 many Jewish people think that the only difference between Christianity and Judaism is simply that Judaism is waiting for the Messiah to come, and Christianity believes he's already coming and he's coming again, right? And that we're all simply waiting for the same Messiah to come. The problem is that Jesus didn't do any of the things that the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, tells us that the Messiah is going to do. So that means that in order to make the story work, Christianity had to change who the Messiah is, his very nature, and what he's going to do. Otherwise they would be up a creek without a paddle because he didn't do any of those things. So let's talk for a second about what we know about the Messiah, right? We know that there are certain qualifications that the Messiah has to have to do his job, right? Does anybody know what those are? Right, so let me start from the beginning. He has to be male, he has to be Jewish, right? He has to be from the tribe of Judah. He has to be a descendant of King David, and right, through Solomon, exactly. So anybody who doesn't fit that doesn't get the job, right? But then once you find somebody who qualifies for the job, what is the Messiah going to do? There's quite a few things that the Torah tells us or Tanakh tells us that the Messiah is going to do, but there's some that really stand out for us, right? We understand that during his reign the third temple is going to be built, or the holy temple is going to be rebuilt. We understand that he's going to bring in the exiles, that is that all of the Jewish people who do not live in Israel are going to come to Israel. In addition to that, what's the big one? The big one is that he's going to usher in a period of world peace, right? Now I don't know about you, but last time I looked on the Internet, I don't have a TV so I can't say turn on the TV, but this place was not at peace, right? There's no world peace. And so when we look at it, there's no third temple. Israel is not living in safety. The Jewish people have not all come back to Israel. There is no world peace. One of the other major things that we see in the prophecies about the time of the Messiah is that the, excuse me, is that not only is there going to be world peace, but that everybody on earth will know God. And I don't know about you, but I don't think that's happened yet. So if you ask a Christian, if you say to a Christian, okay, well, he didn't qualify, I'm not going to go over why he doesn't qualify, but you can learn that from Rabbi Skobak's classes. If you say that he didn't qualify or that he didn't do the job that the Messiah was supposed to do, what is the answer that Christians say? He's going to come back and do it, right? But you still have the question of, but you're saying that he's the Messiah now. So what is the answer that they will usually give? There are four answers which we're going to look at in just a second. Now remember in my story, I told you, Mark came in and he said, let's talk about why you think Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, right? And my husband threw out a verse, right? We're going to take a look at that verse. Now there are four answers that are the most common answers that people will give when you confront them with the fact that he didn't qualify and he didn't do the job. What are the four things? The four things are that he was born of a virgin, which is what my husband said. He died for our sins, he fulfilled all of the prophecies, or another version of that is he had to come before the destruction of the second temple, right? So they claim that that's one of the prophecies. And if none of that works, the final answer is he changes people's lives. So we're going to take a look at those four answers and why they are not legitimate answers. So the first one is he was God incarnate or he was born of a virgin, it's their version. So where does the concept of the virgin birth come from? It comes actually from Matthew chapter 1 verses 22 and 23, all right? Which says, now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, behold the virgin shall be with child or shall conceive and bear a son and he shall be called Immanuel, which is translated God with us, okay? That's a verse from the New Testament from the Gospel of Matthew and that is where the concept of the virgin birth comes from. Now ostensibly, this is a quote, you see there's quotes, right, behold, ostensibly this is quoting a passage from the Jewish Tanakh from the prophet Isaiah. So what does it say in Isaiah 714 which this is supposedly translating in the Christian translation, it says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold a virgin will conceive and bear a son and he will be called Immanuel. Sounds like a match to me, there's lots of other places where the quotes aren't quite right but that sounds like a match, doesn't that sound like a match to you? Now the problem is that it's not translated correctly but even if it is, let's first look at it in context like Mark did with me because you know Isaiah 714 doesn't start in verse 14, right? It starts at the beginning of the chapter and this is something that I taught a counter-missionary course in Yeshua's and seminaries in Israel and you know I always tell them like when you're baffled, when somebody picks a verse out of nowhere and shares it with you and you're just wondering, read the verse in context, 90% of the time that will solve the problem. So we're going to go through Isaiah chapter 7, not all of it but most of it and we're going to look at what it actually says. Let's look at the context. Starts with verse 1, now it came to pass in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, the king of Judah, that resin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Ramalia, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it but could not prevail against it, okay? And it was told to the house of David saying, Syria's forces are deployed in Ephraim. So his heart and the heart of his people were moved as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind and the Lord said to Isaiah, go out now to meet Ahaz, you and share Yeshua your son at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway to Fullersfield, okay? So right now we're setting the stage for a situation. You have this king, King Ahaz, who is the king of Judah which is the southern kingdom. At this point, Israel is a divided