TALMUDIC JUDAISM AND THEIR DISREGARD OF THE SCRIPTURES

Today’s Orthodox Jews are Talmudic Jews in contrast to Biblical Jews. This means that they esteem the Talmud - a vast collection of ancient rabbinic writings compiled around 550 AD - above all other writings, even Scripture.

The Talmudic writings represent a departure from the Hebrew Scriptures in many ways. It has also superseded the Scriptures, according to its own statements. For example:

·       "Those who devote themselves to reading the Bible exercise a certain virtue, but not very much; those who study the Mischnah exercise virtue for which they will receive a reward; those, however, who take upon themselves to study the Gemarah exercise the highest virtue." (Babha Metsia, fol. 33a)

·       "The Sacred Scriptures is like water, the Mischnah wine, and the Gemarah aromatic wine. (Sopherim XV, 7, fol. 13b)

·       "He who transgresses the words of the scribes sins more gravely than the transgressors of the words of the law." (Sanhedrin X, 3, f.88b)

Not only does this constitute adding to the Law, something that God had forbidden (Deut. 4:2; 12:32), it also involved replacing the Law - something that Moses had warned repeatedly against. Isaiah had denounced Israel for teaching commandments of men in place of those of God:

·       Isaiah 29:13-14 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their [faithfulness] fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

Regarding “commandment taught by men,” the Talmud teaches many things counter to what is found in the Scriptures. For example, it teaches the superiority of the Jew, something that Moses had repeatedly warned against believing:

·       Deuteronomy 9:4, 6 “Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you… Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.”

Moses also warned our people to not take credit for their successes:

·       Deuteronomy 8:17-19  Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’  You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.  And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.

Sadly, our people have gone after a very different god – a Talmudic invention. Instead of being the light to the world, we have covered it with the darkness of the Talmud. And the dreadful promised consequences have continually followed. Moses warned that we would be hated by the world. This prophecy has become a persistent fact of history, always accompanied by the disobedience of our people in turning from Scripture.

Jesus attempted to turn Israel back to their G-d. However, He observed that there was no way that they would hear Him since they even refused to believe Moses (John 5:44-47).

Meanwhile, the greatness and restoration of the Jewish nation has always accompanied a return to our G-d. (Adherence to the Talmud has only brought despair and dispersion.) God built Israel into a great nation because of the faithfulness of King David. This greatness continued through much of Solomon’s reign. It was restored, in great measure, under the faithful reigns of the great kings of Judah - Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah. All of these kings had revived Israel by returning to the very Words of God and not to the traditions of the elders or to their learned rabbis.

Even the modern rebirth of Israel had nothing to do with the Talmud. Instead, the Talmud has been a blight upon our people. Yet our G-d promises that He will open the eyes of disobedient Israel:

·       Zechariah 12:10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me [Jesus], on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

What does our G-d require of us? Return:

·       Jeremiah 3:12-13 “Return, faithless Israel,” declares the Lord. “I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the Lord; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God.”

How are we to return to God? By returning to His Word as the ancient Kings of Judah had done. For example, King Josiah was notified by Hilkiah the priest that he had found “the Book of the Law of the LORD given through Moses” (2 Chronicles 34:14). Evidently, it had been missing for so long that no one noticed its absence until it was found.

The godly King Josiah immediately understand the importance of this Book and directed the priest:

·       “Go, inquire of the LORD for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the LORD that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do according to all that is written in this book.” (2 Chronicles 34:21)

How did the Lord respond? Did He agree with Josiah’s sentiments?

·       Thus says the LORD, Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king of Judah. Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore my wrath will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched. But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, thus shall you say to him, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the LORD. (2 Chronicles 34:24-27)

According to the Lord, when Josiah had humbled himself before the Lord it was the same thing as honoring the seriousness of His Words, the very thing that the rabbis fail to do.

According to the prophecies of Jeremiah, the Prophet Daniel knew that the time of Israel’s return to their promised land was approaching along with another chance to prove their faithfulness to God’s Words, His covenant. He, therefore in love, confessed the sins of Israel before the Lord:

·       We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. (Daniel 9:5-7)

We too must never sugar-coat sin by disregarding God’s Words or by placing our traditions on equal footing with Scripture, as the Pharisees of Jesus’s day continued to do. However, Jesus denounced them, quoting Isaiah:

·       “…So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:6-9)

I grieve that little has changed today among Talmudic Orthodox Jews. May God here our prayers!

