Brian Welch of Korn Accepted Jesus

How are we supposed to understand testimonies, like Brian Welch's, formerly a member of the alternative metal band Korn very popular in the 90's? Welch is open about his previous addiction to methamphetamines, apparently using it for 700 days straight before accepting Jesus.

As frum Jews, what are we to make of such a testimony? One thing is for sure, you won't ever find me knocking somebody's decision to improve his life, especially when it comes to quitting drugs and straightening out. I am a serious proponent of peoples' dignity and self-respect and find it very encouraging when people break bad habits and become better people.

What is strange to me is that while Jesus may be the reason Welch found himself free of the desire to take drugs, it may also be that when a person commits to a position of self improvement, deliberately detaching himself from harmful influences, what often follows is a lack of a desire for the things that previously ensnared him. And all of this happens without Jesus.

For example, when I started becoming observant 21 years ago, I too found myself in a renewed positive frame of mind where I desired good things and was repulsed by bad ones. While it's true that I was not addicted to hard drugs, my decision to turn my life in the more positive direction of observance changed me from the inside-out. I can assure you that accepting Jesus had nothing to do with that very pivotal set of transformations.

Committing to a track of self improvement while eschewing harmful influences turns out to be very relevant. According to the Rambam, teshuva is encapsulated by the following four steps:

1. Regret
2. Cessation
3. Confession
4. Future resolution

When the Beis HaMikdash stood, the fifth step required bringing a sacrifice.

Notice that the "rock bottom" effect that many former addicts experience lines up with regret and cessation (stages 1 and 2), and that committing to a track of self improvement lines up with future resolution (stage 4). This means that a person can experience a sense of renewal and liberation from his sin without Jesus stepping in to help him. The above process was designed to break a person away from his sin, and if he engages in it, he shouldn't be surprised that it works.

Having said that, and I've seen this happen with people who've come Christians for this reason, accepting Jesus is an important step in helping them to knock a very bad habit. It helps get them out of the proverbial mud or destruction into which they've fallen. However, while it does wonders in the short run, in the long run it requires them to accept that their nature as human beings is wretched and underserving of redemption. They sign on the dotted line to become free from whatever mental or spiritual ailment they're suffering from, while committing to a theological position that describes them as being fundamentally corrupt and disgusting in the eyes of God. The medicine seems just as bad as the disease.

And so it doesn't actually pave the path to genuine rectification - it simply enforces the destructive self image that subconsciously drove them to sin in the first place. It doesn't actually teach them that they are good people who are capable of actual change, but that they are helpless against their evil human nature, and hence need Jesus. It is for this reason that I reject the testimonial repentance narrative.

In Genesis 4:7 God says to Cain very clearly, "Sin rests at the door, it's desire is toward you, yet you can conquer it." You actually possess the ability to change, not in the way that Christianity proposes, i.e., in your acceptance that you cannot change and therefore need Jesus, but rather that you inherently possess the ability for positive change. And if you possess this ability, as God seems to be imploring Cain, you are expected to express that ability.

Did Nebuchadnezzar Commit Blasphemy?

March 23, 2021 - Nisan 10, 5781

How Does The Torah Define Blasphemy?

A short while ago I was having a discussion with a Christian about whether it is forbidden in the Torah for a person to say that he is God. The point of view of the person I was speaking with was that the rabbis of Jesus' time considered him to have committed blasphemy, for which they sought to kill him.

When I asked him where the Torah says that a person is prohibited from claiming to be God, he pointed me to Leviticus 24:10-16:

Now, the son of an Israelite woman and he was the son of an Egyptian man went out among the children of Israel, and they quarreled in the camp this son of the Israelite woman, and an Israelite man.

And the son of the Israelite woman pronounced the [Divine] Name and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.

They placed him in the guardhouse, [until his sentence would] be specified to them by the word of the Lord. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and all who heard [his blasphemy] shall lean their hands on his head. And the entire community shall stone him.

And to the children of Israel, you shall speak, saying: Any man who blasphemes his God shall bear his sin.

And one who blasphemously pronounces the Name of the Lord, shall be put to death; the entire community shall stone him; convert and resident alike if he pronounces the [Divine] Name, he shall be put to death.

However, the verses above explain blasphemy as pronouncing God's Name (יְקַלֵּ֥ל), not claiming to be God.

Secondly, the Christian Scriptures accuse the rabbis of plotting to kill Jesus. This is unlikely because the rabbis carefully followed the rule of law according to Halacha, which requires a proper sentencing before a person can be put to death. Of the different things that the Christian Scriptures accuse the rabbis of, being lax in their application of the Law was not one of them. To the contrary, they are accused of being legalistic; if they wanted to find a legally-justified approach to putting Jesus to death, they would have found and used it.

Has Anybody in The Torah Ever Claimed to Be Divine?

A better support for the error of claiming to be divine is found in Ezekiel 28:2:

Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: So said the Lord God: Because your heart is proud, and you said, 'I am a god, I have sat in a seat of God, in the heart of the seas,' but you are a man and not a god, yet you have made your heart like the heart of God.

