I've said this many times in a few different ways. Once in a while I think it bears repeating:
I raise my child as my parents raised me, to be respectful and tolerant of the right of individuals and groups to have their own unadulterated culture, customs and beliefs. My tolerance extends to the point where the expression of those beliefs violate certain standards of behaviors: If they attempt to violate another’s civil rights, seek to incite harm to anyone, willfully deceive another or misrepresent the beliefs of others then my tolerance ceases.
Since coming to Y/A and answering questions addressed to Jews about Judaism, I have been repeatedly called:
intolerant
hate-monger
bigot
of my "father" the Devil (that I do not believe exists btw, since I'm Jewish and that concept is outside my religion)
and chastised for "persecuting with jealousy and spite"
and far worse..
All of the above accusations were hurled at me for simply saying that the New Testament doctrine of scriptures is outside of Judaism and that the Christian religion is not Judaism!
The New Testament is incompatible with Judaism because of unchangeable Jewish law from the Torah. That is a plainspoken fact regarding the laws of the religion and not personal opinion. I don't demand or ask that anyone take on that aspect of faith. I do not demonize people who wish to follow New Testament doctrine as their spiritual path in life.
Would Christians be subject to similar insults if they answer questions that worship of Odin or Vishnu are outside of Christianity?
Then why should Jews be repeatedly subject to sometimes rabid insults if we note that the worship of Jesus is forbidden to Jews by our laws of Torah?
Torah teaches that God does not become a man. That is a core part of Judaism and what differentiated it from most of the religions of the ancient Levant. That won’t ever change about Judaism.
Christian Bible's concept of messiah fits Jesus. The beliefs of those who call themselves “Messianic Jews” fit the New Testament doctrine of the nature of God, sin, and their concept of messiah is at odds with that of the Jewish religion. When Jews are explaining the differences, not once has any Jew told the Christian that they're damned or evil for choosing to believe their doctrine of the New Testament.
This is all about being told that we do not have the right to explain Jewish law that has existed for more than 4000 years prohibiting worship of men as deities and human sacrifice and demanding that we worship God alone and rely on God alone for atonement.
When Jews declare that any other form of worship is OUTSIDE of Judaism and IRRELEVANT to it, we are accused of hate.
Jews are told to be “tolerant” of people who have no legal ties to the Jewish people who demand that they be considered the “real” and “fulfilled” Jews as Jewish and following Judaism. We are told to be "tolerant" of people who take every aspect of Jewish practice and impose concepts into them that are forbidden to Jews and call it “practicing Jewish custom”. We are told to be "tolerant" of people who have never been Jews claiming to be “Torah observant Jews” who turn that phrase meaningless by violating every aspect of Torah! We are told to be "tolerant" and call their preachers of the New Testament *Rabbi*! I refuse to call someone who has fraudulently appropriated the title of Jewish clergy by a title that was created by the Great Assembly after the destruction of the Second Temple, to refer to one great in knowledge and honor of Torah. They can call themselves "Messianic Jews", call their Christian seminaries "yeshivas", and call their evangelical clergy "rabbis" if they want, but anyone who knows Jewish law will know they're dishonest to do so. A real Rabbi is devoted to Torah, does not preach the New Testament, and takes years of study before this title is conferred by other Rabbis with an ordination (semicha). An evangelical "Messianic" title can be purchased online for $250. If you can prove you have "Jewish blood" you're a superstar and get a special gold seal title on your certificate where they'll trace your "tribe" by your name at different site. sheesh.
It does not change the fact that Jews know and God knows that as long as they worship to or through a man or assign to a dead Jew the power of God to atone, they are lying that their dogma is Judaism or Torah observant and committing sins against every other Jew, living and dead. Whenever they teach lies about Jewish belief and then claim to love Israel, they are committing acts that are no different from any other group of the past who has tried to eliminate the faith and covenant people Israel. When they claim that they are the "real" Israel and that the world's believing Jews are "cut off" and "hate then for their faith" they repeat centuries old antisemitic libel with new labeling. Should they die without teshuvah,they will be held accountable for this egregious sin, as were all apostates in Tanakh who tried to get Israel to worship false man/gods.
Judaism is more about deed than creed. The deed of deception about Jewish belief speaks far louder than any self-professed love for Torah and Israel. I see them as no different from any other group who is out to destroy Judaism.
Yet Jews do not even need to address that point or refer to it to be demonized and verbally attacked with the label hate monger.
We are told that if we say that human sacrifice and deicide are considered abhorrent in Judaism we are hate mongers when we are simply and straightforwardly describing what the Holy Scriptures of Judaism say directly. How is it bigotry to say that human sacrifice is abhorrent to our religion? How is it bigotry to anyone else to say that Judaism declares that God does not become a man?