ANTI-SEMITISM AND ISLAM

Recent polls have reported that, because of anti-Semitic violence, 25% of the Jews of the UK are thinking of leaving. In France, the percentage is 75%.

The horrid reality of anti-Semitism is even growing in the USA at an alarming rate. Attorney Jay Sekulow reported:

·       It’s being called a “new anti-Semitism.” Radical professors are punishing Jewish students for making pro-Israel statements. Christian students who support Israel are being intimidated. Radical Hamas supporters are issuing fake eviction notices to Jewish students. And it’s happening on college campuses all across America. The threats of violence, intimidation, and discrimination against Jewish students and anyone who supports Israel...

His observations are supported by FBI 2012 Hate Crime Statistics:

·       Approximately two-thirds of religious hate crimes are anti-Jewish. The FBI reported that of the 1,340 religious hate crimes, 62 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias. The number two targeted group victimized on a religious bias were Muslims, as only 12 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.

After the Holocaust, my Jewish people vowed, “Never again!” However, many of the most influential Jews remain silent in the face of growing anti-Semitism. One NYC Jewish history organization, while never ceasing to look back at the Holocaust, refuses to introduce any programming about the present threats to the Jewish people. They are not oblivious to this present threat. You cannot enter into their building without passing through security and a metal detector. However, they seem to be in denial regarding the coming Holocaust.

On several occasions, I have asked the staff why their programming remains silent on this critical issue. They blandly responded that this simply isn’t their focus. Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem to be the focus of the media, universities, or the U.S. government. All remain silent, smiling at the coming Holocaust.

The Prophets of Israel saw it coming. Jeremiah cried:

·       Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? (Jeremiah 8:21-22)

But there was little Jeremiah could do. The problem was a stage four cancer, and his countrymen were loath to examine it, let alone to correct it:

·       Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people. Oh, that I had in the desert a lodging place for travelers, so that I might leave my people and go away from them; for they are all adulterers, a crowd of unfaithful people. "They make ready their tongue like a bow, to shoot lies; it is not by truth that they triumph in the land. They go from one sin to another; they do not acknowledge me," declares the LORD. "Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer. Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning. You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:1-6)

I do not wish to blame the victim. However, this is just what the Prophets of Israel did at the bequest of their Master. Even Moses warned his people:

·       He [God] shielded [Israel] him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag, with curds and milk from herd and flock and with fattened lambs and goats, with choice rams of Bashan and the finest kernels of wheat. You drank the foaming blood of the grape… He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior. They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God-- gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. The LORD saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters. "I will hide my face from them," he said, "and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful.” (Deuteronomy 32:10-20)

Instead of returning and placing their trust in the God who had fathered and shepherded them for millennium, Israel has placed its trust in themselves, the very thing that Moses had warned them against:

·       You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 8:17-20) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q4XL4oRIRE

Throughout their history, my people Israel have suffered these promised woes. Even the Orthodox Jews have turned away in their heart. Instead of acknowledging God, they are filled with a sense of racial superiority.

In Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, Orthodox Jewish writer David Klinghoffer concludes that Jewish rejection of Jesus is founded in “the mystic uniqueness of the Jewish essence or nature. There was something distinct about the Jewish soul…The Jewish soul feels the worlds, in a remarkably visceral way, as unredeemed.”

He bases this opinion upon Judah Loeb’s famous interpretation of the Talmudic tractate, Avodah Zarah, which stated that God had offered the Torah to all the other nations first, “to see if they possessed a predisposition to the Torah, and did not find it in them,” in contrast to the holy disposition God found in the Jews (pgs. 215-217).

This understanding, of course, is not at all reflective of the Hebrew Bible but instead, of much of the Talmud and is an affront to God.

I cry for my foolish people. Jeremiah’s lament has become mine. What to do? Continue in prayer to point them back to their sins and the promised hope of repentance before their rejected Messiah.

What is my consolation? It is found only in our Savior Jesus. Through Paul, He promised:

·       I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.  And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins." As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. (Romans 11:25-29)

To Him be the glory!

***

ANTI-SEMITISM, ISLAM, AND NATIONAL SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA:

Muslims are not only yelling “kill the Jews” as the Nazis had done, but they are also reviving Nazi propaganda. One Muslim woman posted this YouTube video on my Facebook. It amazes me that anyone could take this video seriously, but tragically many do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQwuaXo5T-4

It also saddens me that instead of exposing and resisting the horror of Jewish-hatred at the core of Islam, the Western media has been bullied into silence, as they had under Hitler. Here is my response to the Muslim woman:

“What God thinks of the Jews is far more important than what others think. Yes, you are correct. They have rebelled against their God, but this hasn’t prevented Him from loving them, nor will it change the glorious future that He has so often promised them:

• Isaiah 49:13-15: “Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.” But Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me." "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”

• Ezekiel 36:24-31: "For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine. Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices.”

