Shalom, this is Ash the Rabbi series, number six. Most of the question this week actually had to deal with the views of Judaism or my views of other religion. For example a fellow from was Bahai said that he detected that when I was doing my video on Bahai on Judaism I have slights insinuation that Judaism I thought was superior. And I should be objective. Well how in the world can I be objective, my whole life is teaching Judaism and Torah. Of course I think Judaism is the way that the world should be. I believe that Zachariah the prophet when he said (Speaking Foreign Language). In that day all the people will know I do not I would be in Jerusalem and worship the way in which we understand. And that is the view of the Messianic era. However in this life time, Judaism firmly believes that people have a really different tradition. And they follow the seven laws of the sons of Noah as I explain in another video. They perfectly can do that. There is no reason everybody has to be Jewish, but to pretend I am objective I am not. I clearly believe that Judaism is the right way. I am sure somebody who is by believes their way and Christians believe tier way. But I am not objective. I do not pretend to be objective. My view is trying to explain Judaism to the world.
Then I had a fellow. I do not know if to laugh or cry about this or be happy. Someone writes me with what an inspiration my videos are and he is Canter and Messianic at synagogue. Then he wants to know why I think it is treason is for Judah believe that Jesus is God. Well it is. If you want to be Christian and believe Jesus is God and the son of God, whatever. Be Christian, but to say you are Jewish and believe that is completely outside the boundaries of Judaism.
Now somebody else then asked me. What Jews, even they are sinners are still considered Jews. So how can you, once a Jew always a Jew is the basic principle. Well a Jews were X communicated various times in Jewish history for a various beliefs by other Jews for example the (Speaking Foreign Language) communicated with in the first Luvabitz Rabbi and they excommunicated back. Many case, the Jewish people have decided that today, because of the confusion of the challenges of assimilation. And this is not just to answer an old idea that if you believe that a human being is God and especially Jesus, you are not Jewish. The supreme court of Israel had a case where a fellow who was born as Jew became a monk. Appeared before a monks clothing before the Supreme Court and wanted to be admitted under the law of return as a Jew. The Supreme Court of Israel said no. and that is the belief of the Jewish people today.
Then somebody asked me about orthodox. They took offense to some of my comments about orthodox. Now here is my view and I have explained this on other video. I am just one Rabbi with one view. I had an orthodox education. Most of my early years and there is some beautiful things about orthodoxy, but there some deeply troubling and why I could never be an orthodox. He was insulted by some of my comments. Okay well I am trying to speak the truth I as I see it. I am sure he has a different view. He could say whatever he wants.
Basically orthodoxy is founded on a misconception about the Torah. They believe that every word of the Torah came from God the most of it is sign. It is simply untrue, there are thousands of examples. Easy to prove, we have known this for a couple hundred years. It is shared widely by all Jewish scholars outside of orthodoxy and all Christian world outside of fundamentalism. Fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Jews share the same misconception. We believe about their bibles that in the case of orthodoxy, their bible that it is a unified mosaic document and New Testament believes some of them. At some Christians that is their issue, that the whole thing was exactly the way it is written down in the New Testament. And so that is one problem.
Secondly, I think if you step back and you say “Woman can not lead services” How clearly discriminatory that is. I mean woman could not vote or hold property in the western democracy for a long time too. Orthodoxy can live with that, fine. But to say that something I just, I think most Jews today can not live with, the discrimination against woman in Jewish ritual. But again, there is a lot of wonderful beautiful things I think orthodox is going to win in the demography and market place of ideas because of how they are able to retain their own and the significant birthrate and there is a lot of wonderful things there. I just do not agree with everything. Sorry if the fellow took offense. I also get a lot of criticism for ant-semis too. Basically anybody who is not thinking exactly the way I do they have there own views, okay. That is the world it is. That is why we have intellectual discussion and debate.
