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From: 	 heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: 	 Thursday, May 29, 1997 2:18 AM
To: 	 Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: A Messianic Jewish Perspective of the Torah



From:          EbenAbram@aol.com
To:            heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject:       Re: A Messianic Jewish Perspective of the Torah


Shalom Alecheim 

I know the paper Rabbi Cohen wrote was long and E-mail 
constraints so I thought to send this just in case I either 
didn't include it in the origianl post or it might make a 
second follow up. Hope this helps Rooters and mishpocah, 
maamin and klal yisrael.
									

**********************************************************************								
Alecheim Shalom				Eben Abram


Rabbi Cohen writes:

VII. Are You Telling Me That As A New Testament Believing Jew, I Need To 
Buy And Use Two Sets Of Dishes, Eat Only Foods From Kosher Markets, and 
Observe All The Rituals That Orthodox Jews Do? 

No, I am not saying that. Just as Yeshua did, we also must make a 
distinction between Scripture and tradition. I, as a Messianic Jew, keep 
Biblically kosher. I do not eat pork, shellfish, fish with no scales 
(like shark) or any of the other foods which the Bible directly tells me 
I, as a Jew, should not eat. I do not have to keep all the Talmudic 
kosher rules, many of which are not directly based upon Scripture, but 
upon the Talmudic rabbis' opinions. For example: I have no problem with 
a cheeseburger, because I do not see any prohibition in the Scriptures 
to eating milk and meat together: I see only one commandment not to boil 
a calf in its own mother's milk (Exodus 23:19), and I do not believe 
that fulfilling that commandment means never allowing milk and meat to 
touch. That practice was, as some scholars have argued, a regional 
cult-practice which God forbade the Jewish people to adopt. Throughout 
the Scriptures, God teaches a sanctified relationship between parent and 
child, and the practice of deliberately cooking a calf in its own 
mother's milk shows contempt for that relationship. (Keil & Delitsch 
Commentary On The Old Testament . Volume II, pg. 151) 

Messianic Judaism does not mean an automatic adoption of all the 
practices of Talmudic Judaism: I believe it means walking out of a 
lifestyle in accord with the teachings of Acts 15 and 21 . It means not 
throwing out wholesale one's entire Jewish identity simply because the 
rabbinic, talmudic system of relating to the Torah has produced a lot of 
quasi-Jewish stuff that is either biblically invalid or unnecessary. We 
must simply judiciously examine the contents of Judaism, embrace that 
which is of value, discard that which is not, and live as 
Scripture-believing, Torah-practicing, Messiah-accepting Jews. Jews who 
have received the forgiveness of our sins through the shed blood of the 
Messiah (as per Isaiah 53), who have had the Holy Spirit of God placed 
within us (as per Ezekiel 36:24ff), who have been brought into a New 
Covenant [or New Testament] as per Jeremiah 31:31ff), not seeking 
justification by keeping the commandments of the Torah (Romans 4:16), 
and not nullifying either the Torah or the customs of our Fathers (Acts 
21:24), but having the Torah written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:31ff, 
Ezekiel 36:24ff) and walking in the newness of the Spirit (Romans 8:11). 


A Jewish Believer within the church-realm would be hard-put to defend 
how living a life (a) devoid of any Jewish practice, (b) devoid of 
Jewish culture and (c) teaching other Jewish people to do the same 
constitutes obeying the spirit or letter of any of these highly 
neglected Scriptures. 

I therefore respectfully submit to my Jewish believing brothers and 
sisters in the churches that it is time for them to adopt a more sound 
biblical relationship with the blood of Abraham and Sarah that flows in 
their veins. If churches are the only avenues of fellowship available to 
the Jewish believer in their region, then it is certainly better to be 
in a church than to live without fellowship of believers. However, if a 
Messianic fellowhip of reasonable quality exists withing reasonable 
distance, then biblically it is necessary that Jewish believers develop 
some connection with their Jewish identity, Jewish religious practice 
(Messianic, of course) and Jewish culture, as per Acts 21. Biblically it 
is incumbent. Is this limiting the freedom of the believer? No more than 
for the Scriptures to teach that we are to fellowship primarily with 
believers rather than non-believers (I Corinthians 15:33), or that we 
may not choose to marry unbelievers (II Corinthians 6:14). These 
directives are not limitations: they are freedom-giving, life-enhancing 
directives from God. The same is true of the directives for Jewish 
believers in Acts. 


