At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, as Yeshua was lifted up to heaven, he told his disciples to go and make disciples of everyone.

This is known to many as “The Great Commission”, and Yeshua was, essentially, telling his talmudim (students, or in this case, disciples) that they should begin missionary work in order to grow the ministry that Yeshua started.

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It is a shame that the ministry of Yeshua eventually became perverted and has mutated into modern Christianity, which has nothing at all to do with what Yeshua taught, but that’s a different message.

The issue I want to talk with you about today is when we are trying to spread the Good News of the Messiah to people (especially to Jews) and unquestionably run into those who refuse to accept what we say as true, when do we stop trying to convince them?

When people refuse to listen to you, that’s OK- if everyone became a Believer, who would Yeshua have to fight against in the End Days, right?

Many times people who are trying to spread the gospel will find it hard to convince some who argue, often vehemently, against Yeshua being the Messiah or that there even is a God.

So what do we do when we run into a brick wall? How do we convince someone they are wrong and we are right? How do we get the truth out to those who refuse to listen?

The answer is: we don’t, we can’t, and we need to know when to stop.

While he was still alive Yeshua sent his disciples out into the world to preach and told them to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves (Matthew 10:16).

But even before that bit of advice, he told them when they need to stop. He said (in Matthew 10:14) when any town they are in refuses to accept what they say, to leave that place and shake the dust off their sandals as a warning to those people.

We learn from Yeshua that we cannot force people to accept Yeshua; as for me, when someone doesn’t want to hear what I have to say about Yeshua, God or the Bible, I am more than happy to leave them alone.

God gave us all Free Will to make our own decisions about how we will live, which includes what we do, what we say, and what we believe. Faith is not something we come to because of proving, scientifically, that God exists and that Yeshua is the Messiah. Truth be told, proof is the antithesis of faith because faith MUST be a choice based on belief and not on irrefutable evidence!

People who chose not to have faith in either God or Yeshua as the Messiah have the right to make that choice, and we are not to force or coerce them into changing their minds.

You may ask if we cannot provide irrefutable evidence, which for Believers is the Bible, then how do we fulfill the challenge of making disciples?

We do it by being examples of what God wants us to be, and as we obey God’s commandments we will be blessed (Deuteronomy 28), which will be evident to others.

We read how the people that lived around Abraham recognized God was with him by the number of blessings he received. We also see this with Isaac, when Abimelech made a treaty with him (Genesis 26:28). And when we read of Joseph, we are told that he prospered, even though he was a slave and (later) a prisoner because people recognized that God was with him.

When we are obedient we are “with” God, God will be with us, and that will be evident to people. That is, for me, the greatest missionary work we can perform- to be an example.

Now, back to what to do when we run into a brick wall.

When someone argues against you, the first thing to do is to ask them questions that they cannot answer, which are specifically designed to use what they say to show them their statements make no sense. Doing this takes more than just a good knowledge of the Bible: you need to know the objections people generally give you (most objections are the same) and already have questions prepared that show them the “holes” in their logic.

You need to ask questions and not give answers because in a discussion the one who is asking questions is the one controlling the discussion.

The questions must be in a logical order to make them realize, on their own, that what they are saying doesn’t make sense, and the way to do that is to have them hear themselves not know the answers- which they should know- if what they are saying is correct.

I know what I just said sounds like a bunch of double-talk, and I could give you many examples of what I mean, but I won’t because whatever ministry you have, it has to be your ministry. I am sorry, but the way I minister to people cannot be the way you do, and vice-versa.

Remember that Yeshua told his talmudim, which goes for us, too, that when they need to say something to trust the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) to give them what they need to say. I recommend that as the best way to go, but there’s nothing wrong with having prepared questions and answers, either.

We should trust in God, but that doesn’t mean leaving it entirely up to him.

Here is how you know when to stop: if you find yourself getting frustrated, that is pride trying to take over, and your signal that it is time for you to stop.

Or, when the person you are talking to begins to get frustrated and starts to attack you, verbally (hopefully, that’s as far as the attack goes), that is another signal it is time for you to stop.

We should do whatever we can to help people know the truth, but we need to know when it is time to shake the dust off our sandals, and that time is when either side of the discussion goes from passionate to frustrated.

Leaving someone in a state of frustrated anger because you tried to ram the truth down their throat not only damages your attempt to teach them but makes it exponentially harder for the next person God sends to them.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. If you haven’t already subscribed, please do so on both my website and YouTube channel (they are different lists), and while on my website check out my books.

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

Lately, I have had a few Christian Facebook friends chide me, so to speak (and nicely, too, which I appreciate) about my somewhat bigoted attitude towards Christianity and Christians.

Let me set the record straight- I am not against Christians, I am against Christianity.

It is sort of like the adage “Hate the sin but love the sinner.”

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

The one thing that has kept both Jews and Gentiles from knowing God and his Messiah, and has led millions wishing to worship God correctly down the path of destruction, has been Christianity.

