A boundless world with endless tasks & a path of life that feels crushed by an unending to-do list

Spiritually, Judaism has been accused over and over again as a path of life that feels crushed by an unending to-do list.The mitzvot, or God’s commandments, have been construed time and again
as an unending set of demands placed upon the world by God.In Jewish culture, the conversation around obligation created the spiritual attitude to fulfill God’s checklist for us.

The Talmud often refers to one who has performed a religious act as being yotze, or “freeing” themselves from the daily requirements of life in the covenant. The problem with this attitude is that it can boil spiritual life down to a task list.
Instead of focusing on how a mitzvah brings meaning and vitality to my life, I can become obsessed with doing it at the right time and precisely the right way.
In other words, Judaism can focus too much on time management instead of soul management.
~ Emor: Soul Management, Rabbi Noah Farkas

Passover 7 days of meditation opening a way to conversion

Immanuel Verbondskind looks back at the lockdown period and the impact on the small Jeshuaist community and some Jewish communities. For Jews it has even been more difficult to undergo the lockdown, because many do have no television or internet and have been in a real-time strict isolation, not being able to have worship moments with brethren and sisters.

Those times of seclusion and restriction could be called a ‘reflection time‘ or retreat, where one had enough time to think about faith and religion. On the 15th of April this year (2022) it was 14 Nisan, the evening to remember the liberation of God’s People from the enslavement in Egypt, but also to remember the gathering of Jeshua and his disciples, where at the last supper Jesus talked about the blood being shed for the liberation of all people.

In Wintertime, many Christians celebrate Christmas and have some holiday, where they also can think about the light that came in the darkness. For true Christians and for Jews, 14-22 Nisan is the most sacred period of the religious year, where is remembered how the Elohim brought to light in the dark night by passing over the houses where there was the blood of the lamb, giving the opportunity for the Jews to flee their world of slavery in Egypt.

True Christians with Jeshuaists remember also the Passover lamb Jeshua (Jesus Christ) and show their gratitude for the salvation by the Grace of God, Him accepting that ransom Jesus was willing to pay for all people.

 

Since Friday night Jeshuaists and Christadelphians, like other true Christians, since some long time of isolation because of lockdown, could at some places get together (in restricted form) and make connections with other brothers and sisters, either in place or via the internet streaming. Many, the previous time in isolation got lots of opportunities to think about the value of such a connection or ‘fraternity‘. They had enough time in the lockdown period to think about their religious affiliation, and some also about their need to go over into a conversion. Because the last few months, more signs could be seen that we are entering a new period in the Time of Ages or in God’s Plan.

Because of those “Signs of the Times” there has come a certain pressure to know what to do and which direction to go. Now many more ask themselves who shall be part of the things going to be there after the big battle or great tribullation.

Several people have wondered in those Covid times if it would not be better to become part of a community. There also have been Jews by race or non-believing and non-practising Jews, who started to change ideas about the world and its Creator. The Jews from Middle European origin also started wondering by which denomination of Jews they would best join. Those people living here in Belgium, France, Holland and Germany wonder if they would convert to Judaism, if they then would be accepted as a Jew.

Anti-Zionists often claim that Ashkenazi Jews are white imposters, fake Jews who are entirely descended from European converts to Judaism. This is completely rebutted by genetic studies which have proven a Middle Eastern patrilineal origin for Ashkenazi Jewry. However, when the Anti-Zionists make the Apartheid accusation are Jews suddenly a single racial group. The notion that Jews generally constitute a racial group is Nazi in origin and is at the core of the Anti-Jewish Apartheid libel. {Why Many Ashkenazi Jews “Look” European}

There is a long history of the racialization of Jews. There have also been religious and non-religious Jews in several countries.

Racialization of Jews have a long pedigree in the history of Anti-Semitism. Racialization of Jews was practiced in Spain against the Anusim (“Marranos”), Jews who were involuntarily converted to Christianity during the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Racialization of Jews in Germany became prominent already in the second half of the 19th century when religious Anti-Semitism (Anti-Judaism) was increasingly supplanted by racializing Anti-Semitism. The third phase is the current racialization of Jews by the extreme left.

Racialization of Jews is intended to paint Jews as “genetic aliens” in a certain country (e.g. Spain, Germany or Israel). Of course painting any other people as “genetic aliens” is not socially acceptable beyond Nazi circles. But Anti-Semitic opponents of Israel systematically engage in discourse to stigmatize the Jews in the land of Israel as genetic aliens despite Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim patrilineally being very very genetically similar to Palestinians due to common historical origin, with the genetic divergence accounted for by historical conversions to Judaism and by immigration to the land of Israel from other parts of the Middle East during the Islamic era.

Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim are more similar to each other than to any other populations and are predominantly of Middle Eastern origin in genetically confirming the historical narrative of ancient Israelite origin. The Anti-Semitic accusation according to which Ashkenazi Jews are exclusively descended from European converts to Judaism despite that part of Ashkenazi ancestry accounting only for only 30% of the Ashkenazi gene pool with the remaining 70% being Middle Eastern in origin is used by Anti-Semites such as Palestinian-American professor of Columbia University Joseph Massad to libelously paint Israeli Jews as “European colonizers” and against the scientific consensus denying that most modern Israeli Jews are Levantine returnees to Israel. The false claim that Ashkenazi Jews are “European colonizers” is in fact one of the main claims involved in the Anti-Semitic racialization of Ashkenazi Jewry. {Jews are a Nation of Color}

After the covid pandemic several feel a greater need to come to connect with one or another Jewish or Jeshuaist denomination. Having been on their own, in their own living room, with nobody else to share the faith, was too lonely. Some, who were previously connected with a shul, lost contact but also interest to go to a prayer and study house. Though others have now, even more than ever before, felt the need to be connected to other fellow believers.

This Passover is for several an essential time to consider the way how God handled His People and how, also today, He is still willing to guide them through the desert of this (non-religious) world.

Some people take time to think about separation and isolation, and look at the lessons we get from the Scrolls that teach that the priests were deliberately separated from everyone else. They even couldn’t go to family funerals, like many could not in the Corona crisis. Their job was to remain separate from the people they served, which may sound strange. But their goal was to maintain their close connection with the Most High in purity or holiness.

To remain separate at all times isn’t healthy for anyone. All over the world many learned that all too well the last two years. this year many felt a great joy they were able again to come together with some friends to do like the apostles did, following up the permanent ordinance… a celebration for all of God’s people throughout all time, remembering Passover.

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Find to read:

Times of seclusion, restriction, liberation, connection, religious affiliation and conversion

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Preceding

Measure of loneliness whilst time drags

Adar 6, Matan Torah remembering the giving of Torah

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Additional reading

1. Jewish diaspora
2. December a joyful time for many
3. Lenten Season and our minds and hearts the spiritual temple in which God seeks to live
4. Remember the day
5. Ransom for all
6. A perfect life, obedient death, and glorious resurrection
7. Redemption #4 The Passover Lamb
8. Redemption #7 Christ alive in the faithful
9. Atonement And Fellowship 8/8
10. A strange thing might happen when you come under Christ
11. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
12. Falling figures for identifying Christians
13. What is happening in America to religion and to the language of faith
14. Who is a Jew?
15. Counting sands and stars
16. We Count. We Just Weren’t Counted.
17. Judaism and Jeshuaism a religion of the future
18. Great tribulation and Armageddon
19. Armageddon or the Great Tribulation
20. Ashkenazi Jews are extremely inbred

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Related

1. Passover Blessings – April 15th through 22nd, 2014
2. Proselytism
3. Jesus Became Our Passover Lamb
4. How Jews look to non-Jews – Part 1
5. Going back to shul
6. Fighting ignorance

The German Christian Rally at Berlin’s Sportspalast, 28 February 1934: Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller, Dr. Christian Kinder Respond to the Kirchenkampf

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Preceding

Hitler and Christianity: Some Trends in Interpretation

Ryan Buesnel

From: Ryan Buesnel, The German Christian Rally at Berlin’s Sportspalast, 28 February 1934: Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller, Dr. Christian Kinder Respond to the Kirchenkampf, Journal of Church and State, , csaa103, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/csaa103

On February 28, 1934, about twenty thousand members of the various German Christian movements and their supporters gathered at Berlin’s Sportpalast to hear speeches given by theologians and clergy who supported Hitler and the Nazi movement. The purpose of the gathering was threefold. Firstly, the meeting functioned as a propagandistic exercise in virtue-signaling. As a movement that went to considerable lengths to publicly demonstrate its endorsement of the Third Reich, German Christian gatherings such as this one were marked by their outward displays of Nazi ideology, ritual, and imagery. Secondly, this rally served an educational purpose. In the speeches given by movement leaders, German Christian pastors and laypeople had their support of the Nazis legitimized on theological…

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Hitler and Christianity: Some Trends in Interpretation

 

Ryan Buesnel

A question was recently put to me by a reader who was curious to hear my thoughts on whether Hitler should be considered a “Christian” or an “atheist.” What had spurred this on was this reader’s consideration of the somewhat ambiguous topic of “Positive Christianity” — the allegedly Aryanized form of Christian doctrine that was to have served as National Socialism’s official form of religion.

Issues surrounding Hitler’s views on the person of Jesus Christ and the institution of the church are frequently obscured by prior ideological or religious commitments. On the one hand are those who have sought to restore the integrity of Christianity in light of accusations that it played an important historic role in the justification for anti-Semitism. This process of reconstruction required identifying occasions where Nazi ideology was opposed to the normative framework of Christian ethics. The suggestion was that the outcomes of Nazi policy were…

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American Judaism: Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist

 

Mark Beré Peterson: Hauntings, Urban Legends, History, Folklore, Mythology and Witchcraft

Whether you refer to them as denominations, streams, movements or branches the American Jewish experience is as diverse as their interpretation of traditional Jewish law or halacha. Outside North America, the non-Orthodox streams of Judaism play a less significant role, and in Israel the vast majority of synagogues and other Jewish religious institutions are Orthodox, even though most Israeli Jews do not identify as Orthodox. Evenwithin North America, the role of the movements has diminished somewhat in recent years, with growing numbers of American Jews and Jewish institutions identifying as “just Jewish.”

The largest affiliation of American Jews, some 35 percent of Jews identify asReform. The movement emphasizes the primacy of the Jewish ethical tradition over the obligations of Jewish law. The movement has traditionally sought to adapt Jewish tradition to modern sensibilities and sees itself as politically progressive and social-justice oriented while emphasizing personal choice in matters…

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Judaism and Jewishness in 2020 America

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that many Jewish Americans participate, at least occasionally, both in some traditional religious practices – like going to a synagogue or fasting on Yom Kippur – and in some Jewish cultural activities, like making potato latkes, watching Israeli movies or reading Jewish news online.  The same could perhaps be said for European Jews.

Among young Jewish adults, however, two sharply divergent expressions of Jewishness appear to be gaining ground – one involving religion deeply enmeshed in every aspect of life, and the other involving little or no religion at all.

For Europeans it might be strange that overall, about a quarter of U.S. Jewish adults (27%) do not identify with the Jewish religion. Like all over the world we can find the strong feeling of ethnicity, more than religiosity.  The 27% U.S. Jewish adults who consider themselves to be Jewish ethnically, culturally or by family background, even when they have a Jewish parent or were raised Jewish,  answer a question about their current religion by describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” rather than as Jewish. Among Jewish adults under 30, four-in-ten describe themselves this way.

The two branches of Judaism that long predominated in the U.S. have less of a hold on young Jews than on their elders.
In 2013 the Conservative movement was the second largest of the three main religious denominations within American Judaism, claiming 18 percent of American Jews. In some years in the 1950s, the movement was adding 100 new affiliate congregations annually.
In the 21st century, the movement’s long-term viability has continued to be drawn into question. The percentage of Jewish households that identified as Conservative dropped by 10 points — from 43 to 33 percent — between 1990 and 2000, according to surveys of the American Jewish population conducted in those years. By the end of the century, the movement was in serious decline, in such a way that some were fretting openly that Conservative Judaism was on the road to oblivion. About fifteen years ago Rabbi David Wolpe suggested that Conservative Judaism be rebranded as Covenantal Judaism. That name we hear also here and there in our regions, where some Jews and Jeshuaists consider themselves Covenantal Jews.
Today roughly four-in-ten Jewish adults under 30 identify with either Reform (29%) or Conservative Judaism (8%), compared with seven-in-ten Jews ages 65 and older.
Among Jews ages 18 to 29, 17% self-identify as Orthodox, compared with just 3% of Jews 65 and older. And fully one-in-ten U.S. Jewish adults under the age of 30 are Haredim (often known in English as “ultra-Orthodox.”), (11%), compared with 1% of Jews 65 and older. Approximately 1.2 million Haredim live in Israel, jealously guarding their traditions.

Strangely enough, or perhaps not, we can find several Jews who are somewhere “in-between”, themselves found to be not a believer, but who have not given up upon Jewish religious practice. some of them have even adopted more religious practices than they were ever raised with.
In the States, like in Canada and West Europe we find lots of Jews who adopted a religious Jewish lifestyle for themselves, in a similar way we have seen Christians also creating their own religious system and spiritual lifestyle.

In fora we can see that the participants who no longer believe were raised in various Orthodox communities around the world, ranging from Modern Orthodox to Yeshivish to Hassidic; and most spent their childhoods and years of their adulthoods studying in houses of Torah learning. Some were rabbis themselves, educators who dedicated years of their lives to spreading love of Torah and traditional Judaism among the Jewish people. {Why can’t I be secular?}

Remarkable is to notice that in the U.S.A. the youngest U.S. Jews count among their ranks both a relatively large share of traditionally observant, Orthodox Jews and an even larger group of people who see themselves as Jewish for cultural, ethnic or family reasons but do not identify with Judaism – as a religion – at all.  For non-Jews the difference is mostly not made, which gives a totally wrong view of Jews, them thinking all those things those civilian non-believing Jews do against Torah would be in line or acceptable to all Jews.

In the U.S., the same as in Europe, we can see that the youngsters, though not so interested to know if the food is kosher or not, still like a lot of traditional foods. As such, they like cooking traditional Jewish foods, visiting Jewish historical sites and listening to Jewish or Israeli music. Yet the survey finds that most people in the latter group (Jews of no religion) feel they have not much or nothing at all in common with the former group (Orthodox Jews). For many youngsters the Jewish traditions and lifestyle may feel outdated. Others may become unsettled because they find people in their forties searching for ways to live more in line with their ancestors, going back to the synagogue and praying again in the house. Some want to delve into the deeper meaning of Jewishness and Judaism.

It is a fact that Jews and Jeshuaists are a minority. For the U.S.A. in absolute numbers, the 2020 Jewish population estimate is approximately 7.5 million, including 5.8 million adults and 1.8 million children (rounded to the closest 100,000). The 2013 estimate was 6.7 million, including 5.3 million adults and 1.3 million children. The precision of these population estimates should not be exaggerated; they are derived from a sample of the U.S. public that is very large compared with most surveys (more than 68,000 interviews) but are still subject to sampling error and other practical difficulties that produce uncertainty. Furthermore, the size of the Jewish population greatly depends on one’s definition of who counts as Jewish.

