A Jewish Messiah
Source: MessiahTruth.com
Judaism, unlike the Christianity, does not believe that the Messiah is Jesus. The noun moshiach (translated as messiah) annotatively means “annointed one;” it does not, however, imply “savior.” The notion of an innocent, semi-divine being who will sacrifice himself to save us from the consequences of our own sins is a purely Christian concept that has no basis in Jewish thought or scripture. In Judaic texts, the term messiah was used for all kings, high priests, certain warriors, but never eschatological figures. In the Tanach, moshiach is used 38 times: two patriarchs, six high priests, once for Cyrus, 29 Israelite kings such as Saul and David. Not once is the word moshiach used in reference to the awaited Messiah. Even in the apocalyptic book of Daniel, the only time moshiach is mentioned is in connection to a murdered high priest. The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Pseudepigrapha, and Apocrypha never mention the Messiah.
The man destined to be the Messiah will be a direct descendant of King David (Isaiah 11:1) through the family of Solomon, David’s son (1 Chronicles 22:9-l0). He will cause all the world to serve God together (Isaiah 11:2), be wiser than Solomon (Mishnah Torah Repentance 9:2), greater than the patriarchs and prophets (Aggadah Genesis 67), and more honored than kings (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10), for he will reign as king of the world (Pirkei Eliezer).
Amongst the most basic missions that the Messiah will accomplish during his lifetime (Isaiah 42:4) are to:
- Oversee the rebuilding of Jerusalem, including the Third Temple, in the event that it has not yet been rebuilt (Michah 4:1 and Ezekiel 40-45)
- Gather the Jewish people from all over the world and bring them home to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 11:12; 27:12-13)
- Influence every individual of every nation to abandon and be ashamed of their former beliefs (or non-beliefs) and acknowledge and serve only the One True God of Israel (Isaiah 11:9-10; 40:5 and Zephaniah 3:9)
- Bring about global peace throughout the world (Isaiah 2:4; 11:5-9 and Michah 4:3-4).
There are over a dozen additional prophecies which the Messiah will also achieve (there is no mention of any “second coming” in the Tanach or the New Testament). In order to avoid identifying the wrong individual as Messiah, the Code of Jewish Law dictates criteria for establishing the Messiah’s identity (Mishnah Torah Kings 11:4):
- “If a king arises from the House of David who meditates on the Torah, occupies himself with the commandments as did his ancestor King David, observes the commandments of the Written and Oral Law, prevails upon all Israel to walk in the way of the Torah and to follow its direction, and fights the wars of God, it may be assumed that he is the Messiah.
- If he does these things and is fully successful, rebuilds the Third Temple on its location, and gathers the exiled Jews, he is beyond doubt the Messiah. But if he is not fully successful, or if he is killed, he is not the Messiah.”
Over 1,000 years before the attributed birth of the historical Jesus, it was recorded in the Tanach:
- Numbers 23:19: God is not a man, that He should be deceitful, nor the son of man, that He should repent. Would He say and not do, or speak and not confirm?
- Psalms 146:3: Do not rely on princes nor in the son of man, for he holds no salvation.
Even the New Testament concurs that Jesus, in fact, is not the Messiah:
- Matthew 20:28: Just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve.
How Did Pagan Customs Mix into Christmas and Easter?
Source: Noahide.com
It began hundreds of years ago, when the Church changed the Bible. . .
Many modern traditions of Christian holidays do not originate from Christianity itself. These customs are not “harmless” sources of joy, but rather cause invisible spiritual damage to the souls of family members and other loved ones.
What is the source of such customs as adorning Christmas trees with lights, decorating with pine branches, holly, mistletoe, and yule logs, or exchanging gifts? Indeed, why is Christmas celebrated in late December, a time that Jesus certainly was not born? And from where did the name “Easter” come, together with the 40-day fast of Lent and the Easter egg?
All of these strange customs originated in ancient forms of idol-worship, including the Egyptian cult of Isis, the Syrian and Babylonian cults of Astarte (or “Ishtar”), the Greek cult of Dionysus, the Roman festivals of Saturnalia and the sun, the cults of the Druids in England, and others. Such pagan cults were notorious for practicing witchcraft, forced prostitution, self-mutilation, human sacrifice to false gods, and even burning children alive.1
In other words, the Church accepted its holiday traditions from ancient Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Rome–enemies of G-d who fought bitterly against His Word and were condemned by such Biblical prophets as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel for their wickedness.
Why the pagans hated G-d’s Word
Most of the ancient world was ruled by “secret” societies–powerful sects that controlled education, religion, politics, and much of the economy. These priesthoods had been charged with the responsibility for teaching about G-d and His Law; instead, the priests became corrupt, hiding the Truth from the common people.