The Jewish people have always tried to follow the Torah, which is the ONLY place throughout the entire Bible (that means Genesis through Revelation) where God, himself, tells us exactly what he wants us to do.

The Pharisees in the First Century taught the literal meaning, called the P’shat, and never went beyond that, using their influence and political power to rule over the Jews and creating many man-made rituals and rules (known today as Halacha) which have added much to the Torah’s requirements. In truth, this was a sinful thing to do because God told us, no less than twice, not to add or take away from anything in the Torah (Deut. 4:2 and 12:32).

Yeshua taught us the same things that the Pharisees did, but he deepened our knowledge of the laws by teaching the spiritual meaning, the Remes, through the use of Drashim (parables, or stories that have a moral lesson).

But that wasn’t the worse thing the Pharisees did: what was really terrible was the way they used their influence to steer people away from accepting Yeshua as the Messiah; they did this because as the Messiah, Yeshua would have replaced them as the social authority.

The letters Shaul (Paul) wrote only added to the confusion, and what happened was that by the end of the First Century, Yeshua was rebranded as a Gentile Savior, with many rules and rituals that had been created by men, such as changing the Sabbath day and rejecting much of what the Torah said.

By the time Constantine added his two shekels, what Yeshua taught was totally lost and a new religion, Christianity, was established.

But that isn’t the reason that Jews still reject him, today. Jews have, throughout the past two millennia, rejected Jesus as the Messiah because we have been taught that he created Christianity, and Christianity rejects the Torah and most everything that is Jewish.

And that has not just kept God’s chosen people, the ones the Messiah came for, from being able to know their Messiah but also millions upon millions of Gentiles who have been taught all the wrong things about the Jewish Messiah, now having been transformed (or should I say mutated) into a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryian godhead who forces people to convert to worshiping him (not God) and even proclaims itself as the only “true” religion.

There are even some sects of Christianity that proclaim the Jews have been rejected by God and that they, the Born Again Christians, are now the chosen people of God (this is called Replacement Theology).

Modern Christianity is not what Yeshua taught, and it is the major reason that Jews cannot be expected to accept their own Messiah, and Gentiles are rejecting God’s instructions.

This is my beef with Christianity.

I have nothing against Christians, and I know that all Christians are not the same, just as all Jews are not the same. I am Jewish, always have been and never will be anything else, but unlike most Jews, I know that Yeshua is the Messiah and I still live a Jewish life and worship as a Jew, in accordance with the way God said to in the Torah. I am the exception within Judaism.

I know many Christians who are the exception within Christianity; they know their Jewish Messiah and do not reject the Torah. Many live a Jewish lifestyle, many still observe the Christian holidays, and many demonstrate a sort of blending of the two.

My beef is with Christianity and the false teachings that it has promulgated over the centuries, which really has very little, if anything, to do with what Messiah Yeshua taught, and which, consequently, has prevented both Jews and Gentiles from knowing the real Messiah.

And if you profess to believe in God and that Yeshua (Jesus) is his Messiah, frankly speaking, you should have the same beef!

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, subscribe to my website and my YouTube channel, and please remember that I always welcome your comments.

And check out my newest book, The Good News About the Messiah for Jews, Debunking the Traditional Lies About the Jewish Messiah. It is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle format, and you can get it easily by using the link on my website.

I’m done for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

I have written about Jews and Christians many times, almost always, but only now and then specifying things that we have in common. I usually spend most of my time pointing out all the things we do NOT have in common, and why it shouldn’t be that way.

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

But today I want to point out something we have in common, something other than the obvious things, such as we both believe in God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We both, for the most part, believe in the existence of Yeshua (Jesus), although where Christianity has accepted him as the Messiah God promised to send, mainstream Judaism has rejected him as such.

Now, here is the one thing that both Jews and Christians have in common, which is not a good thing:

Both Jews and Christians say that if you want to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, you can’t be Jewish anymore.

Now isn’t that amazing? And totally disappointing.

You see, most Christians have been taught that following the instructions in the Torah, which are often referred to as the Mosaic law, is something that Jews are required to do because they are still subject to the Torah, and that is because they have rejected Jesus. But Christians, because they accept Jesus, are under Grace and not under the law, which is what Paul said in his letter to the Romans .

What Paul was talking about was the teaching of the Pharisees, which was a performance-based salvation; in other words, the Jews were being taught that they had to perform righteously in order to be “saved.” Paul constantly reminded them that it isn’t performance, but faith which allows us to be seen as righteous, preaching a faith-based salvation.

But here’s the kicker: faith doesn’t mean disobedience. Paul often states this, saying that Grace trumps sin, but it isn’t a license to sin. And James also states that faith without works is dead, meaning faith encourages and motivates us to obey.

So, nu? Obey what? There are no commandments issued by God anywhere in the New Covenant writings. All of God’s instructions are in the Torah.

