might abandon their roots? The underlying supposition is that if we don't missionize gentiles, they won't missionize us. The converse of that supposition is that if we invite gentiles to become Jews, we will be inviting either (1) their anger and a backlash of anti-Semitism or (2) their enthusiasm as we enter a playing field of proselytizing on which they have the bigger team.
Either way, there is the idea that if Jews do not proselytize, others won't either. And if they try, they can be shamed by a cry of "Unfair! You are doing something we would never do to you!"
But why would anyone think that non-Jews would follow the example of Jews in not proselytizing? More likely they would conclude that Jews simply didn't have anything to offer. Rabbi Schindler advocates that after centuries of barely missionizing and persuading ourselves that it is un-Jewish to seek converts, we need to focus once again on reaching out.
Schindler rightly asserts that the external pressures of persecution doesn't exist in our pluralistic society. Yet those who oppose this view seem unwilling to invest in outreach. Why?
Perhaps some of us stopped caring about what God wants for others, reducing religion to a matter of human preference.
Have we accepted a "to each his own" mentality? Could it be that the real reason Jewish people resist being proselytizers is that we stopped thinking about what God wants for us and for others?
The original Jewish missionaries were prophets who knew they were sent by God and that their fate was in God's hands. Whether or not their message brought earthly retribution, keeping silent was not a real option; it was a rebellion. They feared (in the biblical sense), trusted and loved God. They simply cared far too much to be silent.
Some, like the prophet Jonah, might have preferred to be insulated from the outer world. He had no reason, humanly speaking, to care what the people of Nineveh knew or believed about God. But apparently, God cared. And if Jonah had cared a little bit more about God, he would been motivated by God's concern for Nineveh. Jonah, the lapsed prophet, needed a nudge to get back on track.
Elijah, one of the greatest prophets, also had moments of uncertainty when he felt that all he had to show for his efforts was persecution. He, too, was a lapsed prophet who needed a nudge from God.
Is it possible that we have become a nation of lapsed prophets who need to get reacquainted with God in order to get back on track?
If we could know that God truly cares for all people and has a very specific plan for world reconciliation in which we have a key role, how could we possibly advocate that everyone mind their own spiritual business? Wouldn't it be logical for us to want to reach out?
<h3>Jewish Proselytizing Isn't PC</h3>
We live in a society in which it is politically correct to embrace the notion that there are many right paths to truth, including the truth about God. It is politically incorrect to believe in the uniqueness of one path over the others, for that is not only considered disrespectful but also harmful to the unity we all strive to attain. One's rightness must be viewed as purely subjective. "Certain things are right for me, and other things are right for you."
The above is a tentative view of what is right, good and real, and it doesn't allow for any strong conviction or belief. Any assertion that there is one right, one good, one truth or one way offends public sensibilities. Hence any form of proselytizing is deemed unacceptable. Yet Christians who say that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life maintain that they are not arrogant because this true faith did not originate with them but with God who is the God of the Jews.
It is a definite belief in God as revealed in the Scriptures and the conviction that he has certain expectations for us that compels Christians and others to missionize. Unless a Jew believes that the words of Scripture are true and relevant, attempts to missionize would be nothing more than an exercise in ethnocentricity.
If the biblical mandate to be God's treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy people is not true, we have no reason to maintain our identity as Jews. Why do we need the nation Israel? Why do we fear intermarriage and assimilation? And why do we allow ourselves to be so persecuted by persevering in our Jewishness?
The God of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekkah, Jacob, Rachel and Joseph is! There are Jews who believe with perfect faith that God's plan for our people continues to be in effect. These Jews see the biblical promises not as being limited to us but as applicable for the whole world.
If our portion in life is to be a holy people set apart for God's use, a royal priesthood, a light to the nations, how dare we insulate ourselves? If we were created to be a candle in the hand of the Holy One, then our destiny is to pierce the darkness with the flame of his everlasting light. To turn from that destiny is not merely a matter of disobedience—it is a denial of who we are.
