Good evening. I oppose and principle this type of debate. Because first of all, Halacha, Jewish law, disapproves of the polemical debates. Okay, start again. I oppose and principle this type of debate. Because first of all, Halacha, Jewish law, disapproves of polemical debates about our faith. Since A, it is basically a race of time. B, another's religion is of no relevance to us. And C, debates may result in negative effects by unavoidably provoking the other side. Secondly, polemical debates have merit only where each side is completely open-minded and is prepared to accept the logical consequences, whatever they may be, even if that means to drop long-held cherished beliefs. In reality, that is of course mostly not the case. And the debates mostly seek to refute the other side and time over it without regard to truth. For that matter, to suggest a debate to determine the truth about a most serious matter with strict timely strains of you speak 20 minutes, 5 minutes, 6 minutes, and the other side, and so forth, is rather an absurd tragic comedy. It's like telling a doctor you are 5 minutes for this part of the operation and 6 minutes for that part, regardless of what you may find in the patient. Thirdly, for Jews to debate missionary-oventualistic groups is especially offensive. To appear on the same stage to debate our individual beliefs creates a perception of two equal parties, two parallel religions as it were. It appears to lend credibility or equal status to groups or individuals whose sole aim in life is to deny and destroy authentic Judaism and to lead Jews astray. This we cannot do and never will do. We despise those who would destroy our souls or spiritual reality, no less than we despise those who would destroy us physically. The interesting debates is not one of pursuing truth, but hopefully to score points for the followers and prospective victims. I may sound harsh, but I'm committed to truth. I greet to come here exclusively for an objective pursuit of truth that I have no choice but to open the frank as opposed to saying one thing and thinking of feeling another. Fourthly, most serious of all, there's an aspect of this honesty in having a polemical debate in 1995 on Christian allegations about Judaism. There have been numerous such debates over the past 2000 years with Christian sea-alogians of Jewish apostates. Generally forced upon us by the dominant Christian powers, most of us dethroned that if the Jews would lose their debate, their communities would be forced to convert, killed or expelled. We had to weigh our words and arguments most carefully so as not to offend the Christian authorities and suffer dire consequences. Oftentimes we suffer the deities anyway, because our opponents were furiously frustrated by failing to present valid arguments. That is another reason why we Jews don't like polemical debates. In short, we Jews have already been confronted by every conceivable question and challenge and already answered every single one of them. We have never lost the debate. Many of these debates have been recorded even by Christians and are readily available in books printed in many languages and found in numerous libraries in addition to numerous polemical and apologetic works composed and printed in medieval and modern times. Practically speaking, this means that there is something basically wrong when somebody still wants to debate us on these issues. If they really want to find out what's what, they can simply go to a bookstore library and find out the answers to all and any of their questions, plus infinitely more than they want to find. Both the Bible and the rabbinic writings have been solely taken apart in these debates with every possible detail discussed. There's a question to motivations and merits of such debates and view them as cheap expeditions for purely ulterior motives. What then am I doing here? A. To make these points public once and for all. B. To give the lie once and for all to the claim that we are by sorrowful to debate or have something to hide. I'm not interested in attacking another religion, which is forbidden by Jewish law, or to time convince questions to change the minds of beliefs, etc. My soul and ultimate goal is to get missionaries of our backs to say to them, leave Jews alone. You have nothing to teach us. You have nothing but your personal beliefs, things that you chose to believe in but cannot substantiate objectively. Does stop harassing Jews to change what you and we know to be absolutely too, the revealed word of God, for something that is no more than your personal leap of faith in the claims and allegations of one or more individuals of the New Testament, which you chose to believe, trust us Muslims chose to believe in Muhammad, Buddhists chose to believe in Buddha, Parsis chose to believe in Zouastah, Mormons chose to believe in Joseph Smith, Moonis chose to believe in Reverend Moon, etc. etc. etc. And to the Jews among USA, return to your fault to your roots, to that which we all know to be too. Stop speculating about concepts and beliefs alien and unacceptable to your Judaism, and get to know about yourself, your heritage, the legacy of your faith, your Jewish link to God. This is yourself for mere allegations and unsubstantiated claims of strangers paying on your souls, and come back to that which we know for sure that it came from God Himself, namely, the Torah and its commandments. Thank you, Dr. Shokhet, Dr. Brown, your five minute opening statement, sir.