Yeshua said if we love him we will obey his commandments, so what are they? In truth, Yeshua gave no commandments, other than to love one another, because that is how people will know we are his talmudim (John 13:34); but, in reality, that wasn’t new: Yeshua was rephrasing Leviticus 19:18, which says love your neighbor as yourself.

So what Christianity has taught is lawlessness. Shaul (Paul) teaches in his letter to the Romans that the Torah created sin by identifying what is right and what is wrong. So, if you don’t have to obey the Torah, then you are by definition, sinning. And when we add to this another Christian teaching called “Once Saved, Always Saved”, not only are you sinning but you don’t even have to repent!

What about the Jewish side of this? Do they agree that when a Jew accepts Jesus they are free from obedience to the Torah? Not really: what Jews will tell you is that any Jew who accepts Yeshua as their Messiah is now a Christian! According to mainstream Judaism, no Jew who believes Yeshua is the Messiah is Jewish anymore. It doesn’t matter if they obey the Torah, go to shul on Shabbat, observe the Moedim of God, or do any other “Jewish” thing: as far as Jews are concerned, if you believe in Jesus you aren’t a Jew anymore.

You can be born Jewish and convert to any other non-Christian religion, and you will still be considered a Jew, just a Jew who is a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Hindu, but if you accept Jesus you aren’t a Jew.

How meshuggah is that?

The sad part of this, which is not just sad but destroys people’s chances of truly being saved, is that both sides are absolutely, 1000% WRONG!

Anyone who believes that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah God promised to send is, by definition, grafted into the Chosen people of God (Romans 11), who are, have been, and always will be…the Jews. No Christian who says he or she believes in Jesus is absolved of obedience to God, for God, himself, has said over and over throughout the Bible that anyone who joins with the Jewish people is to receive the same treatment under the law as the native-born. That means to be protected by it, as well as obligated to obey it.

As for the Jews who accept Yeshua, they are just as obligated to obey God now as they ever were, because accepting Yeshua as their Messiah completes them as a Jewish person: not only do they have God, and his Torah, but the Messiah, as well.

Yeshua said in Matthew 5:17 that he did not come to change the law and that nothing in the Torah will change until all things have come to pass. That means A-L-L things: Yeshua’s return, the Tribulation, the new heaven and earth, the temple lowered from heaven, the dead in Messiah risen, Satan and his demons in the lake of fire, etc., etc., etc.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t see any of these things here now.

Both sides agree believing in Yeshua as the Messiah means you can’t be a Jew anymore, and, according to what God, Yeshua, and even that little Jewish Pharisee tent-maker from Tarsus all say, both sides couldn’t be more wrong.

In fact, the most Jewish thing any Jew can do is to accept Yeshua as their Messiah, and Christians shouldn’t do as the “Church” teaches, but as Yeshua actually did, which was to live a Torah-observant life, motivated to obey Torah by his faith in, and love for, the Lord God.

It is clear from the Bible that to obey God’s instructions (which are in the Torah) is to accept him, and to refuse to do as God says is to reject him- there is no middle ground here. In the Gospels, Yeshua said he does and says only what God tells him to do and say, so Yeshua obeyed God by living in perfect accordance with the Torah; otherwise, he would not have been an acceptable sacrifice, So, nu! To live as Yeshua lived, to follow in his footsteps, to live up to the WWJD on those bracelets people wear, is to obey God’s instructions in the Torah.

And we don’t obey Torah because we want to attain salvation by works, but because of our faithful loving obedience to our father in heaven, who only wants what is best for us. Obedience to the Torah is not how we are saved, but faith in God and Yeshua is meaningful and real only if you do as they say.

Not as Paul says, or as your Priest says, or as your Minister says, or as your Rabbi quoting from the Talmud says, but as God says.

Jews and Christians have to realize that accepting Yeshua as your Messiah doesn’t mean you are free from Torah, or that you are not Jewish, but that you are grafted onto the Tree of Life that God provided, and that tree’s roots are the Torah.

Thank you for being here and please LIKE, share and subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, as well. And remember that I always welcome your comments.

If you aren’t aware of it, I also have a Facebook discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (the avatar is a picture of the Torah), so please check that out and join in.

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

In the Gospel of Mark (2:21-22), Yeshua teaches the following:

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old coat; if he does, the new patch tears away from the old cloth and leaves a worse hole. And no one puts new wine in old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is for freshly prepared wineskins.

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The traditional Christian interpretation of this lesson is that Yeshua meant the old laws were no longer valid for those who follow him. In other words, they use this to justify sinning against God by ignoring what he said in the Torah.

Christianity has maintained that what Yeshua taught was the new wine, and those who accept Yeshua as the Messiah and follow his teachings, are the new wineskins. As such, what is in the Torah is the old wine and only valid for the old wineskins, i.e., the Jews.

Does this make sense? I mean, Yeshua is the Son of God, the Messiah, and throughout all the Gospels, especially in John, he constantly tells us he does and says only what his father in heaven tells him to do and say. He even prayed at the rock in the garden just before his crucifixion, confirming with God that HIS will be done, not Yeshua’s.