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Find also to read

Judaism and Jeshuaism a religion of the future

Jewish Americans in 2020

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Related

1. American Conservative Judaism
2. Covenantal Judaism: Ki Tavo 5780
3. On Rosh Hashanah, a sermon to the unwelcome
4. Converting to Judaism sparks political uproar in Israel
5. Opening Israel to non-Orthodox Converts Should Have Happened Long Ago
6. A Journey of Discovery
7. Messianic Jews Say ‘Fake Rabbi’ Was Wrong Way to Reach the Ultra-Orthodox
8. Reform Jews Should Recite Qorbanot in Prayer
9. Parshat Eikev
10. Why can’t I be secular?
11. The Jewish teddy bear
12. What I’m Watching
13. Oh, come on, or: Srsly?

The danger of having less than 25 000 Jews in Belgium

Most of the countries that have their Jewish population dropped below the 25,000 level over the past 70 years were in Arab and Muslim countries including Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Iran, as those countries effectively expunged the Jewish populations due to anger over the founding of Israel. The total population from all of those Arab and Muslim countries now stands at 27,000, just north of the 25k mark (15k in Turkey, 5,800 in Iran, 2,000 in Morocco and Tunisia 1,000).

On Thursday, after a two-month trial in the Belgian capital, 12 jurors found the 33-year-old guilty of the four anti-Semitic murders during a shooting spree at Belgium’s Jewish Museum in Brussels on May 24, 2014. It was not the first incident against Jews in that country, but it may be considered as the first terrorist attack by IS and the turning point for many Jews to feel not safe any-more in Belgium, because the country from then onwards started also showing an evolution to the far-right and anti-Semitic groups.

Kölner Karnaval Nazi-propaganda against Jews – Germans making fun of Jews in the 1930s

Aalst Karnaval 2019 Joodse Karrikaturen – Recycled puppets for 2019 Aalst Carnaval

We can question of the depiction of Jews in the carnival of Aalst would be of similar intent to what could be seen in Germany in the 1930ies. The stereotypes and images found in Nazi propaganda were not new, but were already familiar to their intended audience. You can not ignore that it reminds us of the Nazi-propaganda during the rise of Nazism. If that carnival group wanted to have a sabbath year, why did they spend so much money on such puppets? Such depictions are just provoking and are adding to the trouble atmosphere which is growing in Belgium.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish organization headquartered in the US, believes that Aalst Carnaval defiles the reputation of Belgium as the host country of the European institutions. This is stated in an open letter to Federal Minister of the Interior Pieter De Crem (CD & V). The federal government must, according to the director of international relations Shimon Samuels, patronize the Aalst carnival group publicly.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is an NGO that collects it worldwide for the interests of Jews.

‘We are disgusted by the images of the parade during the carnival on 3 March in Aalst’,

is the letter to Minister De Crem.

‘With stereotyping and hateful images of Jews with bags full of money and hook-noses that are reminiscent of Nazi collaborating Belgium.’

Also the Jewish community was very chocked with those images, which reminded of the years before the 2nd World War.

parade float at the Aalst Carnaval in Belgium features caricatures of Orthodox Jews atop money bags, March 3, 2019 Aalst Carnaval

B’nai B’rith International termed it “disgusting.” Both umbrella groups of Belgian Jews filed a federal complaint for incitement against the group, called Vismooil’n, saying the float looked like Nazi propaganda.

Even the European Commission slammed the display, with a spokesperson saying

“It is unthinkable that such imagery is being paraded on European streets 70 years after the Holocaust.”

Why do those people from that group Vismooil give the impression that Jews are the cause of the rising prizes?

Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, or LBCA.

“Prices are rising, so who do they blame? The fat, greedy Jew,” he said.

Not only on a Facebook page of carnival enthusiasts, we could see lots of “anti-Semitic humour”.

One blamed

“the sad Jews, closed off from the rest of society in Antwerp, who have no sense of humour.”

Another referred to Jews as “dick cutters,” adding they are

“whiners with sausages for ears and woolly curls on their heads.”

Commenting on Jewish anger over the float, another wrote:

“Later you wonder why Jew hatred is growing …”

For Rubinfeld it is

“What’s happening in recent years at the carnival is a symptom of a wider problem, which the return of 1930s anti-Semitism, alongside the upgraded version that we’ve become used to, that targets Israel as a substitute for Jews and visa versa.”

At the moment there is an American petition concerning the Aalst Carnival on the Unesco-heritage-list to remove its status as an intangible heritage. What the carnival group the Vismooil Sunday has shown, with the Jewish decorated float, in any case does not fit with the norms and values that Unesco stands for.

We must take the “view on the Jews” seriously. We may not ignore a serious peril of a growing negative stance against Jews and Muslims. In europe there is a growing tendency to have bad jokes about Jews and to point the finger as if they would be part of the present problems.

Vile comments made by elected officials (including in the US, UK and Iran) attacking Jews and basic Jewish human rights in those two remaining outposts – and defended by senior politicians – rises to the level of attempted genocide of the Jewish people. {FirstOneThrough}

We cannot stay silent and should speak up. We also should show non-Jews that there are different Jewish communities with different lifestyles. But also Jews could come to see that in Christendom and in Islam there are very different groups with totally different ideas. Not all those different groups have a grudge against the other. There are enough religious and non-religious groups who are willing to live together in symbioses. Best way not to make people so afraid they find it better to leave the country is making sure they all feel welcome and can trust each other.

It is up to the governement to make sure that those people who are a danger for democracy are disciplined.

In Belgium the politicians and the police should also show they are taking certain matters seriously and should further protect all of the Jewish community. But also in the Jewish community Jews should make work of it to communicate better with each other and to accept the different sorts of Jews in this country.

Also let us think about why there are now 17 countries with over 25,000 Jews which is half of the total that existed when Israel was founded in 1948.

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Find to read:

1. 25,000 Jews Remaining
2. Jews and Christians against Messianics and Jeshuaists
3. A Hebrew-Christian movement
4. Jewish millennials between 2013 and 2017
5. Jeshuaists = Juifs pour Jeshua ou Jésus Christ
6. Marchons avec courage!

No religion mentioned in the Torah for non-Jews

It is not because there is no religion mentioned in the Torah for goyim or non-Jews that they should not have a religion or should not have to come to the Elohim. It is also not so that when people call themselves Christian and would go regularly to mass or to a church service that they are serving God or being recognised as His children.

In Christendom we can find lots of people who have an other god than the one of Abraham, though the divine Creator is very clear Who He is and what He wants from His people. Also Abraham did very well know Who the Most High God was.

Looking at the many churches in Christendom we can see that several churches altered the Torah and that the main church is breaking one of the laws in the Torah itself. Several people who come to study the Bible become angry when they see how their churches fooled them. It is a pity that they than abandon the faith in God. Some of them are then trying to find their way in Judaism. A few do not lose their faith in Christ and find their way in Christianity, becoming a member of one of the several non-trinitarian groups or churches.

It is wrong to think that those in the main churches

only have what the church has given them, altered scriptures and mistranslations. {I Hope They Get It}

Every human being is able to hear the Word of God. Wherever he lives there is some way to hear God’s Word. Those living in the industrialised countries have no excuse at all. For them there are enough means to get in touch with the Word of God. They have the printed material, like Bible books, other books and brochures, but also electronic devices where they can find several applications presenting the Word of God.

Questioning what we really believe is the only way to ever know what we really believe and why. {I Hope They Get It}

and that is what each individual has to do: searching himself what is the truth of God.

It is totally wrong to think that there would not be churches telling the biblical Truth. Luckily we can find many churches all over the world which proclaim God’s Word. It is not because the main

church says a lot of things that don’t line up with His word. {I Hope They Get It}

that we should say

No, the New Testament is not His word. There is no place in it where it says that He is speaking. {I Hope They Get It}

In the Greek writings or Brit Chadashah we are told about the one who is sent by God and authorised to speak in His name. As such the Messianic writings are a continuation of the Hebrew writings, bringing hope for those who are not of the Judaic faith. Because also for the non-Jews the way to the restored relationship with God is opened. This thanks to the ransom offering of Jeshua, the sent one from God.

The writer William Bouker may have become very frustrated by his old church, which makes it a pity he now concluded that the work delivered by Jesus and his apostles would not be from God. Pity also that he thinks

All through the Torah and the Prophets, it tells us that G-d is speaking and to whom He is speaking. No Christian writing can make this claim. {I Hope They Get It}

He seems to forget that the Torah and Prophets are part of the Christian writings too.

There is no need for a middleman. That is one of the lies of the church. {I Hope They Get It}

writes Mr. Bouker who with ‘Convert Corner’ is

attempting to provide more than just proof that the Christian religion is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. {About Convert Corner}

He is a former Christian

who is currently going through an Orthodox conversion to Judaism.  {About Convert Corner}

and spent years believing what he was told to believe by preachers and teachers instead of going to research the Bible for himself. Clinging to church doctrines no wonder he feels that he

had very little knowledge of the G-d of Israel. {About Convert Corner}

He seems to forget that the God of Israel wants a good relationship with all His creatures and by means of sending His only begotten beloved son made it possible that all can be saved from the curse of sin. But naturally each person has to decide himself or herself what way to go. The sent one from God, Jeshua, (Jesus Christ) shows the way to God. By him non-Jews also can come into the restored relationship with God. For goyim or gentiles there is also a way to have a religion which can be accepted by the God of Abraham.

Need to reject an archaic, racist inspired interpretation of the Bible and animosity against other believers

In Belgium and France we see a growing hatred against lovers of the One and Only One True God, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah. Several Jews have been attacked physically or were made afraid by all kinds of threats or intimidations. That made many of our brethren and sisters leave for Israel. In France Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bible Students and Christadelphians are prohibited to proclaim the Good News or the Gospel of the Kingdom in public, for example by speaking to people on the street or by billing leaflets. In several regions people look down at Muslims or show their hate, giving the impression that they must be all so terrible or be believers of the faith IS promotes.

The Netherlands for years already had their very conservative Calvinist groups, but the last 30 years they were joined by other radical Christians. Many of those follow the Bible literally and can’t read in between the lines nor showing understanding Hebrew thinking or Hebrew way of talk.

As a college professor, the writer of Help from Heaven looks at this world and sees how we have come to a period people want to have eye-flaps, but also finds that the present youngsters could perhaps be more interested in and learning from stories that illustrated the teachings he was bringing but also about the teaching the Holy Scriptures wants to bring to mankind.

Is it

Archaic, bygone, ancient, passe, primitive, old. {Bonkers away blog: daily-prompt: Archaic}

that makes us not fitting in this world any more, giving us the impression it is becoming less accepting, more limited of views, less free thinking, more prudent, less receptive to other opinions. We clearly feel how youngsters today look more hostile to different thinking people, otherwise believers and to those who belong to a different culture.

Also certain communities are guilty of bringing limitations to free thinking. We even do not have to go far. In our own regions we have very conservative Jews who want to have the children over protected and also want them to believe in literal Biblical interpretation, holding fast on a six day creation and as such with their thought on the same line as the growing group of Christian Creationists. You may call it a response to modern evolutionary theory, which explains the emergence and diversity of life without recourse to the doctrine of God or any other divine power. Mainstream scientists generally rejecting creationism may find several believers in God joining them too, but worse is to see how by the growing pressure of certain religious groups trying to get diversion or war between other religious groups, we can see many more people getting fed up with religion and putting it aside.

Certain people want to to overwrite history and think they can make for it a better picture that covers the archaic marks and portray a new picture. They have the impression the strokes that they shall strike this time shall be much stronger and sharper just like the person they have become in the journey of their life … {“Life is like an Old Sketch”}

The article “The Racist Bible” brings a view of the recent problems our world is facing. There is written:

We live with such an archaic interpretation of the Bible. People interpreted the Bible in different ways 100 years ago, 500 years ago, and 1500 years ago. We need to know why those interpretations came into being. Once we do, we can see how it is hurting us. Only then can we move on to a powerful Biblical interpretation, one that is vibrant and appeals to the modern non-Christian. {The Racist Bible}

In several of the Jeshuaists their articles they try to bring a view how the ancient Hebrews saw the beginning of the world and how the Adonai handled the rebellion of man. We can see how by the years ‘Church‘ made use to bend words or twist interpretations to get people under the spell or in their ban. Several religious groups love to have control over their flock and found it most appropriate to do that with fearmongering and with hard language (sometimes even going so far to use abusive language or enormity). Scaring people or trying to intimidate them has become more popular these days. We can find certain preachers (like Mr. Dave Norris) happy to present all sorts of lies about other religious groups than their own church, (for Mr Norris: the Bible Church), which must be the only one true church every one should have to become a member, because otherwise they shall have to burn in hell for ever. Strangely enough in several articles he attacks groups which say we are saved but still have to do works.  He then claims (like Mr. Cross Roman)  we do not have to do any works any more because we are saved by Christ his blood. Norris also knows about the problems of human tradition and writes

All this is ridiculous and pits Apostolic Authority against scripture. Judaism regards the Torah or the first five books of the Bible highly but not quite as high as the Talmud which is Jewish tradition. Tradition can be classified as a philosophy written by men. Whether you believe it or not the Bible was not written by men per se but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Christadelphians and Bible students also follow their own traditions which supersedes the word of God and each Congregation of those bodies believe differently as there is no uniform Doctrine. Just like in the Book of Judges when everyone did what was right in their own eyes yes. I follow the word of God and place very little impetus on tradition. {Precious Spiritual Children- 2}

He tells others lies about the Belgian Biblestudents and Christadelphians, so called claiming Jesus would return a certain day or year (what they certainly do not)  but he himself writes that the Jewish people will accept a guaranteed peace covenant secured by the countries of the now 80% Islamic Roman Empire.

Norris on return of Christ + Jews+ Islamic world + doctrine of imminence+end-time prophesies

Some preachers, because they believe the world shall come to an end, try to call others false prophets and try their believers to belief that those groups would have prophesied such dates for the end of the world, whilst those groups, like the Belgian Bible Students and the Christadelphians already have spend many articles saying that we should be careful with people claiming that Jesus would return on such or such a day, because even Jesus did not know it and we also can not know the exact day of the return of Jesus. But for sure we may be sure that the world shall not come to an end, not because the Belgian Bible students and the Christadelphians belief so , but because that is just the biblical truth and God’s promise  to our Patriarch Abraham, that we may look forward to a big state of united people under God’s King his reign her on earth and in heaven.

Lots of present teachers attacking Jews, Non-Trinitarian Christians and Muslims do have much self-esteem and though they seem to recognise it as part of the possible signs of the end-times do not see the beam in their own eyes but blame the splinters in someone else’s skin, claiming that at all dates setters fail to do is to rely on the words of the scripture which they only are able to do, them being able to see how fast Satan is working to cause chaos and evil, deceiving this world (like Mr. Norris is doing), because all others are “kindergartners” or “have no brains” (Norris his words).

The kettle blames the pot that it looks black but does not see the beam in its own eyes while it complains about the splinters in someone else’s skin. Mr. Dave Norris blaming others to tell and warn about end-times sings, but giving himself also some recognition to those signs in his series over the The End Times (namely part 4)

It might look honourable when people try to talk about that nice prospect of their Messiah coming back. But then they would have to follow the footsteps of that Nazarene master teacher Jeshua, Jesus Christ, who preached peace and not war, like they are doing. So many preachers may be happy with the contemporary technology making it very easy to bring the Word of God all over the nations. To our regret we also find lots of people finding in it a tool to spit their gal and to do everything to have their poisonous words to obscure all reality and decency.

