Transcription
Hey guys, welcome back to our channel. I'm Tacia, aka Greek and Mama, and I am Jay Naomi. You may remember us from an episode of the Dr. Daff Show, "Christian Women Versus Former Christian Women Who Are Now Jewish."
In our first episode, we tackled the birth narrative in Matthew and Luke. If you haven't watched that, you can go back and check that video out. This is just a place for intellectual debate, and I think it's a good, safe place to do so. Would you like to get into it? Let's do it.
The next prompt is, "The Hebrew Bible points to a Messiah who has not yet come." Okay. And we kind of talked about this already a little bit. Which prophecies do Christians point to as fulfilled in Jesus? And which do Jews view as awaiting fulfillment? Well, Isaiah 7:14, like Chanasa talked about, also Isaiah 53, this picture of a suffering servant who would be rejected, who would be despised, who people would turn their face from because of the suffering that he would endure in his body. Um, also Zechariah, the Zechariah passage that talks about him arriving on a donkey. We see that fulfilled in the New Testament, the week of Passover. Um, Daniel 7 that talks about the son of man I mentioned earlier being given dominion over all the nations, over all the earth, and he's given that dominion from the Ancient of Days, which we would interpret as God the Father. So I think there's typology littered all throughout the Old Testament, even with the sacrifices, Abraham sacrificing Isaac or going to sacrifice Isaac, and God providing a lamb in the bush, or um, a goat in the thicket. Um, yeah. I think there's pictures, the lamb's blood being smeared across the doors during the Passover to protect the Hebrews and their firstborn sons. I think there's a picture that points to someone. So, who is that someone?
So, it sounds like you're pulling passages that weren't prophecies and saying that they're prophecies. So, I guess my question to you would be, what is a prophecy and how do you know that it's a prophecy?
No. So, I'm quoting the prophets and I'm also quoting historical narrative because I think that narrative points to something being fulfilled or someone coming.
Okay. Well, speaking to Isaiah 53, what does it say in Isaiah 44?
You can.
It identifies, it identifies who the servant is.
Who's the servant?
Israel.
Okay. So, I don't believe that it's Israel because the language that's used is singular and usually, and it's also masculine. It says, "He is a suffering servant." In Ezekiel, and really in a lot of the prophets, when Israel is addressed, she is addressed as a woman, as a land, um, as promiscuous. And that's not the same character that's being identified in Isaiah.
And I, I just want to say, in Isaiah, it, it says very specific things that make me know that it couldn't be about a nation. Um, one, it says that they're going to be numbered with the transgressors. It says that they are going to um, intercede and pray for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:6. It says, "All, all ye like sheep have gone astray and we have all turned aside to our own way, and the Lord laid upon him the sins and the iniquities for us all." It doesn't say that, though, in the Hebrew. That's the problem.
I think that, I, I, so it's convenient that everything that would be a prophecy would not be it in the Hebrew. That's my perspective, because these things are very, very clear. Even in Isaiah 52, I mentioned it on the last episode, verses 13-15. It talks about a prudent servant that's going to be extolled, exalted. It said he's going to be marred beyond the vis vizage of any men and his form more than the sons of men. So, he's going to be disfigured bodily and facially beyond the sons of any men. And then it goes on to say, "And he's going to sprinkle many nations." We both know that sprinkling refers to the Old Testament practice of sprinkling blood on the altar. And so to say that this is something that, it's either, what I hear is either it doesn't say that in the Hebrew, or this is about Israel. And to me, that doesn't make any sense because Israel cannot die for my sins, and that's what that's saying in that text. That is the problem is Hebrew.
It does not say Israel dies for the sins. It says because of...
Dun. [laughter] Oh, there's so many things that I want to touch on. Um, I guess I just want to point out there are so many passages where Israel is described in the male singular. Exodus 4:22, "Israel, my son, my firstborn." Hosea 11:1, "Out of Egypt I called my son." Isaiah 44:1-2, "Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen." Numbers 23:21, "The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among him." That's Israel. Those are just some examples. I mean, to be fair, it, she is right that Israel is also referred to in in the feminine singular, but Israel is referred to consistently as a masculine singular as well.