Just as Nebuchadnezzar said that he has "a seat of God," so did Jesus say that he sat on God's throne. In Revelation 3:21, Jesus says, "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne."

The reproach that God has for those who claim to be divine seems familiar:

Into the Pit they will lower you, and you will die the deaths of those who are slain, in the heart of the seas.

Will you say, "I am a god" before your slayer? Indeed, you are a man and not a god in the hand of your slayer.

The deaths of the uncircumcised you shall die at the hand of foreigners, for I have spoken," says the Lord God.  (Ezekiel 28:8-10)

The Arbabanel explains dying "at the hands of foreigners" as someone who "is slain, but who does not die immediately, but only after repeated stabs until succumbing to death, just as a man who drowns doesn't die immediately."

The full text is below:

And Rabbi David Kimchi interpreted "the death of those who are slain" as a person who is slain, but who does not die immediately, but only after repeated stabs until succumbing to death, just as a man who drowns doesn't die immediately, but gradually, which is the meaning of "in the heart of the seas,"

If you say before your slayer, "I (Nebuchadnezzar or Alexander) am a god," if you were a god then they would not have been able to kill you. However, because "Indeed, you are a man and not a god in the hand of your slayer, the deaths of the uncircumcised you shall die at the hand of foreigners," as to be uncircumcised in your heart and your flesh: an evil person dies like his slayers, at the hand of foreigners, the Greeks, who occupied Tyre, "for I have spoken" which means to have decreed upon you an unquestionable decree.

והרב רבי דוד קמחי פירש ומתה ממותי חלל שכמו שהחלל אינו מת בבת אחת אלא בדקירות רבות שידקור עד שימות כן הנטבע לא ימות בבת אחת כי אם במיתות הרבה והוא אומרו בלב ימים, 

(ט) האם אמור תאמר לפני הורגך נבוכדנצר או אלכסנדרוס אלהים אני ואם היית אלקים לא יוכלו להרגך, אבל לפי שאתה אדם ולא אל ביד מחלליך והורגיך (י) לכן מותי ערלים תמות ביד זרים, כי להיות הערלים ערלי לב וערלי בשר רשעים אמר שימות כמוהם על ידי זרים והם היונים שיבאו על צור, כי אני דברתי רוצה לומר גזרה היא מלפני אין להרהר אחריה:

Conclusion

What this teaches us is that the penalty for claiming to be divine is an unruly, unpleasant, and degrading death, different from a controlled death penalty applied through a court. It seemed that while Jesus did not commit blasphemy, but that he made the same egotistical grievous mistake made by Nebuchadnezzar. He also died painfully and brutally by essentially being stabbed to death at the hands of foreigners who were not moved by his claim to divinity.

Do I Need Jesus To Talk to God?

A common argument among Christian apologists is that Jesus did not come to destroy the Law (the Torah), but to fulfill it. Their goal with this assertion is to answer a particular Jewish objection, which is that the Torah is eternal. The Christian response is to agree and to emphasize that Jesus didn't do away with the Torah, but that he fulfilled it:

Do not think that I came to do away with or undo the Law [of Moses] or the [writings of the] Prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. (Matthew 5:17)

Aside from the fact that instructions are followed and not fulfilled, this statement implies an idea that the Torah considers to be incorrect, namely that the Torah is impossible to keep. However, the Torah itself seems to preempt this erroneous conclusion thousands of years in advance by addressing this concern directly:

It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?" Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it. (Devarim 30:12-14)

In direct contrast to Jesus' statement that he came "to fulfill" the Torah, God says above that "you," the Jews, "can fulfill it." Their concern seemed to be that receiving and fulfilling the Torah was too distant for them, and therefore impossible. If so, then an intermediary would have been required to do it for them. God assures and consoles them that "[this] thing is very close to you... so that you can fulfill it!"

In other words, the text is saying something that Christians would consider to be utterly radical: God is saying that no intermediary is required to forge a relationship with Him, which would turn Christianity completely on its head. Apparently I can fulfill it, and nobody needs to go up to the heavens or across the sea to get it for me. The Christian Scriptures unequivocally say “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” (John 14:6) which is the literal description of an intermediary. Ultimately, God says that the correct and expected way to relate to Him is with no intermediary, made possible by the fact that I have a direct connection to Him.

To this end Tehillim 145:18 says, "The Lord is near to all who call Him, to all who call Him with sincerity."

Can a Righteous Person Die for My Sins?

January 21 2021 - 8 Shevat 5781

The Death of the Righteous Atones

The Talmud says, "Misasan shel tzadikim mechaperes," (Moed Katan 28a) which means "the death of the righteous brings atonement."

Rabbi Amei asked, "Why is the death of Miriam juxtaposed to the red heifer?" Just as the red heifer brought atonement, so does the death of the righteous bring atonement. Rabbi Eliezer asked, "Why is the death of Aharon juxtaposed to the priestly vestments?" Just as the priestly vestments bring atonement, so too does the death of the righteous bring atonement.

