In Matthew 7:15, Yeshua (Jesus) says, “Beware of the false prophets! They come to you wearing sheep’s clothing, but underneath they are hungry wolves!”

This warning is stated throughout the Bible, often by Shaul (Paul), mainly as a warning against false teachings. Yet, because so much of Christianity is based on Shaul’s letters and rejects most of God’s commandments, I sometimes wonder if Shaul was a sheep or a wolf?

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Shaul is a very confusing fellow: he is at once a Pharisee, boasting about his Jewish heritage and training, and he always taught in the synagogues before going to the Gentiles. On the other hand, he also said so many things that appear to be against the Torah, such as regarding food and circumcision (two often repeated issues), one has to wonder where his loyalties really lie.

For the most part, Christian holidays, tenets, canon and ceremonies do not come from the Torah, but are rebranded pagan holidays and man-made traditions. And, because so much of Christianity is based on what Shaul wrote in the letters to his congregations, which were having issues of faith and interpersonal relationship problems, I have come to wonder if the Gentiles were misled by Shaul to form a new religion that goes against God. Is it possible that one of the most world-shattering events in Christianity- Shaul’s revelation of Messiah Yeshua- was really Satan pretending to be Yeshua?

You know, that wouldn’t be something the Prince of Lies wouldn’t do. And, because at that time many of the paganist Gentiles were learning the proper worship of God, sending someone like Shaul to confuse and misdirect them would be a smart thing to do.

After all, look at how successfully his letters have been used to misdirect millions to reject God’s Torah!

Of course, this thought borders on blasphemy, doesn’t it? And the last thing I would ever want to do is insult the Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit), but we are told to be as wise as serpents, which (to me) means not to avoid questioning anything or anyone who does anything, in any way, to redirect us from obedience to God’s instructions in the Torah.

So, after thinking it over, and asking for guidance from above, I have come to the conclusion that Shaul was, indeed, called by Yeshua to bring the Good News of salvation through Yeshua to all peoples, Jews and Gentiles, alike. BUT…although Shaul was not a wolf, he made it possible for the wolves to easily infiltrate and control the congregations he formed.

And they didn’t start to redirect the sheep away from God’s instructions, which Shaul was trying to get them to learn (at a pace they could handle), until well after Shaul and most every other Jewish disciple and leader of what was (initially) a Jewish sect, was dead and gone.

By the end of the First Century, Jews accepting Yeshua as their Messiah was tapering off, and more and more Gentiles were coming into this sect, and some were wolves who decided that, for both political and (in my opinion) personal reasons, redirected the people into a more casual worship. This new religion they created rejected many of the rules and regulations God gave to us through Moses, and redefined salvation from accepting Yeshua as their Messiah and living a Torah-observant lifestyle to a new religion whose only requirements are to believe in Jesus and love each other.

They turned Yeshua’s teachings from a God-fearing Torah observant lifestyle into a “come-as-you-are” party.

Remember that Shaul told the Corinthians he would be whatever he had to be in order to get the Good News out to people (1 Corinthians 9:20). We see this in his Epistles, each one directed to a specific congregation, addressing their specific problems. This ended up with what was said to one congregation may have been stated differently to another, adding to the confusion his letters usually caused (see 2 Peter 3:16), creating the opportunity for his letters to be misused by the wolves in sheep’s clothing, hiding in his congregations and secretly working for Satan.

Shaul was not the wolf in sheep’s clothing, but in his zeal to get the Good News out to everyone and by “playing to his audience”, he wasn’t consistent. And that inconsistency left the gate open for the wolves to infiltrate and eventually lead his flock away from Yeshua and towards destruction.

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That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Two of the traditional Christian tenets are that when one professes faith in Yeshua (Jesus) as the son of God, they become an adopted child of Abraham, and the other is that as Gentiles, they are not required to obey the Torah, which is only for Jews.

But if they are now adopted children of Abraham, and the “blood” children of Abraham have to obey the Torah, doesn’t that beg the question: “Do the adopted children get to have different rules in the same household?”

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In his letter to the Galatians, Shaul (Paul) said that when someone belongs to Messiah they are children of Abraham. The direct descendants of Abraham, who are Jews, are required to obey the Torah, so shouldn’t those adopted into our father’s family also have to obey the same rules we do?

Let’s take a hypothetical example: say you are a parent of three children, born to you and your spouse. You raise them to be God-fearing and self-sufficient, as any good parent should. You have rules on how they should treat people, rules for living as a family, and rules for worshiping as a family; these children represent the Jews who first came to accept Yeshua as the Messiah.

Next, you can’t have any more children but because you love kids, you adopt three more kids, all around the same age as your own. Do they get to live a different lifestyle? Do they get to worship differently from the rest of the family? Do they get to refuse the food served at dinnertime to eat what they want to eat? When the family enjoys a day of rest, do they get to change that to a different day? These adopted children would be the Gentiles that came to faith in Messiah sometime around the middle to the end of the First Century, after the main population of Jews who would accept Yeshua began to taper off, and the movement began to mutate to a new religion.