Yeah. Especially in the Isaiah passages leading up to Isaiah 53. So in all the places that Isaiah 40, I believe it starts in 41, 42, um, where it talks about "my servant Jacob, my servant Israel." Um, there's a lot of names for them. It's all in the singular masculine, even though it's a collective. Every single one of those dictations is singular masculine, even though it's Israel as a collective.
And I think that it's important to note that Jews read Isaiah 53 in the order that Isaiah wrote it. Um, so Isaiah identifies the servant many times, as you said before, 53.
I have a list here. So let's just look at some of them. Isaiah 41:8-9, "Israel my servant." Isaiah 42:6, "Israel is the light of the nations." Isaiah 43:10, "You are my witnesses," plural, "and my servant," singular. Isaiah 44:1, "Jacob my servant, Israel my chosen." Isaiah 44:21, "Israel, you are my servant." Isaiah 45:4, "for the sake of Jacob my servant." Isaiah 48:20, "The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob." Isaiah 49:3, "You are my servant Israel." It's exhaustive. Reading Isaiah like all the way up to this point, it's consistently Israel. Israel is consistently the witnesses and the servant, the collective righteous remnant of the nation of Israel. It's really interesting because, um, from Isaiah all the way up until, um, Christian interpretation of Isaiah 53, the interpretation was pretty much the same. There were some progressive ideas in very mystical texts, um, to be fair, about this person being an anointed one. Um, from a Jewish perspective, it was never seen as a divine, uh, Messiah, because in Tanakh, according to the Jewish perspective, the Messiah isn't divine. Um, and so that would be where there's probably like a line of delineation between the two interpretations. Um, but, um, it's not to say that Judaism never said that Isaiah 53 was speaking of a Messiah or, um, one who maybe suffers. But when you keep reading the text, the way that, um, that ancient Judaism, um, interpreted it is that even though this person may be suffering on behalf of that generation, God exalts that person. And, um, and this would go more into the midrash of Messiah Ben Yoseph. And that suffering and, um, the things that are spoken of there would go into Messiah Ben Yoseph actually in a battle. So if he was in a battle and, and the Jewish eye saw this suffering servant as Messiah Ben Yoseph in a battle, then a lot of these things would apply. Being pierced, being, um, you know, beaten, all these different things. I've also heard some really fascinating commentary from a Jewish perspective about, and it makes me almost want to cry, um, when we think about Israel as the suffering servant. And I know it's hard for people to put their minds around, like, how could Israel die for my sin? Or how could Israel atone? From a Jewish perspective, the death of the righteous or the death of, um, a tzaddik, it, there is, there is commentary that they can atone. It's not in the same terms as propitiation, meaning you die for my sin individually. It's more of a collective where a tzaddik can die for the generation that he's in. Um, and there's a whole bunch of commentary about the different interpretations, uh, between the Jewish perspective and how Christians appropriated it with propitiation, which from a Jewish perspective, that's not the atoning piece. The hostages that were taken on October 7th, and the families that were slaughtered in innocence, they were burned. They were beaten beyond recognition. They were pierced. They were stabbed, um, beyond the vizage of any man, as Chenansa said. Um, there, there's so many typologies in Isaiah 53 that you could literally like mirror with what happened to the hostages. But what happened to the nation at that time from October 7th? Many people turned to God. So it's more about the purpose of what a person who suffers for this, for the sin or for the atonement of that generation. What's it supposed to do? It's supposed to draw people's heart towards God. And that literally happened after October 7th. There was masses of people who turned their heart towards God. So, not so much in the literal reading of it, but what's the purpose of it? And that to me is a beautiful thing.
That is beautiful, Jesse. But I totally disagree with you.
I don't disagree with everything that you're saying. I think that...
Yeah, I love it.
Most of what that you're saying, I am in agreement with. The one thing that I, you know, that how I think about this, that there's nobody that can atone for the sins of a nation. So, maybe it's that I'm just not familiar with that, um, that text. But from my perspective, God explicitly rejects human sacrifice.
And...
Sure.
