 present an overview of the missionary problem, in particularly the missionary efforts to convert North American Jewry, European Jewry, Israeli Jewry, and having gone into the details of the network of various organizations that exist in North America that make it their full-time effort to convert the Jews, we also went into some demonstrations of some of the videotapes that they've used to help encourage some of the people who are involved in evangelical work to missionize Jewish people. We had an opportunity to listen to Mark Powers discuss the profile of the typical person who gets involved and we realized that almost anybody is susceptible under the right conditions to get involved in a conversionary situation. Lastly, I had an opportunity to express to you a little bit of my experience of having been involved for over five years and having come out of what is called Hebrew Christianity or Messianic Judaism. But tonight we want to get into the nuts and bolts of how do we respond to the Christian missionary? How do we respond to that Jew for Jesus on the street who is handing out leaflets second after second without hesitation all day long to a variety of passers-by? How do we respond to the person who is friend, colleague, fellow student who also happens to be a born-again Christian who really believes with all their heart that we're going to go to hell if we don't accept their Savior? How do we respond to the Jew who claims that they're more Jewish than we are because they've accepted the Jewish Messiah? How do we respond to somebody who in some cases has more of a familiarity with certain areas of our Bible than we do? How do we deal with this? So tonight my hope is that through the input of Rabbi Michael Scoback who is the director of the New York branch of Jews for Judaism and Mark Powers who is the director of the Baltimore branch of Jews for Judaism. I'm hoping that through their input, their expertise and skill and I think combined over 16 years in anti-missionary work that they'll be able to give you hopefully a concise synopsis of the issues. If you have your workbooks with you, the last few pages are blank so you can make some notes if it's necessary. We will not be following any structured format that is in that workbook but the workbook which has been compiled by Rabbi Benzion Kravitz of the Los Angeles branch of Jews for Judaism has seemed to it that it is also a concise presentation of some of the issues. While some of the issues that we bring up may not exist in that booklet, clearly much of what we have to say may overlap it and the booklet will more than anything reinforce what we're going to be giving you tonight. Again we'll be leaving a lot of time at the end for questions and answers and we ask that you be as candid as possible and Frank when it comes to some of your questions because sometimes it's the question and answer sessions that bring out the most heated discussions and the most controversial topics. So I'm going I think I've covered some of the basics. I'm going to introduce, firstly I'm going to introduce Mark Powers is going to begin tonight's session and I'll let him introduce his topic and take it from here. Must be Satan again. Okay. We're down to nuts and bolts. Keep the good book by me and all times. What would I do without it? Proof texting. That's what we're going to begin with this evening. Proof texting for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the concept is taking a section out of the Bible and making it prove. Bless you. Something. So what are we going to try and prove tonight? I don't know. We shall see. Shall we? Proof texting is one of the methods that missionaries use in order to ensnare Jews. It is a very, very common method. Most of them use it to a great length. And again, as we discussed last night, it is because of the basic Jewish ignorance of the community that they're able to take passages out of the Bible and say, Hey, look, you know, who is that talking about? Who could it possibly be? Who is it referring to? And the obvious answer is what's his name? We have absorbed in our society Christianity by osmosis. We are exposed to Christianity almost every day of our lives, certainly very, very heavily during the Christmas and Easter seasons. And so it is almost ingrained in every one of us that automatically we can register something that somebody takes from here as something that is Christological. So that little light bulbs start popping on and saying, Oh my goodness, that sounds like what's his name? Now, how could that possibly be? And so you get a missionary who goes to Isaiah 96. And he reads to this unsuspecting, uneducated Jew. For a child will be born to us. A son will be given to us. And the government will rest upon his shoulders. And his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, Prince of peace. Who is it talking about? Anybody that we know? Again, because we have by osmosis ingrained Christianity, the immediate and obvious answer is it's talking about what's his name? And when I read that to an audience. And as we said last night, this is a rather atypical audience. When I read that to an audience, and I asked the question, Who is that talking about nine out of 10 people? Why, that's talking about Jesus. There's no question about it. Prince of peace, mighty God. It's definitely talking about Jesus. So what is the problem? Again, it's based upon a lack of education. Somebody who has shown that will automatically go, Wow. Amazing. I have never seen that before. And then, of course, they play the game. Well, you know, there's the section in the Bible that the rabbis, those insidious rabbis, those deceptive, deceitful rabbis, they never have anything good to say about rabbis, by the way, those rabbis are hiding the most important section in the Bible from you. It is the one section that is left out of the synagogue service every year. What section? Anybody know? You see, your rabbis have been misleading you. They left it out at your services also. We're referring to Isaiah 53. And they will show you that Isaiah 50 is read in the synagogue. Isaiah 51, Isaiah 52, Isaiah 54, and 55. But what happened to Isaiah 53? They're trying to keep it from you because the rabbis know that this is the clearest description of the death and resurrection of Jesus that ever existed. That you didn't know that, did you? Want to know something? It's not true. But they use the ignorance of people to give these half truths. Is it true that Isaiah 53 is not read in the synagogue? Yes or no? Yes? Is it true? No? It's not true. Hell, I don't know. Yes, it's true. Isaiah 53 is not read in the synagogue. Why is Isaiah 53 not read in the synagogue? Bingo, in fact, do you know what the percentage is? It's over 73% of the prophets are not read in the synagogue, of which Isaiah 53 happens to be one of the chapters. What is it that we read in the synagogue from the prophets? We read a section, the Haftorah. Why? What is the insidious reason that the rabbis are keeping the rest of this 73% from us? Well, the insidious reason is obvious, guys. Very obvious. The rabbis are keeping it from us because the church, at one point in time, prevented the rabbis from reading the Torah. The Torah was publicly read all the time. And then the church stepped in and said, ah, can't do that. So in order to get around it, the rabbis took sections from the prophets that had a direct relationship to the particular parasha of the week. And that was read instead. Because the church prevented us from reading the Torah. And that's what the Haftorah is. It has a direct relationship to the Torah portion of the week. And that is what is read. And the reason that 73% of the prophets are not read is because they don't have any relationship to the Torah portion of the week. But the rabbis are keeping that from you. Through half truths, through misquotations, mistranslations, and just plain making it up. The Christian missionaries utilizing the ignorance of the Jewish community takes texts and twists them to their own ends. And we know what those ends are. Those ends are to bring Jews through any method whatsoever. And what's the quote from Paul? Where is that section? Yeah, where is that section? Oh, yeah, Philip, Philippians, Philippians, what 22? 218. Okay, he knows this better than I do. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, crisis, Christ is proclaimed. And in this, I rejoice. Yes, I will rejoice. Whatever method can possibly be used. I'll use it to bring the message of Jesus to the people who need it. Even if it's deceitful, even if it's incorrect, I will use it. And so we go back to our good friend, Isaiah, Isaiah nine, six, and we'll see if we take a look at it critically, what the problem is, and what the missionaries do to utilize this deception for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest upon his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Is that what it says? Probably not, definitely not. More than probably, it's a definite. For when you read it, ah, let me allow me to digress for a moment, if I may. Whenever I encounter a missionary who plays this game, and invariably they do, they go, you know, gee, I've been reading the Bible, and I've been really having a problem. I wonder if you could tell me what Isaiah nine, six says, because I see that it fits, what's his name? And I'll say to him, well, gee, I'd really like to talk to you about that. And I think it's very worthy of discussion. But I wonder if you would mind if before we discuss Isaiah nine, six, we take just a second out, and I wonder if you would tell me something in the Christian Bible that's been troubling me. And I said, I wonder if you could please tell me what Luke 1426 says. That's not one of the passages that they know real well. And they go flipping furiously through their Bibles to Luke chapter 14 verse 26, and they read it. And then they read it again. Usually they read it a third time. And then they go, ah, you have to understand. That's not what it means. I say, excuse me. That's not what it means. I didn't ask you what it means. I just said, can you tell me what it says? Yeah, but you have to understand that that's not what it means. Well, wait a minute. If I took Luke 1426, and I wrote it down on a fortune cookie, and I dropped it into the middle of China, and somebody came along, opened it up and read it, what would it say to them? The same thing. I bet you by this time you're curious as to what Luke 1426 says. A, well, maybe we'll come back. No. Luke 1426 is Jesus talking to a multitude of people, not just one or two, not his disciples. So you can't say that this is something that he said privately or something of that nature, but rather Luke 1426 is said to a great multitude of people. And Jesus had the following to say, if anyone comes to me and he does not hate his father and hate his mother and hate his wife and hate his children and hate his brothers and hate his sisters. Yes, and even hate his own life. He cannot be my disciple. But Jesus loves you. Now we'll hold questions. Jesus loves you. What is this? Hate your mother, hate your father, hate your sister, your brother, your wife, your children. What is this? Ah, that's not what it means. Okay, I can accept that. I don't have any problem with that. I believe you, Mr. Missionary. That's not what it means. I mean after all, this is your Bible. It's written in Greek. I don't understand Greek. In fact, it's Greek to me. So if you're going to tell me that that's not what it means, I'll accept that. So please tell me what it means. And they'll go to great lengths to tell me that what it really means that if I understood it in the original in the context in which it was written and so forth and so on, that what it really means is that Jesus says you have to love him more than anybody else. Fine. No problem. Good. I believe you. So now, if you wouldn't mind, I will now be more than happy. Since you have set the ground rules, Mr. Missionary, I will be more than happy to go back with you now to Isaiah 9.6. Isaiah, who was one of my prophets, Isaiah, who wrote in Hebrew, a language which I do understand, and let us apply the same criteria. Let us take a look at it in the context in which it was written and see what Isaiah really meant when he wrote these words. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. Oh, wait a minute. Got a little problem here. That's what it says in your English Bible, but gee, when I looked at it in Hebrew, it doesn't say that at all. In fact, what it says in the Hebrew changes it considerably because what it says in the Hebrew is, for a child has been born to us, and a son has been given to us. And if I'm not mistaken, Isaiah lived about 600 years prior to what's his name. And if he said at the time that he wrote this that it's already happened, doesn't that create a problem? Because this child that Isaiah is talking about already exists and the government will rest upon his shoulders. That's interesting, Mr. Missionary. As far as I know, through the Christianity that I've absorbed by Osmosis, Jesus never ruled any government, unless perhaps you can enlighten me to something I don't know. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Well gee, Mr. Missionary, that's interesting also because we have a problem here. Number one, what's his name was never called. At least in your Bible, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father. In fact, the Father is somebody else, isn't he? If Jesus is the Son, he's not the Father. Okay. And not only that, but it seems to me that what you're showing me is a basic ignorance of the prophet Isaiah. Because if you knew anything about Isaiah, you would know that this is the very way in which the prophet uses names to describe events in the lives of individuals that he's talking about. And so when he says that this person will be called a Wonderful Counselor, and by the way, it doesn't say Mighty God, but is the Mighty God, Eternal Father, Minister of Peace. He's describing events in the life of an individual. Now, we can discuss back and forth, Minister of Peace, Prince of Peace, Jesus brought peace. Although I seem to recall that there's been more murder, mayhem, war, annihilation, killing, blood shed. Give me a couple other adjectives. And in his name, since he came, then in any other time in history. So I have a problem applying that to him. Ah, but wait a minute, you don't understand, right? I don't understand the Jewish Bible. It's not Greek to me. But I don't understand the Jewish Bible. Because Jesus brought peace to our hearts. Okay. Maybe. Maybe not. But Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father. Well, let's see. If we apply this to the guy I think it belongs to, we'll see that it fits him a little bit better than what's his name. Wonderful Counselor, in this particular case. The person that Isaiah is talking about could be called a Wonderful Counselor because when he ascended the throne, ah, a king, and the government will rest on his shoulders. I think that applies to him also. When this person ascended the throne, he took over from his father, who was really not a nice guy. And in fact, his father allowed all sorts of terrible things to occur, including worshiping of other gods. But when this particular king ascended the throne, he counseled the people back to worshiping the true God. Is the mighty God, Eternal Father? God himself added 15 years to the life of this particular king, this individual. Minister of Peace, it was during the reign of this particular king that we're talking about that peace was finally achieved. If you know anything about the history of our people, there were two nations, the northern kingdom of Israel, the southern kingdom of Judah, and there was constant warring back and forth between them and with nations outside. But it was during the reign of this particular king that Isaiah is talking about, somebody who, by the way, was contemporary to Isaiah, that peace was finally achieved. And the missionary smiles, ah, I've got you. Yes. How can any man be called mighty God? Can you call a man God? Can anybody be called any man be called God? Gee, Mr. Missionary, again, you're showing your basic ignorance of Judaism. Because again, I have to remind you that Isaiah used names to describe people. And in fact, if you look at the names of prophets, Daniel, God is my judge, you will see that the name of God appears many, many times in the names of