Go figure
The divinity of Jesus, virgin birth, original sin, the Devil/Lucifer, vicarious atonement and an eternal hell for those outside the sphere of faith and membership in the covenant nation Israel are all contradictory to Torah and Judaism. To define the boundaries and beliefs of a religion according to it’s doctrine/law is NOT bigotry.
If questions or answers that simply explain core differences between religions and doctrines can be defined as "hate", then that would mean that every comparative religion class must be defined as hate. There is no hate involved in recognizing and understanding DIFFERENCES as well as looking to find common ground with our fellow humans.
The above includes an adaptation of an answer I gave recently IN Yahoo answers to a very good question by a contact there, The angels have the Arc Light. She asked, Is it intolerant to point out that certain beliefs fall outside the criteria for inclusion in your religion?
And the Best Answer chosen by her was succinct, “Providing factual corrections isn't intolerant. And when one is factually correct, it is more than annoying to have someone inform you that you're wrong. It's the Humpty-Dumpty syndrome - "words means whatever I want them to mean" - I suspect. When you're pointing out that the name of one's religion does have a definite meaning and that some beliefs fall outside what is included in that perfectly clear and well-understood (by the rest of the world) term, you are not being intolerant. Someone else is being crazy, tediously obstinate and totally narcissistic.” This answer was from another Jewish user and contact, Ambivalent LAUghter.
It is obvious that these accusations are upsetting and it is also obvious they are escalating and increasing in antisemitic tone.
I could fill pages of examples of this form of topsy turvy accusation of bigotry, but I’ll only show one here.
So I won’t be considering assaulting individuals, I’m not going to give their Yahoo names. The question was later deleted anyway, but I had saved portions of it at the time as it was simply astounding to me the level of hate directed to Jews that answers addressing Jewish belief inspired when all the Jews there agreed in simple straightforward language that the New Testament was not Judaism.
A few months back a question had appeared that asked about Judaism’s view of sin and repentance. One of the answers that appeared had absolutely nothing to do with Judaism, but gave New Testament doctrine in lieu of Jewish belief. The person claimed to be a “Torah observant Messianic Jew”. There was nothing at all mentioned about the Jewish religion’s concept of sin and repentance in the answer at all. The rest of the answers gave straightforward answer to Jewish doctrine. One quoted passages of Tanakh and the other three gave detailed references.
Each of the Jewish respondents had also noted that the answer that gave New Testament belief or referred to Yeshua or Jesus , did not give an answer coming from Judaism. No personal insult was made, no one said anything demonizing or hateful, but my answer did express dismay that “once again, a question asking about Judaism has had a response giving the doctrine of a religion that is incompatible with Judaism as an answer.” I said that, “Jesus is insignificant to Judaism. The New Testament concepts of messiah, atonement and the nature of God are incompatible with Judaism and thus irrelevant to this question.” The asker then gave an additional detail that went off on an absolute diatribe demonizing Jews for saying that and accused me personally of violating Yahoo‘s rules.
I then added an edit to my answer, and oddly enough I have had more than one occasion to use a variant of this edit after giving a correct answer about Judaism since this first time posting it:
“I am at a complete LOSS as to why the asker is making the accusation of a "flood of hate" in responses here and claiming I am breaking the rules. Giving honest information about Jewish belief, reputable references to support this information and doing so in a polite and straightforward manner are hardly hate. I see five answers here, four of them giving detailed and accurate information about Judaism and supporting the right of the Jewish people to maintain Jewish law for the purposes of self-determination and identity.
Three movements of Judaism are represented in the four answers, as well. All four answers are stated without hatred, without rudeness and three of them (my own included ) give many reputable Jewish references to support the facts of our answers. So, unless it is the case that I simply missed answers that were posted earlier and now do not show up here at all..the respondents who have so far posted are owed an apology for this additional detail from the asker>>>"That no one can apparently even mention Messianic Judaism without a flood of hate and insults from anti-messiah people. Even a top contributor here couldn't resist breaking the rules to persecute their own who embrace their Jewish messiah." (I was the only one with a TC badge that appeared so that had to have been directed to me)
Lastly, believing Jews are definitely not anti-messiah people, so I must also assume that comment was made to someone whose answer does not now appear. I am glad that apparently I missed that hate as there is far too much of it in Y/A.. Remember, Judaism is a messianic faith, the original messianic religion.
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Then today a QUESTION appears that has this whole premise as the basis of the question..that Jews are bigoted to Jews who believe in Jesus. After receiving several polite and detailed answers that he proceeded to insult and call the users names, the asker removed his own question..that is the message that was posted when I went to edit a typo in my response that I’ll show here. I did not save all the other answers but I did save my own and had used my “back’ screen to save the question as I’d answered it.
OK I have a question on Messianic Jews *braces self* and LDS etc?