And we'll see this like in Deuteronomy 12:31, "Such a thing that the Lord hates." Deuteronomy 18:10, "It's forbidden." Jeremiah 7:31, "Which I did not command, nor did it enter my mind." Jeremiah 19:5, "It's repeated again." Psalm 49:7-8, "No man can redeem another, nor give God ransom for him." Torah says, "Every person is responsible for their own sins." Um, and so to be fair, this might be something that I'm not educated in. And maybe this is something that I've missed in the text or something that's like a midrash that I don't know about. And so I would love to hear, um, more about that. But also Isaiah 53, it says, and we talked about this on the show, doesn't say "for the sins," it's "because of," right? They're like...
So explain that. Explain the difference because we didn't really get into it. I, I gave the baseball analogy where people in the comments were like, "That was stupid." [laughter] I was like, "I, I don't know if I explained it right." Explain what you mean by "because of."
So, so let's just say that Isaiah 53 is about Jesus, right? And Christianity believes that Jesus died for the sins of the world. So, all of our sins, um, were atoned for because of him as a human sacrifice, right? Now, if we, if somebody dies *because of* the sins of others, well, let's use your hostage analogy for example, right? So, there were hostages that were taken into captivity and they died because of the sins of the terrorists. So, just like because of the sins of Hitler, the Holocaust happened. So, they are a suffering servant who are holding firm to their Judaism, to their belief in Hashem, and to their Torah. And they are suffering because of the evil and the sins of the nations. For me, I think that it would be really helpful if we read through Isaiah 53 and we can go by it like step by step. And again, that I love that me and you disagree because there's going to be so many people who disagree with either of us, both of us. First, let's read through Isaiah and then I want to hear more about your take because I, I don't know about it. Um, and I'd love to know more.
Hey, I think I think reading the text is good. I think that's where we start. You did already set it up was was showing in multiple passages up into Isaiah 53 that the suffering servant is a singular masculine collective. And so as we continue to read, um, Isaiah 53, so remember the chapter breaks are artificial. Any chapter breaks that are in Tanakh are artificial, and there are no capitals there. There's nothing, none of that, right? So, I, I'm going to start back at Isaiah 52:13. Let's break it down here in Isaiah 52:13-15. This is the beginning of the fourth servant song. And this is where God is speaking here. Okay. So, "Indeed my servant shall prosper, be exalted and raised to great heights. Just as the many were appalled at him, so marred was his appearance unlike that of a person, his form beyond human semblance. Just so he shall startle many nations. Kings shall be silenced because of him. For they shall see what has not been told them, shall behold what they never have heard." That was God. Now it switches. So now, here this is where the nations, the gentile kings speak. And we know this because in Isaiah 52:15, they just said that kings will shut their mouths in astonishment. "Who can believe what we have heard? Upon whom has the arm of God been revealed? For he has grown by God's favor like a tree crown, like a tree trunk out of arid ground. He had no form or beauty that we should look at him, no charm that we should find him pleasing. He was despised, shunned by others, a man of suffering, familiar with disease. As one who hid his face from us, he was despised. We held him of no account. Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing, our suffering that he endured. We accounted him plagued, smitten, and afflicted by God." The nations thought that Israel was smitten by God, afflicted by him. I mean, how many people have said, "We're the real Israel. Israel screwed up and God canceled their covenant with him and now we have the new covenant." But anyway, I digress. "But he was wounded because of our sins, crushed because of our iniquities. He bore the chastisement that made us whole, and by his bruises, we were healed. We all went astray like sheep, each of us going our own way. And God visited upon him the guilt of all of us. He was maltreated, yet he was submissive. He did not open his mouth like a sheep being led to slaughter. Like an ewe dumb before those who shear her, he did not open his mouth. By oppressive judgment, he was taken away. Who could describe his abode? For he was cut off from the land of the living through the sin of my people who deserved the punishment. And his grave was set among the wicked. And with the rich in his death, though he had done no injustice, he had spoken no falsehood. But God chose to crush him by disease, that if he made himself an offering for guilt, he might see offspring and have long life, and that through him God's purpose might prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see it, he shall enjoy it to the full through his devotion. My righteous servant makes the many righteous. It is their punishment that he bears. Assuredly I will give him the many as his portion. He shall receive the multitude as his spoil. For he exposed himself to death and was numbered among the sinners, whereas he bore the guilt of the many and made intercession for sinners."
