Christians vs. Messianic Jews vs. Orthodox Jews | The Bridge

This episode brings together Christian women, Messianic Jewish women, and Orthodox Jewish women for a thoughtful and respectful conversation about faith, scripture, Jewish identity, the Messiah, covenant, and the interpretation of God's promises. Although all three groups deeply value the Hebrew scriptures and share many common biblical foundations, they differ significantly on questions surrounding the identity of the Messiah, the authority of the New Testament, the continuing role of the Mosaic law, and what it means to faithfully follow God today. The goal of this conversation is to create space for honest dialogue, challenge misconceptions, explore theological differences, and better understand the beliefs that shape each tradition. Through personal testimony, biblical discussion, and open conversation, participants will examine where their beliefs overlap and where they fundamentally diverge. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Daff. Welcome to The Bridge. Welcome, ladies.

>> Hi.

>> Hi.

>> Hi. Just go ahead and introduce yourselves.

>> My name is Shanasa and I'm a Christian.

>> I'm Kalia and I'm a Christian.

>> I'm Ariel. I'm a Messianic Jew, Jewish follower of Jesus.

>> I'm Regina and I'm a Messianic Jew.

>> I'm Courtney and I'm Messianic.

>> Kylie, Orthodox Jewish.

>> Hi, Esther. I'm an Orthodox Jew.

>> Oh, all right. Well, happy that you're here. Very excited for this conversation. The first prompt is you can't truly be Jewish and believe Jesus is the Messiah at the same time. All right, anyone can jump in.

>> Um, well, I'll start. So, I think you can be Jewish and believe like there are Jews that uh don't believe in Hashem at all. Hashem means the name. Um, so I think just believing in a particular individual to be the Messiah or the Messiah does not negate your Judaism or does not negate your Jewishness. If you're born to a Jewish mother, you're Jewish. Even if you if you don't believe in anything, if you're atheist, if you believe even like an apostate Jew that like God is a rock, you're still Jewish because you're Jewish if you convert or you're Jewish by your mother. So for that reason, I would say no.

>> I agree. It's a faith and it's, you know, if you take a DNA test, you'll see it's Jewish. It's an ethno religion. Kind of like the Drews in Israel are also like that. Um, and I'm a convert. So, I chose to be by faith. I did a hakic, which is a legal conversion. And as long as when you convert in your heart, um, you're going to keep the the 613 commandments, then you are Jewish. So, yes, as long as your maternal line is Jewish, then you're Jewish. And then the tribe goes by the father.

>> Okay. Yeah, I would say the existence of Messianic Jews, you know, debunks that first claim. And even, you know, uh Paul and the first disciples were Jewish followers of Jesus. So, absolutely, you can be despite what your faith is. I do think that, uh, faith and culture are intertwined very deeply. And so I think a part of it it is a bit grievous that there is such a separation between the secular Jew and Judaism the faith because we know that God established a religion with Abraham and then from that generations came from him. So I would love to see that reconciliation of those two things because I think that's how God always intended it to be. Um but obviously you cannot strip someone of their ethnic background.

>> So just for conversation purposes can you explain what is a Messianic Jew?

>> We're Jewish people that believe Jesus is the Messiah of our people. And I agree with a lot of what has been shared. You know, we're Jewish because we're born Jewish. And we're Jewish because God made a covenant with the Jewish people. And even in times in our history, like in the Tanakh when we worshiped idols, it didn't matter if we were unfaithful, he was always faithful to us. And so whatever Jewish people may believe, God is still faithful to the calling that he has on our people.

>> Thank you. And can you explain what is an Orthodox Jew?

>> So, I don't really like the term orthodox because I think that it basically just means that orthodox Jew means that we believe that the Torah, which we would say is the five books of Moses and the Tanakh, which you mentioned, which is the whole what you would call the Old Testament, we believe that that is true and that it hasn't changed and that we as Jews have a um responsibility or our path is to try to keep those commandments as best as we can to stay close to God. not as a means of salvation just as a means of attaching oursel to God and that's the way our soul was designed.

>> Thank you. So question I know we talked about the ancestry and the faith in terms of um being Jewish in casting we came up we came across an issue where some Orthodox Jews did not want to have a conversation with Messianic Jews and they felt that it was offensive saying that the Messianic Jews are not really Jews. Um, which was interesting because there can be an atheist who is a Jew and they're still considered a Jew. So, can anyone speak to that?

>> I mean, personally, I don't know any Orthodox Jew that would say that a Messianic Jew is not a Jew unless the maternal line is not that their mom is not Jewish all the way going back because that's really the only definition that Judaism has of a Jew.

>> Would you say the same because we did come across it a few times. Is that something that you've heard within the community that they don't consider the Messianic Jews to be?

>> No, I've never heard that. U maybe they just didn't want to get into a debate, but um no. uh as long as the maternal line or you have a a valid conversion then you're

>> maybe what they mean is they're not practicing Judaism in the way that we would because I mean you guys can speak to this but a lot of Messianic Jews that I personally know for example don't keep kosher don't keep Shabbat they're more leaning towards the Christian side of tradition than the Jewish side of tradition I don't know if you guys want to comment on that.

>> yeah oh go ahead please

>> I also believe that uh because because of all the history of the church with the Jews Jews in the beginning the Jews they understand that we need they need to convert ourselves to understand that oh we need to deny all Jewish identity and prove that now we follow the Christian God. So how a Jewish person can understand this is a Jewish thing and say you you continue to be Jewish following the the following Jesus. So I don't think it's something that they want to deny our identity. is something that in their minds they understand oh the history you need to convert to another religion and deny your Jewish identity. So this maybe the one of the reasons why they think this.

>> Okay.

>> And we wouldn't consider ourselves I I think I don't want to speak for all of you but most messianic Jews that I know we wouldn't consider ourselves having converted to another religion. we would believe were following in the footsteps of Jesus who was a devout Jew, his first followers who you know were Jews and continued to live as Jews and follow him as Messiah.

>> right?

>> I would agree.

>> Understandable. So if a Jew accepts Jesus as Messiah but continues observing Jewish traditions and identity, why would that person cease to be Jewish?

>> They wouldn't don't.

>> They wouldn't. On one's a Jew, always a Jew, you can't get rid of it.

>> Sorry. Some people try.

>> Yeah. Well, I have actually had a lot of push back. I I have videos on my platform regarding this. Um, basically, you kind of have to dive into the literature because it's a lot as what she was saying that, well, you're not really Jews like we're Jews. Like, don't you're not sham shabas like you you what do you mean you don't eat like kashroot and and all of this? You sound like a Christian. You're laring as a Jew or something is what you'll hear. But they know at the core of like Kabala even you have a Jewish soul. So there are things that are inherent and intrinsic into Judaism that says you cannot unjue yourself even if you're apostate, you're a min, you're a kofheer, you're something else, right? And so I think a lot of the push back is is because of Jesus. It's because like you could say, well, I believe in a different like I believe the Rebi is Msiah and people say that's crazy, but they're not going to say you're not Jewish.

>> Yeah.

>> So

>> yeah, I agree with that. I think a a lot of it gets to the heart of the issue which is the fact that this is a spiritual conversation and a lot of people may not realize that their biases or their predispositions or their culture prevents them from seeing things I would say rightly because I don't have a firsthand perspective but I've seen your videos. I've seen things online. I listen to a lot of testimonies of Jewish people that have found Christ and declared him to be their Messiah and they've been ostracized and it's it's specific to the point of of Jesus. In fact, there was one show I watched and um or one testimony and he was like you can't um he was talking to his um daughter, you can't convert to the religion that thinks we killed their Messiah. So, it was like a personal thing. And so I feel like a lot of times I thank God that you guys don't have that perspective. But the common perspective I see is that

>> it's an animosity and a vitriol specific to Jesus.

>> Well, like you say that has something to do with the history of Jews being persecuted by Christians. And maybe they're not real Christians in the sense that you guys are, but there is that history. But I feel like we're all here today because we love God. We love the word of God. We all have much more in common than what we have different. We basically just have a difference of opinion of like how to approach God and just theological debates around who the Messiah is. Otherwise, we we really are pretty much have everything in common. And as far as we see as Jews, like with Christians, you are our brothers and sisters and we love you.

>> I appreciate that.

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The next prompt is the doctrine of the trinity is supported by the Hebrew scriptures.

>> Okay. I said no. Anyone can anyone can start.

>> This is one of my favorite topics to discuss. And I think that when you read scripture, if genuinely, when I say scripture, I'm referring to Hebrew scripture or what I would call Old Testament, I don't think you can come away with the idea that God is an indivisible monatic God. There's a lot of ways to approach it. Of course, we've been doing these conversations more often, so my perspective has broadened. Even the perspective that I like to hear your thoughts on is the very fact that we all believe God is love. Would you guys agree with that?

>> Mhm.

>> And so obviously we also believe that God doesn't change is that and so I always find it interesting when talking to someone who has a perspective that God is a singular monatic God how they can justify him being love and also not changing because for him to be love he would have to have been that for all of eternity. But when you think about that obviously this is philosophical this is not my point about the Hebrew scriptures which I'm going to get into but for him to be love he would have had to be love for all of eternity. When we have the concept of the trinity, we understand that he could have always been love because he was loving um within the godhead. And out of that love, he created creation. Otherwise, no one could be able to tell me why a singular monatic god who's fully sufficient would say, "hm, I'm bored. I think I'm going to create humans. I'm lonely. I think I'm going to create humans." There's no justifiable reason for someone who is or for God who is indivisible, has everything he needs to decide to create us if it's born out of love. So, that's a proposition that I would like to hear your thoughts on specifically and then I I don't want to hog it because I can go all day about this. Then I can maybe present some verses if if if time allows.

>> You want to go?

>> No, you go.

>> Um, first of all, I love the word monatic. I don't even know what it means.

>> I just picked Oh, man. I picked that up along the way. I don't talk like that, but I got hammered for saying strictly monotheistic once like you're not a monotheist. I'm like, I am a monotheist. I believe in one God expressed in three persons. So now I have to pick up this philosophical jargon and that's not even how I really speak. So I'm with you.

>> Yeah. Monotheistic. Yeah. So God created human beings to have an authentic relationship with us is what I learned or Hashem. Um, and then uh he at first it was uh tit fortat. You know you do something wrong, something bad happens, you do something right, something good happens. That was an inauthentic relationship where we didn't have free will. So then that changed after the flood because it wasn't working.