 אָמַר רַבִּי אַמֵּי לָמָּה נִסְמְכָה מִיתַת מִרְיָם לְפָרָשַׁת פָּרָה אֲדוּמָּה לוֹמַר לָךְ מָה פָּרָה אֲדוּמָּה מְכַפֶּרֶת אַף מִיתָתָן שֶׁל צַדִּיקִים מְכַפֶּרֶת אָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר לָמָּה נִסְמְכָה מִיתַת אַהֲרֹן לְבִגְדֵי כְהוּנָּה מָה בִּגְדֵי כְהוּנָּה מְכַפְּרִין אַף מִיתָתָן שֶׁל צַדִּיקִים מְכַפֶּרֶת

This passage from the Talmud is especially valuable to Christian missionaries because it seems to confirm the most central message of Christianity, which is that Jesus died for the sins of humanity.

Why Does This Exclude Jesus?

There are, however, a few fundamental issues with using this Talmud passage to prove the vicarious death of Jesus.

Is Death the Only Way to Atone?

What is immediately obvious from the passage above is that while the death of the righteous atones, so do a number of other things, such as the service of the red heifer, done with the Cohen wearing the priestly vestments. Further, if the death of righteous people that are not completely without sin atones, then you don't need someone that is completely sinless to die for sins.

Was Jesus Righteous According to the Rabbi's?

If Rabbinic literature acknowledges the validity of vicarious atonement of a righteous person, it doesn't seem far-fetched for them to have accepted the death of Jesus. If so, why did the rabbi's of Jesus' time, and virtually all rabbi's since that time, reject the idea that Jesus died for our sins? The main issue with this is the presupposition that Jesus was righteous, which was not the main consensus of the rabbi's living at his time. For instance, the Christian Scriptures indicate that Jesus violated the Sabbath.

Only Normal Human Beings Can Die For Others

As long as this person has his own sins, any suffering he receives is "used up" to atone for those sins. He can only begin to suffer on behalf of others if he succeeds in overcoming the temptation to sin entirely. The idea that Jesus was God, and therefore not tempted to sin as a normal person, renders this idea useless. The OrlandoDiocese website says that Jesus "shared our earthly lot, our sufferings, and our death, and became one like us in all things but sin."

Atonement Affects Groups, Not Individuals

The third point is that the death of such an individual atones for either a community or the nation of Israel as a whole. The righteous person does not accept death for any particular individual that accepts his death, but rather for the community or for the entire nation. 

Awareness Is Not Required For It To Work

The fourth issue relates to the fact that the people being atoned for by the suffering of said righteous individual do not need to be aware that it is happening. This is different from the Christian view, which requires a person to accept the vicarious atonement of Jesus for it to save him.

It Does Not Replace Repentance

The fifth issue is that the suffering of a righteous person can only be effective under limited circumstances. For example, God may accept it at a particular time or case, but does not fundamentally replace it for His desired method of atonement on a permanent basis. In other words, it us used as an emergency measure in specifically dire circumstances, but not as the modus operandi of atonement.

The main reason for this is seemingly that the standard method of repentance helps the sinner rectify the character flaws responsible for causing him to sin. In turn, this helps him avoid sin in the future. Reliance on the death of a righteous person as a source of atonement may prevent repentance, which is why it is only used in emergency situations, such as when the utter destruction of a population would be imminent without it.

For More Information

For a more thorough presentation on this topic, see ATONEMENT FOR SIN & How Missionaries Cherry-Pick Talmud on THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS – Rabbi Skobac.

Did Jesus Violate the Sabbath?

January 18 2021 - 5 Shevat 5781

Introduction

An interesting story is related in the Christian Scriptures in which Jesus and his disciples are walking through the field on the Sabbath and are approached by the Pharisees. The short dialogue between the Pharisees and Jesus is intended to convey a few important things. The first important thing it intends to convey is that the Pharisees were looking for a way to get Jesus in trouble. The second thing is that the Pharisees were legalistic and unsympathetic, and the third thing is that Jesus was superior to the Law and was sent to fulfill it.

Below is the text describing this interaction:

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." 

He answered, "Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread — which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." (Matthew 12:1-8)

Is The Sabbath Biblical or Rabbinic?

Let us examine the above from a Biblical perspective with our focus only on the Sabbath. When God speaks about the Sabbath in the Tanakh, He speaks about it in very clear terms as something of utmost holiness and importance. It would be hard to reason that the Pharisees were overly legalistic in Matthew given the very serious words that God has to say about the Sabbath. To the contrary, it may be said that the Jews had finally learned their lesson about taking God's commandments seriously, something that should be taken to their credit. Further, the Torah does not present Sabbath-observance as a matter of pedantic legalism, but simply as a matter of obedience to God.

The first demonstration of this is in Exodus:

So he said to them, That is what the Lord spoke, Tomorrow is a rest day, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake whatever you wish to bake, and cook whatever you wish to cook, and all the rest leave over to keep until morning. So they left it over until morning, as Moses had commanded, and it did not become putrid, and not a worm was in it. And Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day [which is the] Sabbath on it there will be none."