It's God speaking, the nations reacting to, wow, I can't believe it. All of this time we've thought that Israel was rejected by God. We didn't believe that they were right about Torah because of this revelation that's going to happen in this messianic age. Kings will shut their mouths in astonishment. You know, they're going to say, "Who would have believed our report?" Isaiah 53 is a dialogue. It's not just God. It's the nations realizing that they misjudged the Jewish people. That's one take. There's many others.
And this is what we, I think you and I enjoy about these dialogues. We do love to have these conversations. We're straight scripture nerds and commentary nerds, and we dig into all of it. Um, and from a, a Jewish perspective, for me personally, you know, 'cause I understood the Christian perspective, but when I started to hear the other perspective, I was like, "Oh, whoa. There's way, so there's so much more to this conversation." And I think I lived this way for a very long time, that it was black or white. And I think when we're talking about God, we're talking about antiquities, we're talking about the complexity of human beings, it's completely nuanced, right? This unknown God that that, uh, is, um, making himself known in various ways through his word. I wanted to quickly talk about this idea between the Christian understanding of Isaiah 53 in the sense of propitiation and then the Jewish understanding of the death of the righteous atones, because this is definitely in al, this is in the sages, this is a pretty well-known understanding in some, um, I don't know if it's mainstream Judaism, but there's definitely been thousands of years talking about the death of the righteous atone and what that means. So, in Christianity, propitiation means that Jesus's death satisfies God's wrath against sin. So, that divine judgment is removed through faith in him. Okay, that's a beautiful concept. Judaism, however, we, they don't teach that God's anger must be appeased by the death of an innocent. Instead, our tradition speaks of the death of the righteous as bringing merit and inspiration and national atonement. Not because God demands blood, but because the passing of a holy person stirs the community to repentance and brings divine compassion. So, in other words, Christian propitiation is a substitutionary payment to satisfy wrath, while Jewish teaching sees the suffering of the righteous as morally transformative, awakening Israel to return to God. So, let's pull this through from that perspective, the New Testament and the understanding of Yeshua HaNotzri. If his death prompted a generation to return back to God, then I'm of the mindset that Yeshua HaNotzri actually does fit Isaiah 53. Now, personally, from my studies and my understanding, I wouldn't link him to the propitiation part of it. Um, because I know that that's Christian, that's Christian interpretation, which is completely fine. I wouldn't say it's only about Israel, although I do believe it's Israel. I would say that it's also about a person that could do this. Um, and that it could speak to him as well. And so I would say because Yeshua is part of Israel, he's part of Israel. If the passage is about Israel and he's a Jew of a Jew of a Jew of a Jew, and he's part of Israel, then he could fulfill it as well. But what it's supposed to do is to awaken a generation to return to God. And so the purpose of that is not to appease God's wrath for the sake of your personal sin. Like, to your point, no man can die for the sin of another. But if it awakens you, if his death causes such repentance in your heart, like, "Oh my gosh," and you go back to God. This is what, in some, uh, in, in Judaism, there's a term called teshuvah. And what it means is that this particular death is for the sanctification of God's name. And so, if that's what it accomplishes, I say, "Yes and amen."
Amen to that. I love that explanation. I think it makes a lot of sense. And thank you for sharing that with me. It's something that I haven't heard before, and I love learning this stuff. I agree with you. Jesus belongs to the Jewish people. He is a very righteous remnant of Israel. There is one issue though that we haven't touched on.
Let's touch on it. What say you, Tacia?
There is something that is eating at me here. Um, Isaiah 53:8, in many versions, and not in the, the version that I read because I'm reading the Jewish translation. Um, but in Isaiah 53:8, in many Christian versions, it ends with the phrase, "Because of the sins of my people, he was stricken." Do you have that version anywhere?
