Counterfeit Judaism

Christian Evolution

It’s important to know that one of the main pillars, perhaps the main pillar after belief in Jesus, is the attempt to bring others, especially Jews, into the fold of Christian faith. The reason for this is clear (although open to discussion) that without the Jewish involvement in Christianity, Christianity itself becomes essentially null and void. Why is this? For for the very fact that Christianity started off as a movement within the Jewish theology and that Jesus was a Jew, for the Christian necessitates that a Jew coalesce, conform, and confirm his faith. Although the question means something different to Jews and to Christians, that question is, "What is purpose of Christianity without the Jews?" To a Christian this question means, "Jews, your rightful place is within the ranks of Christianity," and is therefore a rhetorical question of sorts aimed at converting a Jew. To a Jew this question means, "You’re right, Christianity means very little without the Jews."

At the end of day, and for Christians at the End of Days, Christianity suffers an existential threat as long as Jews do not agree to it. This forces Christianity to grapple with the possibility that without its key players, it lacks confirmation. The Rambam opines in his work the Mishna Torah that the purpose of Christianity is to inform the nations of the concept of the Messiah, which is also the way it views Islam. In that, there is a purpose for Christianity (and Islam) without the involvement of the Jews.

The bank of Christianity, which operates in Jewish souls and not dollar bills, has within the last few decades opened up a new branch. This branch boasts Stars of Davids (Magen David), Jewish paraphernalia, symbolism, terminology, and charming Yiddishisms, such as shlep, (to drag) bubby (grandmother), and not to mention the cornerstone of Jewish theology - bagels and lox. Regarding physical appearance, Messianic Jews tend to depict pictures, either which they like or of themselves, with overtly and often exaggerated Jewish content; the point here is that there is often a feeling of insecurity about their Jewish identity (if they are indeed Jewish) which has to be mediated by overly-colorful and essential Jewish content. Some examples which I’ve seen are the insistence on showing a shofar, menorah, tefillin, or showing themselves wearing a tallis- some sort of external visual display, including support of the State of Israel.

There is a strange phenomenon at work here, for not only do the missionaries face the challenge of involving Jews with little or no spirituality, they also face the dual challenge of getting them past that first difficult juncture and then into an excited emotional state. Anyone who has sojourned into the world of spirituality will tell you that it, like a muscle, grows slowly and must be nurtured; these movements attempt to bypass that juncture by offering the person a quick-in, a pass into the back door. This is accomplished by effectively shutting off the thought process and by instigating (a false sense of) spirituality, which bypasses the need for a period of incubation and self-introspection before making a life-changing decision. And so the reality must be seen for what it is - this is the same exact process used on Gentiles as well. With a simple tweaking, adding in a few Jewish words, ideas, and emotional hot spots (such as love of Israel), and some good old fashioned Jewish guilt (what is that anyway?), Jews, not just Gentiles can be turned into robots. What is presented as a deeply theological and philosophical forum is nothing more than the minor and superficial adjustment of a preconstructed template. Rabbi’s like Rabbi Tovia Singer do an excellent job of deconstructing that preconstruction and therefore saving a Jew’s soul from utter destruction.

According to Wikipedia, the Jews for Jesus movement "was founded under the name Hineni Ministries in 1973 by Moishe Rosen, an ordained Baptist minister who was born Jewish and converted to Christianity at the age of 17. Rosen remained its executive director until May of 1996 when he was replaced by David Brickner, who, though having some Jewish ancestry, is not Jewish according to Jewish Law."

Jews for Jesus is funded by donations from Christians. At the time that I wrote this post it had full-time staff of 150 employees running branch offices in nine cities across the United States. There are also branch offices in Australia, Brazil, Canada (Montreal, Toronto), France, Germany (Essen), Israel, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom, Ukraine (Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa). In addition to English language, the group runs websites in Hungarian, Persian, Italian, Spanish, and Korean languages." The most recent and disturbing developments has been its foray onto Israeli soil, although proselytization is illegal in Israel.