Apparently I am being dismissive and uncaring about how passionately these people are hated by the Jewish community. Help me understand (in a simple and brief way please)
Truly I can't get my head around it or like the way they are demonized by some. Not just that they are saying they can't be Jews, but that they are pretending to be jews in order to bring them all down from the inside. Perhaps they are idk... but how is that different from any religious sect.
I also don't get how Christians claim different sects aren't Christian, like Protestants, Catholics, LDS... all of them.
So really I want to know what makes them different, and why we can't all just get along.
I don't need it explained to me how Jesus wasn't the messiah or anything btw. I just want to know how people can be considered Jews and be practicaly secular, if anything just "bad Jews", but people who observe Jewish practices and just think Jesus DID fulfill the prophecies are excluded (even if YOU think he didn't)
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Before I post what I answered, I want you the reader here to now think carefully about how that question is phrased.
Do you see that accusation of hate and demonization hurled at Jews in the question?
He declares they observe Jewish practices..that’s a misnomer. Jewish practices are performed to honor Jewish belief. Performing behaviors of certain Jewish rituals but imposing dogma of the New Testament that contradicts the beliefs those rituals were created to honor does not entail Jewish practices.
He considers them a ‘sect” of Judaism. This is not a schism from within the religion or the Jewish people and all movements of Judaism are in complete agreement over this.
This isn’t about “bringing them down from the inside” at all, but an attempt to hijack and replace and have the world believe that the “real” Jews are New Testament believers and the rest of the world’s Jews are impostors..it is an attempt at identity theft and an assault TO Judaism. Period. This is the topsy turvy nature of all of this.
The saddest part of this is that this evangelical movement has now existed long enough and grown fast enough in the Christian populace that there are now a few thousand children who have grown up with a false sense of identity and understanding of Judaism. They believe themselves to be Jews, but have no idea that their concept of Judaism, Jewish law and identity is utterly contradictory to Judaism. They were raised to believe they were being persecuted for their faith in their Jewish messiah and actually fear the people that they claim to love and be a part of.
They claim love of Israel and the Jewish people while spending millions of dollars a year to remove our identity and faith in evangelizing efforts. That’s a very misguided love at best.
Now here is the answer that I gave there. It’s long, but thorough and if you read nothing further, at least scroll down to the bottom and read the ISRAEL INSIDER article.
HERE is what I answered. The questioner removed the question less than 10 minutes after this posted there:
I will also not be responding to any question of a schism within Christianity. It is sad this question includes a false accusation against Jews as well.
There is no branch of Judaism known as "Messianic Judaism" because ALL of Judaism *is* messianic. The principles of faith contain promises by God of a Davidic messianic age. Judaism is the original messianic religion. The concept and job description of the term messiah in the Tanakh is simply VERY different from that of the New Testament
ALL movements of Judaism are in complete agreement that this is an assault to Jewish identity by people who profess faith in the doctrine of the New Testament. Jews are not telling these people what to believe, but just trying to inform the world that these people are not being honest when they hijack the identity of the Jewish people. Not only do they try to hijack our identity, but their teaching attempts to remove from the Jewish people aspects of our faith as they often use the insulting term, "non messianic" to Judaism, the original and still existing messianic religion.
Their religion is not Judaism and this was not a schism within Judaism.
We currently have no other honest name to call them than what they were FORMERLY identified themselves to be before they decided that appropriating the name of Judaism to eliminate authentic Jewish identity was an accepted method of evangelizing., Hebrew Christians. The Messianic Jewish Alliance of America was known by the name Hebrew Christian Alliance from it's beginning in 1915 until 1975. Jews consider them Christian since their statements of beliefs are Christian New Testament doctrine and not Judaism. It is not the function or job of Judaism to give other religions their own names.
The term "Messianic Judaism" began around 1967 according to "Christianity Today" magazine. Their statements of faith are in contradiction to the statements of belief of every form of Judaism on planet earth. Every Chief Rabbi and Jewish organization of every branch on every continent you find Jews and every Jewish user from five continents here in Yahoo that I've seen posting on this issue are in full agreement. This isn't a schism within Judaism, It isn't Judaism.
If they called themselves something else you wouldn't see Jews showing up on questions such as this. BUT because Jews are obligated by the commandments of God in Torah to speak up to the truth of the covenant of Israel and because the Jewish people should also have the same rights as all other nation peoples according to the Declaration of Human Rights. It is the basic human right of the Jewish people and obligation to speak up for the right of Jews to continue to use Jewish law for self-determination!
Y/A is supposed to be a place where people seek knowledge and factual information. If Jews did NOT speak out when Judaism and Jewish identity is being misrepresented and Jewish people were being maligned as bigoted toward the rights of others to believe in whomever they want, that would mean that false information is condoned as fact. That should not be acceptable to ANY honest person using Yahoo as it is intended, Jew or Gentile. In fact, because Jews are so few in number, we hope that more people will stop turning a blind eye to this and also speak out for honesty.
Jews and Christians can and do get along wonderfully when there is honesty and integrity in communication. As a believing Jew of course I respect the right of others to their own beliefs and understand as Torah teaches that the righteous of all nations merit blessing. Misrepresenting the beliefs of others is deception and that is a behavior condemned by both religions, no matter how different our religions may be to one another on many levels.
These groups are considered antisemitic and are harming Jewish-Christian relations. A recent Jewish Herald Voice I received in the mail had a headline article about how “Messianics pervert Passover at some Houston-area churches” with a subtitle, “Deceptive tactics harm healthy Jewish-Christian relations, experts say.” I have personally been involved in interfaith groups and dialog for 30 years and it is my strong belief that the different deceptively named "Messianic Jewish" groups have done just as much to increase antisemitism as the propaganda of the Middle East. Daily insults and false accusations of bigotry to *them* and false accusation that Jews are persecuting them because they believe in Jesus in Y/A is clear evidence of this.
The New Testament is replacement theology and no more relevant to the Jewish people than the Quran is to the Christian.
This is NOT OPINION but Jewish LAW of the eternal covenant. They are not of the Jewish religion so they may not speak to DEFINE Judaism.
Torah does not teach Jews that one must be a member of the covenant nation, Israel, the Jewish people, to know or connect to God.
All humans are equal before God. God is not exclusive to the Jew. God commands the Jew to be exclusive to God. Isaiah and Jeremiah both echo that the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come. Micah sums it up well, "What Does the Lord Require of You? to Act Justly and to Love Mercy and to Walk Humbly With Your God"
They are most definitely free to believe whatever they want to believe. Mazel Tov on their choice of following the New Testament doctrine.
They simply will never ever be able to call it Jewish belief without Jews being forced to speak out to declare that is not true if they wish to call worship of or through a human a form of Judaism.
If a worshipper of Odin were to call themselves a "completed Christian" I think it would be expected that if a Christian said that Odin worship is outside of and irrelevant to Christianity, there would be no outrage displayed to the Christian for bigotry. Jews do not like to see Judaism misrepresented and Jewish identity attempted to be hijacked. If genuine respect and tolerance were being honored and there is someone who insists on misrepresenting Jewish belief and Jewish law and claims false identity, when Jews point that out with clear evidence that isn't something that should be declared hostile .
The assault to the rights of Jewish people to maintain Jewish identity through Jewish law is hostile to Jews and is creating antisemitism because they falsely claim that Jews persecute them for their faith in Jesus. That essentially says Jews hate Christians for their belief and fuels centuries of antisemitism. We just want them to stop calling themselves as following Judaism so that we don't have to keep coming along behind them to say..no, you're not. God defined in the Torah what is and isn't of the eternal covenant and the New Testament doctrine is contradictory to it. It is not Judaism.
it is not bigotry to declare that Judaism is not Christianity. It is fact.
Judaism IS a messianic faith but there is NO separate branch or sect of Judaism called "Messianic Judaism". The people who identify themselves as such follow the New Testament doctrine/scriptures and are thus, not of the Jewish faith by ANY stretch. More than 90% of the people who call themselves "messianic Jews" have no Jewish ancestry and are thus, not even apostate Jews. A group of people comprised of less than 10% apostate Jews who do not follow any form of Judaism, but only take Hebrew language, customs and holidays and impose replacement theology into then, does not get to redefine or hijack the identity of the Jewish people without the whole world's Jewish population of EVERY branch on every continent speaking in unison that they are not following Judaism. If they do not want to call adherence to the New Testament Christian, that's not a Jewish concern. Jews simply do not want them to hijack Jewish identity.
I am a Jewish believer. I am a real "messianic" Jew since my concept of the Davidic messiah is from the Tanakh. It has nothing to do with Jesus or the New Testament.
I am a monotheistic Jew. There is no trinity or tripartite deity in Judaism. There is absolutely no need to designate any particular branch of Judaism as monotheistic. It is every bit as illogical and redundant to have a phrase naming a separate branch of the Jewish religion as "Messianic Judaism"
I pray for the day when these explanations are no longer needed and such disrespect is no longer displayed to the Jewish people.
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Under source I listed these links:
http://israelinsider.ning.com/forum/topics/messianic-synagogues-target < a very enlightening and informative article
http://mamaspajamaparty.blogspot.com/2009/04/jewish-position-has-been-clear-for-two.html Position statements from the world's Jews on this issue.
http://mamaspajamaparty.blogspot.com/2009/04/because-there-are-groups-and.html < Regarding Jewish law to determine identity.
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