As Jews, we can be the most cause-oriented people in the world. We can fight harder for human rights, dig in deeper to try to end world hunger, concern ourselves with our exploited environment and work more passionately for world peace. But unless we see that there is a God who cares even more than we do about these things, we have little more to offer the world than our good intentions and efforts, which simply will never be enough.
Only when we perceive that God's plan of reconciliation for the planet begins with our reconciliation to him, do we understand we have a mission. By cleaving to him and serving him, we have a real hope of accomplishing that mission.
Editor's note: Moishe Rosen and Ruth Rosen contributed to this article.
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1.</a> Schindler, Alexander, "Rabbi Schindler Defends His Plan for Proselytizing," Northern California Jewish Bulletin, 5 November 1993
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2.</a> Genesis 12:1-3
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">3.</a> Midrash Rabbah, Genesis, Ch. XXXIV, 4. p.771.
<a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">4.</a> Isaiah 42:6
<a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">5.</a> Perelmutter, Hayim Goren, "Judaism's Missionary Tradition." Sh'ma, January 1994, p. 6.
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">6.</a> Ibid.
<a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7">7.</a> Feldman, Louis H., Jews and Gentiles in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Louis H. Feldman, p.413.
<a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8">8.</a> Ibid., p. 385.
<a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9">9.</a> Editorial. Baltimore Jewish Times, 29 October 1993.

When Jews Were Proselytizers

The identity of the mother of Immanuel in Isaiah 7:14 has been a subject of debate over the centuries: Was the prophet Isaiah speaking of a virgin conceiving or not? The Gospel of Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, linking Jesus' conception to the sign the prophet Isaiah had given centuries earlier. Those who believe the gospel account regard Isaiah 7:14 as <a href="/answers/top-40-most-helpful-messianic-prophecies">a messianic passage fulfilled by Jesus</a>. Others disagree. Did the prophet intend that word to mean virgin" or merely "young maiden"? Are Christian interpreters reading too much into this verse? Zhava Glaser presents the case for you to decide for yourself:
The word almah is rare—usually translated as "maiden" it appears only seven times in the Hebrew Scriptures, three<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a> of these in the plural and four<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a> in the singular.<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">3</a> Some say the word almah is merely the feminine of elem, or "young man."<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">4</a>
In the few verses where almah appears, the word clearly denotes a young woman who is not married but is of marriageable age. Although almah does not implicitly denote virginity, it is never used in the Scriptures to describe a "young, presently married woman." It is important to remember that in the Bible, a young Jewish woman of marriageable age was presumed to be chaste.
The prophet could have chosen a different word had he wanted to describe <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v05-n06/the-genealogy-of-the-messiah">Immanuel's mother</a> as a virgin. Betulah is a more common way to refer to a woman who has never been with a man (both in biblical and modern Hebrew).
<h3>Two Types of Virgins</h3>
In the <a href="/answers/what-are-some-passages-in-the-hebrew-bible-that-talk-about-the-messiah/">Hebrew Scriptures</a>, there are two types of betulot—the true virgin, and the "betrothed virgin" (betulah m'orashah). In Deuteronomy 22, a betrothed virgin is referred to as a man's "wife" (ishah). The state of betrothal was just as serious and sacred as the married state<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">5</a> and the difference between the two appears, in some instances, to be a mere formality. The word betulah, commonly understood as virgin, is still not precise.
Joel 1:8 presents another example of the word betulah in a context which does not convey the usual meaning of virginity: "Mourn like a virgin (betulah) in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth."
Some commentators say this refers to a betrothed virgin, thus making the lamentation all the more poignant because the marriage had never been consummated. The use of ba'al (husband) in this verse, however, seems to imply the opposite. The word ba'al is never used in the Jewish Scriptures of the betrothed state, but only of a married man.
Therefore, even if the prophet Isaiah had used the word betulah, it could have been argued that he did not intend to say that this woman had never had sexual relations with a man.