• Isaiah 44:21-22: "Remember these things, O Jacob, for you are my servant, O Israel. I have made you, you are my servant; O Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you."

• Jeremiah 33:6-8: "I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me.”

• Hosea 3:5:  “Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.”

• Zech. 12:10: "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication.”

• Deut. 32:43:  Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.

• Hosea 14:4-5: "I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots;

• Amos 9:14-15: “I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the Lord your God.

• Micah 4:1-2: In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

• Micah 7:18-20: You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot  and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be true to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our fathers in days long ago.

• Zeph. 3:15-20: “The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you…At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes," says the Lord.”

   

The very fact that God came as a Jew reaffirms the fact that of His love for His chosen people. This is also the message of the New Testament:

• Romans 11:26-29:  And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.  “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.

I am therefore concerned for you and also for your Muslim brethren, who hate the Jewish people. You mustn’t blind yourself to God’s purpose regarding those who continue in their hatred to Israel:

• Isaiah 41:11: "All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish.”

• Isaiah 51:21-23 This is what your Sovereign Lord says, your God, who defends his people: "See, I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger; from that cup, the goblet of my wrath, you will never drink again. I will put it into the hands of your tormentors, who said to you, 'Fall prostrate that we may walk over you.' And you made your back like the ground, like a street to be walked over."

• Joel 3:19-21: “But Egypt will be desolate, Edom a desert waste, because of violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood. Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem through all generations. Their bloodguilt, which I have not pardoned, I will pardon."

You can either continue in hatred or confess it to Allah, the One who wrote the Bible, according to your Koran. I pray that you will repent and seek peace which is pleasing to our God. He promises that if you seek, you will find:

• "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)”

Wisdom would beckon us to get on the right side of God and His plans. Hating His chosen but errant people is certainly not God’s way.

THE RABBIS HAVE PLACED THEIR FAITH IN KEEPING THE LAW OF MOSES AND NOT IN THEIR MESSIAH

Former rabbis had believed that the Messiah would bring in a new set of laws to replace the Mosaic laws. We find a number of indications of this in the Talmud, compiled around 550 AD. Jewish commentator Raphael Patai had written:

·       The notion that the days of the messiah, the messiah’s apocalyptic reign, will be served by a new law is a Jewish one. Paul is quite Jewish in seeking to extend his new, more accessible, religion to Gentiles in the interest of time as did some of his contemporaries among the rabbis. In his essay, “The Crisis of Tradition in Jewish Messianism,” G. Scholem reviews the most important rabbinic statements that look forward to a utopian messianic age governed by a new, relaxed law:

·       Lev. Rabbah 9:7 - All sacrifices will be abolished except for the offer of thanksgiving.

·       Yalkut and Midrash Mishle (on Prov. 9:2) - All festivals will be abolished except for Purim which will never be abolished (and the Day of Atonement will be like Purim)

·       Midrash Tehillim (in regard to Ps. 146:7) - The Lord allows the forbidden … and will one day allow the eating of all animals now forbidden to be eaten … In the time to come he will allow everything that he has forbidden.

·       Lev. Rabbah 13:3 - A new Torah [law or teaching] shall go forth from me.

·       Yalkut (in regard to Isa 26:2) - the messiah himself will teach it  (The Jewish Messiahs, Harris Lenowitz, page 270ff)

·       Eccl. Rabbah 11:1 - R Hizqiya in the name of R. Simon bar Zibdi said: “The whole Tora which you learn in This World is vanity as against the Tora of the World to Come. For in This World a man learns Tora and forgets, but in the Future to Come (he will not forget) as it is written, I will put My Tora in their inward parts and in their heart will I write it (Jer. 31:33) (The Messiah Texts, Raphael Patai, pages 247-257) http://www.hadavar.org/critical-issues/anti-missionary-arguments/additional-issues/the-law-of-moses-is-eternal/

However, modern-day rabbis have gravitated to a different view – that the Mosaic Laws are eternally binding. The Jewish Encyclopedia's "New Testament" article states:

·       "The idea of the new covenant is based chiefly upon Jeremiah 31:31–34. That the prophet's words do not imply an abrogation of the Law is evidenced by his emphatic declaration of the immutability of the covenant with Israel (Jeremiah 31:35–36); he obviously looked for a renewal of the Law through a regeneration of the hearts of the people."