Internet evangelism is how the nations will have an opportunity to hear and receive the Good News. No longer can one person reach only as many as he knows or comes into contact with. Today one person, right out of the comfort of his home, can reach millions of people in places he has never been and most likely, never will go. One person can invest a little time, without investing thousands of dollars in travel expenses, and can do much more, plant more seeds, and encourage more brethren than if he were to board a plane and go somewhere. {Today’s “Roman Road” – the Internet}

But at the same time we can see how one person can manage to bring all sorts of writings on the different denominations which exist in the world of religion, to break them. He even attacks the people of God and let his readers believe that we give more attention to human teachings and traditions than to the Torah.

Dave Norris of the Bible Church on Jews + Talmud + Rabbinical teaching

Mr Dave Norris of an American bible Church wanting his readers and all people in the world to believe the Jews are using the goyim as their slaves and would find raping women and killing whites ok, clearly wanting to create hatred against the Jewish people (Picture from The Shocking Jewish Talmud Revealed)

Concerning founders Mr. Norris has shown, about other denominations too, he also has a strange view, him believing it were the Hebrews who founded Judaism, though it was the Most Almighty Elohim Who has chosen us as His people and promised us by the seed of Abraham a great nation.

He also seems to forget one of the main points of a monotheist religion, which according to him our ancestors would have created. In Judaism part 101-1 he mentions the essence of a monotheist religion, namely worshipping only One True God above all gods, whilst he is a worshipper not of “One and Unique” God, but of the trinity and as such worships three gods: a God the Father, god the son and god the Holy Spirit, and by doing so should fall under the polytheists. When he considers the Hebrew religion as the mother religion of his religion, we would like to ask him why he went so far away from his mother and betrayed her?

Judaism – Jews chosen by God practising and teaching monotheism

For Mr. Norris it seems to be clear that all those who preach peace between Jews, Christians, Muslims and non believers are oxymorons.

Mr Dave Norris finds all those who want to live in peace together and accept the other religious groups “biblical oxymoron” finding they falter between two opinions following Baal considering that (according to him) God and Baal are oxymorons as is this question of the agreement the temple of God has with idols. (Though he himself belongs to a church with several idols or gods.) (picture of his article: The Coexist Movement- 2)

Like he does not seem to see the many differences between the Bible students he also does not seem to know much about the different forms of Judaism, only mentioning three.

Dave Norris limited vision on Jewish groups

Though people like him are being followed by many as if they are the gurus of truth.

Perhaps he, living in the United States, feels united with the many creationists and conservative and fundamentalist Christians. Him also for the whites, thinking Jews love to kill them, can find  confirmation in the writing of the professor who writes

In fact, it was not until Luther that people started taking the Bible more literally. The Creationist movement, though, including the world-wide flood didn’t really take root until the southerners of 1850+ started promoting it. Thus, we had a racist theology demand that their interpretation was the only one. Many were convinced to write on it, without referring to slavery. Slowly the arguments strengthened, until many who are not racist accept the arguments. This, though has saddled us with a theology that contradicts science. Now, we have to invent miracles that are not mentioned in the Bible to fit this theology. For example, a single flood doesn’t leave layers, it jumbles up everything.  {The Racist Bible}

For the professor it might be clear that certain Western Christians have perhaps taken a too restricted look at the Scriptures and perhaps in their thought that the King James Bible is the only true Bible, many Americans even thinking those Hebrews, like Abraham, Isaiah and Jesus all had English Names and as such find, it can not be that the rebbe his name is Jeshua or that God is called Jehovah.

Perhaps it is getting time that people from the West Northern hemisphere start looking at the Bible with other eyes. They also should start questioning their attitude to Jews, real Christians, Muslims, other and non-believers. If they want to win souls or if they want to convert people, loving to see them as members of their Christian faith, it will certainly come down not to follow the way of preachers like Dave Norris serves his community of the Bible Church, because I think he is at the moment getting more people away from faith and religion than getting them in his group or into becoming a Christian. The way we see many Christians act against other Christians and how there is a growing number of Christians reacting cruel against other faith groups or pushing others not to believe in the existence of dinosaurs or that the earth is flat and that NASA would be fooling us about the round earth, it is understandable why so many Christians are leaving the Christian Faith.

We need to reject the archaic, racist inspired interpretation of the Bible. We need to look at it afresh. The interpretation I suggested is not necessarily right, but is a reasonable alternative. Right now, because we are stuck with the racist inspired creationism, we are losing Christians when they go to High School and college and study science. They see how the two conflict, and are rejecting the Bible in great numbers. If we study the Bible fresh, we will see that there are literal interpretations that do not conflict with science, and we can then focus on talking about Jesus without people saying, “I don’t believe that stuff. It is just an archaic myth that science has shown to be wrong.” {The Racist Bible}

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Preceding

Confrontation by people telling lies to force others to avoid the targetted groups

The written, the spoken, and the audible a part of the soul and a blessing to humanity but also the trigger to those who love Crusades and the Inquisition

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Additional reading

1. Dave Norris and his writings on the Belgian Bible Students
2. Trusting present youngsters who are not necessary evil
3. Overprotection and making youngsters drifting away
4. The way of looking at the Scriptures and the people in this world
5. Knife-trust in democratic sore back
6. Pushing people in a corner danger for indoctrination and loss of democratic values

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Related

1. The Watchtower Belgian Biblestudents
2. Belgian Biblestudent Deception- 1
3. Comfort Zone Gospel
4. Jonah; Wake Up
5. The Missing Piece to Salvation
6. Saved From What?
7. Selling Jesus
8. Think About It…
9. Entering the Trail to True Freedom
10. Main Reason to Share the Gospel
11. Evangelism as a lifestyle
12. How to Overcome Fear of Sharing the Gospel – The Story of the Waldensians
13. Forgetting that the Gospel is Good News, Romans 1:7
14. Salty Agape
15. Communicating the Wondrous Truth of God’s Love and Mercy
16. Eschatology for beginners (part 1)
17. The Return of Yeshua Ben Joseph, also known as Jesus – by New Dimension – 12-23-17
18. Exit Strategy End Times: “Unforgiveness and the Band Aid of agreement.” “
19. This is NOT the Time to be SILENT
20. Eastern Lightning | The Awakening of a Deceived Spirit (Part 2)
21. Keep Racing!
22. How to Teach About the Second Coming
23. Today’s “Roman Road” – the Internet
24. The Antichrist in the Holy Place Church
25. The Historical Lesson Historians Need to Learn
26. Scoffers
27. Why Is Christ’s Return Not Widely Taught?
28. The Beginning and the Ending
29. Seven Reasons For Six Day Creation
30. The Creationism
31. Elmore Fundamentalism, Part 1: Matter
32. More on Evolution: From the Mail Room, by Fred Reed
33. Is There Biological Evidence of Life’s Recent Creation? – Part I
34. Scientists Identify a Key Cognitive Error that Could Explain Why People Believe in Creationism and Conspiracy Theories
35. Why Evolution is True Review
36. Teleogical views predict not just creationism, but conspiracy theories
37. A Creationist Surprise
38. Is Creationism racist?
39. God and Science
40. Eric Hedin, prohibited from teaching intelligent design at Ball State, retires and moves to a Christian university
41. Claim of creationism taught in school linked to National
42. School response on creationism, claims evolution ‘controversies’
43. School response on creationism, claims evolution ‘controversies’ — Your NZ
44. Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
45. There IS Purpose!
46. Your Mythology is not Science
47. Where Were You Radicalized?
48. The Ends of the World
49. Civil Debate? Catcall? Or Creationist Ruse?
50. Faith abates reason at Edmonton’s first Flat-Earth International Conference
51. #1: Inexplicable Species and the Theory of Evolution
52. Evolutionary psychology: The naturalistic and agency fallacies
53. A creationist makes the dumbest criticism of evolution ever
54. Noah’s ark: the most ridiculed story in the Bible
55. Tel Aviv’s new natural history museum (built to look like Noah’s Ark) deliberately omits mentioning evolution
56. Why Do the Fundamentalists Love Tracey Ullman Now?
57. InfightingNon-Physical Fighting 2
58. Sikh Radicalisation in Britain
59. Waitress Denied Tip for ‘not loving Jesus’
60. Christian-hating transgender VT gubernatorial candidate DUPED by satire site: ‘Some evangelists just crazy!’
61. The Nashville Statement (A Plain Language Translation)
62. Love and Hate

Solve the Right Problem

To remember

• Define problem right = you’re halfway to a solution.
• Define problem wrong = you’ll probably never solve it => You’ll waste all your time looking for a solution that doesn’t exist.
• Flip side of defining the problem wrong = what computer programmers call GIGO: “Garbage in, garbage out.” >>> If assumptions are wrong = if your logic is flawless =your conclusions will be wrong.
• social problems < base assumptions on optimism rather than realism => go straight from errors in their premises to errors in their conclusions.
• When you start with incorrect information but make mistakes in thinking, then you might get the correct answer just by blind luck. (it does happen)
• Why are the great monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – chronically unable to fulfill their own self-professed goal of creating individuals infused with moral sensitivity and societies governed by the highest ethical standards? = seems to define problem incorrectly, based on an incorrect assumption about what religion can accomplish.
• Judaism taught world about universal moral law under God, improving societies and people from ancient times to the present day.
• Christianity added emphasis on individual conscience + individual rights, helping to develop Western ideals of freedom and personal dignity.
• Islam = great improvement on earlier practices in the region where it developed, giving at least some rights to women + , in the medieval era, fostering a high civilization to which Jews contributed.
• << cannot do = make all individuals + societies ethical all the time, + can’t do it because it’s impossible.
• => limitation imposed by human nature, + fact people are not all alike
• problem > message must be simple, clear, consistent, + realistic + achievable + allow occasional failures, providing a way to recover from them and get back on the right track.
• solution = to talk to majority in the middle

The Thousand-Year View

My latest blog post for The Jewish Journal:

Define the problem right, and you’re halfway to a solution.

Define the problem wrong, and you’ll probably never solve it. You’ll waste all your time looking for a solution that doesn’t exist. That applies in every area of life, such as religion, relationships, science, and social problems. The best movie mystery of 2008 turned on mis-identifying the problem to be solved.

The flip side of defining the problem wrong is what computer programmers call GIGO: “Garbage in, garbage out.” If your assumptions are wrong, then even if your logic is flawless, your conclusions will be wrong. Garbage in, garbage out.

Ironically, it’s the best and brightest people who are most susceptible to GIGO errors when they think about social problems.

Their kind hearts make them want to believe the most optimistic things, so they often base their assumptions on optimism rather…

View original post 540 more words

French rabbis of the suburbs confront anti-Semitism

Last year 50 000  Jews left France for better pastures. In Belgium we also find many who preferred to go to Israel and to face the difficulties there between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

When rabbi Prosper Abenaim first arrived at La Courneuve’s Ahavat Chalom synagogue in 1992 there were over 4,000 Jews in the neighbourhood then and at that time it was a struggle to fit them all into the synagogue on Yom Kippur. Today, at this Paris suburb’s only Jewish facility, he serves sweet tea to his synagogue’s most frequent and reliable guests: machine gun-toting troops of the French Legion which entered the seen on January 2016 to defend Jews in this heavily Muslim and crime-stricken municipality bordering the capital. This dwindling community, which has lost thousands of congregants over the past two decades to Israel and safer areas of Paris has now on some mornings, troops outnumbering worshippers.

That wasn’t the case when Abenaim first arrived at La Courneuve’s Ahavat Chalom synagogue in 1992. There were over 4,000 Jews in the neighbourhood then and it was a struggle to fit them all into the synagogue on Yom Kippur.

“The shul overflowed onto the street,”

Abenaim recalled.

Since then, improved economic fortunes and repeated anti-Semitic attacks have driven out all but 100 Jewish families from the neighbourhood, where drug dealers operate openly on streets that residents say police are too afraid to patrol. The remaining Jews are mostly a greying bunch, stuck here for financial reasons.

“We have two big problems, extremism and criminality, and they often mix,”

said Abenaim, who lives in Paris’ affluent and heavily Jewish 17th arrondisement and has encouraged his congregants to leave for Israel.

“I understand why people don’t want to raise children here. I’m here myself only because of my duties. Otherwise, I’d be in Israel.”

Rudy Abecassis, a Marseille-born computer specialist who moved to the Paris region in 2009 to find work, had a good job at a time of rising unemployment. In 2016 his family also left behind their comfortable lives and moved to Israel, joining nearly 8,000 French Jews who Abecassis said

immigrated to Israel in 2015.

“We’re not fleeing,”

He had found a nice life in France and he loved France for it,  leaving it with sorrow. For him it being important

“to live in a Jewish country of our own, where we are not outsiders who need to be tolerated.”

Tolerance is the big word we have to look for these days. When we hear small children saying Jews are dangerous people we can wonder what they hear their Muslim parents telling about Jews.

Most Jews in France are not affiliated with any synagogue, while the majority of those who are belong to Orthodox synagogues. The third major current of Judaism in France is the Conservative or Massorti movement (with a.o. rabbi Haim Fabrizio Ciprian in Marseille). Next to them there are the Liberal and Reform Jews. The “Libérale” in French corresponds to the Reform movement in the UK and the US, though for some Americans its approach might appear to be midway between Reform and Conservative.

‘For French who do not have the American connection, if you’re Jewish, Israel is the easy place to go. Otherwise the other ambitious entrepreneurs of that age who are not Jewish and are not going to think of going to Israel tend to go to London, which is now the seventh largest ‘French’ city.”

says the American Rabbi Tom Cohen from the synagogue Kehilat Gesher in Paris’s 17th arrondissement.

In those suburbs Rabbi Michel Serfaty is not afraid to go to talk to the Muslims and to create events for Muslim kids. He also created a community or “French Jewish Muslim Friendship Association” for which he hopes to recruit several more young people to help with community outreach in the largely Muslim, immigrant communities where most people have never even met a Jewish person.

A poster for the French Jewish Muslim Friendship Association, which works in many poor, immigrant neighborhoods. – Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

 

Do those who want to follow Christ to be Jews

In these times when there are so many arguing about religion and about what faith would be the right faith or what would be the right way to worship God it is not bad to consider what the people at the time of the Jewish master teacher, Jeshua, thought.

Most of the time those seeing and hearing rebbe Jeshua belonged to the Jewish faith like the master himself. Though few belonged to Jeshua’s religious group because some considered the Essenes as a sect and several also came to see Jeshua his followers also as a sect. Being a child of Joseph and Miriam (Mary/Maria) from the tribe of David, Jeshua and his siblings where brought up in the very religious traditions of the Essenes, to which Miriam belonged. As such Jeshua received a strict thorough education in Torah knowledge and was very well aware what was written in all the different scrolls.

An other person very well educated in Jewish theology was Saul. As a devout worshipper of the God of Israel and connected to the synagogue and the priests in Jerusalem, he was convinced those teachings of that man where blasphemous and had to be stopped. He as a big fighter for Jehovah God went against those followers, until the day he was struck by lightening, feeling Jesus close to him and being blinded by the Power of God because he had become a satan or adversary of God, more than Peter who Jesus also had called a satan.

