 This evening's program has been entitled The Encounter, and if you were paying attention to the publicity, you should have figured out this is not an actual debate, it is billed as a simulated debate, but we are holding this program because we believe that this can be a very educational experience. We're going to have two presenters tonight, and they're really going to be engaged in a discussion and a dialogue. It's not going to be a formal debate where each side gets up and presents a formal argument and having a rebuttal. It'll be more like, if you can imagine, a rabbi sits down with a Jew for Jesus in a coffee shop, and this might be the kind of interaction that you will overhear if you're sitting at the next table. The position that will be expressed by my partner tonight, I don't want to say my antagonist or my opponent, will actually be genuine. You will actually hear the kind of things that you will very likely hear out of the mouth of someone who is Jewish that has embraced Christianity, and I will do my best to share the Jewish perspective or a Jewish perspective. So without any further ado, I'd like to invite up Brother Daniel. There are no coincidences in life. You didn't just happen to stroll on off the street. You chose to be here tonight, and you chose to expose yourself and to be open to a message from the Christian side. There are no coincidences. There's no coincidence that tonight happens to be Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve, the night that tradition tells us is the birth date of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, or as it would be in Hebrew, Yeshua Hamashiach. It is no coincidence that one week tonight will be beginning of a new decade, the 20s, and during that decade we will see the 2,000th anniversary of the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior. So a brief little bit about myself. I was raised in a, I suppose you call it a traditional Jewish home. We didn't keep Shabbat. We didn't keep Kosher. We would go to the synagogue for Rosh Hashanah and for Yom Kippur. We had a kind of a Seder, and I think some of you know, whereas we do the first half, and then we eat, and then we watch hockey. I see some of you are familiar with that. The Judaism I was exposed to as a child and as a teenager was somewhat lifeless. I never got the impression that God was a presence. God was something that happened in the old days and almost doesn't get involved today. I dropped out, more or less, and it was in my college years that I became in contact with born-again Christians. These are people who took their Christianity seriously and they had a life and an energy about them that I frankly envied. There's an expression. People presume it's a Christian expression. I was provoked to jealousy. Actually, the phrase appears in the book of Deuteronomy. I was provoked to jealousy. I envied them. I envied their happiness. I envied their spirit and their joy for life and I wanted it. I had a bit of trouble going into a church and a very good friend of mine, very nice girls, he says, oh, you don't have to go to a church. You can go to a synagogue for Jewish believers in Jesus. News to me, but I went to a Messianic synagogue. They didn't have a minister. They had a rabbi. They were praying Jewish prayers. They didn't call Jesus Jesus. They called him Yeshua, Yeshua Mashiach, and I was blown away by how Jewish everything was. The men wore talit. There was an Aaron Kodish, an Ark. They had a Torah scroll, say for Torah. And when I started to learn about Christianity, I again was stunned. I sort of in the back of my mind knew that Jesus was Jewish, but it wasn't until I started reading the Gospels that I realized how Jewish he was. All his followers, all his disciples were Jewish. The people to whom he preached were Jews. There are maybe two or three examples in all of the Gospel where Jesus even speaks to a non-Jew. He says, I have only come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The more I got involved, the more I realized that this was the truth and you have to follow the truth no matter where it takes you. I am more Jewish now as a Jewish believer in Yeshua than I ever was. And you say, how could that be? Well, I doven, I pray every day. I never did that before. I keep completely kosher. Never did that before. I'm Sabbath observant. I wear tzitzit. Never did that before. I am more Jewish now. As a matter of fact, I am so Jewish that to the annoyance of my parents, I won't eat at their house because it's not kosher. It's changed my life. I'll leave it at that. Thank you for sharing your story, Daniel. And all I can begin is to just say at the outset that it saddens me that you grew up in a home where in your formative years you were not really exposed to a meaningful, vibrant, serious kind of Judaism. And I think that had you been exposed to something different, things might be different for you now. But to get into what you were sharing, I think that what I wanted to focus on was this idea that what you are now doing is somehow very Jewish. The truth is that calling your beliefs Jewish doesn't make them Jewish. You know, there's a famous story where Abraham Lincoln once asked someone in a courtroom in a hearing. He said, if you took a jackal and you called the tail of the jackal a leg, how many legs would the jackal have? And the person said it would have five legs. And Lincoln said no, it only has four legs. Just calling the tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. Now the truth is that Messianic Judaism, the kind of movement that you have now become part of, is basically Christianity. If you examine the doctrinal creeds, every Christian church, every denomination has a statement of their doctrines. The doctrinal statements of every Messianic congregation is the exact same doctrinal statement as any Protestant evangelical church. There is literally no difference. You believe in the exact same things. The fact that you might dress it up with a kippah and you might eat kosher food rather than un-kosher food doesn't change the guts of who you are and what you're believing now. The fact that all of the first Christians happen to be Jewish is irrelevant. If there were Jews who were worshiping the golden calf, would that make the worship of the golden calf a legitimate practice or a legitimate thing to believe in just because Jews are doing it? The fact that Jews do something doesn't automatically give it legitimacy because many Jewish people do things that are antithetical to Judaism. I once spoke at a Messianic congregation here in Toronto and I told them that in Jewish law, this is how I began. I said in Jewish law, if a person loses God forbid a close relative but will come into a serious inheritance, they actually recite two blessings. For the loss of their relative, they say, blessed is the true judge, which is the blessing we recite when we hear terrible bad news. But at the same time, the person is going to receive a large inheritance and for that, they recite the blessing for hearing good news. Blessed is one who is good and does good. And so the truth is that I told this group and I will share the same observation with you. Your desire for spirituality is a positive thing. Your interest in studying the Torah is wonderful. Your quest to observe God's commandments is to be applauded. But on the other hand, the bad news is that you are doing all of this to serve a Jewish man. Your devotion is to a person that is worshiped as God. Judaism regards this as idolatry. All of the Jewish study and all of the Jewish activities and all of the Torah commandments that are observed in the Messianic movement are done in the service of Jesus. Not in the service of the Creator. Despite the fact that Christians will insist that Jesus is God, again, it doesn't make him God. And so for Jewish people to be worshipping and serving and giving their devotion to a human being is idolatry and that unfortunately is very tragic. All very nice. But it isn't the real issue. The real issue is Yeshua. Is he the Messiah? Is he Messiah? Or isn't he? Everything hinges on that. When I got involved, I was presented with two biblical quotes that have stuck with me ever since. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not die but have everlasting life. And Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one gets to God except through me. I can tell you with all my heart that Jesus, Yeshua HaMashiach fulfilled all the Messianic prophecies and there are many. What do I mean by many? Some people have counted over 250. Some have counted well over 300 prophecies contained in the Tanakh, what we call the Old Testament. Jesus fits the bill perfectly. I'm only going to give you two or three, a sampling. In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah says, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son and they will call his name Emmanuel, meaning God is with us. Another one is that from the book of Psalms. For God, for dogs have encompassed me. The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, surrounded me. They pierced my hands and my feet. Anyone who has seen a crucifix know that the manner of crucifixion in those days by the Romans remarkably cruel even by their standards was not only crucifixion where you died basically by exposure and suffocation, but they actually nailed him, his hands and his feet. Similarly in the book of Zachariah, it says, One shall say unto him, What are these wounds in your hands? And then he shall answer those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Those are only three of dozens and dozens, hundreds which point to Yeshua, point to Jesus. Two of Jewish believer in Jesus, the Tanakh, is one big electric flashing neon arrow pointing to Jesus. We see Jesus face on every page. It seems to me that if we're going to engage in an attempt to determine what does our Bible, what does the Hebrew scriptures actually teach about the Messiah, what we would want to examine are passages that are indisputable. Passages where everyone who reads the passage would agree. Yes, this passage is speaking about the Messiah to come. However, to marshal and to assemble a list of passages that are far from clear, that are far from clear, we're building a case on a very shaky foundation. Now what I find to be important in this regard is that Judaism has a vision of what the Messiah is and who the Messiah is. And Judaism has a set of passages in the Hebrew scriptures. Isaiah chapter 11 and Isaiah chapter 2 and Jeremiah chapter 23 and Jeremiah chapter 33 and Ezekiel chapter 34 and Ezekiel chapter 37. We have a list of passages that are so clear that every student of the Bible, be they Jewish or Christian, agrees. Yes, indeed, those passages are speaking of the Messiah. What's important is if you examine those passages, it is very clear that Jesus has not fulfilled the picture painted by those passages. Those are passages which show that when the Messiah is here, the world is going to be transformed. It speaks about all the Jewish people being regathered to their ancestral land to the land of Israel. The ingathering of all the exiles, their tribes from the northern 10 Kingdom, the 10 northern tribes will be regathered with their southern compatriots. We're told that when the Jewish people come back to the land of Israel, we're going to rebuild our temple. We're told we're going to live in the land of Israel in peace and there will be universal peace. All the weapons of war will be destroyed. And we're told there will be universal knowledge of God. Every person in the world will believe in God. This is the indisputable, uncontested testimony of Scripture. And what Christians are forced to do, because they can't deny that those are really speaking of the Messiah, they're forced to say, well, Jesus will do all those things when he comes back. Well, to say that someone is the Messiah now, because they're going to do something when they come back in 2,000 years, is absurd. I can claim that my grandfather was the Messiah. And if anyone says, well, what did your grandfather do? I can say, well, nothing. When he was alive, he didn't accomplish anything. But you'll see when he returns, he'll fulfill all of the Messianic prophecies. So I think it's important to just bear in mind that if we are to center on, to focus on the indisputable prophecies in the Bible, where all Jews and all Christians agree that those passages are speaking of the Messiah, Jesus did not fulfill them. Now, let's look at the passages that Christians say, well, these are passages that Jesus did fulfill. And we're going to see that what they have in common are two things, especially the three that you chose. The problem with each of the texts that you chose is that they ignore the actual context of the passage they are ripped out of. There's an old saying that a text without a context is pretext. Context is the most crucial thing to understand a passage. And we're going to see that the passages you cited have nothing to do with the coming of the Messiah. But because they sound like Jesus, Christians will transform them, will insist that they are Messianic prophecies. And secondly, aside from the fact that they're ripped out of context, they are based upon, and they rely upon, mistranslation of the actual Hebrew. In Psalm 22, if someone was to read the entire Psalm, and I would ask that you would do that, Daniel, read the whole Psalm without trying to find Jesus in the Psalm. You know, the Bible is not like where's Waldo, that it's some kind of a game where you try to find Jesus in the Bible. The Bible has its own legitimacy that was there long before Jesus walked the earth. So if we're to read this Psalm with the eyes of someone who was reading it at the time when King David wrote it, or 100 years later, or 500 years later, read the Psalm before Jesus, what we would see is that it's a Psalm of entreaty. It's a Psalm of prayer. It's someone who is under attack, and they cry for help. And the Psalm ends as a hymn of praise when the endangered person is redeemed. And this becomes a source of hope for others. There's nothing in the Psalm that speaks about the crucifixion and death of the Messiah. It's simply not there. That requires that you read into the Psalm, that you superimpose upon it. You're pre-concluded, you're pre-assumed assumptions about what the Psalm is. Secondly, the verse that you cite does not say, they pierced my hands and feet. What it does say is like a lion at my hands and my feet. Now, you could just say that this will be an argument back and forth that can't be resolved. The Christian insists that it means they pierced, and the rabbinical Jewish position will say no, it means like a lion. Is there a way of breaking the log jam? And I say there is. First of all, in this very chapter, chapter 22 of Psalms, we find that the Psalmist compares his enemies and his attackers to lions. Earlier in verse 13, later in verse 21. It's not as if lions are all of a sudden sticked into this verse by Jews who need to defend against the Christian interpretation. Lions are all over this Psalm. As a matter of fact, throughout the Psalms, in Psalm 7, for example, David is always describing his attackers as wild beasts and as lions. Secondly, and this is the most important thing, if we don't know what this word means here in Psalm 22, let's see what it means everywhere else it appears in the Tanakh. And you'll see that it appears in Isaiah, chapter 38, verse 13. It appears in Psalm 17. It appears in Numbers 23, Numbers 24 and Ezekiel chapter 30, Ezekiel chapter 22. And you can check every single time this word is translated in Christian Bibles. It's translated everywhere else as like a lion. All of a sudden here in Psalm 22, it becomes they pierced. Now, what's interesting is that up until recently, if you were to get any Christian Bible and to look at Psalm 22, they do translate Psalm 22, the verse that you quoted, as they pierced. But finally, modern Christian translations are recognizing this is incorrect. And so the two most recent translations, just over the past few years of the Bible from Christians, the CEB, the Common English Bible, has like a lion. And the NET, the New English Translation, again, has like a lion, just as any Jewish translation would have it. What's important to also bear in mind is that the Christian Bible never quotes this verse in Psalms claiming that it's fulfilled by Jesus. The New Testament, the Christian Bible quotes many passages from the Jewish Bible and uses them, I would say misuses them and claims that they're messianic prophecies. But this one is not even used in the Christian Bible as a proof text. Now, the next passage you cited was from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 7, claiming that that chapter in Isaiah is telling us that the Messiah would be born to a virgin. So here again, there are two massive problems. Number one, what is the context of this chapter? You quoted right in the middle of the chapter, you landed right in the middle, chapter 7, verse 14. But you can't ignore verse 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13, which tells us what's going on in the chapter. And if you would read it, you would see it's not speaking about the birth of the Messiah. It's telling us that about 700 years before Jesus, there was a massive attack upon the southern kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Judah. And they were being attacked by the northern 10 tribes, the kingdom of Israel and by Syria. There was an alliance between these two superpowers, Syria and the 10 northern tribes, made an alliance and they were going to attack Jerusalem and going to attack the southern kingdom. And the king and the Jewish people down south were terrified. And so they basically come to God and they express their fear. And God says, don't worry, don't worry. And I'm going to give you a sign. And God says, there's going to be a young woman. And before she gives birth, these two nations that are attacking you will be destroyed. Now, if this was speaking about Jesus, how would that be a sign to King Achas and the Jewish people? It would be that God's saying to King Achas, I know that you're under attack by these two great powers, but 700 years from now, a young woman in Israel is going to give birth to a child. Don't sweat, you'll be fine. So the context is critical. We can't ignore the context. It has nothing to do with the birth of the Messiah. It has everything to do with God giving a sign of encouragement and hope to people under attack 700 years before Jesus. And then there's also the translation problem. This verse in Isaiah is not speaking about a virgin. The Hebrew word here is Alma. Alma simply means a young woman. There is a specific Hebrew word for virgin, which is betula, but Isaiah didn't use that word. Isaiah used the word Alma. How do I know that it means a young woman and not a virgin? It's very simple. It's a feminine noun. There is a masculine form of that noun as well. LM in the Hebrew Bible is a young man. And every Christian translation translates LM as young man. They don't translate it as a young man virgin. So Alma simply means a young woman. It's not telling you about her sexual past or her sexual history. Just the fact that she's a young woman. And the fact is that this is so solid that numerous, not just modern, but even translations made decades ago. Dozens of Christian translations have now corrected this mistranslation. And when they translate Isaiah, they translate Alma as a young woman and not as a virgin. When we go to the last of your texts, which was Zachariah, Zechariah chapter 13. So here we again have the problem of context and the problem of translation. The context here is deadly for the Christian point of view. Because if we were to read not just from verse 6, which you quoted, but if we read from the beginning of the chapter, you see, without a question, the chapter is describing the execution, the putting to death of false prophets that will take place in the future. So if one was to insist that verse 6 is describing Jesus who is being pierced, it would then be telling you that Jesus was a false prophet. And that's why the vast majority of Christian commentaries to the Bible will tell you, don't think that Zechariah chapter 13 is speaking about Jesus. They realize that that's poison for Jesus. Secondly, it's only the King James, as far as I know, that renders the words, Ben Yadecha, as in your hands. What are those wounds in your hands? Normally when you're going to try to kill someone, you don't stab them in their hand. That's not a good move. So most translations will render Ben Yadecha as really between your arms, meaning the person's being stabbed in their upper torso in their back. And even Christian translations, aside from the King James, don't translate this verse as, what are these wounds in your hands? Just by the way, one final, I know I'm going on a little bit long. I'm sorry for taking so much time here, but one final thought. If it did say in Psalm 22, they pierced my hands and feet. If it did say that, does that prove it's speaking about Jesus? That's absurd. We know that the Romans crucified over 100,000 Jews. If Jesus was the only person in history to have his hands and feet pierced, then we could say, well, maybe that Psalm, if it's mistranslated, is talking about Jesus. But even if you mistranslate it, there's nothing about the Psalm that specifically tells you it's referring to Jesus. It could refer to anyone who was crucified or God forbid when the Germans would machine gun Jewish people on the sides of ditches. Many of those bullets went into people's hands and feet. Many people had their hands and feet pierced. So to insist that it has to be talking about Jesus and no one else is really an absurdity. Everything that you have said so far does no good. Are any of these people here or any of the Jewish people at all? Because if you don't think that Yeshua is the Messiah, if you don't believe that he came and died for the sins of the world, Jews have a major problem because how do you get forgiven for your sins? We know what the Torah says, how you get forgiven for your sins. The Torah says you bring a sacrifice to the temple, I bet the MacDosh. Chapter after chapter of Leviticus goes on about what you do in this situation, what you do in that situation, all different kinds of sacrifices for all different kinds of situations. Problem. The temple was destroyed almost 2,000 years ago. We no longer have somewhere to make our sacrifices. What's worse in the Book of Deuteronomy chapter 12, it says you can only bring sacrifices where I've shown you. The last place God showed us, the Temple Mount. You can't slaughter animals in your backyard. It doesn't work. So, would God set up a system where he would destroy the temple and not give us a remedy? He gave us a remedy. A couple of generations before the destruction of the temple was the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That was the solution. He gave us the solution. And speaking of Leviticus, in chapter 17, verse 11, to hammer it home just in case there's any doubt. It says, the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I've given it, the blood, to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes an atonement for the souls. Not your prayers, not feeling sorry, not giving to charity. The blood makes atonement. That's not me talking. That's the Lord God Almighty talking to us. How do you get forgiven for your sins? I have the answer, Jesus. This is a very serious question that you raise and an important question. I understand that from a Christian perspective, the purpose Jesus came to the world was to die as a sacrifice for the sins of those who would believe in him. But one of the great challenges that Christianity faces is that there is not one verse in the entire Hebrew Bible that says this. There's not one verse in the entire Jewish Bible that says the Messiah will come and he will die as a sacrifice for the sins of those who would believe in him. The Bible never says anywhere about believing in the Messiah. And the Bible never says anything about someone coming ultimately to die as a sacrifice, as a human sacrifice for the sins of the world. We know that in the Bible, in the Jewish Bible, human sacrifice is considered one of the most grotesque, disgusting things that God is constantly railing against throughout the Bible, dozens of times. God expresses himself with total clarity that human sacrifice is an abomination. To say that all of a sudden God is going to retreat from that and say, no, there's going to be a sacrifice of a human being sounds very, very implausible. And what's missing is any statement, even one, where the Bible says that this is what we should expect the Messiah to do. That we should expect the Messiah to come one day to be killed as a sacrifice and he will forgive all our sins if we will believe in him. That's one problem. The second problem is that the foundation that you base yourself upon where you found some source for the idea that in order to be forgiven for your sins you have to have a sacrifice that already has some connection to the Bible. We're going to see it's not really quite as you said. But the idea that the Messiah comes to die as a sacrifice, that is simply not there. Now let's examine your claim. Your claim is that the Bible teaches us that unless we have the offering of blood it is impossible for us to be forgiven for our sins. Christians usually quote what they believe is a verse from the Hebrew Scriptures where they say without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness. Unfortunately for them that's not in the Jewish Bible, that's in the Greek Testament in the book of Hebrews chapter 9 verse 22. But what does the Jewish Bible say? What does Aratanach say? What does the Torah say? The verse you quoted from Leviticus, the book of Vayikra, Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I've given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of life. I pointed out before that one of the biggest mistakes that you can make when reading the Bible is to just snip a passage out of the middle of a chapter and ignore the rest of the passage, ignore the rest of the chapter. So if we were to read from the beginning of chapter 17 we would expect that according to your interpretation this should be a chapter where the whole theme of the chapter in headlights would be how to get forgiven for your sins. You would hope from a Christian point of view that would be what's happening in this chapter. It would be a big chapter that's telling you how God provides for you to get forgiven for your sins. And yet if we study chapter 17 we're going to see it has nothing to do with the topic of atonement from sins. Totally not the topic of this chapter. As a matter of fact what's interesting is that if you want to find chapters in the book of Leviticus that describe the sacrificial system you've got to go back to the beginning of the book of Leviticus. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. That's where you'll find the Bible speaking about sacrifices and how you bring sacrifices and what they're for. Again none of them speaks about the sacrifice of a human being as the Messiah. But by the time you get to chapter 17 over here it's not teaching us about bringing sacrifices about how you should bring a sacrifice. This chapter is teaching us how not to bring sacrifices. What not to do. And the entire theme of this passage is basically telling us we are not allowed to consume blood. It's not telling us that the only way of being forgiven for your sins is by having a blood sacrifice. It's saying that the only legitimate reason for blood, the only purpose God gave us blood was to apply blood to the altar for sacrifices. Yes blood was applied to the altar for sacrifices. But this chapter is a chapter of a dietary law. It's telling you that since the only legitimate reason for having blood is to apply it to the altar it says you cannot eat it. And if you were to study this chapter it's plain as day. Read all the verses here. What it's talking about is the dietary prohibition against consuming blood. Does the Bible tell us here that the only way of being forgiven is through having blood sacrifice offered on your behalf? That's not what it's saying. What it's saying is when you do bring a sacrifice there were some sacrifices that were brought for sins, for unintentional sins. The fourth chapter of Leviticus tells us if you sinned unintentionally you can bring a korban hatat, a sin offering. But there was no sin offering for intentional sins. It was for limited sins if it was unintentional. And what we're told here in this chapter is when you bring a sacrifice which part of the animal is the part of the animal that affects that is critical for the sacrifice to work? Is it the hair of the animal? Is it the kneecap? Is it the earlobe? Is it the nose? What is the part of the animal that's critical? So the Torah tells you the part of the animal that's critical is the blood. When you bring a sacrifice the blood is the important part. The blood is spilled on top of the altar, on the sides of the altar. But this passage is not telling us that the only way to be forgiven is through having a blood sacrifice. As a matter of fact blood was not sufficient to atone for your sins. The Bible warns us don't think, don't think for a moment that the answer to sin is sacrifice. Don't think that. For example, the Bible says in the book of Proverbs twice the sacrifice of a wicked person is an abomination to God. If you think that you can sin and you can be forgiven just by bringing a sacrifice that's an abomination. God hates that. And all of the prophets, every single one of the prophets scolded the Jewish people who made that mistake, who made the Christian mistake, who made the mistake of thinking that if I sin, I bring a sacrifice and everything is hunky dory. And the prophet said, no! God doesn't want your sacrifice. The sacrifice by itself doesn't accomplish anything. And the message of the Bible is that there's only one way of being forgiven for your sins. Only one way. And that is to turn away from your sins. That is to repent of your sins. That's to turn back to God. The Bible says that if you're living at a time when there's a holy temple and if you sinned unintentionally you should bring a sacrifice as part of the repentance process. As part of the process. But let's say there's no temple. Let's say there's no temple. And by the way, this wasn't just after Jesus died in the year 70 that we didn't have a temple. The first temple was destroyed hundreds of years before Jesus. What did the Jewish people do when the first temple was destroyed? So if you read in the book of Kings, first book of Kings chapter 8, Solomon when he's dedicating the first temple, Solomon says if this temple is destroyed and the Jewish people are taken far away and they have no access to the temple, then what they do to be forgiven is they pray to me and they turn from their sins and God says I'll forgive them. This is the message of the entire Bible. We see that Jonah, the prophet Jonah went to the non-Jewish city of Ninveh and he says to them, God is very upset with you. In 40 days this city will be overturned. What did the people in Ninveh do? Did they start bringing sacrifices all over the place and spritzing blood? No. The book of Jonah tells us they turned from their evil ways. They turned back to God and God forgave them. And that is the message of the Bible that the only way to be forgiven is through repentance, is through turning away from your sins and turning back to God. And every prophet said this, every prophet said this, Ezekiel in chapter 33. Ezekiel says now you son of man say to the house of Israel thus you have spoken saying since our sins and our iniquities are upon us and we are wasting away because of them how can we live? The prophet Ezekiel asked this question what do we do? We're being destroyed spiritually by our sins. That's the question Ezekiel asks here in chapter 33 verse 10. What is the answer that God gives him? Does God say, no problem. One day I'm going to send my son, the Messiah he will die for your sins and if you believe in him all your sins are forgiven. It's so interesting that every time the Jewish Bible has a chance to give the Christian answer it never does. Here would have been the perfect place to give the Gospel, to give the Christian answer. What does God say in the very next verse? As I live, God says I do not want, I do not desire the death of the wicked but rather that the wicked one returns from his way that he may live, repent, repent from your evil ways why should you die, O house of Israel? And this is the message of every single prophet you won't find any of the prophets you won't find Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel any of them saying to the Jewish people you better start bringing sacrifices otherwise you're in big trouble. What do they all say? Isaiah chapter 55 verse 7 let the wicked forsake his way and let them righteous man his thoughts and let them return to the Lord and he will have compassion on him and O God he will abundantly pardon where Jeremiah chapter 36 verse 3 perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I intend to do to them so they will repent each man from his evil way and then I can forgive their sin and their transgression. This is repeated dozens and dozens of times in the Hebrew Bible. It's interesting that if Christianity insists that Jesus was the final sacrifice the final sacrifice why does our Bible tell us there's going to be a third temple with the reinstitution of sacrifices why does the Bible tell us in the prophet Ezekiel that when the Messiah finally comes he's actually going to offer sin offerings on the temple altar that's unexplainable for a Christian why are we going to need to have sacrifices again if Jesus was the final sacrifice? There's much to say here but I'll end with one point to insist that Jesus was a sacrifice ignores everything the Bible teaches us about sacrifice I mentioned before that the Bible rails against human sacrifice but the very verse that you quoted chapter 17 verse 11 in Leviticus it doesn't say that any blood on the planet can atone for sins it's that the blood I've given you upon the altar the blood on the altar Jesus blood was never shed on the altar I can read chapter 17 in Leviticus and say that you know what last week praise the Lord I cut my finger making a tuna sandwich and I bled all over my kitchen floor all my sins are forgiven you see it says without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness I had the shedding of blood and the Christian would rightly say to me you can't just do whatever you want make up your own religion you've got to follow what the Bible says well the Bible says it's blood that's placed on the altar that can serve as a sacrifice and if you look at the Bible there are laws of sacrifices every sacrifice had to be unblemished Jesus was blemished he was beaten he had a sword stuck in his side he had a crown of thorns put on his head he was whipped every sacrifice had to be burned Jesus was not burned his blood was not offered on the altar every sacrifice had to be brought by a priest a curain not by Roman soldiers so it's impossible to say that Jesus could have been a legitimate sacrifice Rabbi Scobac has spoken very well and at great length he never did anything to cut him short or give him anything but his full time why? because I'm a nice guy? well, I am a nice guy but that's not why I did it I did it because I knew if I gave him enough rope he would hang himself and he just did the rabbinical position is that if you turn and you go to God and you perform the mitzvahs if you do chuvah everything is great the catch is of course we can't we can't let's say just for fun it's possible for a person to go through his entire life keeping all the commandments perfectly and not sinning he's still in trouble why? because we are born with original sin we are born in a state of sinfulness the only thing that can get rid of that sin because it's not a sin that you commit it's like a status crime you start off with it the only thing they can do that is the blood of Jesus we don't even really have any free will to do that getting rid of the original sin and that puts us all in a bind if it wasn't for Jesus the original sin of Adam and Eve so these are two very important points that we need to reflect about number one does the Bible actually teach us that after Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden every human being that will live afterward is stained with their sin I would say that not only does the Bible not say this but the Bible repeatedly teaches us against this idea the Bible repeatedly tells us that people will suffer spiritually only for their own sins not for the sin of someone else it's true that after Adam and Eve sinned the condition of human life has changed we're told that people will have to eat bread by the sweat of their brow we're told that women will give birth and it will be painful there were consequences that came as a result of Adam and Eve sin the hand that we are each dealt for our life is different as a result of what Adam and Eve did it seems that originally human beings were supposed to live forever and now with the sin of Adam and Eve we're told that human beings will become mortal but this has nothing to do with God's judgment on you or on me we're never told in the Bible that because of what Adam and Eve did God looks at you and your relationship with God is impacted in a negative way we know that the prophet Isaiah tells us that your sins separate between you and God the Bible never tells us that as a result of what Adam and Eve did any of us is separated from God the only thing we know as a result of Adam and Eve's sin is that our lives are going to be different in a physical kind of way we're going to have to work hard and childbirth is going to be difficult and our lives are not going to be eternal but spiritually the Bible never says there's going to be any impact on any human being afterwards now your second point which really you made first is an important one and I believe actually the most important issue at the heart and Christianity are different I believe that people the conventional wisdom is often that people will say this the only difference between Judaism and Christianity is that Christians believe the Messiah has come and Jews do not believe the Messiah has come yet other than that we're exactly the same the truth is that that is one of the most untrue statements a person could ever make and if you were to ask me what is the major difference between Christianity and Judaism I would not point to our differences about the Messiah I would say that the major difference is how we view men how we view ourselves Paul says in the book of Galatians chapter 2 verse 21 that if you could be righteous by keeping the Torah then Jesus died in vain it seems that according to Paul who is the basic architect of Christianity virtually all Christian theology comes from Paul not from Jesus Paul seems to be saying that we are not able as you pointed out Paul says we are not able to keep the Torah we're not able to be considered righteous by God through following God's instructions if we could if we were able to keep the Torah then Paul insists that Jesus would have died in vain and I think what's interesting is that this impacts this idea of human being are we capable of being good are we capable of obeying the Torah this impacts the concept of the Messiah look what Paul does when he speaks of the Messiah in his book of Romans Paul writes the following Paul says and so all of Israel will be saved as it is written and now watch what happens Paul now seemingly is going to quote from the prophet Isaiah and Paul says as it is written in brackets it says because the Christian Bible will tell you this is from Isaiah chapter 59 and he will remove ungodliness from Jacob that's Romans chapter 11 verse 26 allegedly quoting Isaiah 59 verse 20 according to Paul that is the whole purpose of the Messiah the redeemer will come from Zion what is he going to do he's going to remove ungodliness from human beings he's going to take the sin out of us why Paul's point of view because Paul believes each one of us is spiritually crippled Paul believes that a human being is basically under the control of Satan the New Testament teaches that Satan is the god of this world and since you're under the control of Satan you cannot be good you cannot obey the Torah you cannot be considered righteous and since according to Paul you can't do it that's why the Messiah comes the Messiah comes to do it for you he removes the sin from you that's Paul trying to base this theology on Isaiah chapter 59 again listen to the way Paul translates Isaiah 59 that the deliverer will come from Zion and remove ungodliness but when you check the actual verse in Isaiah you'll see that Paul played very fast and loose with the text what Isaiah actually says and we say this verse in our prayers every day Isaiah says a redeemer will come to Zion not from Zion as Paul says but that's a minor point but what is this redeemer going to do he's going to come and who's he going to come to and says he will come to those of Jacob who turn from their sins says the Lord according to Isaiah we have the ability of turning away from our sins we are not under the control of Satan we have the ability to repent we have the ability to turn back to God if we've done wrong and so according to Isaiah according to Judaism the Messiah only comes you'll see this in Deuteronomy chapter 30 when will the Messiah come when the Jewish people turn to God when the Jewish people repent when the Jewish people get our act together God essentially will send the Messiah send the redeemer to basically bring about the conclusion of history but our Bible says it will only happen when we have repented the Messiah doesn't do it for us Paul does not accept this and Paul insists that no we cannot do it we're not able to repent we're not able to be good we're not able to follow the Torah which is the claim that you just made and I would say that if we wanted to determine is it possible or not to follow God it's very simple all we need to do is to see what did God teach on this subject so it's interesting that immediately after the Garden of Eden episode immediately after the episode where Christians make the mistake of thinking that every human being now is damaged goods in the sense that we are crippled spiritually controlled by Satan and we cannot resist evil immediately after this story in chapter 4 verse 7 God says to Cain sin will crouch at your door you will always be tempted to do the wrong thing but God says but you can rule over it God tells us at the very beginning of the Bible you have veto power over evil, over sin Satan does not rule you you are in control over Satan and then in the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy this question comes up very very starkly is it possible or not possible to keep God's commandments and God tells us in Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses 11 to 14 for this commandment that I command you this day it's not hidden from you and it's not too far away it's not up in heaven for you to say who can ascend to the heavens for us to take it for us so that we can listen to it and do it nor is it beyond the sea for you to say who can cross the sea for us to take it for us so that we can listen to it and do it rather God says it is very close to you in your mouth and in your heart you can do it Paul says you cannot do it God says you can do it I prefer to go with God over Paul let me ask one more question on this topic if I may you're part of the messianic movement and you accept on some level the importance of the mitzvot of the commandments of God so I would ask you share with us according to your point of view why did God give us these commandments what was the purpose for which God gave the Jewish people the Torah and the commandments did you hear that question excellent question because the christian position is you can't do the mitzvot so why does God give us 613 add up all the thou shalt not 613 why? not only he tells us to do them he tells us we can do them what's the point if we can't because the Torah is not an instruction book it's not a how-to manual the Torah isn't to show us that it can be done the whole point of the Torah is to show it to prove to us that it can't be done it's not a how-to book the Torah is a mirror it's a mirror so when we fail when we try to live up to this impossibly high standard we see our own imperfections reflected in the Torah it's a teaching experiment by trying to fulfill the commandments and failing we see how dirty we are of salvation we are through faith faith in Jesus faith in Yeshua Moshiach that's the purpose of the mitzvot okay so again I find this difficult to understand because I've showed that the Torah tells us specifically that we are able to observe the commandments and I understand what you're saying you're saying that from the Christian point of view they insist regardless that no we are not able to keep the commandments and that the purpose of that the purpose of God giving us commandments that we can't keep from a Christian point of view is to help us realize that we're sinners and that we're dirty and that when we look ourselves in the mirror of the Torah we will see how filthy we are and we'll come to recognize those who embrace the Messiah who will die for our sins I understand that but we have another problem again aside from the fact that this flies in the face of the Torah's plain teaching that we are able to keep the commandments I think there's another problem many of us know that there's one chapter in the Bible that is by far the longest chapter in the entire Bible it's found in the book of Psalms and it's chapter 119 this chapter has 176 verses this is like a chapter with a glandular problem this is massive and what's interesting is if you look at this chapter you'll see that it doesn't jump around and talk about a million different things the whole chapter has 176 verses is focused laser beam like on one topic the whole chapter is an incredibly beautiful passionate poem in alphabetical order about the commandments that God gave us his statutes, his testimonies his laws, his Torah here we have an incredible poem that is basically reflecting on what is the Torah what are the commandments what are the mitzvot what are the testimonies and statutes and what does this psalm say about these commandments that God gave us if you just read it it tells us that the commandments of God are sweeter than honey they're more precious than gold they're the most delicious thing in the world that the author of this psalm just speaks about how much their heart craves these commandments I live for the commandments of God 176 verses over and over and over again of how important and wonderful and delicious and special these commandments are if what you're saying is true why didn't the author of this psalm say there was plenty of room look it's true the commandments are nice and they're wonderful and they're delicious and they're beautiful but don't get too excited about them because you can't keep them anyway and they were only given to show you that you're a sinner it's not there it's not there and if that were the case this would have been the place for the Bible to give the Christian message and as I said before the Hebrew Bible has plenty of opportunities to give the Christian message it's a big wide open door where right here is where the Bible should have given the Christian message if there is a Christian message and every single time there's an opportunity for the Jewish Bible to give the Christian message it never does and this is to me just about the most glaring example because Paul's entire theology that you need a Messiah to come and die for your sins because you can atone for your own sins because you cannot keep the commandments you cannot be good this whole theology is based upon the premise that we cannot keep the Torah and here which is 176 verses about the Torah where it could have said this it could have told us this important truth it's simply not there and so I find one of the greatest faults if I had to sum it up with the Christian theology is that not only is it not found anywhere in the scriptures but it's openly and plainly contradicted by the message of the Hebrew Scriptures well I do confess that I don't know the the scriptures nearly as well as the good Rabbi here but I do know something I know that Yeshua that Jesus has changed my life completely turned it around I hear him speaking to me I pray to him and my prayers are answers and the prayers of hundreds, thousands millions of Christians the prayers are answers people who are on their death bed who are dying of some disease miraculously turn around because of their prayers and the prayers of countless others praying for them there was a situation I believe it was in West Virginia where this woman was driving through the mountains and ahead of her in Foggy Road was a huge pylon collision she was going faster than she should have and she knew there was going to be a collision and what did she do she let go of the wheel she said Jesus take the wheel I can't do this and there was a horrific crash how do we know what she did she walked away without a scratch by all rights her blood and guts sort of spattered all over the Blue Ridge