Concerning Christian-Jewish reconciliation and Christian missions to the Jews, Emil Fackenheim wrote:

... Except in relations with Christians, the Christ of Christianity is not a Jewish issue. There simply can be no dialogue worthy of the name unless Christians accept — nay, treasure — the fact that Jews through the two millennia of Christianity have had an agenda of their own. There can be no Jewish-Christian dialogue worthy of the name unless one Christian activity is abandoned, missions to the Jews. It must be abandoned, moreover, not as a temporary strategy but in principle, as a bimillennial theological mistake. The cost of that mistake in Christian love and Jewish blood one hesitates to contemplate. ... A post-Holocaust Jew can still view Christian attempts to convert Jews as sincere and well intended. But even as such they are no longer acceptable: They have become attempts to do in one way what Hitler did in another.

Having inherited the legacy of Abraham, many Jews are drawn into transcendental pursuits of all kinds and is the factor which has led to the constantly re-appearing Jewish sin of idolatry described in the Tanakh. The Jewish acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah is one of the oldest Biblical sins smeared on countless pages of the Torah. Christians might think they are helping the Jews, but they in fact are doing them a great disservice. Christians who missionize Jews are buying them(selves) tickets to Hell.

However, this Jewish perception of non-comparative value is also the factor that has led many Jews to embrace authentic Jewish lives, referred to as Orthodoxy, to become ba’alei teshuva, meaning Jews who have become observant.

The New Christianity

In some capacity the movement has gone grassroots, detaching from any formal institution and simply involves people who claim and profess these types of faith. For the most part there is no specific agreement on what it means to be a Jew who believes in Jesus, so most adherents advance their own definition, selecting and intersecting their own specific brew of verses, ideas, and theological points; at the end of the day they have each, to a degree, created their own one-man religion.

In the earlier days of missionizing, when it was endorsed by the Catholic Church, the main textual missionary focus was the Tanakh; the newest form of missionizing, has ironically adopted the Talmud itself as a missionary tool. This is incredibly foolish and telling of the movement's incompetence given that Christianity has traditionally set Jesus apart from the Pharisees, his enemies. Pharisaic Judaism, as it is sometimes referred, is the spiritual ancestor of today’s Orthodox Judaism, places a central focus on the Talmud. If Jesus vociferously resented the Pharisees it makes not one shred of sense to say that the Talmud itself, composed by the Pharisees, contains mention of him as the Messiah, and not just the Messiah, but the passed Messiah. This is precisely what the more intelligent of this new sect attempt to demonstrate. Their solution, however, is specifically that the Christian Bible presents Jesus falsely, having robbed him of his Jewishness and turning him into a Christian Anglo - the attempt then is to re-inject him into Judaism by finding needle-in-the-haystack selections from the Talmud, often very brief, which one without a solid background in Talmud study can only find to be obscure. Obscurity, however, is in fact the key word here, for without obscurity such an endeavor would be impossible.

Words

There are tell-tale signs of a Messianic Jew, several of which are actually Jews, such as the Hebraicifation of certain words and names, such as Yeshua instead of Jesus and the attempted Hebrew or Aramaic forms of the names of the four Gospels: such as the Hebrew Matisyahu instead of the Anglican Matthew, and Yochanan instead of "John. There is also Sha’ul instead of Paul, and a series of other words, such as Brit Chadasha, which literally means New Covenant, a stand-in for New Testament. There is also the term Netzari or Notzri, which means "a person from Nazareth" and is the modern Hebrew word for a Christian.

With regards to Messianic synagogues, they can be told usually by the name they bear, (see above) an invented name that no other authentic Orthodox synagogue has, usually something flowery, such as Beth Chayim, which means House of Life. Most Orthodox synagogues have names which they have had for decades, such as Chofetz Chayim and Young Israel.

There is no need for Messianic Judaism because Judaism is inherently Messianic. The best way to fend off these movements and people is simply to educate ourselves in Judaism.

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