My answer to how these adopted children should be treated would be the same as what happened to these neophyte believing Gentiles making this paradigm shift from paganism to Judaism, which is what they were doing- at least, initially.

The way these newly adopted children should be treated within the family is to be given some leeway, as they were not raised the same way the natural children were. They need an opportunity to learn the rules, slowly, at a pace they can handle, and not be forced to do everything the natural born children have been doing because that would result in one day waking up, and finding the adopted children have run away.

So, you start them off with basic rules they can handle, such as make their bed each morning, help set the table, take out the garbage, and go to worship as a family. As they gain experience in the family, they will learn from watching their siblings all the other rules.

Does this sound like something from the Bible? Well, it is- you can find it in Acts Chapter 15, verses 19-23, when Ya’akov (James) suggested just giving the new Gentile believers a few rules to start with, so as not to place any obstacles in their way. He also says they will eventually learn the entire Torah because it is read at every Shabbat service, demonstrating that the Elders expected these Gentiles to be attending Shabbat worship services with their (now) adopted family, the Jews.

So, what do we have? This hypothetical is really more of an analogy to represent the truth of being an adopted child of Abraham- you are NOT free from the rules of the natural born children, but you are allowed to assimilate into the family at a pace you can handle.

The problem those early believing Gentiles had, which Shaul ran into throughout his ministry, was the legalistic pressure to be completely assimilated immediately into Judaism. His answer was the same that Ya’akov and the Elders agreed with, which is what we did with our hypothetical family- teach them slowly, step-by-step, so they can assimilate easily, and not be scared off.

Here’s what I mean by being scared off: you go to a Pagan worshipper, and explain how they can have eternal joy and blessings on earth by faithfully accepting that there is only one God, and Yeshua is the Messiah and his son.

“OK, that sounds good. What else do I have to do?”
“You must confess your sins and ask forgiveness through Yeshua’s sacrifice, then live a righteous life, giving up the hedonism that you have been doing.”
“Well, I guess for eternal joy I can do that. Anything else?”
“Uh, there is one other, little thing you have to do right away.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“You have to let us cut off the top of your penis.”
(total silence)
“That’s it! So, whaddaya say?”
“Um, right, well… Oh gee! Look at the sundial- I didn’t realize it was this late, and I have an important appointment to go to. How about I get back to you later?”

You can see that an all-at-once conversion from paganism to Torah obedience would not work in many cases with the men, while it would probably be easier for the women to accept.

Here’s the point of today’s message: if you are adopted into a family, you are expected to follow the rules of that family; maybe not all at once, but eventually. However, what Christianity has done was to reject the father who adopted them and create a new family on their own. They ran away from the loving parents who adopted them (that would be God and Yeshua), and taught their new family to reject all that their adopted parents had been trying to teach them.

If you ask me, that’s no way to thank someone who accepted you into their family.

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That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

If you go to almost any Bible, and turn to Acts Chapter 9, you will find a caption that says something to the effect of, “Paul converts on the road to Damascus.”

The problem with that caption is that it is a total lie!

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Christianity has based nearly every tenet and canon on misunderstanding and misusing the letters that Shaul (Paul’s real name) wrote, which were to congregations composed mostly of Gentiles who wanted to be part of this movement that promised eternal joy after they die if they simply accept that this Jewish guy named Yeshua is the son of that Jewish God, Adonai, and that when they do that they can be forgiven of their sins.

I would think one of the first obstacles Shaul had to face is that pagans don’t have sins because what they do is OK with their gods; after all, their gods did it, all the time! Once Shaul could get these Gentiles who wanted something better to listen to him, then he had a starting point.

Most Bibles will lead you to believe that these early Christians (even though that wasn’t a term of affection, at that time) were all Gentiles, the movement accepting Yeshua as the Messiah was initially only Jews. The thousands who were fed, the thousands who accepted him as Messiah at that first Shavuot (Pentecost) after his crucifixion were all Jews, who (for the record) never converted to anything but remained Jews living a Torah-observant lifestyle!

After all, he said he came only for the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24), and the spreading of his “Good News” didn’t reach Gentiles until a while after he was raised into heaven.

The fact is that until after Yeshua was taken up into heaven, Gentiles were not a significant part of the movement of those Jews who accepted the Messiahship (is that a word?) of Yeshua.

Now, when Shaul was riding to Damascus to persecute the believing Jews, and he got knocked off his high horse (literally, as well as figuratively), he did not convert to a different religion. What happened is simply that he changed his belief regarding Yeshua as the Messiah. That was the only thing that changed, and despite how many people call him a Christian saint or use his letters as justification for ignoring the Torah, Shaul was a Torah-observant Pharisee his entire life and never taught against the Torah.

Prove it, you say? I don’t have to prove it because Shaul, himself, says so!

Let’s take a look at Acts 24:14, where Shaul was making a defense to the Roman governor when he was accused of desecrating the Temple and teaching against the Torah:

But this I do admit to you: I worship the God of our fathers in accordance with the Way (which they call a sect). I continue to believe everything that accords with the Torah and everything written in the Prophets. And I continue to have a hope in God – which they too accept – that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.