kingdom. You have the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom and Judah is in the south but the king of the north is trying to wage war against the southern kingdom so that he can conquer it, okay? So that's the situation and King Ahaz, the king of the southern kingdom, he's afraid. So God tells Isaiah, go and talk to King Ahaz, okay? And say to him, take heed and be quiet. Do not fear or be faint hearted for these two stubs of smoking fire brands, I love it when the Torah decides to make fun of somebody. For the fierce anger of resin and Syria and the son of Ramalia because Syria, Ephraim and the son of Ramalia have plotted evil against you saying, let us go up against Judah and trouble it and let us make a gap in his wall for ourselves and set a king over them, the son of Tavel, all right? So now we're getting the bigger picture. God is telling Isaiah to tell King Ahaz not to worry about these guys, even though the king of the northern kingdom has joined forces with the king of Syria, not even a Jewish army, right? And they're going to try to come and conquer you but don't worry. Don't worry about a thing. Thus says the Lord, it shall not stand nor shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus and the head of Damascus is resin. Within 65 years, Ephraim will be broken so that it will not be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is Ramalia's son. If you will not believe, surely you will not be established. And before I read the last verse that's on this particular slide, let's just take a look at what's happening, right? God is telling him not to worry that even if the king of the northern kingdom and Syria and the Samaritans are going to come down and try to conquer you, don't worry, because within 65 years, the northern kingdom is not going to exist. Now I don't know about you, but 65 years is a long time, right? If somebody told me in 65 years you're going to be a millionaire, that would be a very long time to wait. Now I might hold on to it, but when I end up being, I don't have a car and I'm homeless, the idea that in 65 years I'm going to be a millionaire doesn't do me much good right now, right? And it would be very easy for me to lose faith that this is going to happen. It would be very easy for me to say, I know that I thought that God told me that in 65 years I'm going to be a millionaire, but as it stands right now I can't even feed my family, I don't think that this is true. So God is going to tell Isaiah something to reassure the king. So it says in verse 10, moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz saying, Ask for a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above. But Ahaz says, I will not ask nor will I test the Lord. So Isaiah says, here now, O house of David, is a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Okay, so what's happening here is he says in 65 years this thing is going to happen, but that's a long time to wait. So I'm going to give you a sign that this is going to happen sooner so that you will have the inner strength that you need to be able to hold on to this promise in spite of it looking like it's not going to happen. And you know, the king, I don't know if he's feigning humility or what, but you know, he says, no, I will never ask, I wouldn't ask God such a thing. And Isaiah is like, come on. So it continues, therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, now this is the Christian translation, so please keep that in mind. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and he will be called Immanuel. Courts and honey he shall eat that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. The Lord will bring the king of the Syria upon you and your people and your father's house days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah. Okay, so he is preparing to give this sign to the king so that he will be able to hold up. Now, what do you think the sign is? Let's look at that for a second. Is the sign that a virgin will conceive? Is that what he says? He says, the Lord's going to give you a sign. A virgin will conceive and bear a son and he shall be called Immanuel. Maybe the sign is that his name is Immanuel, is going to be Immanuel. Is that the sign? For before the child shall know to refuse evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. So what we have here is an interesting situation. People like to think that the sign is that there's something special about the child. I'm going to show you why in a few minutes that that is not true. However, the sign here is not about anything having to do with that child. That child is simply a marker for the sign. What is the sign? That before the child knows good from evil. Before the child is mentioned again, before, oh here it is, before he can even eat curds and honey. In other words, well he's still young enough to be nursing, right? Before he's old enough to be weaned, before he's old enough to know right from wrong, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. That's the sign. The sign is not who the kid is. The sign is not his name. The sign has nothing to do with how he's conceived. The sign is that there is a child and before this child reaches the age of weaning, the kings are going to abandon their lands. And that is going to give you the strength that you need to get through this very, very difficult time that's about to happen. Because things are going to be pretty bad, right? Yes, you're going to be a millionaire in 65 years. But before we get there, you're going to be on the streets. But just so that you know for sure that what I'm telling you is true, in three years' time you're going to receive a small inheritance. It's not going to be a lot, but it's going to be a sign for you that in 65 years you will be a millionaire. And this way you can trust the word that God is giving you. You can trust that what I'm telling you is the truth. That is what this passage is saying. This passage is saying that here is the sign that the kings will abandon their land. Okay, now I'm not going to read the rest of Isaiah 7, but I just didn't want you to think I was not including it. It describes all of the mess that the king is going to have to deal with. And you can read the rest of the chapter for yourself. But then we go on to chapter 8, right? And now Isaiah is speaking to the audience and he says, then I went into the prophetess, a little too much information there, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said