Who SHOULD I be Tithing to? - Rabbi Tovia Singer - 1738

When Jesus says he asks his disciples, "Who do you think I am?" like, "Who do you think I am?" and they have no clue. They don't know who he is. "What do you mean you don't have a clue? I thought he was running around telling everybody he wasn't." How did that make it in? Because it's embarrassing. Because people later are going to be like, "What the heck went on there?" Peter says, "You are the Christ, Son." Jesus says, "Then no one could have told you this except for God, because there's no flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you." Jesus then says that the Son of Man, he's going to have to suffer many things, you know, and be hated and killed and R. And what does Peter say? He says, "Lord, far be this from you. Far be this from..." "What do you mean, 'far be from you'? Didn't you read Isaiah 53? Didn't you read Daniel 9? What are you talking about? Didn't you read Psalm 22?" Guys, if you understand what I'm sharing with you now, you mish all.

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Welcome to Tanak Talk. I'm your host, William Hall, broadcasting live out of Kingsland, Texas, USA, with another episode of Tovia Singer's "Let's Get Biblical" Q&A, coming to you from the Holy Land. Rabbi Tovia Singer, welcome back, my friend. How are you?

Ah, so good to have me on. It's a big pleasure. How am I doing? I'm doing well, considering.

Doing well? Yes.

Well, very good. Well, we're glad to have you back. Thank you for, uh, allowing me to take care of some business last weekend.

Thank you, sir. I did miss you though.

My pleasure. It wasn't easy. It wasn't difficult. That's because you miss me. That's why I admit it.

Yes, of course, of course. Exactly right. Sure. Will, whatever makes you feel happier, William, you just keep thinking that.

Yeah. Let me turn my mic, my speaker off, or my phone off. Very cool. Well, I'm definitely glad to be back for sure, and I sure miss you.

I know we all did. So, okay, we'll get right on into our very first topic of the day.

Hi, this is Jay from Monterey, California. My question today is, are such denominations of Christianity like Amish, Mennonite, I'm not sure if Quakers are included, but would such denominations be considered idolatrous considering they take rules very seriously, like, uh, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," or even being non-Trinitarian, depending on the particular congregation? Uh, thank you, Rabbi.

All right, cool. I don't think we've ever had an Amish question on the show before.

So, right, right. Um, great question. So, as it turns out, um, there are many things that Amish and Mennonites share in common in their beliefs and doctrine. The Trinity is definitely one of them. They're both Anabaptist groups, very conservative Protestants. And while the way they dress and the way they travel might be something that's most striking, theologically, they're all standard Trinitarians. And the doctrine of the Trinity is the self-inflicted wound of the church, from which the church has never recovered. And while Amish see themselves as different, certainly they dislike the Roman Catholic Church, as do Mennonites, they don't realize that the doctrine they have about the nature of God is straight out of Roman Catholicism. I am, I'm sure if there were, if there are, I was going to say, if there are Amish watching me now, but Amish, because of their reliance on technology, they might not be. If, if there was an Amish person watching me now, they would be mortified to hear that. Really? That would really deeply shock them. So they believe in a doctrine that was invented by the proto-Orthodox. The word Trinity was coined by someone who didn't really believe in the Orthodox version of the doctrine of the Trinity. He believed that the Son was subordinate to the Father. His views, the views of Tertullian, the, uh, theologian from Carthage, uh, were were not Orthodox, and he was old. Although revered, he was condemned. But the doctrine of the Trinity is believed by all Amish, is believed by all, um, Mennonites. And this is, that means they worship Jesus as God. And this might come as a surprise to you. What makes Roman [Music] Catholicism so, uh, spiritually problematic is not the presence of statues in the churches, because Roman Catholic, I'm not saying all or most, but Roman Catholic in general are not bowing down to those statues. They're problematic for sure, but the problem with Roman Catholicism is that they worship Jesus as God. Let alone forget about the Theotokos, forget about, just forget all about that. Forget about the presence of statue issues. This is, um, this is a very, very serious issue. And, um, Quakers, I'm not sure I know what they believe because they don't know what they believe. Maybe let me say that in a way that's a little bit more friendly. I think if you asked 20 Quakers what they believe exactly about the nature of Jesus, you would get many answers. Quakers are not into rituals. Quakers are generally not Trinitarians, although if a Quaker was, they wouldn't expel him. So Quakers generally are not, uh, Trinitarians. They're, they view themselves as the followers of Jesus. They're definitely, of course, theists, and they're very, uh, committed to to social action. They certainly were foremost, were at the forefront of, um, the abolitionists, those who fought against slavery. Uh, but they're not, um, generally not Trinitarian. There were other Christian denominations I can think of that definitely abhor the doctrine of the Trinity: Christadelphians. They're generally very nice people, and they're pro-Jewish. They see in the Jew the something of themselves, the one who refuses to, uh, to bow to the God of, of Rome, to the Vatican. So you'll generally find Christadelphians to be very friendly to Jewish people. Unitarians, the same. Unitarian, don't don't confuse that with Unitarian Universalists. I don't, they believe in, I don't know what they believe. Believe whatever that's different. You know, it's funny. Was last year when I was, when I was in, when I was lecturing in the United States on one of the trips, I was asked to speak at a Unitarian Universalist Church, and I told them, I can't. I won't speak in a church. They said, Rabbi, but we don't believe in the Trinity. We don't believe in any. And we, you know, really admire what you do, and we don't believe. And I said, I know, but it would, the optics on it would be horrible. So technically, technically, I could walk into a Unitarian Universalist church. I would not, because it would send a terrible message. I have to be very careful with what I do. Um, so one other point about the Roman Catholic Church, their practice is different in different cultures. So I want to make this point. I said earlier that Roman Catholics don't really like, like worship the statues themselves. So that's not really true. In that, if you go in, go to countries where there is more statue worship and it's sort of a more primitive worship, you will find that, for example, if you walk into a Roman Catholic Church in São Paulo in Brazil, it, it would be different than walking into a Roman Catholic Church in Washington D.C. It's different. Or a Roman Catholic Church in Mexico would be different. So it really varies. But the major problem with the, with the church, with Trinitarian churches, is precisely that. Not so much as the, I mean, that just adds to it, that just inflames it. And again, depending on which, I mean, I've never gone in there, but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which I could walk to very fast. Protestants tell me that it's a nightmare. I'm not kidding. Protestants can see that they can't stand it because it's idols and statues. And there are many different Christian, uh, denominations that control it. They have a, a longstanding agreement to who controls what. They frequently get into fights with each other, and Israeli soldiers have to break it up. Don't ask. You have the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, different iterations. But, but the point is, they're praying to statues, and there's a lot of that going on. So, but the key point is, I want you to know this one point. Listen up. Kind of in the Ten Commandments, the prohibition against partnership is even greater than worshiping statues. If you notice Exodus 20, "I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt from the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods upon my face." What is upon my face? What does that mean? Now, I know your translation will render it "before me." Forget that. It says "al panai" in Hebrew. That's "al panai," which means this is the most vulgar, severe iteration of idolatry. That means you believe in the true God. That means you're married to God. All Christians believe in the true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They really believe in the Father. But in addition to that, they believe that Jesus, as a distinct person, as the second person of a Triune Godhead, is God and worthy of worship and veneration, worthy of prayer. All that. All the Catholics venerate Mary, and they just use the word "venerate" in order to, um, in order so it shouldn't sound bad. So they use the word "venerate." So they all, they all do that. That's the most grotesque iteration because you're married to God. So if you're married, so an illicit relationship is much worse than just a relationship outside of marriage. Then the Torah goes on, "You shall have no other statues and so on, and should not bow down to them." But that's after the worst thing you can do is worship Hashem, the true God, which Christians do. They worship the Father as God, 100%. And that's what makes it so grotesque. It's a little counterintuitive, but they add into it Jesus. They worship Jesus as a God, as a separate, distinct person. Now, I know there's, there's modalists. I know there's, um, there are churches that hold that there's no distinction of persons. That's, they can't work out their own New Testament because they tried to solve this. So there's a Sabellianism. Look, I don't want to take you too far. Think the key is that it's not the absence of statues and icons in Amish, we'll call them church houses, whatever you want, praying there. The key, that's not what's important. The point is that they worship Jesus as God, and that's idolatry. And we should just hope that they would do true. But they have many very nice people. So if you spend time with them, be very gentle. They're, they're, they're very fine and refined people, particularly the Amish, Mennonites. Sometimes they're all Anabaptists. Um, but when you speak to them in particular, it's not like speaking to a Southern Baptist. They're generally very fine people, very refined people. Family is very important to them. And I meet Amish and Mennonites here in Jerusalem. Some of them spend time speaking with me. And be very careful. They're not going to be obnoxious. Not all the other. They're not going to be, they're not going to behave like Southern Baptists who are Assemblies of God. They're much, they're very nice, humble, thoughtful, respectful people. Family is extremely important to these Protestant denominations in a very unique way. And they're, there's many features about them. Anabaptist literally means, well, conveys that baptism must be performed as an adult rather than in infancy. Um, like the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church of infant baptism. It means more than that. So, be, I just will say to you, if you're talking to someone who's Amish or Mennonite, be very gentle, thoughtful, respectful. And when speaking, don't talk like me. I'm kidding. Just be very, very, very thoughtful because they're, they're very sensitive. They have respect for Jewish people in general, especially Amish, too. And just be careful because that's all they know. That's all they know. So, anyways, thank you so much for a thoughtful question.