Now this fellow w1riting also thought I was being mean and we should all should just get along. And say everything is fine about everybody. Well the main problem in Judaism today is the hostility of orthodoxy to the rest of Judaism. When the Spartic Rabbi of Israel can say that reform a conservative wafts of hell. And no orthodox authorities condemn that. That is a big problem and orthodoxy should work hard. And orthodox Rabbi’s do not accept our conversions and do not accept our witnessing and do not think were legitimate for Judaism, a lot of them. Well that is a big problem.
Then a fellow Japan thinking of converting want to know, because he is Asian. Would Jews accept him? Now back into Jews absolutely do not have a race. Jews have every kind of face you can imagine and we live every part of the world. Although not that many Jews are around any more because of all the killing of Jews. But certainly anybody who wants to be a Jewish can be Jewish if they probably convert it is nothing about race. We are not a race in any way.
And then a fellow wants to know why Judaism needs to exist. Since Christianity came and perfected it. Kind of what Anne Coulter said. You can watch my video about that. In the Old Testaments contain at list in the New Testament. I said no, in the Jewish view. Christianity came along 2000 years after Judaism existed and change direction. And they kept some good things. They kept the messiah. They kept the idea of God. They kept the Sabbath. They kept the Ten Commandments, but they radically changed it by saying that a human being could be God and that by having what they call a new bible. We do not believe in a new bible. Certainly Jews do not need to be perfective. We believe we are fine the way we are. We have our own covenant with God. I think we have the original covenant and the only covenant. But if other people want to have there own religious beliefs, again and follow the seven laws of the seven laws of Noah, that is great.
Then somebody wanted to know how a Jew can be Jewish and not believe in God. In most other religions if you lose out of faith. You are out of that religion. Well the answer is that Jews are not religion. Never has been a religion, there is now word. Really in Judaism that is old. There is a modern word for it but the bible calls it an Am which is a nation and lafid call in human nation of priest, a Goy, one of the Goying of the world, Benay Israel, the children of Israel. Benay Britaha, the children of the covenant. We never called it religion. And so there is a wide variety of beliefs. If you choose to be Jewish or you are born to a Jewish mother, you are Jewish. And you unfortunately do not believe in God, well you are still Jewish. Part of the Jewish people, ethnically Jewish you are not just following the traditional beliefs and traditions of Judaism.
Then somebody wants to know how God can be so cool as to kill the first born sons in the plaques. I have many answers to that. One of them is that, first of all I do not believe the plaques occurred in two weeks. Or how long the bible suggests the time period was. If you read the Egyptian news papers over a hundred years. You will see that all those plaques occur. Lot locust and sand storms and people die, certainly all kinds of bad food. And hundreds of years later when the stars are written down. Our people understood it as God’s strength to get the Jews out of Egypt. Now the orthodox certainly would not agree with that interpretation, but that is really what happened. Second of all, Pruda is impossible that a certain segment of the Egyptian population would die, first? And that would go down in history. Well absolutely, who got the best food? The first born kid probably and the food was tainted that you could probably die. But any case it might not have been the first born who might have been a significant segment of the Egyptian population. And again as the story was oral for a hundreds and hundreds of years before God went down. Who knows how the story was transformed.
And it was not just the first born. The whole army died in the Red sea according to the story. And the Jewish people are sad about that. The other people had to suffer so we could be free. And so we take a drop of wine out of our wine cup during the Passover story of telling to reflect that. And finally we know in history that innocent people suffer when the government is tyrannical and oppressive. Think about President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb in Japan. To try and save a million American lives who probably would have been lost in invading Japan to stop the war. Sometimes sadly those moral decisions have to be made and God gave in according and if you take the story literally God gave Egypt every chance. Pharaoh every chance to let the Jews go without any suffering and he refuse to do that. So finally the Jewish people had to be free. And sadly people had to suffer.
So those are my answers to the very interesting and serious questions we got this week In Ask The Rabbi.
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