>> the fall

>> and then what were you gonna say?

>> The flood.

>> The flood. Okay.

>> Okay.

>> So on a very deep level what you're saying I think according to Jewish kabala and I have to say disclaimer. I'm not a rabbi. I don't understand all these things. I haven't studied for seven years. But there is a concept that God is multi-dimensional. He has many attributes like he is kind. He is gracious. He's forgiving. He's also just. God holds many things all together. The whole universe is part of God. But as far as Judaism goes, um, you know, it's really hard to describe God because we don't believe that God is a person. So you can't put God into a box like like that. But we believe that God is a one as in like the Schma is the central saying of Judaism which comes from Deuteronomy. It says Israel, Adonai, eloh Adonai here, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Now that one is like one as in like one, two, three. It's not you know one as in like a unity. It's one. So we don't believe in many gods like Hindus you know potentially have you know version of Jud version of their religion that has many gods. And then there is um a scripture which makes it pretty clear in the beginning. I know you guys are probably going to say what about the verses in Genesis where it says let us make man in our image. Okay. So the Hebrew says now let us make man in our image manu our in Hebrew. But then it goes on to say um and he God and God is not a person again. He he created bar singular he man in his image mo his not and they created God in their image. So what does that mean? We have a let us and then we have he the singular created god in his image. So the let us um is actually discussion between God and the angels. That's our commentary. God is discussing with the angels. Should we make man? How is this going to turn out? And there's a debate between the angels. The angels are saying, two of the angels are saying, yes, God, man is going to be good. Man is going to be kind and just. And then the other angels saying, "No, no, no. Man is going to be evil and wicked. Don't create man." And so that's a conversation between God and man. And then God listens to what the angels have to say. And then he says, "Okay, I'm going to make man in my im my image."

>> Question. Is there a scripture? Are there scriptures?

>> Genesis 1:26 and 27.

>> Mhm.

>> Yeah. There's there's actually

>> Oh, sorry. Those scriptures are are speaking about him speaking with angels.

>> Yeah, that's our commentary, our understanding.

>> That's your understanding. Okay.

>> So, it's interesting. Um, in Telman McGill 9A through 9b, it actually comment it speaks about what the brighter says with regards to this. So when uh in the Torah whenever it was translated what we commonly refer to today as the Septuagent um when they when the rabbis they translated it oral essentially the sages it went into a different language. And so what they did in those points they altered the text when it goes from the Hebrew into the Greek because now the nations can read this Tanakh in their own language and it would appear as though there was more than one god. So like um berit you can actually parse this out differently. It could actually mean in rashit god created. So now we have a question because you go to proverbs 8 and we have a rashit there as well. And now we have a question. So who is rasheed and who is Elohim? Who is the god? And are they the one and the same god or are they different persons? And so the Britza commentates on this and uh so as she was saying the common standard uh answer from Judaism is why is it why is there a plurality here? It's divine counsel. Right? The only problem that I have with that is never in the Tanakh are angels ever said to be created in the image of Hashem. Correct? In the image of God. So now what we're doing is we're just making up an answer so to speak where the Tanakh is silent. I'm okay with that as long as we make that clear. The Tanakh does not say that angels or any divine entity outside of Hashem is created in the image of Hashem. Only humans are said to be created in the image of Hashem.

>> Correct. Well, the verse says, "Let us, the angels, make man in our image." It doesn't say that the angels are created in God's image. It says man is created in God's image.

>> I wanted to piggyback on that. um let us make man in our image couldn't be to um an angel as far as incorporating them into that conversation because if God didn't need the angels to create the angels or why would he need the angels to create creation it doesn't logically follow.

>> and then this verse or similar usages are found all throughout Isaiah 68 is the one that I meditated on recently and it says and I heard the voice of the Lord a singular voice saying who shall we send to go for us? Again, angels are messengers. So angels could not be in that from have that vantage point. Angels are the messengers that will be going for God. So in any context, you never see anything in scripture that allows angels to be co-creators or co-deliberators. They are messengers. They're sent to deliver messages. So it would never make sense even from a logical standpoint for them to help create creation or send message.

>> You're 100% correct. And that's why the verse the discussion is let us and I'll explain why there's a discussion with angels and then it doesn't say the angels created doesn't say they it says he God created man so it's very clear only God created man.

>> the reason why this discussion happens is because angels are divine beings and the our commentary says that God considered Hashem our God considered the feelings of the angels because they were the only ones worshiping and serving him so he didn't want them to be jealous when man came into creation because we also have the spark of God within us. So that's why it was a consideration of God to his servants, the angels that he was discussing with them should he make man.

>> I really think that the difference in perspective on God between Judaism and Christianity in this way is is frankly a bit exaggerated because Christians are as you said strictly monotheistic. We believe in one God. Jews are strictly monotheistic. As Jews, we affirm the shama with all our hearts. But it's a very Jewish idea that God is dynamic and that God is in heaven and then sometimes also revealing himself specific ways for specific times. And it's not one one verse, it's hundreds of verses throughout the Tanakh where it talks about God's spirit rested on someone in a unique specific way. But we we understand God is still in heaven even though he's >> you know in the burning bush or he's revealing his form to Moses in in numbers 12. Right? So this is a very Jewish idea that God does not divide into multiple parts. He's one and yet he can be God in heaven omnipresent while at the same time in a specific place acting in a unique way for a certain time.

>> Yeah. And I wanted to make a commentary on Deuteronomy 6:4 as well because the word that's described to the word that's used to describe God is elenu and it ends in that ingu possessive plural suffix. We see that same possessive plural suffix for the word fathers for instance or kings throughout numbers. So the idea that God is monatic

>> and not multi-personal is doesn't follow the god the Yahweh of scripture that we see. I think of Zechariah 1:3 when Zechariah says that he saw Joshua and the high priest and the angel of the Lord and the Lord said I rebuke you Satan. The angel of the Lord and the Lord in the very following verse are the same subject. So then we have to do something with this multi-personality. Who is this angel of the Lord and who's the Lord that's rebuking Satan in the very next

>> right

>> verse. And also I want to focus a little bit in when you when it say I understand is one

>> but it's also a compounded one.

>> Yes.

>> And if you look to the scriptures the the when God said make uh man and woman become one flesh. The same word one flesh is a hat. Mhm.

>> And all the time God refer uh refers to himself, he used the plural

>> and he never used the word yah that it's just one to describe himself. And my moment when he talks about uh who God is in the 30 principle of faith, he says that God is and God never calling himself always a so why he needed to redefine God essential to talk about God. I love that question because I was going to bring up the Rambam's commentary as well because th this is really the Sephora we mentioned right um but the Rambam he really took away the caporeal as aspect of Hashem essentially um he drew a lot from like the Islamic paradigm >> uh the Rambam did but again like she said the word is and also we need to note that the word is not which is ones that means ones so like the word is used in the book of Ezekiel yeco. The point that we see here is you can have one or you can have ones which are separate. Like if I give you three dollar bills, I give you three ones. But if I give you $1 bill, I give you one. And so the trinity doesn't say that there are three gods. It says that there is one God represented by three persons. So, I think you're hitting the nail on the head here, which is that we agree with you that God is God and the purpose of God is all about unity between us and God, between creation and us. The ultimate purpose of God in life is harmony, unity, love. Okay? So, you could say there are many different manifestations of God. We would agree with you on that. The biggest point of difference that we come to is when it comes to can God be a man or can a man be God? And that's when it really comes down to Jesus. And that's where we would fundamentally disagree and say that a human could never ever have the infinite, never be the infinity that God is. And that's why, you know, the first commandment is, you know, I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt. It's a very clear definition. I'm the God who took you out the out of Egypt, not someone that comes later. And it says, you shall have no other gods before me. Like God loves us. He's a jealous God. It's very clear also in numbers 23 I forget the exact verse. It says crystal clear >> numbers 239 >> it says God is not a man that he should lie >> nor a son of man. God it's clear God is not a man that exactly you have to be consistent because in numbers it is speaking about God's faithfulness since he didn't want to curse Israel in light of Bao's request. If you conclude that that's a literal definition, then you have to go two books before and conclude in Exodus 15:3 when it says the Lord is a man of war, that he was a man in Exodus and that he decided no longer to become a man in numbers. And that's not >> No, it's an analogy. It's an >> So why would you think that ex Exodus is an analogy, which I agree with you is showing that he set them free from Egypt in a mighty way with a mighty hand. It gives physical descriptions to him. But we don't conclude that this is uh literal or has to be literal. But yet, when it comes to Numbers 23:19, that's like the go-to verse to try to dispel Jesus being God and it's not a consistent reading because again, if it's an analogy here, why is it not an analogy here?

>> I do want to ask this question here. Um, if the Trinity is supported by Hebrew scriptures, why is it not stated as explicitly as the Lord is one in Deuteronomy 6:4?

>> I would say it doesn't have to be stated explicitly, but it also is. Um, I know uh for I don't I know you said orthodox Jews you don't prefer, but for your from your perspective, I believe that uh the oral Torah is very central to your belief, but there's no scripture in the Torah or the Tanakh that esteems any any existence of an oral Torah. So, I think with every faith group, there is something that's not explicit to the text, but they honor and reveal and it's central to them. However, there's a distinction with the Trinity because I can rattle off verses all day and probably overwhelm you that show that there is a multi-personal nature to God. And I don't believe that every doctrine has to say X, Y, and Z. And I believe that even in your practice, you guys won't necessarily live that out because you esteem certain things that are not explicit in the Torah either.

>> So, I think you misunderstand the oral tradition. You're also welcome to comment because I'm talking a lot here.

>> Sorry, Kylie. But there it is specifically written that um God gave the Torah to Moses and it actually says Torah, two Toras. It doesn't say one Torah. So what is the two Torah talking about? It's the oral Torah which is the what's written down and then the given Torah. So the oral Torah is basically just commentary. So it's written that the Torah was given to Moses, then to Joshua, then to the elders. This is the chain of tradition and command that God himself commanded. then to the um Sanhedrin the anchessad and then that was written down. So there are certain things in the Torah like Kyle you can speak to this that cannot be explained without commentary and th those traditions are passed you have to understand everything was passed down from Moses there there there we have some rabbis whose rabbis rabbis rabbis rabbis rabbis rabbis rabbis go all the way back to Moses I don't know how you can get more connected to the Torah.