individuals. And if you look at this particular individual that we're talking about now, a guy by the name of Hezekiah, which in Hebrew is Hiskiahu, you will find that his name translates to God is my strength, or mighty God. By taking sections from our Bible, by misquoting them, by mistranslating them, by taking them out of context, and we're going to get into that a little bit later, the missionaries will use every possible way to try and convince uneducated, unsuspecting Jews that our Bible is actually talking about Jesus. And by the way, they won't use a Christian Bible. They won't take a New Testament. They'll take a Bible from the Hebrew Publication Society, the Masoretic Text, which has no New Testament attached to it, and they will use it exclusively to prove that Jesus is the Messiah, from the Jewish text. Again, by misquoting, mistranslating, and taking out of context. And so when you get the missionary that says, there are over 300 times that the name of Jesus appears in the Jewish Bible, and he takes out a Jewish Bible and he shows you the word Yeshua, salvation, time and time again. This is their proof. Of course, my answer is, well, gee, that's very interesting. Because you see, my son is truly the Messiah. Because his name is mentioned over 700 times in the Jewish Bible, and I can show it to you. And Chaim loves when I do that. In addition to the 300 times that Jesus has mentioned in the Bible, they will point out that there are over 150 prophecies that Jesus has fulfilled. Prophecies of the Messiah. We have a little pamphlet I'd like to use. This one just came to us. It's brand new. You haven't seen this one before. Right? Just today. Help wanted Mashiach. Oops. Not Messiah. Not Savior. Mashiach. Mashiach, help, we need you now. Cute, eh? And you turn to the inside, and it's got all sorts of cute little drawings. I love these pamphlets, by the way. We're going to try and develop a whole series of them. Also, it'll drive them nuts. Anyhow, must have infinite wisdom, knowledge, ability to deal effectively with difficult people from all sectors of society. Must demonstrate compassion for diverse people such as Jews, Arabs, Russians, Germans, as well as residents of Jersey City. Must be capable of inscribing God's commandments on the hearts of the rich and famous as well as the poor and forgotten. Needs to administer justice with impartiality. Must love truth more than treasure. As a ruler, he must be servant to all. Be a champion of the oppressed, including the residents of Jersey City. Keeping the Torah is an imperative. He must fit the personnel profile as described by the firm of Isaiah, David, Micah, and associates. See below for specs. The government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. They shall smite the judge of Israel upon the cheek. But I am a worm and no man, or reproach of men and despised by the people. All they who see me laugh and scorn me. I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. They part my garments amongst them and cast lots upon my vesture. Isaiah 9.6, Micah 5.1, Psalm 22, etc. And then it gets into the good stuff. Must be the light of the world, Satan. Must die for our sins. And there's a little judge there. The price must be paid. Must rise from the dead and must never have appeared on the Morton Downey show. I don't know if you get the Morton Downey show up here or not. If you don't, you haven't missed much. And then you turn the page and guess what? Help found. Masheaf, no more applications. Position filled. His name is Yeshua, Jesus. And he made application 2000 years ago. He met all the requirements. But many of us are still not willing to let him in the door. I wonder who that's referring to. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. And if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me. Revelation 3.20. Do you want Masheaf now? Write or call and we'll help with the references. Cute? Real nice. They're not original. Oh, I think this is very original. The problem is that I want to steal it and use it for our own ends. Anyhow, it's Lubavitch. We want Masheaf now. Of course, it's Lubavitch. A little further. Better? Much better. Okay. Anyhow, so what do we have here? We have a picture of Masheaf. Must demonstrate compassion. Must be capable of inscribing God's commandments. Needs to administer justice impartially. And then must be the light of the world. Must die for our sins. Must rise from the dead. I have a problem with that. Oh, and it doesn't say anything about appearing on the Morton Downy show either. Masheaf. Anybody want to take a guess as to how many times the term the Messiah appears in the Jewish Bible? Now we know that Jesus appears 300 times, right? Yeshua, salvation. How many times does the term the Messiah appear in the Jewish Bible? Take a guess. Zero. Zero. We're all at zero? Come on. How many times? Zero? You really believe it doesn't appear in the Jewish Bible? What? One at a time. Ten times. We got a ten here. We got a zero. We got a zero. We got a ten. Anybody else? Okay. Give a cookie to the people who said zero because that's the correct answer. The term the Messiah does not appear at all in the Jewish Bible. Ha-Mashiach. The Messiah does not appear in the Jewish Bible. I know I'm right. I get it right occasionally. Now, how many times does the term the Messiah appear in the Christian translation of the Jewish Bible? Thousands of times. How many times? Three hundred times. None? They cheat. Twice. Two times in the book of Daniel only. The problem is, and I'm not telling you anything new, what does Messiah mean? Anointed. The one who is anointed? Or the thing that is anointed? Because if you go into first Samuel, you will find that the prophet Samuel took oil and poured it over the head of Saul and anointed him. And he became Messiah, anointed. You go into the book of Exodus, chapter 30, verse 25 through 27, and you will find that God tells Moshe to take a holy anointing oil and to anoint the tent of the meeting, the ark of the testimony, the Shulchan, the table, and all its utensils. You go into Isaiah and Isaiah in chapter 61, verse 1, says the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me. Aaron was anointed. You go to Isaiah 45, 1, and you find something really interesting. Isaiah says, thus says the Lord to Cyrus. Who was Cyrus? King of Persia. Was he Jewish? Thus says the Lord to Cyrus, his Mashiach, his anointed. So we have kings of Israel. We have prophets. We have inanimate objects. We even have non-Jewish kings who are Mashiach anointed. And nowhere is the term Ha Mashiach in the Jewish Bible, nowhere. And so we have a problem in the Christian understanding of the term Messiah. Their job description, where did the help wanted go? Their job description is a little faulty. They're missing a couple of things. Number one, in the Jewish context, and I don't have to tell you this, it's blatantly obvious. Number one, the Messiah, Ha Mashiach, must be Jewish. Right? Everybody knows that. Correct? Anybody who didn't know that? Good. He must be Jewish. So that leaves out Cyrus. Chances are it also leaves out the 10th of the meeting, the Shulchan and a couple of the other inanimate objects. But according to the Jewish Bible, not only must he be Jewish, but he's got a particular lineage to follow. This particular Mashiach, we've all heard the term Mashiach ben David, the son of David, or through the line of David. What tribe did David come from? Judah. So he's got to be Jewish from the tribe of Judah through the house of David. And then I take a look at what's his name. And I run into a minor problem. Who was the father of Jesus? Joseph was the father of Jesus? Unknown was the father of Jesus? No. According to the Christian Bible, the person was known. Who was the father of Jesus? God. God was the father. For he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Leads me to scratch my head a little bit. Because what that's saying to me is that if God is the father of Jesus, then what you're telling me is that God is from the tribe of Judah and the house of David. Now, wait a minute. God is from the tribe of Judah? God is from the house of David? Does that seem ridiculous? Who? God or David? Just joking. Throw that man out. There will be no levity here. I'm sorry? What was Adam? Where was he begotten from? He wasn't begotten from anywhere. But that doesn't answer the problem with Jesus. Because if God gave us a promise, God gave us a promise. He said, guys, I'm going to give you, oh by the way, the concept of Messiah. Whose concept is that? Ours? You mean it's not a Tibetan concept? You learn something new every day. It's wonderful. That's right. It's a Jewish concept. The non-Jews had no concept whatsoever of Messiah. And God gave us a promise. He said, I'm going to give you a Messiah. And he's going to be a descendant of Yehuda. A descendant of King David. What is this? God the Father. Where is this Jesus guy coming from? If God is his father. Ah, what do they say? They say, you don't understand the Jewish Bible. I don't understand the Jewish Bible. If I understood the Jewish Bible, I would see clearly beyond the shadow of a doubt. And by the way, I have a whole pamphlet here which tells me that I don't understand it at all. This is the genealogy of the Messiah by Arnold Fruit of the Tree. I have a problem with Arnold. Just a small aside here. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, yeah, Fruit of the Tree. Arnold runs a Hebrew Christian group called Aerial Ministries. Formally of, I'm sorry, formally of Dallas, Texas, and currently of some place in California, I think in Los Angeles. Anyhow, Arnold was, I live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania by the way. I run the Baltimore office but I live in Harrisburg. Arnold was in Harrisburg a number of years ago. I think now about three years ago. And he ran, there's a local Hebrew Christian group in Harrisburg, and they ran a program called Bible Study, Bible, Bible is over four days, was one which we thought was extremely interesting. And this was something that was advertised by Flyer and poster all over the place. And it was advertised in the newspaper and it went to many, many people in the Harrisburg area and it said, come Thursday for a program called How to Destroy the Jews. I thought that was interesting. And so we went to the program on how to destroy the Jews. They were not happy that we were there because we didn't go inside, we demonstrated outside because we thought it was rather anti-Semitic. And by the way, let's make no bones about it. These groups have a very, very strong underlying basis of anti-Semitism. There's no question about it. The anti-Semitic remarks, you know, I'm sorry to digress here for a second, but you take a group which says, by believing in Jesus, you become a completed Jew, a fulfilled Jew. So what am I? I don't believe in Jesus. I am incomplete. I am unfulfilled. I am severely lacking. And it is that mentality, that underlying concept that they're promoting, and they're promoting it very, very heavily, that underlying concept which leads people to believe that Jews are inferior, second class, to be pitied at best, to be discounted, perhaps even murdered at worst. So the entire underlying theology of this group is anti-Semitic without any question. And we see it bubble to the surface every now and then. We talked about yesterday about being in Norfolk, Virginia for this Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations conference. And as a result of that, there's a Hebrew Christian bulletin board, computer bulletin board, that runs in the United States. And one of the key people there that I had a confrontation, had a meeting of the noses. I think that's the best way to describe it. In a quick, we had a sign that announced what we were doing in the lobby. This particular individual grabbed the sign, went with it to the front desk to complain about it. I came down and we were nose-to-nose for about 10 minutes discussing the propriety of his removing our sign and the wise and wherefores of free speech and so forth. Anyhow, subsequently on this bulletin board, there has appeared over the past several months statements which are blatantly anti-me, which doesn't bother me. But the innuendo and the descriptive adjectives about my huge nose and so forth, and I don't think I have them. Anyhow, there's an underlying basis of anti-Semitism, which is what I wanted to point out here. Anyhow, we're back to what they have to say. And they have to say, well, you just don't understand your Bible. Why don't we understand our Bible? I don't understand why we don't understand. You don't understand it because you don't accept it, but if you accept it, you would understand it. Sounds like a treadmill to me. So we don't understand our own Bible. Why don't we understand our own Bible? Well, if we go back into the genealogy of Jesus, and by the way, they go through great lengths here in the book of Matthew and the book of Luke to give the genealogy and in other places in the Christian Bible, the New Testament, to describe how Jesus fulfills these descriptions, these prophecies of the Messiah, how he's from the tribe of Judah, how he's from the house of David, and they go from generation to generation all the way back to Adam, through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, down through Judah, through King David, all the way to Jesus. And in the other book, they go from Jesus and they go up the tree. Or is it down the tree? I don't remember. At great lengths to discuss the genealogy. And then you come across this mysterious statement in the New Testament which says, don't get absorbed in fruitless genealogies. I've always wondered about that. But in reality, you don't have to wonder about it at all, because there's a basic problem in the genealogy. And that's why after going through great lengths to give you the genealogy, they tell you, don't worry about it. You don't need it. It's not necessary. So you go into the genealogy in Matthew, and you'll find in this genealogy of Matthew that it talks about Jesus and his lineage. And I just lost Jesus and his lineage here. I'm sorry. I got it. Don't worry. Okay. And we find that it says, from the time of Abraham, we got Abraham to Isaac to Jacob and so forth and so on, all the way down. And to Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary by whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Now wait a minute. Who's this guy Joseph? Oh yeah, he's the husband of Mary. So who's the father of Jesus? According to this, who's the father of Jesus? Huh? Really? Is that what it says? Really? And to Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary by whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ. That says that Joseph was his father? Not at all. It says that Joseph was the son of Jacob, and Joseph was the husband of Mary to whom was born Jesus. Well, I would say that Joseph was the father of Jesus. Hang on. Who was the father? Doesn't say. Doesn't say. Okay. All right. Wait a minute. What? Different Jacob. Different Jacob. Different Jacob, honest. I mean there were other people named Jacob besides Jacob, right? All right, so we have a problem here that it doesn't, it's not really clear who the father of Jesus is from that section. Correct? So we need to go into the book of Luke where it becomes totally, crystal clear, right? And Luke says the following, and when he began his ministry Jesus himself was about 30 years of age being supposedly the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, the son of Mathen, the son of Levi, the son of Melchie, the son of Jeannei, the son of Joseph, the son of Matthias, the son of Amos, and so forth and so on. And wait a minute. Began his ministry Jesus himself was about 30 years of age being supposedly the son of Joseph. Well here it's clear who's his father. Supposedly Joseph. You said it. No, I didn't say it. They said it. But is that crystal clear as to who his father is? It's not crystal clear who his father is. Well yeah, you see it is crystal clear who his father is because it clearly says that God through the Holy Spirit and Mary got together and that's how we got Jesus because after all she was a virgin and I'm not going to go into the virgin birth because Michael will kill me. You won't kill me? God forbid. He's going to go into the virgin birth. But we have a problem here again in that God the father is the father of Jesus and we have this genealogy tracing it through, what's his name? Joseph. Well aside from the fact that we have in the book of Luke, Luke that Joseph was the son of Eli and you go into the book of Matthew and we find out that Jacob was the father of Joseph. No wonder they tell you not to be involved in endless genealogies because it's just not there. It doesn't. You talking about this one? The other one? The color. Oh I'm sorry. Where'd it go? Ah what does it say? Well it says that not only don't we understand the Jewish Bible but we certainly don't understand the Christian Bible because you see it's very very clear from the Christian Bible that the genealogy of Matthew is the genealogy of Mary and the genealogy in Luke is the genealogy of Joseph. So that through Mary, Jesus, Mary by the way if you trace it back through the genealogy, it traces this genealogy through Judah and King David down to what's his name? No don't don't don't read to me what don't David David don't read to me what it says there. I know what it says. Hold on. Okay the problem is we just don't understand. We don't understand ours we don't understand theirs but they understand everything. It doesn't say who the father is in the genealogies but it does say it rather clearly elsewhere that God is the father. So what does that do to Jesus? Again I pose the question if God made us a promise that we're supposed to have Messiah through the tribe of Judah the house of David and God is the father of Jesus that it means one of three things. It means A, God lied to us. No way. God is not a liar. It means B, that God is from the tribe of Judah the house of David. No I don't think so. So it must mean C, that Jesus is not the Messiah. Oh and there are a couple of other things that I should point out. Minor little details. I mean they were so insignificant these details that they bothered to carve them into the wall across the street from the United Nations in New York. From one of these obscure irrelevant prophets, a guy by the name of Isaiah, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks, nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. That's a messianic prophecy. Everybody agrees that it's a messianic prophecy. Has it been fulfilled? No way. Hasn't happened. So all of these criteria that Jesus met, Jesus is the only one that fulfilled and they give, I did find, I did find one that Jesus did fulfill. Yeah. There's one section where it says, and he shall ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. Actually I think it says an s, but on a donkey we're keeping this clean tonight. Apparently he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. And when I was in Jerusalem, oh I guess about seven years ago now, and I was walking down the street, I saw a guy riding on a donkey and I went, wow. Keeping the Torah, what about these must be the light of the world, must die for our sins, must rise from the dead. All these messianic things, light of the world die for our sins, rise from the dead. Now who, according to Judaism, has fulfilled these prophecies? Who is the light of the world? Who has died for our sins? Who has risen from the dead? Only what's his name? So isn't that more or less proof that there's a pretty good possibility that what's his name is Mashiach? Show me. Now it's better than that. Show me in my Bible where it says Mashiach must die for our sins. Show me in my Bible where it says Mashiach must be the light of the world. Show me in my Bible where it says Mashiach must rise from the dead. Michael mentioned it last night in his discussion with the missionary. How do you know that Bar Kochba wasn't Mashiach? He was killed and he didn't rise from the dead. Nowhere in the Jewish Bible does it say that the Mashiach must die for our sins. Nowhere in the Jewish Bible does it say Mashiach must rise from the dead. Nowhere in the Jewish Bible does it say any number of these 150 different items that the Christian missionaries tell us Jesus fits and fulfills. The one classic one is they quote a section where it says and so it should be fulfilled of the prophet that he shall be called a Nazarene and so they go flipping furiously through their Rolodex Bibles to show me this section in our Bible where it says he shall be called a Nazarene and the problem is it doesn't exist. They made it up. It's nowhere to be found. This is typical and these sections here rise from the dead, die for our sins. These are the mistranslations and misquotations that the missionaries use to prove their points to the uneducated Jews. These are sections from Isaiah 53. Remember the one that the rabbis are keeping from you and when we critically analyze and I think you're going to get into, you're getting into Isaiah 53 a little bit. Michael's going to get into Isaiah 53. We're going to analyze what it says in context in the language in which it was written to see if in fact that is what it really says. You have now an overview of how the missionaries work by taking things out of context, by misquoting them, mistranslating them and even making them up to prove their point. And when that doesn't work, circular reasoning, if only you would believe it, you would see. And the reason that you don't see is because you don't believe. Thanks very much. What I wanted to do tonight was to really give you a little bit of an introduction to the major topics that come up when we deal with missionaries. And I just want to say one thing before we go on. You should understand that there are different contexts when we speak to Christians. There's the casual street encounter, which for all intents and purposes is not a very significant moment in anyone's life. It's very difficult to have a meaningful dialogue when you're passing someone on the street. And it's often just about all you can do is to give some snappy answer, a provocative answer. Most of the encounters that we have with Hebrew Christians is in a counseling setting. And therefore what I'm going to be doing is sharing with you some of the approaches that we use when it comes to speaking with a Hebrew Christian and even speaking to a Hebrew Christian missionary who was interested in converting us. I want to make a few introductory remarks about the whole idea of using the Bible. Of course, you're all aware of the fact that when it comes to Hebrew Christians, none of them got involved with Christianity because someone showed them a verse from Isaiah. Obviously not the way it works. I started keeping kosher when I was in my 20s and I've met hundreds and hundreds of Jewish people who started keeping kosher. I don't know any of them that would have started keeping kosher because someone would show them a verse in Leviticus. Don't you realize that you're not supposed to be eating that? The Jewish people that tell you, well Michael I got into Christianity and I started believing in Jesus because of all the prophecies that I was shown in the Bible. These are not people that if they were shown verses in the Bible a day before they met the Christian, we're going to necessarily be impressed or moved or commanded by the words of the Bible. We're dealing with people who generally didn't grow up believing that the Bible was a word of God. So realize that the process of conversion is a delicate process, it's a sensitive process, and it involves the reshaping of someone's thinking along many fronts. And often the biblical text that we deal with only come in as an afterthought. Once someone is impressed with Christianity because they're impressed with the Christian, they're impressed with the experience, they're impressed with the prayer, they're impressed with the miracles, they're impressed with many things, they're impressed with the fact that here's meaning in life, then the Bible becomes the matrix, the intellectual matrix which fills in how they now think. Now that I'm a Christian I begin to think in biblical terms. When we deal with Christians and Hebrew Christians we only use a Tanakh. If we were going to give a Shia tonight in the topic of Mashiach or in the topic of Atonement which I'll be discussing later, we would quote the Talmud, we would quote rabbinic sources. We don't discuss those sources when we're speaking with Christians. The reason is that you want to communicate with people using their map of reality. You'll never communicate with someone if you're coming from there and they're coming from there, you're going to go right past each other. So you'll find that we often in Jews for Judaism sound like car rights or stukim because we don't quote a lot of Talmud when we're speaking. And that's for a very simple reason. Pedagogically it doesn't work. These are people that are trained to despise the Talmud, to hate the rabbis and the Pharisees. That's the impression that you get from the New Testament. It's not going to go over very well. Another important point and I want to really make this the centerpiece of what I'm going to be doing tonight is that in our counseling work and in our discussions with Hebrew Christians we don't attack Christianity as a religion which is non-affective and non-meaningful. We don't attack its validity. We don't say it's a stupid religion. We don't critique Christianity. We do one thing when we speak to Hebrew Christians. We merely demonstrate that whatever it is it's not Jewish. And the reason we focus on that point is that's the entire presentation of the missionaries. The entire missionary case is to show Jewish people how Jewish it is. Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. This fulfills Jewish prophecies. This is a Jewish philosophy. And when you become a Christian you're doing nothing antithetical to Judaism. So our approach is to basically show that whatever it is and however meaningful or non-meaningful it is that's irrelevant. It's not Jewish. It's not consistent with the Tanach. And therefore if you accept it you're doing something which is antithetical to Judaism. That's the methodology that we employ on all of the issues that we'll be raising in the next few minutes. Two more just methodological points. Comes to circular reasoning and out of context quoting is a muscle that we all use in our counseling. I want to tell it to you all because it's important to remember and to use. The Dundam Magd tells a story of a man who goes into the forest and he finds a tree with an arrow stuck right in the middle of a bullseye. There's a target on the tree in the circles and there's one arrow that's stuck almost surgically right in the middle of a bullseye. There's no other shots. No misses. Boom, one bullseye. And he's very impressed. It's a good shot. So he walks a little bit further in the woods. He sees another tree. Boom, another bullseye. And he sees tree after tree with all these bullseyes. And he's freaking out at this point and he's wondering who could have done this and he sees the guy with a bow and arrow and a quiver and he says, excuse me, so did you shoot those arrows? And the guy says, yeah. And he says, I shake your hand. That's absolutely incredible. How do you do it? So the guy says, let me tell you, I'm not really that great a marksman. First I shoot the arrow into the tree and then I draw the circle around it. Right? And you'll find that when you study Christological readings of our Bible that's precisely what they've done. They start off with their conclusion. They begin the process with the assumption Jesus was the Messiah. Then they go back to the Bible and try and find and obviously out of context passages which prove that. For example, let's say you have a hundred prophecies in the Bible which say there's going to Messiah is going to come. Right? You have a hundred prophecies that say there will be a Messiah. So they say, you see, it's a proof for Jesus. That obviously doesn't prove Jesus. It proves there'll be a Messiah. If you begin with the assumption that Jesus was the Messiah, then obviously any prophecy speaking about the Messiah will apply to him. So be very wary of that tactic and it's an intellectual mistake that's made frequently among missionaries. One last point. Our Talmud has a beautiful saying and I've been able to use this miraculously in many encounters I've had where I didn't know the particular passage being quoted. Our Talmud says that wherever heretics point to passages in our Bible to prove things to us, the answer is right there in the passage. The answer is right. You look around, you'll find the answer. Give you one example. A number of years ago, someone gave me a piece of literature. It was a pamphlet that said, 27 prophecies fulfilled in one day. It's very impressive. And I opened it up and I read the first prophecy said that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament that said that the Messiah would be betrayed by a close friend. Now if you think just for a few minutes it's not a very impressive prophecy, right? I'm sure that all of you have been disappointed or betrayed by a close friend in your lifetime. It doesn't point to anything special. But they'll say that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy that the Bible predicted that you'll understand Jewish people when the Messiah comes. He's someone that will be betrayed by a close friend. What's the proof? From the book of Psalms chapter 41. Even my close friend in whom I trusted who ate my bread has lifted up his heel against me. Now when you read passages like this the first question you ask yourself is, why would I assume that this passage is a Messianic prophecy? And just tell the Christian or missionary talking to to go back a hundred years before there was a Jesus. How would they have read this passage in Psalms, right? Would anyone have said, praise God, we're getting information here about how to identify the Messiah. Why would anyone have thought this was a Messianic passage? But you can go further with the Hebrew Christian. You say, okay, you think this is a Messianic prophecy so you believe that this Psalm is written to identify the Messiah. So it says literally three or four verses before this. As for me, I said, oh, God, be gracious to me. Heal my soul for I have sinned against you. How is it possible for Jesus to have said that? And from the Christian's point of view, Jesus is saying that he was betrayed by a close friend. So the same speaker says, heal me, God, I've sinned against you. They understand that Jesus never sinned. And this will come up in countless verses. You'll be able to demonstrate by looking at the passage in context that A, it doesn't usually apply to the Messiah anyway, and B, the passage will normally contain information which completely refutes any kind of Christological reading. But what Christians do and Mark discussed this yesterday is pray upon the ignorance of people. People will look at the Bible very superficially. And Christians will read passages in the Bible that sound like it might be talking about someone like Jesus, if you accept those claims about Jesus, and put the question to a Jewish person. Well, who does this sound like? Does it sound like maybe, if you remember the missionary speaking to Ruth yesterday, he read from Isaiah 53, he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. Who does that sound like it's talking about? Well, if you believe that Jesus died for our sins, then this might be talking about him. I just want to share with you a passage that we've been reading quite frequently lately. You can write it down in your notebooks. You might want to share it with someone someday. And I'll often ask a young Hebrew Christian or an older Hebrew Christian, who is this talking about? This is from the prophet Zechariah, as we often hear his name Zachariah, chapter 13, verse 6. And one will say to him, what are those wounds in your hands? It's talking about a prophecy in the future. They're going to say to this person, what are those wounds between your hands? What are those wounds in your hands? And yes, the young person or the older person, whoever it is, who do you think it's talking about? And they will almost with glee say, obviously, it's a prophecy about Jesus. Anything that sounds like Jesus is going to be jumped on. And you'll find that many of them will have in their Bibles underlined and starred, praise God, another reference to Jesus in the Bible. This is one, by the way, of the 300 prophecies that proved Jesus was the Messiah. And after they identified Jesus as the subject here, I'll just ask them, why don't you just read from the beginning of the chapter? And as they're reading, I watched their face. Chapter 13 of Zechariah. And it says that it's going to be, this is a prophecy about what's going to happen in the end. In those days, God says, there'll be a fountain open up for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and impurity. And it will come about in that day, declares the Lord of hosts that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land and they will no longer be remembered and I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land. And as they read this passage, they realize, this is a prophecy saying that in the end days, all false prophets, idols, and false religions will be exposed and destroyed. That's what the prophet was talking about. Lais mandipalik. No one even argues about this. It's clear. It's obvious. And therefore, if they maintain that, yes, this is talking about Jesus, I say, I agree with you 100%. This is talking about Jesus and it's saying that he will be exposed at the end of time as a false prophet and as part of a false religion. Now, obviously, they're going to have to run back and say, well, obviously, this is not talking about Jesus. So you find that their analysis of the Bible becomes very superficial. If on a superficial level it sounds good, they will jump at it. Now, I want to cover briefly, and it's usually a six-hour shear that we give, but I'll do it in a few minutes. Believe me, believe it or not, we have kvitsasadereh in terms of the Bible sometimes. The best punch that Christians have. When you go through their list of 300 prophecies, they themselves will admit that, honestly speaking, we only have a half a dozen that make any sense at all. They will readily admit that the 300 is an absurd exaggeration and that they will basically reduce themselves down to five, six, or seven prophecies they feel have substance. And when you get down to it, their best punch is the 53rd chapter in the book of Isaiah, simply because it sounds so Christological, meaning if you assume that Jesus died for our sins, start off with that assumption, then this sounds pretty good. He was pierced through for our transgressions. Again, I'm reading a Christian translation. When we translate it in Hebrew, you'll see it doesn't read the same way. So I'd like to just offer you a few tidbits on how to approach this parik in Tanakh, how to approach this chapter in the Bible. And it will require a significant amount of study if you want to be able to explain it to someone else. The passage begins by Isaiah speaking about God's servant who will prosper in the future, who will Hineyaskil Avdi. My servant will prosper, my servant will deal wisely. And the simple question is who is the passage dealing with? What's most interesting is that Christian missionaries will say that the Jewish people always understood this passage to be a reference to the Messiah. And then it wasn't until the year 1000 that Rashi changed the whole Jewish meaning of this passage because he was afraid of the Christian religion and he was afraid of the encroachments of Christian missionaries. So understand in your minds now that's the Christian missionary argument that the Jewish position was that this passage was always understood as a prophecy describing the death and the resurrection of the Messiah and that Rashi had to sort of change things around in his interpretations to, I don't know, mislead the Jewish people. Obviously it's an absurd claim and I'll just give you a piece of information you can use from a Christian source. There was an early Christian theologian named Origen, O-R-I-G-E-N who lived in the 200s which is predating Rashi by 800 years and he wrote a response to a pagan philosopher named Celsus and Celsus was someone who attacked Christianity from a pagan point of view and Origen says that when he spoke to the leading rabbis of his time, again way before Rashi, they all understood Isaiah chapter 53 to be a prophecy about the Jewish people. Why? Had these weird rabbis come up with a reading that this is speaking about the Jewish people and I'll present you with a few things to bear in mind. Number one, the passage speaks about God's servant. Has Isaiah identified the servant of God in his book previously? It's interesting that the missionaries speak about the Jewish people mixing this chapter from the Hattorah readings. Actually it's the other way around. If you go to Yeshiva and kids are studying Safer Ishaiahu, they start with the first chapter and they work to the last chapter. We're not afraid of it, we teach it to our kids. Although missionaries, this will be often the first and often the only chapter of those so Jewish people, meaning that the people they're discipling, they haven't started from the beginning of Isaiah and they've go 53, fastening chapter. This is usually the first chapter in the Bible they've ever read in its entirety. So they are the ones that are on a certain level keeping things from others. So Isaiah in the previous chapters consistently identifies the servant as the Jewish people. And if it makes sense, I mean the Jewish people are saying that the Jewish people suffered for their own sins and when they understand the chapter like this that the Jewish people here are speaking about suffering for their own sins doesn't make any sense. They might be right. So this is the approach that I'm going to share with you tonight and please look at the chapter by yourselves and tell me if it makes sense. We ask the following question who is speaking in this chapter? Who is the speaker as we go through the chapter? They begin, behold, my servant will prosper. Obviously God is speaking and God says that his servant the Jewish people will prosper. They'll succeed. They'll be exalted. They'll be lifted up. Now is that consistent with what the Tanakh says about the Jewish people? Does the Bible ever speak about the Jewish people in those terms that in the end they will be exalted. They will be lifted up. And the answer is yes consistently throughout the Torah going back to the book of Dvorim, Deuteronomy chapter 4 where God says that the nations of the world will acknowledge the Jewish people's Torah and their Jewish religion and say what a wise and beautiful religion they have all these commandments that are so wise and beautiful and meaningful. And they will come to the Jewish people and say who has a Torah like you have that's so wise and wonderful and righteous? So the book of Zachariah chapter 8 which says that in those days in the end of days 10 people will come from the nations of the world and grab the tzitzis of a Jew and say let's follow you we've heard that God is with you. We're in the end of the book of Isaiah we're told that even though you've been forsaken and hated this is chapter 60 verse 15 even though throughout your history you Jews have been forsaken and hated with no one passing through I will make you an everlasting pride a joy from generation to generation this is a theme that runs constantly throughout the Tanakh and the Jews will ultimately be vindicated in history that all of the nations of the world will say you know what you guys were right. And that's what God says here my servant will prosper he'll be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Now that's not the perception the world has had of us through history God says that many will have been astonished at you my people and their appearance was marred more than any man and the servants form more than the sons of men and what will happen when this servant is exalted when the Jewish people are exalted? God says he will startle many nations kings will shut their mouths on account of him for what they had not been told they will see what they had not heard they will understand that's what's going to happen when the Jewish people when the Mashiach comes and he's able to eat those M&M's I heard this from missionary this summer he said to me that when the Mashiach comes they'll give him the M&M's test if he can eat M&M's I mean they don't fall through the holes in his hand then the Jewish people are right it wasn't Yashka and if he can't eat the M&M's then the Christians are right so if Mashiach comes then when Mashiach comes and it turns out that the Jews were right which is what this chapter was saying what is going to be the reaction of Billy Graham what do you think he's going to react he's going to say oh okay how about the Pope when the Mashiach comes and they realize that for 2,000 years those crazy Jews are right all along what is the reaction going to be? they are going to freak out their mouths are going to be hanging open that's what Isaiah says here he will startle many nations kings will shut their mouths on his account for what they had not been told they will see what they had not heard they will understand who has believed our message chapter 53 who's talking there who are the people that are freaking out now and saying who would have believed what we've heard these are the people that were freaked out in the previous verse the Goyim the nations the kings the leaders the missionaries the popes the ministers when the Jews are finally vindicated they're going to say who would have believed what we're seeing and for who has and to who has the arm of the Lord been revealed what is the arm of the Lord in the Torah what's the arm of God it's a metaphor that describes the strength of God strength of God to do what to do what to save the Jewish people from their enemies if you read the 50 plus references to the arm of God in the Bible it refers to God's strength revealed by saving the Jews from enemies where do you get this from you get it at the song at the splitting of the Red Sea is the first one but right here in the previous chapter chapter 52 the Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God so these nations are going to say finally to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed they're seeing the Jewish people rescued vindicated exalted and they are freaking out and then they begin a vidui a confession because this is a messianic prophecy this is talking about what happens when Messiah comes and they're going to say that this nation was despised he was forsaken of men these Jewish people a man of sorrow is acquainted with grief and like one from whom men hide their face he was despised and we did not esteem him they will admit that we hated the Jews but he was pierced and here's the Hebrew translation he was pierced from our transgressions not that he was pierced for our transgressions there's a letter mem here in the Hebrew he was crushed from our iniquities why were the Jews crushed? they were crushed from our sins because we were evil for the past 2,000 years the Jews suffered they suffered as a result of our evil they didn't suffer for our evil they didn't die for our sins they died from our sins and this is a vidui a confession by these kings and nations and leaders and rulers who've persecuted and hated Jews for 2,000 years now when you study this chapter in detail what you do and it's a long process is go through each passage each verse and show two things number one that what it's describing is certainly not Jesus meaning that if you want to assume that this is describing someone you can go through every single sentence and show that whoever is describing certainly isn't Jesus describes a person who was completely hated by everyone was Jesus hated by everyone? the New Testament says he was the most popular person of the day a couple of Pharisees didn't like him it describes the Jewish people who were hated for 2,000 years for 3,000 years by everyone no matter where they went even when we're not existing the Japanese today the no Jews there hate the Jewish people and someone who will have many descendants he will see his seed he will prolong his days the nation of Israel will be prolonged for Christians to apply it to a divine being and talk about a divine eternal being prolonging his days is obviously absurd and to speak about a man who died at the age of 33 is having days prolonged is absurd and you go through the entire passage word by word showing it doesn't apply to Jesus and yet what you show is that every single word here is consistent with the way the Jewish people are described throughout the Tanakh and you want to find out what does the Bible corroborate what is clear and consistent that's an approach that we use for this chapter in Isaiah if there are questions later I'll take them but I really have more material to cover Mark may mention before of the virgin birth prophecy I don't really have time to cover it with you I just want to make a few ha'arot a few points important to remember we're not going to go into the whole tired and worn out discussion about the mistranslation of Alma as virgin it's so clear nowadays that most Christian Bibles are translating it properly as a young woman let me just tell you one little thing that comes up with missionaries because this is one of the lines they learn and it's effective what do you mean rabbi that it doesn't mean virgin all right the rabbi says Johnny don't you understand that Alma doesn't mean virgin it means young woman and they're taught to tell the rabbi or anyone else let me tell you something rabbi before Jesus ever was born the rabbis themselves translated the Old Testament into the Septuagint right 200 years before there was a Jesus the rabbis translated the Bible into Greek and when they translated Isaiah they rendered Alma here and Isaiah the virgin birth passage as Parthenos in Greek and Parthenos is the Greek word for virgin so what do you mean to tell me that Alma in Isaiah doesn't mean virgin the rabbis themselves translated it as virgin anyone have any answers to this I don't think they translated it as a good point when you read the Gamara right the rabbis translated Chami She'ichum She'etorah what was translated by the 70 rabbis was the Pentateuch was the five books of Moses who translated Isaiah we don't know and it was never accepted as a legitimate Jewish translation as a matter of fact the text that we have of the Septuagint now of the book of Isaiah is the most corrupt and it's literally unreliable there are hundreds and hundreds of different manuscripts but that's one thing to say secondly and a better thing to say is what does Parthenos really mean the Greek word and if you look at a concordance of the Septuagint and you see where the word Parthenos is used it's used first in a story of Dina in the book of Genesis Bereshi chapter 34 Dina was raped and Dina is described as a Parthenos after she's raped so it's difficult to imagine that the word simply means a virgin and its usage in Greek is not as simple as missionaries would have us believe a few other points about the virgin birth story what I do with the Christians I have them read the beginning of the chapter they tell me you know what this is a strange chapter it's not talking about the messiah it's talking about a war between the different kingdoms and Achas again read the context this is the third idea Isaiah says that the birth of this child will be a sign it'll be a sign and we spoke before about messianic prophecy when the bible predicts that the messiah will be betrayed by a close friend that's not a very impressive prophecy when the bible speaks about the messiah riding on a donkey not a very impressive prophecy when the bible speaks about the messiah being a Jew or being from the tribe of Judah that's not impressive that applies to thousands of people let's get a prophecy that's very very accurate that pinpoints someone so if the bible were to have said you will identify the messiah because it'll be born with 14 heads 29 legs green teeth and 99 feet tall and you'll know that's the messiah because that's what it'll look like that's a very good prophecy because that tells you what to look for so here Christians got very excited because here's something that's unusual a virgin birth and how many people are born of a virgin so it seems on a superficial level like this is a good one this is something which is not just riding on a donkey and then you think about it for a second is a virgin birth a sign would anyone be able to look at Jesus walking down the street and say that must be the messiah because his mother Mary was a virgin that she walk around with a gynecological examination sticker saying sortified board virgin her own husband in the New Testament Joseph comes home they weren't married they were engaged but they hadn't consummated the marriage Joseph comes home and sees that Mary is with child and he doesn't say praise God this is the mother of the future messiah he didn't realize that she was a virgin about to give birth to a baby so what do you mean virgin birth is a sign tell a story about the city of Chicago there's very windy anyone here from Chicago and the street signs kept on getting knocked down by the wind so this town council voted to take all the stop signs and to put them underground they won't be blown down by the wind anymore and someone got up and said but you that's stupid you can't do that why because it's not a sign anymore right a sign has to be something that's seen I want to go on to a topic now that I want you to pay attention to because really when you get down to it this is probably the most central topic to Christian missionary arguments with Jews Mark described why we don't accept Jesus as the messiah what Christians did ultimately was to redefine the Jewish concept of messiah the Jewish concept of messiah was a king who would live at a time when the world is at peace and the world believes in God the Jews are in their homeland prospering keeping the commandments that didn't happen he wasn't accepted by the Jewish people but how do they explain that the messiah being killed what's going on here so what Christians had to do after the death of Jesus was to come up with a definition of messiah that would accommodate a dead messiah if you remember the story of Shapsite Svi who was a false messiah who lived in the 1600s right he was a person that thought he was the messiah he had a huge following Jewish people throughout the land sold their possessions sold their homes and were following this Shapsite Svi back to the land of Israel he was the messiah and then all of a sudden he's captured by the Turks thrown into jail and forced to convert to Islam to become a Muslim so here is Shapsite Svi riding in a Turkish jail practicing Muslim so it's clear that he's not the Jewish messiah or is it many Jews continue to believe in him had to explain why it was necessary for the messiah to be converted to Islam and they said that the messiah had to redeem the evil sparks and they came up with capitalistic ideas and they pointed to verses in the book of Isaiah chapter 53 which says that he will be pierced and the Hebrew is mecholal which can be translated as he will be desecrated and they were able to prove because they were able to shoot their arrow and enjoy the circle around it right if you assume that Shapsite Svi the messiah you'll find verses that prove it so they found verses that say that he will be desecrated he'll be profaned so the Christian explanation of the death of the messiah was very simple he died for a very important purpose he died to atone for the sins of the world the world is a sinful place and his death was able to atone for all sins of people who will believe in him and it's a very noble reason to die it's a very noble cause but it was very effective as an explanation because it was invisible no one was able to point to Jesus and say no he didn't die for a sins you know we say in the Talmud a road cell is shakir yachik edusav if you want to lie put your witnesses far away so in the Torah God says if you guys keep the Torah you'll have rain if not you'll be thrown out of the lane of Israel the Torah is very upfront and puts itself on the line in terms of what God promises to say that this guy died for your sins you either believe it or don't believe it there's no way of disproving it becomes an article of faith so what Christians do in their dealings with Jews especially is to sell the need to believe in Jesus it's not enough that they prove he was the Messiah because for most Jews who cares so he was the Messiah, Mazel Tov but they try and show Jewish people why they need to believe in it what is the need to have Jesus and that becomes a strong selling point and we mentioned yesterday that they'll often find a guilt something people feel guilty about someone had an abortion at one time someone cheated someone everyone has done something terrible and they'll find that and they'll increase the guilt you feel over it and they'll have you begin to deal with getting over the guilt and talk about forgiveness from sin and say that you know in the Torah there's only one way to be forgiven for your sins and that's by having a sacrifice and they tell this to Jewish people that in the Torah the only way you can ever be forgiven for your sins is by having a sacrifice brought do you have a sacrifice nowadays what do you guys do you've got a shul on your kippur where does the Torah speak about going to shul to be forgiven for your sins the rabbis made it up you give stucco you pray come on the bible says in the book of Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11 without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins by the way you believe everything I'm saying tonight do you anyone check me up does anyone have a bible this is the number one misquote of any verse where you're dealing with Christians where do they get the idea that you need a sacrifice from for forgiveness Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11 where it says without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness from sins is that what it says in Leviticus chapter 17 I say that well it doesn't say that it could say that but it doesn't you see that's a passage which does exist in the bible but not our bible and remember when I said before we're not attacking Christianity we're merely going to show it's not Jewish Christianity the New Testament does believe that without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness from sins that's a verse in the book of Hebrews chapter 9 verse 22 which says just that and it's a Christian concept that without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness the bible says very clearly that God gave us sacrifices and it's the blood that makes atonement because the life is in the blood and that's the proof upon this verse hangs the proof that all of you are in big trouble because how many of you brought sacrifices and as the missionaries tell you the bible doesn't say to swing a chicken around your head the bible says to bring a sacrifice so I want to spend five minutes looking at this passage with you first of all if you read the passage carefully it doesn't say that blood is the only way of atoning for sins it says blood is an atonement blood serves to function as an atonement it's funny that when you read this chapter in Leviticus in Viikra the theme of this chapter is not talking about how to atone for your sins the theme of this chapter isn't even about how to bring sacrifices what is the theme of this chapter it's a chapter which discusses how not to bring sacrifices all the prohibitions and we look at this passage in context it's speaking about the prohibition of eating or drinking blood that's the discussion here it's not a discussion about the principles of atonement how to bring sacrifices comes back in the beginning of Leviticus so now I ask a Christian person let's you know we do this in Talmud right Afil al-Ditra let's take your point of view let's look at what you have to say and let's check it out let's put it on the table and look at it so you mean to say that unless a person brings a blood sacrifice they can't be forgiven for their sins exactly I don't say it that's what the bible says okay so let's look at a few problems what was the sacrifice bought from bought from flocks cattle right sheep so what if I was a poor guy back then you mean I can't afford an animal as a god consigns me to suffer forever and not be forgiven because I can't afford mean poor people God is saying poor people are discriminated against poor person can't be forgiven so it's not my question it says it in the book of Leviticus if a guy is too poor to bring an animal he brings a bird turtle dove or pigeon it's cheaper get it much cheaper but what if the guy is really destitute he can't even afford a bird he's a street person he's a mamish out and out so I mean God does not allow poor people to be forgiven for their sins it's also not my question the bible raises it if the person is too poor to afford even a bird he brings a handful of flour for his atonement sacrifice so you just said two minutes ago that without blood there's no forgiveness but the bible just said that the guy is forgiven with the flour so maybe you're not 100% right yet let's go further than this it says in the bible here that you just can't offer a sacrifice in your backyard right if we can't do it in shul here the same chapter in Leviticus speaks about not bringing it outside the temple got to bring in a sacrifice on the temple this passage in Leviticus by the way says specifically that I've given you the blood upon the altar to be in atonement so you just can't do it wherever you feel like doing it so what happens to the Jewish people before Jesus who didn't have a temple to bring sacrifices to right in the year 586 approximately the temple was destroyed the Jews find themselves in Babylonia here you have nice Jewish people like Daniel right so what does Daniel do to atone for his sins he can't bring sacrifices in Babylonia this is a question you can ask a Christian what does God want Daniel to do he can't believe in Jesus and it's not my question when king Solomon first built the temple and he has given his speech dedicating the temple he raised this problem in the first book of kings in Malachim Aleph chapter 8 Solomon says what happens if the temple is destroyed and the Jewish people are taken far away what do they do so Torah is very clear Torah says that if they return to God with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive and prayed towards God and they prayed to the land that's one of the sources for praying towards the Jerusalem you pray towards the land which God has given to their fathers to the city which you have chosen and to the house which you have built for your name then hear their prayer and your supplication in heaven and your dwelling place maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against you so Torah here speaks about not bringing sacrifices because there's no temple there but praying and repenting and indeed when you go through the Torah that's the number one message of the Torah the Torah says that when you turn from God if you want to be forgiven you turn back to God that's the main line bottom line message of the Torah and it's fascinating that none of the prophets not one of them not Yishayahu not Yaheskel not Yermiyahu they never talk about the Jewish people needing to bring sacrifices they constantly remind the Jewish people return to God repent mend your ways it's fascinating that really bringing sacrifices was the weakest form of atoning for sins in the Bible if you remember from the book of Leviticus it only was brought for an unintentional sin if you sinned unintentionally you brought a sacrifice what if you sinned intentionally you can't bring a sacrifice you have to simply approach God and pray and repent and ask for God's mercy and that's the main theme throughout the Bible forgiveness comes through repentance obviously the sacrifice itself didn't do anything that's what the prophets were screaming about you fools you think you'll bring a sacrifice and be forgiven automatically what Shlomo says the sacrifice of a wicked person is an abomination to God that you should think that by bringing a sacrifice it works like a magic charm and you're forgiven it's absurd forgiveness comes through repenting through changing your behavior and we see that throughout the Bible in the book of Jonah in Jonah right it comes to non-Jewish people they weren't even given laws of sacrifice and he says to them in 40 days unless you shape up you'll be destroyed and it says at the end of the book of Jonah that they changed their ways they repented they started to clean up their act and God forgave them and throughout the Bible we see examples countless examples of God forgiving people when they truly repent sincerely the Christian angle also tends to deprecate God's mercy you mean God is limited you mean God can't forgive me if I don't bring a sacrifice what about God just being merciful what about God forgiving me for his sake we say in our prayers all the time I say Lemaan Shemecha and we find this throughout the Tanakh that God frequently forgives the Jewish people and it says in the Tanakh even though they didn't bring sacrifices even though they didn't repent God forgives us because he's merciful he loves us if you need to have what's his name I think I say his name too much if it's true what you say that he died for our sins and he's a sacrifice and that's it so why does the Tanakh speak about the temple being rebuilt and sacrifices being offered in the future what is the purpose of that why does the Tanakh constantly speak about no vicarious atonement father will not be put to death for the sins of the child and the child not to death for the sins of the parent and when Moshe wants to be the first person to offer himself up for the sins of others right God wants to wipe away the Jews and Moshe says take me instead God says no each person dies for their own sins in the Torah it's obnoxious that a simple innocent person should die for someone else's sins it's funny in Mishle it says that the person that justifies the wicked is an abomination to God and one last point and we'll go on assuming you're correct Mr. Missionary let's say you're right that because of the book in Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11 I need a blood sacrifice let's say that's what it means does that mean does that mean that okay I need blood so this morning I was making myself a tuna fish sandwich and I accidentally cut my finger and blood dripped on my shoe praise God I had blood and now my sins are atoned for is that what it means but if you're telling me without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness so they were shedding of blood does it mean some crazy person can kill their cat and they're forgiven of their sins because it says in Leviticus you need blood for atonement obviously not the Bible tells you how to do it Bible says I've given you blood upon the altar to atone for your sins if the Bible does provide for sacrifices there's a certain way of doing it on the altar was Jesus blood shed on the altar meaning even if you want to claim that you need a blood sacrifice Jesus doesn't work wasn't shed on the altar sacrifice to be brought by a priest Roman soldiers don't qualify as priests in our religion he had to have no blemish sacrifice could not be any blemish had to be perfect Jesus was beaten up he was stuck in the side by a spear he was circumcised at the age of eight days which the New Testament calls mutation he was disfigured sacrifices were burnt on the altar and you go through the laws of sacrifices this doesn't apply to this person I want to really close with one more issue and I'm sorry we didn't get to cover all the issues that we plan on doing tonight but we're going to leave time for questions and that's the following question if our bottom line message is that Christianity isn't Jewish and it really isn't true on a certain level on that level and what's it doing here why is it so popular why do so many people believe in it right if it's not true the whole world believes in it it's very interesting by the way this is one of the places where Christians love to sort of have their cake and eat it too yesterday when we raised the issue of anti-Semitism Christians say as we saw in the movie those weren't real Christians the Crusades, the Holocaust, the pogroms, the acquisitions this is that those are not real Christians and even today there were millions of different sects those are not real Christians the Catholics aren't real Christians the Mormons aren't real Christians the Episcopalians aren't real Christians so in history how many real Christians were there a thousand in 2,000 years how many real Christians were there if you're saying that no one was a real Christian and yet when it comes to showing how popular it is they all come back on the team you know they're all welcome back see how many with 5 billion Christians we've had so one of the passages that's referred to in the New Testament and I want to really end with this it's from the book of Acts where they claim and there's no reason to believe this happened historically that the early followers of Jesus were taken before the Sanhedrin and they come before him in Gamleil and they want to just they want to hassle these these followers of Jesus and Gamleil says to them what are you bothering them and Gamleil says that if what they're doing is of God you'll never stop it and if what they're doing is not of God it'll fall apart by itself and Christians love to point to this you see your own Rabbi Gamleil right he gave a harsher to us because he said that if it's of God it won't stop and we're here 2,000 years later now obviously the reasoning is is fallacious I mean the Muslims are around for hundreds and hundreds of years the Buddhists the Confucius the fact that the religion is able to prolong itself and exist doesn't prove that it's true but let's look at what he really said who was Roman Gamleil speaking to if you read the story and assume that it happened was he speaking to Anglican Christians who observed the Sabbath on a Sunday and eat pork and pray in Latin and sing hymns to Jesus Christ when you study the origins of Christianity he was speaking to Jewish people who kept Shabbos who kept all the mitzvot who kept the mitzvot according to the Perushim the rabbinic authorities because even Jesus said in the book of Matthew whatever the Pharisees teach you you must do and observe because they have the authority from Moshe Rabbeinu because Moshe Rabbeinu was told in the book of Deuteronomy and Zvarem that all Torah must be explained through the rabbis and Jesus agreed too and his own followers kept all the mitzvot and Gamleil spoke to those people and said if these guys are okay don't worry about it and if it's not okay it'll disappear it disappeared because within about 150 years this group of Jews who kept the mitzvot who didn't believe Jesus was God just thought he was a Mashiach who happened to die but they thought he was going to come back they died out it became for Judaism's sake as far as we're concerned a non-issue it was irrelevant it became ultimately a non-Jewish Gentile religion it was the pagan religions back then who believed in trinities the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians that was a big thing back then a triune God it was those pagan religions that believed in virgin births it was a very popular idea it was the pagan religions that believed in a dying resurrected savior it was not a Jewish religion what emerged was a Gentile pagan religion and if we accept Roman Gamleil's prophecy that if it's of God you can't stop it if it's not of God it'll disappear by itself exactly what happened disappeared by itself what we're going to do now in our program is focus on the Tathlis in terms of the community we mentioned yesterday that Toronto is a community which is targeted by missionaries of all the cities that Jews for Jesus chose to have a capital in the headquarters and they chose Toronto so we'd like to discuss for the next 15 minutes what we do what does Jews for Judaism do to help our communities what do we do to help Jewish families what do we do to prevent some of the problems that we get involved with when missionaries come to a city we want to speak about what we hope to do in Toronto what we're doing in Toronto now and how you can get involved so I'd like to introduce this part of the discussion what's his name what's his name okay again we're going to have lots of room for questions and answers now I was standing at a lecture and very much like this back in 1980 I think it was in Hamilton at a place called the Hamilton Friends of Israel and I was there as their token messianic Jew giving a discussion on the Trinity and the Shema I was giving a lecture on how God as we know him in Judaism was really packaged in three parts and while I was up in front of this group of people at the Hamilton Friends of Israel I realized what an idiot I was I was standing there from a set of prepared notes trying to give over what really was not making sense to me anymore it was the one of the last straws that broke the proverbial camel's back and as I stood in front of this group of Christians giving over a lesson that was prepared by some misguided messianic Jew I realized that I didn't agree with this that I had been mistaken and one of the things that hit me like a brick were the words that I was giving over to these non-Jews and the words were and it went on to say and for those of you who don't know what it means Hero Israel Hashem our Lord Hashem is one and it went on to say and you should love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength and it occurred to me that in mere moments as I stood in front of these people that my life was flashing in front of me that I was a Jew who had made some great mistakes that I had to reevaluate my life and that what stood before me was the credo that had kept the Jewish people together for millennia the same words that were uttered on the lips of Jews who died through a variety of pogroms and massacres were the words that I were trying to say substantiated belief in Christianity and I realized I was wrong what I was faced with was the words that I had to re-embrace for the first time in my life and to rediscover who in fact this God was I realized I'd been mistaken but I realized also that for me to come to a point where I can be a responsible Jew to not only myself but Mir to Shem to the generations that would come from me I would have to embrace this credo of the Jewish people and understand what it means and on the surface it meant sure the Jewish people believed that God is one but after it comes the commandment that we should love our God with everything that is in us of everything physically, spiritually, mentally, monetarily and if that was not enough it went on to teach that we should teach our children and in time as I removed myself away from my Christian involvement I asked myself how is it that I will ever be able to be the type of Jew that will be able to teach my children so that they in turn will not be so foolish or so unwise as to make the mistakes I did and I realized the only way that this can ever happen was for me to take a look at Torah in the way that it was meant to be looked at for me that it was a set of commandments that God wanted for my benefit so that I could grow so that I could enjoy life so that I could be a productive human being a productive Jew so that I could be a light unto the nations and do my own bit and I realized that for me I had to understand that Torah personally I had to embrace God both in Word and in Deed and I also had to know and understand what Torah meant so that I could give this over to my children and with this conviction I realized I'm going to have to start being a Jew more than in name more than in race and more than in Lux and bagels and so I committed myself to some Jewish learning today I realized that through the mistakes I've made it's not enough and that although there are certain things that we each have abilities to contribute in this world I realized that one of the things that I must commit myself to is to try and do what I can to help shed a little light on those misguided Jewish individuals that have been locked into Christianity and so I've undertaken with the help of the other directors of Jews for Judaism to try and coordinate in Toronto a branch of Jews for Judaism now while the name states far and above just an organization that fights against Christianity I think ultimately that's what Jews for Judaism is it's an organization that wants to try and direct people into a clear and light and beautiful understanding of what Judaism is all about it is also an organization that's dedicated to correcting the misconceptions that have been put into the community about what the missionaries are all about what Jews for Judaism does in its other branches is something that I would like to see happen here in Toronto and it's a difficult project some of the programs that Jews for Judaism have done in the past and I'd like to see happen here first of all one-on-one counseling with Jews who have been unfortunately misguided and embraced into Christianity that involves incredible skill, talent and patience something that I know I only have a little of but fortunately with maybe practice and time I'll be able to develop that further with the help of some of my colleagues in the other branches who are always available willing to come to help in a situation where Tsashem will be able to come help I'm also hoping to develop support groups by support groups I'm talking about individuals that not only will be able to help within ourselves as an organization but find individuals that will be able to help young Jewish people, older Jewish people that have come out of Christianity to encourage them into a Jewish lifestyle to come and meet for the first time born again Jews Jews who are born again into understanding what Judaism is all about it's a strange expression but I want to use it against what it's been used for and instead show that it can also mean something in regards to Yiddish kind one of the things that I'd like to continue doing which I've been doing for years is take advantage of every opportunity to lecture to any Jewish audience anywhere in regards to this issue be it 20 minutes or two hours Jews for Judaism is also perfected an eight week serious seminar on countering the missionary threat this is a course that hopefully I'll be able to learn myself so that I can give it over in the Toronto area on a regular basis by regular occasionally for eight week sessions once a week another thing that is very much needed is college campus programs because one of the places where the missionaries have a field day is on the college campuses I was just told by one of the people here in the audience tonight that there are there's a table at University of Toronto where a fellow who is very well committed and very well trained in his Hebrew Christianity and his businesses to disseminate literature to various Jewish students there and there's nobody fighting what he's doing there is nobody sitting there at a table saying Jews for Judaism here's why you should be Jewish nobody's helping me out that way at least very little I shouldn't say nobody they're very effective on the campuses the statistics were brought out yesterday about on one United States campus where there was maybe one organization or 1.1 organizations Jewish we helping the Jewish students there were 13 organizations that were just there specifically to convert Jews so something will have to be done on campuses as far as literature distribution I started something last year that I'm going to be putting under the wings of Jews for Judaism that'll be literature distribution hopefully on a worldwide worldwide scale to first of all supply information to Jewish people who need information in regards to this area such as books we have in the back but also campaigns advertising campaigns to counter the work that Jews for Judaism the Jews for Jesus is doing lastly I'm going to hopefully find some volunteers who want to help me and my volunteer effort to try and do what we can to rescue even one Jew from the unfortunate trappings of missionary Christianity so that maybe with the help of your cooperation we can somehow bring Jack and Jews back to Judaism I'd like to thank everybody for coming here tonight I don't know if I've missed any points have I I think that what I will do I can't remember am I missing something no I'm going to end up with a story and then we'll open for questions and answers there was once a man a Mr. Friedman who lived in white Russia western Russia it was in the beginning of the 19th century and the Colesacks whoever they were in those days were coming around to pillage the town murder all the Jews and Mr. Friedman knew that he had to get his son out of there his son his son's name was Yaakov and he said to his son Yaakov Yaakov you know the Cossacks are coming tonight and I really want you to flee for the city because our lives are at stake and as he was uttering the words he heard the the horse's hoods coming in the distance he told Yaakov please come upstairs I want to show you something that's very important what I have to show you has been in our family for generations and generations it has held our family together in it are the secrets of life in it is what will give you life and be able to be precious as a legacy both to you and your children and your children's children it is the most valuable thing on earth and you took them upstairs to the attic and there in the attic in the corner was a box with brown wrapping paper wrapped around it and lots of string he didn't have time to unwrap it but he gave it to Yaakov told Yaakov to take it and guard it with his life Yaakov fled as the Cossacks broke into the house and he made it to Germany years later 1938 it was in 1940 the Nazis were coming and he was in Germany with his son Yitzhak he said to his son Yitzhak you know Yitzhak I'm sorry I never had an opportunity to tell you about this before but my father gave me something that was very important and he said that this this thing is the key to our life and the key to our success and our thriving it is the hope of our future our happiness and our longevity as a nation and as a people I want you to take it and guard it with your life and make sure your children get this and be able to pass it on to their children and Yitzhak said to his father well what is it and he took them upstairs to show them what it was but unfortunately just as he was getting into the nuts and bolts of the package and he was unable to untie it because the Nazis were at the door so Yitzhak took the package and ran to North America years later they're in North America and Yitzhak is moving to another location in Toronto and his son is helping him with the move and his son says to him dad have we got everything out of the house and it's a success to his son well Chris you can go upstairs and take a look and see if there's a parcel up there I think we left something in the attic that we probably don't need so Chris goes upstairs and he says yeah dad I found it what's in it I don't know it's it's an old thing it's a memento but I'm not so sure what it is but throw it in the garbage Chris looks at his dad with dad it's a memento it looks important it's old you're going to throw it in the garbage without even looking into it and that package was our Torah that package is our legacy and unfortunately we're in a situation today where we have too many Jews that are willing to throw away the Torah because of an ignorance because of a situation where they lack the understanding of what's in it and it's the dilemma and the period of time that we live in that has created the possibility that we can have such a problem both with missionaries and cults am I urging all of us here who are Torah responsible Jews is that we take the opportunity to look at what we have very vividly and embrace another Jew show that other Jew the example of the life the vitality the richness of what is our heritage because nobody ever did that to me and it might have made a big difference so questions and answers one quickie before the questions and answers some of you may have seen this little advertisement that we're running currently missionaries are putting out the lights it's appearing this month in Moment Magazine and we're over here at the western castle Harbor Castle Hotel the United synagogue of America the conservative movement has their convention there this week and I got a phone call today from my office in Baltimore panic urgent phone call please call the office dire need so I ran to the phone called the office and I was given a phone number and just before coming here tonight had the opportunity to make this phone call to a woman in Florida and if you want to know what Jews for Judaism is about this is where it's at she said I'm out of touch with everything Jewish I was raised in an Orthodox family when I got married I went to the conservatives that didn't fit so we went to the reform and finally we just broke away from it all and I got divorced and I have a couple of kids I'm a single parent and I'm living in this out of the way place in Florida and the people that I work with are fundamentalist Christians and they've been working on me because of where I have been I know there's something wrong with what they're saying then I know it bothers me but yet a lot of what they're saying is making sense and I'm even at the point where I'm starting to buy it and then today I got Moment Magazine and you know I generally never look at the back cover and I don't know if you get or have ever seen Moment Magazine but they're now packaging it inside another cover which on the front says send a gift subscription for a friend on the back there's the tear-off cards and so forth and so on she says I you know I just never look at the back cover at all but today I did and I have to go call her again now because I was running out to come here and she said please call me back I really really need to talk to someone but thank God you're there and that's what it all comes down to and that's why there is a Jews for Judaism and with your help and support here in Toronto Julius will be able to reach out to those people who need our help and now we'll take questions okay um questions yes fireway everything you dealt with today was within scriptures yesterday you told the story the story about Saul the corpse oh Saul and uh you're not dealing with a rational argument here how do you get them to the point of rationality do you make stakes do you say look let's stay in the real world and if I do prove this to you and you gotta you gotta come across on and agree with me on this but what do you do there's not one way or method that works with everyone yeah the bottom line is we have to get them thinking critically again these are people who are not thinking critically and there's not one thing that works with every one person because each person obviously is different but we need to move them to the point where they can analyze and so forth I have a girl right now that I'm working with in in Dallas, Texas I think I told this story to a couple of people last night the family called just before Rosh Hashan and they said you know please help we have no place else to turn to if you can't help us we don't know what we're going to do my daughter got involved with congregation Baruch Hashem in Dallas and we just don't know what to do and she's coming up to New York for Thanksgiving do you think you can get to see her and talk to her and see what you can do and I said yeah you know we we certainly will try and I thought about it after hanging up the phone and I called back and I said listen why don't you invite her up for Rosh Hashan I mean just out of the clear blue tell her you'll send her a ticket have her come up and oh by the way you have somebody like her to meet and so I drove up she agreed to come in I drove up to New York and I met with this girl and I started at 11 o'clock on Thursday morning just before Rosh Hashan and we went straight through until 2 30 Friday morning straight through and she literally fought me tooth and nail it was almost a knockdown drag out situation and I remember very vividly that we argued over one word we argued over the word you know real crucial word here until what does the word until mean because there was a section that I showed her that says you know this will not happen until that happens and I said well you know A B A won't happen until B happens well B has already happened so what does that mean about A and she completely disregarded quite a while to give her an analogy for the word until and so I finally came up with I will not have a wife until I get married obviously I will not have a wife until I get married what is the word until up until the point that this happens this won't happen she said you're wrong and I can give you an example she said what about a homosexual marriage you know and so we went we went back and forth for hours for hours literally hours and that was the attitude that she was taking obviously she dead men do bleed I mean they'll buy anything at all finally we aim to a point where it became so crystal clear to her that she actually gave up fighting and you could see it was like Conway and Siegelman describe Conway and Siegelman are are individuals who've done extensive research into the cult mind and personality and you could literally see a snapping they call it a snapping there's a point at which the mind of someone snaps and they're in and there's a point at which something snaps and they're out and you could literally see in this girl an entire change in her personality she stopped fighting and she started listening and we engaged in a conversation not a confrontation and there was a point in that evening where she came to that point and by working back and forth and going over the same point time and time again until it becomes clear that's what I had to do with her but there is no formula unfortunately but yeah you have to get the person thinking critically again because without the critical thinking it's not there the dead men do bleed okay well well versed on how to respond to two of these big things one is this idea Jeremiah 31, 31 and the second thing is when they say well this is not really being this is not really what it means and you say well what do you mean by that that's a stupid answer sometimes they'll throw back in their face well what about an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth and our answer is well that's not exactly what it means so what's fire and defense for that like how come we're allowed to say that I'm sort of like a bad guy here to get the answer and how come they're I mean I let me take the second part first and then Michael will take Jeremiah 31, 31 on the contrary I let the individual I let him say that's what it says but that's not what it means and I say okay fine no problem you mean to tell me Mr. Missionary that a passage could say one thing and mean something entirely different and his answer is yes I mean it has to be where else can you go with you have to hate your mother your father your sister your brother so fine so then let me tell you in the context of our bible what it means so absolutely I will let them say it means something other than what it says on the literal sense because that gives me the ability under his license to say the same thing so no I'm not saying that we can do it and they can't I'm saying okay I accept your premise that it can mean something other than what it says but then let's look at it and see let me tell you in the context of the Jewish bible which I know I read I understand in the language in which it was written in the context in which it was given what it means as well okay briefly it's a it's a long subject that the issue of the new covenant and be brief why do you generally do with people that bring up the topic it's from the 31st chapter in the book of Jeremiah from your miyahu is to ask them what they think it means meaning what do they think the new covenant is generally historically Christians have pointed to this passage in Jeremiah as a prophecy that speaks about the coming new covenant that God will make with the Jewish people which they understand to mean essentially the new religion of Christianity where the old religion Judaism will become obsolete and that's how the book of Hebrews understands the passage meaning that now that there's a new covenant the old one is no longer around what happens what went away so the law which was the focus of the old covenant living by under God's law will no longer be required meaning in the old dispensation in the old covenant Jews had to do certain things and now the law is in their heart that's what it says here I'll put my law in your heart so the bottom line becomes on a certain level and I'm oversimplifying their position but on a certain level it becomes that that the Jewish religion Torah and Judaism become sublimated into a religion of the heart a religion of faith and now the law is in their heart now what they're saying ultimately is that that's why Christians for the last 2000 years haven't made sure to circumcise their children at the age of eight days haven't observed the Jewish dietary laws haven't observed the Jewish holidays and what we do simply is read the passage and try and see what it's really saying when the Torah says here that I'm not going to make I'm going to make a new covenant not like the old covenant what was the old covenant that was that's going to be different so it says in this in the passage here the old one the Jews broke they didn't keep the Torah properly so God says a new one I'm going to put in your heart so what does it mean when it says I'm going to put my Torah in your heart so you simply look at other passages in the Bible which speak about having a Torah in your heart for example Psalms chapter 40 verse 8 I delight to do your will God oh God because your law is in my heart when a person has the law the Torah in their heart they're faithful to observe it so we see in the book of Yicheskel and Ezekiel chapter 11 and chapter 36 where it speaks about that time in the future when God says I'll take that stony heart out of your heart and I'll put in a heart of flesh and give you a new heart that you will observe my commandments keep my statutes and do them so there's a prophecy that God give us in the Torah then in the future there'll be a time when the Jewish people will keep all the commandments all of the Jews because he will change our hearts so that we have a prophecy in the Bible that it's going to happen in the future did it happen yet obviously not and that's why when Christians quote this passage to Jews they stop right before the crucial verse which says that in those days when this new covenant is made no one will ask their brother or neighbor to believe in God they won't teach anyone anymore to believe in God because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them says the Lord meaning when that new covenant is made that's the messianic age the whole world will believe in God which is a prophecy throughout the Bible in that day God's name will be one so we're told that in the future the Jews will have a change to our and they will all observe God's commandments because they're faithful to God it says the exact opposite of what Christians have understood it to mean for the past 2,000 years This is a Talmudic covenant in touch on but I believe it is a Talmudic tractate where it talks about JC taking the same thing with everything and swallowing it up and putting it in this wrist or swallowing it you know that tractate of Talmud so first of all what I would what we were taught was that it doesn't mean that it's any miracles or anything like that do you know how to respond to that is that a sign at all and we were I don't know what you're talking about it's immaculate I think somewhere else okay you know it's interesting when I got out of Hebrew Christianity I took the opportunity to get together with a group of messianics as they call themselves to explain to them some of the issues as to why I was rejecting what I traditionally believed for five years and after the end of our evening discussion while I didn't make much headway at that time with some of the individuals although some of the people have left since then one woman came out to me afterwards and said to me Julius but how do you account for what I saw and I said what did you saw what did you see and she said I saw Jesus and I said oh really tell me about it she mentioned she was coming off the bus coming home from work and there he was across the road I said what did he look like and she said he was tall very handsome with a long beard black hair black robes even had the marks in his hands I said oh is that true is that true I said do you believe the New Testament is true oh yes I said did you know that the New Testament every place where Jesus is mentioned he appears after he's died he appears in white robes with white hair she got scared so who was it that I saw maybe it was the devil I don't know and I proceeded to tell her that Judaism teaches that regardless of any miracles that an individual performs if he does anything to cause a Jew to deviate from Torah to to take away from Torah anything which God gave us at Sinai regardless of how that person substantiates himself be a prophet or a self-proclaimed Messiah he could take you and fly you to the moon take you to Mars give you all the wealth and riches he could levitate you he could make the walls collapse he could make them come down he could perform any miracle conceivable but if he's doing it to substantiate anything that would cause you to go away from Torah or to take away from Torah this man is not to be believed so miracles are not something that the Jewish people use as a sign to understand who the Mashiach is going to be one thing is clear that we understand about the Mashiach he's not going to be somebody's going to perform miracles he'll be a normal person like you and I a very good person righteous person but miracles is not going to be the criteria by which we're going to justify whether or not a person is going to qualify as the Messiah okay so next question yeah how would Jewish people know I'm a true Messiah if he says I'm the Messiah how would the how would he be able to approve the Messiah is and we mentioned this it was alluded to in the discussion tonight there basically four serious criteria that we know will determine who the Mashiach will be number one he will be a descendant of not only King David but also of Solomon and there are Jews today in existence who have access to their lineage going back to King David he will also be able to cause about the restoration of the building of the temple in Jerusalem and through his influence there will be created a world recognition of God lastly through his influence there will be world peace if these four criteria are achieved by an individual who is a Jew of course he has to be a Jew who's going to be the descendant of King David and Solomon he's the Mashiach there's a possibility there's a possibility he's the Mashiach but these are the criteria that we look towards those four criteria and those four criteria only and you must understand that when the Christian missionary is confronted with this and you say wait a minute the Mashiach is supposed to bring about world peace supposed to bring about world recognition of God supposed to cause the temple to be restored where are these signs and they say well that'll be in the second coming but there is no provision in Judaism for a Messiah who comes fails miserably at his mission and tries again 2,000 years later they use the issue of the second coming as the only answer that they can use to substantiate the fact that the one that they claim to be the Messiah was a dismal failure at the job Messiah on the installment plan is not a Jewish concept okay Dov, do you have a question? Yeah I'm not in charge of that I'm not in charge of that but we've been in tradition to try to you're going to be I'm going to it has to be a question it has to be a question because we can't allow for it to come so there's a we've been in tradition to teach to do good to be a Messiah but you're correct whom was going to die prior to the coming of Messiah but the doubt now how would you answer this one? There's two different concepts to the Messiah and I'm going to ask Rabbi let's go back to fill us in on that one It's often thrown as a red herring that the Jewish are been a concept of Messiah but you're safe is never understood in rabbinish tradition in Christological terms he's not dying as an atonement for the sins of anyone he dies in battle as a prelude to the Messiah Messiah and David comes I just wanted to tack on one thing to what Julia said aside from the fact that a second coming is never talked about in the Bible second coming is a theory which could really validate anyone's Messianic claims I know someone that believes that his grandfather was the Messiah and when you say well what do you do? he says don't worry when he comes back you'll see that everything is fine so the fact that there's a second coming claimed does not increase anyone's validity the first time they came okay another question Sean you mentioned an approach to countering a showing of what they were claiming was not Judaism first of all what do you see the differences in approaching Jews who were involved in Messianic groups Jewish Messianic groups and Jews again involved in in some church group a non-Hebrew Christian group what different approaches do you take and well with this the fact is to this question what are this approaches that you'd have to take to that person so far as you're doing specifically is embracing Christianity