His admission that he worshipped God in accordance with the “Way” simply meant that he accepted Yeshua was the Messiah God promised to send- there was no church, there was no Christian canon, the New Covenant wasn’t even written yet, and the majority of followers of Yeshua were still Torah-observant Jews.

It wasn’t until near the end of Shaul’s missionary work, sometime around 65 AD, that the number of Gentiles now being called Christians outnumbered the remaining Jews accepting Yeshua as the Messiah.

By the end of the First Century, what started as a Jewish movement had mutated into a totally different religion.

If you ask me, and even if you don’t (because this is my ministry and I’ll say what I believe), the main reason that Christianity has become so completely different from its Judaic roots is because the Gentiles who became the leaders of the movement after all the original, Jewish apostles and shamashim (Hebrew for leaders) died off, decided that all this Jewish stuff would get them in trouble with Rome. You see, there were three rebellions by the Jews in Judea against Roman occupation and rule (the third and last was in 70-73 AD, when the second temple was destroyed), and if these previously “safe” Gentiles now associated with the Jewish population, they were afraid they would also get on Rome’s “Hit List”. So, they changed things around to separate themselves from the Jews, starting with changing the day of the Sabbath, eventually misinterpreting Shaul’s letters to indicate following the Torah was wrong.

Of course, the way Shaul wrote, misinterpreting his stuff was easy.

But, to get back on track, Shaul was a Torah-observant Jew all his life, never converting to anything, especially not what we know today as Christianity. He continually taught how to be Torah observant, but required this conversion from paganism to Judaism to take place only a few steps at a time (which the Elders in Jerusalem agreed with- read Acts 15:21).

His arguments against circumcision and other Jewish forms of worship were never meant to tell these neophyte believers to ignore the Torah, only that they must not succumb to the legalism being forced on them (legalism meaning to obey the Torah as a means of earning salvation). He really never had any issues with Gentiles getting circumcised, so long as the reason was to be faithful to the Torah, and not just to be “correct”.

There are many other places in the Epistles that Shaul wrote that justify the fact he never converted to any other religion, and never stopped being a Torah-observant Jew. The truth is that if Christians want to live and worship as Yeshua (Jesus) did, then they need to get familiar with what God said to do (in the Torah) regarding how to worship him and how to treat each other, because that’s really the way Yeshua lived.

Thank you for being here; don’t forget to subscribe and share these messages. That’s it for today, so… l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Okay, okay, I know…everyone calls Yeshua (Jesus) the Savior, but what does the “savior” do?

When we define a savior, Yeshua doesn’t completely fill the bill.

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A savior is someone who saves others, mostly used when describing keeping someone from danger or from losing their life.

In the case of Yeshua, he allegedly saves us from the second death, the condemnation to Sheol (hell) as the punishment for our sinful life. But I say we need a better understanding of “being saved” in a spiritual sense.

Let’s start by clearing this very important issue up, once and for all- God forgives sins, not Yeshua.

Yes, Yeshua was given authority to do that on the earth (Matthew 9:6), but once his role as the sacrificial lamb of God was completed, he was resurrected and is now sitting at the right hand of God, where he serves not as forgiver of sin but as our Intercessor with God.

Think about this: an Intercessor is someone who is intervenes on the behalf of someone else. As such, the intercessor has no power to do anything, other than act in a way to help the one he is interceding for. Since Yeshua is our intercessor (Hebrews 7:25), then he- by definition- is not the one who forgives our sins. Indeed, when we accept Yeshua as our Messiah, he will then stand between us and God, interceding on our behalf to allow us to enter into God’s presence.

When we accept Yeshua as the Messiah (not as God!), and ask forgiveness FROM GOD by means of the innocent blood Yeshua shed for us (in place of bringing an animal to the temple, which no longer existed after 73 AD), we can be forgiven of our sins.

First off, we need to understand that by having our sins forgiven we won’t go to Sheol when judged at Judgement Day; and that is what it means to be “saved”.

Got it, so far? Good- let’s continue…

Yeshua’s sacrifice created the shedding of innocent blood, and when we accept Yeshua as our Messiah, we can ask forgiveness of sin by means of that shed blood. You could say, in a way, that Yeshua saves us because he provided the means for our forgiveness, but in reality, he only provided the way to be saved.

Ultimately, it is God who forgives our sins, and THAT is what saves us.

I would also like to point out that Mashiach, the Hebrew word for Messiah, means “anointed one”. Yeshua (which means “salvation of God”) was anointed by God (at his baptism by Yochanan) to be the Messiah God promised to send. The role of the Messiah was to live a sinless life and die to provide the innocent blood necessary for the forgiveness of sin (Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:22). And, when we faithfully accept that Yeshua is the Messiah, we are able to call upon that blood when asking God to forgive us, which is the way we are saved.

So, it isn’t technically correct to call Yeshua the savior because he isn’t the one who forgives our sins, which is the way we are saved. Yeshua is the Messiah, God is our savior because not only did he provide the Messiah (the only way to be forgiven of sin after the temple was destroyed), but God is the ONLY one who forgives our sins, saving us from Sheol.