>> yeah I think that actually substantiates Chanessa's point her point is that uh the Hebrew Bible doesn't need to blatantly say that Hashem is a trinity right for what you just said that there's commentary to shab oral Torah is what you're saying based on the word toot plural. Um she's basically saying the same thing. It doesn't have to be verbatim >> to derive it to pull it from the text.

>> Well, and let's be clear, the word trinity is not a word that's in the Bible. It's a word that people studying the Bible used later to describe a pattern that we see over and over in the scriptures. And we have uh you know many similar ideas in Judaism like the idea of shikina you know God's god's glory revealed in a specific place for a specific purpose. It's not a word in the text but it's a word rabbis later used to name a pattern that we see over and over. And actually, it's a very very similar line of thought that we believe as well with the dynamic nature of God, God the Father, God's spirit. And I think you actually made a great point that in some way this conversation leads us ultimately to Jesus because we agree that there's God in heaven who's our father. We believe that God's spirit is at work in the world. The scriptures are clear. And so then why does this even come up? because Jesus, is he God? Is it possible? And I think that if he's not God, it causes a lot of questions and challenges for us in as Jewish people.

>> Mhm.

>> Um we absolutely need the oral law as well. There's just some things that, for instance, men putting on to fill in every day that you would not be able to know exactly what to do without the oral law. Shabbat's another one. Um, a lot of people I hear from who leave Judaism or, you know, they're still Jewish, but they learn just the basic uh, written Torah and then no commentary on it. So, if you look at it that way, God is angry. You know, God needs your praise all the time. You have to learn that we're assigning human things to God to understand him. And that um, in terms of uh, God needing our praise all the time, that's for us to be thankful. We're supposed to thank him multiple times per day. Um, and I want to go back to something you said about God appearing at certain times. Um, God is with us at all times. He's everywhere all at once. So, um, I don't know if you believe that as well, but he doesn't just appear at certain times. Um, like I was an atheist, uh, before I converted because I thought that, um, miracles didn't happen anymore because if you read the Bible, you're like, "This is crazy and this doesn't happen anymore. There's no flooding. There's no nothing like that." Um, we learned that there's miracles happening constantly.

>> So I think we agree because I and that and that's actually what I am driving towards is that God is omnipresent with us and when he acts in a particular location for a particular moment like the burning bush is an incredible example. It doesn't take away from the fact that he's everywhere. Both can be possible at the same time because of God's unbelievably complex dynamic.

>> Call that a physical manifestation of his correct. Yeah. He can manifest as a man if he can manifest in a bush. I do want to just bring this up because it is something that comes up often times where people are talking about scripture. Could be even like a a pastor talking about something and saying, "Well, actually, if you read um the the Hebrew scriptures, it says it like this and it maybe draws like a deeper meaning than we would have previously assumed." And so, speaking of those Hebrew scriptures, do you believe that the Torah loses important meaning when read only in translation?

>> Million% much more than a million%. There are many mistransations and a lot of I'm sorry to say this, Christian theology or messianic theology diverges because of mistransations. I'll give you one specific example. Okay? So I just want to say that um Judaism has passed down the same Torah. Every single letter, not one letter has changed in the Torah for thousands of years. If you're in a synagogue and there's they find a letter that's wrong, they literally close up the scroll, put it away, and it's done. If you make a mistake in the Torah, that part of the Torah, it's it's considered like invalid. So, Jews have been very careful to keep the exact same letters of the Torah for thousands and thousands of years. Now, I'll give you one example of a mistranslation. Okay? In Psalm 22:18 or 16, I think it is. It says it's talking about King David and it's he's talking about his enemies surrounding him like dogs. And it says so um like dogs and then it says uh camo y which means and they surrounded me like a lion. They surrounded my hands and feet like a lion. Now my son is 5 years old and they go to school and they learn Hebrew in every single letter from the beginning. Now my son would tell you that K is like and is like a line. There's no other translation for it. Now the Christians interpret it as now there's a big difference between audience pierced. So they say they translate the whole verse that um he surrounded them and they pierced his hands and feet. It's just not in the Hebrew.

>> But in the Dead Sea Scrolls,

>> it actually affirms the translation of the word pierced. And this

>> we we don't believe in the Dead Sea Scrolls. We don't use the Dead Sea Scrolls. Well, I I

>> that would be a denial of historical artifacts.

>> No, we we have the same Torah that we have kept and follow for thousands of years.

>> The Dead Sea Scrolls actually help to uh justify the Torah that you have.

>> Well, but even if you'd reject the Dead Sea Scrolls, which as as authoritative, I think the point is that it's a it's a manuscript from before the time of Jesus, right?

>> Before the and before you could say Christians changed it to make it sound like Jesus, right? somebody who was a scribe, who was a Jew, translated it that way at that time. And so it's just not I don't think um historically accurate to say that Christians change.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, it's not the accepted it's not the accepted version of the Torah.

>> We agree it's not in the Masura. We agree. Um, but the fact that there is a Msora in in general is a knee-jerk reaction to Christendom. Okay. What do we mean by this? The maseretic text came long after the time of Jesus. Okay? So we had what is commonly referred to as the protomaseretic text which is the mother text for what became uh the maseretic text for the masserites to write in the vowel points etc so on and so forth because Tanakh prior to never had any vowel points. So when you would read a text you don't even know if you're reading fat or you're reading milk right because that changes the word in Hebrew is changing with vowel pointings. Now you said that the Tanakh has stayed the same not according to Jewish literature. Telman McGill 98 through9B is a very important passage where Jews themselves rebinic Jews acknowledged that they altered the text not the Hebrew text but the Septuagent when it translated. Rabbi Barim also speaks about this. So we have handed down traditions that are filtered to us by Khazal or the great Christian sages so to speak church fathers etc that came before us. So what we need to I think we what we need to do is we need to look at both of these texts as she presented the Dead Sea Scrolls comes before the Maseretic text. So our text is actually older than yours.

>> But what we're saying is that whatever other texts you have, we don't have them. Ours has been the same and will continue to be the same and we use the same. It's been the same in synagogue for thousands and thousands of years. We don't have multiple versions. There are 150 different versions of the Christian Bible

>> translations. There are over 150 translations of the Christian Bible.

>> Christianity is larger thanitations from the manuscript.

>> So you're definitely going to have like you have Spanish Christians, you have Jewish Christians. Of course, we have different like like I'm sure you could find your your native tongue in the

>> I I disagree that uh the Judaism just use the same translation because if you think about the oral law itself was the major text was written in Aramaic, not in Hebrew.

>> That you're talking about the oral Torah. I'm talking about the Torah, the actual written word of God.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I know. No, but but you're saying that the oral law has the same divine Torah, the Torah, the the written Torah, and has been given to Moses in the same time in the mount of Sinai. So for the Jewish Orthodox Jews is the same thing.

>> Not exactly.

>> I know. that has a divine ju just let me finish this because the daro the word that you mentioned is also use it in Zechariah 12 when they they say that that they will look at me the one who they look they look at me the one who they pierce and the tamu the oralah itself understand this passage has the messiah the messiah bi ysef by raid doen

>> mhm so we are not changing words to try to create a messiah anymore

>> I mean I I don't think you can take the oral Torah and say that it's supporting the Jesus is the messiah because it's not

>> if you look at the the totality of it like she's talking about right which is different than saying like the kaf which means like and then which means lion you have a yod and you have a vav and it's not that different right a yod if you continue down a little too far

>> not if you continue down too far

>> it's a difference between like an i and a l it's completely

>> no I understand I understand but I'm saying the way that it's written so if you continue and go down too far if the scribe went down too far now you're going is this a v or is this a yoke?

>> Okay.

>> And the problem really fast. The problem is the standardizing of the Tanakh did not come like Rabbi Natan was considered like it was sacrilegious for him to label uh verses. We didn't have labeling. There was no standardizing of the text. Once standardization came in, now we look back anacronistically and we say, "Oh, this would never happen. A rabbi would never make a yod go down too far." That's just not what we see in.

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The next prompt is the mosaic law was never intended to be permanent.

>> This is a meant

>> I know.

>> I'm going to let you go ahead and explain how you feel about it. Go ahead, whoever feels strongly.

>> It's definitely meant to be permanent and not to be replaced by anything. It came from God. And Orthodox Jews um believe that God gave it to Moshe Moses and uh that he wrote it out for us. So um if if something came from man, I wouldn't believe it. If something comes from God, I'm going to believe it and I'm going to believe it forever.

>> I just want to say that it's different to say that uh God never pretended his laws being permanent than say Moses covenant didn't pretend to be to be uh for uh forever. Like we are not talking about God is still is holy and we still must follow his laws. The difference is not his law. The difference we are talking here is about the covenant.

>> No.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. I I think so this is where it's going to be a very difficult question to answer because like I absolutely do think and this is going to be different than I think some of the mainstream Christian position here. I do believe according to the book of Ezekiel um in we have eight very detailed chapters where um there's going to be a new temple and there's going to be sacrifices. But one thing that I find interesting that a lot of Christians are not privy to is that if you search the entirety of those chapters where these sacrifices are given, it's never said to be for forgiveness. The word in Hebrew for forgiveness in its root is salah. And yet that word is never used. In the Torah it's used, but it's never used there. So what does that tell me? That tells me something very theological has happened. That means we have forgiveness. And I believe obviously that forgiveness is in Christ. And so why is it that the prophet is saying yes there will be uh animal sacrifices but not for forgiveness because you can draw near. That's the correct. Yeah. And so you have to have when you have a holy space again Moshe take off your sandals for the ground on which you walk is holy. So wherever Hashem is, where he dwells, that's a holy space. And if we are in human bodies, we have to be clean. We have to have that atonement to cover, but it won't be for forgiveness. So in that way, I think there is still there's going to be laws, but the redeemer, as she said, the covenant is going to be different. We have a new redeemer, a better redeemer.

>> Okay. I would like to hear from Chanessa or one of you ladies.

>> Yeah, I was just going to say it's not that we believe the Mosaic law um is inept anymore. We believe that the Mosaic law

was perfected in the new covenant of Jesus Christ. So the Mosaic law is the prior. The new covenant that we're in is the continuation of what God created in the Old Testament with his people, that he would set up an everlasting covenant.

