Transcription
What you've got to understand is that Jews are alone in that we do not want everybody to become Jews. I am very happy that there are billions and billions of people around the world who are Christians and Muslims. But I don't want you trying to convert us.
When you hear the name Jesus, what happens? Like, what do you think about when I hear the name Jesus? I think about the history of Christianity persecuting us due to our refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah. And I, I convulse when I hear Jesus's name. I can tell. I can tell. Do you think that Jesus has anything to do with those persecutions?
No, I don't. That's really, that's really, uh, mature of you to say that, too. We're actually Jewish believers in Jesus, you know, born Jewish. And I could, I could see your blood boiling right now. But I get it. You know, both of us come from the same. Are your parents Jewish? Both of them? Yes. And your grandparents and everything? Both sides? Yeah. Same here. And your parents, like, your history was, uh, religious, very much. Yeah.
How would you know that faith in Jesus is wrong? Because the really, yeah. And what does it say? The prophecies in Yezal in Daniel, um, that, uh, the, the Messiah is going to do certain things. He's going to gather Jews in from all four corners of the earth. He's going to make Torah known throughout the earth, um, or at least throughout the Jewish people, and he's going to build a third temple. And in Jesus's time, the opposite of these things happens. Right. Right.
I mean, I know that there's room in Orthodox Judaism for two messiahs. Have you heard of that? Ben Yosef and David. I am familiar with that. Yes. Messiah ben Yosef, the way I understand it, is very much the, uh, material redemption of the Jewish people, and Messiah ben David is the spiritual redemption. I, I just believe that the Messiah ben Yosef was still fulfilled in the same person in Yeshua. You know, came as the suffering one to atone, and then Messiah, as Messiah ben David, who he is this and this, that both will happen, like coming lowly and riding on a donkey, and then, uh, suffering and dying and bringing, initiating the messianic age, and then, like what you say, we're living in, and then on the second coming, we'll rule and reign, you know. And so we actually do believe that even though there are certain prophecies that haven't been fulfilled, that they will be also. So where we have a similarity, we just disagree on who it is. You know what I mean? I suppose so.
Have you, have you studied, uh, Daniel 9, the timeline, the 70 weeks of years prophecy? Yes. I would need to revise it, but I've learned it. Yes. Okay. Wow. Because it's, it's a bit of an interesting mathematical, uh, equation. Okay. That has the Messiah coming and establishing his messianic mission before 70, before the destruction of the second temple. You say you, you would have to show me that in text. Which translation are you using? Because, because if you're not using a translation faithful to the tradition of the original Hebrew, then I can't accept that.
Here begins the, the 70 weeks prophecy. I honestly haven't learned this in a while. So it's, yeah, it's a complex. Well, just check it out because what this talks about is there's a specific time period by which an anointed one comes, is cut off from his people, and is an atonement. And this has to happen before a certain period of time, before 70 AD, before the second temple.
You believe that he hasn't fulfilled certain prophecy? I do too. But the, the Tanakh never says when that's going to happen. That Messiah is going to come and then all of it's going to happen all at once. Have you ever read the New Testament before? No. Have you ever wondered what's in it? Not really. No.
Really, because the Old Testament, as I suppose you would call it, as I call it, the, I call it the Tanakh, is written with varying levels of, uh, of, um, divine inspiration. I believe that the New Testament is just entirely written by man with no divine inspiration. And how come? Because the era of prophecy stopped earlier on in the second temple, and the entire thing, entire era of Christianity starts only late in the second temple. So there is no room for prophecy there.
And what, what leads you to believe that prophecy ended there? Because our tradition says so. The tradition, because Rabbi Judah Halevi says so in the Kuzari. I see. What do you think is in the New Testament? I really don't care. Yeah. I'm sorry, but I really don't care. Yeah, I appreciate your honesty.
Are you familiar with the messianic prophecies? Which ones? By whom? Uh, Micah 5, about, uh, Messiah coming out of, uh, Bethlehem. Are you familiar with that one? I have, I have learned, um, most of the prophets. It has been a while. It's been a while since I've learned that.