Look at it this way: a certain medicine can save your life from a disease, but is it the medicine that is the real savior, or the one who created the medicine? We may say “This medicine saved my life”, but it is that the one who created the medicine who is the real savior.

By the way, one little thing I would like to point out about the use of the word “savior”- it is a Christian term rebranding Jesus in order to further separate him from his Jewish role as the anointed one of God. Interpreting “Maschiach” as “Savior” has become standardized, but not because it is correct, only because for centuries that is what people have been told it means. Just another traditional Christian lie about who and what the real Messiah is.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Is anyone still there? I figured the title alone would get many, if not most, Christians to skip this.

I am a Jewish man who also believes that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, but despite what my Jewish brothers and sisters would say, and most Christians, as well, I am NOT a Christian!

I was raised in a reform Jewish household, and never really cared much for the traditions, especially when praying from a Siddur (prayer book) because I could never accept that if I was to pray to God that I had to use someone else’s words. When I was in my early 40’s, I came to realize the truth about Yeshua- not the Jesus I was raised to reject- and since then (which has been over a quarter of a century) I have read the entire Bible (Genesis through Revelation) many, many times.

Being raised Jewish, I have a unique view of the Gospels and the Epistles, since I was never indoctrinated to already “know” what they mean. I can read them with a totally fresh, unobstructed (by traditional teachings I was raised to believe) view, and as such see them in a way most Christians don’t, and sometimes refuse to.

When I was first seeking the truth about this guy Jesus, the one place most Christians told me to start with was the Gospel of John; now, after having read it so often, in different versions of the Bible, that is the one book I would tell new believers, especially Jews seeking the truth about their Messiah, to avoid at all costs!

Still with me? Good- now I will tell you why I reject John’s gospel.

But first, a little history: it is considered to have been written between 80-95 A.D., although some say it might have been earlier. Although traditional Christian teaching is that it was written by John the disciple and eyewitness to the life of Yeshua (Jesus), many scholars over the centuries have doubted this, and disagreed about who the real author is. The main reason for this is the significant difference between John’s gospel and the other three, as well as the difference in the writing style between John’s Gospel and Revelation, supposedly written by the same man.

Some of these differences are that nearly 90% of what occurs in John cannot be found in the other gospels, what the other gospels call “miracles” John describes as “signs”, and John is less concerned with Yeshua’s teachings and parables, concentrating instead on his relationship with God.

Now, let me tell you what I find to be so “wrong” with this gospel.

It fails the test for hermeneutics. That means that what Yeshua does and says in John is different from the other gospels. For example, in the other three he tells his disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah (Matthew 16:20) and prevents the exorcised demons from telling people who he is. Yet, in John, he openly and often claims to be the Messiah, such as when he talks to the woman at the well.

In the other three gospels, he refers to himself as the Son of Man, but in John he constantly refers to himself as the Son of God.

What really gets me is how he separates himself from the Jewish people and from the Torah!

How? By constantly referring to the people as “the Jews” or “the Judeans” and to the Torah as “their” Torah (or law, in many versions). If you are Jewish, as I am, when talking about other Jews, you would never call them “the Jews”- you’d refer to them as “the people”. And the Torah is never “their” Torah, it is “the” Torah, or “our” Torah. In John 8:7, 10:34, and 15:25, just as a few examples, Yeshua uses “The Jews” or “their Torah”, which indicates he considers himself separate from Jews and Torah.

Now let’s put these things in perspective.

The end of the First Century was a turning point for the new believers in Yeshua; there was constant battle between Rome and Jerusalem, and this contributed to the gentile believers thinking it wasn’t such a good idea to be associated with the Jewish population. My research shows that it was at the end of the First Century, right around the time this gospel was written, that the (now mostly) gentile leadership of this Jewish sect was changing things around to avoid the Roman authorities, because even though there was opposition (strong opposition) from the Jewish “power elite”, by the latter part of the First Century the Jews had their hands full fighting off Roman rule (The Jewish-Roman Wars lasted from 66 AD to 135 AD).

At that time, with most (if not all) of the original disciples dead or martyred, and most of the Jews who accepted Yeshua that we read about in the other three gospels also dead or dying, what was originally a Jewish movement to accept Yeshua as the Messiah was now being morphed into a totally new religion, which rejected the Jewish roots that it came from.

Around 98 A.D., the Sabbath was changed to Sunday by Ignatius of Antioch; also, there was less concern for learning the Torah as the gentile leaders of this new religion were interpreting Shaul’s (Paul) letters in a way that led them away from Torah, despite the fact that the Elders in Jerusalem expected these neophyte believers to be learning the Torah (Acts 15:19-21).

I believe that the Gospel of John was not written by a Jewish person! I believe it was written by a gentile believer in Jesus (no longer being called Yeshua) who wrote exclusively to the gentile believers to show them how Jesus considered himself separate from the Jewish population and from the Torah, in order to more easily assimilate them into the new religion this sect was becoming.