Um, in Zechariah, Zechariah 12, I believe he talks about 12-14 is prophecy. He talks about how there's going to be a redeemer of the land, but there's also going to be a redeemer of sin, and that he would take away the iniquity of people. So it shows us that God has created a covenant that intends to go through eternity, but it starts one way and ends another way to accomplish atonement and to accomplish the sacrifice of sins.

I just wanted to say something to that. I agree that, um, the Mosaic covenant given at Sinai, it's not necessarily original to Sinai because there are parts of it that you see prior to Sinai. Like, Cain killed Abel, and you didn't need, they knew murder was wrong. You didn't need to put it on a stone to say, "Thou shalt not murder." Eve coveted when she looked at the tree. Correct? You didn't need to have the ninth commandment.

Joseph knew that it was wrong for adultery. You didn't need the seventh commandment. And so, I believe those commandments are consistent because they reflect God's moral character. The 613 mitzvah that you spoke of earlier were for a specific time. Stands the moral, I have a very nuanced and I can go all day. Stands the moral, uh, things that reflect God's character and the systems that God put in place so that we can dwell with him, which we believe were fulfilled through Christ. So I do believe that the moral commands are still enforced. I do not believe the remaining 613 mitzvah are still applicable to us, or even you. I don't even believe you guys can live that out. I don't ever think that that's logical. When people tell me like, there's 613 mitzvot, I'm like, "Okay, so then are you constantly in violation of this because there's no way that you're doing all of those mitzvot?"

Well, I'd love to speak to that. There's two different in two different ways. Um, so yes, first of all, we don't believe that the New Testament, Old Testament, it's just Torah for us. Um, and we can't fulfill all the mitzvot right now, the mitzvot, um, because we don't have our temple, right? So when the temple comes back, yes, we don't even know what we're missing. That's what we're told. And if we did, we would be devastated. Um, but mitzvot are a ladder. They're a way to get closer to God. Um, so that's how a lot of us see it. You do it to get close to God, and then you start to break the connection to God when you, uh, do something wrong. And then we don't believe that, uh, Jesus needs to save us. We just believe that we can repent at any time for anything and, uh, do teshuvah, and, uh, we will get forgiveness and we can, um.

Teshuvah means to return. Sorry. Can I just say something? I think it's very important that we define what we're talking about when you say the law. Because what, what are we actually talking about here? You're talking about Mosaic law, right? So, there are two different versions of law in the in Hebrew. Torah means the word for Torah means instruction. Okay. Now, Christians have a very negative viewpoint of law. They see it as something that was given that needs to be replaced, that was, you know, this like growing system. She's nodding. Of redemption. But the word, the word for law in Hebrew is comes from the word halakha. Halakha means the way to go. It's a path. So like Kylie said, this is not about like, you know, you have a set of, you know, laws like traffic laws, and you break it, and then you know you're going to get this big punishment from the traffic cop. It's that's not what the law is about in Judaism. Now, our Torah is very clear that there are different laws for Jews and for Gentiles. As far as we understand it, there are 613 laws which Jews are obligated to try to keep. We know that we're not perfect. We're never going to keep all of them. Now, if you, there are long lists of these 613 laws which you could read, which are incredible and beautiful. The law of God is perfect. King David said, "The law of God is perfect. It revives my soul." So then when it comes to non-Jews, you guys, I want to hear from you. How many laws do you have to keep? What are the laws that you have to keep?

In the New Testament, there's over.

Okay. Which is what? What? How do, where do you find them out of the Old Testament?

So the Ten, the Ten Commandments are. Go ahead.

Okay.

Yeah. We keep the, we keep the law, the Ten Commandments. We are empowered through the Holy Spirit. And we, um, maybe you disagree with this. The ultimate law, we keep the ultimate law and the ultimate purpose. And what I believe the ultimate purpose of the law was to make a holy people. That's what it all boils down to. Not for us to just be laden down with all these random rules, but it's to create a system where humans can become holy so that according to Exodus 25:8, we can dwell with him. That's the ultimate goal. And so, he's employed certain systems to get us to that goal. And so, we believe that the Ten Commandments is a part of that system. You have the moral law, you have the sacrificial system, which you spoke to, and says we repent and we do those things, but it doesn't also address what has to atone for your sins that you've repented for. So that's a system that we believe that was fulfilled in Christ. Then you have the system of the temple. Then you have the priesthood. All of those things we believe are fulfilled in Christ. We believe that we're empowered by God to complete those moral laws and to live that out.

Okay. So can you say something quickly, quickly on this? And then, know, two things to your point. The one is that it is written very clearly that some of the laws are eternal. Shabbat is an eternal covenant. The Jewish festivals are an eternal covenant. These are not things that can ever be replaced or broken. It's written in Deuteronomy that there will come a time that if somebody comes and says that these laws don't apply anymore, that person is not a prophet of God. And then, um, Jesus actually says it. He says, "If your righteousness does not surpass that of the Pharisees, you will surely not enter the kingdom of heaven." He also says, "Not one letter of the law is going to disappear before heaven and earth disappear." So, but the question is, who are those laws for? Those laws are for Jews. They're not for non-Jews. We don't, non-Jews don't need to keep kosher. They don't need to keep Shabbat. That doesn't help you in any way to connect to God like it helps us. And when you say you keep ten commandments, actually don't, because one of them is Shabbat. So why, why aren't you keeping?

Why are you insinuating that?

We actually believe that we've entered the Sabbath rest through Jesus. So Hebrews 3:10 says, "Those who have believed in him have entered his Sabbath rest." I know you guys don't respect the New Testament, but I think that's important if you're going to a Christian, a Christian perception of the Sabbath.

Do you mind if I just ask, um, because, as you said, in Jewish thought, you know, in consistent with the New Testament, there's, you know, not an understanding that non-Jews are needing to keep Torah. Yeah.

So, why, what led you to convert to Judaism?

So many things. Um, my questions were answered from Judaism. Um, like the big one, why do bad things happen to good people? Um, and just that, you know, as I said before, about the miracles, um, just gaining a deeper understanding of life through the Torah and the way that the commandments, uh, the mitzvot, they made sense to me. I saw that by fulfilling them, I could have a life. I don't like to frame it as happiness. I think that's, you shouldn't chase happiness, but of meaning.

So, just everything started to make sense to me. And converts have a Jewish soul. We were at Sinai. That's the teaching. We received the Torah with every other Jew, and it travels through the generations, our soul to get back to us. So really, um, and yeah, I don't want to say, you said we don't respect it, but I want to say that I do respect you and, you know, I don't keep the, I don't keep the New Testament, but.

I, I very much respect you.

I appreciate it. I, I, I did want to say too, to the point of of Christians supposedly not respecting the law or having a bad perspective of the law. Um, I think that's a misunderstanding and misconceptualization too. I mean, repentance actually means to turn away. So we're turning back toward whatever law or path God has set forward for us. So I would think I actually believe that the, the standard for lawkeeping was heightened in Jesus Christ because now we have that substitutionary sacrifice that we're able to maintain a closer, more intimate relationship with God through.

Yeah, he's going to magnify the law.

Magnify. I disagree that the Christians doesn't don't respect the law.

They don't. No, but, but I totally agree when you explain about the law, the term law, I love it. And I totally agree many Christians they have problem to understand the law, what is the law? And also the New Testament, the Brit Chadashah says that the problem is not the law. The law is holy. The law is good for us. The problem is our sinful nature. And also, if we think about, okay, we cannot like obey all the law now because we don't have the temple. Okay. In the Shabbat, you need to like present sacrifice to God. And now you cannot present sacrifice to God. And also, if you think about the temple, that Daniel 9 says that after the death of the Messiah, you can.

Doesn't agree. Doesn't agree that Jesus is the Messiah. But the text says in the Tanakh that after the death of the Messiah, the temple will be destroyed and the sacrifice will cease, and he will bring everlasting righteousness over the sin to the people.

So, just want to pause right there. To your point, if the law is permanent, how should commandments related to sacrifices and the temple be practiced today?

Well, we have prayer. So that's what we have. And we always believe that it's coming back. That's why, um, we're always mourning the loss of the temple. We just had a, it's not a holiday, it's just a day of commemoration called Tisha B'Av.

Um, it is the worst day in Jewish history. It's when the temple was destroyed. During that time, um, there's a story about a fox going into the Holy of Holies, which is the most sacred place where the Kohen goes on Yom Kippur and, and does praise. And, um, a fox had defiled the temple, comes running out of the Holy of Holies, and everyone is screaming and crying, the temple is burning. And Rabbi Akiva, a great prophet, is laughing. And they say, "Why are you laughing? Why are you happy?" And he said, "Because now I know that the third temple is going to come." So when the third temple comes, we will absolutely be doing sacrifices again.

Can I speak to that? I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I was going to just respond because we're talking about the eternality of the Torah, and there is one particular system that's completely inoperable. And so what happens when that system is inoperable is there has to be interpretation, usually from rabbis, which would tell you not according to scripture, but according to their interpretation, that prayer is now sufficient. But even when you look in scripture, scripture actually contradicts that. In First Kings 8, when Solomon was praying to God, he said, "When a stranger comes to this temple, let your eyes come." A lot of people have tried to use that in conversations with me to try to discredit the fact that, uh, atonement is still necessary and mandatory. But if you read the very next chapter, God responds and he says that, "I will keep my eyes on the temple perpetually, but if you guys forsake this covenant, whatever follows." And the point that I'm making is scripture contradicts the perspective of the rabbis, and it requires interpretation. So why is the interpretation of, like, a Christian perspective that says that system is fulfilled through the ultimate lamb of God who is Jesus Christ? Why does that become insufficient when essentially both of us are relying on interpretation?

Okay. So I'm so glad you brought this up because I think the fundamental point of difference between Messianic Judaism, Christianity, and Jews is the means by which we obtain forgiveness. Okay. So, you, from my understanding, from a Christian and a Messianic Jewish perspective, all of you, except for, sorry, what's your name again?

Courtney.

Courtney, said that the sacrifices, correct? The word for sacrifice, corban, is close to the word karov, which means they're meant to bring us closer to God. But she, Courtney, actually said she's not sure whether the forgivenesses are necessarily the vehicle or the only vehicle by which we get forgiveness. And the Christian position is, you cannot get forgiveness without sacrifices. And that's of the Jewish perspective, and I don't think it's the Tanakh perspective. But I'm going to tell you why.