When you're dealing with the whole, the whole realm of studying Tanakh, you have to know that there is a tradition of a way to, to understand it, the way that our rabbis have always understood this. Oh, what do you mean always? Well, let's, let's trace it. I assume you're familiar with Ethics of the Fathers. Um, the very first, the very first passage, as Moses received the Torah from Sinai, he transmitted it to Joshua, transmitted it to the elders, who transmitted it to the prophets, and from the prophets to the men of the Great Assembly. That takes us to the early second temple.
Hold on. What is he transmitting? The tradition? Because the Torah was not given just as a book. At Sinai, we received not only the Torah, the written Torah, which was the text, but also the Torah, which was the Torah that comes, the Torah that is an oral transmission. Yeah. I haven't seen any evidence of that in Tanakh. Can you show me?
Let's say there is a commandment in Torah of how to, uh, how to slaughter an animal. How to what? How to slaughter an animal. The Torah says that, um, you shall slaughter the animal in the way that I command you. Nowhere else in the Torah does it actually say how he commands us. Is Hashem expecting us to read his mind? No. Because there is a tradition, an oral tradition passed down parallel to the teaching of the written Torah, which teaches us how to do it.
There's nothing in the Tanakh that says, not in the written Torah. No, but the oral Torah is on the word of mouth. Yeah, you could say that that it's not there, that it doesn't explain it. But that doesn't mean that there's a whole oral Torah that's that's authoritative given to Moses on Mount Sinai. You can just say that it's not there.
What I'm trying to say is that the, that the traditional way to understand the Torah, the way that our rabbis have always understood it, the understanding which has prevailed over time, and I admit there have been many, many offshoots. Yeah. There have been the Sadducees, there's been the Karaites, right? Um, more modern, uh, factions of Judaism as well. There's also been the, the followers of Yeshua. Yeah. As, as well. That's true. Even during that time, the way Torah has always been understood is with a parallel oral tradition as well. The, the tradition was written down, and all of that was given to Moses. Mhm.
Because, um, Roman rule was getting so harsh among, among the Jews in Judea. I mean, right here. And Jews were being, were being scattered, and the, and the tradition, which has always been centralized, was in danger of being lost. And so Rabbi Judah HaNasi decided that, um, Rabbi Judah the Prince decided that, um, in order to save, to save the tradition from being severed, it was best to, what, to do what had not been done for 1,000, 1,500 years or so, and to record the tradition. And even then, he only recorded it in a fairly abstract way, only taking, only writing down as much as had to be written down, because that was, there was a danger of the, there's a danger if you write too much down, then you forget everything that comes with it. You figure out all the details.
What I mentioned earlier was that I haven't seen any evidence of that in Tanakh. You could say that, well, it says something and we don't know how to do it, therefore there must be a whole authoritative written oral Torah. But that's what I'm saying. I don't, that's a, I would say that's a leap. Because, because I think it's quite logical. No, but because I, because we, if you look through the Tanakh, you don't see that happening. You don't see it mentioned. You don't see it passed down. You see actually the opposite. You see a wayward people group who worshiped idols and did what the surrounding nations were doing and were punished by God for, for doing so. Even the high priests. The oral Torah as a legal authority isn't presented until centuries after Jesus. The aim of the oral Torah was that it remain oral, and it was never meant to be written down. History. Why wasn't history written down? Because when you write things down, there is a danger of forgetting what is being written down. If I were to, I know, I went to university before I made aliyah. And in any university lecture, you're meant to make notes during the lecture. But if you get the idea that all you're meant to know, all you're meant to remember is the notes, and you're missing the point entirely, or you're meant to remember the lecture. Yeah. I see the written Torah as a sort of notes for the main lecture, which is the oral Torah. If you don't see it in the written Torah, then that's like me coming out the lecture, you reading my notes, and thinking, "Oh, so I've learned everything there is to know in the course." And then you'll take the exam and you'll fail. Yeah.
What do you think the exam is for us as Jews? Like, what are we supposed to do while we're here? Wow. Well, that question is big. That question, it's a huge question. Let me, can I go back a little bit then? Oh, I'm happy to try and answer. Yeah, go ahead. I believe that a Jew has a responsibility to observe the Torah, to improve, um, to improve him or herself, okay? And also to improve the world. We do this by building a Jewish state in the land of Israel in the spirit of the Torah, that reveals God in all aspects of life. Okay, I appreciate that.