Also, John’s long-winded and convoluted speeches by Jesus about his relationship with God is nothing but confusing (when you see me you see him, but you don’t see him because you don’t see me, but I know him and if you knew me you would know him, but because you don’t accept me you don’t accept him, yadda, yadda, yadda….), and allows for the introduction of the Trinity.

In my opinion, John’s gospel is anything but “gospel”; rather, it is propaganda designed to help indoctrinate gentile believers into what was being formed as a new religion, and to keep Jews from wanting to join.

One sure way to keep more Jews from joining was the subtle intimation that Jesus is God, himself, which is (even today) a major turn-off to Jews, who believe that God is a singular and totally unique entity. And the way Shaul’s letters, which were trying to get these new gentile believers to become Torah observant a little at a time, were misinterpreted and twisted to be polemics against the Torah, when they were actually apologetics for the Torah.

Let’s put it all together…the Gospel of John was written right at the time the Jewish sect of believers in Yeshua was growing with many more gentiles than Jews, and those gentile leaders wanted to get away from the “Jewishness” of this movement to avoid trouble with Rome (which later proved not to be such a good idea.) Add to this the misuse of the Epistles written by Shaul, and we can see clearly that this gospel was designed to distance Jesus from the Jews, from the Torah, and remove any lingering semblance of Judaism from this emerging religion called Christianity.

If it was up to me, the New Covenant would have the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the books of Acts, James, and Hebrews, and Revelation. All the rest just misdirects people from who Yeshua really is, and what he really taught.

Anyone still here? If you are, then maybe I made some sense to some of you. I doubt many, if any, are in total agreement with me, but if even some of this made sense, then I hope you will continue to study and keep an open mind. I never tell anyone what to believe, only what I believe, and why I believe it, and if that leads someone to a new understanding or even just to question what they have been told, then I feel I have succeeded.

The truth will always stand up to questioning, and if after reading this you think you might question what you have already believed about John’s gospel, then please continue to question it. You never know what you may find out, and when you pray to God to lead your search for the truth, I know he won’t ever mislead you.

I know, I know… the Jews rejected Jesus, which is why only Christians are saved.

But did the Jews really reject him? And are the Christians really saved?

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Let’s think about this for a minute: we read in Matthew 15:24 that Yeshua (Jesus) is telling the woman at the well that he has come only for the lost sheep of Israel, i.e., the Jews. We read in all 4 Gospels how there were five thousand fed and at another time, four thousand fed. But those weren’t Christians, they were Jews. Yeshua went to the Jews, and when you read in the Gospels about the thousands upon thousands of people who followed him, who listened to him, who were healed by him, guess what?

They were all JEWS!

Not one Gentile ever got saved by Yeshua- that all happened well after Pentecost, which (again) was where thousands of Jews were saved.

So, all this drek you have heard about how all the Jews rejected Jesus is just that- drek! (Yiddish for garbage)

But what about the Gentiles who accepted him as the Messiah and were being converted to a Jewish way of life, which is what they were undergoing! They were learning about how Yeshua lived and what he preached, which was only and totally from the Torah.

This is another misleading traditional Christian teaching: Gentiles who accepted Jesus didn’t need to follow the Torah, but only to follow Jesus. Well, that is just ridiculous considering that Jesus lived a Torah-perfect life. If he hadn’t, then he would not have been the sinless lamb of God, and as such, his sacrificial death could not be accepted. But…this topic is for a different lesson.

By the end of the First Century, less than 70 years after Yeshua’s death and resurrection, when most of the original Jewish followers had died out and this new movement within Judaism had grown full of Gentiles, things changed.

First, the Shabbat was changed- by the now Gentile leadership- to Sunday. Then, the initial four requirements for new Believers that had been suggested by James (Acts 15) were taught to be the only things Gentile Believers had to do, despite the fact that James said they would be learning the Laws of Moses as they attended Shabbat services (Acts 15:21).

Next, Kashrut (Kosher laws) were ignored, then the Holy Days commanded to be observed in Leviticus 23 were ignored, and this once-messianic Jewish movement had now been mutated into a new religion, with its own tenets, holidays, and ceremonies. In fact, some of these traditional activities, such as burying their dead under the altar, go directly against the Torah and end up contaminating the entire church!

And what about relics? Oy!

Touching a dead body rendered one ceremonially unclean- you had to wash yourself and your clothes and wait until after dark before you could enter the synagogue area. Yet, Catholicism encourages wearing a relic or having one in your house.

Yeshua lived according to the Torah; for example, he told those he healed to go to the Cohen and be confirmed as healed, according to what the Torah required. This is irrefutable evidence that Yeshua obeyed, and taught others to obey, the Torah!

But where are any Torah requirements, of which Yeshua obeyed and taught others to obey, being observed in Christianity today, other than the 10 Commandments?

The Holy Days are ignored, most of what God decreed to be sinful in Leviticus 11 is ignored, and the traditional observances (such as Hanukkah) are also ignored; and, worse than that, God’s commanded Holy Days have been replaced with man-made holidays that are little more than rebranded pagan rituals.