It came about that on the seventh day, [some] of the people went out to gather [manna], but they did not find [any]. The Lord said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to observe My commandments and My teachings? See that the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore, on the sixth day, He gives you bread for two days. Let each man remain in his place; let no man leave his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day." (Exodus 15:23-30)

Notice a few things from the passages above:

1. The Sabbath is a Sabbath to the Lord - this indicates that observing it is in accordance with God's Will.


2. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day [which is the] Sabbath on it there will be none - this indicates that one is to refrain from his concerns on the Sabbath, not merely as a suggestion, but as a commandment.


3. Therefore, on the sixth day, He gives you bread for two days - a reiteration to maintain confidence in God that He will provide one's needs, as well as a somewhat forceful reiteration generated by some Jews who disobeyed and gathered.

Notice that they also responded by resting on the Sabbath day, and listened to what God said.

According to the section of text above, the prohibition against gathering on the Sabbath is not a Rabbinic invention, but a Divine commandment, which Jesus and his disciples violated by going through the grainfields and picking heads of grain. In fact, when Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," (Mark 2:27) he seemed to be agreeing that the Sabbath was of Divine origin, while believing that the rabbis' nevertheless invented additional restrictions.

It's difficult to determine just from this passage whether he meant that the 39 categories prohibited on the Sabbath are rabbinic inventions, whether he's referring to Rabbinic enactments to prevent transgression, or whether he's referring to some other undefined aspect. Generally speaking it seems that today's Christians don't know how to accurately differentiate between the Divinely revealed and Rabbinic aspects of the Sabbath, leading to their confusion about how to understand Jesus' intention.

Nevertheless, according to several passages in the Tanakh, the 39 categories of prohibited labor on the Sabbath, and the Oral Law in general, are assumed by Jews to be of Divine origin and not rabbinic inventions, as shown below in Nechemiah 13:15-22.

The Sabbath In the Writing (Nach)

In fact, the transgression of the Sabbath committed by Jesus and his disciples is essentially no different than Nechemiah's Sabbath-violating interlocutors within the walls of Jerusalem around 500 years prior. It seems that some Jews were indeed slow in learning from the mistakes of their ancestors. In the verses below, the holy prophet Nechemiah witnessed Jews violating the Sabbath in his day and implemented measures to keep the Jews and the Sabbath holy:

In those days, I saw in Judea [people] treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing stacks [of grain] and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, and figs, and all types of loads and bringing them to Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, and I warned them on the day they sold provisions. 

And the Tyrians [who] sojourned there were bringing fish and all [types of] merchandise and selling on the Sabbath to the people of Judea and in Jerusalem.

And I quarreled with the dignitaries of Judea, and I said to them, "What is this bad thing that you are doing-profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your ancestors do this, and our God brought upon us all this calamity, and upon this city, and you are increasing the wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath?"

Now it came to pass when the gates of Jerusalem cast shadows before the Sabbath, that I commanded, and the doors were closed, and I said that they should not open them until after the Sabbath, and I stationed some of my youths over the gates so that no load should enter on the Sabbath day. So the traffickers and the vendors of all types of merchandise lodged outside Jerusalem once and twice. And I warned them and said to them, "Why are you lodging opposite the wall? If you repeat [this], I shall lay a hand on you." Since that time, they did not come on the Sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that the watchers of the walls should purify themselves and come to hallow the Sabbath day. This too remember for me, my God, and have pity on me according to Your abundant loving-kindness. (Nechemiah 13:15-22)

Are any of the prohibitions above mentioned anywhere in the Torah as explicitly forbidden Sabbath activities? And if not, would Jesus have responded to Nechemiah the way that he responded to the Pharisees?

It's clear from the verses above that the prophet Nechemiah was acting in accordance with God's Will to safeguard parts of the Law that apparently many Jews had begun to forsake. Nechemiah says nothing about safeguarding Rabbinic enactments and inventions, but of safeguarding Divine commandments. If so, it's difficult to understand why Jesus was so resistant to the Pharisees.

Conclusion

To conclude, the violation of Jesus' disciples of the Sabbath was technically subject to capital punishment. As expected in accordance with Jewish Law, a Sabbath violator can only be put to death if two valid witnesses observe him committing the violation, warn him twice, and both times the transgressor continues. A plain reading of Matthew shows that the Pharisees only warned Jesus once, which can be taken as their deliberate attempt to prevent the death penalty of being applicable to him (which in any case required a Sanhedrin, which was defunct during this era).

Can I Be Punished for Original Sin?

January 18 2021 - 5 Shevat 5781

In an article that I recently read at the Steve Schramm website titled, Does the Punishment for Original Sin Fit the Crime, the author noted the following, "There was nothing poisonous about the fruit, and there was nothing inherently wrong at all with the fruit. The problem was not that they ate fruit; the problem was that they disobeyed the command of a Holy, Righteous, and Perfect God."