At first the majority of followers of Jeshua where Jews, but having many Romans around and travellers of other religions or not at all believing in a god or in God, some of them became attracted by the words of the rebbe and his talmidim. Several got in the ban of the doctrines of that man his group and wondered if they could join them. But having come at a certain age they did not like so much to undergo a circumcision. At the other hand lots of the Jews in the group where very concerned about the goyim entering their group and having them to allow in their synagogues. We can image the many discussions going on about the Jewish rules either to be followed by those who came into the group or having them to be free of those mitzvot. Doctor Luke tells about all the internal discussions and arguments in his book the Acts of the apostles.

In 330 CE “church father” Epiphanius of Salamis provided a detailed description of the new faith in Jeshua which started to spread over many regions, by the Netzerim in Panarion 29:

“We shall especially consider the heretics who call themselves Nazarenes; however they are simply complete Jews.
They use not only the New Testament but the Old Testament as well, as the Jews do…
They have no different ideas, but confess everything exactly as the Law proclaims it and in the Jewish fashion – except for their belief in Messiah, if you please! For they acknowledge both the resurrection of the dead and the divine creation of all things, and declare that God is one, and that his son is Yeshua the Messiah.

They are trained to a nicety in Hebrew; for they, like the Jews, read the whole law-Torah , then the Prophets. They differ from the Jews because they believe in Meshiach and from the Christians in that they are to this day bound to the Jews rites, such as circumcision, the Shabbat, and other ceremonies . Otherwise, this sect of the Nazarenes thrives most vigorously in the state of Berea, Coele-Syria, in Decapolis, around Pella, and in Bashan. After they departed from Jerusalem, they made their start from here, as all the disciples dwelt in Pella, having been warned by Meshiach to depart Yerushalayim and emigrate because of imminent danger”

Up to today the matter still bothers many, first of all because several are seriously concerned now about those who call themselves Christian but do not adhere to Jeshua his writings and even worship an other god than Jeshua, namely Jesus and his co-gods (god the father and god the holy spirit). For Jews wanting to accept Jeshua or Jesus as the Messiah this is a serious problem, because they would never want to be confused with polytheist Christians. Most of the Jews, even today, do not want to give up their Jewishness, certainly because they consider themsleves still to be part of the Chosen People of God, Israel Gods People. Thàt they do not want to give up. It would be stupid to give that up or to loose our identity with Gods People.

When we look at the history of Christianity we can see that, before the time it was transposed to Christendom and the dogmatic teachings of the trinity, already soon there came a major controversy in early Christianity concerning the role of Jewish law and traditions. As most of the first converts were Jews, some felt that the Mosaic Law and covenantal signs, such as circumcision, were still important. While others where convinced that their rebbe brought the message of God that from now on their religion had to be open to both Jews and Gentiles. Some contended that converts first had to become Jews in order to become Christians. Others considered the outward signs of Judaism to be unnecessary for Christian life.

It is known that at the beginning most of them, like Saul or Paul, how he further became known, that “Much in every way“ was the advantage of the Jew and the value of circumcision. (Romans 3:1). Several thought by allowing goyim to enter their community and not having them to subject to the same rules they where overthrowing the Law by that notion of faith? But for Paul that was by no means so. On the contrary, he felt that they upheld the Law” (Romans 3:31).

Everybody had to know that all those who just relied on works of the law were under a curse (Galatians 3:10), because we all should know that no one is justified before God by the law (Galatians 3:11).

The convert Paul went even so far to say that circumcision even did not count for anything, but that Jeshua had taken care of a new path and had opened the gates of a new creation which is everything. (Galatians 6:15). For him it had become clear that no human being will be justified in God’s sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20). But that does not mean that the Law would be sin. By no means (Romans 7:7).

All that want to become a follower of Jeshua, Paul argumented had to recognise that the Law is and shall stay holy, and that the mitzvah or commandment is holy and just and good for all of us (Romans 7:12). Though he also said that to the Israelites belongs the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the Temple, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs and of their race, according to the flesh (Romans 9:4). Jewishness can not be taken away by man, because it is entitled by God, engraved in the hearts of those who descent from the tribes chosen by God and protected by God.

Today there are lots of people who think that God has rejected His own people but Paul already warned for such false thinking and said that the Elohim has not rejected His people (Romans 11:1) and told even that

“All Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26).

As such Jews still can bear that precious hope. When they accept Jeshua as the Messiah they do not have to give up their Jewishness, but they also shall have to accept that the goyim or those who where at first atheist, heathen or people from an other faith, that they now too can come to God by the way of Jeshua, and can call the Elohim Hashem Jehovah also their Father or Abba.

Those Jews at the time of the first followers of Jeshua came to accept the non-Jews and did not impose their laws unto them – which was not always an easy thing to do for them. In our time, we too have to be open for the non-Jews who come to accept the Nazarene rebbe Jeshua as their Saviour. But we too have to accept that those goyim become part of the Body of Christ without having to undergo all the obligations a Jew has to undergo.

Nobody may come to think the Law would have become opposed to the promises of God. Certainly not! (Galatians 3:21).

Although Paul preached justification on the basis of faith in Christ, he was himself a Pharisee and addressed the role of Jewish traditions and the status of Israel in the new covenant.

In “Paul’s Contradictions: Can They Be Resolved?” Princeton Professor John Gager looks at how Paul seems to be at war with himself on the subject of Israel. Is there a way out of his contradictions?
Yes, the author argues, but only if we first get past misconceptions about Paul that date to the earliest stages of Christianity — even to Paul’s own times.

Though when reading the book by John Gager, one must know that Paul is not the father of Christian anti-Judaism, like the great German historian Adolf Harnack wants Christians to believe. He writes:

“It was Paul who delivered the Christian religion from Judaism … It was he who confidently regarded the Gospel as a new force abolishing the religion of the law.”

Since the time of the early church fathers until recent decades, all interpreters of Paul have read him from the perspective of the triumph of Christianity, after the decisive break between Christianity and Judaism. The reigning Christian view of Judaism during this entire period has been that the Jews have been superseded as the chosen people of God by the Christians (or Christianity), that the Jews are no longer the bearers of God’s promise of salvation and that their only hope for salvation lies in becoming Christian. In this hermeneutic, it follows that Paul, too, with his canonical status, must have held to this dominant Christian view of Judaism. And this is exactly how Paul has been read throughout Christian history. Not just 80 or 90 or even 99 percent of the time, but 100 percent of the time, without exception — that is, until recently, when a few maverick scholars began not only to question that image but to reject it altogether. {Paul: Jewish Law and Early Christianity}

Biblical scholar Ben Witherington III counters the contradiction in “Laying Down the Law: A response to John Gager.” He questions Gager’s idea that Paul preached the gospel of Jesus Christ for Christians alone by asking whether his message was intended for both Jews and Christians.

Today we can see that there is a growing amount of Jews who are proud to be Jew but also want to be proud to be a follower of the Jew Jeshua, whom they often consider to be one of their own, a child of Israel. In Christendom we find that the majority are trinitarians, but may not forget that there are loads of non-trintiarian denominations as well. There are certain groups which have a similar name but differ from their belief in the trinity or in One True God. As such we can find the Nazarenes, of which some are tinritarians and others still believe the same doctrines as their first counterparts. The Nazarene Friends up to a few years ago where very active non-trinitarian Christians, but by becoming older and dying lots of ecclesiae saw their numbers reduce.

The most well known non-trinitarian groups may be the Bible Students and Jehovah’s Wtinesses, with all their teardowns or torn groups. Lots of those groups not so much respecting by God given days to celebrate or to remember certain events. Though it must be said several bible student groups and Jehovah’s Witness knowing very well that according to Jeshua and his heavenly Father, according to the Scriptures all people of God shall have to remember 14-15 Nisan or Passover (Pesach).

Some Christians also have come to the conclusion that perhaps not so many laws are abandoned as so many Christians do believe. They came to understand that Jeshua was a Jew and held to the Jewish traditions. Certain Jewish elements they now also want to see incorporated in their way of life, as a sign of being under that Jewish master teacher.
Christians who do not want to be looked at, as the same lot of trinitarian Christians, or who want to feel and show more a Jewish connection can as Messianic Christians show their love for Jeshua and his teachings by calling themselves also a Jeshuaist.

Jeshuaist do not expect converts to the faith in Jeshua to be or to become a Jew or to follow all the Jewish laws, though they want them to recognise the Jewish position of Jeshua and the Judaic followers of Jeshua, which means that certain ways of worship, songs and prayers and making church or having meetings shall be as in the first century or in the tradition of the early Christians, forming a brotherhood with acceptance of differences, but considering all as one part united under Christ and not a human organisation which would control and regulate everything.

For Jews who accept Jeshua as their Messiah and for those who prefer to see a Messianic Judaism the Jeshuaists offer a solution. With the title or name Jeshua-ist one can give honour to Jeshua and show the connection with the Jewish rebbe as well can one avoid the confusion with trinitarian Messianics or trinitarian Christians, making it clear to be a Messianic non-trinitarian Jew.

 

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You may be interested in reading:

1. Our life depending on faith
2. As there is a lot of division in Christendom there is too in Judaism
3. The Sabbatean Prophets
4. Converso Involvement in the Sabbatai Zevi Movement
5. Sabbatai Zevi (Jewish Convert To Islam)
6. Forgotten History-The Jews from Geleen 1940-1944.
7. Jewish and Christian traditions of elders
8. Today’s thought “Ability to circumcise your heart” (May 13)
9. Jeshuaists or Followers of Jeshua
10. Who is a Jeshua-ist
11. Who is or can be a Jeshuaist
12. Why to become a Jeshuaist
13. Availability of Jeshuaists on Facebook

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Read the above mentioned articles from the Biblical Archaeology Society and more in the FREE eBook Paul: Jewish Law and Early Christianity. Featuring articles taken from Bible Review and Biblical Archaeology Review, this eBook considers the relevant writings of Paul and brings to light some of the difficult theological issues for Jews and Christians that persist to this day.

Paul: Jewish Law and Early Christianity

 

Download the Free eBook

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Further reading

1. Religions and Mainliners
2. Israel must honor God or the Rule of Law is meaningless
3. The Real Wall Problem: When Will Diaspora Jews Fight For Palestinians?
4. “Qualitavely Jews are not a minority”
5. Nazarene Jews Through Out History
6. Who is Israel? And What Role, If Any, Does She Play in God’s Kingdom?
7. The Temple Connection
8. Where is the Church that Christ built?
9. The Church & The Old Testament Law
10. Christians Above the Law?
11. Why The Bible Is Divine: Christology
12. Jewish Halakha and the Rabbinic Authority in the Messianic World
13. The Not Left, Not Right, but UP Movement
14. From Rome to Corinth, and Back Again: Reclaiming What Was Taken from Us
15. Eleven Steps to Live a Messianic Nazarene Jewish life
16. The straight line connecting Donald Trump’s new tallit to “Christians for Islam,” and a best practices suggestion
17. Something great is happening in Israel
18. A sort of “sing along” songs with Messianic Jews in Israel
19. Is It A “Sign”?
20. Christ is risen! Kristus är uppstånden! Baruch HaBa Beshem Adonai!
21. Books on examples of Jewish evangelism in Israel
22. The great tree of Moreh
23. Rabbinical court rules against Jewish marriage rites for Messianic Jews
24. Sabbath as a Bride
25. Shalom in Psalms
    End Times Series: Pastor Jimmy Evans
26. Kiss the Son…
27. On an Irish Cliff

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Anti-Semitic pressure driving Jews out of Europe

It can not go unnoticed, since a decade lots of Jews feel the pressure of the growing anti-Semitism and an aversion against the Divine Creator. Some even feel like it is again as in the 1930ies and the fear is great that Jews could be experiencing the most difficult situation they have encountered since the end of World War II.

Francis Kalifat, Président du Cirf

The Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France is fully aware of the bad situation and the 11th president of it looks at the present situation with Argus eyes. For him the Western world may not neglect the reason why we can see such a record emigration by Jews from France.

For him the year that lies before us is one full of challenges.

I hear pre-conceived ideas and dogma along with populist statements from some, and totalitarian reactions from more radical minds.

he says, looking at our society which is suffering and facing a climate of mistrust. Many French people are afraid or angry and democracy is on the back foot. According to an IPSOS survey taken in November last year, 32% of French people think that other political regimes would be equally effective. They long for a world of times gone by, looking for scapegoats and sweeping changes. This want to find a guilty one we can find back at several occasions in the past and today in many countries all over the world where the far right is gaining popularity.

Racist and anti-Semitic comments creep up out of the sewers, meeting an indifferent response or emerge from the online echo chamber of Facebook friends. And where there are disgraceful comments, there is always someone ready to laugh, offer approval or justification.

remarked Francis Kalifat, the Crif President at a speech at the annual Crif’s dinner 2017, where he said

When I take a step back, I am struck by a profound realisation: those in France who have a problem with Jews and Israel almost always have a problem with democracy, the rule of law and individual liberties. And vice-versa.

Ilan Halimi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Following the murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006 and the massacre at the Ozar Ha Torah school in Toulouse in 2012, anti-Jewish hatred once again reared its ugly head in France on 9^th January 2015 and thus reinforced the feeling of solitude and abandonment that had started to engulf the Jewish community.

Partly because of anti-Semitic violence that included hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents annually in recent years, and dozens of physical assaults, lots of Jewish brethren ans sisters found it wiser to look for other pastures.

Since 2012, attacks on Jewish targets by French Islamists in France and Belgium claimed the lives of 12 people. Last year, roughly 8,000 French Jews left for Israel — the highest number on record for any year, which made France for the second year straight Israel’s largest provider of newcomers.

We heard already of certain quarters which got French names, because so many French people came to settle over there. According to figures seen by AFP in total, 40,000 French Jews have emigrated between 2006 and the end of 2016.

“The aliyah (the act of moving to Israel) of French Jews has been significant over the last decade,”

said Daniel Benhaim, who heads the Israeli-backed group in France, and agreed that insecurity had been a “catalyst” for many Jews who were already thinking of leaving.

The French Jewish community is the biggest in Europe and is thought to number around 500,000 people. In the 1970ies there where also a lot of Jews in Antwerp, but their number has decreased a lot.

The Jewish Museum of Belgium, between the Sablon in central Brussels and Brussels South, pictured in 2009

The Jewish communities form the Benelux and France were shocked in 2006 by the kidnapping and brutal anti-Semitic killing of a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, in the Paris suburbs, which was followed by a shooting in a Jewish school in the southwest city of Toulouse in 2012.
Two years later on 24 May 2014, in Brussels a gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, killing four people. Three died at the scene; a fourth was taken to the hospital and died on 6 June. The attack is being investigated as terrorism by Belgian authorities. Several more threats followed on Belgian as well as on French Jewish sites, often coming from people having links with radical Islamists. By those terrorists many youngster felt called to do horrible things, not even afraid to carry loads of bombs from one place to another. Home made bombs but also professional weapons switched hands easily, to bring fear and terror in name of Allah.