Okay, and I, I should, uh, get it out there for those of you who want to, uh, are interested in my books. "Let's Get Biblical" volumes 1 and 2 are available on my website, OutreachJudaism.org. That's OutreachJudaism.org. And of course, I encourage you, I strongly encourage you to, to subscribe to my channel on YouTube. Just my name, Tovia Singer, and Tanak Talk.

Yes. Okay. You, William. All this I'm leaving. Hey, very good. Okay.

Andy, you're live on the air. Go ahead and tell Rabbi what your question is, brother. Go right ahead.

Good evening, Rabbi, and good morning, William. I'm, I'm Andy, calling from Los Angeles, California. And my New Testament question is Revelation 12:1-4. Um, and, and, uh, in Revelation, it says the signs in the, in the heavens. And the, the, the supposed Christians say that the, uh, Jesus is born was going to be born in heaven. And my question is, um, if the, in some verses in, in the New Testament, it says, "Do not follow astrology." And I'm, I'm very confused. I'm right now, I'm still on the border of Christianity. And everything, and your show, Rabbi, is helping me a lot to wake up through this fallacy with the church that has done through the many decades, confusing and a lot of people. Right.

So, look, thank you for your question. And go and hang up and continue for your answer. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You guys have a wonderful day. Okay. Thanks. You call her. We'll be right with you. Everybody go ahead.

The Book of Revelation is really wildly different than the other 26 books in the Christian canon. It depicts Jesus very differently. It's very, very violent in ways that you would not, would not find. Forget about the letters, the epistles, but you would not find in the Gospels. The Book of Revelation also is fiercely anti-Roman, which is strikingly not only absent in the Gospels, but the Gospels are fiercely pro-Roman. And then there's a, a methodology where the Book of Revelation uses imagery that comes both from pagan sources and Jewish sources. So whoever wrote the Book of Revelation, I presume his name is John, it doesn't mean he's John, the son of Zebedee, all he isn't. And the writer of John isn't that either. But, uh, there, there is a Johannine theme, that means they're using the, the strong notion of light and darkness, Jesus being the Lamb of God, that's unique to the Book of John, and it's also found in Paul's letters, 1 Corinthians 5:7. And what you encounter in Revelation, in particular in chapter 12, is also a borrowing. He's kind of synchronizing or, um, the imagery that you find in Daniel chapter chapter 7, where you have the 10 horns, which really represent the 10 emperors from Julius Caesar until Vespasian. And, and the reason why, why that's important is Julius Caesar, the first, because Vespasian is the emperor who presided over the destruction of the Second Temple. Caveat, Julius Caesar was not an emperor, he was considered the dictator. But the, so what you find in the Book of Revelation is just a mishmash of imagery taken both from the pagan world, but also taken from Tanak. And that kind of language that is from Tanak, that's baked into the Book of Revelation, is from the apocalyptic imagery that's unique to Daniel. Daniel's very striking this way, Zechariah at times. So that's all that you find this, um, the synchronizing of Jewish and pagan ideas, the imagery together, to the point that that's why Christian denominations differ so widely in how these passages should be interpreted. And thank you for your question.

Okay, uh, Alexander, you are live. Go ahead and, uh, tell us what your, what your question is.

Hi, my question is, um, when Christian kids are 11, 12 years old, they go through a process called confirmation at the church. Would be the equivalent of a Bar Mitzvah for, uh, Jewish children, in that they teach them about the New Testament. And my question is, why do they not teach, they teach that there's an Old Testament, first of all, why don't they call it the Five Books of Moses or the Torah? And then when they teach the kids, this is the New Testament, why do they not say, "This is the New Testament which includes the Torah?" Like, why do they not, I mean, they say they include the Five Books of Moses, but they go as far as to not even call it the Torah. They have to call it the Old Testament. And why not say that the New Testament is the Five Books of Moses? And P.S., this is what the Jews believe.

Very good. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Go hang up and tune in for your answer. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I don't think we've ever had that particular question on the show before. Take it away, boss.

Sure. So the, the sacrament that the Roman Catholic Church practices with, I remember as a little kid, very striking is seeing little girls, um, wearing a, a bride's, you know, she's dressed like a bride, and that's one of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. But as it turns out, that's not it at all related to the meat to the essence of your question. Protestants do not engage in that. They don't believe in any of those sacraments. They believe in baptism, but that's for different reasons. Um, so those, that's a Roman Catholic sacrament, but it's not related to the rest of your question. Pro, do not engage in that. They don't believe in any of those sacraments. They believe in baptism, but that's for different reasons. Um, so those, that's a Roman Catholic Sacrament, but it's not related to the rest of your question. So Christians would have no problem referring to the Pentateuch, the Torah, as the Five Books of Moses. But they use the term Old Testament a lot, and most of them do not realize how incredibly offensive that is to Jewish people. That's the truth. If you ever watch a, a Jew and a Christian just having a conversation, conversation, and the Christian refers to Tanak, the Hebrew Bible, as the Old Testament, Jews who have any sensitivity at all, have any knowledge at all, just cringe. And they bristle at. They probably will not make a comment because there are other issues to argue about. But the idea in that referring to Tanak, the Hebrew Bible, as the Old Testament is, is so incredibly offensive because what is being conveyed is that what is old, um, waxes away and disappears. Now, if you think that I'm sort of maybe mischaracterizing what Christians believe because I have an unflattering view of core Christian tenets, you make a mistake. This comes directly out of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews wildly misquotes Jeremiah 31. Wow. That one chapter has led so many people astray. But then again, all of the book of Hebrews, all 13 chapters, is an apologetic. It's an argument against Judaism. That's the whole book of Hebrews. Despite its name, it has like a friendly name, Hebrews, but it, it is an attack on Judaism. He, remember, was written while the Second Temple was still standing. Book of Hebrews probably written '64. So there was a, a Bar Mitzvah going on. And the book of Hebrews is going to to argue why Jesus is our true high priest, and he is above the angels, and above Moses, and Joshua, and above the, above all, above Judaism. That's what's very important. It's not anti-Semitic in the sense that you think of it. But Hebrews 8 in verse 9 is going to misquote Jeremiah 31, um, concerning that God has done away with the covenant made with the Jewish people. Misquote the passage in Jeremiah 31 where it says, "I was a husband to them," and translate, "I rejected them." I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding you. This will break your soul. But if you open up Jeremiah 30, depends which Bible you open, the Jewish Bible, Christian Bibles, it's verse 30, 31, and it says that "I was their husband." "As a husband." "I was their husband." And Hebrews 8, verse 9, translated, "I rejected them. I disregard them." Exactly the opposite, talking about the Jews. It's mind-blowing. And of course, the church doctors would doctor this text in the Septuagint so that the Septuagint would agree with the reading of Hebrews. So this is so crazy. If you can just triangulate this, if you go to a, a King James, doesn't matter, in Jeremiah 31, it says, "I was a husband to them," or "a master over them." That word "ba'alti" can mean a husband, or can mean a, a master. In fact, the only other time that word "ba'alti" exists in Tanak, in that exact iteration, in that exact formation, now, if the root is all over Tanak, but that exact, with the same exact construct, only appears one other time in Tanak, and that's in Jeremiah, I think 3:14, and there they translate correctly. The Septuagint, the doctor of the church altered the Septuagint to comport with Hebrews. But the King James doesn't go with it. I hope that wasn't too complicated. The point is that Hebrews continues. The author, we don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews, but whoever wrote it, he, that's how he ends. Look at chapter 8, verse 13. He says that he that maketh that which is old. Look at the, how it ends by calling this covenant new, he has made the first one obsolete. And whatever is obsolete becomes outdated and will disappear. So when Christians use the word Old Testament, this is the shers. This is really the source of it. And what they're conveying is that the law has been done away with, that Judaism has been done away with. Now, very important, they do not mean that, uh, the record of creation, the events, the history found in the Five Books of Moses, they don't. They believe all of that, all of that. They mean this in a, in an antinomian sense, that means they oppose the rituals that are found in the Hebrew Bible. And the book of Hebrews is in the next two chapters going to continue this theme where God doesn't even want the animal sacrificial system. In fact, how could the blood of bulls and goats even atone for? And, and Jesus is our sacrifice, and there is no longer sacrificial system. Remember, Hebrews is written while there was competition. This is a very critical point without which you can't understand the force of the, of the author. The author knows what's going on in Jerusalem, and he's saying, "Forget Jerusalem. Jesus provided a body for us." I'm not kidding. Hebrews 10:5, misquoting Psalm chapter 40. And in verse 18, the Hebrews literally says that there's no longer sacrificial system. It's, God did away with it completely. Of course, they cannot answer the problems. How come in the Messianic age, Tanak, there will be a sacrificial system? So, in, in some, all Christians refer to the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament. Whenever you think, after all these years, I would be, I would, uh, be so acclimated to that that I would, it does. It's like offensive, but I don't say anything. You, I don't say anything because I don't want to get into it over that. Uh, but that's what is meant. Roman Catholics are not big Bible studiers. Doesn't mean that there aren't Roman Catholics who become scholars and study, but the average Roman Catholic doesn't study the Bible very much. Their service is highly liturgical, so they read whatever the priest tells them to read from. And Protestants think that they're reading the Bible. They're not reading the original Hebrew, and it's all a big problem. So that's what they mean. They use the word Old Testament. Does not mean they would not use the word Torah. They would not. That's, I mean, not in a typical conventional conversation. Doesn't mean they would have a problem with it. They just wouldn't. They would use the term Pentateuch to identify the Five Books of Moses as opposed to other books in the Old Testament. And that's what's so incredibly offensive. So the book of Hebrews is what spawned that opposition to Tanak.