So, given that his entire time on earth was spent doing what God told him, does it seem likely that what he would have taught was to rebel against God? Did the Son of God tell those who accepted him as the Messiah that he did not come to reunite them with God (which is what the Messiah is to do), but instead to separate them from God by rejecting his commandments and follow a new set of laws, laws that Yeshua created?

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem right to me, at all!

What Yeshua taught was what is in the Torah, but instead of teaching just the plain language of the law (called the P’shat), he taught us the deeper, more spiritual understanding (called the Remes.) Haven’t you ever wondered why there are so many references in the Gospels about how people said no one has ever taught like Yeshua did? That’s because no one ever had- the Pharisees and Sadducees only taught the basic meaning of the law: do not murder, do not commit adultery, etc. But Yeshua taught us the spiritual understanding of the law: do not even hate in your heart, do not so much as lust with your eyes.

Using the biblical exegesis system called Circles of Context, let’s look at what was happening just before Yeshua talked about new wine and new wineskins.

This chapter in Mark begins with the Pharisees asking why Yeshua was saying he could forgive sins. Next, they asked why he ate with sinners and tax collectors. They then asked why his disciples didn’t fast as the Pharisee’s disciples did.

What do all these questions have in common? They are referencing rabbinical traditions that are not specified in, or have anything to do with the Torah.

I believe these traditions are what Yeshua was talking about when he talked of “old wine.” And the new wine is not different mitzvot from the Torah, but the spiritual understanding of the existing mitzvot!

The new wineskins are people that have not been so indoctrinated into the old wine that they can no longer accept the new understanding Yeshua was teaching.

Now, here is a sad and ironic reality: Christians who believe that Yeshua’s “new wine” is that all you need is to love each other and be a good person are now the old wine in old wineskins, refusing to accept that Yeshua did NOT do away with the Torah, but confirmed it!

More and more Christians who are seeking the real Messiah, the one who taught God’s word and never rebelled against the Torah, are the new wineskins who want to accept the new wine Yeshua taught, way back then.

During Yeshua’s ministry on the earth, the new wine was the spiritual understanding of the Torah, and NEVER anything against obedience to God’s commandments in the Torah. The new wineskins are his Disciples and all those Jews and Gentiles who followed him, still obedient to Torah.

Today, the new wine Yeshua taught is still new because early Christian leadership denounced the Torah- they rejected the new wine and watered it down with their own traditions, ruining the purity of Yeshua’s wine by blending it with old pagan traditions, holidays, and watering down (if not totally rejecting) anything dealing with the Torah, other than the 10 Commandments.

And they have even rejected and ignored some of those!

So, here is my understanding of the passage in Mark 2:21-22: the old wine is the rabbinic traditions that over-ruled God’s word or added to it, and the old wineskins, already stretched to their maximum, are those who rigidly maintain those traditions, unwilling to change or even listen to new ideas. The new wine is the Remes of the mitzvot, the spiritual understanding of the Torah, and those who overcame their desire to adhere to those man-made traditions and accepted the new wine Yeshua taught became new wineskins.

Today there are two old wines: the Christian old wine that Yeshua did away with the law, and the Jewish old wine that Yeshua is not the Messiah.

I used to be an old Jewish wineskin, but became a new wineskin about 25 years ago when I accepted Yeshua as my Messiah; I never converted from Judaism and, in truth, am now more “Jewish” than I ever was before.

So, nu? Which wine do you drink?

Thank you for being here and please subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, and share these messages with everyone. I also would love it if you would check out my books (on my website) and remember- I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for now, and probably for the week because my wife, Donna, is getting a shoulder replacement today (your prayers for a successful operation and speedy recovery are humbly requested) and I will be really busy from Thursday on preparing for the Pesach Seder, since she will not be able to help with the cooking or the preparation of the house.

That’s it for now…l’hitraot and (an early) Pesach Chag Sameach!

In the beginning, there was God. Then he created the Earth and placed mankind in charge of it, and mankind screwed everything up to the point where God had to send the Flood. After the Flood, God chose a man, Abraham, to become the progenitor of a people God would make his own special people.

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

Later on, God grew Abraham’s descendants from a family to a nation. Then, in order to train his chosen people how to become a nation of priests to the world (Ex. 19:6), he gave them instructions to teach them how to worship him and how to treat each other. This was the Torah, which if someone could live their lives in total and perfect accordance with all the 613 different “laws” that God gave, they would be righteous in God’s eyes.

But, as Shakespeare would say, “There’s the rub”: no one can live their life in perfect accordance with the Torah. For us sinful humans, it just ain’t gonna happen.

So, in order to ensure that God’s plan for his creation to be with him throughout eternity succeeds, he provided for us that which we could not provide for ourselves: a Savior, the Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus) who became the substitutionary sin sacrifice by voluntarily giving his physical life so that we could attain spiritual salvation.

Our part in this is to accept him as our Messiah and try to live as God said we should.