However, there was something "poisonous" about the fruit, which we can discern by how God refers to it; He refers to it as the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," as we all know, and its title indicates something about it. Knowing the difference between good and evil is considered an improvement to somebody that knows nothing, but it is a deterioration in contrast to someone who previously had a superior perspective. It is called by this name because before eating it, Adam and Eve saw everything from the perspective of true and false. When they ate from the tree, "true" and "false" were replaced with "good" and "evil." The reason that this is a step down is because true and false are objective realities (which is why they had no desire to sin before eating it), while good and evil are subjective realities; what is good for me may be bad for you, and so on and so on... Eating the fruit plunged them into a world of subjectivity where everything is judged in contrast to other things and not according to its actual, objective value.

Woe to those who say of the evil that it is good and of the good that it is evil; who present darkness as light and light as darkness, who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)

Interestingly, all three elements named above were present in the beginning of Genesis: good versus evil (our discussion), darkness versus light (Day One of Creation), and sweet versus bitter (the taste of the fruit).

But this also illustrates that the change took place within their very nature and that it was not simply a punishment for disobedience. This means that there was indeed something "poisonous" about this fruit, in addition to the fact that eating it was an act of disobedience. In another part of the article Schramm said, "Adam and Eve sinned, and therefore, that sinful nature is passed on from generation to generation." It is true that it was passed on, but a mere penalty cannot be passed on; it being passed on indicates pretty clearly that it was, as he said, a "sinful nature." A person can only inherit a state, but cannot inherit a penalty, as it says in Ezekiel 18:20, "The soul that sins, it shall die; a son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and a father shall not bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." The above verse is saying that one person cannot inherit the penalty of another.

Further, the verse above also proves that the vicarious atonement of Jesus cannot be true, as it says, "...the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." This means that the wicked alone, i.e., the person responsible for the sin, and nobody else, must deal with his own sin.

Even if God does punish the children for the sins of their father(s), it at most can only be temporary, as it says in Deuteronomy 5:9, "...for I, the Lord your God, am a zealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me...." From here it seems that inter-generational penalty cannot exceed a certain number of generations, in this case, three or four. In perspective, Kenan lived in the third generation after Adam, and Mahalalel in the fourth. Further, penalty is only extended to later generations "of those who hate Me," which may exclude many later generations. If true, human beings as a whole today cannot be penalized for Adam's sin.

Further, a punishment is not designed to incapacitate somebody, it is designed to help him do teshuva. Punishing Adam and Eve by changing their perspective from true and false to good and evil would in no way facilitate their repentance; in fact, by making clarity of truth more inaccessible to them it would make repentance more difficult for them. "Do I desire the death of the wicked? says the Lord God. Is it not rather in his repenting of his ways that he may live?" (Ezekiel 18:23)

It's therefore more sensible to hold that the result of eating the fruit was not a punishment, but a devastating shift in their nature.

The reasons above are why the doctrine of Original Sin as currently understood by Christians seems to be out of accord with the Word of God in the Jewish Scriptures, which we posit is unchanging and perfect.

Make You Fishers of Men

The Christian Scriptures relate the following story:

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-21)

The following is an excerpt of Pastor Mike Winger's explanation of the above passages:

There is a common belief in Christianity which states the exclusivist worldview of the Pharisees in contrast to the inclusivist worldview of Jesus. This is perhaps best explained as the Pharisaic mindset as one that sought to horde God all to themselves, as it were, and to make admission in the fold of Judaism or observance difficult and elitist for people who were not learned.

And while there is certainly truth to the concept that Pharisaic Judaism before and after the time of the Second Temple placed a high value on level of education and erudition in understanding and observing Jewish Law, it is equally true that their approach was much more accepting that most Christians would like to admit. Christian attitudes generally tend to ignore indications of wide-spread inclusivist approaches among these very Pharisees. Challenging these notions would imply that Jesus was more like the Pharisees than most Christians would like to accept.

For example, the very first passage in the Pirke Avos (Ethics of the Fathers) opens with the the following:

Moses received the Torah from Sinai and gave it over to Joshua. Joshua gave it over to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets gave it over to the Men of the Great Assembly. They [the Men of the Great Assembly] would always say these three things (1:1):

• Be cautious in judgement.
• Establish many pupils.
• And make a safety fence around the Torah.

It is noteworthy that a text's opening statement usually sets the tone for the rest of the content. This is certainly true with the opening of the Pirke Avos, and the majority of its statements are taught within the context of the active creation of tight-knit, intimately connected, and charismatic students.

Another aspect of this approach is summarized by the following:

Yossei the son of Yoezer of Tzreidah, and Yossei the son of Yochanan of Jerusalem, received the tradition from them. Yossei the son of Yoezer of Tzreidah would say: Let your home be a meeting place for the wise; dust yourself in the soil of their feet, and drink thirstily of their words. (1:4)

We see here an emphasis on opening one's home as an informal and impromptu communal center for rabbi's to gather and teach crowds of people. This verse paints a starkly different picture than the one described in Christian thought regarding the elitist nature of the Pharisees.

Verse 5 goes on to say, "Yossei the son of Yochanan of Jerusalem would say: Let your home be wide open, and let the poor be members of your household," (1:5) as well challenging the notion that the Pharisees sought to rub shoulders with wealthy, powerful people.