All right, very good. We'll move right on to the next caller. My dear friends, hope this message finds you well. If you like the way this channel is going and the channel has been a blessing to you, please consider supporting the channel by going to the website, TanakTalk.com. T-A-N-A-K-T-A-L-K.com. Thank you once again for your time and for supporting Tanak Talk.

Shill caller, you are live on the air. Please tell us your name and where you're calling from.

Hello, this is Paul from Virginia. And my question has to do, I was looking at the Jewish word for charity and explanation of that. And I happen to think of the account in Mark 10 about the individual coming to Jesus and asking, "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" I'm reading from King James, and of course, Jesus asks, "Why do you call me good? There's none good but God." And, um, he stated that, "Thou knowest the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, and so on." And he said, "Master, all these I have observed from my youth." So, I mean, I guess that means he was observant. And then Jesus said, "One thing you lack. Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross and follow me." All of a sudden, it hit me, this phrase, "take up the cross," seems out of chronological order. Was this a phrase that existed early on, or is it sometime after Jesus' crucifixion? Was it, uh, something that would have been... The answer is yes. You can stop. I have one bit more here. And but then he said, "Take up the cross and follow me," which, you know, this "follow me." Were there, was it normal for rabbis to go around and ask people to come and follow them in this way? Or, because, you know, when we think of somebody coming to us and grabbing us from whatever situation we're in, got responsibilities, obligations, to just drop everything and follow someone, seems quite cultish. So I didn't know, you know, like it said, the origin of this or when they started using this, uh, phrase or concept of taking up the cross.

All right, it's a good question. Good question. Go ahead and go and hang up now. Tune in for answer. Thank you so much for calling in.

You're welcome. Okay. Thanks.