Yeshua was, and still is, the Messiah God promised to send, which he promised as far back as when he was talking to Abraham. When Yeshua sacrificed his life, he didn’t do away with the sacrificial system, he just substituted himself for the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem. We still need to accept that we sin, repent in our hearts and ask forgiveness from God for each and every sin we commit; it is thanks to Yeshua that we don’t have to bring a sacrifice to the temple because as the Messiah, God’s savior to mankind, is it possible through Yeshua’s one-time sacrifice that everyone’s sins can be forgiven each time they ask for forgiveness.

Let’s review… God gave the Torah so that we could know what he wants from us, and because we always failed to meet all those requirements, God sent the Messiah to provide us the chance to be saved from ourselves.

Guess what happened next? After all that God did for us, someone threw a monkey wrench into the engine, and that was the Enemy; HaSatan, that old snake. When he realized that he lost the battle for people’s souls, he confused people about Yeshua’s message. The way he did that was as more and more Gentiles came to know God’s Grace through the Messiah, he created confusion and misinterpretation within the newly formed congregations of Gentiles who didn’t understand the Torah.

He sent agents of distraction into these neophytes to Judaism to confuse them so much that they ended up rejecting the very principles of salvation that Yeshua taught, which were from the Torah. The end product of this demonic counter-attack is what we see today: so many different Christian religions and sects that reject almost all of God’s commandments.

Yeshua talked against the man-made traditions of the Pharisees that were given precedence over God’s commandments, and yet Christianity is composed of nothing BUT man-made traditions, holidays, rites, rituals, and laws. They have rejected God’s commandments regarding food (Leviticus 11); they reject all 7 festivals that God said we must observe (Leviticus 23), which does include the Sabbath because they changed the date; they bury their dead under the very altar of God; they fill their houses of worship with statues and pictures of human beings before whom they prostrate themselves and pray to; they have rebranded the Torah observant Jewish Messiah into some Blue-eyed, blonde-haired Aryian who created his own religion which rejects the Torah and hates Jews, and they teach and do many other things that the Torah tells us are an abomination to the Lord, God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the father of the Messiah!

Another example is that today there are many Christian churches that not only condone homosexuality, but support it: some are even anointing as pastors and ministers people who are openly gay.

Now, this is not a homophobic thing with me, so any gay person reading this, please pull in your reins: all I am stating is that the Torah clearly says homosexuality is a sin and as such, no church or synagogue that professes to worship and obey God should be accepting of homosexuality. That’s all. Just like they shouldn’t accept as leaders adulterers, murderers, or anyone else who openly rejects God’s commands and rules.

Let’s get back on topic: don’t think I am excluding the Jews because I am Jewish- far be it for me to do that! When we place more emphasis and importance on Talmudic regulations than on God’s commandments, that is just as bad as rejecting God’s commands. For instance, the regulations within Judaism against eating meat and dairy together; did you know that the Ashkenazi Jews have different regulations than the Sephardic Jews about this? And why? Because one group likes milk with their after-dinner drink and another doesn’t, so they have different times for how long you have to wait after eating meat before you can have dairy. The entirety of Halacha is based on the idea of “putting fences around the law” to prevent us from accidentally trespassing the law, which in and of itself isn’t such a bad idea, but it has become so cumbersome that now the fences are more important than what they surround!

God chose a people to bring his instructions to the world, and he blessed the world through those people, the greatest blessing of all was to have his Messiah come from those people to bring the salvation that God had for them to everyone.

The Enemy of God stepped in and messed things up, and for the most part, people have gone along with the “easy salvation” that the Enemy created and those poor, misguided and delusional souls will be sorely surprised when they come before God.

I suggest you make sure you know what God wants from you, based on what he says, because despite what anyone tells you, it is what he says that counts.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages, subscribe to this ministry (I never ask for money, but if you want to buy my books that is fine with me), and I always welcome your comments.

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

The Alpha and the Omega, the Alef and the Tav, the First and the Last- all of these descriptions are made by God, the Father, about himself from Isaiah all the way through to Revelation.

But Yeshua, the son of God and the Messiah, also says that he is the First and the Last, so is he saying he is God, too? Or could he mean something else?

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When God refers to himself in this way, he is announcing his ultimate authority and eternal nature. He is the first, meaning that he created everything, and he is the last, meaning that when he is done judging the earth, there will be nothing afterward.

God is the only one, true God and there is no other besides him, which is how he declares himself when he states he is the first and the last. Unique, eternal, creator and finisher of everything there has been, is now, and ever will be.

But what does Yeshua mean when he says he is the first and the last?

Well, let’s look at these statements using the proper context.

In Isaiah 44 God is telling Israel, through Isaiah, that there are no other gods and their sins, which are from idol worship, will be forgiven them and they should look forward to that. But, in the meantime, God is declaring that he has been around forever, he knows all that will happen, and who else can do that?
In essence, he is declaring (as I have already said) that he is unique in all of creation- there is one, and only one, God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Now, Yeshua also declared that he is the beginning and the end, and he does so only in Revelation 22:12-13. Here is the only place where the context of the paragraph shows it is Yeshua saying he is the A and the Z, and he says so not in accordance with creation but with the forgiving of sins. He states he is the root of David, the Morning Star, and he will come soon with his rewards to give to each person according to what he has done. His description of himself is that of the Messiah, not of God.