Can I clarify and then you can respond?

Okay. So, we have not had the temple throughout the whole Tanakh. What about Adam and Eve? How did they get forgiveness? What about the story of the book of Jonah? Do you think that they, they got forgiveness in the book of Jonah, or you don't think they got forgiveness? Because there was no temple during that time. There were no sacrifices. What about, um, let's just look at the first example that the Jewish people sinned. Okay. The first example, major example is after the Torah is given, we get the story of the golden calf, right? And the Jewish people have sinned, and they break, they smash the commandments. Moses goes up the mountain. He talks to God for 40 days. He comes back down after 40 days. He prays for the Jewish people. He says, "Don't destroy the Jewish people, God. Please give them another chance." He comes back down, and he teaches the Jewish people how to get forgiveness. He comes down, and he says, "This is the prayer you should use." And it's, um, the 13 attributes of God, which are God is merciful, God is compassionate, God is forgiving. And it continues like this. So the Jewish people pray, and they get their relationship with God back.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Now, it's clearly written in the Psalms and everywhere else that forgiveness is through God himself. It's not an animal that gives us forgiveness. It's God himself. Now, if, how could it be possible that people could get forgiveness when Jesus wasn't around?

Okay. Can I say just something quickly? So, you mentioned a lot of characters in the Bible, Adam and Eve. First of all, we're not saying that we're saying you get forgiveness from God, but you get atonement for your sins, the penalty of sins. So, if I, um, crash into your car, you might say, "I forgive you," but I still have to pay the cost to repair your car. So, those are two separate categories that often get conflated. So, we always believe that God forgives us. He's merciful. He's rich in mercy, but there's a penalty for sin. And that's, that has to be satisfied through something. You. So, in the story of Adam and Eve, they were forgiven. But what does Genesis 3:21 say? It says, "And the Lord God took an animal skin to make a tunic as a covering for them." So you see that same system from the beginning. In Genesis 3:7, they took, they saw that they were naked when their eyes were opened, and they took fig leaves and tried to cover themselves. They tried to cover their shame. But God then used an animal skin and shed blood. So that concept is not different. It's not, it's not new. It goes all throughout, um, the scripture. And the point that I want to emphasize is again, we know that God forgives our sins, but the penalty for sin has to be satisfied by blood. Because that's a principle in the Torah. "The life of the flesh is in the blood." Leviticus 17:11. "For I have given you the blood to make atonement for your souls." So that's what the Torah says makes atonement for our souls.

It's not the only.

That's not in scripture. There are flower offerings. There is charity for atonement. There is prayer for.

Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement, that comes once a year to make atonement for all of Israel's sins. It's the one day each. So you're speaking of those sac, like if I did something wrong and I feel guilty, I can take the grain offering in that moment to the temple and atone for that moment. But there's a collective time each year that presents to make an atonement for the sins. And it speaks to Aaron's role of putting all the sins on the goat and letting the live goat go into an uninhabited land. And that happens yearly. So that is a constant atonement.

I'm so glad you brought that up because Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the first day of Yom Kippur was when they came down the mountain and Moses taught them that the way to ask for forgiveness is through saying the 13 attributes of God. That is Yom Kippur. That was the first Yom Kippur. There were no sacrifices. You're talking about forgiveness.

Hold on. Hold on. So how did the Jewish people get forgiveness if there were no sacrifices?

Not talking about your ladies now.

We're not asking about.

So my question is, why do the Jewish people do the kaparah nowadays if the blood doesn't matter anything? And also in Leviticus 16, he said that God gave the blood as atonement. This is a permanent law to be righteous before him.

But it's not the only means of atonement.

It is.

It's not. It's many other scriptures written that, like it's just very clear in the Psalms, that says, "The Lord your God forgives your iniquities." God is forgi, God is the one that forgives. Forgive your animal atonement is two separate categories. We do believe God forgives us, but there's a penalty for every sin. If I did something heinous to you, you can again forgive me, but who is going to pay if I burn your house down?

Okay. So explain me where you're finding this in the, in the.

Yes. Leviticus 17:11. I'm speaking only about atonement, not about forgiveness. Okay. He says, "The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given you the blood to make atonement for your souls." Blood is in scripture what makes atonement for our souls. God shows us mercy and forgives us for our sins. Those are two separate things.

So, you're saying that in the book of Jonah, they didn't get atonement. In the rest of Jewish history, they didn't get atonement before Jesus came. You're basically saying it's either the temple or Jesus. And we don't agree with that.

Okay. So, I think I can reconcile the differences here. Okay. So, what they're saying, so we know that these are two different words. So we have atonement and we have forgiveness. In the temple, there are things that are for atonement, but they're not for forgiveness. The temple coin, right? You bring that in Numbers, that has nothing to do with forgiveness. But then there's this next stage. So the baseline stage is the atonement to cover. That's the basis of the word, right? But then you have salah, the forgiveness. That is what Leviticus is talking about. You cannot achieve forgiveness without the shedding of blood. And so that's why Hebrews 9:22 says what it does. And so it says, "Nearly all things in the law are purged, right? But nearly not all, but without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness."

That's your scripture. That's not the.

But that's that's coming from the book of Leviticus.

It doesn't only say that. You, you could obtain the same word you're talking about for atonement is kaparah. There are other ways by which you can obtain atonement: flower sacrifices, prayers. But what you, but you guys have acknowledged as well, like I thought what you said was really compelling about there's a ladder and you have to keep going and when you keep mitzvot and half of the mitzvot, I mean, you can look on Chabad.org and they will say only 369 of the mitzvot are even possible to keep in the modern day. But so it's like half of them that we're not even able, we can't even get up halfway up the ladder even if we did everything perfectly. Something's broken. And that's the good news of Jesus and his sacrifice and what he did is that we can go into God's presence, go into the Holy of Holies on the basis of his sacrifice and we're right with God even before we take one step on that ladder. And when Jesus died, the curtain that was blocking people from going into the Holy of Holies, it ripped at the moment he died. And that's such good news because it means that we don't have to kill ourselves going up the ladder. We can go into God's presence on the basis of what Jesus did. And I'd like to just say one final thing with regards to other ways that you can be forgiven in the Tanakh. There really are no other ways that you can be forgiven. Now, what there is, there's charity, there's prayer, it's tzedakah, things of that nature. However, every single bit of those hinge upon two things. Number one, he says, "I have made this house a house of prayer." Number two, "I have made this house a house of sacrifice." Sacrifice and prayer go hand in hand. It is the foundation by which we get mercy from Hashem. In Psalm 51, David cries out for mercy. That mercy, you might as well, and I can theologically walk you through it, but we don't have time. That word mercy, you might as well say that is a placeholder for the Messiah because the way that he gives us mercy because he's a just God is he has a system in place. And that system is prayer and sacrifice together, not separate.

Okay. So, you're still not answering the question, how did, first of all, how did David get forgiven? Hold on. He didn't take a sacrifice. Beautiful. Okay. He just asked for forgiveness. He prayed to God. You still are are not answering the question of how on the first Yom Kippur, how did it clearly says in the Torah, it says, "Selah, I have forgiven you." God says to the Jewish people on the first Yom Kippur after they pray, "I have forgiven you." There was not one sacrifice offered.

I've got to explain that.

The lamb was slain since the foundations of the earth.

Amen.

No, it just doesn't add up.

I actually think you're raising a really good point. I think we do see examples in the scriptures of where God accepted people's, you know, uh, repentance from their heart. And Jesus himself taught this, right? He taught that our heart before God is just as important, if not more important and foundational to keeping the commandments. And that, you know, hating someone in your heart is the same root as murder, right? So I actually think that you're making a really beautiful point, but I think that taken as a whole, the Torah, Torah, we understand that it's a paradigm designed to bring Israel into God's presence. And that with no temple, with no sacrifices, something in the paradigm is broken. And we have to wrestle with that.

And the next prompt is, the Jewish people remain God's chosen people in a unique covenantal sense.

This is where I'm like, the phrasing is.

Okay. I, I would love this one because it's something that anti-Semites come after us all the time about. They say, "Oh, you think you're better than us, that God chose you?" And it's not that way at all. We are taught that we are the ones who chose to take on the Torah. Hashem, God was shopping it around to all the other nations, and the Jews are the ones that said, "We are going to take it on." And everybody else has to follow the Noahide laws, which are similar to the commandments. Um, there's no Shabbat in it. There's no Sabbath, but it's like, don't rip a limb off of a live animal. Don't murder. No covenant. Uh, don't covet your neighbor's wife.

Basically, the golden rule of the entire Torah is to treat your neighbor with respect and to love them. So, um.

Yeah, we, we, we are not chosen in the bad way that we think we're better than anyone else, that we think that we're the only ones who can have it. That's not that way at all. We're chosen to be God's light in this world and to show the world monotheism and to become closer to God.

So what does being chosen mean in practical terms today? Is it conditional?

I, I would, I would say yes, that I think that Jewish people were chosen, right? The Jewish nation was chosen, Israel, Judah, etc., the Hebrews. Um, but not to be something that is commonly referred to as a orloim, the light to the Gentiles. Those passages, every time you search those, every single one of those are about the Messiah. The Messiah is the only one that is going to be the ultimate orloim. Why? Because in Isaiah 53, another textual variant in, um, the Dead Sea Scrolls, verse 11, this individual is going to see light. So this light is a, it's like a metaphor for resurrection. Okay. And we see this in the Psalms. It says that, "I will live and see the light of life, the light of living." We know that in rabbinic commentary, otherwise in Christian commentary, we see this means resurrection. Now, what are the Jewish people? What's the point in the Jewish people? They're going to be a peculiar people. In Deuteronomy, it says that the nations would look and say, "What a wise nation that your God is so near to you." What does that mean? That means that when you have a, a God that gives over the Torah and other ways to communicate with him, that that is going to separate you, peculiar you, away from other nations, which kind of do whatever they want. They drink blood and they do some very weird things in their temples. And yet this people is a small people. And Hashem consistently works in judges. He says, "Send some people away. You're too numerous. I don't want you to think that you've saved yourself." So he chose a small nation and by magnifying the nation through himself, it brings glory back to himself. So that the nations look and say, "What a wise nation that your God is so near to you," and it represents the, the God that we serve, or Jewish people serve through the nation, so that they repent and they come back to him.