A look at the Septuagint translation of almah by Semitics scholar Dr. Cyrus Gordon, provides additional insight on the matter:
<blockquote>
The commonly held view that "virgin" is Christian, whereas "young woman" is Jewish is not quite true. The fact is that the Septuagint, which is the Jewish translation made in pre-Christian Alexandria, takes almah to mean "virgin" here. Accordingly, the New Testament follows Jewish interpretation in Isaiah 7:14. Therefore, the New Testament rendering of almah as "virgin" for Isaiah 7:14 rests on the older Jewish interpretation, which in turn is now borne out for precisely this annunciation formula by a text that is not only pre-Isaianic but is pre-Mosaic in the form that we now have it on a clay tablet.<a href="#endnote6">6</a>
</blockquote>
Jewish and Christian scholars would be hard pressed to deny that the Greek term parthenos and the Hebrew term almah may have been used interchangeably by those Jewish communities that adopted the Septuagint.
On the other hand, J. Gresham Machen, who has done a definitive study on this passage, asserts that the translation in the Septuagint of the Hebrew word almah as parthenos cannot be used to show a Jewish doctrine of the virgin birth, for one also finds the word parthenos used in the Septuagint to translate the word na'arah, which merely means "young girl."
<h3>A Credible Account</h3>
For Machen, the very fact that the passage does not have a history of Jewish messianic interpretation and the very unlikelihood of this passage being interpreted messianically makes <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v10-n05/is-the-new-testament-jewish">the New Testament</a> account all the more credible. In other words, <a href="/publications/issues/issues-v12-n06/jesus-as-messiah-in-the-gospels">the gospel writer, Matthew,</a> was not trying to fit Jesus' life into a traditional mold, but rather turned to Scripture to explain what had taken place in the event of the virgin birth.
One cannot assert that the prophet was speaking of a virgin technically on the basis of the word almah. Nor can a serious student lightly dismiss the word as having no possible reference to a miraculous conception. 

<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1. </a>Psalm 68:25 (Hebrew, v. 26), Song of Solomon 1:3, Song of Solomon 6:8.
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2. </a>Genesis 24:43; Exodus 2:8; Isaiah 7:14; Proverbs 30:19.
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">3. </a>For a thorough study of these passages, see Young, Edward J., The Immanuel Prophecy: Isaiah 7:14-16 (Second Article). The Westminster Theological Journal, 16:23-50 (November 1953), p. 171-177.
<a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">4. </a>LaSor, William Sanford, n.d., Isaiah 7:14—"Young Woman" or "Virgin," Unpublished manuscript, Fuller Theological Seminary, p. 5-6.
<a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">5. </a>Young, p. 33.
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">6. </a>Gordon, Cyrus H., Almah in Isaiah 7:14, The Journal of Bible &amp; Religion, Vol. 21 (April 1953), p. 106.

Almah: Virgin or Young Maiden?

Gus was a nice guy. But he was also a pest.  As a telecommunications engineer I could not have asked for a better co-worker. Gus was proficient and always in a good mood. As a Jew, however, I would have preferred that he talk about almost anything else while working by my side. He was always telling me that Yeshua (Jesus) was the real Messiah!
For months we carried on a friendly debate. At lunch we would analyze current Israeli politics. While writing specifications, we would tangle with some ancient prophecies. Then, before going home, he liked to pose an intellectual challenge for me to ponder, usually about the Messiah, often as difficult to comprehend as electricity is to see.
I'll have to admit that Gus did his homework and made his points. I was soon able to see that Yeshua was someone I needed to consider seriously as a great man, a brilliant teacher and maybe even a prophet. Gus actually had me reading the New Testament. But there remained a grinding question that is a major roadblock for every Jew:
<h3>How can the Messiah be both human and divine?</h3>
That cut against the grain of all the teaching I had ever received in Hebrew school and synagogue. It was utterly beyond my natural understanding. But, to my consternation, that fact didn't cause Gus to waver one bit. Like an electric circuit, he kept all of his arguments flowing. And he knew just when to shut off the flow of new ideas and let me reflect and respond.
One day I quizzed Gus, hoping to discover a flaw in his biblical specifications. My friend read from the New Testament where Yeshua says, I and the Father are one."<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">1</a> He quoted Yeshua telling a crowd, "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.…I tell you the truth…before Abraham was born, I am!"<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">2</a> He noted that Yeshua called himself divine, yet lived in a body of flesh and blood.