I do. So, this is a Messianic, this is actually the Bible that I've studied from for many years. Uh, so Isaiah 53:8 says, "For the transgression of my people, he was stricken."
Okay. So, the reason that this is so problematic, the word there is *lammo*.
*Lammo*.
"Because of the sins of my people, they were stricken." *Lammo* means "they." How is it that in a Christian interpretation of this, how does "they" become "he"?
Mhm.
Um, I don't understand it. I mean, I do understand it. It, it fits with the Jesus narrative. It fits with the, the, or at least not even the Jesus narrative. It fits with the person, the singular person.
But *lemo* means "to them" or "on them," and it's used elsewhere in Isaiah to clearly mean "them." So, how is it changed in this passage? I looked up, um, a Christian version of this that has has the Hebrew on one side. It has each Hebrew word and then it has the translation into English, and it has the Hebrew word. It says *lemo*, but it's, but then on the right side, it says "him." How, how does that work? Throughout the, uh, centuries, as different ideas were progressively developing, certain people took liberties, maybe that, that they took and translated it different than what the Hebrew said. And this can be really scary, Tacia, because I know for me, there were things that I discovered that the Bible didn't say, that I thought it said, that I had believed that it said, and then when I found out that it didn't say that, it is a, it's a shocker. And you don't know what to do with it because you don't want to go down the rabbit trail of like, "Oh my gosh, well, if it doesn't say that what I thought it said, then what else doesn't it?" You know what I mean? And so you can, like, be in a place of like, "I don't know what I believe, right?" And for me, I think it's good because if you only learn in an echo chamber, you continuously consistently learn in the same things that reiterate what you believe. To me, there's no growth in that, right? And so, I, I do think that if you go and actually do the homework to find out if the word in Hebrew is *lammo* and it means "them," who changed it to "him" and why...
I don't want to offend anybody. I feel like I need to give like a public service announcement here. I understand that my approach is very direct. This is just my personality. It doesn't come from a place of malice. I'm asking questions because I'm trying to make sense of it too. These are the things that shook me when I was a Christian and starting to look into these things, and all of a sudden I'm seeing things that can't make sense. I mean, there are dire consequences for not believing exactly the doctrine that you have been told in Christianity. If you don't accept Jesus as God incarnate, um, or as the Messiah, you will burn in hell for all eternity. You will have conscious eternal torment and punishment. Is it really worth it to to question these things? I mean, that is that is terrifying. Who would? And it's funny because people will say, "Oh, well, God doesn't send people to hell. People choose to." Who in the world would choose to do that? It's a very scary thing, and it's something very real for many people. And I don't want to discount that at all.
The Jewish people have actually had a relationship with God for thousands of years before Yeshua HaNotzri, first century. Like, they have had a history of walking with God, understanding God, fighting with God, rebelling against God, repenting, coming back to God. And, and he actually chose them to be a light to the nations, which I think now is the first time in all of history they actually have platforms to do so. But for me, when someone said that the Jewish people have had such a relationship with God, like they know him. If you start understanding God from how they know him, it removes all fear.
Yes.
It literally removes all fear. And that's what it did for me. So, I no longer was afraid to question because these people who have walked with him for thousands of years, that's exactly what they do. Why do they get a pass to question and I can't question? I just have to stay in my lane. So, I started questioning, and it shook me up, and it did shake me up, but it landed me very softly. Why? Because he's so good. He's so gentle. He doesn't despise a person who seeks him in truth. Those that seek him in truth, he will answer. And so my heart was, "I want to know you." When Moses and the children of Israel stood at the sea, there's a very particular passage, and it says that the children of Israel knew his works, but Moses knew his ways. And when I read that, right now, I'm getting chills. I was like, "God, I want to know your ways. I know you can part the sea. I know the miracles that you can do. Yes, that's all fabulous and wonderful. I want to know your ways. I want to know your heart. I want to know how you feel. I want to know how you think." You know what I'm saying? And not that I'll ever attain that, but that was my heart to search him. "I know your works." And that was the difference between the Moses and the children of Israel. They knew his works. They saw what he did for them coming out of Egypt, but Moses knew his ways. That's a completely different relationship. And that was what I wanted to pursue.