In, in the book of Isaiah, it talks about, um, how blessed are the feet of those that share the gospel, that share good news, that publish peace, that publish salvation. How is a gentile person supposed to know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? If we're doing our job right, then, well, how would they, how would you do it? Right. Any individual, I guess, gentile who meets a Jew will hopefully be inspired and encouraged by the conduct. That's pretty cool. So, you said that if they, if they met a Jew, I've seen throughout the history, throughout the last 2,000 years, billions of Gentiles believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because of Jesus, the Jew. When God says to Abraham, you are going to become the father of a nation who are going to bring the Jewish people, who are going to bring mankind back to awareness of me and be a blessing to, to all nations. Yes. Yeah. And, uh, I mean, it's in Genesis 12, um, to verse 2 and 3. Right. The arc of human history, in the, in the Torah view, is to bring all of mankind back to an awareness of God. For quite a while, in more than a thousand years, um, you've got the, you've got the Israelites, you become a nation, uh, but they are not really successful in influencing their Canaanite surroundings to, like, awareness of God. In fact, I would say the opposite happens. They are influenced, and it happens many times. Look, just look in the book of Judges. And well, that's why that's why I pushed back with regards to the unbroken oral Torah coming down, because when you, you don't see that, you see what you just said, idol worship, you see the, the Israelites becoming more like the surrounding nations instead of them bringing them in. And nowhere were a select few that came through.
What are you trying to say? The Tanakh points to us as a people not even obeying the written law. The whole point of the oral Torah is that it is flexible in that it allows, it allows us to adapt to ever-changing realities, but the principles remain the same. As humanity evolves, the his law can adapt and be adjusted or amended, or added to, because, you know, obviously today things are really different than they were back then.
There is no way that the Torah can be added to or subtracted from. That is a grave violation of the Torah. It is certainly better for people to recognize some form of God which has some kind of morality with it than to be stuck in paganism, murder, and, and violence. But, but you would say that that it's not true though, Islam and Christianity.
What you've got to understand is that Jews are alone in that we do not want everybody to become Jews. I am very happy that there are billions and billions of people around the world who are Christians and Muslims. But I don't want you trying to convert us. The Jewish understanding, and I hope this doesn't come across as arrogant, you can feel free, is that we are meant to be kind of walking out in front, leading the world back to God.
And how would they find out about God? If we're supposed to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, including the Gentiles, how would they find out about him? We believe in Jewish tradition that a Gentile who follows the seven Noahide laws is guaranteed a portion in the world to come. But where would they find those? Cuz they're not in the Tanakh. And if they're in rabbinic literature, how would they actually get to rabbinic literature to find out what their role is on the earth?
So this is where kind of we, we diverge, diverge, is because we believe that that Yeshua, who came in the first century, who fulfilled the prophecy that was supposed to be fulfilled by the Messiah ben Joseph figure, he brought the knowledge of God and Torah to the entire world. So he came, he said he specifically came for the Jewish people specifically. And then he sent his disciples out to the rest of the world to share the gospel, which, which goes on the footsteps of Isaiah 52:7, which talks about, uh, blessed are those the feet of those on the mountain who go out and share the good news, publish peace and publish salvation. And we believe that he came and and did that on time, and instead of being two Messiahs, that he's one that comes twice. And so there's not a Messiah ben Joseph, which isn't recorded also in Tanakh, but he is Messiah ben David.
Just because there's no Tanakh doesn't mean it isn't, doesn't exist. Yes. But I believe that that Tanakh points us to a specific individual. Okay. You can believe that. Yeah, I know. I know.
Well, I, I, I'm going to come your way a little bit. I've been studying Talmud a bit, and I have Sefaria on my phone. I read through it. I study it. I do. I look at chabad.org also. I look at Rashi's commentaries, and I try to make sense of it all and see things saying that you refuse or you would never ever open the New Testament even to look at it to see what it actually says in there. Do you think that that's like open, or am I, am I being close-minded? Because, because if you don't know what's in it, then you don't know what it talks about, and you don't know how it relates at all to a faith that is that actually predates. I'll just, I'll just say this for for your sake. Predates the written oral Torah. If you believe, as I do, that the written oral Torah is the oral Torah, then the oral Torah predates Christianity. It has to. But I don't see, I've never found evidence of it as a binding oral authority given to Moses on Sinai. I haven't seen that. I've seen it in tradition.