Yeshua's words could not have been clearer, but there still seemed to be a missing loop in the logic. As an engineer I could make an attempt to explain how electricity flows. But just as there is a mysterious element to electricity, it seemed to me that there was an even more unexplainable, even mystical dimension to the Messiah's twin natures. Frankly, to my Jewish mind it seemed impossible.
Gus paused, then slowly spoke words I have never forgotten: "If you truly want to know who the real Messiah is, then you must read the New Testament record. Take note of what Yeshua did for the people of Israel of his day and what he said to them. I will not say anything more because I don't want to argue this point. I believe that Yeshua himself will speak to your heart."
<h3>The Human Side of Yeshua</h3>
Usually I could put aside Gus' challenges until I wanted to face them. This one could not wait. Leafing through the New Testament I found that the Messiah not only called himself divine, but he more often referred to himself as the "Son of Man." He was clearly claiming to be human.
The label "Son of Man" could have been an attempt to identify with Ezekiel the prophet, I thought. Perhaps Yeshua wanted to empathize with our needs, our hurts and our victories, I reasoned.
However, I knew the answer wasn't that pragmatic. It was more elusive, like defining electricity. So I decided to research what Jewish religious leaders of that day had said about who the Messiah really is.
I started with the exile of Jewish people to Babylon, which was a judgment for trafficking with idols. After that, our leaders wanted to protect the people from ever again demeaning the holiness of God by the sin of idolatry—a good idea, I concurred. To achieve this they developed a systematic de-anthropomorphization of God (removing any human way of describing God); they emphasized God's total otherness.
Yet I seemed to remember the prophets speaking of God in warm human terms. I checked and, sure enough, I found phrases such as "His eyes are upon us," "His hand helps us," "His feet lead us," "His finger points to His revelation."
What had happened to these attributes that clearly connected God with man? Maybe this de-anthropomorphization wasn't such a good idea after all. Even basic words defining God were altered:
<ul>
	<li>Memra, or the word, refers to any part of God's being. Mouth, for example, is changed to memra.<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">3</a></li>
	<li>Presence refers to the "face" of God;<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">4</a> "to see the King" is to see the glory of the shekinah.<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">5</a> Instead of "the LORD of hosts who dwells on Mount Zion," the reference is to his shekinah dwelling on Mount Zion.<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">6</a></li>
	<li>"The LORD who sees" becomes "it was seen before Him."</li>
	<li>"The kingdom of God" is replaced with "the kingdom of heaven."</li>
	<li>Instead of referring to God directly, the word "power" is employed.</li>
</ul>
By the first century, this de-anthropomorphisizing vocabulary created a sense of division between God and man. While Jewish people certainly considered God as a person, the emphasis on his holiness was shifted to mean God was far away, wholly other. Using this line of thinking, if a boundary line is drawn, God appears above the line while humankind appears below it. This boundary establishes a great gulf whereby a human cannot become God and God cannot become human. No wonder it was so difficult for so many Jews of that day, and today, to accept the Messiah as both human and divine!
This could explain why, when Yeshua began his public speaking, he was very careful about the way he referred to himself. He did not initially claim to be both human and divine, most likely because people would have considered that an affront against the fixed line between man and God. A person could have been stoned for such an infraction. That could be why Matthew, Mark and Luke, writing in the New Testament, identify Yeshua as the "Son of Man" while never attempting to hide his true identity. Yeshua was initially careful with his words. But this proves nothing except that he was an intelligent, sensitive man.
<h3>Yeshua As a Great Teacher</h3>
I know that if I were alive then, I would have wanted to hear Yeshua speak, because it was well known that he attracted large crowds. What was it that drew so many people?
The evangelist Mark observed: "The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law." (Mark 1:22 NIV) The common style of the religious leaders of that day was first to compare what previous or contemporary rabbis had taught, then answer with a distillation of what the best minds had to say about the subject. Yeshua spoke on his own authority. He would preface his teaching with the words, "You have heard it said,…but I say to you.…" Other leaders would not dare include their own thoughts, perceptions and insights.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Yeshua declared, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:27,28 NIV) By this point, I could understand why Yeshua would want to be seen as human. And I knew he was either arrogant or a great teacher. I had opted for the latter. But this alone still proved nothing more than the fact that he was a brilliant man, perhaps a genius. Maybe he was a messenger from God. But to call him divine seemed to be reaching too far. I still couldn't see electricity or how anyone could cross the barrier between humanity and divinity.
There certainly was something different about this Yeshua. But did he actually meet the needs of the people? I asked, rerouting the question my friend Gus had launched. Or did he simply teach in a profound manner and perform acts that gained the attention of the curious? He certainly knew how to be in touch with and alleviate the pain we so often experience.
I read where he said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. …I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:28,29 NIV) I was beginning to like this man Yeshua. He seemed to genuinely care for my people. But caring and offering kind words don't prove that you are divine.
That is when my heart began to pound. It was as if someone had flipped the switch to connect one of the circuits I had designed. Before me as plain as a blueprint, I could see that Yeshua was more than a mere man.
<h3>The Deeds of Yeshua</h3>
Yeshua not only provided rest for the weary, but he met the physical and spiritual needs of the people as well. He not only comforted with human empathy, but he touched those around him in a super-human way that made him at least a prophet:
He healed people (Matthew 8:1-17 NIV). A surgeon can operate to mend parts of the body, but Yeshua completely healed the leper; the servant of the Roman centurion; the mother-in-law of Peter; and many other people who were suffering from various illnesses. He healed as Isaiah the prophet declared the Messiah would heal: "…he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows." (Isaiah 53:4 NIV) He had command over nature. (Matthew 8:23-27 NIV) Once, when Yeshua and the disciples were crossing the Yam Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) on route to Tiberias, a violent windstorm came up. The disciples were bailing water at a furious rate, and the prospect of completing the journey was dismal. Yeshua was awakened by his disciples who pleaded that he do something because they feared they would die in the storm. Yeshua listeneed, then rebuked them for their lack of faith. He stood up, faced the winds and waves, and spoke to them. Everything instantly became calm!
While I could reason as to how Yeshua could be a healer, his control over the winds and waves places him into a different category, at least a super-man if not deity. The disciples themselves were amazed, and asked themselves, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!?"
He had control over the unseen world. (Matthew 8:28-34 NIV) When the disciples arrived at the east side of the lake, they encountered two violent, demon-possessed men. The demons who controlled the men had no difficulty in recognizing Yeshua. They addressed him as the Son of God. When he cast the demons out of the two men, restoring the men to their right minds, Yeshua demonstrated his mastery of the unseen world. Yeshua forgave sin. (Matthew 9:1-8 NIV) Yeshua and his disciples came to Tiberias. There he addressed a great crowd of people, so large that it was nearly impossible for anyone to get close to him. Four men came to the site, carrying a paralytic man on a mat. Because they could not get through the crowd, they climbed onto the roof, removed some tiles and lowered the paralytic man down through the hole into the house.
When Yeshua saw the sick man, instead of first saying the words that would heal him, he pronounced: "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven." (Matthew 9:2 NIV) Some of the religious leaders present were shocked by Yeshua's audacity. Sensing the thoughts of these leaders, Yeshua challenged them by comparing the authority to heal with the authority to forgive sins.
Yeshua then instructed the paralytic man to stand up, pick up his mat and go home. (Matthew 9:6 NIV) The man did just that!
Yeshua had control over life. (Matthew 9:18-19, 23-36 NIV) When the daughter of a synagogue leader became seriously ill, the leader summoned Yeshua. Yeshua and his disciples went to visit the girl, but when they arrived they were told she had already died. Yeshua, however, told the mourners who had gathered, "Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep." (Matthew 9:24 NIV) The people laughed at him, but he did not reply. Instead, he took aside the father and mother, along with his disciples Peter, James and John. They went into the inner room where the dead body of the girl was lying. He took hold of the girl's hand and instructed her to get up. She arose; she was alive!
I have to admit that I was more than uneasy when I read this account. I protested! Only God has control over life and death. When the tenth and last plague struck the Egyptians, God prepared his people, telling them to put the blood of a lamb on the doorposts and lintels of their homes as a sign to the Angel of Death to spare that household's firstborn child. The Egyptians, who had no such warning, suffered the loss of their eldest sons. By raising the young girl to life, Yeshua exhibited the same power over life and death.
If Yeshua truly had control over disease, the wind and waves, demons and life itself, then he had to have a divine nature. A super-man might be able to do a few of these things, but not all of them. And surely, a super-man could not forgive sin.
I could see how Yeshua could have been a compassionate human. And I could now accept his divinity. But like trying to explain why you can talk on a telephone line half way around the world, I still could not complete the circuit that would make Yeshua both divine and human.
<h3>The Divine Connection</h3>
At Gat Shemen (Gethsemane), a very human Yeshua was apprehended by temple guards and Roman troops. He was brought before the Sanhedrin where, eventually, the high priest challenged his identity. "Tell us if you are the Christ," he prodded. "[Tell us if you are] the Son of God." (Matthew 26:63 NIV) Yeshua had no real difficulty in affirming the first inquiry. Even a minority of the rabbis accepted his messiahship.
The test came with the second question: Are you really the Son of God? This, I thought, will reveal the true motivation behind his acts. For his answer, Yeshua paraphrased Daniel 7:13 NIV, applying it to himself: "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Matthew 26:24 NIV)
What was Yeshua saying? Was he out of his mind? He had declared the unthinkable. Yeshua, as the Son of Man, had crossed the barrier between God and man. He had completed the circuit. He said he would sit at the right hand of the Mighty One, or God!
<h3>Who Is Yeshua?</h3>
The high priest tore his own clothes, indicating he did not believe the claim. In my Jewish mind, I could almost do the same. Then, as I sat in my study contemplating what Yeshua had done for my people and what he had said, I too made the connection. It was not a supernatural revelation. Only later would I learn that people at several churches had been praying for me. No, I just sat there examining who Yeshua was and what he had done.
Matthew's account of the life of Yeshua so clearly portrayed how the people of Israel tested much of what Yeshua said and did. They looked at his words and his deeds. Many decided that the only way Yeshua could have said what he said and performed the miracles he performed was through a special manifestation of God.
Who is the real Messiah? He was more than a great man, more than a brilliant teacher and more than a prophet. He is the One who could heal people, forgive them of their sins and have control over life itself. Because of his twin natures, he is the only one who has the power to change humans.
Paul once declared, "…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV) Yeshua is the One who offers us life: "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10 NIV) He also declared he is the One who can give us peace: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:27 NIV)
Furthermore, it is only through Yeshua that we can enter into God's presence: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6 NIV) Still a Mystery!
I could not walk away from the challenge to examine the claims of Yeshua. How could I say he was or was not the Messiah unless I looked at the record? What was the final switch that caused me to accept Yeshua as both human and divine? Just as I still struggle to explain the flow of electricity, so I would struggle to answer. To my finite mind, how anyone can be human and divine is still a mystery. But it is no longer a roadblock. For Yeshua has proven to be both.
I leave with you the same challenge my co-worker Gus left with me many years ago. If you really want to know who Yeshua is, don't just accept someone else's conclusion. Read the New Testament. See what Yeshua did for the Jewish people. Examine the mystery of his human nature and his divine nature. See if Yeshua will speak directly to you as he did to me. That is the real mystery.
<h4>Endnotes</h4>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">1. </a>The Holy Bible, New International Version, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1978. John 10:30.
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">2. </a>Ibid., John 8:56,58.
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">3. </a>J.F. Stenning, The Targum of Isaiah, London, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949. Isaiah 1:20.
<a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">4. </a>New International Version, Numbers 6:25,26.
<a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">5. </a>Stenning, Isaiah 6:5.
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">6. </a>Stenning, Isaiah 8:18.