I love that. Yeah. And I feel like, well, there's so many things I think, but...
Can I say something about you? Wait, I just want to say something about you and, and for real. So, Tacia, because I know you personally and I know you want to make that public service announcement, um, you know, I'm a witness to to how beautiful your soul is because you come across direct. Has nothing to do with the layers of who you are. And I hope that people will see past that, realize you're a human being. You're a woman. Um, you have a whole life. You had a whole childhood. You had a whole young adulthood. Like, there's so many layers to you. You are a beautiful human being inside and out. And I can say that from a biased perspective because I know you. You're my beloved friend.
Oh my god.
Um...
Yeah. So, are you misunderstood in some respects? Absolutely. That's because they don't know you. And it's okay. Like, you know what I mean? Be you. Be who you are. Um, you're a beautiful soul, a beautiful individual, so full of love and acceptance. But, you know, if people would get to know you, they would, they would, uh, they would see that, too.
Look who's talking. You're such a blessing in my life. I cannot thank Dr. Daff enough for bringing us together. And...
You've, you've taught me. You continue to teach me. You teach me so much. You teach me every day. And I, I love to learn and I love to ask questions. And God wants us to ask questions. He wants us to wrestle with him. He doesn't want blind faith. He wants us to to learn his words and to learn...
His Torah, which is eternal, right? And...
Yes.
And all of us have. And this is the thing that I love about Judaism. And Jesse, oh my gosh, I'm trying not to like let you make me cry. Like, come on. Not going to let you...
I don't want to make you cry. [laughter] Happy tears nonetheless. But like, I'm touched by by your kindness and, um...
I think that, uh, Torah is eternal. God wants us to seek him. And how do we seek him? We learn his Torah. We learn his words and his promises and what he says. And he, he says that he is not a man that he should lie. He's, he's not going to change his mind. And yes, Israel is an imperfect nation. And we have screwed up royally time and time again. And we will continue to screw up royally just like our kids screw up royally over and over every single day. And as soon as they say that they're sorry, we embrace them with open arms. But I think that it's really important to talk about the love and mercy of Hashem, which is unmatched. And I almost feel like it's not talked about enough because it's put all on Jesus, which is interesting because Jesus is supposed to be Hashem, right? Okay. I have this crazy take. I don't know if this is the place for it, but I'm going to tell, I'm going to say it right now. If from a Christian perspective, Jesus is God and God is Jesus and part of this Godhead, right? Then wasn't it Jesus who made the covenant with the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai from a Christian perspective? Okay, here's where I'm going with this. Okay, if Jesus is God and Jesus was there from the very beginning, and Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit and the, the Trinity, it's all part of one, right? Because God says over and over, "I am one." You know, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Um, if from a Christian perspective, Jesus is God and has always been there from the very beginning, then you would have to agree that Jesus is the one who made the covenant with the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. And if Jesus is God and Jesus is God who made the covenant with the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, it's an everlasting covenant. It's eternal. And that means that the Jews have already accepted this covenant. They don't need to be quote unquote saved by believing in a human incarnation of Hashem. And I think that if Jesus is God and coming back in a human form, maybe testing the Jewish people to see how much they love God, because God says that he's going to do that, right?
Deuteronomy 13, what's the verse? Start in one.
"When there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he shall give you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder shall come true. Yay, that's a, that's a cool prophet. Um, of which he has spoken to you, saying, 'Let us go after other mighty ones which you have not known, and let us serve them.' You do not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For Hashem, your Elohim, is trying you to know whether you love Hashem, your Elohim, with all your heart and with all your being. You walk after Hashem, your Elohim, and fear him and guard his commands and obey his voice and serve him and cling to him. Him is in there so many times." [laughter] "And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is put to death because he has spoken apostasy against Hashem, your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Mitzrayim."