It also did not help that the problems of the settlers in Israel and the relationship between Israeli and Palestinian governement did not progress in the good direction. The anti-Israel resolution of the UN being considered by Israel as a “no” to the possibility of peace. Israel having the impression the UN gave a sign to continue on the path of terrorism and incitement.

Since the attacks of November 2015 the West of the European continent came to realise that it is the whole of our society has come under attack. It is not just any more about Jews, Israel, Christendom, Belgium or France but the citizens their culture, freedom, way of life and world view.

All French people are now aware that they are at threat and we are slowly but surely regaining our position on the national stage. We have always been vigilant and concerned and now we continue to be so. We remain alert and know that we are still the preferred target of Islamist totalitarianism. Today, we are no longer indifferent targets.

said Francis Kalifat.

Some now may have come to think it is more a battle against Islam. they should know fighting against Islam is as wrong as fighting against Judaism or Christianity. the world has to see it are just a few extremists who make life difficult for a whole group of people. Because the Brussels attacks of March 22, 2016 and later the Marseille and Nice attacks the governments focused Islamic terrorists and people where more afraid of such further terrorist acts. This made that 2016 saw a net drop in anti-Semitic acts and threats: a 58% reduction compared with 2015, though anti-Islamic acts also dropped by the same amount.

Kalifat warned that nevertheless, anti-Semitism remains at a historic high. Jewish people, who represent under 1% of the population, remained a focal point of over 30% of all reported racist acts committed in France throughout 2016, being subject to 335 anti-Semitic acts and threats.

The tell-tale signs of anti-Semitism never seem to be far away.

Probably less Jews where victims of harassment because the Jewish quarters had everywhere soldiers patrolling. The increased police patrols also made lost of place less vulnerable, which can also be seen in the lesser amount of robberies.

Leaders of French Jewry may have expressed both relief over the defeat of the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections and concern over her receiving more than a third of the vote, they may not forget that those 11 million voters for the extreme right party can perhaps be only part of the many right wingers who would love all Jews and Muslims out of their ‘Catholic’ country.

Joel Mergui, the president of the Consistoire, was very fast to react on Sunday evening in a statement by his group, which is responsible for providing religious services to Jews to say he was happy with the result of Emmanuel Macron being elected president,

“which constitutes a veritable relief for all our nation and for the Jewish community of France”.

Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia, who is employed by the Consistoire, also spoke of his satisfaction from the vote. But in his statement, Korsia also referenced concerns over the support shown to Le Pen and those who would like to ban wearing Jewish and Muslim religious symbols in public, ritual slaughter and the provision of pork-free meals in school cafeterias, like they also have done in Belgium.

The ban for the religious symbols in the Belgian state schools is idiotic, because state-schools should just show they are free of any religious bias and that they are open to all sorts of religion. That ban is already some years in use by several Belgian schools and recently some complaints where made that elderly homes and prisons still provided pork-free meals. at first there was only a ban on ritual slaughter in private homes by ordinary citizens, but from 2017 onward there shall be a total ban of ritual slaughter in Belgium, which shall make it very difficult for religious Jews, Muslims and certain Christians to have kosher or halal meat from the own country. As long as importation would not be a problem, work of it can made that way, but it will also undermine the countries own economy.

Kalifat, who has lobbied intensively in favour of Macron in recent days, wrote optimistically on Twitter that everything starts now.

And that is what we can hope for … that a new start is made to bring non-Jews to come to understand why certain regulations are so important for the Jewish community, who want to put God’s mitzvot above the laws of man.

Also it is getting time that non-Jews come to see that there is a difference between secular (or apikorsim) – political Jews and religious Jews, who want to live according to the Law of God.

We only can hope that the new French president shall make work to bring Europeans of all sorts of religions together to live in peace and that he with the European Unions also shall try to get both parties Israel to come to negotiate directly in order to reach a point where they can live side by side in peace and security. All parties involved should recognise that as well as for Jews, Christians and Muslims, all having their faith build on the same root, our patriarch Abraham, that for all of them Jerusalem is a holy place. Real lovers of God, be them Jews, Christians or Muslims do know that Jerusalem in the end shall become the capital of the world. Therefore the lovers of God should also stimulate their politicians to get the political groups around the table to find a good solution for reconciliation and lasting peace.

I would love to see that all shall be able to come to believe that big picture Mr Kalifar wished to reiterate

that Israel is a democracy, a State respecting the rule of law and a country of freedoms. It is a democracy which has held 5 general elections since 2003 and now counts 13 Arab members among a total of 120 in the Knesset. This State, which respects the rule of law, is also home to a Supreme Court and judges whose independence is renowned and rulings are just.  It is a country where all are free to practice or change religion, or indeed not to follow one at all. It is a country where Jews, Christians and Muslims are afforded access to their holy sites within the ancient city of Jerusalem.  June 2017 will see the 50^th anniversary of that freedom. Previously, and for centuries, Jews could do no more than dream of and pray for as much.

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Preceding

Kindertransport

Apocalyptic Extremism: No Longer a Laughing Matter

Seeds from the world creating division and separation from God

What to do in the Face of Global Anti-semitism

The Rise of Anti-Seminism

If you’re going to be a hater, make sure you’ve done your homework.

Dr. Miller looking at Jews in France

Bringers of agony, Trained in Belgium and Syria

Bruxelles Ma Belle

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Please read also:

1. January 2015 Île-de-France attacks
2. November 2015 Paris attacks
3. At the closing hours of 2016 #1 Looking down at terror
4. Jewish Museum of Belgium shooting
5. Knife-trust in democratic sore back
6. Brussels bombings
7. Mediterranean bloodshed
8. 2016 Nice attack
9. 14 Year Old With Sack Full of Bombs Seized in Belgium
10. Danny Dannon Complete Smackdown of the Anti-Israel UN Resolution
11. Another 5,000 Jews quit France for Israel
12. ‘French Jews experiencing worst situation since 1945’
13. January 27 – 70 years ago Not an end yet to genocide
14. Hamas the modern Philistines
15. 25 Orthodox rabbis issued a statement on Christianity
16. The American clouds of Anti-Semitism
17. Donald Trump after declining numbers of people victimised for their religion managed to increase the numbers again
18. Incidents of hate have become commonplace in the U.S.A. anno 2017
19. Beware of Jews
20. French Jews worried over Le Pen’s success in presidential vote’s 1st round
21. Natan Sharansky (Jew) : There is no future for Jews in France
22. French Jews ‘relieved’ Macron won but worried over Le Pen’s electoral gains

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Other articles of interest

1. The Day France Refused To Surrender
2. France Says “Non”
3. Far-right nationalism is dealt a second blow, as Le Pen is defeated in France
4. What does the French Presidential Election Tell Us?
5. Make Ready the Elysian Fields: Globalization Wins French Election Thanks To Worst Turnout in 50 Years
6. Macron Wins In France
7. Macron wins French election, but Marine Le Pen wins a contest for legitimacy
8. the sixth republic
9. Open borders, migrant mayhem, c’est la vie!
10. The French Elections – What Now?
11. The French Election in Under 2 Minutes
12. Emmanuel Macron Wins French Presidency
13. France’s Le Pen to reform National Front, create ‘new political force’
14. What do Texas and France have in common?France: Emmanuel Macron, Useful Idiot of Islamism
15. Macron Beats Le Pen In French Election | EU Leaders Rejoice | Is France
16. Nigel Farage Discusses Le Pen’s Defeat in French Election
17. Nigel Farage: Le Pen will be French president in 2022. 8th May 2017
18. UMD Students Weigh in on French Election
19. Notes From Underground: Au Revoir, Marine Le Pen
20. The Quint: Macron Expresses Gratitude After Becoming France’s New President
21. Listen: Dr Myriam Benraad speaks about the election of Emmanuel Macron
22. Macron’s French win: Viva la dance!
23. Le Pen loses to Macron in the French Presidential election
24. Attacks on Holocaust survivors and pogroms in post-war Poland – a lecture by Dr. Edyta Gawron of Jagiellonian University
25. The New Leader Of France’s National Front Questioned The Existence Of Nazi Gas Chambers
26. Marine Le Pen’s party president, holocaust denier
27. The One Lesson of the Holocaust
28. Israel Indicts US Hacker Linked To Threats To Jewish Centers
29. Mugwump! – Election News In Brief
30. Multiculturalism and the Jews
31. There are more anti-Semitic posts on Twitter than Facebook, Instagram and YouTube combined
32. Jews Are Still the Biggest Target of Religious Hate Crimes
33. FTAC – Tip to the KGB’s Amplification of Middle Eastern Anti-Semitism
34. It’s Hard Helping You When You Are Anti-Semitic, Among Other Things
35. FTACT: Anti-Semitism and the Displacement of the Medieval Mode by a Developing Modern World
36. Anti-Semitic Acts In Massachusetts More Than Doubled In 2016Keith Preston: US using anti-Semitism excuse to cover up growing opposition to Israel
37. B’nai Brith records highest number of anti-Semitic incident in Canada in 2016
38. Israel’s New Cultural War of Aggression
39. Report: The link between the election of Donald Trump and resurgent anti-Semitism is now undeniable
40. Democratic Party Stands By Complicit As Violent, Anti-Semitic NYC City Council Candidate Rises
41. American Media Discriminate Against Jewish, For Muslim Single-Sex Pool Mark Regev at SOAS: a victory for free speech
42. Fighting Back Is the Best Way to Combat Antisemitism on College Campuses
43. UNESCO to fire another volley at Israel – on Independence Day
44. Memorializing terror victims, Netanyahu urges Abbas to stop funding

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Related articles

• Anti-Semitic incidents spike nearly 90 percent in 2017
• Watchdog: Anti-Semitic threats and vandalism rose after the election
• Rising anti-semitism in the UK fuelled by social media, report finds
• Marine Le Pen Calls French Election a ‘Revolt’ Against the Elite
• Marine Le Pen says French government is not to blame for WWII round-up of Jews
• Tim Farron sacks Liberal Democrat candidate David Ward in antisemitism row
• Trump condemns Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitism
• Official says Justice will aggressively pursue hate crimes
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Reciting the Aleinu as a warning against temptation of idolatry

From a review completed by a MA student at the University of Chicago Divinity School, with a focus on modern Jewish thought, Joel Swanson. Joel is interested in the intersections of phenomenology and Jewish theology, and in the unique insights that the rabbinic hermeneutic tradition can contribute to our understanding of postmodern philosophy.

Late in his life, Moses Mendelssohn found himself forced to defend the daily Jewish prayer Aleinu in a public contretemps with the Christian community of Königsberg. Two verses in the prayer, translated as

“For they worship vanity and emptiness, and pray to a god who cannot save,”

were widely viewed by Christians as an attack on Jesus, a reading based upon the testimony of a fourteenth century Christian convert from Judaism. As a result, in 1703 King Friedrich of Prussia signed an edict forbidding the recitation of these two verses of the Aleinu, and appointing Christian inspectors to enforce this ban. Seventy years later, David Kypke, an orientalist appointed as the inspector of the Königsberg Jewish community, filed a complaint alleging that the Jews purposely mumbled their recitations of the prayer, and therefore that he could not be sure they were not reciting the offending verses. The Jewish community of Königsberg prepared a response to these allegations, and naturally, it fell to Moses Mendelssohn to serve as the emissary to the Christian community and deliver this response.

…

According to Mendelssohn, Jews continue to recite the Aleinu not to attack other religions as idolatrous, but as a warning against the temptation of idolatry that lurks within all monotheists. Mendelssohn’s defense of Aleinu is a masterful use of emerging Protestant notions of pluralism and interiority to defend a particular Jewish tradition.

…

Freudenthal, did in fact see these two verses in the Aleinu as an attack on Christians, and no amount of creative rewriting of history on Mendelssohn’s part could change this. In order to defend Judaism before Christian authorities, Mendelssohn wound up redefining his own tradition.

Continue reading: “Moses Mendelssohn: Enlightenment, Religion, Politics, Nationalism” edited by M. Gottlieb

Inquisition also bad for Jews

A Catholic bishop granting plenary indulgences for the public during times of calamity. Note the almsgiving in the background. Wall Fresco by Italian Artist Lorenzo Lotto, Suardi, Italy, circa 1524.

The Roman Catholic Pope in the 1200s was annoyed that there where people who called themselves Christians but did not want to worship Jesus as their god. Those true Christians said there was only One God, Who is one, and which was not the god of the Catholic Church but the God of Israel. This was a blow in the face of the Roman Catholic Church which also could see a lot of money not coming in their hands because those Christians who refused to worship the Trinity also said that people paid for their sins by their death and not by ecclesiastical indulgences.

The Pope not pleased with those lay preachers who could undermine his establishment got enough clergy interested to battle those who had other thoughts than they. He established the “Holy Inquisition Against Depraved Heresy” to deal with breakaway ‘Christian sects’. At first it was a judicial procedure set to be able to judge all sorts of people who did not want to go with the Roman Catholic Church. But later an institution was established by the papacy and, sometimes, by secular governments to combat heresy and to act like we now see Al Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL or Daesh, Boko Haram and other fundamentalist Islamic groups to press what they believe would be the only true faith everybody had to have.

First being relatively powerless, as secular rulers, suspicious of Papal meddling in their own internal affairs, did not allow it access to their countries, in a period of more than 200 years, very few heretics were burned at the stake. In 1481, at the peak of the Ottoman power, however, after extracting a promise from the Pope that the Inquisition would remain under the Crown’s control, thus ensuring that confiscated assets of heretics would revert to the throne, Ferdinand and Isabella established the Inquisition in Seville (Reconquista). While it is commonly assumed that the Inquisition was brought to Spain out of a concern that Jews were trying to influence conversos to leave the Christian fold, one prominent historian is of the opinion that by 1481 Jewish consciousness was virtually nonexistent among the conversos, and that Jews did not attempt any such outreach. Rather, he believes, the Inquisition was an outgrowth of the attitudes of Spain’s Old Christian population. In the words of one Spanish historian,

“The Inquisition was a genuine expression of the soul of the Spanish people.”

When we hear about the Inquisition we most often do not think of the Jews, with good reason, because most damage was done to sincere godly people who had taken Jesus as the son of God and their saviour and not as their god. Though the horrible action taken by the Roman Catholics, undertaken in the twelfth century and following centuries to find “Christian heretics” who would be punished or killed, had her eyes also set on the Jewish community. Eventually, Jews too were open to such charges of heresy, simply for being Jewish; and torture was routinely used to extract “confessions.”

These coming weeks we also remember how this coming up time to Pesach was a very dangerous time for Jews, because they could be caught cleaning their houses and linen and buying vegetables before Pesach, blessing children without making the sign of the cross, fasting on Yom Kippur, and refraining from work on the Sabbath.

Interestingly enough, Jews who never converted to Christianity were not under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and could practice their religion freely and openly. It was only conversos who were considered heretics for forsaking the Christian creed and practising Judaism. Worse for the Catholic Church was that some of those converts did not become a Catholic but accepted rabbi Jeshua as the Messiah, the son of God but not a god son, like the Roman Catholics did. Those having gone in the water to become a Baptist, became with that group a target for prosecution, according to the Roman Catholics being a dangerous ‘cult’ and with other protestants to be removed from this earth.