Yeah. The question for, if, uh, the Jewish people are the chosen people is, uh, what it means to be chosen. Chosen for what?

And the Jewish people were chosen to show God, God's glory.

And we are chosen to show God's glory in the image of the Messiah, not our image, in the image of the Messiah. And so maybe some Christians can think, oh, so the Messiah already comes, so the Jewish people has nothing with God anymore. But God says that, uh, in the Bible, that he didn't reject his people, and he also has a purpose with the Jewish people. And also, if you see the, the prophecy Zechariah 12, the same passage that I mentioned, that they will look at me, the one they pierced, and they will mourn as an only son. And this is the time that he reveals himself to the Jewish people, they will recognize him as the Messiah, and all the glory, all God's glory will bring all the nations.

So can Gentiles participate in God's covenant promises without becoming Jewish?

Well, I want to hear the question.

I want to hear why you put a thumbs down.

No, I didn't put a, I put, I went sideways because I, the phrasing was interesting to me, like, "remain God's covenant people." Uh, I mean, "remain God's chosen people." The question I think has been answered in a way. Um, what are they chosen for? Is it chosen to just, are we talking about salvation? Like, oh, they're chosen period, regardless of what then? No. Obviously, there's one way to be saved, and that's through the Messiah. Is, did, were they, are they chosen to, um, what I believe they were chosen for is to preserve the law, bring us the word of God, bring us the Torah. That's, that's the way we know it. I believe that Abraham got a three-pronged promise in Genesis 15, repeated in 26, repeated in chapter 28. And it's a promise for land. It's a promise for descendants. And then it's, uh, it says, um, "Your descendants will inhabit the land." So I use a plural word for descendants. And then it says, "You will have multiple descendants." And then it says, "You will have Zerah, a seed." So I believe the Jews were, um, chosen to bring forth that promised seed, who I would say is the Messiah. That's why I struggle with this question, cuz to say that, like, you know, they're chosen in perpetuity regardless, I don't think so. I think there's one name given whereby men must be saved. And I know you don't agree with that. And I believe that that's salvation. If we're talking about salvation, it's through the Messiah. So that's why I hope that's like.

Well, I think that it comes down to the word chosen, and you're reacting to an interpretation of chosen meaning salvation, right? What we're talking about is the way that the book of Romans explains God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. That there's a call and a purpose for the Jewish people that is still part of God's plan that's still unfolding.

Absolutely. I agree with that. I want to come back to the question I asked, which was, how should Christians, how should Christians understand biblical promises made specifically to Israel? And Gentiles participating in God's covenant promises without becoming Jewish?

They can. Supporting Israel is a great way. Supporting Israel, praying for Israel. Um, God says, "You bless the Jewish people, you'll be blessed. Bless Israel, you'll be blessed." Together, we make a very powerful partnership, you know?

Okay. So, I believe that in order for Christians to participate in the covenant promises that God promised the Jewish people is to participate in the Messiah. Is to choose to worship and serve the Jewish Messiah. I have no problem saying that I worship a Jewish king. I have no problem saying that a Jewish man died on behalf of my sin. And so, I have an affinity towards the Jewish culture, Jewish people, and I have an affinity towards my Jewish Messiah. Um, I don't believe that there necessarily, that necessarily means that there has to be a political underpinning to that, because obviously politics have changed over the last 2000 years. The nation of Israel is different than what we see in scripture as far as the governance structure. I'm not saying the people. I'm not questioning anybody's Jewish identity. But I do believe that, um, in order for us to participate is to participate in the Messianic prophecies that we see present throughout Hebrew scripture. The Hebrew scriptures attest to a Messiah. We can argue about who that Messiah is, but to participate in whoever that Messiah is is to participate in Jewish culture, um, and in Jewish identity, but we don't have to convert because it's no longer an ethnicity that binds us to, to God, but it's Christ that binds us to God.

I heard a saying once, "The universe isn't made of atoms, it's made of stories." And God communicates to us through stories. And one of the, maybe you could say, the foundational story of the Hebrew scriptures is the people of Israel. And I think like with any story, it's not about you, and it's also about you, right? Like, I love the movie Mulan, but if I just started going around like singing into my reflection, you know what I mean? I'd be kind of like missing the point. I'm not Mulan.

I, I, I want to climb the, the thing with the weights, right? Like, okay, it's not, I'm not literally Mulan, but yet I can say this is my story because I can identify with her journey, right? And I think God's faithfulness to the Jewish people is a gift to the to the world. Our story is meant for the whole world to look at and say, "Wow, if God's been faithful to them, he'll be faithful to me."

So, do you believe the church has replaced Israel in God's plan?

No, I don't believe in replacement theology. I believe that we're all, as Romans says, like there's a tree, and there's unoriginal branches that were grafted in, and then there's hopefully, you know, the original branches that are not in to be back in the tree. None of us replace each other. I think that we all have the opportunity to be in that tree.

Yeah. And I think to say that too removes the unique purpose of the church and the unique purpose of the Jews. Like, to what you said, Courtney, about a light on a hill. The Jews are a light on a hill, and you believe that to be just referencing the Messiah. I think it would be fair to say it references the nation and the Messiah because the Messiah comes through the nation. He comes through the woman who is Jewish, who's Mary. Um, and so because of that, I think it's the nation that plays a very important role in bringing Gentiles to Christ because Jesus brought Gentiles to Christ. At the same time, we know that the end of that passage says that the Gentiles provoke the Jews to jealousy because of their relationship with Christ. And so I think the church has a very unique role in provoking. I know that's a provoking terminology, but in showing Jews that you can have a closer relationship that doesn't require climbing this ladder and getting everything perfectly because of the relationship that we have with Christ.

Um, yeah, I don't. I, earlier you said there was a curtain and you ripped the curtain. We just never believed that there was a curtain in the first place. We think that anybody can get close to God. And, um, and then through Gentiles, it's the seven Noahide laws. And also anybody, if they feel they have a Jewish soul, can convert to Judaism. It is tough. It takes time, but, um, anybody can join us if they want.

I, I think you misunderstood. The curtain was in the, it's in the, the temple. Like, it's just in the New Testament. It states that when Christ was on the cross or whatever, and the giant earthquake happened, etc., and it rent. It was just the point is is that was the.

I'm sure in the, in the Torah discusses, um, that, you know, we tied a bell around the high priest because they un alive or they, I did it, I did it. TikTok language, sorry, because he would die if, you know, unholy or influent, and they would have to pull him out, right?

Well, they couldn't see there's a veil there, and that's what she was referencing that was rent in the New Testament. The theological reason for that is now you can enter the Holy of Holies. Not literally, but through what Christ has done, you can enter the Holy of Holies. Now, as far as the Jewish people and the church, I think we forget this is Greek, right? And this is Hebrew. And so, what we're doing here is we're acting as though they're separate. It really isn't. The ecclesia, the church was originally Jews. Now today we look and we go, church, Gentiles, Jewish people, Jews, separate. But we forget for like the first 200 years, they were one and the same until there was a major split, really right around Bar Kokhba revolt. That split became more prominent, and then it became Jews teaching Jews. Instead of Jews, Messianic Jews like Paul teaching Gentiles, it became predominantly Gentiles now teaching Gentiles the things that were passed on by Paul, Peter, etc. So I see them as one and the same, and the tree grafting makes it perfect because we partake of the root.

Okay. So I just want to say that the New Testament is very contradictory on this point because you have in the book of Revelation, Jews are a synagogue of Satan. You also have passages which say that not every Jew is a Jew. So you asked us, do Messianic Jews, do we believe that Messianic Jews can still be a Jew? Why is the New Testament saying that not every Jew is a Jew? Why is the New Testament saying that Jews are a synagogue of Satan?

That, hold on. Hold on. You have that in one hand, and then on the other hand, you have Romans saying, um, "Theirs are the covenants, theirs are the promises" from Paul. And then later on, he's saying, "No, no, no, they don't have them." So, and back, back, we're going to come back to this again, the whole concept of Messiah. You keep saying that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. That's your interpretation. That is absolutely not Judaism's interpretation. Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah for Jewish people, and we can go into it for many, many different reasons. I want to say that that's a little bit of a miscontextualization because right before that, it says, "There are Jews who say they are Jews who are not Jews. They are of the synagogue of Satan." So to me, that reminds me of the passage that says, "There are many who will say, Lord, Lord, I knew you." And then I'll say, "I don't know you. Depart from me, you worker of iniquity." So I think that has more to do with whether or not somebody, um, accepted Christ salvation than the ethno, than the ethnicity.

So you're saying that Christians get to define who a Jew is based on whether they accept Jesus or not?

No. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the passage is not "all Jews are the synagogue of Satan." That's what I'm saying.

Just some. Yeah. And I would say Jews who say they are Jews and are not.

I would say yes. And and you would have to say yes as well, because Yeshayahu in chapter 59, Isaiah 59, explicitly calls Jews of his own time and those that come after him, them with the mentality, a brood of vipers. This is why the New Testament picks up, and John is pointing at them and says, talking to the Pharisees and others, he says, "Who called you to do teshuvah? Who called you to repentance?" He's calling back to Isaiah 59, roughly right around verses 5 and 6, where it's specifically the prophet Isaiah. And we know that we have a tradition that he was sawed in half in a tree. Why? Because he rebukes the people who say they are Jews, but they don't act like Jews. They commit Hillul Hashem, desecration of the name of God. Right? And so that's what the New Testament is pointing out. That the prophet Isaiah pointed out.

But we discussed earlier that once a Jew, always a Jew. That cannot be taken away.

And the Jewishness can't. But what, you know, you know, if a Jew says, "I'm going to do the mitzvot, right? I'm going to do all the mitzvot," and then he apostatizes, he is still Jewish, but he's called a kofer or he's called a min. Right? And these things in Jewish law are rebuked, and you're basically cast out. You're cut, you're cut off. So it's the same. And I know that we don't see it that way because one is Greek and one is Hebrew. It's picking up on the same thing. The Jew that says, "I'm Jewish because, look, my mother's Jewish, but then you go and you sleep around and you unali, you kill people, and I'm sorry for that again. Um, you do all of these wretched things that are antithetical to the image of Hashem."