VIII. Why "Yeshua" Instead Of "Jesus"? Why "Messiah" Instead Of 
"Christ"? Why "Synagogue" Instead Of "Church"? Why All This Jewishness? 

There are two reasons for practicing New Testament faith in Jewish 
cultural context: one reason is inwardly directed, and the other is 
outwardly directed. 

The first reason has been amply stated above: God commands us to live a 
cuturally and religiously "Jewish" life. Hence, we practice our faith 
this way simply because it is God's will. If no one ever saw us do it, 
we should still do it because biblically it is the right thing for a 
Jewish believer in Yeshua to do. 

There is, however, a second reason, made clear by two New Testament 
scriptures: I Corinthians 9:20 and Acts 22:1-3. 

Paul told us in I Corinthians 9:20 "to the Jew I became as a Jew that I 
might win Jews." Paul is not saying that from a culturally-neutered life 
he masqueraded as a Jew, or smeared some Jewishness in which he did not 
really believe on surface upon his "Christian" message! The entire book 
of Acts shows us that he remained a devoutly practicing Jew his entire 
life. He always tried to be in Jerusalem for the pilgrim feasts of 
Israel (which all Jewish males were required by Torah to attend). Paul 
did not become a gentile in practice, and then pretend to be Jewish in 
religious/cultural practices when he was witnessing to Jewish people! 

Paul was not selling our Jewish people a new religion by pretending to 
be one of us! He was sincerely approaching us respecting our God-given 
unique situation being Jews (descendants ofAbraham and heirs to God's 
convenants with him); and "under the Law" (having a unique God-given 
relationship to Torah different from those not under the Torah)! In Acts 
22 we see Paul defending his faith in Yeshua to the crowd in Jerusalem. 
On the stairs of the Temple, he cries out "Men, brothers and fathers, 
hear my defense before you now!" The next verse says something very 
powerful: 

"When they (the Jewish crowd in the Jerusalem Temple) heard that he 
spoke to the in the 

Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent. Then Paul said, "I am 
indeed a Jew ..." 

The Jewish crowd heard this man, whom they had been told was teaching a 
new religion that wanted to annihilate both the Torah and Jewish 
culture, speak to them in Hebrew, using phrases familiar to them, like 
"Brothers and Fathers" (terms used by students of rabbinic leaders in 
the Temple). This caused the crowd to become "silent" ... more attentive 
to his message. A few moments previously there was a riot and he could 
not make himself heard because of all the fears the rumors had generated 
about him. A few words in Hebrew, and now the whole crowd is listening 
intently to a lengthy message about how his faith in Yeshua does not 
negate Jewish identity or the Torah-observance. There is power in doing 
things God's way, is there not? 

The outwardly directed reason for using Jewish terminology in reaching 
Jewish people with the message of Yeshua is that it is simply more 
effective than trying to reach them with the gentile-flavored message of 
the same content! I have personally led Holocaust survivors to faith in 
Yeshua who told me moments after receiving Him that they never would 
have accepted Him in the form of "Jesus Christ" and never would have 
abandoned their Jewish heritage to become a "Christian" (church-culture 
person). These people were fully aware that they were accepting Yeshua 
of Nazareth, whom the gentiles call Jesus. But they could not do so in a 
non-Jewish manner. They could, and did, embrace Him willingly and 
joyfully once they understood that to do so was not to commit cultural 
and religious treason. 

IX. CONCLUSION 

I believe that God is calling his ancient covenant people to awaken to 
their destiny (Deuteronomy 30:1-6, Hosea 3:4-5). He is calling us to 
remember that we are the actual descendants of the Jewish nation 
scattered from Israel among the nations nearly twenty centuries ago. We 
are commanded by God to remember what happened to our people since 
Dispersion, and to return to Him. One half of this process of return, 
Isaiah 44:5 says, involves knowing God; "One will say,`I am the Lord's 
... another will write on his hand `I am The Lord's'" But that is only 
half of the process! The second half of the verse says, "Another will 
call himself by the name of "Jacob ... and name himself by the name of 
Israel." We must re-appropriate our lost Jewish identities, individually 
and corporately, to fully walk in God's will. 