The Jewish people did not know Jesus as God. They were not, he was not revealed as God. God has said that he is one, that he is unchanging, that he is not a man. Over and over again throughout the Torah, he said the Torah is eternal. He said not to add or subtract from it. It's a closed canon. It's a closed book. So if now he's coming, let's say he, let's say it is God, right? Now he's coming and he's in a human form and he is performing miracles and they're coming true and he's leading the Jewish people to follow a human who they did not know as God. That would be idolatry. And what happened to Jesus? He was put to death. I think that this is really the crux for me. I feel like my life, my life's mission, my calling, for lack of a better term, is to put Yeshua back in his proper context. This particular passage here in Deuteronomy 13, to me, would fit someone making Yeshua a prophet who has signs and wonders but then leads you to another god. I think that is put on him. But if you just stick with the Gospels, he was leading you back to Hashem and the Torah only. I completely agree with you.
Yeah. So he was not leading people into a different system. He was a lover of God, you know, like, "I only do what my Father says do," right? Like he literally said, "The way that you have eternal life, the way you're saved is by keeping the commandments." But it's not that Yeshua taught a different God. It's those that interpreted him and passed on those interpretations, I believe, that made him out to be that way. And that's not at all who Yeshua was. He was a Torah observant, God-fearing Orthodox Jew leading people back to Torah. Now, he did miracles. I believe in his miracles. Lots of people did miracles in antiquity. He was a miracle worker. He did all those things, um, which would have made him a fantastic prophet. Our prophets raised people from the dead, all those things. But he did not lead people away from Torah. He was like, of the, of the school of thought of, of Elijah. You know what I mean? Like, "Turn back to Hashem. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Like, "It's about to go down. Turn back to Hashem. Keep his Torah. You lost sheep of Israel." Like, you know what I mean? That was his message. But it was reinterpreted to be something else. And that's where I think that passage would fit.
I think you're completely right about that. Um, you're right. Jesus never led people away from Torah. He always led people to Torah. He said that he only came for the lost sheep of Israel. I agree with you about other people making Jesus into something that he didn't claim to be during his ministry or his lifetime. And there are other people, other, a specific person, [laughter] you know, my f my boy, my boy Paul the Apostle, who I, I love to talk about, um, who had a visionary experience that he believed to be the risen Jesus. It happened about 20 years after his death on the road to Damascus, and the message that he took away from that experience, um, seemed to completely deviate from what, uh, Jesus taught while he was alive. What, what do we take away from Isaiah 53? I think as we're endeavoring to understand it from a Jewish perspective, um, my personal takeaway is that some of our ancient sages said that this could be a Messiah, but with the definition of what the Tanakh describes as a Messiah, an anointed one, not a divine human being. Um, and not capital M King David Messiah that the Tanakh, you know, is from a Jewish perspective. That's how we read it. Um, I think that it could fit Yeshua. I think that it fits Israel. I think that a more modern-day example, if you go line upon line of Isaiah 53 and listen to hostages' stories, every single one of those, they were taken to prison. They were cut off from the land of the living. They couldn't see the light of day. Like, there's so many things in there that it's like, "Oh my gosh." But then he made them victorious. Like he freed, you know, 20 of them. And it's like incredible. It's just incredible, like the parallels. So, I could see Israel, I could see Yeshua, I could see the hostages of today fit Isaiah 53. I guess my question would be, before Jesus, were people reading Isaiah 53 as, uh, a Messiah, as a capital, like Messiah, end of days prophecy? Yeah, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Targum are ancient. They're BCE, but it would probably be another episode to understand which Messiah they were talking about, or they were, and this is a developed idea because in the first century or right before the first century, the Dead Sea Scrolls, they had a Teacher of Righteousness. They were waiting for like a hundred years before Yeshua, and there was a messianic fervor in the air. So conversations changed, and and people started reading the text and thinking, "Well, wait a minute, what about this? What about that?" So, um, in Judaism, there are these concepts. Um, it's just that they don't make this person divine, and they don't make it a one-time thing either.
Yeah.
I think that Isaiah 53 fits with Israel's historic experience, suffering at the hands of the empires, being falsely accused, being exiled, tortured, scattered, yet remaining faithful to God, being Jewish, the Torah, and ultimately being vindicated by God. But I'm open-minded to to other interpretations of that. Rahm, for example, who even though he was in captivity, he was beaten beyond I can't even imagine, he never gave up his Jewishness. He said, "No, if I have to convert, I'll die. Just kill me." You know what I mean? Like, and God vindicated him.