to me, call his name Mahershahal Hashbaz, and please forgive me for the way I'm pronouncing it, for before the child shall have knowledge to cry my father, my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be taken away before the king of Assyria. Now keep in mind that the Bible, the Torah does, and Tnach do not always say things exactly in order, right? We have the example of the creation story where we get a big overview and then he goes back and makes some explanations, and that's what's going on here. So the prophet Isaiah says that his child will, actually this doesn't even say, he says, I left out the verse, I apologize, that his children were given as signs. And he has a son and the son's name is Mahershahal Hashbaz. All right, now the child in our prophecy is supposed to be called what? Emanuel, so wait a minute, how is this the same guy? Let me ask you a question. If you're married to a woman and you have a baby and at the brisk, you decide to name your son Mahershahal Hashbaz, what do you think your wife is going to do besides kill you or disown you? She's going to call him something else, isn't she? She's not going to call him that because that's crazy. Nobody would call their kid that. And like I said, you might be sleeping in the doghouse for a little while. So bear that in mind because we're going to go back and tear apart that verse for a second. But so now let's look at this verse again. The Christian translation here says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son and will call his name Emanuel. Now you can probably see some of you probably can't read it, but that's okay. There's Hebrew under there. That is the actual quotation from the verse in the book of Isaiah in Hebrew. And it says, lechene yeateen adonai hu lechem ot heene ha'al ma hara ve'yaledet ben v'karat v'karat shimo Emanuel. Okay? We're going to look at what that actually means. But right now, look at that word that's underlined, virgin. The word there is the word al ma. Okay? That is the word al ma. Al ma is a Hebrew word, obviously. That means youth. Elam is the form of the word that is usually used in the Tanakh to mean the word youth. And it exists in both the masculine and feminine forms. An elam is a young man and an al ma is a young woman. It refers only to age and has absolutely nothing to do with sexual condition. There have been so many times, so many people, when they convert to Christianity, and I've talked to them and they say, oh, well, but it's assumed that a young woman is a virgin. And I'm like, really? Not really. I mean, even if you're talking about a really young, okay, maybe, you know, us normal people assume that. But back in those days, you never know what could happen. This was a comment. The word al ma only refers to age. It refers to absolutely nothing else. All right, and here we have two passages, 1 Samuel chapter 20 verse 22, that uses a form of the word al ma. It says, but if I say to the youth, behold, the arrows are beyond you. Go, for the Lord has sent you away. And this comes from the story of King David and Jonathan, and he's running away from King Saul. And Jonathan says that he's going to bring a young man with him, and he's going to get, anyway, you don't need to know the whole story, but the word there is elem, meaning a young man. In Exodus chapter 2, verses 7 through 8, it says, then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you? Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go ahead. So the girl went and called the child's mother. So this is the story of Moses. When Moses was put into the Nile and the Pharaoh's daughter, yeah, Pharaoh's daughter, fished her out of the water, right? And Moses' sister said, should I go get a nurse for you? And we don't know from the story how old Moses' sister Miriam was. And really, there's no reason for us to know whether she was a virgin or not, right? So the chapter simply tells us that she wasn't all much. She was a young woman, and that's all we need to know, right? All right, now, when Mark was with me in our house and my husband had thrown out this verse about the virgin birth, he said, but the Septuagint says, now, I don't know if you know what the Septuagint is. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Jewish Bible, all right? And without getting into the whole story, I'm going to share just a little bit of it with you. But in the Septuagint, it translates the word Alma as Parthenos, Parthenos ostensibly, meaning a virgin in Greek. But the question is, does it really say that? So I'm not going to read you the whole story, but in the Talmud, we have an account of what happened when the Septuagint was being translated. And basically, King Ptolemy decided that he wanted a Greek translation of the Torah in the library at Alexandria. And so he commissioned 72 Jewish elders, scholars, rabbis, depending on who's telling the story determines which word they're going to use, to translate the Torah. And he cloistered them, and there's a whole miracle. And it talks about this in the Talmud. There was a whole miracle. All 72 scholars translated the Torah exactly the same way. So it's considered very reliable because of this miracle that happened. But the problem is, is that when somebody talks about the Septuagint, they're not just talking about the five books of the Torah. They're also talking about the rest of the Tanakh, the prophets, and the writings. And there, we have a little bit of a problem. I was going to read this to you. I think that it would be better for me to just summarize it. But this is taken from an introduction to, let's see, where is it from? It is from, is word for word, from the introduction of Hendrickson's version of the Septuagint. So this is a Christian translation of the Septuagint. And it basically goes through and explains the legend, and then it explains that we don't actually know who translated the whole rest of the Septuagint. And in fact, not only do we not know it, but we know that each of the translators was somewhere better than others in translating. And according to this Christian translation of the Septuagint, the book of Isaiah was the very worst and least reliable of all of the books to be translated. They're not even sure that it was translated before Jesus came. It was like the latest, and it was the least reliable. So that said, we can keep that in mind when we look at the word Parthenos in the Greek. Can anybody