From: btiffany@pbs.org
Newsgroups: alt.messianic
Subject: Re: (old) Question For Rob Levene
Date: 14 Oct 92 10:36:05 EDT
Organization: PBS:Public Broadcasting Service, Alexandria, VA

#3361

Subject: Re: (old) Question For Rob Levene
From: levene@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (Robert A. Levene)
Date: 30 Sep 1992 11:49:50 -0500

>Put it this way.  Suppose you had $500 to your name.  Then you
>paid your rent of $500.  You now have zero dollars, and are "broke."
> 
>Suppose your rent was $700.  You pay $500 and borrow $200.  You
>are now "in debt" $200.
> 
>Similarly, a Jew who (G-d forbid) gives up Judaism for atheism is
>"broke."  A Jew who practices another religion is "in debt,"
>which is worse in a spiritual sense than having no religion.

I don't see any relationship between these analogies and our discussion.

But it's not hard to understand why the Orthodox expend so much time and
energy -- and are willing to use very unethical tactics -- against the
relatively small number of Jews who believe Yeshua is the Messiah, rather
than on the great number of Jews who are atheists, socialists, humanists,
etc.  They can co-exist with those lies; they cannot abide the truth.

It's a question of authority, even of power, just as it was 2000 years ago.
Unlike the other beliefs a Jew may adopt, only belief in Yeshua as Messiah
threatens the whole authority structure of Rabbinism, for if Messianic Jews
are right, then Rabbinism is wrong, the rabbis are wrong, the whole
rabbinic tradition is and has been wrong about Messiah, and the whole
hellenistic philosophy of Rabbinism -- along with the power and authority
of the rabbis -- comes crashing down.  It threatens Rabbinism at its very
core, for it takes the rabbis out of the loop: no longer are the rabbis the
"spiritual" go-betweens who alone can tell us what the Tanakh means, what
to believe, what to do, what to eat, and where and how to do it and eat it,
for "I will put My Torah within them, and on their heart I will write it;
and I will be their God, and they will be My people.  And they shall not
teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know
the Lord', for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest
of them", declares the Lord, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin
I will remember no more."  (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

The Orthodox in particular are so threatened by this that they in turn
threaten Messianic Jews with death, strike them and spit on them, shred
their literature, attempt to disrupt meetings and physically drag people
out of them, lie to people and threaten them to prevent them from attending
MJ meetings ... they even held one fellow at gunpoint, demanding the names
of Messianic Jews!  Once recently in NY City, when they were passing out
flyers containing the lie that an advertised MJ concert had been cancelled,
and a woman I know approached them and asked why they were lying when Torah
says not to lie, they got *very* testy!  It seems that God's laws can be
violated when it comes to battling Messianic Judaism!  And the more they do
these things, the worse they look, the more Jews see Rabbinism for what it
is and come to trust in Yeshua as Messiah.

The battle is heating up, but you shall not prevail, for the Stone that the
builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.  Moreover, though you
kill us -- and I'm sure you [Orthodox, mainly in Israel in the future]
will -- we will not respond in kind.  We will not lie, we will not strike
back, for we are constrained by love for you -- and besides, we don't need
to.  We can get together and pray and in this way accomplish more than you
could ever do in a lifetime, because we know HaShem and obey His voice,
and you cannot prevail against Adonai Ts'vaot!  And Adonai will grant
teshuvah to many, many of you who so hate us now it makes your blood boil
in your veins, and one day you, too, will say of Yeshua: "Baruch haba
b'Shem Adonai!"  To this end we gladly give our lives and our last drop
of blood, in order to insure that you for whom Messiah died, you whom the
Lord loves and for whom His promises do not fail -- you will have your
inheritance in the Kingdom of God, and not be as the chaff which the wind
drives away.

And when you receive Yeshua your Messiah, the Messiah of Israel, you
will still be Jews!	:-)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
		Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried;
     /\		... He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was
____/__\____	crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being
\  / || \  /	fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.  All of us
 \/--++--\/	like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own
 /\  ||  /\	way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on
/  \ || /  \	Him. ... By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will
----\--/----	justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.
     \/							-- Isaiah 53
		Bruce Tiffany