Entering into an relationship with God in which our sins are atoned for 
by accepting Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah is the starting point of a 
complete return to the purpose for our lives. It is the most important 
step, and God puts it first in order here. But we must go the rest of 
the way! We must "call ourselves by the name of Jacob, and name 
ourselves by the name of Israel!" 

The Messianic Jewish vision is not to build congregations of mostly 
non-Jews, nor is it to gather only Jews who live on the far fringe of 
Jewish society, alienated enough from Jewish life that they have no deep 
burden for Jewish people or Jewishness. Some Messianic congregations fit 
into this catagory, and their impact on the heart of their surronding 
Jewish community has been minimal compared to the size of the Jewish 
populations to which they minister, and the time most have been around. 
The mainstream Jewish community never sees them. 

New Testament Scriptures teach us that many of the leaders of the Jewish 
people became disciples of Yeshua and His Apostles.(John 12:42/Acts 6:7) 
Having an excellent Jewish education is not a crime for which one should 
be condemned to hell. Being zealous for the welfare of the Jewish people 
and the preservation of the Jewish faith and culture are not sins for 
which one should be banished into eternal punishment. Oddly enough, many 
Jewish believers unwittingly automatically consign such Jewish people to 
hell by unconsciously dimissing them as "unreachable" or "too 
intellectually proud" or some such label. The fact is that most Jewish 
believers have simply been unequipped to reach effectively into the 
mainstream of the Jewish community, where there are people with vibrant 
Jewish lives as well as the broken and the disenfranchised. 

With the best of intentions, they have come to Jews who have risked 
their lives to save our people from physical extermination, and told 
them that their Jewishness is something God either wants to make 
disappear, or doesn't really care about. They go away from such 
encounters talking of "how hard Jewish people are to the Gospel." Some 
"Jewish-Christians" have approached Jewish people in this way, and have 
been astounded when, as they display their own low acquaintance with 
Jewish faith, Jewish history, Jewish survival and Jewish life, they are 
dismissed out of hand by their hearers. They have not learned the lesson 
of Paul ..."To the Jew I go as a Jew" and "When he (Paul) spoke to them 
in Hebrew, they became silent (listened to his message)." 

We need to go to our people God's way ... and when we do, we will have a 
better chance of seeing the great promises of revival given in Joel 
2:28ff, Hosea 3:4-5, Romans 11:21ff come to pass before our eyes. We 
will be further towards seeing the Jewish Messianic revival trigger 
world-wide revival among the nations! We will be closer to seeing our 
people fulfill the destiny written in Zechariah 8:23... 

"Then ten men from every nation will grasp the garment of a Jewish 
person, saying 

`Let me go with you, for I hear that God is with you.'" 

Then our people will become the born-again, visibly Jewish nation of 
priests to God that His Word says He intends us to be. 

Do you want to reach the nations for Yeshua (Jesus) Messiah (Christ)? 
Then return to God through repenting of your sins and accepting Yeshua 
(Psalm 2/Romans 10:9), and return to your God-given heritage 
(Isa.44/Acts 15/Acts 21). 

Your own people are dying daily, separated from God, and precious few 
are the workers seeking deliberately to reach them. I appeal to you , as 
you study this paper, to allow God to awaken compassion in your heart 
for your own people. If any of your parents, grand-parents, 
great-grand-parents or great-great-grand-parents were Jewish, then you 
are Jewish! There are billions of Gentiles to answer the call to the 
Gentiles ... but of your own Jewish people the Scripture applies, "How 
shall they hear without someone to speak the message to them?" 

Come home. At the very least, begin to cultivate your own and your 
family's Jewish identity. Attend Shabbat services at SOME Messianic 
synagogue, even if you elect to remain in the church. Develop SOME 
connection to the great revival taking place among your people right 
now. You have been a part of it without even realizing it thus far. Like 
Apollos in the Book of Acts, you have been faithfully sharing part of 
the right message ... but you may have been missing some important 
components of the full message God wishes you both to live and convey. 
After Apollos received the additional input from Aquila and Priscilla, 
it tells us that he "greatly strengthened those who had believed through 
grace, for he powerfully refuted the (non-Messianic) Jews in public, 
proving from the Scriptures that Yeshua (Jesus) was indeed the Messiah. 

If you are a Jewish Believer, come home. If you are not Jewish, but like 
Ruth in the Bible, you have a calling to live among and minister to the 
Jewish people ... then, come home. Come home, and be used of the Lord, 
for the days of Jewish revival are at hand. 

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