Marranos: Secret Seder in Spain during the times of inquisition, an 1892 painting by Moshe Maimon

Mainly because of persecution, Muslims and Jews in Spain at that time found it socially, politically, and economically expedient to convert to Catholicism, but where not really practising that faith and at home kept their ow practice of faith. In 1481 the Inquisition began to function in Spain to expose the secret Jews, known as the Anusim (who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will) or Marranos, who converted to the Christian faith to escape persecution but who continued to practice Judaism secretly, but over the years spread to many countries. The Spanish Inquisition was anti-Jewish more than in any previous countries. The first public sentencing and burning alive of six marrano men and one woman by the Spanish Inquisition was held on this date in Sevilla in Southern Spain.

All sorts of torture where good for the unsparing cruel fanatics, of which many also set their eyes on the Jews and certain Christian groups or monasteries their assets.

Differently with the present day inquisition groups of Islam the Roman Catholic Church did not want to spill blood, but only “save souls”. For not having their clergy to become accused for having blood on their hands they made use of civilians and secular authorities for the many executions, whereby they found it was best to use bloodless deaths, such as strangling and burning alive.

For ISIS the colour today is orange, but at that time the condemned people wore yellow sanbenitos, cloaks, with red crosses and the letter X painted on them. Those given the death penalty wore tunics with paintings of flames and devils. The procession marched through the town to the burning area where the judges sat. The cases involving lesser penalties were judged first, then those receiving strangulation before burning, and finally those condemned to be burned alive.

The first auto-de-fe was held in 1481, and the last in 1731, an old woman who was accused of

“being influenced by the Devil, after which she laid eggs with prophecies written on them.”

Tomás de Torquemada (Thomas of Torquemada) Castilian Dominican friar, and the first Grand Inquisitor in Spain’s movement to homogenize religious practices with those of the Catholic Church in the late 15th century, otherwise known as “The Spanish Inquisition.” (Wikipedia)

In 1483, Queen Isabella’s personal confessor, the Dominican priest Tomas de Torquemada, was appointed head of the Inquisition. Of converso origin, Torquemada was a fanatic Jew-hater who was wholly incorruptible. He was convinced that only the total expulsion of the Jews from Spain could end Jewish influence in the national life.

Torquemada did not cut the grass from under the Jews’ feet and quickly began taking steps to weaken the unconverted Jewish community and eventually expel it from Spain. In 1485, he forced all rabbis, under pain of death, to report conversos who were practising Judaism, and to pronounce a rabbinic curse on any Jew who failed to notify the Inquisition of such behaviour. This cruel edict badly split the Jews of Spain. Alarmed by the greatly increasing power of the Inquisition, that year a group of conversos plotted to kill the inquisitor of Saragossa, Pedro de Arbues, hoping to begin a popular uprising against the Inquisition. However, the assassination had the opposite effect. The townspeople were enraged, rampaging through the streets, killing many conversos. All the conspirators were caught and executed, and the Inquisition grew even stronger.

Purity of faith became the national policy of the Catholic sovereigns, and thus came about the final tragedy, the edict of expulsion of all the Jews from Spain on March 31, 1492. Portugal promulgated an edict of expulsion in 1497 and Navarre in 1498. It was under de Torquemada his guidance that the Inquisition became such a terrifying institution, amassing enormous assets confiscated from its victims, much of it used to finance the war to conquer the last Muslim stronghold of Granada.

In 1680, the most spectacular of all autos-de-fe was held to celebrate the wedding of King Carlos and his bride. At that time, the Inquisition spread to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the New and Old Worlds, with victims burned in Havana, Cuba; Mexico City, Mexico; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Goa, India. After 350 years, the Inquisition was finally abolished in 1834, the year the Liberal Wars ended in Portugal and pro-republic uprising fails in Piedmont. In all, more than 400,000 people were accused of heresy, with 30,000 of those put to death.

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Please do read:

The Spanish Inquisition by Yosef Eisen

Books on Conversos a listing by Rabbi Juan Bejarano-Gutierrez the director of the B’nei Anusim Center for Education

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Additional reading

1. Priest, scribes and others with authority
2. A dialogue about the earth moving and spinning around the sun
3. Anti-church movements and Humanism
4. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #1 Christian Reform

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Further reading

1. Individuality in the Age of Heresy
2. Say it in Latin, Mortui Vivos Docent
3. A Jolly Old Pope
4. Moors in the Occitan
5. Inquisitively Questioning Inquisition
6. The Papacy: Inception to Inquisitions End
7. Does torture work
8. A Tribute to Galileo
9. The Memoirs of Luis Carvajal
10. Millions Executed During The Inquisition?
11. The Spanish Inquisition According to Mel Brooks
12. Silence (Scorsese; 2016)
13. And of These Chains
14. Anti Hindu Laws in the Christian State set up by the Portuguese in Goa
15. Anne Brenon: Les Cathares
16. Basque Country – Following The Converso Escape Route
17. Secret Jews: The Complex Identity of Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Judaism
18. Granada, Spain – The End of Sephardic Jewry
19. Returning to Egypt: Conversos who Returned to Spain and Portugal
20. Books on Conversos
21. A Conversation between the Spice Trader’s Daughter and her Lover, a Fortnight after She Burned at the Stake
22. When will the Catholic Church apologise for the Goa Inquisition? – Shefali Vaidya
23. Vatican has never apologised for its crimes, and will not apologise for the Goa Inquisition – Aravindan Neelakandan
24. Books on the Inquisition
25. Another book about the Inquisition in France…imagine!
26. Book Review: The Shadow of the Cross
27. The Ancien Régime was Less Bloody than the Enlightened World
28. Inquisition 2015
29. Going Back in Time
30. Inquisition: la torture
31. Spare a prayer
32. Inquisition 
33. Plausible Deniability, the Jesuits and Citizen Cain – Missionaries of The Anti-Christ
34. The 2nd Amendment and The Inquisition
35. The Elder
36. The world order inquisition
37. Jihad in the cause of Allah – Maria Wirth
38. Benjamin Netanyahu and his Sephardic Roots
39. Feelings in a nutshell
40. Who we are (Inq worldpeace)

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An American Embassy to the Eternal Capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem

A dark moment in the year 2016 might be the election of the man of whom most people thought he would not even make it to the selection of president candidates. Though very cleverly playing on the fearing minds of radical and right wing Americans blackening all other candidates he managed to blackguard Hillary Clinton many started to cry to put her in jail and would not vote for her.

Donald Trump often turned with the wind and at one moment he was on the blacks and Jews calling them names and at other moments he said he respected Judaism but found all Jews have to live in their own country.

In some of the ads leading up to the campaign Trump clearly stated his position:

Trump Campaign Statement on Israel

I love Israel, and honour and respect the Jewish faith and tradition. It is important that we have a president who feels the same way. For me, respect and reverence for Judaism is personal. My daughter Ivanka, and my son-in-law Jerad are raising their children in the Jewish faith, always reminding me of the important values and lesson we learn about leadership, resolve, and families in Jewish tradition. My administration will stand side by side with the Jewish people and Israel’s leaders to continue strengthening the bridges that connect, not only Jewish Americans and Israelis, but also all Americans an Israelis. Together we will stand up to the enemies like Iran, bent on destroying Israel and her people. Together we will make America and Israel safe again.

During his a speech at AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Donald Trump waxed bold and direct regarding his position on Israel:

I speak to you today as a life-long support and true friend of Israel.

I am a newcomer to politics, but not to backing the Jewish state.

I came here to speak to you about where I stand on the future of American relations with our strategic ally, our unbreakable friendship, and our cultural brother, the only democracy in the Middle East, the State of Israel.

He laid out several of his policies with regard the Nation of Israel. He was very politically incorrect, as his usual style normally is. He addressed the issue of Iran, but also the problematic relationship between Israel, the United States and the United Nations:

“The United States can be useful as a facilitator of negotiations, but no one should be telling Israel that it should be, and really that it must abide by some agreement made by others, thousands of miles away, that don’t even really know what is happening to Israel, to anything in the area. It is so preposterous; we are not going to let that happen…. When I am president, believe me, I will veto any attempt by the UN to impose its will on the Jewish state.  It will be vetoed 100%.

During this speech Trump pointed out the track record of agreements that were imposed upon Israel in the past and his feelings on the reason for failure:

President Clinton with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at Camp David peace talks, July 2000.

To make a great deal you need two willing participants. We know Israel is willing to deal. Israel has been trying to sit down at the negotiating table without preconditions for years. You had Camp David in 2000, where Prime Minister Barak an incredible offer, maybe even too generous, Arafat rejected it. In 2008 Prime Minister Olmert made an equally generous offer, the Palestinians Authority rejected it also. Then John Kerry tried to come up with a framework, and Abbas didn’t even respond. Not even to the Secretary of State of the United States of America. They didn’t even respond. When I become President, the days of treating Israel like a second class citizen will end on day one!

Now many have treated his speech as simply electioneering and grandstanding. But as Donald Trump has been building his cabinet, and announcing the key roles, he has been building a team that is capable of realizing his campaign promises.

What has been most interesting this week has been the appointment by President Elect Trump of the American bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, a 57 year old Orthodox Jew from New York, as the future Ambassador to Israel, which shall receive its residency not any more in Tel Aviv, but moves to Jerusalem.

Friedman helped advise Trump during the campaign and has assisted him in bankruptcy proceedings in the past. He is a supporter of Israeli settlement construction, has downplayed the need for a Palestinian state, and is considered a key force behind the incoming president’s relatively hard-line pro-Israel positions, including supporting moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Though in 1980 the Knesset had already declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel this law was declared null by the U.N., which called for the removal of the remaining embassies in the city. A statement from Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the resolution “unjust” and

“additional proof that the U.N. organization has been converted into an instrument in the hands of Israel’s enemies in their war against her existence and independence.”

With moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to a plot of land in Jerusalem which would be leased from Israel to the US for 99 years, for $1 per year since January 18, 1989, of the last days of the Reagan presidency, according to the agreement singed by US ambassador to Israel William Brown and Israel Lands Authority deputy director Moshe Gatt.

David Friedman was a major contributor to the Trump policy on Israel as he stated in a meeting with an Israeli delegation when meeting for dinner with them:

… anything where there is jobs or national security, the economy, immigration, everything is vetted through a policy committee. With regard to Israel there really isn’t a policy committee. Our relationship is so strong, that on matters of Israel, he’s really given Jason and I full authority to speak on his behalf.

The one thing that I’m proudest about, to date, is the Republican platform as relates to the state of Israel. The Republican platform on Israel is the strongest platform with regard to Israel that either party has ever developed in the history of this country. The way this was developed was a partnership between the Orthodox, within the Jewish community, the Israel lovers within the Jewish community and the evangelical community.

So from this platform, I would invite people to compare 2016 to 2012, there is no longer any reference to a two-state solution, there is an affirmative statement that Israel is not an occupier with respect to Judea and Samaria. There is a commitment to recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people, undivided capital of the Jewish people, to move the embassy there.

When this platform was passed by the Republican platform committee, the Evangelical community, got up, not only did they get up and clap, but people were actually crying. That is how motivated, that is how happy they were. They for this was a day they would never see. 

This man is noted for his conservative political views, his belief that the “Jewish left” is a danger to the State of Israel, and that Jews who supported the nonprofit liberal advocacy group J Street, are

“just smug advocates of Israel’s destruction”

But it are just those advocates who try to bring peace in the region promoting American leadership to end the Arab–Israeli and Israel–Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically.
J Street’s stated aim is to provide a political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who believe that a

“two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is essential to Israel’s survival as the national home of the Jewish people and as a vibrant democracy”.

J Street has a two-fold mission: first, to advocate for urgent American diplomatic leadership to achieve a two-state solution and a broader regional, comprehensive peace and, second, to ensure a broad debate on Israel and the Middle East in national politics and the American Jewish community.

The appointment of Friedman, who once compared a Jewish lobby group to concentration camp prisoner-guards, is a controversial one and some liberal Jewish groups in the U.S. as well as a senior Palestinian cleric have openly denounced the decision.

As believers in the Bible we followed the Iraq-Iran War, the present religious wars and terrorist acts, the Brexit and the American elections suspiciously, very intrigued and  now with appointment of David Friedman to the post of America’s Ambassador to Israel seeing how zigzaw puzzle pieces fitting the details given in the Bible.

We are fascinated to see the finger of God at work in the nations, as the prophet Daniel clearly stated:

“…the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” (Daniel 4:17)

God allows people to reign matters and to choose their own governments. God also allows events to take place in His time schedule. He may look at the United States and see how Donald Trump may take his position of power in America and the world. Bible students can become quite excited by this prospect, not because of the man, but because of his stated policies with regard to the State of Israel and with the events Donald Trump may bring into this world, where he is perhaps going to make it easier for the Jewish state to develop.

The president elect moving the American Embassy is one thing, but also calling it

“to the Eternal Capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem“

is giving the voice to what Jews and real Christians are looking forwards to for already many years. We do know that Jerusalem has to become the eternal capital of the world, but now a politician has called it with a clear voice “the Eternal Capital”. That is what more people shall have to come to recognise.

The movement of America’s embassy to Jerusalem is one step closer to becoming a reality.  It is the issue of Jerusalem that will cause the nations to come down to the land in the latter day, and bring God’s judgement upon them:

“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, When I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, And will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, And will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.” (Joel 3:1–2)

Zechariah also identifies Jerusalem as being the flashpoint:

“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: All that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, Though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” (Zechariah 12:3)

All nations who come against it will be destroyed. So when we see America, the most powerful nation in the world talking about legitimizing the Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, it brings the issue to the forefront.

You may read more about this in the Christadelphian News-site: Bible in the News

Protesters outside of AIPAC conference at Washington DC Convention center. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Christianity like Judaism God’s call to human responsibility

The season of Pesach (Passover) is a time for reflection for many people.

Shimon Zachary Klein finds that the relevance of Pesach as a festival of freedom is lost for many reasons. He writes

It is a festival that conjures up obsessions for the “Kosher for Pesach” foods that result in the annual hair-splitting arguments between the secular and religious. The losers are inevitably the secular who have to kowtow to the whims of the religious who have the law on their side. What is free about that? Religious coercion reaches a climax during the Pesach week.Another aspect and one that very few people give a thought is the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Their limited freedom is even further curtailed. Road-blocks, closures and checkpoints are stricter. The reason is always security. However, the difficulties that innocent Palestinians have to endure are further increased by this “Festival of Freedom”. The Israeli soldiers who are on duty in the occupied territories are even more abusive and insensitive to Palestinians to ensure that the “Festival of Freedom” is not “interrupted” by Palestinians.

It is difficult and even hypocritical to celebrate a festival of freedom while denying another people basic human rights. The settlers in the occupied territories show their presence during this “Festival of Freedom” when they trespass on Palestinian lands. At the same time the Israeli government is still expanding settlements on Palestinian land. Racist rabbis continue their anti-Arab diatribes and this does have much influence for the celebration of Pesach. {Pesach (Passover) – the Festival of “Freedom”}

Today, having a holy week and having listened to the stories how God liberated His people, we in these days of particular times, showing that we are coming closer to the end times, it should be a challenge to all of us as lovers of God to seek new meanings and learning new lessons as to how relevant Pesach remains today.