Mountains it wasn't because she asked for salvation and Jesus in his wisdom and in his goodness gave it to her you see these miracles again and again you hear countless testimonies and the change that he's brought about in my life is something certainly before I accepted Yeshua Mashiach I never would have seen happen but it's true we pray and our prayers are answered in 1977 I was driving from my home in New Jersey to a wedding of friends of mine in Detroit and near Snowshoe, Pennsylvania my car went over a cliff and it flipped over about 10 to 15 times and it landed on the roof and my car was literally flattened I came out of this car with nearly not even a scratch and I remember when I finally came to speak to someone I had lost my voice and the reason I lost my voice is that as I was flipping over as I was crashing I screamed out to God I screamed at the top of my lungs and I lost my voice I didn't scream out to Jesus but I believe that a miracle happened for me I believe that with every fiber being that I'm here standing here today now I used to be 6'4 but but I believe that I was saved by God and the truth is that as a student of world religions I've met many people who have told me that as a result of their spiritual life be they Mormons or Hindus or Buddhists or Jains or Baha'is or Sikhs or Sufis or Christians or fellow Jews many will tell you that their lives have changed since they came into their faith or they renewed their faith they will tell you they've experienced miraculous a person abandons nothingness for a life of meaning and a life of discipline their life is going to improve if you take someone that was a couch potato and didn't do anything for their health and they take up exercise in a serious way they will tell you they feel incredible their life has changed their life has never been better any movement we make the first chief rabbi of the modern state of Israel Rev Cook wrote that any movement that's positive that we make is going to change our life in a meaningful way if your house is a mess and you start cleaning it you get your house in order that's a positive thing and it's going to pay dividends and so if you are living a meaningless life that was not spiritual and you came to a point where you wanted to take God seriously you wanted to take the Bible seriously of course your life is going to improve you're going to live a more disciplined life you're going to live a cleaner life you're going to live a life with meaning but the important point to remember is it doesn't make what you believe true in the same way that the Hindu or the Mormon that will offer the very same testimony that you've offered it doesn't mean that what they believe is true because it is paid dividends in their life the Bible tells this very clearly to us in the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy the Bible tells us that we are going to have false prophets to come to the Jewish people God warns us they're going to be false prophets and God tells us they're going to do incredible supernatural miracles now you could ask the obvious question if they're false prophets why would God give them the ability to do incredible supernatural miracles and the Bible there in Deuteronomy chapter 13 tells us God says because I'm testing you to see if you will remain true to me and to following my Torah or if you're going to be dazzled by someone doing impressive magic tricks the miraculous is always very powerful it's very hard to ignore when miraculous things happen it's very hard to ignore improvements in our life it's important not to misinterpret these things we know according to the Bible that it's only in the days of the Messiah that only God will be worshiped the Bible says in the prophet Zechariah chapter 14 by Yom HaHu Yia Adonai Achad Hu Shmoachad only in the messianic age is God going to be one until that time people are going to worship all kinds of things all kinds of deities and they're not true and yet these people will experience improved lives miracles so we shouldn't discount the reality of people's lives changing based upon their religious path we shouldn't discount the supernatural in people's lives but we have to remember it can never prove which religion is true the only thing these miracles can prove is one thing that there's a God that runs the world miracles can prove to us there's a supernatural realm that the world is not a materialistic place where what you see is what you get and that's all there is to it like the Greeks at the time of the Hashbanoyim that was their world view there's only nature what we can see from the realm of the miraculous is that there's more to the world than the natural there's a supernatural realm there's a God who runs the world but miracles can never tell us which religion is true if every religion on the planet has miracles and so I want to encourage you don't walk away from God continue to seek God He calls us in Deuteronomy if you seek God with all of your heart and all of your soul you will find Him and I believe that you're sincere and I believe that your heart really desires to connect with God but you have to recognize that you aren't given the tools in your formative years to truly understand what Judaism teaches and unfortunately you veered off course with the first attractive spiritual path that you saw but I would encourage you not to stop studying and to recognize that the Torah does teach us the truths and if you recognize that you really need to learn more about the Torah that's a good thing and I believe with all of my heart that if you continue to apply yourself and study the Torah God will open your eyes God will bring light to you and you will see that ultimately there's a path for you to return to and that's the path of God His Torah His path for the Jewish people which is the path that's contained in the Mitzvot and the commandments that God gave us which the Torah tells us are the greatest blessing that we can have The Good Rabbi has given many answers to quote chapter and verse to all of my arguments so am I convinced not one bit and I'll tell you why, I'll give you an example from my high school years a friend of mine came out to me all excited I was in like grade 11 or grade 12 and he was just like beside himself he had a piece of paper and he said sit down you gotta see this and he was able to show to me he was able to prove to me using the laws of physics and aerodynamics that it was absolutely impossible for a bumblebee to fly and I couldn't find anything wrong with any of his arguments or any of his calculations did I believe him? No because the truth is bumblebees fly do I believe his arguments? No because the truth is Jesus is the Messiah who died for a sins and that's just the way and I will do something I will pray for you I will pray for you that you see the truth sooner rather than later because sooner you will be able to know the joy and the fulfillment that I know and later is gonna be too late and you will come to know the truth the truth is will you know it sooner enough that you can do something about it I will pray for you