Yeshua is not identifying himself as God but as the Messiah- the son of David, the Morning Star, and the one who will allow those who have accepted him to drink from the water of life.

Now, I don’t want this message to devolve into an argument about Trinity vs. Unity, PLEASE! That is not the point here. The traditional Christian thought is that where God, the Father is clearly talking about how he is the A and the Z, those statements are accredited to Jesus by those who believe he and God are the same entity. Fine, I don’t agree but whether or not this is true, it isn’t my point here.

My point is that when God, the Father, says he is the A and the Z he is saying he is the only God. When Yeshua refers to himself as the A and the Z, he is saying that he is the only Messiah. Both statements are absolutes, and each refers to a different issue: God is the A and Z of Creation and Yeshua is the A and Z of Forgiveness.

After the Temple was destroyed, there was no way for Jews to sacrifice and, therefore, no way to be cleansed of their sin, but with Yeshua, we were able to be cleansed because he replaced the need to bring an animal to the Temple, as Torah demanded. That is why he says he is the beginning (of forgiveness after the temple was destroyed), and because with him there is no need to sacrifice anymore, he is also the end (of forgiveness.)

There is only one God, and there is only one Messiah, and each one is unique: God as the eternal authority and power, and Yeshua as the only means of salvation.

Remember, also, that Yeshua warned us of false Messiahs, which is why he says he is the A and the Z: he is confirming that he is the one and only Messiah.

When either God or Yeshua makes the statement “I am the Alpha and the Omega”, it is a metaphor to mean there is no other like me! It identifies the eternal nature of God and the uniqueness of the Messiah, Yeshua. Only one God, only one Messiah: no other God and no other Messiah before, now, or ever again.

Next time you read the statement “I am the Alpha and the Omega”, when God says it he means he is the only true God who was, who is, and will ever be; and, when Yeshua says it, he means he is the first Messiah who ever was, is, and will ever be.

God is God and the Messiah is the Messiah, and each was, is, and always be the only one of their kind: the Alpha and the Omega.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages with others, and I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for now; L’hitraot, and Baruch HaShem!

Isn’t what? Well, isn’t a Gospel, meaning a truthful description of who Yeshua was and of his ministry. I also don’t believe it was written by a Jew, or, at least, by a Jew who was writing to Jews.

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John has long been recognized as being very different from the other Gospels; Matthew, Mark, and Luke are written as historical narratives that relate to the events in Yeshua’s life. John, on the other hand, while mentioning events in Yeshua’s life, is written as a spiritual revelation, and instead of plain language is full of overly spiritual double-talk:

I am he, and he is me; you see me, you see him, and I know him and he knows me but you don’t know me so you don’t know him, but if you knew him you would know me, yadda-yadda-yadda…

The thing about the Book of John that really gets my goat, and yes- this is a personal peeve– is that it seems to be written by a Gentile, to Gentiles, and has many subtle anti-Semitic undertones. And, frankly, I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Only in the Gospel of John do we hear Yeshua refer to the Torah (when talking to the Pharisees in John 10:34) as “your law”. If Yeshua was the word come to life, then why would he differentiate himself from who and what he is? If Yeshua was a Jew, he would never say “your law” when referring to the Torah; he would say “the law” or “the Torah”, but not talk about it as if he had no relationship to it or that it had no meaning to him.

And in the other three gospels, the term “the Jews” is used about 16 times, total within all three, but in John, that term is used some 67 times! When you are talking about your own people, do you refer to them as “those (whatever) people”? Of course not- if you are Jewish, you say “my people” or “them”; if you are Italian and talking about other Italians, you don’t say “those Italians”, you say “them” or “us” or some other term that recognizes your attachment and solidarity with them. But we don’t see that in John- instead, we see Yeshua talking to the Pharisees and Sadducees about the people as if they are different from him.

In the other gospels, it is clear that the real enemies of Yeshua are the power elite, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but in John, it seems that all the Judeans are against Yeshua.

One really big difference is that in the other three, Yeshua never makes the absolute claim that he is the Messiah, except to his Talmudim (Disciples), whereas in John, he says it outright to the Samaritan woman (John 4:26) and makes claim to being one with God multiple times, and also claims that he is the son of God, whereas in the other gospels he refers to himself as the Son of Man.

In my experience, John is the only gospel that is used when people try to justify that God, Yeshua, and the Ruach HaKodesh are all one-and-the-same entity.

One of the most valuable tools in biblical exegesis is called Hermeneutics, which is the idea that the Bible does not contradict itself. We all have been told, over and over, that God is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow and many believe the Bible to be infallible, and the perfect word of God, directly from God.