Among the maxims found in this work are the following:

• ... judge every man to the side of merit. (1:6)
• When the litigants stand before you, consider them both guilty; and when they leave your courtroom, having accepted the judgement, regard them as equally righteous. (1:8)
• Hillel would say: Be of the disciples of Aaron—a lover of peace, a pursuer of peace, one who loves the creatures and draws them close to Torah. (1:12)
• Shammai would say: Make your Torah study a permanent fixture of your life. Say little and do much. And receive every man with a pleasant countenance. (1:15)

One finds numerous examples of this mindset throughout the entire corpus of the Pirke Avos, but the above are just a few notable examples.

Regarding the assertion that the rabbi's lorded their Torah knowledge over the heads of the unlearned, "Rabban Yochanan the son of Zakkai received the tradition from Hillel and Shammai. He would say: If you have learned much Torah, do not take credit for yourself---it is for this that you have been formed." (2:8)

To this end "Rabbi Tzaddok would say: 'Do not make the Torah a crown to magnify yourself with, or a spade with which to dig.' So would Hillel say: 'one who make personal use of the crown of Torah shall perish. Hence, one who benefits himself from the words of Torah, removes his life from the world.'" (4:5)

A general parable about judging people was brought down by Rabbi Meir, who said, "Look not at the vessel, but at what it contains. There are new vessels that are filled with old wine, and old vessels that do not even contain new wine." (4:21)

When reading through the statements made in the Pirke Avos one is able to conclude that the spirit of Jesus' teachings seem to mirror that which is found within this body of text. Further, one can even conclude that Jesus own teachings were influenced by it, or even that he believed in it to the extent that he sought to emulate it on his own.

Does Psalm 110 Refer to Jesus as God?

According to most Christians it certainly does.

The following explains the Christian view regarding this passage according to Pastor Mike Winger, a pastor in California with a successful YouTube channel.

Response

Psalm 110:1 reads, "Of David a psalm. The word of the Lord to my lord; "Wait for My right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool at your feet." According to our interpretation, "my lord" is a reference to Abraham. We cross reference this from Genesis 23:6, which reads, "Listen to us, my lord; you are a prince of God in our midst; in the choicest of our graves bury your dead. None of us will withhold his grave from you to bury your dead." In this verse, "my lord" is Abraham.

"Until I make your enemies your footstool at your feet" refers to Amraphel (Genesis 14), who according to our tradition was the king that fought against God. "Amraphel" loosely means (in Hebrew) "He said, 'Fall,'" because he rebelled against God and wanted Him to "fall."

Does Genesis 18 Mention the Trinity? Part 2

There is another issue in Genesis 18 that prevents us from believing that it is a reference to God in the form of an angel. That is the word "and," which is used in different ways in the text of the Torah. What we often see in the verses is that the word "and," which is "ve" (ו) in Hebrew, is used first as an introduction to a particular set of events, and then switches to being used as subsequent steps in a sequence. The first place that we see this in the Torah is at the very beginning (no pun intended) in Genesis:

In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. (Genesis 1:1-2)

We see here that the word "ve," which I said means "and" in Hebrew, is translated as "Now the earth was..." It is translated this way because it introduces to us a set of events, and if you check the Hebrew you will see that it is in fact the word "ve," which is a word written as one letter, the letter "vav. (ו)" The second and third instances of this word in verses 1-2 are translated as "and," but they are describing the next steps in the sequence, they are describing "Now the earth was astonishingly empty" and what was already occurring at this stage in time.

Immediately following this the word "and" kicks into "subsequent steps" gear and begins describing what happens after verses 1 and 2 in chronological order:

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated between the light and between the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night, and it was evening and it was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:3-5)

We see above that the word "and," the same word "ve," introduces each next step in the sequence:

And God said... and there was light... and God saw the light... and God separated... And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night... and it was evening... and it was morning..."

This usage of the word "and" continues for the majority of the entire chapter.

This usage of the word "and" appears to be the same one in Genesis 18:1-2 when the angels visit Abraham:

Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground. (Genesis 18:1-2)

We first have the word "ve" being translated as "Now" to introduce the set of events. For the record, this occurs again in Genesis 18:11 when the chapter introduces a new set of events separate from 18:1-10:

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, coming on in years; Sarah had ceased to have the way of the women. (Genesis 18:11)

Back to verses 1 and 2, we see that every instance of "and" is the next step in the sequence (except for the first, which introduces the set of events and doubles as the first event):

---

1. Introduction/Event 1: Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot.
2. Event 2: And he lifted his eyes…
3. Event 3: and saw…
4. Event 4: and behold, three men were standing beside him…
5. Event 5: and he saw…
6. Event 6: and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent…
7. Event 7: and he prostrated himself to the ground.

---

There are two issues with the claim that the angel was God.

The first is the unnatural way, according to the belief that one of the angels was God, that the Torah reports that they were "standing beside him." The first verse says, "Now the Lord appeared to him..." If one of the angels in Event 4 was God in the form of a man, it should not have said, "three men were standing beside him," it should have said, "The Lord and two angels were standing beside him." The reason for this is that Event 1 says only that God appeared to him, but made no references to the angels. However, all appear to him together, which either means that all three appeared in Event 1 (even though the angels aren't mentioned), or that all three angels appeared to Abraham in Event 4 and that the Lord that appeared to him in Event 1 is not one of the angels!