You're not really a Jew, truly outwardly. You may be inwardly Jewish, i.e., that you are born to a Jewish mother, but you don't represent Hashem properly.

And you also can't say as a Jewish person, you don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah. But you cannot say this is not a Jewish perspective.

Yes, I can.

Because, no, you can't. Because the, the Christianity started with the Jews. And when the Jews, they realized that Jesus is their Messiah, they didn't go to the New Testament. They used the Jewish prophecies, not the Christian prophecies. So as a Jewish person, you can say, "I don't agree that Jesus is the Messiah." As a Jewish person, I don't agree the rebel above it is the Messiah. It's the same thing. But I agree Jesus is a Jew, is the Jewish Messiah from.

You could disagree, but not say it's not Jewish.

The final prompt is, the Messiah has not yet come.

I disagree to think about that. I think about it, but I didn't start.

You can start because you were already talking. Well, I just think that the discussion we were having before about the calling of the Jewish people, this really goes hand in hand with the question, is Jesus the Messiah? Because if we have, if he's not, we have a dilemma. Billions of people around the world believe in the God of Israel because of Jesus. And if, if we don't agree that Jesus is God, which he claimed to be, but if he's not God, then the world is growing rapidly with idol worship. And this is the number one thing as Jews that we're supposed to be a light to the nations. If Jesus is not God, we have failed as a people to be a light to the world. The world is pursuing idolatry, and we're saying, "Good for you. Like, that's your faith. We respect you. How terrible." But if Jesus is the Messiah, then it's fantastic news for us. We're succeeding in our role to be a light to the nations. We brought the Messiah into the world that the nations now can know him. The seven Noahide laws, I think, are profound, and there's wisdom in them. But how many non-Jews have ever heard of them? How are they going to hear about these things? Because of Jesus, there's people studying our scriptures, learning the Hebrew, and becoming knowledgeable of our traditions. And I think that that's.

Sorry. No, no, no, sorry. Go ahead.

Um, can you edit me having a.

Of course.

I think it's a, it's a long and complicated conversation about why we believe that Jesus isn't the Jewish Messiah and why you do. It all comes down to, like, interpretation of scripture. But let's presume that you believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Okay? Why does Jesus say, "What is the Lord's Prayer? Pray to your Father in heaven." He doesn't say, "Pray to me."

Why? If he's God, why does it say pray to Jesus?

So, this is, this goes back to the Trinitarian, um, prompt number one. We believe that God is multi-personal, three persons, one divine nature. And so Jesus is pointing to the Father as he's the Son incarnated on earth, and he's also setting an example because we're not God. And so once Jesus leaves, once he ascends into heaven, it's important that we have a model to follow, right? And he does say in John 16 that we should pray in his name specifically. And so that is a command I would say that demonstrates that he's God. You don't, we don't pray in the name of any other person. And we pray in the name of God. And he said to pray in his name.

So he said, uh, he said he and the Father were one. "Me and the Father, we are one."

And the titles he used to himself were the same titles God used to himself in the Tanakh. Like, "Before Abraham existed, I AM." It's not just that I exist before Abraham exists. "I AM" was the same thing. The same way that God presented himself to Moses.

Okay? We don't believe this, but I'm just asking you theoretically speaking, if Jesus and God are one. You're praying to Jesus. We're praying to God for forgiveness. What's the problem? Why do we need Jesus? We pray to the Father in the name of Jesus.

But do you understand what I'm saying? You're saying Jesus and God are one. So you can pray to Jesus and get forgiveness. We can pray to God and get forgiveness. What's, we don't need Jesus. Father, because.

If, if I'm one with my husband and you like me and you don't like my husband, you don't like neither one of us. So there's a divine unity that you cannot ignore and think that you're still going to be able to relate to God. You relate to God on God's terms. And his terms that you relate through his son, which is why Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the father but through me." There's an inextricable link, which is why we emphasize in the beginning, which is a compound unity. So you can't have a part and not have the whole.

That is a Christian perspective that the only way to God is through Jesus. That is not a Jewish perspective. It is never written in the Torah that the Moshiach will be a forgiver of your sins. Only God is the forgiver of your sins. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold a second. Sorry. Okay, number one. Number two, there's absolutely no possible way that Jesus can be the Messiah for many different reasons, but the most fundamental reason being that Jesus is not a descendant of King David, which is a fundamental premise required for the Jewish Messiah. I love this because this is actually no disrespect but this is going to cut the Jewish people in particular the Orthodox very bad. Okay. So you have a problem now. Okay.

The Tanakh says that he has to come through David. We agree he comes through David. I can break this down. I have more videos on the virgin birth than I have on anything else. I've debated Orthodox rabbis etc on this. And I believe I've done a very good job at demonstrating how it is that he comes through the line of David using Torah.

Hold on. Sorry. Can can we clarify from Jewish tradition? It has to be from the father's lineage. Yes. And I use I use numbers 27 and 36 of give us the legal precedence for it to come through the woman and I can explain but that's going to divert away from can we just ask you who all of you who is the father of Jesus? He has no biological father but there correct but are you aware of numbers 27 and 36? The daughters of Slad is about inheritance of land. That's right. Nothing to do. And as long as she marries back into her tribal affiliation, which Mary did. She married a man of Judah, which is why he has a cousin from the line of uh the priests, John. Because you go, well, can Jews have are all Jews of the Jew? No. You can have one from Judah and you can have one from the priestly line. This is because her mother was of the priestly line. She married a man of Judah and then Mary and then Mary had the virgin birth. The virgin birth is predicted three times in the Tanat. Genesis chapter 3:15, Isaiah chapter 7 of course with Alma a and then again again in the famous Jeremiah 31 passage where we don't really know how to interpret what's happening. But it says that uh a woman shall encompass a man. It doesn't say a baby. It pivots similarly to what we see from Genesis chapter 4 where Eve cries out, "Oh, I have received a man with the help of the Lord." This makes no sense. We know that men and women get together and have babies. So, her statement is that she thinks Genesis 3:15 has come. But I'd like to address the the the prompt, which is the has the Messiah come? Yes. And this is going to be a problem for the Jewish people because according to the Jewish people, according to the Tanakh, you have to know that he comes from the line of David. Now, here's the problem. We're in the era of Hosea 3:5, which says that the children of Israel will live many days without king, prince, ephod, etc. So on and so forth. And then at a specific point that they're going to see the Messiah, right? They're going to have the they're going to worship the Messiah, the God and return, i.e. the Messiah, David. It says David there. Okay. The issue with that is you have no way to prove who is of the line of David because all of the lineage, the recordkeeping went kaputz with the temple. It's gone. Whereas the first temple, there was a short enough gap. So all the lineage was carried back over and then the second temple was destroyed. This is why we have to shape which is now written down because if you have to shall it disappears. This is why said we have to write this down because it's going to disappear. So now we have the records that are gone. Now my question back to you is this. If you say that Christians have zero right to say that Jesus is the Messiah because he has no lineage, you are in the same boat. The difference is our Messiah was documented. He was circumcised. His name was documented on the eighth day and was given to the temple, written down and sealed before the temple was destroyed. What do you have?

Hold on. Hold on. Can I just add a question to answer together? Uh because we the the messianic and the Christian believe we we agree that Jesus came from the David genealogy. Yes. But if you agree that the Messiah should come from the David be a David descended. How the Talmud can quote a Messiah that comes from the Ephraim tribe that suffer for the Jewish people sins and die. The first Messiah from the Ephraim uh tribe.

Let's go back to the genealogy. Okay, Judaism. Now remember, Judaism gets to define the Jewish Messiah. Okay, you as me say Jews can have your own opinion. You're Jewish. Christians do not get to define who the who the Jewish Messiah is because Judaism is Jewish.

Tanakh does. Correct. It's not the Jews or the Christians that are defining who the Messiah is, right? The word of God. Okay. The word of God. The Tanakh is defining who the Messiah is. Okay. So, the Messiah has to come from the tribe of of He has to be from the tribe of Judah, which is from the lineage. We're not going there yet. Let's talk about Jesus. Okay. So, it's absolutely clear that the only tribal lineage goes by the father. If you're a Levy, you get called up to the Torah, you're or you are a Cohen. These are two different types of priests. How do we know that? Because of who your father is. It doesn't matter who your mother is. You will never be a Levy or a Cohen. If your mother is, it's got nothing to do with your mother. And the same with the tribe of Judah. This is something I'm sorry to say that Christians make up as a workaround because Jesus doesn't have a Jewish father because according to Christianity, he doesn't have a human father. Also, if Jesus if the Messiah is supposed to be born a human through a human lineage of David, Jesus does not meet that criteria.

Okay. So, back to my question. Are you saying Are you saying I'm asking Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Are you saying that Jesus is a grandson of Are you saying that God is a grandson of King David?

Well, see, it's interesting that you go something like that. Is God a grandson of King? I'd like to um in in the number one most quoted verse in the New Testament is Psalm 110. So Jesus even says like if David is calling his this Lord a Lord, who is this? He's basically asking the question, David, the big guy, right? This this patriarch for which we both agree. He in Psalm 110 speaks to another Adonai without vowel pointings, the word says Adonai, not Adon. I need everyone to know that. Okay. So again, if you're reading Psalm 110, and you read that in Hebrew, you have the tetetrogrammaton, Hashem, and then you have an Adoni, which only becomes Adoni in the Masoretic text long after the time of Jesus. So Jesus asks the question, who is this individual? Right? The point that he's asking is the very thing that you say. Are you saying that the Messiah is going to be like a a higher status than David and yet he's also a son of David? That's exactly his point.

No, that's not the question. My question to you and any Orthodox Jew, which I I I want an answer to this, how are you going to prove with recordkeeping that was given to the scribes in the temple and in an authoritative place with the judges who the Messiah is. I mean, there's signs of uh Messiah. First of all, he has to have two human parents. Second of all, the world has to be perfected. There's no more wars. There is going to be a final war of Gog and Magog. We don't exactly know who that is. We think maybe now it's happening with Iran. Um but no, we we don't know that. But it'll become clear to us he's going to ride in on either donkey or a horse and the world will be perfected. And we don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Messiah because the world is not.