From the previous writings you could find that it is not enough to celebrate the liberation of the Israelites, who to all intents and purposes, are our ancestors. It is also not enough just to think about the Jewish rabbi who called his disciples together to speak about a new covenant.

English: Omer ceremony – Pesach 2007 , Jewish holidays עברית: חגיגת אנשי אילות לקראת סדר פסח בדשא חדר האכילה.ריקוד אמהות וילדים:שיבולת בשדה., Original Image Name:טקס העומר-פסח 2007, Location:אילות (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many Jews still come together in a very traditional way and even may perform what others consider out dated rituals as to what is Kosher for Pesach and what is not. The religious hair-splitting explanation over what is “kitniot” –“legumes” that are forbidden to be eaten by religious Ashkenazim.

Rabbi John Rosove, J Street Rabbinic Cabinet, Co-Chair brought following message

“As the festival of Passover approaches, we are all challenged, this year even more than most years, to reflect and act on the universal message it conveys — especially in the light of very disturbing trends both in the United States and Israel.

A page from the Haggadah of Pesach printed in Prague, 1527 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The overriding message conveyed through the Haggadah is that it is our duty to experience the story of our liberation from Egypt as if it happened to us personally — and not just a story that happened to our ancestors countless generations ago. As former slaves, our tradition teaches us to be sensitive to the plight of the oppressed throughout history and in our own time. Accepting our role as active participants in that drama, we realize that we have a hand in forging our own destiny and cannot allow ourselves to become mere bystanders.

“We’re taught as Jews despite cruelty leveled against us not to become cruel and hard-hearted ourselves. That is the key lesson of Pesach, and we ignore it at our moral and spiritual peril.”

We are sensitive even to the pain of our enemies, taking a drop of wine out of our glasses for each of the ten plagues visited on the Egyptians, lessening our joy as we recall their suffering.

As our sages have noted, the one commandment in the Torah reiterated more than any other is to care for and love the stranger — for we ourselves were strangers in Egypt. It is repeated no fewer than 36 times.

Perhaps the repetition is necessary because this commandment tells us to do something that is both counterintuitive and very hard to do. It goes against something that is very deep and fundamental within us. We’re hardwired to be loyal to our own tribe and to be suspicious of and hostile to “the other.” When we’re hurting or in distress, some of us blame strangers and pour out our rage on them. It’s happening again, right now, in Syria, Iraq and in sectors of America.

He is not the only one who looks at what is going on at the 2016 presidential campaign in the United states of America where some of the leading candidates have built their campaigns by exploiting the fears and anxieties of fellow Americans. Also on several religious websites, mainly fundamentalist Christian or American right wing Evangelist sites everything is done to bring people against each other and to downgrade one or an other faith-group.

The rabbi rigthly remarks:

They have cynically fomented an anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist feeling against Muslims, Hispanics and others.

and sees the same problematic matter in Israel

we see the same phenomenon in the very disturbing recent polls showing that a sizeable proportion of the Jewish population would favor depriving Arab Israelis of their democratic rights or even expelling them from the country. And tragically, Israelis and Palestinians have become strangers to each other, meeting in fewer and fewer places and not currently engaged around the negotiating table.

Yes, Israelis have been subjected to heinous terrorist attacks, rockets, missiles and constant psychological pressure — and we must stand with them in upholding their right to defend themselves and our Jewish homeland — but returning hatred with hatred is not the response our tradition teaches. We’re taught as Jews despite cruelty leveled against us not to become cruel and hard-hearted ourselves. That is the key lesson of Pesach, and we ignore it at our moral and spiritual peril.

This is not who we are as Jews — nor who we can be and should be.

As individuals and collectively, working through organizations like J Street and its many American-Jewish, Israeli and Palestinian allies, we need to change this. We are called upon by tradition to pursue peace and justice and to love compassion. We must see that our neighbors are fellow humans with the same desires and aspirations as us — and we must never abandon our goal of reaching a two-state solution to end the conflict.

That is the great challenge of our time and it is deserving of particular reflection this festival season.

Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the UK, at National Poverty Hearing 2006 at Westminster, London. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, has noted,

“Judaism is God’s call to human responsibility. From this call you can’t hide, as Adam and Eve discovered when they tried, and you can’t escape, as Jonah learnt in the belly of a fish. The first humans lost paradise when they sought to hide from responsibility. We will only ever regain it if we accept responsibility and become a nation of leaders, each respecting and making space for those not like us.”

Also for those who want to call themselves Christian should ring the same bell. Jeshua asked his followers to be messengers of peace. We can not permit it that we again would loose the paradise. It is promised to us, but we can go along the wrong paths and miss that important entrance or small gate to the Kingdom of God.

Christians should take up their responsibility to preach the Good News and to show the right attitude of a lover of God, keeping to the golden Rule of the Agape love.

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Please do read also: Relevance of Observing Pesach Today

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Mishmash of a legal code but importance of mitzvah or commandments

Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild, working in England, writes

Interestingly while Judaism teaches that mitzvot are divinely ordained and therefore not to be questioned or even necessarily understood, it does at the same time try to explain them as a rational force, and many commentators suggest reasons for our doing them.

We are told: – “The essential reason for the commandments is to make the human heart upright” ( ibn Ezra on Deut 5:18); or “Each commandment adds holiness to the people of Israel.” (Issi ben Akavia,  Mechilta on Ex 22:30); or even that “The purpose of the mitzvot is…to promote compassion, loving kindness and peace in the world” (Maimonides, yad, Shabbat) {Parashat Mishpatim. What is the purpose of mitzvot?}

The Covenant Confirmed, by John Steeple Davis (1844-1917), as in Exodus 24 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those who believe in the God of Abraham, should know that this God of gods has given the many commandments to help man find his way in this universe and to live in a proper peaceful relation with God’s creation.

The world has been given Mishpatim, which we may consider judgements by ‘laws’ or ‘rulings’ and they will govern the community who agree to accept them. But not all humans will accept them, that’s a fact. Also in the previous times people of God did not have it easy at all times with those Mishpatim, though just after Moses has finished relating all the various laws to the Children of Israel, we can see in the Old Testament how often those People of God went astray.

Moses Showing the Ten Commandments, by Gustave Doré (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Real lovers of God should agree “to do all the things that God has spoken” (Exodus 24:3). They should cling to the Word of God as the only Perfect Rule Giver and should go for keeping “miẓwah”, the divinely instituted rule of conduct. As such, the divine commandments are divided into (1) mandatory laws known as , and (2) those of a prohibitory character, the . This terminology rests on the theological construction that God’s will is the source of and authority for every moral and religious duty. Many of the old laws were given to and concerned only special classes of people, such as kings or priesthood, Levites or Nazarites, or are conditioned by local or temporary circumstances of the Jewish nation, as, for instance, the agricultural, sacrificial, and Levitical laws.

For us today some rules may be curious, and that is why at a certain moment in time some changes were allowed. It was not God Who changed, but the people who changed and God came closer to them by adapting His rulings. As such we may now face other food laws and about sanitation than at the early beginning, plus about how to relate to others, because certain concepts changed, like the position of slaves.

Torah scroll and silver pointer (yad) used in reading

Of the more than fifty mitzvot to be found in the sidra, we have some that deal with the treatment of slaves, with the crimes of murder and kidnap, with personal injury and with civil damages through neglect or theft. There are rules about witchcraft and idolatry, about oppression and unfair business practise, about applying legal codes in a prejudiced fashion and not giving false testimony; laws about not mistreating widows and orphans, and about care for animals. {Parashat Mishpatim. What is the purpose of mitzvot?}

When we look at those laws and regulations we may not forget that many still keep going and should be fulfilled by a lover of God. It is not because we have Jesus as our Messiah who liberated us from the curse of Law that the Law has ended. No, not at all. The Law still counts. Even now we have received a New Covenant, should we keep to those law covered in that covenant.

Too many Christians commit a mistake by thinking they do not have to do any works any-more. We still have to keep the works of faith, keeping to God’s Commandments.

In parshat Mishpatim, the Israelites learn that accepting the commandments is a 24/7 job. {Parenting by the Parshah – Mishpatim}

We also must be fully aware of the most frequent mitzvah in Torah, given at least 37 different times in the text,which  is repeated in the Mishpatim too –

“you shall not wrong a stranger or oppress them, for you were strangers in the land of Israel.”

It is a mishmash of a legal code but what comes through loud and clear to the reader is the importance to the Jewish people of mitzvot, commandments.

From Torah we see that for the ancient people there were particular reasons for observing the mitzvot – firstly and most importantly because God tells us to. Secondly there was in the ancient understanding an idea that people who obeyed them would be rewarded, and people who disobeyed risked punishment. Then there were two different types of reason given in Torah – that the mitzvot were intrinsically imbued with divine wisdom, and that they would lead us to achieving holiness.  {Parashat Mishpatim. What is the purpose of mitzvot?}

Each person who wants to become a Child of God, or to belong to God’s People shall have to resign oneself to the Will of God. But none can belong to the children of God when they do not accept others to be their brethren and sisters, and loving them as their siblings. The agape love for the others is a indispensible necessary part of belonging to God’s family.

In Judaism as in Christianity too there might be a tension in their tradition

– do we do the commandments (mitzvot) simply because there is a Commander (metzaveh) who told us to do this and this should be enough, or do we search out a meaning behind each mitzvah? And if we do the latter, what happens if we cannot find a suitable reason and meaning? Do we abandon the mitzvah as unreasonable or pointless? Or do we continue to do it in the hope that meaning will emerge? After all, at Sinai the people famously answered “na’aseh ve’nishma, [first] we will do it and [subsequently] we will understand”. {Parashat Mishpatim. What is the purpose of mitzvot?}

The tension and balancing between holding a religious belief and a rationalist position was as great in the ancient world as it is today. {Parashat Mishpatim. What is the purpose of mitzvot?}

For those who love God ‘blind faith’ was never a prerequisite, neither of a Jewish life nor of a Christian life.

Judaism tends to the position of na’aseh ve’nishma – doing in order to understand, blending faith and reason and giving neither the upper hand, but instead knowing that if we behave “as if” we believe, if we follow the way of mitzvot, then further understanding may come. {Parashat Mishpatim. What is the purpose of mitzvot?}

From Scriptures we should come to understand there is no way of doing “as if” because God sees the heart and He does knows each of us. We can not hide anything from Him.

1 Samuel 16:7 The Scriptures 1998+  (7)  But יהוה {Jehovah} said to Shemu’ĕl, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have refused him, for not as man sees, for man looks at the eyes, but יהוה {Jehovah} looks at the heart.”

Jeremiah 17:10 The Scriptures 1998+  (10)  “I, יהוה {Jehovah}, search the heart, I try the kidneys, and give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

Moses with the Two New Tables of Stone (illustration from the 1897 Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us by Charles Foster) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our hearts may not be removed from God and by our way of living we should show to others how God is in our heart. Our heart, our feelings but also how we act should always be pure, full of love for God and His commandments. When we are willing to give ourselves into God’s Hands He will bring us where He wants us to be.

Proverbs 21:1-3 The Scriptures 1998+  (1)  The sovereign’s heart is as channels of water In the hand of יהוה {Jehovah}; He turns it wherever He wishes.  (2)  All a man’s ways are right in his own eyes, But יהוה {Jehovah} weighs the hearts.  (3)  To do righteousness and right-ruling Is more acceptable to יהוה {Jehovah} than a slaughtering.

Each day we have to work at ourself taking care we keep to the commandments of God.

Meanwhile we are impacting on ourselves and on our world in a positive way as we are directed to behaviour that may not be our first instinct – to support the poor and downtrodden, to value life, to respect the boundaries of others, to rein in our own power and desires so as not to trample over the lives of others. The list goes on. {Parashat Mishpatim. What is the purpose of mitzvot?}

As tradition says again and again in different words, the same message:  “the commandments were given only to refine God’s creatures…”(Midrash Tanchuma). They change us, they cause us to think about what we are doing and not to act out of immediate self interest, they shape our behaviour and ultimately they may help us to bring holiness into our world. {Parashat Mishpatim. What is the purpose of mitzvot?}

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Preceding

When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation

A Royal Rule given to followers of Christ

First man’s task still counting today

Whoopi Goldberg commandments and abortion

He who knows himself, is kind to others

Luther’s misunderstanding

January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works

Our life depending on faith

Romans 4 and the Sacraments

Is Justification a process?

Letter to the Romans, chapter 3

Letter to the Romans, chapter 4

Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans

Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4

Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works

Which is worse–works without faith, or faith without works?

Christians remaining hidden not sharing the gospel

Witnessing because we love

Leading people astray!

Crisis man needed in this world

Preaching Christ Is Not Enough

Beautiful feet of those who announce the good news

Preaching by example

A Christian has to have eyes and ears and a tongue to use in good ways

Daring to speak in multicultural environment

Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach

What Should I Preach ?

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Additional reading

1. Bible in the first place #1/3
2. Creator and Blogger God 3 Lesson and solution
3. Creator and Blogger God 4 Expounding voice
4. Creator and Blogger God 6 For His people
5. God-breathed prophetic words written torah and the mitzvot to teach us
6. Words God speaks unto all and the Spirit that quickens
7. The Bible is a today book
8. Statutes given unto us
9. Necessary to be known all over the earth
10. God’s design in the creation of the world
11. Time passing away
12. Best intimate relation to look for
13. Let us not forget it was God who chose us
14. Daily Spiritual Food To prepare ourselves for the Kingdom of God
15. Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
16. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
17. Knowing where to go to
18. I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late !
19. The inspiring divine spark
20. A good idea to halt all activity for one hour some day
21. Eternity depends upon this short time on earth
22. Act as if everything you think, say and do determines your entire life
23. Truth never plays false roles of any kind, which is why people are so surprised when meeting it
24. Foundation to go the distance
25. Preferring to be a Christian
26. Aim High: Examples of Godly Characters to follow
27. Purify my heart
28. United people under Christ
29. Honesty beginning of holiness
30. Holiness and expression of worship coming from inside
31. How we think shows through in how we act
32. Object of first woe
33. Think hard before you act today

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Further reading

1. The Kotel Decision: The Parties at the Table
2. Mishpatim פרשת משפטים
3. Mishpatim – Who’s Serving Whom?
4. Shift and Consolidation: Thoughts on the Torah Portions Mishpatim and Terumah
5. Commentary for Mishpatim
6. Mishpatim – Its just a White Lie
7. When the plumbers stop society’s moral leaks
8. Parashat Mishpatim /
9. Shabbat Parashat Mishpatim 5776–Shabbat Torah Study at Adat Shalom Synagogue–Don’t Make Him Tell on You
10. Mishpatim – Wholly Love
11. Parshat Hashavuah: Mishpatim by Alex Gage
12. Scripture for 2.5.2016
13. Stole My Heart – Parshat Mishpatim 5776
14. Parsha Mishpatim
15. Shabbat Shalom! – Mishpatim
16. Dvar Torah Parshat Mishpatim 5776 2016
17. Mishpatim 5774 – Visión y Detalles
18. Double Cry – Mishpatim 5776
19. Il monoteismo etico – Parashat Mishpatim
20. Mishpatim: Where heaven and earth converge
21. Parenting by the Parshah – Mishpatim
22. Parashat Kedoshim – What is it doing here?

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A last note concerning civil rights

Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Atheism in spe do not discriminate.