(Please note that Jeremiah 31:35-36 says nothing about the continuation of the Mosaic Covenant! Instead, Jeremiah 31:32 claims that the New Covenant will “not [be] like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.”)

Elsewhere, The Jewish Encyclopedia reads:

·       Judaism knows of no other than the old Sinaitic [Mosaic] covenant. Eternal as the covenant with heaven and earth is God's covenant with the seed of Jacob (Jer. xxxiii. 25 et seq.). http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4714-covenant

However, Scripture reveals that the Mosaic Covenant would be unable to deliver what the Messiah and His New Covenant were finally able to provide. When we examine Messianic prophecy, we find that Israel’s blessedness was not to be found in their adherence to the Mosaic Law but in their Messiah. The following are verses that the rabbis had also regarded as Messianic:

·       The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified…you shall be called the priests of the LORD; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy. (Isaiah 61:1-7; ESV)

In what state do we find Israel prior to the Messiah’s return? One of shame and dishonor! It would be the Messiah, and not Mosaic Law keeping, that would “bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” Instead of exalting Israel, the Mosaic Law would evidently afflict Israel through their failure to keep it.

Elsewhere, Isaiah prophesies that the Messiah will bring justice, not the Mosaic Law:

·       Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations… “I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. (Isaiah 42:1-7; 9:6-7; 11:1-10)

The Messiah will also be the covenant and the light, which the Mosaic Covenant (MC) could not provide. He would open blind eyes and release those in bondage. Clearly, the MC would fail to do this.

·       The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the LORD to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. (Isaiah 52:8-10)

At the time of the Messiah’s return, there will be “waste places of Jerusalem.” Why would this be if Israel’s adherence to the MC had been adequate? Evidently, it wouldn’t be. Instead, Israel’s hope would have to be in the Messiah and not in their ability to keep the MC.

Who is “his holy arm?” Isaiah tells us:

·       Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:1-4)

Why would the Messiah have to carry “our sorrows” if the MC had been adequate? Instead, the Messiah, the one who would bear Israel’s sins, would ultimately be their hope.

The Messiah’s return will mean comfort for the afflicted and a worldwide awakening:

·       The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. (Psalm 22:26-28 [This Psalm might not have been considered Messianic by the rabbis]; also see Psalm 2, 40, 69)

Salvation wouldn’t come through Israel’s obedience to the MC. Instead, as so many prophecies indicate, it would come through the Messiah:

·       Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey…and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit…On that day the LORD their God will save them, as the flock of his people; for like the jewels of a crown they shall shine on his land. (Zechariah 9:9-16)

The MC would not bring salvation, but death, because of Israel’s disobedience:

·       Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return. I have paid attention and listened, but they have not spoken rightly; no man relents of his evil, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turns to his own course. (Jeremiah 8:5-6; 5:3; Isaiah 1:3-4; 9:3; 64:7; 65:2-3; 66:4; Hosea 4:6; 7:10)

Instead of bringing glory to God, Israel under the MC would profane Him. This is why a New Covenant was necessary. Besides, the MC governed by fear. Israel had been terrified to hear God’s voice and dared not to come into His presence lest they be struck dead.

Why weren’t the rabbis willing to see that the MC brought Israel under the curse of God, as so many verses indicate?

·       “But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you…” (Deuteronomy 28:15; 27:26)

After this, God gave Moses a prophetic song to teach to His people that would illustrate their future rebellion under the Mosaic Covenant:

·       “They [Israel] stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.” (Deuteronomy 32:16-18)

However, the song ended with a promise of God’s mercy:

·       "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people; For He will avenge the blood of His servants, And render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people." (Deuteronomy 32:43 NKJV)

There is no mention anywhere in this song of Israel successfully keeping the law and meriting God’s mercy. Why don’t the rabbis see that an eternal MC offered them no hope and no blessedness? Why would they put their hope in their ability to keep the Law? Why do the rabbis reject the New Covenant and its promised blessedness through an intimate love-relationship with their Savior, something they could never enjoy under the MC?

·       And I will make for them a covenant…And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD. (Hosea 2:18-20)

Sadly, my Jewish people continue to harden their heart against their Savior, and, by doing so, they have also hardened their heart against wisdom, plunging themselves headlong into the darkness (John 3:19-21).