Remember, right? So that kind of language is definitely was not running around during Jesus's life. But that idea of taking up the cross, which is found in the Gospels, is an idea of surrendering everything and giving it away, which means giving away everything of this world. That's highly dualistic. The idea is that this world has no value. This is going to, um, explode in the Book of John. There's so much going on. There's so much packed into this. You know, the story of Jesus encountering a wealthy man, and the wealthy man asks Jesus, "What can I do to achieve eternal life?" No, excuse me, I left out a good part. "Oh, good Master, oh, good teacher, what can I achieve eternal life?" So he said, "Keep all the commandments." And the man goes, "But I, you know, these I do. I keep them all." Now, in Pauline theology, Jesus should have stopped him right there and go, "You can't do that. No one can do." If Ray Comfort was there, who just loves this, this is his spiel, he'd go, "No one can keep all the commandments." But if you notice, Jesus doesn't say that, which is something I thought you're going to raise, but I never get a chance to say this. So it's interesting is that in Christian theology, that's not possible. No one can keep all the commandments. But the New Testament can't get these thoughts all together. So you frequently find people in the Christian Bible who are, it is said of them that they do keep all the commandments, like Zachariah and Elizabeth in Luke 1:6, who are portrayed as being saintly, who kept all the commandments. And that completely clashes with Pauline theology that man has inherited original sin. See Romans 5, it's an ex, it's Romans, everything, it's, it's everywhere. Um, so what Jesus, if, if Jesus was following Pauline theology, it sounds a little silly. He would go, "But you can't keep the commands. No one can do it." But that's not the response. So actually, Jesus says, "Why callest thou me good? There's no one good but God." You know, because that is in an earlier expression, and it was not only non-Trinitarian, but Jesus making it very clear that the Father is greater than him. And, and Jesus then says, "Sell everything you have, give it away to the poor." Which is very interesting. That's very, that, I'm just going to bring out just pieces here. That's very similar to the Sermon on the Mount. We're told that Jesus says, "Anyone who changes one jot or tittle of the law shall be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven. Do not think that I've come to uproot these things." So people think, well, there's a, a pronouncement in a proto-Torah expression, which in fact Ebionites and Nazarenes pointed to that the New Testament really supports keeping the Torah. But if you look further in the Sermon on the Mount, you find, and what it says is, "The Torah is not enough, because even if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery." Well, no one can do that. So it's that kind of amping it up, that kind of amping it up, that, okay, so the theory, but in reality, or in Jesus' reality, Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus is really becoming an Uber-Moses. That's why you have that. Mounts Matthew 5-7. Yeah, you have heard, but I say unto you. Whoa, where is this going? Well, it's going to where you can do it. So on the one hand, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and scribes, you can't enter heaven." What do you mean, exceeds? Why can't it be equal? Because it has to exceed. This was a, a world in which this world didn't matter very much. This, this world was not valuable. "Let the dead bury their own dead." It was about surrendering the materialistic world. Give everything away that you have and give it to the poor. If people who've accumulated some wealth honestly did that, there would be no one to give charity because everyone would be impoverished. You know, "Do not think about tomorrow." So that's in that world. I, I would say Neoplatonic, but it really is much older. That dualistic world, everything of this world is of no value, and all, everything is the spiritual world. And, and, and that's why there are, it doesn't say, well, Paul actually says it's better not to be married in 1 Corinthians 7. He says, "If you're married, then be good to your spouse and so on." But, but the ideal is never to be married. And Jesus, we are told, um, conveys that not being married is a unique gift. This is utterly dualistic, utterly pagan, and it's, um, it stinks of the Manichaeism, of course, that Augustine would embrace. It's all, it's that same stench of "this world is of no value. Let the dead bury their own dead. Give everything you have. If someone asks you of anything, just don't ask it back because nothing you have is of any value. Nothing." This world is a broken world. We talk about this so much because this comes up so frequently all over the Christian Bible, that idea that this world is of no value. It's the spiritual world that's everything. And you can understand why in the ancient world people thought that way. People were just dying all around you. It was terrible. It was a world where people were in pain. People were dying of their teeth, of infections, which they didn't understand what that meant. Mental illness was attributed to demons. They, they didn't understand what any of this was. The world was at war with them. You just didn't know. You didn't know if your, your wife would ever survive the birthing store. People became ill in the blink of an eye, and they were dead in a few months. You know, you read the biographies. You don't have to go back to the ancient world. You can go to the, like, read a biography of Mozart. You know how many kids did his mother have, and how many of them survive to adulthood? That's the way it was. People just, so therefore, this world was a very broken world. I, I say, I want to convey this to you, those of you who, who cherish, who want to understand history, to the extent that you will succeed is the extent that you're able to divorce yourself of the world that you know, of your ability to communicate with people instantaneously around the world was unimaginable. People very frequently were born and died in the same place, and people didn't travel much, and people were in agony and pain, and, and there was no tile, not to go, just none of these things. So this world was very, very broken. So "take up your cross" very much as surrendering this world and for the world to come, that this world doesn't really matter. Now, during Jesus's lifetime, no one was thinking that he's going to get crucified. And it's not just a hint of this, it's explicit in the Christian Bible. And remember what I, I've always taught you, that whatever you find in the Gospels isn't apologetic. This is explicitly when Jesus says he asks his disciples, "Who do you think I am?" Like, "Who do you think I am?" And they have no clue. They don't know who he is. "What do you mean, you don't have a clue? I thought he was running around telling everybody he wasn't." How did that make it in? Because it's embarrassing. Because people later are going to be like, "What the heck went on there?" Peter says, "You are the Christ, Son." Jesus says, "Then no one could have told you this except for God, because there's no flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you." Jesus then says that the Son of Man, he's going to have to suffer many things, you know, and be hated and killed and R. And what does Peter say? He says, "Lord, far be this from you. Far be this from..." "What do you mean, 'far be from you'? Didn't you read Isaiah 53? Didn't you read Daniel 9? What are you talking about? Didn't you read Psalm 22?" Guys, if you understand what I'm sharing with you now, your mish all do. True. I don't, you're a Christian for sure. Will do true. If you just think about it right now, your mish, you'll say "Kama" and announce your love and pull, put all of this out of your mind. "What are you talking about?" Why did Peter act so surprised? In the Christian Bible, this is not me. I'm not making this up. Peter and, and Jesus says, you know, "Get away from me, Satan." He cures the mouth for saying that. But Peter is bewildered by this. Why is he bewildered? Because, "What are you talking about? Messiah is not supposed to do any of these things." Now, this is not that, this is not a historical conversation. I mean, if you can go back in time to the year 30 when this conversation putatively occurred with your cell phone, you would not be able to record it. This is a manufactured conversation. This is a, a dialogue that was created, that was shaped, that was fashioned to explain away later to people who wondered, "Why would you think that this itinerant fellow was the Messiah who was supposed to suffer and die?" "I never heard anything about this." And this is completely inconsistent with anything found in the Jewish scriptures. Ah, it's the secret. And that's where the stench of Gnosticism, having special knowledge, is baked into the Christian Bible. Not just the Gospels. Paul explicitly states in an undisputed book, in 1 Corinthians, that nobody at the time of Jesus knew that the Messiah is supposed to suffer and die and be crucified. Paul says that I have special revelation. In fact, Galatians 1 and 2, another undisputed book, those first two chapters are completely devoted to explaining why Paul's authority and revelation is superior to anyone else. And that's why Peter is mocked. That's why the Jerusalem Church is mocked. I, I have the true revelation. This is huge. Look, if you get what I'm saying now, you'll get the whole, this whole thing. Went Paul himself says that the generation, if the, the leaders of the generation of Jesus, that means those who presided in the year 30 over Jesus's death, if the people who were in power knew that the Messiah is supposed to die, they would have never crucified Jesus. They would have never crucified the Lord of Glory. See First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 7 and 8. Just read it. Just read it. Let me read it. There's, this is not like I have a special fragment or manuscript like that I'm revealing here. This is a straight First Corinthians, one of the most influential letters of Paul. He says that they would have never crucified. What do you mean they wouldn't have crucified Jesus? What would they have known? What do you know that they didn't know? What about Isaiah 53? You know, have missionaries stand on the street corner screaming Isaiah out of context, of course. And well, if, if Isaiah 53 was so obviously talking about the Messiah's supposed to suffer and die, then when Jesus said, "I'm going to have to suffer and die," why didn't Peter go, "Well, of course you're going to have to." Well, no, no one thought that way. Nobody did. The Jewish people, nation Israel, will suffer and suffer tremendous death, and it will trigger a repentance among the goyim, and the goyim will do teshuvah as a result. That's a Messianic prophecy that's unfolding, unfortunately, in our time, where there's tremendous repentance among non-Jews today because of the trauma and tragedy of the Jewish people, just in the last century. So what I'm saying, this is not conspiracy. This is not, I'm not doing this. This is nothing weird going on here. So "take the cross" means to deny yourself of this world. That's what it means. That's now the idea. "Take the cross." In the, in the first century, the cross was hideous. The empire did not crucify people as a matter of policy unless you committed treason, unless you engaged in insurrection against the empire. It was a very complicated, expensive way to kill someone. It was a horrible way to die, horrible. It's just the horrible way that people came up with to execute folks. But wouldn't be, they wouldn't crucify, uh, murderers. They kill murderers. They were put to death, but not crucifixion. You had to be a threat to the empire, and then you were on a cross, and among many others, naked, standing there, and vultures just waiting for you to die. And Jerusalem's weather is very moderate, very temperate. You know, so people could be up there for a long time. And then they eventually their feet gave out, and their lungs elongated, and died of asphyxiation. They weren't buried. Their bodies were then eaten by scavengers, deprived of even a, a, um, an honorable burial. So that's what "take up the cross" means. You find that in the Gospels in general. And in this context, it's very important. Like, "take everything you have and give it away to the poor." The man, the rich, the story comes about, walks away going, you know, he's accumulated a lot of wealth. I'm not giving everything away. There's no mitzvah like that in the Torah. There's none. Because if you gave everything away, look, I just want to explain one point about tzedakah. I may not get another chance. The word tzedakah appears many times. It usually does not mean charity. Tzedakah usually means, uh, justice. Zedek, justice, righteousness, justice. Here's what's behind it. Okay, God gives you 10% more than you deserve. So you have been loaned by God an additional 10% to your income. It's there for you then to do what? "That you be holy because I, the Lord, am holy." So tzedakah wants you to to feed the poor, and take, and clothe the naked, and, and care for the widow and the orphan. So if you don't give charity, you're stealing from Hashem. That's it. It's not your money. So I just want to just carry this in. This is very important. You understand what real Judaism is, what real tzedakah is. If a person doesn't give 10% to the poor or to those who are needy, you're stealing because Hashem gave you that money. It doesn't, it's not yours. It's just giving you an opportunity to do what's just. If you don't give tzedakah, you're stealing. You're unjust. And that's why tzedakah doesn't really mean giving to the poor. It's come to mean that, but it really means to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and to care for the, the widow, the weakest members of society. But what you find all over the Gospels, all over the letters of Paul, is there's a grand history and the death of Jesus. No one ever thought about it. I know about it. See Ephesians chapter 3. Just read the first five verses of Ephesians 3. The not many Orthodox rabbis that tell you to read the New Testament. I'm not telling you to read it, but if you read it, you go, "Oh, okay. I got it." No Isaiah 53. None of this Jews for Jesus stuff. It's a mystery. No one ever, ever have thought it. Great question. I love that road you took me down, and I'm glad that we had the opportunity to explore this. The very next, the very next caller literally had this, had a, the same question on the on the tithing part of it as, uh, as one who is a righteous Gentile. Did you, I was distracted on the callers. Did you cover that aspect for those who are curious if they're, Ben, no, how can they, how are they supposed to tithe? What are they supposed to do with their funds or helping people? Can you not give it to a church? Feed the hungry. Fill up. It's, it's cold now. Okay, if you're on this side of the equator, put blankets in your trunk. Put food in your trunk. You're going to find the hungry, the needy people are trembling now in the United States from the bitter cold. Clothe them. You know, you know what a mitzvah that is? Mitzvah, unbelievable. You go to Walmart, wherever, just fill up your car. You know where the hungry people are, and care for them. It's so simple. Do that. And don't say you should do it. You do it with your wife. You'll fix. If you're going through marital trouble now, you want to fix your marriage. Tell you this, you want to repair your marriage, you want your business to succeed. I'm kidding. Tell your wife, "We're going to, whatever store, to Walmart. We know where the hungry people are. We know where the cold people are. Let's together do this." Not because it makes us feel good about ourselves, not because we think it's the right thing, because the God of Israel commanded us. And you should know, it'll repair your marriage, your relationship with your family. Have your teach. This is a way to teach your children. This is a way you want to raise your children properly. Take your television and throw it out the window. That's the first thing. Throw your television out the window. Though, just make sure there's no one walking downstairs. Tell your family, "We're going to find hungry and cold people, and we're going to clothe them. We're going to give them jackets. We're going to feed them." That's what you do. Make sure you don't give a person on the street a raw piece of chicken where they can't cook it, okay? You, you, it'll repair your whole life. It'll, and we're doing it because commanded us. And in fact, what happened to those who, who are non-Jews in Tanak, in the Torah, Ammon and Moab did not care for wayfarers, and punish those nations that they can't join the nation of Israel. They're, they're not Jews. And you see that they are commanded to care for people, wayfarers, who are in grave need. So, at that, that's what you should be doing. You understand? If you're not getting along with your husband right now, sit down and do the, say, "We're going to do this together." Hashem, it'll repair your life. It'll transform your, because you will become God-like, because you will become messengers of God unified together. Thank you for your question.