Human beings so much love the world to turn around themselves. The other human species which look different than them or act differently than them are often considered as a possible threat to their own individuality. They want to protect their own personality and consider another race as an infringement of their own being. All those who are not like the mainstream, showing other sexual feelings than the majority, are for lots of people elements which have to be avoided in their society.
They forget that all human beings are created in the image of God and that we should allow all creatures in existence to be here on earth because God allows them to be here.

Being different makes so many afraid. Not enough people are willing to know more, the why and how about certain matters, which makes that so many are excluded from our general society.

Much too often we hear that religion is the cause of the many problems and discrimination on this earth, but we should see that even when nobody would believe in a higher being, sexism, and all other forms of discrimination would still be social constructs born of fear and ignorance. Fundamental groups, when they would not be religious will still exist as has proven history where we can find enough examples of exclusions, torture and killing by others, not for religious but for political and for economical reason and most of all for getting the power, and that is it where it turns mostly around: Power.
It our those people who can reason who should be willing to use their brains and knowledge to open the eyes of others so that they would not in to the appeal of extremism.

Become a Peaceblogger – Click on the picture to know more 

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Find also to read:

1. Religion, fundamentalism and murder
2. Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism
3. Gender connections
4. Anti-Semitism ‘on the rise’ in Europe
5. Full text of Pope Francis’ Interview with ‘La Vanguardia’
6. Discrimination in Black Country
7. Consequences of Breivik’s mass murder
8. Idaho wedding chapel to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in fines
9. Stand Up

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• Here is the test (angryarab.blogspot.com)
  If Westerners insist on the right to mock Islam and its prophet, then they should tolerate Muslim mocking of Judaism and Christianity is they wish; similarly, if Muslims object to mocking of Islam and its prophet, they should then refrain from mocking Judaism and Jews–qua Jews.
• Very often we can find articles like Religion: Not the cause of violence (meta.ath0.com) where they want to believe their readers that the Christian Bible is full of exhortations to stoning, burning, slavery and slaughter. They do not see the whole picture what is going over the whole Book of books and do not listen to the words given in those books about the law, which makes them to consider that “most people you know would qualify for the death penalty” and come to say “The same can be said of the Quran. The same can be said of the Torah. Believers who claim that Islam or Christianity or Judaism is a religion of peace are speaking a half truth—and a naive falsehood. »
• Franklin Graham on the US: ‘Christians Are Being Pushed to the Back of the Room (gunnyg.wordpress.com)
  The Rev. Franklin Graham, head of Samaritan’s Purse and son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, feels that other religions are being brought to the forefront in the U.S. while Christianity is being pushed back. Graham appeared on WNCN News to discuss his recent comments on Duke University’s decision to end its policy on having an Islamic call to prayer at the campus’ Christian chapel.
• In one sense, Islam is Judaism, minus the sense of humor. But Charlie Hebdo alone can’t help them….. (thecatholicthing.org)
  The Christian faith does not hold that in a perfect world we would all be monks or nuns – such that marriage, business, and politics are a sad compromise with sin. Many clergymen have taught that over the centuries – and have been rightly mocked by raucous laymen. Let’s give John Henry Newman credit for understanding this. When he was asked by Bishop Ullathorne whether the Church needed the laity, he quipped: “the Church should look foolish without them.”
• Fundamentalism is Never Legitimate (bishopcraig.com)
  The recent terrorist attack in France adds yet another exclamation point to the truth that fundamentalism is never a legitimate expression of any of the great historic religious traditions. It is always a perversion of the original teachings, most often twisted in a desperate attempt to achieve some political end antithetical to the tradition itself.
• The Importance of Blasphemy By Daniel Greenfield (ruthfullyyours.com)
  As a deeply religious person, I don’t like blasphemy. My religion and its holybooksare sacred to me. And I understand perfectly well why a Muslim would not care for a cartoon of a naked Mohammed.But the debates over freedom of speech andthe sensitivity of religious feelings also miss the point.For non-Muslims, the right to blasphemy is also the right to believe. While we may think of blasphemy in terms of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, each religion is also mutually blasphemous.
• Isis releases about 250 Yazidis from captivity (kmov.com)
  Dozens of people who were being held captivebyIslamic militants in Iraq for months are now free.Officials in Iraq say Isis released about 250Yazidis without explanation.Many of them are children and elderly people.
• Town Hall Discussion on Islam: Is There a ‘Moderate’ Branch of Islam? (ambrosekane.com)
  Muslim activist, Anjem Choudary, addresses the question of whether muslims can be ‘moderate’ when it comes to Islam. Credit goes to him for pointing out that muslims are either being faithful to the Quran or they’re not. There’s no middle ground, and he does a good job of shaming Daisy Khan, a ‘moderate’ muslim woman who absurdly declared that “Islam is a religion of pluralism.”

Passover and Liberation Theology

by Jonathan Granoff 

There is a dynamic relationship between identity, community, and grace-awakened values, which, if they are authentic, are universal and without regard to nation, tribe, gender, race, or religion. In other words, God’s love is for all, wisdom is without prejudice, and justice properly wears a blindfold when she weighs deeds. The Passover moment is as an example of how the specific group in which one lives can and should be used to expand one’s circle of compassion. Tribalism is a distortion of God’s grace. The expanded heart alone is capable of knowing a reflection of the Unlimited Heart of God’s love for all.

Jewish Community Festival, Downtown Park, Bellevue, Washington. “Jew-ish.com” and Seattle Kollel booths. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being Jewish and being part of the Jewish community can be a blessing or a curse. If being part of a community helps develop compassion for others, a sense of being loved, and expands one’s capacity to serve others, then it is surely a blessing to be in such a community. If being anything increases one’s capacity to experience God’s qualities and to share them then that too is a blessing. If being part of anything gives one a sense of arrogance then developing wisdom will be thwarted and authentic understanding of one’s relationship to God as well as one’s fellow human beings will he occluded. Liberation from any identity that separates one from one’s fellow human beings and God is necessary for authentic peace. Commitment to caring for others is a prerequisite for spiritual and psychological growth. Whatever identity one receives from birth or choice will have value based on these principles.

Rights, rituals and practices can deepen one’s sense of gratitude and appreciation for all lives.

For example, Passover can be experienced as liberation theology at its best. It is about social justice, freedom from slavery, crime and punishment, patience and fortitude, courage and God’s grace. It is also about overcoming the Pharaoh of egoism with faith. It is a multilevel source of inspiration for those who participate in its dimensions of family, community, teaching, and eating.

It is for many an affirmation of the intervention in history of God on behalf of a people God protected and to whom He revealed Himself. It can awaken gratitude for being a descendent of those people and not being a slave today. It can create a sense of duty to help free others. It can inspire to uplift us to a clearer awareness of the presence of the sacred. It can help us remember God.

It can create a distorted sense of identity. It can make one think that based on blood one is closer to God than others. One might ask: Is being a Jew a necessary part of being close to God? Only a fool would think so. One might also ask: Does being Jew distance oneself form God. Only a fool would think that. So, if you are a fool, stop reading, otherwise, join me in these reflections.

A heart filled with compassion and a life lived from that place of goodness where the presence of God is remembered will do just fine. So, then the question is what value is there in being part of a community, like a several thousand years history of stories about that community’s relationship with the mystery of life we inadequately call God. It could be good and it could be bad.

Good includes being accountable to people who know and love you. Bad includes thinking that by virtue of being part of that community, or tribe, you are specially blessed and better than anyone else anywhere. Good includes gratitude for the teaching that God is with us and One with all. Bad if that teaching makes one feel different from any of God’s other human creations.

Compassion does not have a boundary of blood, religion, race, caste or gender. It resonates like the circles from a pebble in a pond from the center of the heart where the intention to honor the lives of others and God’s sacred gift awakens when the pebble of that purity descends into the human heart.

So, here are few thoughts for your thinking:

Why do we need a tribe when the message is love and unity with and for all? Is not our God the One God of the one human family and is not the calling of those who accept the calling to love and serve all? Of course, and is that realization not a liberation from the slavery of egoism formed of separation from the overwhelming blessing of the oneness of life’s bounty? The ego mind that identifies with all that we cannot posses forgets what we can really receive, the radiance of the soul.

Crossing over the sea of blood ties into the open space of wisdom:

 

~And This Too~

love without action is

hollow

action without love is

dangerous

love with action

that’s

plenitude

each breath, deep love in action

each thought, deep love in action

each moment, deep love in action

Deep Awake

 where gratitude lives,

 salt changes to sugar

tears of sorrow, sadness and separation

changing to

tears of joy, love and union

a mere whisper of the grace of deep awake,

listen carefully

this whisper is a thunder of healing light

oh may God’s resonance be known.

in love’s way of peace

 

Jonathan Granoff is president of the Global Security Institute and reachable at granoff@gsinstitute.org.

– From Tikkun Special Seder Messages for Passover

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Related articles

• Queer Passover Seder Helped Me Reclaim Judaism (blogs.forward.com)
  At the time, it didn’t occur to me to be offended or concerned that I was being circled by the cheerleaders and other popular girls who held hands, bowed their heads and prayed for my soul. They were part of “Christian Life” at my high school in Olympia, Washington. I recall several instances when they earnestly attempted to save me from eternal damnation. I didn’t refuse their efforts or consider the implications of their actions. I just wanted to fit in.I grew up Jewish in the Pacific Northwest. But not in a religiously observant family, or a proud intellectual family, or a family of labor organizers who taught me early and often never to cross a picket line. My family was on the fast track to assimilation, and by high school, being Jewish was simply a reminder that I was an outsider.

  By the time I was in my late twenties, I was reeling from a spiritual crisis. A decade of organizing and social change work had left me feeling hopeless and burned out.

• What Passover Means to Young Adults (ejewishphilanthropy.com)
  Passover is a unique moment. As we learn every year from the hundreds of Birthright Israel alumni who host Seders for their friends through NEXT’s Passover initiative, the holiday provides young adults with a whole new space in which to explore identity, experiment with tradition, and build community.What moves and motivates these young adults to create their own Passover experiences, and what can we learn from their stories? We dug through a trove of qualitative data contained in hosts’ post-Seder surveys to find out. Their stories illuminated important lessons and questions for the entire field of engagement.
• This Passover (danielswearingen.wordpress.com)
  You tell me to look outside me this Passover, to actualize an infinite need. It seems strange, you asking me for holiness, for blessing a harvest, you of oneness, the lock of my key.
• RAC Blog: A Fifth Cup ??? Going Beyond What is Required (blogs.rj.org)
  Today, as many of us are busy preparing for Passover, I find myself less occupied by the meticulous aspect of the holiday’s demanded mitzvot, but searching instead for ways to supplement the narrative and to find meaning in a modern context. I commend those who find deep meaning in cleaning out their kitchens and sterilizing their homes, making sure that all leavening ceases at the 18-minute mark and [in the Ashkenazi tradition] nothing that could resemble wheat flour – such as legumes – will be consumed during Passover. However, I would like to offer an additional perspective on Passover by suggesting some meaningful ways to supplement the seder.

  Zionism and living in Israel were the answers to my search for Jewish identity, and to me, Passover became a holiday of peoplehood. The central narrative became the one that we clearly state after we sing “Dayenu,” that B’khol Dor VaDor: “In every generation we must see ourselves as if we went out from Egypt.” In the traditional Haggadah this statement is followed by a biblical and liturgical reading.

• The Evolution Of Passover – Past To Present (jewishengagement.wordpress.com)
  Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) is the most widely celebrated Jewish Holiday. It begins on the 15^th of the Hebrew month of Nisan and lasts for either seven or eight days depending upon location and religious orientation. In Israel, all sects of Judaism celebrate Passover for seven days with one Seder (Passover ritual feast and in Hebrew means “order”) on the first night, while in the Diaspora (communities outside of Israel), traditional Jews celebrate it for eight days with two Seders held on both the first and second nights. This year Passover will commence at sundown on Monday, April 14^th with the first full day celebrated on Tuesday the 15^th. Passover is a Biblical Holiday, which commemorates the story of the Exodus—G-d freeing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and bondage; establishing the Covenant with them as a people not just as individuals as in the past e.g. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and in turn creating the beginning of our sacred history as a Jewish Nation.
• The Worm Moon- Nisan 14, and Happy Passover (ireport.cnn.com)
  “Passover commences on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Nisan.
  In Judaism, a “day” commences from dusk to dusk, thus the first day of Passover only begins after dusk of the 14th of Nisan and ends at dusk of the 15th day of the month of Nisan.
  +
  Passover is a joyous holiday, celebrating the freedom of the Jewish people.
  http://www.policymic.com/articles/31025/passover-2013-5-things-to-know-about-the-jewish-holiday
• Taking Passover Back to Its Roots (algemeiner.com)
  the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nissan, they’ll wait for the kids to recite Mah Nishtana, the four questions; pucker up to inhale the bitter herbs; relish the sweet Charoset; dip herbs in salt water; sing rousing renditions of Dayenu and Chad Gadya; and knock back four cups of wine.But none of these rituals are part of the Passover observance of Israel’s Karaite and Samaritan believers, who observe the biblically mandated holiday in quite a different way.
• Review: Two Messianic Passover Haggadoth (messianic613.wordpress.com)
  There’s no lack of Passover Haggadoth for Messianics. The best known are perhaps The Messianic Passover Haggadah by Barry & Steffi Rubin, and the more recent Vine of David Haggadah published by FFOZ. [1] There are many more, especially in internet editions. Some show a beautiful lay-out and are richly illustrated. There seems to be enough material available for all styles and tastes.

  To our taste, however, the materials offered thus far show many liturgical defects and inconveniences. Despite many serious efforts that have been made we haven’t seen a messianic Haggadah which successfully and convincingly integrates the traditional Jewish and the typical messianic features of the Seder. It is our perception that the difficulty of doing so is often underestimated, and that authors and editors are not sufficiently aware of the decisions involved in such a project, or the halachic and theological problems connected to these decisions.

• Passover: A Time To Remember (jacksonandrew.com)
  The basis for a Christian interpretation of the first of the Seven Festivals as the decisive component in God’s plan for redemption pivots upon the identification of Jesus with the paschal lamb (Ross 2002, 409). There are, in fact, strong associations between Jesus and the Passover lamb in both the Old and the New Testaments. Centuries before the Crucifixion of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah declared that the when the future Messiah appeared, he would be “led like a lamb to slaughter.” (Isa 53:7). As John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching him he proclaimed: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Similarly, Peter described Jesus as the spotless Lamb of God (1 Pet 1:18-20). According to Augustine of Hippo, “The true point and purpose of the Jewish Passover . . . was to provide a prophetic pre-enactment of the death of Christ” (Rotelle 1995, 6:186).And not only has Passover been connected to the death of Christ, but also to the Lord’s Supper, which is also obviously a symbolic pre-enactment of Christ’s death as well as an re-enactment celebrated by the Church since that time. After Jesus’ sacrifice, Paul assured the early Christian community at Corinth that they have been saved “for Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). Of course, the context of this passage points to the man who is living in persistent sin and thus not being allowed to receive the Lord’s Supper. Cyprian of Carthage also connected Passover to the Lord’s Supper and to the root, being the unity of the church (Baillie 1953, 129).