 In general, I favor a holistic approach, a general approach. When missionaries quote passages from the prophets, one way of debating, of interacting with the missionary is focusing on that particular passage and showing how it doesn't mean exactly what the missionary would have it say. I favor an approach which sees the big picture without even getting into the details of that particular passage but if you understand why the prophets are here, how the prophets are here, how we know the prophets are authentic, the debate doesn't get off the ground. And the same thing applies to rabbinic literature. If rabbinic literature is read in its complete context, in its social context, then the debate doesn't get off the ground. But it's important to respond to the missionary quotations of rabbinic literature one by one, one step at a time. For many reasons, first of all, each one of these passages needs to be explained. And also, once you go through some of these quotations of rabbinic literature, you get a feel of what level of integrity, scholarship, or knowledge we are dealing with. So there's a tedious path but a necessary path. Most of the missionary quotations for rabbinic literature are not only wrenched out of the full context, they're wrenched out of the local context. But before we get there, some are actually invented pretty much out of thin air. I'll give one example. There's a fellow whose name is Arnold Fruchtenbaum, and he has a little booklet called Three Messianic Miracles. In this book, he describes an elaborate procedure which he claims he obtained out of reading rabbinic literature. And according to his book, there are two categories of miracles. There are miracles that only one-a-year run-in-the-mill prophets can perform, and then there are those special miracles which only the Messiah can perform. One of those miracles would be the healing of a Jewish leper. The healing of a non-Jewish leper, if you know Scripture, Alisha did that. But the healing of a Jewish leper, that's something that only the Messiah could do. Now, rabbinic literature is very vast, very big. Where does it say this? Where did he get this idea from? And again, according to his template, according to his version of history, what happened was that Jesus came along and performed all the necessary messianic miracles, and still the Jews rejected him. And he, Arnold Fruchtenbaum and his messianic buddies are the ones that are truly in line with the old Jewish tradition that states that the Messiah has to perform certain miracles, and that's how we're supposed to identify him. But this piece of rabbinic literature doesn't exist outside the imagination of Arnold Fruchtenbaum. I actually, I never spoke to Arnold Fruchtenbaum, but I did interact with a different messianic rabbi who quotes Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who quotes this concept of messianic miracles. And I asked him, I asked him, where did you pick this idea up? Where does it say this? You know, it was something that I missed. And he told me, well, if you look in the Talmud and Sanhedrin, I think 98, you'll see, so I looked in Sanhedrin 98, and I didn't see. And I asked him, what did you see in Sanhedrin 98 that I didn't see? Well, he says, didn't you see, it speaks about the Messiah being afflicted by leprosy? So I said, yes, of course I saw that, but that speaks about the Messiah himself suffering leprosy. It says nothing about the Messiah healing leprosy. It says nothing about messianic miracles versus other miracles. He said, yes, but it speaks about the Messiah and it speaks about leprosy. This is where we got the idea from. I'll give you another one. This is actually from a very respected compendium. There's a compendium on Isaiah 53 written by two Christian scholars, driver and newbauer. It's considered very respected. It's several hundred pages long, and it takes the passage of Isaiah 53 and gives you all the rabbinic literature that was ever written and perhaps some that was not written about Isaiah 53. Now, the fact that rabbis, now Isaiah 53 speaks about the suffering servant of God who was ultimately vindicated and his suffering is somehow associated with the sins of mankind and he's bearing the sins of mankind, which obviously plays right into the lap of Christian theology where the Messiah is supposed to suffer for the sins of mankind. And even though we understand that the Pshat of the text applies to the Jewish people as a whole but there are many rabbis who understood that this is talking about the Messiah mainly on a level of medrish but perhaps even on a level of Pshat and I will explain that just like we understand there's a tradition and there's a belief amongst the Jewish people that Elijah the prophet, Elioa Navi, is a human being who is alive but it is somehow miraculously being preserved somewhere in heaven. He's sort of in between a human being and an angel and he lives on from the times of 3,000 years ago until today. Some people believe, some Jewish people believe, and maybe some people still believe that that Messiah is such a person that he's a person that lives but he's sort of in between human and angel in the sense that God is preserving him and just like we believe about other righteous people that they're suffering somehow purifies the collective soul meaning to say is that we understand that suffering purifies a person. It humbles a person, it makes a person a better person, a person closer to God. A person can utilize the opportunity of suffering to become closer to God but a righteous person certainly utilizes suffering for that purpose. We also understand the concept of a collective soul meaning to say is no one lives on an island. Everyone interacts with other people. If I become a better person and I interact with other people, it will make it easier for them to become better people. If you become a better person, it will be easier for your child to be a more godly person. It will be easier