And speaking of the 10 Commandments, Christians have changed most of the first commandment by removing what God said about how he saved us from slavery and splitting the second commandment into both the first and second. Don’t believe me? Well, check out what Google tells you is the first commandment and then see what God gave to Moses in Exodus 20.

So, reading the Gospels we see that thousands upon thousands of Jews accepted Yeshua, and it was only the “Power Elite” in Jerusalem that wanted him out of the way because he threatened their power and position. But Christianity today has become a totally different religion and way of life from the way Yeshua lived, worshipped, and taught others to do!

The only conclusion is that Christians have rejected Yeshua completely, and replaced him with their own, man-made Savior (they don’t even call him a Messiah anymore) called Jesus Christ, who not only rejected what his father told people to do, but has killed his father’s chosen people over the past two Millennia for not rejecting what God said we should do and converting to this man-made religion.

So, if you consider yourself a God-fearing man or woman, but you have followed Christian teachings all your life, I suggest you stop listening to what they tell you and pay attention to what God says.

I warn you, although I won’t speak for God, I am pretty sure when you meet him (as we all will) at Judgement Day, he will not like it when you say you did as men told you to do, even though God told you what he wanted you to do.

Thank you for being here, and please remember to subscribe and share these messages. That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Before we can determine if Christianity is wrong, we should identify what the words “Christianity” and “wrong” represent.

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I looked at a few definitions of Christianity on the Internet, and this one seems to be the most relevant and most often used:
Christianity is a religion based on the life, teachings, and death of Jesus Christ, who is believed to be the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

As for the word, “wrong”, again going to the Internet I found this definition on the Mirriam-Webster site:

The state of being mistaken or incorrect or not according to truth or facts. 

Now that we have identified what these terms mean, let’s state that, for the purpose of our discussion, Christianity is the religion based on the teachings and life of Christ, who we will call Yeshua (since that is his real name), and being wrong means not being in accordance or agreement with the facts.

So, let’s take a look at what Yeshua taught, since that is what Christianity is supposed to be based on.

The best place to get a good idea of what Yeshua taught is found in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). He taught the people from the Torah but didn’t teach how the Pharisees had been teaching; rather, he taught us the Remes of the laws God gave through Moses.

In Judaism, we use an exegesis tool, called PaRDeS, to properly interpret and understand God’s word. The P stands for P’shat, or plain language meaning, such as “Thou shalt not kill”. The R stands for Remes, which is a deeper, more spiritual understanding of the P’shat, such as if we so much as hate in our heart, we have killed. The D stands for Drash, which is a story with a moral ending, such as the many parables Yeshua gave, and the S stands for Sud, which is a sort of deep, mystical understanding of the word.

Yeshua often used a drash (parable) to teach the Remes of the laws God gave us in the Torah. He never taught to ignore any of his father’s commandments; in fact, in Matthew 22: 37-40, Yeshua stated that to love God and to love each other are the two most important commandments, and then he added that all the law and what the prophets taught are based on those two commandments. He never said these were the ONLY laws: just that they were the ones that all the rest were based on, indicating clearly that all the laws in the Torah are important and necessary, and these two were the foundation for the rest. He also stated in Matthew 5:17 that he did not come to change anything, specifically stating that not even a stroke from the Torah will be changed until all things have come to pass, meaning (obviously) not his death, but the Acharit HaYamim (End Days), also known as Judgement Day.

Yeshua never taught anything other than what his father said to do in the Torah.

But what does Christianity teach? One lesson from Christianity is that they are not under the Laws of Moses (which are really God’s laws, not Moses’) but they are only under the Law of Christ. Well, as we see, the “law of Christ” is the law of Moses, so that teaching is not in accordance with the facts; as such, based on the definition of “wrong”, Christianity is wrong.

This isn’t the only wrong, anti-Torah teaching or practice of Christianity. They bury their dead under the altar or on the church property, which (according to God) makes their church unclean and thereby unacceptable as a place to commune with him; they have rejected the Holy Days God said to celebrate, instead making up their own; instead of loving their neighbors, they have practiced torturing and/or killing Jews by the millions over the past two millennia to force them to reject the way God said to live, and there are many other Christian practices and teachings that go totally against what God said he wanted us to do.

And, as we’ve shown above, the things that Christianity has rejected are the very same things Yeshua taught.

I am sorry to be so straight-forward about this, but when we look at how God said he wants us to worship him and treat each other, what Holy Days he demands we observe, his rules on what is clean and unclean (not just physically, like food, but within interpersonal relationships, as well), and that Yeshua taught us the deeper, spiritual meaning of these laws while telling us he was not here to change any of them, the only conclusion any fair-minded and informed person can come to is that Christianity is wrong.

God has no religion: not Judaism, not Catholicism, not Episcopalian, Protestant, Baptist, etc., etc., etc. But, if we go by what God said he wants us to do, we have to conclude that Judaism is the closest to what God wants, even though Judaism isn’t exactly correct, either, what with so many different sects within it, and the different rules and requirements that are not in the Torah called Halacha.

The only “right” religion is no religion, and the only “right” way to worship God and treat each other is the way that God said, which he outlined clearly for all people in those first 5 books.