Well, you'd think that something so massive and so important would be visible at least in Tanakh, and it's not, or surrounding Jewish literature at the time, or even in the New Testament, which is Jewish literature as well. The Jewish people are called by God himself in the Torah, Am Segulah, which is a stubborn people. That wasn't a compliment, by the way. I choose to take it as a compliment. Yeah, but it wasn't though, in the Tanakh. It's not meant to be a compliment. Believe me, we read it in the Torah a couple of weeks ago. I know it's not meant as a compliment. However, it is a fact. It has, uh, dual aspects. A negative aspect is that we are often too stubborn to listen to each other. However, yeah, a positive aspect of that is that we are stubborn enough to resist outside influence. A Jew who sticks to the tradition will be the ones who have recognizable Jewish descendants.
And, and what, what is it, what does it mean to stick to the tradition? Are there people that that don't? Do you stick to it? I try my best. Okay. And how does that work out for you? Like, I'm, I'm just going to, you bring up such good points, and it, and it creates questions in my head. Would you say that God is, is like the ultimate judge, like completely and utterly just? I think God has many attributes. I do too. One of them is justice, and another is mercy. The reason I, I bring this up is because I think a lot of Jewish people rely on their own righteousness, their own, that they would call themselves if they follow the, the traditions or the law of Moses, which is really actually this day impossible to follow. That doesn't take into consideration the fact that there is a lot of, I admit that without a, without a temple, there are a lot of commandments which are impossible to follow. However, that doesn't mean we haven't been doing our best trying to follow what we can.
Well, it could also mean that, that there was an era that came to an end, and a new covenant came in. No, I don't think so. Well, I mean, there was a new covenant promised in Jeremiah, God will bring a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the Sinai covenant. So if, if that's not the covenant, then what is? Even though I may not know enough Torah to, to be able to refute everything, I don't know enough, dude. I can't refute everything. There's people that can tear me to shreds with regards to arguments, but it doesn't mean they're right. It just means they're really good at arguing their point. I, what I say doesn't mean that I'm right. And what you say doesn't mean that you're right. I, I think there's truth in the world, and it's for us to find that out.
Especially as Jews, you see faith in Jesus as going out. I see faith in Jesus coming in. I see faith in Jesus as coming in for a Gentile. I see it for a Jew as going out. Yeah. But if he said he came specifically for the people of Israel, then, then it's actually for us, to the Jew first. He can say what he wants. It's, it's not for us. And you will never ever be able to sell your message to the masses, to the Jewish masses. First of all, it's, it's happening. But second of all, it's not my, I can't do that. I can't change somebody's heart. I can't convert anybody. And if you think of it as a conversion, I, the only conversion I see is from, from sinner to forgiven. Not from a, a Jew to a non-Jew. I don't see any conversion there.
I, I don't believe that a Jew who chooses to believe in Jesus, uh, is no longer a Jew. But I do believe that they are no longer a practicing Jew. Because they've broken commandments. Not because of broken commandments, but because you're going against some of the most fundamental Jewish beliefs. Like what? Belief in one God. For a start. Belief that God is incorporeal. I can never accept that God came down to earth in the form of a man. Really? Yeah. Even though you, you seem to know Tanakh pretty well. Jacob, I've seen God face to face, and my life has been delivered. Abraham ate with a man who called him YHVH. And you think all of that is meant to be taken literally? Absolutely. I don't. Absolutely. Yeah. Because it doesn't, it won't, it doesn't fit. I don't know if you're familiar with Maimonides' 13 principles of faith. Yes. Well, one of the third one is that God has no body and no physical form. And according to Maimonides, if you transgress, if you renounce any of those principles, then you are considered a heretic. Yeah, I understand that. But what happened before then? He didn't, he didn't make it up. Do you think that the, he just wrote down what was already being passed down? That takes a lot of faith to believe that, actually. But that's okay. I mean, we, we have faith in things that we haven't seen. But anyway, I don't want to take too much more of your time because you've been gracious to me. I appreciate that. The bottom line is I'm going to remain stubborn. Yeah. I don't think that makes me close-minded. I think that makes me faithful. Talking to you has been enlightening for me, and I appreciate that. Thank you, Isaac. Can I shake your hand?