for your friend to be a more godly person. When you're in the company of godly people, it's easier to be a better person. When you're in the company of wicked and evil people, it's harder to be a godly person. So we all impact each other. So if someone suffers and he interacts with other people and we understand that there's a concept of interaction, not only what we would see as regular interaction but even unspoken interaction. We're all one soul. We all stand in this one covenantal relationship with God and if a righteous person suffers, it elevates everybody. That's such a teaching in Judaism. Others understand the concept of the suffering of Messiah. In the following manner, in a way that puts the metrics and the chat together, the Jewish people suffer and the Jewish people are refined through their suffering. They become better people through their suffering. And the Messiah will be produced by the Jewish community. Ultimately, when the Messiah comes, you'll be a member of the Jewish community and all that refinement experienced by the Jewish community will impact and influence the way the Messiah will function and perform his mission. A third way of understanding this is that every righteous person throughout history is a step in accomplishing the Messianic goals. So when we say the Messiah suffer, we mean the Messiah that exists within every Jew or within every righteous person. But there are statements in rabbinic literature that speak about the suffering of the Messiah. But there is not one statement in all of rabbinic literature which says that it's important to believe in the suffering of Messiah. That's critical to believe in the suffering of Messiah. Or if you don't believe in the suffering of Messiah, you're condemned to hell forever and ever, which is a basic Christian teaching. But the professor's driver and newbauer seem to have found just this teaching. And again, the way this compendium works is most of the book is devoted to translations of various quotations from rabbis. But this introduction, I don't think it was actually written by driver and newbauer. It was written by some other fellow. And this quotation is so critical that it made it into introduction. And I'll read from the introduction of this compendium. He says, the faith in the vicarious sufferings survived in the mystical school. In other words, the concept of believing in the vicarious suffering is something, it's a strata of truth which survived in traditions of Judaism in the mystical school, in the Catholic schools, so that even a writer of the latter part of the 16th century preserves from a work quoted as an authority in the Talmud, et cetera, the concept of believing in the suffering of Messiah. When you come to the compendium itself, it's even sharper. He speaks about Rabbi Simon Bar-Yekhai, a great teacher of the Jewish people who learned how man must suffer for his iniquities. Then he speaks about, he says as follows, this translation quote-unquote of driver and newbauer. The meaning of which is that since the Messiah bears our iniquities, in other words, Messiah's carrying our sins, which produced the effect of his being bruised, it follows that whoso will not admit, anyone who does not believe that the Messiah thus suffers for our iniquities, anyone who doesn't believe in the suffering of Messiah must endure and suffer for them himself. So here he has a quote from rabbinic literature, actually like he said, from the beginning of the 16th century, which is pretty late, of belief in the concept, belief in the suffering of Messiah, and it's critical that you believe in it, or else you're going to suffer it for it yourself. This quote is from an ethical work known as, Reishas Chachma, written by Rebel Yol, Dividas, and we are fortunate enough to have the original Hebrew. And there are actually several mistakes in the translation of driver and newbauer. I will not get into the technicalities, I will just point out the critical mistake. The critical mistake is as follows. First of all, what is the context? What is Reishas Chachma speaking about? This is an ethical work. He's speaking about accepting suffering with love. He's speaking about recognizing that suffering purifies you, and God forbid when suffering comes your way, you should accept it from God and take advantage of opportunity to grow in your relationship with God. And it gives us many reasons why this should be our attitude, why we should have a positive outlook when God forbid suffering comes our way. And he says as follows. He says, we know, he speaks about these traditions, that the Messiah suffers for our sins. And again, he seems to be going with this concept that the Messiah is living somewhere and he's suffering for our sins. And then he says as follows, therefore, whosoever wants that the Messiah should not suffer for his sins should accept suffering upon himself. In other words, he doesn't say anything about believing in the suffering of Messiah. He doesn't say anything about if you don't believe in the suffering of Messiah, you won't get atonement just the opposite. He's saying if you want to save the Messiah, his suffering, you should accept your suffering and utilize your own suffering as a way to get closer to God. And by doing that, you're saving the Messiah some suffering. This is the polar opposite of what driver Neubauer are claiming that Rebellio Dividas actually says. So this is the only quote in all of Rabbinic literature, which speaks about a critical Christian concept, belief in the suffering of Messiah. And after you take this quote away from driver Neubauer and rightfully so, and then there are actually zero quotes in all of Rabbinic literature which speak about this concept is that you must believe in the suffering of Messiah. In Genesis Rabbah, it speaks about the Messiah coming. And it speaks about, it's coded in a relatively popular book called The Return of the Kosher Pig by a fellow named Zachi Shapiro, and