For the record, I don’t buy that for a moment, but that’s a different message.

So, if the Bible is infallible and God’s word is perfect, then hermeneutically we can prove John’s gospel is not scripture because it is so different, and does contradict what we read in the other gospels. In John, Yeshua claims to be the Messiah to many people but not in any other gospel; in John, Yeshua’s ministry seems to be only one year but the other gospels make it about three years; in John, Yeshua is tried before the Pesach meal but in the other three, it is after; in John, Yeshua claims to be not just the son of God but God, himself, yet in the other gospels he calls himself the Son of Man.

John was most likely written at the end of the First Century when more Gentiles were converting to this new sect of Judaism than Jews who were accepting Yeshua as their Messiah. And when Jews did accept Yeshua as the Messiah, remember that this was not a conversion: there was no conversion of Jews to Christianity: the early “church” was a synagogue, and the Gentiles who accepted Yeshua as Messiah were learning how to live a Jewish lifestyle, just as Yeshua lived. The truth of the beginning of what we call Christianity today is that the only conversion was from paganism to Judaism, or at best, a sect of Judaism. From the turn of the first century until Constantine created modern Christianity (about 325 CE), there were Jews, those Jews and Gentiles who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah, and pagans. The Believing Gentiles were learning about the Torah and how to live as Yeshua did, although the Gentiles that were taking command of the movement began to leave Judaism and form different worship, such as changing the Shabbat to Sunday (Ignatius of Antioch in 98 CE) and misinterpreting the letter sent by the Elders (Acts 15) as meaning Gentile Believers were excluded from following Torah.

John was, in my opinion, either written by a Gentile using John’s name, or if John, a Jewish follower and Disciple of Yeshua, did write it, he wrote it so that Gentile Believers could separate themselves from Torah and worship Yeshua not just as the Messiah, but as God, as well. That opens the question of why a Disciple of Messiah would reject his own religion.

Many Christians I have known feel that John is the best Gospel, and when I was first open to learning about Yeshua, I was told to read John before any other gospel. Now, some 20 plus years after coming to accept Yeshua and knowing the entire Bible very well, I know that the Gospel of John is an anti-Semitic and separatist book designed so that Gentiles can feel comfortable rejecting the Torah and Judaism as separate from Yeshua, what he taught, and to worship Yeshua as God.

There are many out there who will find this message not just disturbing, but maybe even blasphemous, and that is too bad. I doubt many Gentile Believers who were raised Christian (any denomination) can understand how a Jewish person, Believer or not, feels reading this gospel. The other Gospels are fine because they don’t hate Jews, but the Gospel of John is full of subtle, Jew-hating terminology.

If it was up to me, I would throw the Gospel of John, along with nearly all the Epistles of Shaul (Paul) out of the New Covenant. I would keep Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Romans, Hebrews, James, and Revelation, and deep-six the rest, or have them in a separate volume, like the Apocrypha.

I hope that no one is offended, but I understand there might be a sense of wanting to defend this gospel because, well, you just need to! “Why?” “Because, that’s why!”

If that’s how you feel, maybe you should consider why you feel that way. I mean, really, if the Gospel of John is verifiable and hermeneutically validated as scripture, you wouldn’t need to say “because” as the reason to defend it, because “because” is not a reason. 

That’s my message for today. It is my opinion, you do not have to agree, but if you do agree, I would appreciate you letting me know with a “Like” or something similar, even a comment. And if you think I am out of my mind, please comment as well, but be nice.

In the meantime, thank you for being here; please share these messages (if you dare), and until the next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

חג שמח! Chag Sameach!

Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate this joyous holiday.

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The Torah parashah for this Shabbat is called Vayeshev, which relates the story of Joseph. It begins with Israel giving him the coat of many colors, how he tells his brothers of his dreams showing he will rule over them one day which leads, along with other reasons, to his brother’s plot to destroy him, to him being sold into slavery in Egypt. While a slave, he is unjustly accused by his master’s wife, thrown into jail, and while there he interprets the dreams of the Pharaoh’s Baker and Cupbearer. The parashah ends with how the Cupbearer, after being restored to his post as Joseph saw in his dream, forgets to mention Joseph to the Pharaoh.

I think, though, instead of the parashah, I would like to talk with you about Hanukkah. After all, we all know the story of Joseph, but how many really know about Hanukkah?

You won’t find the story anywhere in the Tanakh, and it’s only mentioned, briefly, in the New Covenant. The places you will find the story of Hanukkah, which is told in the Books of the Maccabees (there were originally supposed to be five books, but they have been condensed into two), is in the Talmud, Septuagint, and the Apocrypha, and the only place you will find the Apocrypha included with scripture is in a Catholic Bible.

In the first book of the Maccabees, we are told how Antiochus IV Epiphanes was continuing the program called Hellenization, which was started about 1-1/2 Centuries earlier by Alexander the Great. Hellenization is the replacement of all cultures with that of the Greeks, and so in Judea, under Antiochus, circumcision and any other Jewish ritual or worship was strictly forbidden. He sacrificed pigs on the altar in the Temple of Solomon, which is the abomination that causes desecration Daniel prophesied about.