Further, Event 4 says, "three men were standing beside him," not the three men, indicating that these men were altogether different ones than any of the beings that appeared in Event 1. For example, if I say "the eggs are cold," you know which eggs I'm referring to because you have already seen them, or I've already made reference to them. But if say "eggs are cold" you don't know which eggs I'm referring to.

If the angel was God in the form of a man the verse should have read something like the following:

"Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and accompanying him were two angels, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw the three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground."

More simply put, the word "and" in Event 4 indicates that something new happened, which is that the three men suddenly appeared to him in addition to God's appearing to him in Event 1.

Secondly, in Event 5 we get what seems like an incomplete thought, "and he saw." What did he see? His very next action was running towards the angels. Rashi explains according to the plain reading of the text that he saw that they were standing in one place away from him, i.e., that they were not coming any closer to him. He therefore runs toward them.

Further, we said that events 2 through 7 describe Event 1. However, we see that Abraham was in different locations in Event 1 and Event 6; in Event 1 he is "at the entrance of his tent," and in Event 6 he is away from the entrance of his tent near the angels, to whom he had to run given that they were standing some distance away. Event 6 can only be a description of Event 1 if it gives us more information about Event 1, but not if it contradicts Event 1. Take Genesis 1:1-2, which explain how the earth was "astonishingly empty."

In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. (Genesis 1:1-2)

If the verses said, "Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the people were building a tower," we would know that it was not really astonishingly empty. In this case verse 2 contradicts verse 1, indicating that the people built a tower after the earth had been astonishingly empty. And this is exactly the relationship between Event 1 and Event 6 in Genesis 18. When the Torah says that Abraham "ran toward them from the entrance of the tent," he did so only (a few steps) after God appeared to him at the entrance of the tent, indicating that neither of the angels or men were incarnations of God.

Does Judges 13 Mention the Trinity?

And an angel of the Lord appeared to the woman, and said to her, "Behold now, you are barren, and have not borne; and you shall conceive and bear a son. (Judges 13:1)

Some Christians claim that this angel was as well an incarnation of God according to the following verse:

And Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God." (Judges 13:22)

However, this overlooks two major points. The first point is the one that we have been discussing until now, which is that the Torah often refers to visions of angels as visions of God. The second point is explicitly in all of the verses in this chapter preceding verse 22 (the phrase "an angel of God" appears ten times), all of which repeatedly refer to this being as "an angel of God." In addition, several of these verses explicitly distinguish between God and the angel:

And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again to the woman, and she was sitting in the field, and Manoah her husband was not with her. (Genesis 13:9)

And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, "Let us take you in now, and prepare for you a kid goat." And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, "If you take me in I will not eat of your bread, and if you will make a burnt-offering, you must offer it to the Lord;" For Manoah did not know that he was an angel of the Lord. (Genesis 13:15-16)

Some Christians argue, however, that Manoach and his wife only thought that it was an angel, but it was really God. Further, the only reason that the angel continues to accept being referred to as the angel of God is to avoid causing Manoach and his wife to mistakenly commit "idolatry in their hearts" by offering a sacrifice to an angel, which is the reason that it tells them to offer the sacrifice to God.

However, there are two issues with this as well. Manoach did not say that he intended to offer the goat to the angel as a sacrifice, but rather believing that it was a human being, like Abraham he offered to prepare food for him. Secondly, if the angel was really God, and God sought to reveal Himself as a Trinity, it would have simply said, "No, I am God in the form of an angel, so you may prepare the sacrifice to Me." For some odd reason God chose to keep his true Nature as a Trinity hidden, which is why I say that the apparent references to the Trinity in the Torah are implicit and not explicit, as Christians claim them to be.

They in fact are not references of any kind. Instead, Christians sought to find references in the Tanakh to the Trinity in order to authenticate and bolster their claims against its plain reading.

Instead, the Torah says exactly what it should have said if it was an angel, which is, "No, offer the sacrifice to God," i.e., not to me.

Is Worshiping Jesus Idolatry?

January 29 2021 - 16 Shevat 5781

The Prohibition of Idolatry in the Ten Commandments

The information that God gave us about Him was designed to teach us how to relate to Him correctly. Take a careful look at Shemos (Exodus) 20:4-5: "You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth. You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them."

Let me ask a question: does this mean that if I wanted to worship an element of nature, that would I be permitted to? The verse only prohibits me from making a graven image, but I did not make trees, for example, so perhaps this verse permits me to worship trees. Do we stick to a tight and literal reading of God's instructions, or do we try to use them to see things from His perspective, in-as-much as that is possible?

The same can be applied to human beings, who "are on the earth below." The clear reason for this prohibition is that God cannot be fathomed, and associating God with his creation is seen by God Himself as the very worst thing that a human being can do. I don't resolve the conflict by saying that God decided to take on the form of a man, because it violates the end goal of this prohibition.

