Why Doesn’t Judaism Accept the Christian Messiah? – Tovia Singer
Listen as Rabbi Tovia Singer of OutreachJudaism.org discusses his newly released two volume resource entitled “Let’s Get Biblical – Why Doesn’t Judaism Accept the Christian Messiah?” This new encyclopedic work, in excess of 900 pages, is packed with new exciting chapters that comprehensively reveal why Judaism does not accept the Christian messiah.
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Why would Judaism accept the Christian Messiah, indeed why would it? Especially if we are talking about the fictitious Sun god created by Constantine and Eusebius. The one who was born on the same day as all other Sun gods – December 25th. The one who Christians worship on the venerable day of the Sun – Sunday.
However, if we are talking about Yeshua, the man spoken of by many authors in the books of the New Covenant, then again indeed why would it? Judaism never accepted Him while he was alive and walking among men. Why should anything be different now?
One thing that always thought was: “If I lived back then and knew the scriptures, knew about the other Messiah’s (there was another one living at the same time as Jesus was), would I believe?” Maybe while he was alive and there was hope, but after he died, like the Jews that believed, they saw that was another false alarm.
What rabbi Singer says about the gentleman who told him “You don’t know enough” is true. In my interactions with orthodox Jews I have been shocked to verify that, even those who sat in Yeshiva from 13 to 22, ignore all Scripture outside Torah. They know a few Psalms and that is it. They have never read Prophets, don’t know Chronicles and, above all, they ignore the Wisdom Books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job).
On the other hand, they know Gemara, a whole lots of nice stories and moral teachings and tons of Jewish law that rules about every matter under the sun.
Some times the oral law and traditions goes against Scriptures, for example in the matter of tzitzits: Scriptures commands that there should be a thread of blue, but the oral law says that it is not known which kind of blue it must be and therefore they rule out that tzitzits be white.
Of course on matters of morality I never spotted an inconsistence so far. All differences are only theological.
Rabbi Singer is correct on another account too: you cannot understand parts of the new testament unless you understand the oral law. One example I can think of right now is that I could not really understand Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus until I learned what the Pharisee believe in terms of what happens after death.
There are more examples.
@ Roberta. Two thousand years after Jesus there are Jews who see the messiah in mr. Schneerson, and he did not walk on water!
This tells me that it is perfectly possible for Jews that are committed to Torah and the oral law to see the messiah in a man, even after his death. In my humble opinion Christians should not be looked down more than Chabad.
I ignore the reasons chabad holds to point out mr. Schneerson as the messiah. Knowing Jewish thinkers the reasons will be deep and articulated, and rooted in Judaism.
Jono, why don’t you find some chabad who is willing to tell us about the messiahship of mr. Schneerson? I think it would make a very interesting program.
Elena, I think you mean Rabbi Schneerson.
Jono, I meant to only sit down and listen to one of your audios on Truth2U tonight as I have a lot of things I needed to do but your guests and topics are always so extremely interesting I couldn’t stop myself from listening to four of your newest episodes, this one included :–) I just received the other day my two volumes of Rabbi Singer’s new books in the mail and am so excited to read them. In the past I would have been too scared or too guilty feeling to read this kind of information but now I can honestly say it is an answer to prayer and very enlightening. Rabbi Singer’s genuine sincerity and caring attitude for wanting to share important Biblical information is very much appreciated :–) and I want to thank you Jono and Jason for all you both do :–) Sorry about the comments tonight on each audio but they were all so good I couldn’t help myself from commenting on each one…
Among other reasons, doesn’t Is 53 clearly say the The Messiah will be rejected? And that He would be cut off from the land of the living? No wonder Tovia has to follow Rashi’s reactionary position that this chapter cannot be about The Exalted Messiah.