Tuesday, March 11, 2008

A Letter from a Rabbi (1)

I have received a letter from a man who calls himself a Rabbi ,

The  letter is in  green  and my answers in Blue and brackets

Hi, thanks for replying.

(Your very welcome and I hope we both can learn something from our dialogue?)

Do you live in Israel? ( Yes ) Is Shabbat out yet by you? B/c by me in Australia Shabbat is out and you no doubt know that on Shabbat we can't use computers b/c it involves fire, which is forbidden on Shabbat. ( My computer does not work on fire it works on Electricity, so you don't use any electricity on 

Shabbat?)


OK for my questions. 

Why do you think Jesus is messiah? ( I think that Jesus is the Messiah because He fulfilled all the qualifications for the Office )
I mean what did he do in his lifetime that makes him qualify?

As you know we believe that He was the Messiah, and when we talk about the Messiah we mean that He is the one anointed Prophet, Priest and King.  In the Tanakh  we find Prophets, priests and Kings anointed, sometimes we can find a man who held two offices but never all three. I believe Jesus was all three.  How can someone be a king and a Priest you may well ask.  Kings come from Judah and Priests come from Aaron, Levi, the answer is simple: the Messiah is the son of David and King David tells us that the Messiah is made a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, Psalm 110,  it is interesting that it is forever because he has an eternal priesthood . 

Messiah according to Judaism, (ie according to the OT - Torah) will be 
 (Its quite interesting that most of the prophecies about the Messiah which we believe are talking about Messiah and you say are speaking about Israel are confirmed in the Targumim and the Midrashim  and pseudepigrapha  and even in the Talmud  which is divided into the Mishnah and the Gemara  also the dead sea scrolls and the picture they paint of the Messiah is nearer to Jesus of Bethlehem than the picture Judaism of today paints .

You made a list below and according to some Rabbis there are to be two messiah because there are as it appears two sets , Son of David and Son of Joseph (Sukkah 52a) two pictures of Messiah which seem to contradict each other . One of a King , a ruler  coming in the clouds of Heaven and another of a suffering Messiah  dying and making atonement (Sanhedrin 98b, Isaiah 53) and coming on a donkey (Ber. 56b), some Rabbis said if we are worthy He will come on the clouds of heaven and if we are not He will come lowly riding on a donkey.   Its not two Messiahs but two comings . 

He is a list of prophecies confirmed in the Talmud *

Gen 3:15           Sot. 49b

Gen 49:10         San. 98b

Num. 24:17       San. 93b n. 4.

Ps. 2                 A. Z. 3a-3b; Suk. 52a

Ps 45                Shab. 63a

Ps. 72:17           San. 98b

Isa. 9:6              San. 94a

Isa. 11:1            San. 93b

Isa. 53               San 98b

Dan. 7:9-13        San. 38b; 98a

Zech  9:9            Ber. 56b

Zech 12:10         Suk. 52a

Mic. 5:2             San. 98a-98b)

  1) a king
2) all kings will bow down to him
3) Get the Jews out of exile
4) bring peace
5) no more war in the world
6) all men will know G-d
7) rebuild temple that will last forever


This is just a tiny fraction of the list the King who will redeem the Jews must do. Clearly none of these Jesus did. ( It’s not so clear as you say  because many Jews have believed in Him and do believe in Him)
So what makes him Messiah?

He isn't the only false messiah in Judaism long history

(Look at others who claimed to be Messiah . What happened to their followers? This Man was and is unique ) 

And he isn't the only false prophet in Judaism long history.  Elijah the prophet had to fight 400 (!) false prophets at the famous story at Mt. Carmel.  ( Those who Elijah fought were idolater and immoral , Jesus teaches to WORSHIP  the one true God and to live according to the moral standards found in the Torah )

So why do you believe in a man that didn't help the Jews in any way?

(He helps the Jews not just in a physical way but also in a spiritual way, he can give Salvation yeshu’ah and eternal life.  His kingdom is a spiritual kingdom and an invisible kingdom and when He returns it will be a physical kingdom, and it will be seen by all .)

(Did not  the ancients say, " The world is to exist six thousand years.  In the first two thousand there was desolation; two thousand years the Torah flourished; and the next two thousand years is the Messianic era."  (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97a)?

)

Yours Truly.

(Thanks I look forward to hearing from you but please ask one short question at a time and May The Holy One blessed be He, bless you and shine His light upon you.)

*the list of references from Talmud taken from a book by Robert Morey