read that? It's all Greek to me, yeah. This is an excerpt from the book of Genesis, which is the Torah in the Septuagint chapter 34. And you can see that there is two words underlined and bolded. Those are the Greek word Parthenos. So this is a place where we find the word Parthenos in the Jewish Torah in the Torah. And so we can look at that and say, OK, what did the rabbis or the scholars who translated this Septuagint think that Parthenos meant? All right, now here is the English translation of that. This is a story of Dina. And if you don't know the story of Dina, basically Dina went out. Dina was the sister of the 12 tribes of Israel. She was the daughter of Leia. And she went out and there was this guy who was named Shrem, and he was the son of Hivite and a prince of the land. And he saw Dina, and he basically raped her. He took her, and he forced her. And he was deeply attracted to Dina. It says in verse 3, he loved her, and he spoke tenderly to her. Now to me, this is a very dichotomous picture. He raped her, and then he loved her and spoke tenderly to her, but we're not going to get into that. So now Jacob had heard that he had defiled Dina, his daughter, but his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob kept silent until they came in. Then Hamor, the father of Shrem, went out to Jacob to speak with him. Now in the rest of the story, they're trying to make an alliance. He's trying to get Dina to be allowed to marry Shrem. And there's a whole thing. But here, I'm just trying to, I didn't underline it, and I'm sorry that I didn't. I did. In verse 3, it says girl. So that word, girl, is translated in the sub-tuigent as Parthenos, but it was after Dina was raped. So if the word Parthenos actually meant virgin, the rabbis would not have used that word, because she was no longer a virgin. She may have been innocent. She may not have been guilty of any crime, but she wasn't a virgin. So clearly, they understood that the word Parthenos does not only refer to a virgin. It can refer to any young woman. So that argument kind of goes, whoops, what happened? There we go. Goes out the window. Now, we're going to take one last look at this passage. I think it's one last look. We're going to take one last look at this passage. And you see at the top the translation we've been working with so far, right? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and will bear a son and will call his name. And his name will be called Immanuel. Now, if we look at the Hebrew, it says, lachen etain God Hashem, right? So therefore, Hashem will give who himself lachem to them ot a sign. He may, behold, ha'alma, a young woman, ha'ra. Not will conceive is pregnant. It's in the present tense. She is pregnant. Ha'alma, ha'ra, a young woman, the young woman. OK. So that's something I didn't point out, and I forgot, and I apologize. You see, if you can read any Hebrew at all, you see that the first letter in the word ha'alma is a hey. It's the direct object. It means a specific person. If you were talking about any young woman, you would have to translate it, al-ma. But this is saying ha'alma, which is a specific young woman. OK. So behold, a specific young woman, the young woman, whoever that is, is pregnant. The Yoledet Ben, and she's going to give birth to a son, the Karat Shemo Immanuel. Not his name will be called Immanuel. She will call his name Immanuel. OK. So remember I told you that God told Isaiah to call his son that name that I can't pronounce. And the mother is not going to call him that. She's going to call him Immanuel. All right? So when we look at this passage, we see that it does not mean at all what they say that it means. All it means is that a young woman is pregnant, and she's going to have a child, and she's going to call his name Immanuel. And when we plug that back into the story from Isaiah, what we see is that there is nothing special about this child. He's simply a marker for the sign that God is going to give King Ahaz so that he will have the strength to hold out 65 years. This passage isn't even a messianic passage. It happened. And we know it happened because we know that in less than 65 years, the northern kingdom was carried off. So there you go. That is Isaiah chapter 7. And that is the passage of the virgin birth, which has absolutely nothing to do with a virgin or the sign. Now I have one other passage here that was to demonstrate the fact that the word Alma can mean a young woman who is not a virgin. And that is this passage in the Proverbs. It talks about the way of a man with a maid. Now I'm going to give you a biology lesson. The first time I told this, I was speaking in a Yeshiva with a bunch of 18-year-old boys. And I'm just teaching the lesson, and I'm not thinking about anything. And I start talking about what a virgin is. And all of a sudden it dawns on me that I'm standing in front of a bunch of 18-year-old boys. But the truth is, is that if you look at this passage, it's talking about things that leave no mark, no sign. There are three things which are too wonderful for me for, which I do not understand, the way of an eagle in a sky. When the eagle goes past, there's no evidence that he was ever there. The way of a serpent on a rock. Well, if a serpent slithers on a rock, not the sand, the rock, when he's gone, there's no evidence that he was ever there, right? The way of a ship in the middle of a sea. What happens when a ship goes through the sea? He makes ripples, but then once he's gone, there's no evidence that the ship was ever there, right? And the way of a man with a maid. Well, if the word that's there made meant a virgin, we'd have a problem. It wouldn't be consistent with this passage, right? Because a virgin is different before and after she's a virgin. You can, in many cases, most cases, a doctor could examine someone and say whether or not she's still a virgin. But once she is no longer one, there's no evidence, right? There's no change. Now, and that is the word Alma, by the way. So that's the use of the word Alma to refer to a woman who is clearly not still a virgin. But in Judaism, we do have a word for virgin. Anybody know what it is? Right, betula. It is the word for a virgin. And the interesting thing is that Alma has a masculine. But betula doesn't, not in biblical Hebrew. Modern Hebrew, they've made it into masculine and feminine. But in biblical Hebrew, it does not exist. The reason that it does not exist is because there's no such thing as, if a man is a virgin or not, there is no way to know. Nothing changes, right? He doesn't look any different before or after. But a woman, there is a change. So there is only the feminine, biblical Hebrew, for a virgin. And on top of that, it is used by the prophet Isaiah in a passage where he is specifically talking about a virgin. So for example, if he didn't ever use the word betula, you might be able to make the argument, well, he just doesn't use that word. And so in this case, he meant Alma to mean a virgin. But he uses it in chapter 62, verse 5, for as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. So here we have the prophet Isaiah using the word betula to mean virgin. And so we know that he had that word in his vocabulary. And had he intended on that passage having anything to do with a virgin conceiving, he would have used the word, but he didn't. And so we understand that this passage does not prove, in any way, shape, or form, that there was a sign going to be given to people hundreds of years, 700 years in the future, that a virgin was going to conceive. And it was going to be miraculous. And that was somehow going to be a sign to us that he's the Messiah, because it's not there. OK. That was my youngest son and his wife at their wedding. All right. Number two, the number two answer that you will get from missionaries is, or Christians in general, is that we know that Jesus is the Messiah because he died for our sins, right? That's a huge one. In fact, the question is asked, how can you get forgiveness for your sins if there is no temple sacrifice? It's a good question if you are coming from the Christian perspective and understanding of what the purpose of the temple sacrifices were to begin with and what they actually accomplished. And in fact, I'm not going to read this whole thing to you, but there is a tract, which is a pamphlet, that was designed to convince Jewish people that they need Jesus, that was handed out, that says this very thing. He says, you don't have sacrifice anymore. And since sacrifice is required and you don't have a temple so you don't have any sacrifices, how on earth can you get forgiveness from your sins? It's a big question if you're coming from that perspective. Now, he does say in the second paragraph, you have no blood atonement at all. And without shedding of blood, there is no remission for sins, for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. And he thinks he's quoting from Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11. He says, therefore, your sins are not atoned for and your soul stands condemned before a holy God. The answer being, therefore, you need Jesus. So no temple, no sacrifices. We've got a problem, right? But Christianity has the solution. And the solution is ostensibly to believe in Jesus. OK, so let's ask the question, is it true? Is it true that in the Jewish Bible, the only way that people could atone for their sins was through bringing a blood sacrifice? No, very good. But that's the missionary claim. The claim is that Jesus is fulfilling what the Hebrew Bible requires of us. So we're going to play a little game here, because it's getting long and I'm getting bored. We're going to ask the missionary, where in the Bible is it stated that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins? There we go. OK, so we asked the missionary, where in the Bible is it stated that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins? And the answer is always going to be Leviticus 1711. So what does the Jewish Bible actually say in Leviticus 1711? The passage says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement. Now nowhere does it say that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins or any atonement. But it says that the blood on the altar makes an atonement for sins. Not the only atonement, but an atonement. Now we're going to just take a quick look back again. Let's see. This comes from the passage in the New Testament, Hebrews 9 chapter 22, which says, and according to the law, almost all things are cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. So there's a very clear Christian teaching that without the shedding of blood you cannot be forgiven for your sins. But as we said, that is not consistent with the Jewish Bible. So we're going to play a little game, all right? The game that we're going to play is give this paragraph a title, all right? So what does the paragraph say? We're going back up to verse 10, just because I don't want to go all the way back to the beginning. It says, and any man from the house of Israel for the aliens who sojourn among them who eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you on the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood by reason of the life that makes the atonement. Therefore, I said to the sons of Israel, no person among you may eat blood, nor may any alien who sojourns among you eat blood. So let me ask you a question. If you could give only one title to this paragraph, to these three verses, which really are indicative of the rest of the chapter, what would you give the title to this passage? Yes? Abstain. Abstain from? From drinking or eating blood, right? That's what the chapter is about. The chapter is about abstaining from eating blood. It continues, so when any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens who sojourn among them in hunting catches a beast or a bird which may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. For as the life of the flesh, as for the life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore, I said to the sons of Israel, you are not to eat the blood of any flesh, or the life for the life of the flesh is in its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. So you still agree that the paragraph title, the chapter title, should be the prohibition against eating blood, right? OK, so that's it, 10 through 14. So the paragraph, we would call it the prohibition against drinking blood. We will not say that the focus of this passage is the principles of atonement, would we? No. And the truth is that the principles of atonement are mentioned in Leviticus, but many, many chapters before. So what is the verse actually saying? What the verse is actually telling us is that when you sacrifice an animal, and we're going to see in a minute, you don't have to sacrifice an animal. But when we sacrifice an animal, what is it about sacrificing the animal that brings the atonement? It's not the ears, it's not the tail, it's not the hoof. It's the blood, right? It's the blood that is the reason, because we are committing a very difficult act to do, even back then, of giving one animal, you know, taking a life in order to ask for forgiveness for our sins. So what it is saying is that because the blood is the life force of the animal, that's why we can't drink it, that's why we can't eat it, and that's why that's the part of an animal that accomplishes forgiveness for our sins. So can we get forgiveness for our sins if there is no temple sacrifice? It says in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18, come now, let us reason together, says Hashem. Though your sins are a scarlet, they will be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. Does it say, but only if you give blood, but only if you sacrifice an animal? No, in this case, God's just saying, come to me, talk to me. Now, this is a three hour course. I don't know how long Rabbi Scoback's version of it is, but obviously I can't get into all of the details right now, because otherwise we'll be here for a very long time and I'll miss my flight. But, but, it's a good opportunity to take a drink, but God is telling us that what he wants, what is necessary, has to do with coming to him and having a relationship with him and talking to him. What we call in Judaism, tshuvah, right? In English, it's repentance. That's what God's looking for. That's what always worked when it came to asking for forgiveness. The bringing of the animals was simply a facilitator, an outward action that reflected an inward heart position of being repentant towards the sin that we've committed. Okay, why does it keep doing that? I must be hitting something incorrectly. All right, so can you get forgiveness for sins if there is no temple sacrifice? It says in Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 12, now Israel, what does Hashem, your God, require from you to give an animal sacrifice? No, it doesn't say that. It says, but to fear Hashem, your God, to walk in all his ways and love him and to serve Hashem, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and to keep his commandments and his statutes, which I am commanding you today for your good. The reason there's a question mark at the end is simply because when Moses was saying it, he said it in the form of a question. But the point is that that's what God requires of us. Now, I'm not gonna get into all the nitty gritty of why there were animal sacrifices necessary to begin with, but simply that blood is not required in order to get atonement. And here we see in the book of Exodus, when you take a census of the sons of Israel to number them, then each of them shall give a ransom for himself to Hashem, when you number them so that there will be no plague among them, when you number them. This is what everyone who is numbered shall give a half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary, half a shekel as a contribution to Hashem, everyone who is numbered from 20 years old and over shall give the contribution to Hashem, that's God. The rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than half a shekel when you give the contribution to Hashem to what? To make atonement for yourselves. You shall take the atonement money from the sons of Israel and give it to the service of the tent of meeting. Now, there are other verses, there's tons of other verses. In fact, we have a whole section that talks about if you couldn't afford to bring an animal, but that was what was required. If you couldn't afford to bring a cow, you could bring birds. If you couldn't afford to bring birds, you could bring flower. And I remember when I was messianic, the explanation that was given as an excuse, because it doesn't make any sense, was well, the flower mixes with the blood from the other sacrifices and becomes a blood sacrifice. I don't know if any of you have ever heard that, but that was the explanation that was given to me. However, doing just a small amount of research, and I'm no expert on the temple and sacrifices, the flower was offered on a different part of the altar than the animals were, so there was no mixing of blood with the flower, just in case you ever encountered this. So we had the example that God wants us to come to him. We had the example that God wants, in other verses it says a broken and contrite heart. He wants a relationship, he wants repentance. We have the example here, we have the example that I didn't show you, the flower, and we have the example here of atonement being made through coins. So we see that we didn't need the sacrifice of Jesus, and again, we're not getting into why it wasn't a valid sacrifice, but we don't even need that to get forgiveness for our sins. All we need to do is come to God humbly and ask him to forgive us. Come reason with me. That's what he says. All right, now, the third one is that that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies, and one example is that he had to come before the destruction of the second temple. Now I discovered, if you read any Christian material, they will say that there are over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, right? And you go, wow, okay, that's pretty amazing. I mean, what are the chances that one person could fulfill 300 prophecies? He's gotta be the Messiah. And even if a Jewish person is able to say, well, but this wasn't a prophecy and that wasn't a prophecy, they say, well, yeah, but there's still 250, right? Or there's still whatever. But the truth is that as I went through them, first of all, most of them aren't prophecies to begin with, all right? And there's a whole list of things that if you look at the list of 300, they're not even prophecies. But one of the big ones that is often used is this idea that the Messiah had to come before the second temple. And when I was standing with those Jews for Jesus people outside my office, that was what the lady said to me, she comes up to me, it's a little old lady. And she says to me, did you know that the Messiah was supposed to come before the destruction of the second temple? Who else could it be if it wasn't him? Who's the Messiah that came before the destruction of the second temple? And fortunately, I had just finished listening to Rabbi Skobak's tape. I had actually only listened to one part of it and I'm really glad that they stopped her before I got to the end of that information because I didn't have any more information. But it comes from a passage in Daniel, the book of Daniel chapter nine, verses 25 through 27. And it says, so you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah prints, there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks, it will be built again with plaza and moat even in times of distress. Then after the 62 weeks, the Messiah, by the way this is Christian translation, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary and its end will come with a flood, even to the end there will be war, desolations are determined and he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed is poured out and the one who makes, on the one who makes desolate. Now that's a lot of words and it's not so easy to even follow what it's saying. And it's easy to get really caught up in this but Christians missionaries particularly love that because the biggest thing that they can do is make you go, ah, I don't know, sure, whatever you say. Because if they can establish themselves as the expert then you'll listen to whatever it is that they have to say. This is known as the 70 weeks prophecy and it supposedly predicted the exact date that Jesus died. Now there's a whole lot of problems with it and again this is another like three hour, four hour class and I'm sure that on Jews for Judaism's website you can hear the whole class and get all of the details because it's really fascinating and very interesting if you're interested in that stuff but this is the Christian translation so bear with me for a second, okay? So this is going to give you an example when I said to you that Christians have taken the Jewish Bible and they've changed the order and they've retranslated some of the passages. We saw that in Isaiah 714 and we see it also here in Daniel chapter nine. So what happens is, is that you have this passage that says, this verse that says, there's this guy that's gonna come and it says that he's a prince which we'll look at in a second and he's gonna restore and rebuild, there's gonna be a decree that's gonna go out to rebuild Jerusalem and this guy is going to come the prince, the Messiah, he's going to come and there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks and they push them all together and they say that this is 69 weeks. The last part is the 70th week. The problem is, how many of you if you were 37 years old would say I am four and 33 years old? Even in languages like French and Hebrew where you don't just like put it all together, you would say I am 30 and seven years old, right? But who would say I'm 33 and four years old? Nobody would say that. Nobody speaks that way and the Tanakh doesn't, the Jewish Bible doesn't speak that way either. So we get a hint from this passage that there's something special about, it's not just talking about 69, it's talking about 62 and seven or in this case, seven and 62, okay? So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah prince, there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks. It will be built again with pause and moat even in times of distress. So the Christian claim is that from this decree, whatever it is, until the coming of the Messiah is going to be 69 weeks, right? And there's a whole principle, the weeks are turned into years, all right? There's this idea that a day is as a year. But the point is, and I'm realizing now that there's a lot of details that are gonna make this very confusing, so please bear with me. And I want to get us out of here as soon as possible so Rabbi Skobak can start talking and you guys aren't here all day. The other problem, one of the major problems with this is not only do they take this time period, they put it together and then they try to say that this is when the Messiah was going to come. They also are taking the events that are listed in this passage and they're putting them all together and saying it's one event with one person, the Messiah. But in order to do that, they have to ignore the Hebrew translation of the people that are being spoken about in this passage. And I say people because there are actually three people that are being spoken about in this passage. I'm actually gonna, ah, go back. So now let's look at the Hebrew, let's look at the proper translation for this, okay? You must know and understand, from the issuance of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed leader. Again, we have this problem with the letter hey, which means the, and in the case of Ha'almah, they're translating it as a young woman and really it should be the young woman, a specific young woman. In this case, there is no hey, meaning an anointed leader, but they put one there where it doesn't belong so they could say the Messiah, all right? So you can see how there's a lot of manipulation of the passage of the verses going on, all right? The proper translation is from the issuance of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the time of an anointed leader is seven weeks. And there's actually a punctuation in the Hebrew that tells us that there's supposed to be a semicolon there, okay, seven weeks. And for 62 weeks, it will be rebuilt square and moat, but in times of distress. After those 62 weeks, an anointed one, somebody different, will be cut off. And again, you have, they like to put the there and it's not a the, it's a, an anointed one, will be cut off and vanish. And the army of a leader who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary, but its end will come through a flood. Now it's interesting how if you read the translation, if you read it in the English, the way it's supposed to be translated actually makes a whole lot more sense. Did anybody understand this version a little bit better than the first one that I gave you, which was from the Christian translation? It makes a whole lot more sense now. So the problem is that Christians are trying to say that this is a passage about the Messiah. One guy who had to come while the temple was still standing before the destruction of the temple. And in order to make that happen, they have to manipulate the text. But the truth is, is that this is speaking about three different people and it did happen during the time of the Messiah. This is about the Roman emperor, or yeah, the Spacian and you can read all about the history of what happened at the destruction of the second temple. And it's all there and it's all spelled out. And if you're reading it in the translation, in the Jewish translation, you can see that this has nothing to do with the Messiah. Well, not the Messiah, it has to do with a Messiah because there was a very special person at that time who God called an anointed one who had to do with the rebuilding of the temple, the second temple. All right. Now, I'm not gonna beleager this at all. I'm not even gonna dwell on it very long. But one of the biggest answers that people will give is that we know he's the Messiah because we know it in our heart. He changes people's lives. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever done anything in your life that changed your life? You know, belief is a very powerful thing. I talk a lot about the difference between belief and knowledge. In the English language, we make a distinction between the word belief and the word knowledge as if knowledge is very strong and belief is very weak. For example, if you ask me, what time is your flight? And I told you, I know my flight is at five o'clock. Or if I said to you, I believe my flight is at five o'clock. Which is stronger? No, right? That's based on fact. But really, we're misusing the term because the truth is that belief is an extremely powerful force. There are things that you know that are facts that don't affect your behavior in any way, shape, or form, right? For example, if you smoke, I don't think there's a person in the Western world who doesn't know that smoking is bad for you. But and if you ask somebody, I mean, I had a case of this with my little kids. When my kids were little, they went up to somebody who was smoking and they said, did you know that that's bad for you? And the guy said, yeah, I know, now leave me alone, kid, right? Because look, donuts, donuts are bad for us. Everybody knows that, but we still eat them, right? An alcoholic knows that drinking too much is bad for him, but there are other forces that kind of mitigate that knowledge. So there's a lot of things that we know that don't affect our behavior at all. But people will die for things that they believe, even if it's not based on fact at all. People will blow themselves up for things that are fairy tales, right? So the idea, I mean, we are powerful. The Torah tells us that we're created in the image of God. The fact that we have the ability to change based on what we believe, that doesn't prove anything, right? I changed my diet and I changed my life. I actually am in the process of healing from an autoimmune disease because I changed my diet. So just because belief in Jesus changed someone's life, my belief in Judaism changed my life too. And I would have to say that my life now is better than it was then. So it's really, it's obviously it's not an answer, but it's one of the top four answers that you will get. And that's because beliefs are powerful, whatever they are. That's not the right direction. Okay, so last but not least, and it's not actually last, but why is this important? Why does it matter? It matters because Judaism matters and the Jewish people matters. That's who we are. And before the Holocaust, there were 16 million Jews, right? And since the Holocaust, which is 70 years, we haven't even caught up to where we were before the Holocaust, right? Why is that? It's not because we're not having babies because if you come to my neighborhood, I mean, I think they said that some woman gave birth last week in Jerusalem who was giving birth to her 20th child. And I guarantee she's not the only one, all right? Israel's bursting at the seams. So it's not because we're not having babies. There's another reason why the Jewish population is where it is. And that's because of assimilation and it's because of conversion out of Judaism. And that's why this is important. All right, I was gonna go on, but actually I just wanna say one thing and then I'm gonna stop. That is, when I was working at Jews for Judaism, I got a call one time. I got a call from a father who was upset because his daughter, who was Jewish, was marrying a non-Jewish boy. She was marrying a Christian and she was going to become a Christian and she was very concerned and she wanted to know if we could step in and help her out. And I asked him to tell me about himself and he told me about how he and his first wife, the mother of the girl, had gotten a divorce early on and he had married another woman and she wasn't Jewish. And I said to him, you know, you set the example for your daughter that it's not important to be Jewish. That it's not important to marry Jewish. And I asked him about his interaction, his relationship with his Judaism and he was like, well, you know, I know I'm Jewish. And I'm like, why did you wait so long to come to us when you're in crisis? You have shown your daughter that Judaism doesn't matter. How could you expect anything different? So I want to close with this challenge to you. And that is that, and it's similar to the challenge I gave at the end of my story, is that you, in order to have an effect on other people, you cannot give what you yourself do not have. If you don't have a relevant and meaningful relationship with God within the context of Judaism, that's where you need to start. And don't think, well, my kids are all grown now, I can't have an effect because the truth is, is that you have an effect on everybody that you come in contact with, whether it's your nieces and nephews or your grandchildren, right? I'm currently working on doing something very similar with my nieces and nephews who were raised without a commitment to Judaism. And you can have an effect on the next generation and you can have an effect on Judaism. And that's what Jews for Judaism does. What's their motto? Keeping Jews Jewish, right? You can't stay Jewish if you don't even know what it means to be a Jew. So I would like to ask you to consider the things that I shared, which is just a small taste. The seminar that Rabbi Skobak gives is what, six weeks? The six-week seminar? See, I talk more slowly, mine takes 12 weeks. You know, sign up for the seminar. Contact Jews for Judaism's office, ask them. I mean, Jews for Judaism changed my life and they can change yours as well. And so I would like to just finish up by challenging you to take a look at the truth. Take a look at what it really says and don't be sold a bill of goods because your life or somebody else's life could depend on it, all right? Thank you.