not necessarily as a Jewish expression it's true that our presentation becomes more powerful with people who really think what they're doing is Jewish and then you get to basically operate on that level but for Jews that have strictly converted to Christianity and accepted Christian claims Jews still reject that meaning that we don't believe he was the Messiah we don't believe that we need to atone for our sins we don't accept any of the claims of Christianity and it basically transfers to the point of not that it's non-Jewish because that's not an issue for this person but we don't accept it as true and what we're really saying to the person is that your reading of the Bible is a a faulty reading of the text meaning that when you read the simple meaning of the Torah it doesn't say what you're saying it doesn't say that there are there's a need to have blood sacrifices to atone for sins the exclusion of anything else I guess what I was getting at is do you find there's a different approach necessary to those types of people to the people who get involved and Jewish Christianity tend to be people who are most susceptible to emotional approach or the same types of people that should be dealt with basically the same I think when we were discussing how we do exit counseling I think we mentioned before that there are several features to what we do the examination of the Bible is just one of those features an important part of our counseling is to expose people to the truth and the power of Judaism and what we find is that for I found this I can't speak for Julius or for Mark what I found is that it really is the same kind of counseling situation I'm dealing with someone that has very little Jewish background that is not aware of the Jewish reading of the Tanach has not had Jewish experiences and has never heard Torah and that by exposing someone to those four things to the meaning of the Bible the power of the Bible the power of Jewish ideas and Jewish experiences they have their effect and I haven't found in my experience a tremendous difference in terms of handling the counseling situation in the back and I'm dealt with a heretical Jewish sect called the Carrites and he speaks about two kind of Carrites there were the Carrites that were steeped in Judaism that abandoned Judaism abandoned Jewish life and became heretics and he speaks about rejecting them from our community I'm not sure he speaks about hating them I'm not sure of the exact language there and then he speaks about the Carrites who were not the innovators of the movement who were not the people who rejected Torah but people who were raised as Carrites and people who essentially never knew what Judaism was and he says that you have an obligation to reach out to them with love and with peace and to bring them back to Torah and we see today's Jews for Jesus in those lines these are not people that ever knew Torah knew tradition knew Judaism and rejected it these are people that never rejected Judaism and that's why our attitude is that we reach out to them with love to bring them back to Torah I'll adjust in all nations who praise us and they'll bow down to our our way of thinking in our God and the way we we see things now that's the case and the Christians have adopted the Old Testament part of their Bible why is there a desire of them to make us complete make us full when their own Bible says that we that they're even about us and there's no reason for them us to bow down to them if you go part of them the problem we have with that when you say that the Christian Bible says that well you have to remember that the Christians are reading the Bible first of all from back to front not front to back that's number one number two they're dealing with a concept of the old has passed away and the new has superseded so the authority of the new which says to go out and bring the good news to the Jew first and then to the Greek or to the Gentile has superseded anything else so although you know you this is just one passage you can take passage after passage after passage and say well the Jewish Bible says this but the Christian Bible says that how do you resolve the conflict and the answer is they're reading it from back to front the new has superseded the old and dead men do bleed in Jeremiah 31 where it says that the Jews broke the covenant so there are Christians who see themselves as the chosen people that because the Jews broke the original covenant finite there the Jews are no longer children people the Christians are the chosen people and are in a bring light to the world and part of their bring light to the world is to convert all the Jews to Christianity all right so they can renew the covenant because you'll get it right we're dealing with a concept here what was just mentioned is a concept that's known in Christianity as replacement theology the Christians have replaced the Jews as being the benefactors or the recipients of God's blessings under the covenant this is a theology which by the way scares the pants off the Hebrew Christians because it really leaves them in a very untenable position because what's the big deal about them being Jewish and fulfilled or completed Jews if the Christians have replaced the Jews so it scares the pants off of them and we have seen over the last couple of years as this replacement theology and by the way it's not new okay don't get me wrong this is not a new theology it is a theology which is now having a rebirth for the second time this century the first rebirth of this theology occurred about the time of Hitler and that scares the pants off of me okay before we go on let's further I will ask that remind those of us who are interested Davani Mari if we'll have a minion just after we close it's getting late two more questions and we're gonna have to call it an evening okay somebody you had a question there's not so much a question as an observation I see three people who are hurt in the last two nights do a fabulous job but Bushira have not worked when he comes to find out the leaders I see three firefighters trying to put out fires in different spots and fires to the lower level of the crisis three people can't do you're telling us that they are raising an army you might say is both people to fight Jews all all of them you showed a video of exactly what to do we apparently are counting this army the peasants were three experts using their philosophy or reason we need to use those three experts to do a pyramid and they should teach and not our 50 educators and they should teach another 5000 educators and we should be doing in the schools and in education a good time to do by yourself we have to not pass it I mean I've gone let me respond to your point because it's a point that I think needs to be addressed we don't operate by ourselves there are thank god now in the world in the states in Israel in Canada dozens of organizations that are trying to spread Judaism and to increase the strength of our people that is the bottom line answer to the missionary problem we are not the answer to the missionary problem the only answer is to raise a generation of Jews who are powerful Jews and are thereby inoculated that's the answer we're not working alone there are thank god many people who are doing this kind of work if you take a hospital there are lots of general practitioners we're specialists we're specialists there are cases when we need to be called in but we have thank god a big staff and we're not working alone there are not three of us there are now seven of us and god willing it'll be more than seven and you're part of that staff as well don't discount yourselves I have a great time with missionaries not just the missionaries but reaching out to other Jews again we're dealing with a generation that is basically Jewishly ignorant the objective here is not to one-on-one because one-on-one it's an impossibility but it's a question of inoculating as Michael says inoculating a generation to make them strong Jews as they have been inoculated in the past and which we missed in our inoculation of this generation okay one last question and we got to close Toby you had a question mark please you described the situation which basically you call deep programming what you did with that girl I mean would you call that well I would and I would not because deep programming brings up a connotation of somebody driving down the street in a van the side door opening up two people jumping out grabbing the person walking down the street throwing him back take him into motel and sitting there with them for the week or whatever it takes until they come out of whatever they're out they're into that is what is conceptualized as a deep programming first of all understand clearly the girl knew I was going to be there she knew why I was going to be there she knew what we were going to discuss and in fact when I got there she had a stack of books on the table that was this high you know so she she went into it with her eyes open at the same time yes she was programmed and when you get down to the bottom line yes I deprogrammed her the unfortunate circumstances of this particular case is that this case at this point does not have a happy ending at 2.30 in the morning she said to me yes I see everything you're saying you're 100% correct and by the way I didn't keep her there until 2.30 in the morning because I wanted to keep her there until 2.30 in the morning until she tired out and so forth I kept saying to her listen if you're tired it will stop we'll get back to this you want to call it a day we can do it tomorrow we can do it next week she wanted to go on she was the one that set the parameters and I allowed her to set those parameters and I kept encouraging her to take a break you want to get up you want to walk around you want to get something to eat something anything but she was the one that wanted to go at it constantly and at one point in time in the evening she became hungry for the information that I was giving her and at 2.30 she said yes I accept what you're saying I reject Jesus I reject Christianity it's all false and I see that clearly and she went home to Dallas, Texas and I spoke to her the next week and she was fine and I spoke to her the following week and I had connected her with a rabbi down in Dallas, Texas and she went for Yom Kippur to services and she had a horrendous time it was dull it was unexciting it was unfulfilling for her it was long it was boring and so she started to re-examine her Christianity and I had somebody who had been where she was involved in Christianity call her and she was having some problems with blood atonement and she couldn't resolve in her mind the question of of Hebrews where it says without the the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin and she was connecting that to her experience on Yom Kippur where it describes graphically you know and again she doesn't read Hebrew she was reading it in the English of how the priest comes and he and he performs the sacrifice and he sprinkles the blood and so forth and so on and she was relating that to her year and a half in Christianity and she was coming with an unresolved situation and so I had somebody who had been where she was somebody you know I've never had the experience that Julius had I've never been in Christianity so I couldn't relate to it in that situation so I had somebody call her and speak to her and resolve the whole thing with the blood atonement and she was fine three weeks ago her father calls me and says I think we have a problem and so I called and yeah she said you know we have come to different conclusions you have come to yours and I have come to mine and I know that I know that I know that in my deepest heart of hearts that he's the Son of God and I have never rejected him my question my question was going to be and I'm sorry I take it back when I use it but my question was going to be that when you're in a situation and that life, that competition while that you were in because all my question is whether it is not in some way actually distracting because you're being psychologically because of what you're doing is taking away the underpinnings of somebody's belief and you don't have what to replace it with so they're going to feel that they're undertapping and everything's going to shatter and there's nothing and I don't see how she offers something like that can serve on their own to defeat so the question is basically so when you isn't the method approaching people who are in which is from Jesus more of like over a long term one of that outweach kind of you bring women to study and to learn more about Judaism and to feel accepted and in some ways show them that the virtues that are felt in Christianity is actually different from the small in Judaism what happened with this girl was very very unusual it generally does not happen that way where after a one session the person comes and says yeah you're right normally our counseling sessions go on for days for weeks for months sometimes even years as far as taking something away from them and giving them nothing in return on the contrary we definitely give them something in return we give them the truth and reality of Judaism and take away from them the falseness and the destruction of Christianity to that Jew they are living and this girl by the way is living and there are other aspects to this case which I haven't which I haven't mentioned in terms of other problems that she's having within her life that are all intertwined and interconnected into this situation and she is living a euphoria that is so false and so fraudulent but which she has no other choice in doing because of the Christianity that is forcing her to live that euphoria so if there's a destruction here in this particular girl and you know again we can't say that this case is like every other case but in this particular case the euphoria in this girl is so thoroughly destructive and she is headed for such a crash such a crash when she realizes that the Christianity holds nothing for her and all of her things that she sees as being wonderful marvelous really aren't wonderful and marvelous and Christianity has let her down considerably without replacing it with a solid Judaism she really has no place to go and so we're not taking away from her but we're trying to give her something that is real and solid and a good base and foundation upon which to build okay we're going to really have to break you know I just want to add one I guess closing comment it's difficult if you can understand what it's like for a Holocaust survivor to come through the Holocaust and had had some kind of vivid experiences any kind of vivid experience maybe the Holocaust is too extreme an example it's hard to clear your head your memories and your and your and your being of the experience and I know from myself to this day there are things that I was affected by in my years involved my five to six years involvement that to this day create for me a little bit of conflict and you could say it's a crazy analogy but I'll use the words of Michael Hart I'm mentally damaged I'm damaged I've been I've been I've been affected by an organization a cult whatever there's going to be scars that will be there that will probably be with me to the day I die some people say that when I get in front of a group I sound like a preacher what am I going to do I used to teach Sunday school I mean things that have affected me and I'm going to say in a positive way there are scars that are on every person that comes out of out of a Christian movement fortunately for myself I came out of a situation where when I had the New Testament clearly disproved to me I had a clear understanding that the Tanakh the Old Testament was vivid and true and it was through an organization such as a Shatora that was able to show me in a very simple palatable way the truth and life of what Judaism is all about I was fortunate coming out of Christianity that I already believed in the Torah because I'd exposed myself to it for so many years I just didn't know how to work it into my life but every case is very different you're dealing with emotions you're dealing with psychology and it's a mixed bag every time there's no formula we really really really need professionals in this business and they're hard to come by but what we really need now is a minion in the corner so thank you very much for coming and until we meet again thank you very much