Very good. Very good. Thank you for that.

Rabbi, you are live on the air. Please tell us your name and where are you calling from.

Hi, Rabbi Singer. This is Todd from Chicago. Uh, enjoyed the Ben-Gurion conference back in July. And I had a question about this week's Torah reading, Exodus 15:11. The famous, "Mi kamocha ba'elim, Hashem?" Who is like you among the heavenly powers, Hashem? So the Trinity says there are three who, or three persons. How do you think that this particular verse, and the various verses that have also commented about who is like you, such as Isaiah chapter 40, and maybe a dozen other verses, how do you think that plays into the critique on the Trinity?

Okay, go and hang him down. Thank you for your call and your patience. Everybody. Do you want to keep him on? No. I, I just don't understand. You know, do you ever, like, talk to a girl? She's a nice girl, and she's dating a guy who's a drunk, is an addict, who beats her. She comes home with a black and blue mark on her face, and she has put makeup, baked cake, makeup on it so her her parents don't see it, and she stays with this. It's, and you go, "What? Why would you, why would you allow yourself to be abused by someone?" Why, why? And really, the, the reason why people had need this Trinity is it's because people feel that I can't go directly to God. Really.

I have to. I need an intermediary. This is a very big deal. In the Christian Bible, there is one God and one mediator between God and man, and that's the man Jesus Christ. 1 Timothy 2:5. I'm not making this up.

Now, in the ancient world, they thought that the Shemesh, the sun, the heavenly abode, the powers, that means sun, really has created a a nuclear reactor. Imagine the sun is doing putting out all this light, and people thought that the sun was worth all the heavenly powers. They are, of course, have enormous power because He made them that way, but they only serve Hashem. That's why the unsung hero at on the Hanukkah menorah is the ninth candle, the shamash. It has eight lamps, but really has a ninth lamp. What is the ninth lamp used for? It's used as an agent to light the other eight. What's the name of that ninth lamp? It's called the the shamash, which is the exact same word as Shemesh, the sun. Like you idiots, there's nothing.

Now, there are wise men who created enormous powerful forces in the world, but this is all from what the pagan world did. Was it worship these forces as though these forces are the source? And they're not. So how could someone really, how could a person read this and it's saying there's nothing like you? The foolish. Isaiah 46:9. And in truth, if you would sit down and read Isaiah 44, just right, all you need to do is just read Isaiah 44, you would believe the church. You would, you would immediately call up your credit card company and and put it on hold, or tell them, send me different credit cards so that your church can't make any more. Immediately, you would do it immediately. And it's so sad listening to people who are so addicted to this relationship.

Why? The reason why people find the Trinity attractive is because because God is perfect, and I'm a sinner. I'm filthy. I'm dirty. I'm worthless. God can't, He can't. I'm nothing. I'm a dirty, filthy, shame-filled sinner, and God is perfect. This is how it is. And those of you who have never been a Christian, really never, like, never, you might think that I'm straw-manning this. You might think that I'm mischaracterizing what Christians believe and teach because I somehow don't like Christianity. And everyone watching me now who is or was a Christian will say, "What the Rabbi's saying is exactly what I believed, exactly."

So you can't go to God unless you go to an intermediary. That intermediary in Christianity is Jesus Christ. Christ. In the Roman Catholic Church, they add to that the the Theotokos, the Mother of God, Mary, and they call it venerated. We venerate her. Why don't you just say you worship her? They don't want to use the word. Why? Because it doesn't sound good. I'm not kidding. Telling you the truth. They use, "We pray to her, but we venerate her." What the? So they use weird language. Always whenever you hear people use weird language and you ask them a simple question, you know that there's a scam. It's just like when you have a used car dealership that uses weird language. You ever like, you see an advertisement for used cars, whatever, and then on the bottom, you have the fine print, and it, they're using this legalese language that only lawyers know. They, why, why aren't they using conventional language? Because they don't want you to figure out what it means. Because unless you're trained in law school, you have no idea what these things mean. Why can't they talk regular language? And why are you putting it down there in the bottom where I need a microscope? Why don't you just put that's what's going on?

The doctrine of the Trinity is there to place a deity between you and God. And that's what the Holy Spirit is. That's what the Paraclete is. That's what Mary is. That's what the Saints are. It's all of it. The same thing. Hashem who loves you. You're created in His image. You are children of the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 14. Why does this Jew keep saying the same thing? Because Judaism doesn't change. Mitzvot, we don't change. This is the original. The original doesn't change. You want change? Go to churches. They're changing more. They change their theology more frequently. You change your socks. That's where you go. They, you like change. That's why the splitting. That's why churches are splitting and splitting and splitting over theology. People, all kinds of people get into fights. But the reason they fight over the, why are they fighting over theology? Because it's not in the Christian Bible. This is a man-made religion, and people develop it as they, as they move along. So it's really a tragedy.

