Rabbi Tovia Singer - What Must Happen Before Messiah Comes?

The Jews must repent, must unite, and that triggers the coming of Msiah. There's a unity in the nation today that we've never seen before. And that's what's happening today before our eyes. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Aaron So, [music] and you're watching Para Inspired. My guest tonight is Rabbi Tuvia Singer. Rabbi Singer, welcome to the podcast. >> Thank you for having me. Great to join you. >> Right now in Israel, there's a spiritual awakening. What does prophecy tell us about the spiritual awakening and its connection to the coming of Messiah? >> Yeah. So, this is fundamental. It's almost like the the laws of thermodynamics. They're immutable. So, there's a passage in Tanakh. It's extremely famous. And it ties the Messiah coming to when the nation of Israel unites and repents. And I'm speaking about Isaiah 59:20. We say in our prayers daily, that the redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob that simply repent. That passage, I'm not going to go into it because that's not sure. That passage is so problematic for the church that Paul actually has to change that in Romans because I might as well lay this in because I think it's very interesting here. See, this is like the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. The Jews must repent, must unite, and that triggers the coming of Messiah. That's every everything has to emerge from that point. In Christian theology, that's a massive problem because nobody could repent. No one could adequately atone for their own sins. And you could probably guess why. So Paul changes that to read that the Messiah will turn the hearts of the people which is a complete error. So fundamentally the Jewish people must turn to the God of Israel. And in fact we see uh at the end of Isaiah 60 famously it's a soaring chapter that in its time will hasten it but you have to be the ones that turn back to God. Consequently, God will use any device to make that happen except for remove our free will, which means he in his eternal wisdom can dial up the tension. Hence uh this concept of Messiah, the son of Joseph, which doesn't mean a Messiah. Really, what it means is a time when the Jews are tested with great tribulations and that would cause the nation of Israel to repent. But we still have to repent and in turn Messiah then reveals himself to a nation that has repented. as to what extent to repent and there are some Jews who are not quite there yet or like is it are we perfect or anything and I know that's what people are thinking so I just wanted to comment on that to anticipate that part and I wanted to use Genesis and as an example well Genesis is I could say this with confidence it's the book in the Tanakh that our viewers are more familiar with than any other safer in our holy scriptures. Well, the book of Genesis of course contains the formal events of the creation, flood and so on. But the book of Genesis very much is about God finding a man and then a family from this man with which he can work to spread the light and to become a a kingdom of priests from that family. And we see that God is weeding away people he can't work with. Uh very famously Yeshua. Yes Ishmael repents. Ishmael repents but nevertheless he's not in it. He has a unique separate covenant. Esau God definitely cannot work with him. And we're told that God hated him. That's how the book of Malachi ends. So at the end of the book of gen Genesis it essentially is completed with Jacob comes into view on his deathbed blessing his sons who are the progenitors of the children of Israel. Were they perfect? No. But essentially what comes in view is these are the people I could work with to bring about a redemptive family and to forge a unique nation which then occurs in the book of Exodus. So we had a an extraordinary event, a calamity that uh nothing like that we could have even imagined the hit. And the effect it had on us was it caused the nation of Israel to reorient itself. It changed the world will never be the same. It triggered a chuva. It lit the fuse of repentance in the nation. They can't even make manufactured citiz fringes quickly enough to fill them quickly enough for the amount of repentance that's going on among the children of Israel. And there's a unity in the nation today that we've never seen before. And that we know is necessary as when the children of Israel returning from Babylon Ezra 3:1 were came on rash incidentally as a with one heart as one person and that's what's happening today before our eyes. So, how does the Gentiles, how do the Christians look at the spiritual awakening? And is this a theological problem for Christ? You would think so. You Well, let me let me those are two separate groups. Uh so, and I know you intended for each one individually. So, the non-Jews in general, uh, if you're not Jewish and you want to convert to Judaism, uh, contact the chief rabbinet and see how easy it is to get into a program for conversion. They're packed. I'm not saying you can't get in, but it's very, it's not easy. And this was not the case 100 years ago. I mean, what is happening among the nations of the world is a massive repentance. And it's striking that you would think logic would convey that the Jews are radioactive. Stay away from them. The Holocaust 85 years ago, for some reason, everybody hates them. Um, October 7th. So that's one part. So there is a mass amount of conversion to Judaism now and a very large no movement which is essentially non-Jews that want to join the faith of Israel without joining the nation of Israel. Now with regards to Christians this is really quite striking. So it depends what um stream of Christianity this is. In the Roman Catholic Church and in the Orthodox church, this is very problematic because the church fathers said with one voice that the Jewish people would never return to land of