The truth is the only place in the entire Bible where God, himself, tells us how to live and worship is in those first 5 books: everything after Deuteronomy is just commentary. And, as far as the New Covenant is concerned, the only useable parts of that are the Gospels (but not John’s Gospel), Acts, and Revelation. Nearly two-thirds of the New Covenant are the Epistles, and they are not scripture (but they do quote from scripture), and they are not God-ordained or God-breathed (there is nothing in any of them that says “God told me to say…”), but in truth, they are nothing more than managerial directives to the (mostly) Gentile, neophyte believers throughout the Middle East and Asia who were losing their faith and being misdirected from the path of salvation.

Christianity is a man-made religion based on man-made rules and, for the most part, rejects almost everything God said to do; it couldn’t be more wrong.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and let me wish you an early Shabbat Shalom!

Of course, Yeshua (Jesus) is called the Passover Lamb, but that isn’t really the full description what his sacrifice provided. In fact, his sacrifice not only served to provide the means for us to be forgiven of our sins, but consequently, also allows us to commune with the Almighty.

If you would prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Did you know that for Passover, the sacrifice doesn’t have to be a lamb? In Exodus 12:3, God tells Moses that on the 10th day of the month, each family is to choose a lamb or a kid from the flock. Now, we normally associate the Passover sacrifice as being a lamb, but here- clearly- it could also be a goat, although we normally associate a goat sacrifice for Yom Kippur, even though in Leviticus 23, we are only told to bring an offering by fire. However, before that (Leviticus 16) God tells us about how to perform a sin sacrifice, where he then outlines the two goats to be used. But these are to be goats- no option. And after Passover, when the festival of First Fruits comes, there we sacrifice a lamb- again, no option.

There was a general system for offerings: first, you would bring the offering for your sin, which cleansed you of that stain of guilt, then you would offer a wholly burnt offering, which represented your recommitment to obedience to God. Lastly, there would be a Friendship, or Thanksgiving offering, which is the one (and ONLY one) where you would share of the meat of that offering, eating it right there in a holy place. That represented your ability to commune with God, now that you are free of sin. The three phases of the sacrificial system are: forgiveness, commitment, and then communion.

Yeshua’s sacrifice provided for both forgiveness and communion, fulfilling both the Passover sacrifice and the Yom Kippur sacrifice, all at one time. With the destruction of the temple in 73 A.D., soon after Yeshua’s job as Messiah on earth was completed, the only means of receiving forgiveness and communing with God was through accepting Yeshua as your Messiah.

In the next life, after the Apocalypse is over and the new heaven and new earth are here, I believe that the sacrificial system will begin again, only this time we will not need to sacrifice for forgiveness. The sacrifices we will be making will be for cleansing, friendship, and the completion of vows (as defined in Leviticus).

If you are wondering to yourself, “How can it be possible for Yeshua to be both a Yom Kippur sacrifice and a Passover sacrifice at the same time?”, my answer is…. hey, I don’t know! Look, he’s the Messiah, sent by God, and God can do whatever the heck he wants to, in whichever order he wants to do it. All I know is that Yeshua’s sacrifice makes it possible to be forgiven of sin, which then makes it possible to commune with God (remember- God can’t abide sin in his presence), and you know what else? That is all I need to know.

Thank you, again, for being here and enjoy this Festival of Unleavened Bread. One of my favorite snacks during this week is to spread softened butter on a piece of matza (if you don’t soften it first, the matza will probably break) then lightly sprinkle salt on it. It is so simple, and it is soooo good!

Thats’ it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

From a biblical viewpoint, “fear of the Lord” doesn’t mean that we are afraid of him, rather that we worship him. But when we do that, are we doing it because we want to, or because we are afraid of what someone else may think if we don’t?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

Have you ever seen those old movies, where the priest challenges someone to come to church that Sunday, or they will read their name in the Mass? It always seems cute and somewhat comical, but it isn’t cute, or comical- it is wrong!

I am Jewish and I believe Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah God promised to send. Because I am still living a Jewish lifestyle and worshipping as a Jewish man, many Christians have accused me of being “under the Law” (and these people have absolutely NO idea of what they are saying) and, as such, not really saved.

On the other side, Jews I know tell me that because I “Believe in Jesus” (another term thrown around too loosely, with most people having no idea what it means) I must be a Christian and am not a Jew anymore.

It is always both amazing, and sad, to see how much ignorance there is in the world, especially among people who profess to worship God and know their Bible.

God knows the heart, and even though I have recently been told that this is just an excuse for people to do as they want to (which has an element of truth to it), God does know who we are praying to, and whether or not we really repent when we ask forgiveness.

The question you must ask yourself is when you do as you think you should, with regard to worship and how you treat others, are you doing it to please God, or to please your Rabbi, Priest, Minister, or whatever? This is not an answer you should just throw out there- you really need to think about it.

There are forms of worship, such a whole week without leavened products (my wife, Donna, often has to remind me not to eat something that I, simply by habit, will start to put into my mouth) that I find difficult to do, and I will confess that sometimes I do something just because I know I should. And that isn’t a good reason for doing anything because it is like legalism- doing something just to do it, going through the motions. God has been clear to us, through the prophets, that a sacrifice means nothing to him if done just to do it, without a sincere and broken heart.