Powerful.
It's powerful. Now, there are ones that died literally that died. Kesha. People say, "Oh, they were wicked. They were in a, they were out in the field, you know, bowing down to Buddha." First of all, they died on Simchat Torah. They died on one of the holiest days of the year. It's a Kiddush Hashem. They brought tons of people by their death back to Hashem of their generation. It, it's the most powerful analysis. Very, very profound. If, if you're willing to be open-minded and say, "Wow, Isaiah 53 does fit this collective Israel of this generation." So, what was their purpose? Atonement for this generation, not propitiation for your personal sin. That's not the point from a Jewish perspective. Atonement for the generation or the of this generation is, uh, to elicit God's mercy. But the purpose is to bring people's heart back to Hashem. And that was accomplished. Thousands around the world, maybe hundreds of thousands of people turned towards God because of it.
How do we know when something is a messianic prophecy?
Yeah. And you, you asked this question on the on the panel.
The text has to talk about the future restoration of Israel under a Davidic king and describe events that happened during that final redemption. I think that's how we know that a prophecy is messianic, when the text itself talks about a future restoration of Israel under a Davidic king and describes the events that belong to the final redemption.
Yeah, that's how Judaism has understood it for thousands of years, that they're looking, that's why still to this day Judaism is looking for one king that comes one time. But to be fair, um, for the sake of debate and, um, maybe a bridging moment, although it's a huge conversation, there is a concept within Judaism of Messiah Ben Yoseph.
Um, there's also a concept of Messiah Ben Aaron, a high priest, Messiah. And then I learned recently, there's a fragment that was found about a Messiah Ben. So when we're talking about messianic prophecies, yeah, you got to pull a lot of conversation, a lot of commentary to really again, not make it a dogmatic approach. It's black and white. There's a lot to say there. Uh, and so could messianic passages be pointing to a Messiah Ben Yoseph? Could be. Is that Messiah Ben David? Maybe not. But you have to ask more questions. Okay. Well, who is this guy? Where does he come from? What does he do? What's he supposed to do? What's his purpose? You know, there's a lot of questions to ask. And, um, I had a conversation with a wonderful, uh, young man, Zion Lex.
And, um...
Hi, we both did.
Yeah, we both had a good conversation with Zion Lex. We're not trying to plug ourselves as some super, uh, podcast-worthy, uh, phenoms or anything like that, but he's an interesting man. Um, very learned. Um, and, uh, we kind of talked about Messiah Ben Yoseph, but it doesn't necessarily fit Yeshua HaNotzri. Um, and then some would say it does. So, more to, more to talk about it.
The word Messiah just means anointed one. I think it's mentioned 39 times in the Hebrew Bible. It's not just about one specific person with a capital M, capital Messiah. There are many Messiahs in the Hebrew Bible. Um, you know, even Cyrus was a Messiah of of God. I think that this is a good place to stop, but...
I, I loved this. This, there's still so much to talk about with Isaiah 53, but you know what? We'll go on to the next one next time. I hope that you guys enjoyed this conversation. If you did, be sure to give us a thumbs up, like, subscribe, share with a friend, leave us a comment. Let me know if you agree, do you disagree? Do you have a different take? Um, we'd love to hear from you.
I'm just so thankful to share this space with you, TS. I think these are fun conversations in Judaism. I think there's a concept about women rising in the footsteps of Messiah. I think that these conversations are beautiful. Whether we agree or disagree, it's all good.
Feel like Jerry Springer right now. Final thought. If you're watching this video, if you have stuck around and stayed till the end and listened to us hash it out, one thing that I can guarantee, we all love God. We're all trying to connect with God, make sense of God, find our place with God, um, understand why we're here, what we're doing, these existential problems. But we are all here for a purpose. We are all beloved. And, um, whether we agree or disagree, I think that we can definitely connect on that.
Until next time, we'll see you on the next one.