So if someone would read, all you have to do is just read Isaiah 40 through 48. I mean, just read it through. You would run. You immediately. You won't call the church and say, "I'd like to stop making it." You just immediately will call your MasterCard company and say, "Please stop this card. Stop it. Send me a different card with a different credit card number." Immediately. You won't even wait. Thank you for your question. All right, very good. Interesting. Okay, okay, okay. Here we go. Caller, you live on the air. Please tell us your name, where we calling from. Yeah, my name is Joseph. I'm calling from Idaho. Welcome, Joseph. Go ahead. Thanks. Um, so it's kind of a two-part question, and I wrote it down, so I'm gonna try to to read my writing here. Sure. So, um, the idea of the teaching of Armilus, um, in kind of the Middle Ages and a lot of Jewish writings that I've been researching, um, comes into play when, uh, in my mind, that is a concept that I've heard rabbis say doesn't exist in Judaism, um, of the Antichrist, if you will. But then I'm wondering if it's possible that this concept, it's spoken of in Daniel when it talks about the four beasts and the fourth beast being this beast that changes the times and the seasons, and if that's the church. And then the second part of that question, kind of that in Christian Christian eschatology, teach that the Christians will be persecuted and killed by Antichrist figure. Is it possible that there's some way that that's actually the Messiah that's doing this? Because in Zechariah, when it talks about the, uh, false prophets and the false teachers put to death, um, so what does that mean for? You're, you started breaking up a little bit at the end. Great. You have no idea how great I was doing, and then you kind of took a left turn, and also your audio broke up. Um, but let me, let me, let me parse this out because I think, let me part. Yeah, it sounds like your phone, Joseph, is actually crackling for some reason. I think I know. I know, I know. Very good. Okay, Rabbi, go ahead and with the question and theory. Thank you for calling in. Just tune in and thank you. Great question. Okay, great question. Question, great question. Armilus is a term that is an unambiguous reference to Romulus, the founder of Rome. That's all. The term Armilus is not that old, meaning it doesn't date back to biblical times. Doesn't date back even to the Second Temple. That iteration of the word, that is not an Antichrist. Now, it should be said that Christians don't all agree about precisely what the Antichrist is. Who is named in the Epistles of John, spoken of in 2 Thessalonians, definitely comes up in the Book of Revelation. So the consensus thinking is that it is a person who pretends to be the Messiah. The Jews then worship him, by the way. If you can smell, if you could sniff out the projection, okay, think about this. You have a guy who people think is the Messiah, and then worship him, right? But he's really not the Messiah, and the whole thing is a fake, and they consider him divine. If anyone's an Antichrist, that's exactly what Jesus is. There is no such thing as the Antichrist. I know people are going to put on videos attacking me. There's no such thing. But it's really, that's exactly what Christianity did. It's really a projection. Christianity took a guy, made him the Messiah, and then worshiped him as a God when he's not. Okay? That's what they did. And then they accuse us, of course, of doing it. It's this is so mind-blowing that if your mind seized what you, your ears just heard, blow you away. There is, there is no such thing as a, a person who, who is an Antichrist in Tanakh. Now, what that means is the person says that I'm Messiah, and then the Jews worship, and so on, and they build a temple and so on. There's nothing like that. Nothing. Are there negative dark forces in the leading up as a precursor to the Messianic age? Yes. And Rome, Romulus, Armilus, whatever you want to call it, Edom is our chief opponent who is seeking to, seeking to interrupt this process. He is the last of the four beasts, so horrible that Daniel is asking the angel like, "What, what is that? What are those 10 horns?" We know from Julius Caesar until the emperor who presided over the destruction of the Second Temple, that's they're 10. Julius Caesar technically wasn't an emperor, dictator who's called Diogenes, and it's a little horn. Well, who is the general responsible for destroying the Second Temple who then becomes an emperor who speaks against God and the Saints? You don't need me for this. It's Titus. Titus. It's all very simple. This is Edom. But they're not pretending to be Messiah. But they do put forward Edom. Rome is going to produce the Christian religion because Christianity converted to Rome, not the other way around, and it will sublimate into Rome very quickly. The New Testament is extremely pro-Roman. It's so pro-Roman that Pontius Pilate is completely off the hook for Jesus' crucifixion. The Jews are condemned, while Pilate is exonerated and told to his face by Jesus in John 19:11 that you didn't do anything wrong. Pilate was considered a saint in the Ethiopian Church to this day. What? And the sublimation continues, adopting Roman pagan ideas. And by the fourth century, after Christians were persecuted under the emperor Diocletian, who recuses himself, Constantine goes to battle in 312, in the fall of 312, defeats his enemy. He attributes the success, his military success, to the God of the Christians, and then he accepts Christianity. He doesn't abandon his other beliefs, his worship of Sol Invictus, but he doesn't. Then he convenes the Council of Nicaea, 325, after which the Jews were expelled, and the doctrine of the Trinity is then accepted as the Orthodoxy of the church. This is going to be reconfirmed at the Council of Constantinople in 381. And it's so dark, it's really dark. Paul says, so far, Paul says that you're not allowed to rebel against the empire. I'm not kidding. And not because it's not a good idea. He says God put the Roman Empire in place. Is there, there because God wants it there, and if you rebel against the Roman Empire, you are rebelling against God. Not because it's a bad idea. If you live in North Korea, to say anything unflattering about Kim Jong-un. No, God wanted them there. See Romans 13, verse 1 and 2, 3. He openly says that. Openly says that. You find this all over the place. And what will the church do? So this comes up in Daniel 7. Daniel has a non-veridical vision that's very troubling. It's a vision. It's not, there's not really a lion. There's not really a lion with wings or any of those things. It's a vision, but it's very troubling. And that last beast, that's bad. And then he asks the angel like, "What the heck is that last beast? Like, what is going on?" And he tells him there that he, what's the nature of the last beast? Is that he's going to change the laws, the Mitzvot, and the times. At the same Council of Nicaea, the Mitzvot are rejected in the sense that the, the council of Nicaea is going to decide that the Jewish calendar, which is oral Torah, is rejected completely, and Christians are no longer to determine when Easter is based on the Jewish Passover. You might go, "What are you talking about?" So this will send you flying. Until the Council of Nicaea, a great deal of Christian, a great number of Christians, including many Church Fathers, celebrated Easter based on when the Jews said it's Passover. You, why do I need Jews for? I just have 12 months, and on the first 15th day of the first month is Passover, right? Don't need it. You do need it. Why? Because Jews have an oral, an oral information of how precisely to form a calendar, because an intercalation must exist in order to synchronize the solar and lunar calendar. It's complex, but it's a 19-year cycle, and it's the most precise calendar in the world. It's from God. We have a, we have a precise number for the length of a lunar month, the average length of a lunar month, which is, if you number it, you'll find this interesting. It's, it's 12 and 1/12 days, and then of the 13th hour, it's 796 over 1080. If you want that in a decimal, it's 29.53059. That's our information. It's our calendar, which is precise. It's precise within one day of 14,000 years. Very precise. It had to be precise. Our whole Judaism depends on it. But they can't, Rome can't depend on the Jewish oral law. The Jews, the rabbis, and Constantine said this in his letter that he, uh, sent out to the empire, he, "We're done with that. We're done with going to those dirty Jews to figure out when Easter, when we should determine our most holy day." Was a vile, he's a vile dog. So that's it. They changed the laws, and they changed what the church did. They changed the laws, and they changed the times. So Armilus is not an Antichrist. He just represents the chief enemy of the Jewish people who try to prevent the redemption from occurring. Of course, they'll fail, and their nature is that they change the laws and the times, as you find at the end of Daniel chapter 7. But be very careful. Antichrist and Christianity, something very different. And it's one of the things, look, I can't be the first guy to ever come up with, there's no way. I'm sure someone else thought about this. What's so shocking about the Antichrist? There is no such thing as an Antichrist. That's it's very dualistic. So it fits perfectly in the Christian Bible. It's a perfect fit. They belong together. But it occurred to me that really, it's not that there is an Antichrist. I don't want anyone making a video. Make all the videos. They attack me every day. There are people, no question, who are going to make a YouTube video attacking me. They do it every 10 minutes and say, "Oh, he's saying that Jesus is the Antichrist." Stop it. You're welcome to do it. If you want to make an idiot out of yourself, fine. But although there's no such thing as an Antichrist, if there ever was an Antichrist, he's not. But if there was, that's what Jesus is. He's a false Messiah, and people came to worship him. That's all. Bingo. And he is our temple. He is our high priest. I'm not kidding. I'm not making this up. He is our Sabbath. Hebrews 4. Like, and what's so interesting is that all the Christians and ex-Christians get me. They're going, "Oh no." All the Jews in Boro Park and Brooklyn, they have no clue what I'm talking about. But all the Christians know exactly what I'm talking about. Okay, now go make your videos attacking me. Thank you for your question.