Putting Words in God's Mouth

It is possible that people had put words in God's mouth by writing texts in which God became a man.

Perhaps this is what Devarim (Deuteronomy) 13 and 18 are alluding to:

Devarim 13:1-4:

Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, [and he] says, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them," you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.

Devarim 18:20-22:

But the prophet who intentionally speaks a word in My name, which I did not command him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. Now if you say to yourself, "How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?" If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him.

Christians Reject Idolatry

The interesting thing about this is all is that Christians understand what idolatry is. According to the What Christians Want To Know website, an "idol is anything that gets between us and God, and it is whatever we worship more than God or instead of God." Christians offer this correct definition of idolatry without realizing that this is exactly what they are doing with Jesus! They resolve the contradiction by saying that Jesus is God, but when they look at him they see a human being with a human face and a human figure. This prevents them from understanding the full glory of God because they begin to identify and empathize with God as a human being with human experiences (see Point 2 in Why Do Jews Reject the Trinity?). They have committed idolatry in their hearts and minds by limiting God to the experiences of a human being. They turn to Christian Scripture to support their view, such as Philippians 2:5-8:

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Whatever perceived benefits the Trinity offers people by bringing God (literally) closer to them, it sacrifices in understanding His true nature, which in turn has the adverse effect of distancing them from Him. To use a metaphor, it seems to bring Him an inch closer while pushing Him a mile away.

Conclusion

What is most interesting, and quite scary, is that Christians place a greater emphasis on their relationship with "the Son" than with "the Father." The central focal point of their relationship with God is experienced through Jesus and not through "the Father." This indicates that they have resigned "the Father" a lofty, remote, and inaccessible state and rely on the Son to get them there. While the standard formulation of the Trinity explains that the Persons in the Godhead are equal to each other, it clearly seems that "the Father" is assigned a superior position to "the Son" in that He is distant, and can only be reached through a medium. If the Son had not become flesh, would he too have been too distant to reach? (see Point 1 in Why Do Jews Reject the Trinity?)

The point is that there are many different ways to do something wrong, and there are only a few ways to do something right, and praying to a figure of a human being is wrong.

Is Genesis 1:26 Talking About the Trinity?

October 2, 2020 - 14 Tishrei 5781

Introduction

Does Genesis describe the Trinity as most Christian apologists claim it to? There are two verses in Genesis that seem demonstrate that this is not the case:

• Genesis 1:26
• Genesis 3:5

Genesis 1:26

The Problem

Genesis 1:26: And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heaven and over the animals and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep upon the earth."

Christian apologists point out that the word "us" in this verse is a reference to the Trinity, or more specifically, to the Persons in the Trinity speaking among themselves.

The first proof that Genesis 1:26 is not referring to the Trinity is the following verse, Genesis 1:27, which says:

And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Note that although God says Let us make man in our image, when it comes to actually creating Man the Bible does not use the pronoun us, but He.

Ask yourself the following question; if us signifies the Trinity, why does Genesis 1:27 switch to using He? If Genesis 1:26 refers to the Trinity, then it is describing the Persons of the Trinity in the planning stages of creating Man. This also indicates that all three of them created Man as Man is created in the image of all three Persons.

This is confirmed by the following excerpt from the Christian website, Answers in Genesis, which says that "All three Persons are the Creator," as shown below:

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"But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand." (Isaiah 64:8)

"He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist." (Colossians 1:15–17)

"The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life." (Job 33:4)

---

If so, then Genesis 1:27 should say "And God created man in Their image; in the image of God They created him; male and female They created them." In this context "They" would refer to all three Persons of the Trinity.

The Resolution

The Jewish commentators deal with it as a statement made to the administering angels, which can be seen as an act of humility and a model for us to build partnerships with others to embark on our missions, as opposed to "going it alone." God involved them in theory in order to maintain peace in the Heavens, as Job 25:2 says:

"Dominion and fear are with Him; He makes peace in His heights."

This is explained by Rashi as follows:

"When the constellations ascend, each one thinks, 'I will ascend first,' and because he does not see what is before him, he is not envious. So I heard. [Tanchuma Buber ad loc.] Another explanation: 'He makes peace in His heights' - Fire and water are mixed, and the water does not extinguish the fire; I did not hear this."

Genesis 3:5

The second proof can be seen by comparing the following two verses: 

• Genesis 3:5 in which Satan says to Eve: For God knows that on the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil.

• Genesis 3:22 in which : Now the Lord God said, "Behold man has become like one of us, having the ability of knowing good and evil, and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever."
  

Both of the verses above include the phrase "knowing good and evil." The first verse clearly identifies that this refers to the angels. However, the more ambiguous second verse uses it in reference to "us." Without this phrase, one might assume 3:22 as a reference to the Trinity also (like 1:26). However, the phrase in 3:22 "knowing good and evil" explicitly identifies "us" as the angels.

This may be the reason why Christian apologists say that 1:26 is a reference to the Trinity, but not 3:22.

See below for Jews for Judaism's Rabbi Michael Skobac's answer according to four traditional Jewish approaches: