 Okay, good evening, and welcome to the fourth session of the Jews for Judaism Counter-Missionary Survival Seminar. And in the previous weeks, we have been studying about the concept of the Messiah. We learned that it's critical, it's important, in order to know whether someone is the Messiah, is not the Messiah. Any discussion on the topic, you have to know exactly what is the Messiah. You have to have a definition, you have to have criteria, you have to have a template. And so we have studied what the Bible has to say on the topic of the Messiah. We understand that the Messiah basically is a wise and righteous descendant of King David. And he will rule as the King of the Jewish people, when? When the world has been perfected. When there'll be peace throughout the world, the Jewish people will be living in their homeland, with our temple rebuilt, and the entire world believes in God. That's what the Bible says about the Messiah. Again, the important thing that we have learned is that the Bible focuses on describing what the world will look like when the Messiah is here. Rather than trying to describe what the Messiah is going to look like. He'll be tall, he'll have red hair, he'll have... It doesn't describe the Messiah so much other than telling us he will be a descendant of David, he will be wise, he'll be righteous. But the focus of the Bible is telling us what the world will look like when the Messiah is here. So we've seen that that description of a changed world, a world that's a utopia, right? A beautiful world, a perfect world, that has not yet happened. The world is still a broken place. And so we know as Jews the Messiah has not yet come. Last week we began discussing, so what do the Christians say? What do missionaries say? And last week we explained, we discussed the idea that missionaries claim that Jesus did miracles, and those miracles prove that he is the Messiah. Now we saw basically two problems with this argument. Problem number one, we don't really have any good proof that Jesus did any miracles. It comes down to you have to believe what the Christian Bible says. The Christian Bible says it happened, then it must have happened. That's all they have to prove these miracles. These stories don't take place anywhere else in the world. And we saw last week that the Christian Bible has many reasons why we would doubt the truthfulness of the stories. So that's one question. How do we know that Jesus even did miracles? But the more important question was, who cares? Even if he did miracles, it would not prove anything. Because the Bible never tells us that we will know who the Messiah is based upon miracles that he will do. The performance of miracles is never given as a criteria for the Messiah. And the reason is very simple, because we see from the Bible that bad people can do miracles. The Bible tells us, for example, that false prophets are able to do miracles. So miracles in the Jewish Bible don't prove anything. But tonight we're going to discuss the second arrow in the quiver of the missionaries. Missionaries have basically two main arguments they use to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. Number one, they say he did miracles. Number two, they say that the Bible, the Torah, has many prophecies about the Messiah that Jesus fulfilled. That's the second basic argument they make. They say that Jesus fulfilled many, many prophecies in the Bible. And they say there are so many of these prophecies, some missionaries say over 300. They say there are so many that it makes the case for Jesus very compelling. They say that it really proves their belief. So that's going to be tonight's discussion. What do we do with all of these prophecies, all of these passages in the Bible? I want to begin by sharing with you a story. A number of years ago I was flying to New York and I had to wait for about an hour, an hour and a half. I had to wait in the airport for the flight and there was a big lounge, bigger than this room. Very large lounge, maybe 200 people waiting for their flights. I'm sitting there, minding my own business, I'm reading. And there's a woman sitting across the room, the very other end of the room, and she's staring at me. And I see she's staring for five minutes, she's staring for 10 minutes. And I say to myself, uh-oh, I know what's going to happen. So she comes over to me, she walks all the way over. She says, can I ask you a question? I said, sure. She says, are you a rabbi? I said, yes. She got very excited. She said, can I ask you another question? I said, sure. She says to me, is Isaiah in your Bible? Isaiah is one of the prophets in the Jewish Bible. I said, of course, Isaiah, we call him Yishayabu, Isaiah is in our Bible. She got very excited. So she says, can I ask you one more question? She says, sure. She says, opening up her Bible. She opens her Bible. She says, who is this talking about? Who is this passage in the Bible talking about? So I somehow sensed that as she was walking over to me, this is what she was going to be asking me. So I said to her, do you have about 45 minutes? Do you have about 45 minutes so we can discuss this passage in the Bible? So she was very happy. She said, of course, I'd be happy to sit down with you. So we sat there for 45 minutes going over this passage in the Bible, and I'll tell you one thing. I don't know what happened to this woman, but I suspect she's never going to go over to someone with a black hat and a beard ever again. I don't think that she's going to bother asking any more rabbis. Because she came to realize that this passage in the Bible, that for her was proof for what she believed, it was not so simple. Two things about this story. Number one, why me? There were many, many people in this lounge. Why did she have to walk all the way over and talk to me? Why couldn't she talk to the person sitting next to her? So what we see from this is that Christians are very interested in Jews. They are much more interested in Jews than anyone else in the world. One missionary told me they would rather convert one Jew than a thousand non-Jews. So that's one thing we learned from this story. The next thing is that when she came over to me, she did not show me a verse, a passage from the Christian Bible. She didn't show me anything from what they call the New Testament. She showed me a passage from the Jewish Bible, from our Bible. Because you have to understand that this is the approach that missionaries take. They want to show us that what they believe is in our Bible. They're going to say, it's in your Bible, it's in your Bible. Now because so many Jewish people don't know the Bible well, many, many Jewish people have never really studied the Bible. These proofs, these proofs of the missionaries can sound very convincing. And many Jewish people are intimidated. Many Jewish people are, they get nervous when missionaries bombard them with many, many passages from the Jewish Bible. However, the wisest person that ever lived, Shlomo Hamelech, King Solomon, who wrote, say, for Mishle, the book of Proverbs, he said, the first person, the first one to present their case often seems correct until he says the other one comes to cross-examine him. He says something very smart. If you go to a courtroom and someone is on trial and the government presents all the evidence to prove this person is guilty, you could be sitting in the courtroom and say, he's obviously guilty. Look at all the evidence. King Solomon says, but wait one minute. You have to first hear from his lawyer, from the defense attorney, because the defense attorney may be able to show how all of this evidence is irrelevant. There is another side to the story which will show that the missionary argument is based upon their misreading and misunderstanding of the Jewish Bible. So we're going to see that what they are presenting to us is really misunderstanding the Jewish Bible. Now we've seen, just want to review with you, we've seen that the Jewish idea, our idea of the Messiah comes from many passages in the Bible, many passages, and they're all very clear. They're very clear. And we said, how do we know that these passages are clear? How do we know they're clear? The answer is because everyone agrees with us. All the Christians agree. Yes, you Jewish people are right. The passages that you think are about the Messiah, that's correct. For example, for example, in the 11th chapter, chapter 11 of Isaiah. So it speaks about a descendant of David, who will be the king. And during his time, the whole world will come to believe in God, and the whole world will be in peace. Beautiful chapter. We say it's talking about the Messiah, and the Christians say, yes, we agree. It's talking about the Messiah. And we say, but that didn't happen yet. There's no peace in the world. Everyone believes in God. And we learned last week what the Christians say. They said, sure, but when Jesus comes back, all of those things will happen. Their idea of the second coming. So we discussed last week why that is a rationalization, and really it makes no sense at all. But I want again you to, when we start this evening, remember that our vision, our understanding of the Messiah, is based upon many passages, and each one is very clear. But when it comes to those passages that the missionaries use, we're going to see the opposite is true. Let me give you an example that we're not going to study tonight, but in two weeks, the whole evening will be about this topic. But just I want to mention tonight that the most famous passage in the Bible, the most famous passage that missionaries use, is from the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, which speaks about the suffering servant of Hashem, the servant of God who suffers, who is rejected. And for the missionaries, this is the biggest and most popular proof they have. Listen carefully. Is that passage in Isaiah really speaking about the Messiah? If it really was, everyone would agree. It would be clear. What's interesting is most Jewish commentaries say that that passage is speaking about the Jewish people who have suffered and who have been rejected throughout our entire history. That's what we say, most Jewish commentaries. And you should know that many, many Christian commentaries, commentaries by Christians agree with us. So I'm using this just to illustrate. It's just to show you that the Christian proofs are not clear. They're not clear because here their most popular proof is one where the Jewish point of view disagrees. The Jewish people say, no, that chapter is not about the Messiah. It's about the Jewish people. By the way, why would we say that? We'll see in two weeks because when you read the whole book of Isaiah, you read the whole book. Isaiah says many, many, many times beforehand that the servant of God is the Jewish people. So that's why we think that this chapter that the missionaries get all excited about is about the Jewish people because it's about God's servant. And because it seems pretty clear that that chapter about God's suffering servant is about the Jewish people, again, many, many Christian scholars and commentaries say the same thing that we say. They say, yes, that chapter is about the Jewish people. The point is that once we have a lot of disagreement about what it means, it cannot prove anything. It can only prove something when everyone agrees. Again, a simple example. If someone over here is on trial, they're on trial for murder, right? And there are five witnesses that say, we saw him do it. And five witnesses say, no, we saw someone else do it. You can't prove anything. You need to have all the witnesses agreeing, yes, we saw that person commit the crime. So problem number one is that here is an example where in the most famous, the most popular proof that missionaries bring, it's not clear. It's not clear. Secondly, we saw that the Jewish concept of the Messiah we saw was consistent, meaning it wasn't based upon one passage. Our picture of the Messiah came from many passages in many books of the Bible. Here is a big problem. They're saying that this chapter in Isaiah where the servant of God is rejected, that's talking about the Messiah. So we would ask, really, how many times does the Bible tell us the Messiah will be rejected and the Messiah will suffer? There is no other place that even the missionaries can point to. Meaning, this is the only, that passage in Isaiah is the only passage they have. So it's not clear because so many people disagree about what it means. And it's not consistent because it's the only passage that says that. They don't have any corroboration. They don't have any other passages which confirm that it's talking about the Messiah. Third problem, just for an argument's sake. The third problem is, even if it was talking about the Messiah, does it prove that Jesus was the Messiah? Meaning all it would be saying is the Messiah will suffer. But how do we know it's talking about Jesus? Many people suffer. Many Jewish people have suffered. Here, even if we accept the Christian interpretation, it would not prove what they believe. What we will see, and this is very important, very, very important, is that on every subject, not just the subject of the Messiah, on every subject the Bible tells a Jewish story and not a Christian story. For example, two more examples. Two more examples. Does the Bible tell us that God is one? Or does the Bible teach that God is a Trinity? Three. What is the message of the Bible? So we say, Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad. Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. And when you read the Bible, the Bible is constantly telling us that there's only one God, there is no other. The Bible never speaks about Trinity. It never even uses the word. So when we read the Bible, again, does the Bible tell us a Jewish story about God, that God is one? Or does the Bible tell us clearly and consistently a Christian story about God, that he is a Trinity? Another question. What does the Bible teach us about the Mitzvot, the commandments? Does the Bible teach us that the commandments that God gave have to be kept forever? Or did the Bible tell us the commandments have an expiry date? You go to the supermarket and it says that the milk is no good after May 20th. So what does the Bible say about the Mitzvot, about the commandments? Does the Bible say we have to keep them forever? Or does the Bible say that when the Messiah comes, you won't have to keep the commandments anymore? So when we read the Bible, we see it tells a Jewish story. The Bible says no, the commandments have to be kept forever. As a matter of fact, the Bible says when the Messiah comes, not that people will not be keeping the commandments. On the contrary, the Bible says when the Messiah comes, all the Jewish people will be keeping the Mitzvot. Now because the Bible does not tell a Christian story, what happens is the Christians have seen, they see a mirage. They see a mirage. What is a mirage? A mirage, someone is in the desert. They have no water. It's very hot. It's so hot their brain is beginning to thrive. And they're walking in the desert and they haven't had anything to drink. And they're thirsty and it's hot and they're getting a little bit dizzy. And they see, oh look over there, over there, there's water. That's not water. That's their imagination. That's a mirage. So what happens is we're going to see tonight that when the Christians read our Bible, you know, Mark Twain, Mark Twain. So Mark Twain said, to a person with a hammer, to a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's what Mark Twain said. A person that has a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We're going to see that when Christians read the Bible, everything looks like Jesus. Everything looks like Jesus. What they do is they will pick out an isolated verse from a chapter. They'll just pull out a verse from the middle of a chapter and they will string some of these verses together and make it seem as if the Bible supports what they believe. But because, this is very important, because they are not reading the Bible to see what the Bible teaches. They're not reading the Bible to see what the Bible teaches. They're simply looking at the Bible to find things that sound like Jesus, to be able to prove what they believe. They're using the Bible to prove what they believe. And because of this, they usually misunderstand the Bible. I'm going to share a very famous story. There was a man who was walking in the forest and he sees something amazing. He sees a tree and on the tree is a target. You've seen the target on the tree for people to shoot arrows. There'll be three or four circles, concentric circles. He sees a tree and on the tree is a target and he sees right in the middle of the bullseye an arrow. Someone shot an arrow and he got it right in the middle of the target. He said, that's amazing. Has anyone shot so perfectly? But then he walks a little bit further. He sees another tree and the same thing. There's a target and another arrow right in the middle, right in the bullseye. And he sees ten trees like this. Ten trees. There's a target and one arrow right in the middle of the bullseye. He can't believe how did anyone shoot so perfectly? So he sees a man with a bow and arrow. He sees a man carrying a bow and arrow. And he says, excuse me. Did you shoot those arrows? And the man says, yes. He says, I have to shake your hand. Unbelievable, unbelievable. How did you shoot so perfectly? And the man says, it's not that hard. You see what I do is I shoot my arrow into the tree and then I draw the target around the arrow. That's what I do. I shoot the arrow into the tree. I draw the target around the arrow. That's what missionaries have done with our Bible. They shoot the arrow because to them that means we believe in Jesus. That's their arrow. Now that they know this, they begin with that. They go back to the Bible and they find things that sound like Jesus. That doesn't prove anything. There it's called circular reasoning. In circular reasoning you begin with your conclusion and you work backwards. It's like first having the verdict and then having the trial. That's backwards. First you're supposed to have the trial and then you have the verdict. So this is the mistake that missionaries make and it leads them. It leads them to misunderstand the Bible. Another way of putting it, they don't go from our Bible to Jesus. They go from Jesus to the Bible. That's how it works. A few years ago someone came to my office. His wife had been converted to Christianity and he came to speak to me. When he walked into the office he was very surprised. He saw a picture. Now it depends where you're sitting. But if you look at this picture from far away it looks like a famous movie actress named Marilyn Monroe. If you're standing far away, if you're standing at the other end of the room it looks like a woman, Marilyn Monroe. And he said to me, Rabbi, that's a very weird strange thing for a rabbi to have hanging in his office. A woman movie star. So I said, go up and stand closer to it. Walk up closer. And he walked up closer and he said, oh my God, that's Albert Einstein, the famous scientist. So what I wanted him to see is that there are times when you look at something from far away and you don't see it very clearly. But if you go closer to it you see it more clearly. Let me tell you another story where this happened to me. Many years ago I was in Israel and I met with a couple. A man and a woman, the man was Jewish, his wife had become a Christian and we sat down to talk and I said to her, I bet, I believe that when you read the Bible you see Jesus' face on every page. And so I bet that when you read the Bible you see Jesus' face on every page and she got very excited and she says, yes, how did you know? That's exactly what happens. So I said to her, my wife is an artist, my wife is an artist she paints. And my wife paints seascapes. They're paintings of the ocean and the shoreline and the waves and the sand. So she once took me to a museum to see paintings of the ocean, seascapes. And I stood across the room, paintings were across the room and I said, wow, it looks real. It looked so real that I said to myself, if I touch the painting my hand will get wet. That's how real it looked. So I was curious. I walked up to the painting and I looked right in front of it. What did I see? Cracks, imperfections. There are basically splotches of oil. Someone put oil paint on this canvas. From a distance from across the room it looked, it's called the illusion of distance. From far away it looked like it was real. But when I got close to it I realized this is not an ocean. This is just oil on the canvas. So I said to this woman, that's the problem when you see Jesus in the Bible. I said it's because you are looking at the Bible from very far away. But I said to her, if you get close to the Bible you look at it carefully and I said you won't see Jesus anymore. She got very upset. Very upset. She said, what are you talking about? So I said let's do an experiment. I said to her, open your Bible to the prophet Zechariah chapter 13 verse 6. And I asked her, tell me who it's talking about. Now she read that passage and the passage says they're going to ask this person, they're going to ask this person what are those wounds in your hands? What are those holes, those wounds in your hands? So I asked her, who is it talking about? She said to me, you know who it's talking about. So I said, I don't know, tell me. She said to me, it's talking about Jesus. So I asked her, are you sure? She said, I'm positive. I said, how sure are you? She said, I would stake my life on it. That's how sure I am. So I said to her, you read chapter 13 verse 6. I said, go back now and read the chapter from the beginning. Read from verse 1. So she started reading from verse 1. And I was watching her face and as she was reading her face turned white like a ghost. And I said, what's wrong? And she said, this cannot be talking about Jesus. She said, it can't be Jesus. I said, why not? She said, it's talking about false prophets. This chapter is talking about false prophets that will be stabbed. I said to her, but wait a minute. About 30 seconds ago, you said you would stake your life on the fact that it was talking about Jesus. What happened? What happened? So the answer is because initially she was reading the Bible from far away. Meaning she never really paid attention to the context. She never really cared about what is this chapter really talking about. So what she was interested in doing was going to the Bible and finding a verse that sounds like Jesus. So for her, she believes in Jesus. This verse talks about someone having holes in their hands. So this proves that Jesus must be the Messiah. Now again, even if you misunderstand the verse, it proves nothing about Jesus. There are 100,000 Jews that the Romans crucified. 100,000 Jews had wounds in their hands. But again, this is not a careful study of the Bible. For her and for many Christians as long as it sounds like Jesus it becomes a proof for Jesus. And I tried to show her what you were doing in the context of the passage. The passage there is not speaking about the Messiah. It's speaking about false prophets. I'll give you one more example. In the Christian Bible it says that when Jesus was a baby he was in great danger. So he had to run away. He was living in Bethlehem and he ran away to Egypt. And the Christian Bible says this was a fulfillment of a prophecy in the Jewish Bible. Remember I said before that missionaries say there may be more than 300 prophecies? Well this is an example of one of them. So they say, you see in the Jewish Bible in the book of Hosea, the prophet Hosea the New Testament says that the prophet Hosea said in the 11th chapter out of Israel I called my son. Out of Egypt? Out of Egypt I called my son. So again just to review the Christian Bible says that when Jesus was a baby because he was in danger he had to run away to Egypt. And the Christian Bible finds a verse in the Jewish Bible and they say, you see what it says in that verse? It says out of Egypt I called my son. And they say, that's talking about Jesus going down to Egypt. The problem is very simple. If you read the entire verse in the Jewish Bible the entire verse says when Israel was a child I loved him. God is speaking, when Israel when the Jewish people were a child meaning when the Jewish people just became a people they were just born as a people I loved him, I loved the Jewish people and the verse goes on to say and out of Egypt I called my son. So God is speaking about the Jewish people there. But the New Testament the Christian Bible takes an eraser and they erase the first part of the verse which makes it clear it's talking about the Jewish people and they only quote the last half of the verse which says out of Egypt I called my son and that becomes a prophecy about Jesus. Now the Talmud, our rabbis taught the Talmud taught 2,000 years ago whenever a heretic or a missionary whenever a missionary or a heretic quotes the Bible the answer is nearby. The answer is right nearby and what the rabbis are saying is because these people always quote the Bible out of context meaning they are taking a verse from a passage a chapter that's not talking about what they think it's talking about but because they pulled one verse out they can fool people so all you need to do the Talmud says is read the whole chapter for example I had this woman do for the verse in Zachariah 13 all she was reading was one verse and it was able to confuse her when she read the whole chapter she saw it was not talking about the Messiah it was speaking about false prophets I'm going to mention one more problem tonight sometimes what the missionaries do in order to prove what they believe again to prove what they believe is they mistranslate our Bible they mistranslate it so a very famous example in the book of Tihilim in Psalms chapter 22 there's a verse which says David is speaking he says I was surrounded by wild animals and David says like a lion like a lion they are at my hands and feet the same way for example a lion may claw and attack a person's hands and feet so the verse in Tihilim in Psalms says like a lion at my hands and my feet the missionaries mistranslate this and they say it means they pierced they pierced so the way they read the verse is they say they pierced my hands and my feet they pierced my hands and feet again for them it becomes a proof for Jesus now remember we showed before it still wouldn't prove Jesus because again there were over 100,000 Jews that were crucified it wouldn't even prove Jesus if it was translated properly but they have mistranslated it the Bible never speaks about having hands and feet pierced now here's a good question how do we know that our translation is correct and their translation is incorrect how would you know the missionaries will say we've got it wrong and we would say to the missionaries no you have it wrong so how do you decide how do you know who's right and who's wrong so the answer is very simple the word here in this verse is the word ka-a-ri ka-a-ri and a-ri-ye in Hebrew and a-ri-ye is a lion a-ri is another word in Hebrew a-ri is a lion so ke a-ri means like a lion like a lion the missionaries say no it means they pierced so how do we know who's right and who's wrong the answer is very simple you find where else in the Bible does that word appear that word must appear other places in the Bible it appears quite a few times in the Bible every single time it appears even the Christians translated as like a lion for example in Isaiah chapter 38 verse 13 the word ka-a-ri appears and all the Christian translations have it as like a lion and every single time it appears in the Bible there are other places translated not just by Jews but by the Christians as well as like a lion so to summarize to summarize what we learned tonight is that Christians put a lot of energy they make a lot of investments in trying to prove that Jesus was the Messiah because they claim that the Jewish Bible speaks about Jesus what we saw tonight was that these proofs that the missionaries quote are based upon a misreading a misunderstanding of the Jewish Bible they take verses out of context they use circular reasoning and sometimes they mistranslate the verses okay that's a basic presentation on understanding how Christians misread the Bible to prove their beliefs to Jews next week we will have a discussion on probably the most important theological is that a the most important theological issue dividing Jews from Christians will be next week so if there are any questions I'm very happy we have a question right away it seems to me I said the whole point of Christianity would be that they take anything Jewish related and they try to convert us by like taking anything Jewish related and then proving that it belongs to them like for example Jesus he was originally a Jew so really Christianity is all about that they take Jewish origin and they interact with one another entirely what's a good English word for that convert a good English word for what you just described take what belongs to us and use it to try to convert us what's a good English word for that how about this hijacking hijacking they're hijacking our property our Bible our traditions where's a key pop when a missionary wears a seat seat when a missionary calls themselves rabbi when a missionary wears a black hat right when a missionary calls their church a synagogue right they are hijacking our religion and using it against us that's you're exactly right so why the Christians well more so all of the Nazis specifically Christians why do they do that they have to hijack us so your question is why do they feel they have to hijack us and we discussed this in the first in the second class right we have to remember that we threaten them we threaten them because the Jewish people the fact that we exist that we exist it testifies that what they believe is false right they would like everyone in the world to believe what they believe but where are the experts right we are the people that really knew why it was supposed to be and we said excuse me Jesus is not the Messiah that really bothers them it threatens them it irritates them so they feel they have a really serious reason to convert us specifically no one else threatens them they have to convert something because we don't believe in the same thing that well so we discussed that there are many reasons they try to convert us right for most of them they really believe they're saving us this is what they believe they believe that without converting we are going to die and go to hell that's what they believe now we think they're wrong but I try to show you that there are other reasons other reasons in addition to that and one of them is the psychological compulsion to try to again as I said many times when you are trying to convince someone you're really trying to convince yourself and Jewish people make Christians wonder we make them wonder you know what maybe the Jews are right and that's a terrifying thought for them maybe the Jews are right terrifying and so in order to solve that problem they try very hard to convert us other people in the world don't threaten, for example there are in India today about a billion Hindus about a billion Hindus they don't threaten the Christians so the Christians don't try as hard to convert them but to convert us they have, again I mentioned over 1,000 organizations just to convert the 13 or 14 million Jews in the world they are obsessed they are obsessed we're saying in Hebrew, Meshugah right? they are Meshugah to convert us I'll give you an example just someone sent me this week an article about major missionary efforts to convert the Jewish descendants living in Kefang, China how many Jews today live in Kefang, China? not too many and yet you have many missionaries that are going there to track down these Jews and to convert them, why? what is so the emergency again, they have, when it comes to us they have what I would call a morbid obsession they are fanatics they are fanatics when it comes to converting the Jewish people because again we threaten them we make them very, very nervous they're like, bring last almost I wouldn't use the word brainwashed when people believe something why do they believe it because that's how they were raised most of them most of them were raised that way and they take it very seriously they are devout they're sincere but because they believe this very strongly and they know that the Jewish people are, we are the people of the book we are the chosen people we are the only people in the world who had a concept of the Messiah before their ancestors came to believe in it so they know that what the Jewish people believe and they know by the way Jews are very smart so they know that what we believe has some weight what we believe has some serious weight and so the fact that Jews don't believe in Christianity it makes them nervous it threatens them there's again the message that it may not be something they think about consciously but the message is, oh maybe the Jews are right and we're wrong and that's terrifying it's upsetting so how do you get rid of that irritation so either you convert to Judaism right? or you have to convert the Jews and so they put all their energy into converting the Jews so it seems like what most Jews would tell us is that Christians really go in but especially Christians and the missionaries are just jealous of the Jewish people for this reason it's an interesting word to use jealous because ironically the missionaries think that they're meant to make us jealous the Christian Bible says that they will make the Jews jealous but you know there's a famous expression when you point your finger with someone you have three pointing back at yourself so when they say that we're going to make the Jews jealous what's really going on is they're jealous of us it's true but again it's not something that's conscious it's not something that's conscious this is something I would say which is in the subconscious it's something which they're not even aware of it's something which sort of irritates them in a way that they may not really be able to explain it they just know that something bothers them about the fact that the Jews don't believe it bothers them and I'm saying, I'm interpreting it that it bothers them in a way which makes them nervous because deep down inside they suspect that we are right and they are wrong but in reality it's actually the opposite Mitch are you signing these questions they think it's the opposite again they think that we are wrong and they're right that's consciously that's what they think but I'm saying that subconsciously they are worried and nervous that we're right and they're wrong so what do you do about that two possibilities either you convert the Judaism or you try to convert the Jews okay now that we know that really questionnally is pretty much picking anything that's Jewish-severated and like pretty much making it into their religion and like same things Jewish-severated which are pretty much wrong is the Christian Bible is it really ours also no the Christian Bible is not part of our Bible in the same way that the Islamic Scriptures called the Quran is not our Bible in the same way that the Mormon Scriptures the Book of Mormon is not our Bible there are many holy books in the world many religions have their holy books these are not part of the Jewish Bible our Bible was completed our Bible was completed already hundreds of years before Christianity came to exist right and when the Christian books were written they were never included in our Bible except for that between the Christian Bible and ours there are some similarities because what the Christian Bible did was to base itself upon the Jewish Bible meaning the Christian Bible took the Jewish Bible and then it glued itself onto the back of the Jewish Bible so the Christian Bible is the Jewish Bible plus their books that they added and what they did by doing this it was very clever it gives their book a lot of credibility I'll give you an example an example there was a missionary who wrote a book trying to prove that the Christian Bible is divine that the Christian Bible was given by God how did the Christian missionary prove that the Christian Bible was given by God by showing prophecies that were fulfilled all of the prophecies that he quoted were from the Jewish Bible right however because he glues, not he because Christians take their Bible and they glue it onto the back of the Jewish Bible it becomes one book so if you prove the Bible from the Jewish part of it that proves the whole thing as far as they're concerned did you have a question? an explanation I heard such a story from a man who became Jewish before he was a missionary a missionary became Jewish did you become Jewish? the explanation was that in Christianity the people they question suppose someone asks a question about Christianity and a lot of questions they never stop asking questions but Judaism and Jewish culture any question usually has one question and there's a truth that comes out of it and the truth is deep but there's not many many questions a person any Jewish person who has a question about a commandment and he asks a rabbi a question on Halakha, different questions so he has a question so suppose the question is deep though rabbi doesn't know he doesn't know the answer but for the Christian they invent what's not right and therefore it's better to be Jewish and not create an event I'd be very interested in meeting that person it sounds like a very interesting person does this person live in Canada? I don't know that's a story interesting one last thing I happen to have an uncle who grew up like mother Orthodox having fun and he's now not from Jerusalem with a bunch of these he's a professor and then topology I don't know what that is okay he's very involved with Christians so much to the point where we wrote a book how Christians made me Israel how Christians what? how Christians made me Israel what's the name? Jackie Belton in addition we have somebody in the family who is originally Jewish and he's now a woman a Jew who married a woman and not so long after what's your take on those two? on those two people it's really impossible to say without having a lot more information I really need to speak to someone in the family and get much more information I mean it happens that Jewish people leave Judaism in many different ways sometimes just by stopping to practice Judaism sometimes by marrying someone who's not Jewish sometimes by converting to another religion you just describe two of those scenarios and all I can say is it's sad, it's a tragedy but more specifically about these cases I would need to have much more information let's go back would you encourage him to have that person contact us? I would need to discuss this is the case further okay everyone should have a wonderful Shabbat and we'll see you next week thank you for your questions