All right, very good. We got time for one more, I believe. Sure. All right, caller, you're live on the air. Please tell us your name, where you call from. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. How's it going? Uh, thanks. My name is Liam, and I'm actually from Georgia. I was going to ask, what does Rabbi think about Christian Zionism and how it relates to, uh, I guess the letters and the, um, I guess you could say writings of Paul, and how it seems that those that are in true Israel are the Jews that accept Jesus. And it seems that, you know, today we have this, you know, movement which is, you know, I guess you could say, you know, dispensationalism, Christian Zionists see. And where is the discrepancy, you know, there? Or is there a discrepancy where you read like in Amos 9:11, where it, um, I want to say talks about the Jews being resettled for, and, you know, that they're not going to be removed. And also in Ezekiel, where it talks about there being a, like, like a new temple, and how there's like a discrepancy between, you know, what we read about where, you know, Jesus is, you know, like the temple, and we are also the temple. But then in the Old Testament, it also says that there will be a new temple. So there's like a discrepancy. And I kind of believe that Christian Zionists understood this, and they, I don't know, maybe I'm kind of going all over the place. But how would you? I'm good. We're, I'm good with you. We're good. We're good. I'm with you, sweetheart. I'll take care of it for you. Thank you for your question. Good father. Thank you, sweet guy. You know, we have really sweet callers. You know, very lucky. There, um, there is going to be some exciting surprises coming up for the summer, incidentally. Okay. All right. Christian Zionism. So you're quite accurate until the 19th century. Almost all Christians believed in replacement theology. I could just say all the Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, the Reformers, all thought that the Jews were once chosen, but because of their crime, not just of non-belief, but killing Jesus, they're no longer chosen, and the church has replaced them. And they would have plenty, plenty of passages in the Christian Bible from which to pick from. They wouldn't, they, it's like the, the Christian Bible is like a candy store for a five-year-old. It's because it's all that kind of stuff is all over the place. You know that, you know, I mean, why is like Jesus cursing an olive tree when it wasn't the season for it to get forth? All right, anyway, it's, it's really all over the place. And as far as Romans 11, it's interesting that Romans 11 is variously used by both the opponents of Christian Zionism and the supporters of it. And you have that in just Romans 9, 10, 11. The reason why Romans in particular is nothing like Galatians, where the book of Galatians is very easy to understand what Paul's doing, and people don't really fight about it much. Why? Because Paul, in his letter to churches in Asia Minor, is writing to non-Jews. He does not have to, he doesn't have to restrain himself. He's very angry. They chose a different way, and you guys are in big trouble, and you're going to get it. I've been there. I built your churches. What did you do, you idiots? He literally calls them idiots. Galatians 3:1. Who bewitched you, foolish Galatians? Not kidding. He doesn't have to worry about it because he built those churches, and he was really triply insulted. Okay? So like Galatians, nobody could pick it up. Six chapters. Romans is not that way for many reasons. Romans is the last undisputed letter of Paul, and he's writing to people he has not met, to a place that he had not yet visited, to a mixed crowd of Christians who had different backgrounds, Jews and non-Jews. There were no Jews in the churches that he wrote to his letter to Galatians. In Rome, there were, and he addresses them. He's also very carefully where he, you know, where he condemns the law, but he says that mean the law is a bad thing? Oh, no. Jews are a bad thing? Oh, no. The oracles of God were given to them. Romans 3:2. And that's why the book of Romans, whether it's all these things, replacement theology, reformed theology, all the interlocutors on both sides are using the book of Romans because Paul spoke out of two sides of his mouth in that book because he, it was an unsettling audience, and he wanted to gain favor with everybody, and therefore was speaking to everyone. Christian Zionism emerges in the 19th century. A man born in England, John Nelson Darby, in the year 1800, comes to America. If he had not done that, he would have, no one would have ever heard of him. But the United States was fertile ground to hear his dispensationalist message. Now, dispensationalism means many things. It means, for example, that there are many different epochs in God's or economies, spiritual economies in different epochs of history, and we're not going to talk about that. We're not going to talk about how many dispensations he thought or his followers thought there were, because that's not germane to your question. What is germane is Darby believed that the Jews were God's chosen people. You can see why this would not sit well with the Church of England. I mean, this is not complicated, but it would sit well with Americans. Founding fathers, this would sit very well with Americans. Would not sit well with European Christians, and that God, in fact, has a covenant with the Jews that can never be eradicated, ever. And he was, it's true, he was appealing to Romans, but he was really appealing to plain verses in the Hebrew Bible. And that's why dispensationalists are quoting the Hebrew Bible a lot, a lot. Dispensationalists, premillennial dispensationalists. We're going to ignore the word premillennial because that's their eschatology, but it's not germane to your question. And we're not going to deal with dispensationalism because they're called that, but that also is not germane. That's about just God had a different, um, salvific economy with in different periods of time. We actually not going to talk about that because it's not germane to your question. We're going to talk about this. This very, be very precise here. He believed that God had two covenants, two covenants, one with the Jews, the physical Jews, and that's why they're still here. And that promise that God made to the Jews is eternal. It's unbreakable. And the Lord who created the sun to illuminate the day, the stars, and the moon, the night. If these laws should pass before me, so will the children of Israel forever. And they have to be blessed, and the land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. This was radical. But the United States was very, um, was fertile ground for this because America was born out of a crucible of rejecting the Church of England, of rejecting the royal brute of Great Britain, King George III, and all rejecting the Church of England. So they saw in the Jew a kinship. I mean, George Washington had a favorable view of Jews. Alexander Hamilton spoke Hebrew. His mother converted to Judaism. He went to Hebrew school in the Caribbean. He was very, um, he had a very, very favorable view of Jewish people. It was very. So therefore, these ideas would ferment. And of course, he needed, um, John Nelson Darby needed followers who knew how to speak and convey, and he found them in a lawmaker from Kansas, Cyrus Scofield, who would publish a Bible with commentary that was dispensational. That would be published in the early 20th century. In the early 20th century, the Scofield Bible was published. I think, I think by World War I, it had sold four million copies, which is astounding at the time. It was my, and really, they're not appealing to Romans. They're really appealing to the Hebrew Bible. They're blessing Israel, blessing the Jews. God is preserving them. And Isaiah chapter 60, Amos chapter 9. So what they believe is that God has two covenants. One is with the, a spiritual covenant with Christians. That's an eternal, that's a spiritual, heavenly covenant. So those who are part of the church are saved. Jews are not saved. They don't believe in Jesus. This is very critical. They just believe that the covenant God has with the Jews is on this earth, and the Jews are chosen. That's why they couldn't be destroyed, and Israel belongs to the Jewish people, every square inch of it, and the Jews must have it, and the Jews must be there, all of it, not give up one inch. And then there's a war, and based on many misunderstandings of text, they think that most of the Jews are going to get killed. A massive misunderstanding of Zechariah 13. But that's, we're going off topic. So, so the God is a physical covenant with, and this had James Balfour believed in this, the Foreign Secretary, the founder of the Red Cross. This is this idea that the Jews were chosen, and that covenant was never broken. It's all in Tanakh. And that's why dispensationalists quote Tanakh a lot. I mean, they quote the Hebrew Bible a lot. They take it, they take it very seriously. Christian Zionists take it very seriously, very seriously. And in Tanakh, don't need, is not complicated. I mean, Isaiah 60: "Arise and shine, for your light has come. Kings will go by your light. The sons of them that are afflicted, you will, will, will come and bow to you." It does not mean that we're going to make the world into slaves. It means they're going to join the Jewish people. That's all it means. And they're going to repair your walls. It's all over. It really is all over the place, because that's the nature of the Messianic age is that the nations say, "We want to join you. We want to be a servant to you." Now, a servant in Tanakh doesn't mean a black man in Alabama in 1820. No, that's sin. The slave, the Hebrew in Tanakh is someone who joins your family. We want to be a part of this. I want to hold on to your shirt. When Abraham was informed by angels that out of him would come a great nation, his first thought was a slave, because Eliezer was his servant from Damascus. Hashem says, "No, it's not. It has to be someone from your loins, an actual biological." Read the first five verses of Genesis 15. So it is very refreshing to hear, um, anyone, and Christians quoting a lot of Tanakh for it's a no-brainer. That means if you read Tanakh just straightforward, that you have to do such, um, somersaults. It requires a circus act to insert replacement theology in it. It's, I know what they do. It's a, it's an ugly game. Now, in the church, this is standard fare. In the Roman Catholic, the Roman Catholic Church still believes that. Now, one caveat should be made. This is big. I don't think I've ever said this very frequently. When an idea takes off in the Christian world among one sect, the idea can become popular all over the place. Okay? So you have, um, the Pentecostal movement begins in the early 20th century, right? Uh, guy named Carter from, uh, Church of God in Christ. I mean, he starts it, and it catches on like wildfire. So the Pentecostal charismatic movement, uh, begins within a certain area, a certain domain of Protestant Christianity, but wow, it infiltrates everywhere. And the Roman Catholics, they're Roman Catholics that are speaking in tongues. Okay. All right. So while Christian Zionism begins with Darby and Moody and Scofield, I mean, these are the big names. Moody Bible Institute, that's Moody. I mean, these, there are many other names. These are big, big names that are promoting this. It's spreading. Well, it will go on to Europe too, but it, the notion of Christian Zionism will make sense to a lot of people. And while they don't adopt other features of premillennial dispensationalism, both the