Oops- there’s that “knowing the heart” thing, again.

So, the next time you go to services, or fast, or pray, or celebrate a Holy Day (meaning God ordained, found in Lev. 23), or a holiday (meaning a man-made celebration), please consider WHY you are doing it, and if it isn’t fully because you want to please God, but rather because you are afraid of what someone might think, then I would say don’t do it- something done as a lie is worse than something not done, honestly.

And if you find yourself not doing things you used to do to be “religious”, then rethink your relationship with God because if you do not observe God’s commandments, which are found ONLY in the Torah (remember- those are the things Yeshua did and taught others to do), then your heart and mind are not in the right place.

It would be a good idea to square those things away as soon as possible because the way the world is going, well… it doesn’t look like there is going to be such a long wait for that Day of Judgement.

Thank you, again, for being here: that’s it for this week so L’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

I know this sounds a little off; I mean, of course I accept God for who he is. What else can I do? He is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and the Almighty. Who else would I think he is?

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

God tells us who he is throughout the Bible, specifically in the Tanakh (the “Jewish Bible”). In the New Covenant writings, we do not hear a lot of who God is, but mostly of who Yeshua is, and in many Christian religions (and, believe me, there are enough of them!) they consider Yeshua, the Messiah, and God, the Father, to be one and the same entity.

But we ain’t goin’ there, Homies!

The reasoning behind why I am asking if you accept God for who he is comes from the many times I have been exposed to people who tell me what God wants, and why he wants that, but their belief is so far from what God says in the Bible that I have to wonder if we are talking about the same God.

I have heard people tell me that God is a compassionate, forgiving, and loving father, all of which is true, but they say that just before they tell me he will forgive their sins, without any mention of repentance or confession. They believe that just because God loves them as they are, and they believe in Yeshua (whatever that is supposed to mean) that they will be forgiven of any sins they commit. They do not understand, or more likely, refuse to accept, that even though God loves them, he is also holy and keeps his word, so if you sin, continue to sin, do not confess or repent of your sins, his love will not save you from damnation.

I believe the proof of God’s love is found in one place more than any other- that is in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, specifically Ezekiel 18:23, where God says:

Do I take any pleasure at all in having the wicked person die?” asks Adonai Elohim. “Wouldn’t I prefer that he turn from his ways and live?

God is saying that not only is he willing to forgive the sinner, but he greatly desires to forgive us!

But wait a minute! That doesn’t say it all, because before this he says something that sounds very different, and that is Ezekiel 18: 20-24 where he first tells us:

“The person who sins is the one that will die — a son is not to bear his father’s guilt with him, nor is the father to bear his son’s guilt with him; but the righteousness of the righteous will be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked will be his own. However, if the wicked person repents of all the sins he committed, keeps my laws and does what is lawful and right; then he will certainly live, he will not die. None of the transgressions he has committed will be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done, he will live. On the other hand, when the righteous person turns away from his righteousness and commits wickedness by acting in accordance with all the disgusting practices that the wicked person does, will he live? None of the righteous deeds he has done will be remembered; for the trespasses and sins he has committed, he will die.“

So, here is God telling us who he is: he wants to forgive his children, whom he loves, but he is also God and will punish the sinner, meaning those who sin without confessing and repenting of their sin.

There are other ways people, even those who profess to worship God, do not accept who he is by rejecting his Holy Days, making excuses for rejecting his laws of kashrut (Kosher), and still expecting that he wil be OK with all that because his son told us we could.

How can anyone think that the son of God, the one he sent, would teach to reject what his father said to do?

Maybe because some believe Yeshua to be God, they make the excuse that he changed his mind after he was resurrected, by himself, even though he was dead, which God can’t be, which …. HUH? The more I follow that line of thinking, the less sense it makes.

That’s another one we ain’t touching today with a 10-foot pole!

There are other examples of how people pigeon-hole or compartmentalize God by convincing themselves that what they really want to do is OK with God. That is why, as I started this message, I asked if YOU really accept God for who he is?

If you are still not sure what I mean, then ask God, yourself, to show you who he is. Read the Torah- I think when you have a good understanding of what God wants us to do, then you will see that he is telling us who he is- he Lord, a holy and perfect spiritual entity who is also very emotional, loving his creation totally but because he is holy, he wants us to be holy, as well, because if we aren’t we cannot ever commune with him. He is in a sort of Catch-22 that he, himself, created when he gave us Free Will, which is a two-sided sword: free will allows us to choose to be righteous so we can live forever in God’s presence, and it also allows us to reject God and condemn ourselves to eternal damnation. And no matter which we choose, God has to stand aside and allow us to do what we will because he is holy and 1000% trustworthy, which means he will forgive us as he said he will- when we do what we have to do receive that forgiveness.

And for the same reason he will forgive us, he will punish us when we do not do as he said we should.

That seems to me to be the one thing most people do not accept about God.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!