Right. So this becomes a double standard because here's what I hear and I appreciate your answer. Your answer is on par for Judaism. Okay. Here's what I hear. Well, we don't really have a record. We don't really know how to keep up with who the Messiah is. We don't have it anymore. But if he does a bunch of the things that we think a Messiah is going to do, um the resurrection of the dead, Isaiah chapter 11, bring back all of the uh the Jews from the four corners of the earth, there's going to be peace, there's going to be all of these things. He's going to obviously have, you know, a mother and a father, etc. Yet, we have nothing about the Messiah's birth in the Tanakh at all. Nowhere. One second. and and yet turn in the same breath and look at a Christian and say, "What do you mean to tell me that uh you say that we can identify the Messiah by miracles?" Wait a minute. A you did the same thing. You just told me that is your standard yet we have the recordkeeping. You don't.

I think that the Torah itself really answers this question because you have the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh that are tribes with a full inheritance based on their adoption as sons of Joseph. Joseph had other sons. Jacob said, "These two I call my sons." Joseph's other sons didn't get an inheritance. Right? So the Torah itself makes a case for an adoptive father giving the full rights of inheritance to the son. And if we don't believe that about Jesus, we have to come to the same conclusion about two of the tribes of Israel. But for me the part that I take the most, you know, exception with is just the idea that this is the Jewish perspective. Because at the time of Jesus, many Jewish people followed him, believed he was the Messiah. He was accused of lots of things, but not being a descendant of David wasn't one of the things. And after his death and resurrection, many, many Jewish people continued to follow him. Josephus writes, "Many Jewish people followed him." And then we have rabbinic records, you know, Maimonides a thousand years later explaining the Jewish case of why Jews don't believe in Jesus. So I think to say that what a Jewish perspective is rests on the opinion of rabbis in the Middle Ages instead of Jews at the time of Jesus and thousands of Jewish people around the world today who believe he's the Messiah.

I think we have to remember too from a Christian perspective and a Messianic Jewish perspective, we believe Jesus is pre-incarnate. So because Jesus is pre-incarnate, he is as much the father of David as he is the son of David. If anything, the existence of the entire Jewish lineage exists because of the pre-incarnate Christ. Because we believe Jesus was the word of God and through the word of God, everything and everyone was spoken into existence, including the Jewish nation. And so because Jesus is pre-incarnate, he fits the role of the Davidic line. Because David is actually a type and shadow of Christ. It's not the other way around. And so when we get those things mixed up, we set standards for Christ that Christ met pre-existent that even humans can't meet.

Can I just add one thing because uh I live among the Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem and in Amida and I know what the rabbis used to respond for this. They just simply reply that uh the Messiah will know for the tribe. They should come and they will tell us. So you're saying to me any kind of man can tell us, "Oh, I'm a messiah. on the tribe of David. Okay. Okay.

No, because you need everything else. You need everything. A lot of people have tried that. A lot of people have said that. We're agreeing. We are not bending the criteria. The Torah does not bend the criteria. When the Messiah comes, he will have to prove one way or the other that he is from the tribe of David through his father. The criteria is the criteria.

But there's no will that I'm sorry. I don't I'm not expert on Torah. You can't you can't say we're not you can't we're not saying that we have the Jewish Messiah. We're just saying he has. Okay. So, we're talking about something that hasn't happened yet. There's a video on my channel where these questions are asked of Jews in Israel and every single one of them say says miracles clinical success is the test. Every single one of them say this because they they say well he has to be from the line of David but they have no tangible way to prove that he's from the line of David. Now granted you could be a Levite. You could, your mom could say, "Oh, you're a Levite. Your father was a Doesn't matter because there's no authority behind that, right?" And we know this because in the Tanakh, we know this because in the Tanakh, because when the Jews came in Ezra's time, if they could not prove their lineage and it lined up with the records, they were out. So if you have no Jew who is of the line of David and he can align his records with recordkeeping, he's out. What recordkeeping?

Okay, I'm sorry. You cannot speak for Jews that we do or do not know who is of the lineage. Because personally, I'm not in a position to say, but I can tell you that Jews are very meticulous at recordkeeping. And I can tell you that I know rabbis who know that they're rabbis, rabbis, rabbis, rabbis, rabbis, rabbis, rabbis, rabbi goes all the way back to Moses. They can give you every single person in the chain. So, how can you say uh how can you how can you say that there is no Jew that doesn't know that they come from the tribe of of Judah? You are you are saying that. So as Messianic Jews, you believe in Jesus Christ. So why don't you consider yourself to be Christians?

I don't reject the label. Um I I think the reason why we have that nuance distinction of messianism or messianic is just because we practice differently, right? We might be in church on Sunday but also in shul on Saturday. Um and of course like for me like like on like Friday at sunset, I'm I'm closing everything down getting ready for the Shabbat. Um, so that's a little different than what you see with what I commonly refer to as the mainstream Christian. And that's not a derogatory. Mainstream as in what most people know. But it's very different for us because like if we have that like lighting Shabbat candles, that's something that they do as females as well. That's something they do, but it's not something that Christians typically practice. So if I light the Shabbat candles myself and my daughter or something that's going to be on on Friday or like we do Hanukkah, I have my Hanukkah. These are just a little bit different practices. It kind of helps to identify what type of Christian like a denomination.

Like traditional type of things. Okay. I I identify as as Jewish and as Christian. I identify as Christian in the the purest sense of Christ being the Greek word for Messiah. A follower of Messiah can be Jewish, can be non-Jewish. And I think it's so important for Jewish believers in Jesus to maintain that Jewish identity. We can be a bridge between the Christian and Jewish world. We can fight anti-semitism in a unique way. And our faith, I believe, is an example of the continuity of faith in Jesus as the Messiah from the very his very first followers until today.

I love that. And what about you? Yeah, I totally agree with this. And first of all, for me, it's a different way. You say that uh you recognize I I am a Jew and I believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And as she said that the Christianity were like the the messianic ones were the ones that were starting to follow Jesus as the Messiah. So there is no different between us in terms of this. We both follow the same God. We both follow the same Messiah. So there's no difference. Does just how you identify yourself. So you you can call me Jewish, you can call me Christian, but just don't forget that I'm Jewish.

Okay, that makes sense. So, so you do accept the or you do accept some oral Torah and oral traditions as in like the Shabbat candles because that's not in the.

Um, so it it varies. So like um like I'm not show Shabbat, right? Obviously like I drive on Shabbat. Um but there are some like I have a friend that's he's here in LA. Um he is absolutely messianic but he he goes by Shanoo. He Mishna he is very very orthodox in practice. If you had an Orthodox rabbi up next to him, you would not know the difference. Now, I know this may seem dangerous to you because it's like, whoa, you mean there's there's like a Messianic Jew living as an like in our community, but that's the thing is that's exactly how it first started. And like she said, it's that's continuity between the Hebrew Bible and transitioning into what we commonly refer to as the New Testament with the Jews who also kept their Jewish identity but believe that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Jewish Messiah.

So just sort of like enjoying the traditions but not feeling like you're tied to them. Yeah. Like I do not think that lighting Shabbat candles is going to be what saves me. Like um when for example and and this is not something that orthodox community does when we say the bracha like when when my daughter is reading or my son is reading or whatever I make sure they they know that it says the command to light the Shabbat candles or the command to kindle um the Hanukkah etc. I let them know that this is tradition and it's actually not commanded by God. But the reason why it says that is because it's through tradition. Like God said to do this, keep tradition, and the rabbis passed this down, and that's why we do it.

So, thank you ladies for being here. This has been such a powerful conversation. So much information was was shared. I just want to hear from each of you individually. Something that you want to leave us with, a takeaway, anything about this experience. We would love to hear from you.

Yes. So, I absolutely enjoy this. I love having these conversations with Jewish people specifically because I'm an Old Testament buff or a Torah and Tanakh buff. So, it I come alive in conversations like this. You could probably tell. So, I just want to thank you guys for coming and appreciate all of you guys for being extremely brilliant.

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. This was a great conversation. Thank you guys for coming with your perspectives and I feel like I learned a lot more about you know the Orthodox Judaism perspective but also the underpinning of Messianic Judaism and how you guys build a bridge between both groups. So I appreciate you guys too.

Thank you. Thank you so much for hosting this wonderful conversation and um I think everyone should have the opportunity to wrestle with who Jesus is to look at both sides. Look at, you know, what the New Testament says. Look what at what the rabbis teach and come to your own conclusions. And that's the most important journey you can take.

Absolutely. Thank you. For me, I'm honored to be between all of you. Like was really like an honor to be with you talking about God. And um I didn't want to a pastor. And for me is if you want to know who really God is and I want to understand redemption, go to yourself and study your Bible. Go to study the Tanakh. Go to make questions. Even if you want to take a look in the Talmud in the oral what they said about it and make questions to the test, then God will reveal to yourself.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate everyone being here. I know this is um an interesting dynamic and it definitely I think deserves more conversation because I see so much interest from the Christian side and we know so much about certain aspects and I think the messianic position it's not monolithic right? So just like Jews are not monolithic you have different practices and and um minhagim which is like the traditions it is the same also for messianics some of us keep more of the Jewish aspect the the oral law some don't and some are very much like a Christian you would never notice the difference. But this definitely deserves more conversation and and I I thank you all for coming. I know sometimes interfaith dialogue can be very dangerous and I think Dr. Davo does an amazing job at setting up a very calm and personable place to have these conversations.

Thank you. I want to thank everyone for being so respectful. um when I saw it was a debate, sometimes those can get very hairy and um but everyone was wonderful and um my goal was to just share more about the Jewish people in a time when anti-semitism is on the rise and there's so much misunderstanding and I believe Torah is the truth but I don't impose it on anyone. I simply want to state the facts and let people make up them their minds for themselves.

Thank you. Amen. Yeah. Thank you so much for this debate. It's been really interesting. Um, I think you're all really smart ladies. And I think the most important point is we love God. We're trying to get closer to God. We're trying to be better people. We want to do what he wants us to do. And we might have slightly different opinions on that path. That's totally fine. We're all growing. Let's grow together.

Amen. Ladies, you're all wonderful. Thank you for spending your time here today, bringing your insight and your passion and your beauty. We're super grateful. Thank you online for watching this video. Let us know in the comments what your thoughts are about this episode. Let us know what you think. We love hearing from you. And until next time, bye.

Thank you, ladies. That was so good. We had like the whole day.