One of the generals, in a town called Modein, was enforcing these laws and as one of the priests of the town was converting to the Greek religion, the father of the Maccabees, Mattathias, became zealous for God and killed the priest, as well as the soldiers of the king. After this act of rebellion, he and his 5 sons hid in the desert, and as word got around he gained followers who wanted to rid Judea of the Seleucid rule.

Eventually, there was a full-out rebellion, and these Jewish farmers and shepherds, with little more than pitchforks, hoes, and other farming implements, fought against what was probably the best armed and most experienced professional army the world knew at that time. Imagine a man with a sharpened stick going against an elephant wearing armor plating on its body and archers sitting on its back. That would be like you or I standing in the way of an Abrams tank!

And the real miracle of Hanukkah doesn’t have to do with a lamp but is the fact that we won!

The temple was cleansed and ritual purification was to begin, with the relighting of the Ner Tamid, the Eternal Light that was never supposed to be extinguished.

Now, here is where the story is embellished with Jewish mythology from the Babylonian Talmud: there is no mention of oil lasting 8 days anywhere in the books of the Maccabees. According to legend, there was only one day’s worth of ritually purified oil for the Ner Tamid, but it miraculously burned for 8 days, which was just the right amount of time needed to produce more ritually pure oil. This is why we light the Hanukkiah (it is not a menorah) with a new candle every night during the 8 nights of Hanukkah. The ninth candle, which is called the Shamash (leader) is used to light the other candles as we recite the prayer for the Hanukkah candles:

Bah-rookh ah-tah ah-doh-noi, eh-loh-hay-noo meh-lekh hah-oh-lahm, ah-sher ki-deh-shah-noo beh-mitz-voh-tahv, veh-tzee-vah-noo, leh-hahd-lik nayr, shel kha-noo-kah
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Chanukah light.

The second book of the Maccabees is a continuation of the story and outlines the events after the initial rebellion, the leadership by the oldest Maccabee, Judas, and how he restored Jewish rule and freedom of worship in Judea. It also tells of the eventual plots against the Maccabees, resulting in they’re being deposed by the very people they saved.

There are also a number of atrocities outlined in these books regarding the torture of the Jews who refused to accept the Greek religion. When Antiochus heard of a rebellion, his army slaughtered some 40,000 men, women, and children, and another 40,000 were enslaved.

One story from 2 Maccabees is about a woman with 7 sons. They were told they had to eat pork but each refused, being tortured to death, one-by-one, with their mother watching. As the last son refused, it is told how the general even begged the mother to tell her son to comply so she wouldn’t have to lose all her children. Instead of telling her son to eat the pork, she told him not to eat the pork so that the death of the other sons was not for nothing.

Other stories of torture include ripping pregnant women apart, sliding men down a ramp with sharp knives along the way, whippings, cutting out of tongues, hands being cut off, and roasting people alive on a metal pan over a burning hot fire.

Ouch!

But, despite the torture, the desire by the populace to do what is right in God’s eyes, even to the point of death, is what the Greeks faced, although there were many who turned from the faith. Eventually, God came to the aid of his people when they rebelled against this evil.

There are some who refuse to celebrate Hanukkah simply because it isn’t commanded in the Tanakh, even though they recognize it is meant to glorify God. That is their choice, and I suspect they don’t celebrate Purim or Simchat Torah, either, since neither of those holidays are commanded. And, again, I don’t want to originate a discussion about whether or not you should celebrate Hanukkah or Purim or Christmas or Easter, or whatever- frankly, if it isn’t commanded to be celebrated, then it is a personal choice.

Today we see a similar sort of evil in America: not that there is a king taking away our ritual worship and torturing people, but there is a growing societal conversion from morality and righteousness to selfishness and the condoning, actually more than that, the enthusiastic supporting of sinfulness.

Have you noticed that in family-oriented commercials now there is almost always a same-sex couple? Have you heard about how already there are some states that don’t just allow abortion, but now they are able to kill the child after it has been born if the abortion failed!

Hello, Molech- welcome back!

The recent pandemic has been turned into a political weapon, and instead of helping people cope with it, many of our country’s leaders are using it to shut down businesses and cause fear, with which they can control the populace.

There is no temple in Jerusalem suffering the abomination that causes desecration, but we can see it in our society! I won’t go off on a rampage here, and I don’t want to initiate any political battles, but it is clear to anyone who knows anything about the Lord, God that our society is not all that far away from what Antiochus was trying to do some 200 or so years before the Messiah came, which was to remove all God-fearing worship and lifestyle from the society.

Hanukkah is a joyous celebration of the miraculous overthrow by God-fearing people of a corrupted and evil government, and I have to wonder: couldn’t we use a Mattathias or a Judas Maccabee, today?

Thank you for being here; please subscribe, share these messages with everyone you know, and I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!