he quotes Genesis Rabbah 98.9 as to support the concept is that the Messiah will first be accepted by the Gentiles and only later be accepted by the Jewish people. The actual quote what it does read is that the Jewish people will not need the teaching of Messiah. In other words, so what will the Messiah do for the Jewish people? He'll gather in their exiles. In other words, what the Medrish actually says is not that the Gentiles will accept the Messiah and the Jewish people will reject him, rather what the Medrish is saying is that the Jewish people were already taught by God the teaching that the Messiah has to offer will benefit the Gentiles but the Jews already possessed that teaching and the benefit that will come to the Jews will be different than the teaching of Messiah rather will be the ingathering of their exiles. As a general rule I believe that you shouldn't take a person more seriously than he takes himself. That's practical. And Zachi Shapiro has this book, The Return of the Kosher Pig in which it's filled with quotations from rabbinic literature of course proving that all these rabbis believed in a divine Messiah, etc. And the Jews who don't believe that are not really being faithful to the Jewish tradition because the true Jewish tradition is that there is a divine Messiah according to Zachi Shapiro with the Rambam himself who turned Judaism in this violent turn away from these concepts but then the Rambam backed out and contradicted himself but it seemed like the rest of the Jews didn't figure that out but this is sort of his template. Now at one point in his book he argues against the JPS translation. The JPS is a popular translation which was written by scholars of Hebrew and at some point they translate the Hebrew word mimenu as from them. Plural mimenu means that technically we know that the word could mean from him or from them. And Zachi Shapiro insists that the JPS is wrong and no, the correct translation is singular from him and therefore he comes up with his particular scriptural interpretation that he's trying to support. He's arguing with the JPS. Okay. Now it happens, you know, with JPS written by Yon Bin, it's possible that they're wrong but you have to realize they invested a lot of time and effort in producing that translation so you would think that before a person takes a strong position against the JPS, he'll do his research and he'll do his fact-finding and then he'll come to his conclusion. But not only did Zachi Shapiro not do his research and not do his fact-finding but he himself throughout his book translates the word mimenu as from us, throughout his own book. So one second, how could you fight with the JPS and argue with them and build your whole scriptural interpretation in that particular argument on the basis they translated it wrong when he himself acknowledges throughout his book, he translates the word mimenu, actually sometimes confuses the concept of from and to, we'll put that aside, but he uses plural to translate the word mimenu. So he's not taking his own argument seriously. So why should we take his argument seriously? But you know why we should take his argument seriously? Because many unsuspecting people take his argument seriously. He goes before audiences of people, sincere people, but people who can't read Hebrew, people who can't check out what he's writing, and he teaches them. And he presents his presentation and they walk away saying, hey, the rabbis believe like this, I heard it from a rabbi himself. Someone who knows Hebrew in the original, he's in Israeli, he speaks Hebrew in the original. And so many unsuspecting people fall for the drivel that he's selling. I'll give you an example. I think it's going to be the last example for him. This is a prayer that appears in every version of the liturgy. In other words, whether it's Sfardi, Ashkenazi, Hasidic, Ashkenazic. This is a prayer that's at every Shabbos. And on the basis of his understanding of this prayer, which he actually doesn't report or doesn't tell his audience that this is a prayer recited by Orthodox Jews, every Shabbos in public, rather he tells us this is a quotation from the Rambam. This is a quotation from Maimonides. Now anyone who knows anything about the Yad HaZakah, the halachic work of Maimonides, knows that Maimonides put in his book a text of the Siddhar. So he's actually quoting from the Siddhar and he presents the following quote. And he claims that Maimonides said this. Because this is the duty of all created beings before you, O God, to praise and to sanctify and to exalt and to glorify your servant David, the son of Jesse, your Messiah. In other words, he's quoting the Rambam as saying, it's a duty of every created being to exalt and to glorify David. Now we know David is the prototype of the Messiah and if it's our duty to exalt and to glorify him, then he must be divine. So on the basis of this prayer, Tsachishapiro comes to the conclusion that the Rambam violated his own principles. He speaks about only one God and that Messiah is only human. No, but here the Rambam goes back on what he taught in the principles and he tells us that no, every human being on earth has to exalt and glorify David, the Messiah. But is that, I said one second, I said this is a prayer that we say every week. I don't remember saying that. I hope you don't remember saying that because we don't say that. What we do say is as follows. It is indeed the duty of every created being before you, O Lord, our God, the God of our fathers, to praise, to acknowledge, to sanctify you, God. In other words, to sanctify God through the medium of the songs of David, your servant. In other words, we're glorying, exalting and sanctifying God and David's songs are the medium and the method and the expression that we use to glorify God, not the Messiah, not David. This is the level of scholarship that Tsachishapiro brings to the table. On the basis of such scholarship he's willing to say that the Rambam has no principles. That the Rambam, he writes 13 principles and he got all the Jews to believe this. He violated, he took Judaism on a violent turn away from its biblical moorings, but he himself went back on himself. He didn't take himself seriously. But this is the scholarship that we're up against. And this is the scholarship that, sadly, people are buying. I'll give you another example of Tsachish scholarship. And this has nothing to do with quoting rabbinic literature directly, but I interacted with Tsachish. And I read his book and he presents a quotation from Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Uzzato, a giant of our people who lived a few hundred years ago during the 1700s, and I could not, for the life of me, find that quotation in any of the books of Ramchal. I read it on the computer, just type in and it's supposed to spit it back to you. And he actually has the Hebrew text over there. So, you know, for being in English translation, maybe I'm typing in the wrong word, he has the Hebrew text, type it in, it's not coming back. What happened? So I contacted him, I tried to get it out of him. Where he found this? And this is where he found it. He found it on a website of some person in Israel who believes that today, or day and age, he's getting messages from Ramchal. And this fellow has pages and pages of literature. He believed Ramchal revealed to him in dreams and visions or whatever it would be. But I think of much more serious nature is the idea of telling an unsuspecting audience that these are the words of Ramchal, a giant of Judaism, and telling that these are, without telling the audience that these are not the words of Ramchal, of a rabbi who decided that Ramchal appeared to him. But this leads us to our general response to the Christian, the missionary quotation of rabbinic literature. The general response is is that we have to see this literature in context. It's not about books, it's about people. Ramchal himself was aware of this concept of people quoting missionary literature, quoting rabbinic literature to support rabbinic, to support missionary ideas. Ramchal, in his days, it was right after the situation where many people followed Shaab Taitzvi. Shaab Taitzvi was able to confuse people into leaving the fold, into believing wrong things, things that are considered incorrect and violations of our covenant with God on the basis of misreadings of Kabbalah. In the days of Ramchal, Christians were doing that as well. And Ramchal directly addresses it. He has a book called Kinas Hashem Tzivakis, which means zealousness for the lord of hosts or the zealousy of the lord of hosts. And in this book, he directly addresses this, he directly addresses the concept, the primary concept which people use rabbinic literature for, I mentioned was the concept of a divine messiah, or that God is not absolutely one. And Ramchal, who was one of the foremost Kabbalists that our teachers, that Israel ever had, clearly explains that no, God is absolutely one. And when we worship God, we worship no one else but God. And when the Kabbalists speak of the faces of God, the hand of God, the different attributes of God, they're only describing God's interaction with the universe as it appears from our perspective, but they're not trying to redirect our worship. And there is a concept of praying and having certain attributes of God in mind when you pray that does not mean that we are praying to a given attribute of God. Ramchal makes that very clear. It means, for example, if I'm asking God for rain, I'm seeing God as the one that produces rain. Of course I know that God is above the whole concept of giving rain, but that's sort of the focus. And if I see God as God for healing, I'm seeing God in a slightly different face. If I'm thanking God for one thing, it's a different face or a different aspect, but it's all with the knowledge that God is above and beyond all of nature. Perhaps one of the favorite missionary quotations from Kabbalistic works is a quotation from the Zohar, which plays right into the Trinity. The Zohar speaks of the Shema, so as Israel the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And the Zohar actually says we see three names in this verse. The Lord is our God, the Lord. Those are three names, and then it says it's one. These three are in some mysterious way one. Wow, this sounds exactly like the Trinity. And many mission, this is not a quote that is dishonest on the local level, because they're reading the Zohar correctly. It's not like the driver Nubauer quote, which the quotation doesn't say in the source or the Sachi quote, which is not connected at all. They're quoting the Zohar correctly. The Zohar does speak about the Shema. The Zohar does speak about the three names being one. But what they are doing is wrenching the Zohar out of its complete literary context. Whoever wrote the Zohar was a person. What did he believe about the oneness of God? What did he believe about the way we're supposed to worship God? Over here, he's not writing about he's speaking about the Shema. It's actually a dissertation about the four sections in the Fillon. And this is where he speaks about this aspect of the Shema. One page earlier in the Zohar, one page earlier in the Zohar, he speaks about the prohibition of worshiping idols. The prohibition of attributing any image to God. The prohibition against even believing about God that intrinsically he possesses any attribute. And the Zohar clearly says that God is above and beyond every attribute. He's above and beyond all nature. All the attributes that we see are only ways that he chooses to appear. The ways that he chooses to interact with his creations. And the Zohar actually quotes Deuteronomy 4 which speaks about the prohibition against worshiping idols. It makes it very clear what it believes about the Trinity. It does not believe in the Trinity. It believes in the oneness of God, the absolute oneness of God. When the Zohar is speaking about the three names of God, we understand that it's follow. Or three attributes of God. Moses is speaking to the Jewish people. And what is he telling them? He's telling him, the Lord who is our God. These words have meaning. The Lord, the master who is our God. Those two words themselves are different names of God. One is relating to God as the master of all creation. That's the first word. The Lord. The second one is a more personal word. It's a word we're using possessive terminology about God. We're talking about God as our personal God as or an individual could say my God, but here it's talking to the Jewish people as we spoke about this intergenerational community, eternal Israel, our God, the God who stands in this covenantal relationship with us and who we stand in a covenantal relationship with him. So we speak about God as a master of the world. We speak about the God who has a personal relationship with the Jewish people. The word elokhenu, our God has some other connotations as well. It means the power that we trust in. Because the Hebrew word el just means power. In Scripture it used the word elegi Byron which means powerful warriors. It means power. When we speak about God as a power and as our power, what do you mean our power? He's the power which energizes the entire universe. But we're saying this is the power that the Jewish people trust in. We don't recognize, don't believe, we acknowledge that any power that exists is only an expression of God's power. There's another meaning to the word elokhenu to our God. It means that his purpose is our purpose. We yearn for the same thing that he yearns for. What he's trying to accomplish here on earth is what we're trying to accomplish here on earth. That's another meaning to elokhenu. So this is speaking about God not so much as the master that brought everything into creation, but the one with whom we stand in a personal relationship. And then we end up saying the Lord is one. And in the second time we're saying the same word, the Lord. But we're now speaking after we spoke about God as Lord. And after we're speaking about our personal relationship, we're now speaking as Lord in the sense of future. And is one reminds us of the famous prophecy of Zechariah which is at the end of the elokhenu prayer. On that day the Lord will be one and his name will be one. What do we mean when we say that he will be one and his name will be one now? As Moses said. So what does he mean he will be one? What he means to say is in the minds of men men don't see him as one. But there will come a day when all mankind will be facing in the same direction. They'll have the same perception of God. And his name will be one means that all of mankind will have the same perception of God's will on earth. There are people who acknowledge that God is above and beyond all nature but they have a different perception of what God wants from humanity. But on that day all of humanity will be joined together and there'll be only one concept of God existing in the minds of men. So in a certain sense the three names of God in the Shema refer to the past, the present and the future. The past meaning the Lord who the master brought the world into being. The present the God with whom we stand in a relationship. The power we trust in. The purpose that we yearn for. And then the Lord is one meaning to say is the Lord who eventually all of mankind will come to acknowledge as one and now all of those aspects of God are only one and even though we might be seeing different aspects but we understand that all those aspects are truly one. We of course have to understand how the audience that was standing in front of Moses understood what he said when he said those words. Who were the hearts given to when he said that statement. And had the Jewish people understand the Shema throughout history. A little aside. At one point when in my life when I was discussing with a rabbi who I consider my teacher about missionary work he asked me the following question. He said, the missionaries use the Shema. They quote the Shema to prove the trinity. They quote the three names of God and they finish off with a hud. Here we see three is one. How do you respond when the missionaries throw that argument at you? And this is what I told him. When Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence when he wrote the Declaration of Independence what he meant to do. He was really a loyalist. He really was loyal to King George the Third of England. And he was trying to give expression to his loyalty to that document. Sadly the American people completely misunderstood him and took it in a different direction. In other words this is the declaration. This is what was on the lips of the Jewish people when they went to the stake, dying, rejecting Jesus. There's no question that this is not what the Shema means. There's just as much a chance of the Declaration of Independence being a declaration of loyalty to King George the Third of England as the Shema meaning the declaration of loyalty to the Trinity. And if that is what the Shema means then Moses and God are the poorest communicators on earth. Because they were speaking to the Jewish people and this had the Jewish people throughout history recorded history, understood what they meant. And this is the way they communicated. But we still didn't touch. So again we answered some of the missionary objections one by one. We gave a few examples. There's a general response to the missionary of rabbinic literature. Just ask yourself this rabbi that the missionaries are quoting what do you write on the subject? What else did he say about the subject? And almost always you can find a dissertation directly on the subject. But I think we still didn't touch on the main point. We spoke about the idea of how missionaries don't just quote rabbinic literature. It's not just talking the talk, they walk the walk. What I mean to say is that we are missionaries that we're the garb of the Orthodox community. This is not just a ploy to lure Jews in, but they sincerely believe that they belong. That they are part of the community. That they're just a valid expression of Judaism as Chabad or Breslav or Sautmer or Lake with Yashiva. In other words, I think they're just another expression of Judaism. In a certain sense, it's a great compliment because the fact that they're trying to join our community, they're trying to be part of our community is a recognition and an acknowledgement that we are the covenant community. They're not trying to join another community. They're trying to copy us. Invitation is the highest compliment. In other words, they recognize we're the covenant community. We're the community that stands in a covenant relationship with God. But in a certain sense it's a very harsh rebuke against our community. It's something that we have to take seriously. Because basically what they're saying is we're just as Jewish as you. So one second, what does it mean to be a Jew? What does it mean to be a Jew? Well, being a Jew means, from an Orthodox perspective, keeping Chabas according to all the laws that say in the Mesh Dabura. Take, check. Eating kosher with all the HaShe'erim according to the latest stringencies that come out of different Yeshivas. Check. That's another thing that I do. Being a Jew means not carrying outside on Chabas unless there's an error. There you go. That's another thing I do. Et cetera, et cetera. Those are all the things being a Jew. And the Christian who believes in Jesus, who has his heart devoted to Jesus, can check off the whole thing. He says, look, I'm a Jew. But is that what it means to be a Jew? Does it, the meaning of being a Jew, is it about keeping Chabas, about keeping kosher, about learning Torah? Let's look to the Bible, to the Word of God to find the solution to our problem. We're not going to take the Christian route of using the Bible to find the solution to a problem, which is first deciding on what you want the answer to be, and then searching the Bible to see where you could plug in that answer. No. Let's see where the Bible directly addresses this issue. And let's just define the issue. The way we understand the issue, in short, in simple terms, is Jesus was a fraud. He was a false prophet, and that's how the Jewish people have identified him throughout history. The same people who taught us that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel were inspired by God and taught us that Jesus was not inspired by God. So in other words, we're going to look at the way the Bible presents the issue of the false prophet. And when the Bible presents the situation of a false prophet, it tells us as follows. It describes a false prophet, and it describes a prophet who comes and tells us to serve a God that our fathers did not know about. In other words, this referring back to the Sinai Revelation that you did not know about. To serve other God that you never knew. In other words, God is someone that we're supposed to be familiar with. It's a perception that we should have obtained. And of course, by the Exodus and by the Sinai Revelation we achieved. We obtained a certain perception of God like we coded before unto you. The Jewish people were shown to know who it is that is the power that the Lord is the power in the heavens above and the earth below, and there is none else. So it's a God that you never knew. And he brings, he performs a sign or a wonder. In other words, this prophet, let's assume he stops the sun in the sky just like Joshua did. Jesus never did anything near that. But Joshua stopped the sun in the sky. This is the example that Talmud uses as a miracle that a false prophet could technically do. And we're supposed to ignore that miracle. Why? The Torah goes on to tell us. Because it's a test from God to see if you truly love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind. It goes on to say do not listen to the words of the... Do not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. It is the Lord your God you should follow. It is he that you should fear. It is his commandments that you should guard. And it is his voice that you should listen to. And it is him that you should serve. And it is to him that you should cleave. We have all these expressions of following God, of obeying God and this idea of loving God. One second. If you would tell me that we have a test, we have a false prophet coming along performing a sign or a wonder attempting to confuse us. Which quality do you think we'll pull out of our arsenal to be able to withstand that test as a false prophet? At first glance we would say clarity, knowledge if I am well versed in the writings of Judaism and the teachings of Judaism, I'll be able to refute the claims of the false prophet. But that's not the attribute, that's not the quality that the Bible turns us to. The Bible turns us to the quality of love. If someone is standing in a relationship with God he doesn't see the mitzvahs as something that we do. But it's something that lives in your heart then the missionary knock on the door is meaningless. The missionary could only talk to someone whose heart is not already full whose path is not already overloaded. Everything that we need in a spiritual relationship we have with God. We're not missing anything. If we're looking for a path to follow that's the path to follow. If we're looking for someone to cleave to we have it. If we're looking to a voice to hear we have it. The human being could have where the divine is there. We have it all. And it was given to us at Sinai. It was given us to Exodus. It was passed on through Moses, through our ancestors, from generation to generations. We don't need to listen to the words of the false prophet. So, if we see Judaism as following a certain set of rules then yes, we have a problem. We have a serious problem. But that's not what Judaism is. Judaism is all about a relationship with God. And it's true. Judaism is all about a relationship with God. But I will not say that. And the reason I will not say that is because in the culture that we live in, those words are misunderstood. When people think about a relationship with God, love, loyalty, they think about the 60s, they think about doing what you want. It's not love of God. It's self-centered. It's not easy to encapsulate Judaism in a few sentences, but I'll try. And I'll try to use the words of the prophet and the directions that the prophets give us. It's all about a relationship with God. But it's a relationship that is channeled through observance of the commandments. It's a relationship that respects our standing as servants of God through observance of the commandments, through love of the commandments, through loyalty to God through the commandments. It's a relationship that's shaped through observance of the commandments. Not only is our relationship to God shaped by the commandments, but our observance of the commandments and our relationship to God is shaped by the universal principles of justice and charity. In the book of Isaiah, this is the hafhtoro that our sages chose for the holiest day of the year. For Yom Kippur, in the morning we read where God complains about people who are seeking a relationship with him as if they have already done charity, they have done justice. In other words, justice and charity are the framework and the foundation of a relationship with God. In the book of Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 16, God points to Josiah's caring and judging, taking on the case of the poor and impoverished and he points to that, that is knowing me. Knowing means a relationship with God. It doesn't end there, it doesn't end with the universal principles of justice and charity because the prophet Isaiah goes on to speak about the observance of the Shabbos and I'll take a moment to try to explain the context. You can be a very just person, you can be a very giving person but with all of that you could be a self-centered person, you could be a person that's giving for the sake of being able to look yourself in the mirror and say I'm the giver, those are the takers. That's not the type of giving that God wants you to talk about. The type of giving that God wants you to live and perform is a giving which is a taking, meaning to say we're all takers. And that's what the Shabbos teaches. The lesson of Sabbath is that everything that we have is but a gift from God. The mastery that we have over the world is a gift from God. Everything that we have is a blessing from God and anything that we're giving is just sharing God's blessings. We're not giving God anything back which He didn't first give us. It's in the context of Shabbos that we have justice and charity. It's in the context of justice and charity that we have a relationship with God that we have performance of the commandments. One more aside to explain why justice is so foundational to a relationship with God. What is justice? What is the sense of justice? Justice means recognizing and living with an understanding what belongs to me belongs to me what doesn't belong to me doesn't belong to me. But that's not just a piece of information that we carry in our minds. That's a feeling. When injustice is done it irks us. There's a spot inside of us which hurts when we see an injustice. If someone takes something which doesn't belong to him especially if that's something belong to us then we say that's unjust and it's wrong and we feel the wrongness of it and that's good. That's the lamp of God within us. That's part of the godly side of man that he senses injustice. Different people have different levels of that feeling of how strongly they feel about an injustice. How important it is to them that justice be done that which belongs to whoever belongs to be given to him and that which doesn't belong to whoever doesn't belong to not go to the person that doesn't belong to. The basis of our relationship with God is a recognition that God is master and that we are subjects. It is only to the degree that you have that feeling in your heart which is that that which doesn't belong to me I will not take. It's wrong and it's evil to take. It's only to that degree that you could say with sincerity I acknowledge I am a subject of God because what does the word master and subject mean to you any more than your feeling of justice. Everything that I have is his. That's your sense of justice. Your sense of justice is your foundation in your relationship to God. Your relationship to God cannot be more meaningful than your sense of justice. Your sense of charity is foundational to your meaning to God because the goodness of God and our love for God is built on the understanding that God gives. God is a selfless giver. It means to the degree that you appreciate selfless giving and that it's meaningful to you that you could say I love God. I love his selfless giving. So being a Jew according to the prophets being is a nation that stands in a covenantal relationship with God. It means a relationship that's shaped by the commandments that's molded by the commandments. It means an observance of the commandments that's molded by a sense that's molded and shaped by the observance in Shabbos and the circle goes around. That's what Judaism is and that's what we stand for. But this is not all. There's one more concept I want to talk about and that is the concept of Messiah. I said we're going to talk about the concept of Messiah. We know that Messiah is not just a belief in Judaism. It's a yearning in Judaism. The prophets speak about it in the same breath. That the Jewish people will yearn for the Lord their God and they will seek the Lord their God and David their king. In other words, part of being a Jew means yearning for the Messiah. What is this yearning all about? Why are we supposed to yearn? Why are you supposed to look forward? Why are you supposed to seek the Messiah? Let's take this question one step further. The concept of a king in Judaism is a little bit negative. The first time the Jewish people asked for a king the prophet said God is your king. What do you need a king for? In other words, the concept of one man lording over other people is against the basic principles of justice. The major teaching one of the major lights that Judaism brought to the world is that all men are equally subject before God. The concept of elevating one person and saying because he has this quality or that quality elevates him above other people is a step towards idolatry. The beauty of this mountain is so great that we all have to humble ourselves before the beauty of the mountain. But Judaism tells us no. The beauty of the mountain is a gift that God granted the mountain and the mountain is just the subject of God as much as you are. Any man possesses whether it's quality of leadership, charisma, spirituality Judaism tells us it's all a gift from God. You are just as much a subject of God as he is and he is just as much a subject of God as you are. Intrinsically you are all equal before God. So the concept of a king technically would seem foreign to Judaism. And in fact when the Jewish people asked for a king the first time God said no. He gave them a king but it wasn't something he was happy with. But here we have the opposite concept. How do we understand that in light of the Jewish teaching about the equality of man and the negative view that Judaism has about one man leaning over another. We spoke about the concept that being a Jew is not just a set of beliefs. It's not just a set of laws to follow. It's not just a relationship. Being a Jew means yearning for something. We stand in a relationship with God and we yearn for God's plan to be fulfilled here on earth. In the Rosh Hashanah prayers the prayers on the first day of the year we speak about the yearning that we have that all of humanity should acknowledge the sovereignty of God. Every day in the Qadish we say Yisqad al-Visqadah shamei rabah which means may be exalted and praised his great name may God's great name be exalted in the Alaynu prayers many times a day. Therefore we hope that all we look forward to that time when all of mankind will acknowledge your oneness. In other words the Jewish people walk around not only with a mission in life but with a yearning with a hope and a hope for the future of mankind and when we say it's very easy to hope that he should recognize the sovereignty of God. The hope is that each one of us should come to a deeper recognition of the sovereignty of God. In a certain sense we could say that we all live with a song in our hearts. God says in the book of Isaiah it is this nation I created. I created this nation for myself that they should speak my praises. We speak the praise of God we have the song of God's praise in our hearts we realize that the happiness of humanity the success of humanity will come about when all of mankind will acknowledge that they are truly subjects of God and live with that and lead their lives according to that truth. Generally what a king does is a king comes to the table and says to the people of the society, listen I have this to offer you I possess so much wealth I possess so much military might I am well connected or I could give you so much possession that will give me I will give you security I will establish you on a financial basis that's what a king would technically come to offer either with his possessions or with the talents that he has real or imagined and of course that's not the king that the Jewish people should be looking for because again the Jewish people believe that anything that any man possesses is just a gift from God and that's a primary foundational teaching of God any quality even a spiritual quality that a person brings to the table is but a gift from God but then David came along and David didn't tell the people I possess I have there's something that I have that you don't have and I'm going to allow you to use it or a talent that I have all David did was he took the song the yearning that was in the heart of the Jewish people and he put it into words David is called by the prophets it's not easy to translate those words the words Zamiroes Israel means the song of Israel it's not David's song he didn't compose the song it's our song it's the song of Israel what David did was he gave pleasantness to the song he gave articulation to the song it's just like a people a country that when they see their flag they know we have to follow that we didn't have a flag but when we saw David's heart as it's revealed in the book of Psalms we saw that's our yearning he gave expression to what already exists it's not a new yearning it's not a new loyalty the loyalty that we have to David is the loyalty that we have to God because he's someone who doesn't point anyone to himself he doesn't divert an iota of the attention that belongs to God towards himself on the contrary he takes his own submission he tells us I am poor I am impoverished I am a sinner he doesn't say I am sinless I have qualities that you don't have you guys are all just people and I'm divine no I'm just as human as you are and the only thing I have to offer is humility and submission to God and he gave words to our song we stand now in a relationship with God and we have a loyalty to the house of David when we pray for the Messiah we don't pray for a man that will come in the future that's an unknown there's just like in English history you have wars between the house of Tudor and the house of Stuart in other words people had a loyalty to a certain dynasty that dynasty stood for something the Jewish people have a loyalty to the dynasty of David and all the real Messiah will do the real Messiah will do is pick up the song where his ancestor David left off that is what the real Messiah is all about