premillennial element, which just means how exactly the end, the eschatology unfolds, or where it happens, not germane, but they don't accept that. You know, and they may not accept the dispensationalism element that there are different epochs where there's a different spiritual economy. They don't. But they, they understand the Christian Zionism because they're going to Tanakh. Not that they're all going to Tanakh, but that's the bread and butter of it, because Tanakh is just a no-brainer. The Jewish people return. Jeremiah 30:3. It's just so clear, clear. Now, what happens in every cult, and every cult is a good word, is they take every cult, every false teaching. Listen, I'll teach you this. This is very big. If you listen to this, you go on high. Every cult dispenses with clear passages in favor of ambiguous passages. If you remember that, you're way up there. Every false doctrine, every cult, okay? What they're always doing is you have clear passages in a sacred text, Tanakh, very clear passages that the Jews are returning to the land, clear, clear, clear. You're going to return. I tell you, Jeremiah 30:3. I mean, it's like Zechariah 12:9. In those days, Hashem is going to destroy all those who, all the nations that come up against Jerusalem. Like, what, what are you thinking? Every, listen up, sweethearts. If you get what I'm saying now, you're going to a different level in your ability to discern an orthodox group. Low case. Oh, orthodox means that we have before us clear passages that are unambiguous, and we have, of course, these vague verses that are not exactly clear. We get what is generally happening, but it's not spelled out. Clear Orthodoxy always will favor the clear passages and interpret the passages that are ambiguous in light of the clear texts, always. You're always going to have in Tanakh, as an example of clear passages, which is the vast majority of it. Then you have some ambiguous verse that could be taken out of context, misunderstood, written poetically. Isaiah is just flaming mad. But you don't get the, I mean, Isaiah says, "Where is your bill of divorcement? Where is the, who are these creditors to whom you were sold?" Isaiah 50, verse 1. Isaiah, what is he screaming like that for? Isaiah. Christians only know Isaiah 33 because people think maybe Hashem is done with the Jews. So he asks, "Where is your, where is this safer? Where is this divorcement that I gave you? Where, who are these creditors to whom you were sold?" Means a person can't pay a debt, so you have to give away what you have. You, you can't. It comes time to pay, you don't have it. You have to give away your car. When did I give you away? Oh, I was screaming at you for, yeah, I'm screaming at you because you're my kid. I love you. Kind. It's time to do. So time. So the Christian Zionism was correct. Meaning Darby got it. So again, forget premillennial. Forget. They now, now caveat, they don't believe that Jews are saved because they're Jewish. Spiritually, they have to be converted to Christianity. And all these Christian Zionists who reject replacement theology, which is the standard, or covenant theology, or New Israel theology, a million names for it, it's replacement theology. They all want to convert Jews. And in fact, today, we are living in a time where the almost the only people who are involved in Jewish evangelism are Christian Zionists. They all are. And understand, they really are resigned. They really are pro-Israel. I mean, really pro-Israel. They really are. But they are not slow to exploit their support for Israel as a way of evangelizing Jews. The Catholic Church, so the Catholics never try to convert Jews. It's rare. It happens. There are some oddballs out there. There are, but these are generally outliers. What is the Catholic? So in the Orthodox Church, of course, they all would like to convert Jews, but they're, they're not involved with this kind of stuff. It's not their game. And part of it is that they don't think the Jews are chosen anymore. So while it would give them a rush, you know, when Robert Novak from CNN, you know, he got his big reward. Now, oh, he hated Israel. He became a Catholic. He became a Catholic. What was he called? The Prince of Darkness. What they called him. He was a vicious person. Person. Really. He was born Jewish, but he became a Catholic, and wow, did he turn against Israel? Forget about it. Vicious, vicious guy. Just a vicious person. He, a lot of these guys, when they, you should know, when they become Catholic, I could think of, I can also think of some evangelicals. Some of them are Hank Hanegraaff, right? The Bible Answer Man. So he was a Protestant, and he joined the Greek Orthodox Church. But right away, I don't know what the heck he's doing these days, but right away, his anti-Israel stuff was flying. You could sniff it. Like, what's happening there? Understand, because it, today the Evangelical world generally is very pro-Israel, very Zionist. And if people really are do not like the Jews in the land of Israel, don't think the Jews belong, see, there's a big problem. You think it's just hatred of Jews. All the Church Fathers, all of them, with one voice, said that the Jews were expelled from the land of Israel, and the Temple was destroyed because they killed Jesus, and they're God's done with them, done. They'll never return. They're finished. All the Church Fathers, all of them, said that the Jews would never return, never. And Augustine, in his magnum opus, said that the reason why the Jews are still around is an example of a people, what would happen to a people who rejected Christ, if they would live in misery among us. That this is St. Augustine. All the Church Fathers taught this. The Jews would never return back, never, never, never. That's why the church, when when Herzl went to the Pope in the early 20th century, asking that he might support a Jewish state, he told them, "We're not, we're not going to, you don't recognize our Lord. I'm not, we're not recognizing your state." And he added, "Our priests will be waiting for you in Jerusalem to baptize all of you." I'm not kidding. Those were his words to that. So therefore, when the state of Israel emerged in 1948, to the Catholic Church, there was no way. The Catholic Church will be very happy to have a concordance with Nazi Germany, to have diplomatic relations with them. That's not a problem. But the Jewish state, they wouldn't recognize it. They wouldn't recognize it because it undermined everything the Church Fathers, all of them, taught against this. It was the Orthodox Church, even crazier than the, than the, um, than the Catholic Church. I mean, they didn't have Pope John XXIII, who was very much the anti-against, meaning he was the opposite of Pius XII. He was relatively speaking, a nice fellow. He's the one who convened the Second Vatican Council. So the Catholic Church, this is no way, no way. And they didn't even know what, the Catholics didn't know what to do when it was the state of Israel. They certainly wouldn't have diplomatic relations with Israel. So they didn't recognize it. But then their thinking was, well, the Jews don't have Jerusalem. They don't have Jerusalem. They don't really have Israel because Jerusalem is everything. '67, they went nuts. They went nuts. Now, where am I going with all this? Is something that is intriguing in the Christian world because it's Christianity is the most highly variegated religion in the world by far. So what happens is you have ideas that emerge in one iteration of Christianity, reformed theology, but it then bleeds into. There are like reformed Baptists who, or there are people who subscribe to many of the ideas in reformed theology, Calvinism, but are not Calvinists, and have different views of the Eucharist and so on. The Pentecostal movement moved all over the place, as did Christian Zionism. So whereas Christian Zionism emerges out of Darby, emerges out of premillennial dispensationalism, it then spreads all over the world. For example, just give you one example. So there are Anglicans who are, they're called even a group called Anglicans for Israel. They're very pro-Israel. This is a very interesting example. Say there are Anglican Zionists who are very, very pro-Israel, but they don't believe, as this is very intriguing, they're watching this and say, "Okay, we're looking at the Hebrew Bible is all clear. The Jews are returning to Israel." But they don't believe in the eschatology of Darby, and they don't believe in his dispensations, his spiritual economies of history. So they don't accept that. Not only that, the Anglican Zionists, who are the conservative Anglicans, don't even believe in two covenants. And this will blow your head away. Now, when I say they, I'm talking generally speaking, okay? You know, there are exceptions. All there are even Jews who are fiercely anti-Israel and driving them nuts. Forget, forget them. You know, I'm not talking about the outliers. So the Anglicans, Christian Zionists, they hold this one covenant, and that's only with the Jews. Where is there a covenant with, with the church? So this, so intriguing. So the Christian Zionism that emerges in one place and takes root in one iteration, seeps into other Christian arms. Today, there are many Roman Catholics I know of who are fierce Christian Zionists, and not only they support Israel because they, for a variety of reasons, but they believe that this is a, this is a sign of the restoration of the Jews who fell in Tanakh. So there is the picture of what has occurred, what's in plain view in Tanakh, and the, the problem for the Catholic Church is that the, and the Orthodox, all the Church Fathers, the Christians, they were vicious anti-Semites, every one of them. The Jews were done with the Temple being destroyed was a symbol of, of how loathsome the Jew was in the eyes of God, rejecting Christ, and worse, um, killing him. And that's why the church wasn't interested in building anything on the Temple Mount. Let, let the Temple Mount lie there in a state of ruin as a monument to God's displeasure with the Jew. See, that's what happened. And so, so you need to know that that all these isms within Christianity, they begin in one area, in one sect, but the ideas then move into other sects, and they will pick the elements of it that easily conform to the iteration of Christianity they once believed. We're living in a marvelous time, remarkable time. If people can't see with their own eyes now, they're blind. People don't hear it. They may have ears, they may have eyes, but they're, they're deaf and blind. It's all unfolding now in a marvelous way. And it is these Christian Zionists that are turning to the God of Israel, becoming Bnei Noach, and converting to the Jewish faith. Keep us in your prayers. Thank you so much, Rabbi. Thank you for a good show. Thank you, callers. Uh, also, if you guys don't mind, if you enjoy this program, definitely, uh, hit that like button. We got 143 likes, 300, about 340 we're watching today, so that was kind of nice. Um, a lot of good phone calls. Um, if you missed in, if you missed getting your question into the show today, be sure to try back again next week. You never know when you can get in. So, Rabbi, have a blessed week, and we will, we will talk to you all, uh, at a later time. Shalom, everybody. Shalom. Shalom. Thanks. Shalom, my dear friends. Hope this message finds you well. If you like the way this channel is going, and the channel has been a blessing to you, please consider supporting the channel by going to the website, TanakhTalk.com. T-A-N-A-C-H-T-A-L-K.com. Thank you once again for your time and for supporting Tanakh Talk. [Music] Shalom. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]