The pagan priests knew that G-d is One, and that He alone rules every detail of creation. As the Bible states, “You should know today and place in your heart that Hashem is the G-d, in heaven above and on the earth below; there is nothing else.”2
But these corrupt priests spread the lie that we need a mediator between G-d and man, without whom we cannot reach G-d. The phony “mediators” became the idols and false gods worshipped by the deceived masses. The people were even fooled into believing that G-d dresses Himself in the body of a man, such as Pharoah of Egypt or the King of Tyre.3
Likewise, the priests knew that the Law is the only path to eternal life, and that a sinner is forgiven and cleansed, not through any sacrifice, but only by returning back under the Law. In the Bible, King David declares before G-d:
“You will cleanse me with a hyssop plant and I will be pure; You will wash me and I will be whiter than snow….
“Because You will not desire a sacrifice, or I would give it; a burnt offering you will not want. The sacrifices of G-d are a broken spirit; a broken and crushed heart, G-d, You will not scorn.”4
Yet the pagan priests led the people away from true salvation, pretending that only the blood of sacrifices could appease the angry gods and goddesses. The priests mocked G-d’s Law, which guides and blesses every part of our daily lives, by calling it a “curse” too burdensome for man to follow.
The priests of the different nations joined forces, becoming an international priesthood seducing and enslaving most of the world under paganism. Nevertheless, they feared that the Truth might one day become public, exposing the priests and destroying their vast power.
G-d’s victories through true miracles
That day arrived when G-d sent Moses to redeem the Jewish slaves from Egypt.
The priests knew the secrets of sorcery, witchcraft, and magic, and had long been establishing their authority over the people by performing great miracles. When Moses arrived, the Egyptian priests challenged his authority by turning the water of the Nile river into blood and by multiplying frogs upon the land.5
G-d, however, turned their miracles into plagues and broke the back of Egyptian imperial power. The plagues were genuine miracles that suspended the very laws of nature-something only the infinite Creator Himself can do. Every year, the redemption from slavery is celebrated in the spring as Pesach (the Passover).
Seven weeks later, the nation of Israel was brought to Mount Sinai. G-d declared that He had chosen the Jewish people to be a “kingdom of priests”–true priests, not pagan ones–to teach G-d’s Word to all the gentile nations.6 G-d knew the Jewish people would remain stubbornly loyal to His Law, unlike the pagan priests of the rest of the world. The day G-d spoke to all Israel from the mountain is celebrated as Shavuos (the Jewish Pentecost).
Many centuries later, Greek armies oppressed the Jews in the land of Israel, defiling the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and forcing Jews to worship idols. The Greek pagans were furious that the Jews continued to teach the world the Truth, in word and deed. But G-d delivered the Jews from the vastly superior Greek military forces, and when the Jews cleaned out the Holy Temple, He rewarded them by causing one day’s worth of oil to burn miraculously for eight days in the menorah. This eight-day festival is celebrated in December as Hanukah.
The “New Testament”: Pagan revenge
Between G-d’s own miracles and the Jewish teaching of His Word, the pagan priesthoods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome were steadily losing their power over the gentile populations. They decided to fight back by creating a new religion, one that would claim to be the fulfillment of the Hebrew “Old Testament,” yet would bring back the pagan lies in a new disguise.
Thus the “New Testament” was written, in Greek rather than Hebrew, and attached to the original Hebrew scriptures to try to change their meaning back toward paganism.
The “New Testament” tried to change G-d from One, as in the Hebrew scriptures, into a “trinity” as in Egyptian cults or the eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. It described Jesus as G-d in a human body, like the pagans always described Pharoah and other wicked kings. It declared G-d’s Law to be a “curse” that no one can truly obey, announced that there must be a “mediator” between G-d and man, and pretended that salvation could now be achieved outside the Law.
To blind the gentile nations, the “New Testament” also warned people not to learn from the Jews, declaring that Israel no longer possessed the true, complete Word of G-d.
In the Bible, the book of Daniel warned of an evil power–a false religion–that would believe in the true “G-d of fortresses… plus a god its fathers did not know.” This religion would “speak bizarre words about the Most High, wear out the holy ones (the Jews), and plan to change the festivals and the religious Law.”7 The Christian Church has indeed replaced Passover with Easter (the pagan holiday of Astarte and Ishtar) and Hanukah with Christmas (the pagan winter holiday).
Since then, Christian paganism has expanded to include Christmas trees, Easter eggs, and so forth.
How to celebrate genuine Biblical holidays
The only answer is to return to the original Truth of the Hebrew scriptures. The Bible established Passover, Shavuos, and other holidays, while the judges of Israel (the rabbis) acted upon their G-d-given authority to institute such holidays as Hanukah. When we celebrate these true holidays instead of neo-pagan festivals, we clear our homes of dangerous idolatrous symbols, replacing them with G-dly spirituality.
Jews celebrate these holidays slightly differently than Hasidic Gentiles (non-Jews who follow the universal Law), since Jews must follow the priestly Law, which is more difficult and complicated.
1Hislop, The Two Babylons, Loizeaux Bros., New York (1943), pp. 93-109; Durant, Our Oriental Heritage, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1954, pp. 294-297; Leviticus 18:21.
2 Deuteronomy 4:39.
3 Ezekiel 28:1-2,9; 29:3,9.
4 Psalms 51:9, 18-19.
5 Exodus 7:14 – 8:3.
6 Exodus 19:6.
7 Daniel 11:38; 7:25.
Why did the Holocaust Happen?
Source: Moshiach.com
Why did G-d let the Holocaust happen and let all of those innocent people die? Where was he for the 5 or 6 million people who died, and why does he let people like hitler torment and oppress us?
While it would be presumptuous to try to answer this question, it is important to note that man-made evil is not, in and of itself, an overwhelming challenge to the idea of G-d’s goodness. It is a basic tenet of Judaism that G-d gave man free will, and that as a result human beings can choose to do evil. If G-d stopped people every time they tried to do evil, there would be no more free will, which is the essence of what makes human beings human. Of course, this does not entirely resolve the problem of evil in the world. Why, for example, did G-d create in human beings–or at least in some human beings– the desire to torture other people? There could have been free will without endowing some people with a propensity for sadism.
The problem of G-d’s apparent passivity in the face of many evil acts is exacerbated by Judaism’s belief that G-d sometimes does intervene to stop evil. “According to the Torah,” one frequently hears post-Holocaust Jews say, “G-d intervened in Egypt and took the Jews out of slavery. Why did He not destroy the death camps?”
The question is poignant, but naive. The account in Exodus makes it clear that G-d did not intervene when Pharaoh enslaved the Jews. Generations suffered under Egyptian cruelty, and untold numbers of male Jewish babies were drowned in the Nile, before G-d sent *Moses to confront Pharaoh. From that perspective, it has been noted, one could say that G-d intervened in the Holocaust as well: Indeed, He stopped it, but only after six million Jews had been murdered. I do not claim that this answer is satisfactory; in all likelihood, there probably is no satisfactory answer.
One of the dangers of theodicy, in fact, is that in its attempts to justify G-d’s ways to man, it frequently blames man for his sufferings. For example, one sometimes hears ultra-Orthodox Jews speak of the Holocaust as G-d’s punishment for Jewish irreligiosity. Aside from the fact that suffocating a small child in a gas chamber seems an excessive response to the Sabbath violations of that child’s parents, such a view makes no sense on other grounds. However irreligious European Jewry was in the 1930s and 1940s, the percentage of Jews in the United States who were religiously nonobservant was much higher. Yet American Jewry was spared the Holocaust and has had a very prosperous history.
Some anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox thinkers explain the Holocaust as G-d’s punishment for Jews turning to the secular, Zionist movement. This explanation seems even more far-fetched, since among the few European Jews who escaped the Holocaust were the Zionists who left Europe before 1939 and emigrated to Palestine. Indeed, some religious Zionist thinkers understand the Holocaust as G-d’s punishment of those Jews who did not become Zionists and chose instead to stay in Europe. This argument is morally offensive, too. Putting children into gas chambers as punishment for their parents’ refusal to respond to Theodor Herzl’s challenge seems equally grotesque.
What is offensive about most attempts to explain the Holocaust is that, in one form or another, they convert Hitler into G-d’s ally, or at least into His lieutenant. Somehow, Hitler is seen as carrying out G-d’s will. Invariably, the people who offer such explanations accuse Jews other than themselves of having provoked G-d’s wrath. Such theologians undoubtedly hope that if they can isolate what it is precisely that so angers G-d, then they will be in a better position to pacify Him. Rather than trying to decipher why G-d would have “wanted” six million Jews to be murdered by order of the most wicked human being who ever lived, the proposition that the Holocaust, murders, an many other daily cruelties are the result of human free will seems to make more sense.
There is no comparably easy answer to explain natural suffering. Why are there earthquakes, floods, cancer? Clearly, there is no discernible relationship between human goodness and human suffering. When a truly evil person becomes ill, many people feel a certain satisfaction that someone who has caused so much suffering is now experiencing it. Indeed, if illness or tragedy befell only bad people, we would undoubtedly witness massive movements of repentance. However, suffering seems to be quite evenly distributed among the good and the bad, and remains the single greatest challenge to religious belief.
Without suffering, there would probably be few nonbelievers in the universe. But, if the believer has his troubles with evil, the atheist has more and graver difficulties to contend with. Reality stumps him altogether, leaving him baffled not by one consideration but by many, from the existence of natural law through the instinctual cunning of the insect to the brain of the genius and the heart of the prophet. This then is the intellectual reason for believing in G-d: That, though this belief is not free from difficulties, it stands out, head and shoulders, as the best answer to the riddle of the universe.
Moreover, G-d, by definition, is a higher reality that our mind cannot grasp. If G-d is a given, there are no questions. Just as a computer program is cannot understand the motives of its programmer, it is illogical that creatures should be able to completely understand every decision of their creator and designer.