Israel. So this is a point that I want to just uh tease out for a moment. Apostolic churches or denominations. Now, I I use that term because it's important that you know what that means. So, Christian denominations, we're talking about the largest ones, they're called apostolic, which means they claim that what they have is directly from the church fathers who got it from the apostles. Now, this is all nonsense. That didn't happen. And Sunday worship of the Sabbath, that's later. That you won't even find that in the Christian Bible. So it's it is it's not correct but they believe it and that's what's germanine here. So the church fathers to whom the it's not just that the orthodox Christians and the Catholic Christians uh revere or consider them very learned. No they pray to these people. Okay I I want you the viewer to get into your head. Roman Catholics pray to Augustine, bishop of Hippo, fourth and fifth century. It's it's not like there's rever him. Um the Orthodox church, that's the second largest Christian denomination. Incidentally, the Catholic Church is so huge that if you took every other Christian denomination in the world, and that's a lot, and net it up, it wouldn't be as large as Roman Catholicism. So Catholic Church prays to saints, they pray to them. The Orthodox church, they pray to chrystom. So it's not just they rever them. Incidentally, could be said Protestants really hold Augustine in a very high regard. They do like rever him in a way. They look up to him as a great scholar or deeply influential on Calvin. Doesn't matter. But they don't pray to these people. And therefore the apostolic churches are opposed the revolution that's happening here in the land of Israel. And they are confused and offended by not only a Jewish state but that Jerusalem should be in the hands of the Jews. And that's what bothers them when people are screaming about Israel receiving aid from the United States. that whether you think it's a good idea or a bad idea for the Jewish state to receive aid from the United States of any kind, it doesn't matter. But notice what no one's hearing. Like Egypt receives like $3 billion a year in aid and no one hears about that cuz it's transparently nothing to it's to do with Israel, the Jewish part. So as far as the Catholic Church goes, there cannot be a Jewish state. And in fact in 1902 um in the winter of 1902 when Herszel um who was one of let's say the founding one of the founding fathers of modern Zionism approached the pope his name was pas I 10th he gained an audience with pope pas I 10th that's the key how he did it I don't think anybody knows how he pulled it off but he did when he asked the pope It was a fool's errand. Uh would you endorse a Jewish state? Pas the 10th said, "We will not recognize your state. You don't recognize our Lord. In fact, managed to kill him. And moreover, if you Jews come to Palestine, his words, our priests will be waiting there for you to baptize the Jews." That's how far it went. In fact, the Catholics who really can't stand Israel know there a lot of them and they're called radical traditionals. There's they come in variety of unpleasant flavors but one of them is a society of St. Pius the 10th. They love this guy because he was such an anti-ionist. I'm not kidding. A society for St. Pius the 10th and they're big vertently anti-Israel. They hate Israel. A lot of famous people belong to it. It's a nightmare. The key is that the Catholic Church was against the Jewish state because the church fathers said, listen carefully that the Jews would never return. Moreover, the temple mount, this is very critical, was a garbage dump for the church in the petristic period before the Muslims came to the land of Israel in 636. They came they came to Jerusalem in 638. They controlled it. It literally the harabayat the temple mount was a place for refuge for garbage mamish and this was done deliberately. Remember the land of Israel was under the control of the Byzantine Empire mean the Roman Empire means the Christian Empire and they literally they use the temple mine as a garbage dump. In fact, I'll tell you this. When the Muslims defeated the Byzantine Empire in 636, which was a one of the most important battles in in Islamic history, and they came to Jerusalem and they accepted a surrender or the the Byzantine Empire surrendered to them and in 638 they had Jerusalem. Immediately they wanted to know where exactly not only was the temple mount that they knew where they wanted to know where was the place of the Evan Shashia where was the foundation stone where is the stone upon which the holy of holies was built and they took a Jew even Islamic sources have this they took a fellow who was a Jew who converted to Islam and they had him find the place of the temple mount of where the foundation stone is which is the holiest place on earth. This is where Abraham bought his son Isaac for an offering. According to our tradition, the world the was somehow created from the stone. So every no matter where you are, we're facing that stone. So and it was an apostate Jew converted to Islam who shows him where the stone is. I'm not going to go much further on this. And and then later on in the 7th century, they have Jews cleaning off the temple mount for the Muslims. And many Jews then help in clearing the Temple Mount so that they can build the Dome of the Rock, which they began building in 688 and completed in 691. And in fact, Islamic sources even tell us that Jews were involved in the artisan uh craftsmanship that was involved in building the Tomat, they weren't necessarily converts to Islam. So therefore it's very critical to understand that as far as the church is concerned the Catholic Orthodox let's just say the an there are Anglican Zionists but we'll just say the ang general the the return of the Jews to land and is a problem completely and that explains why the building of the BM will turn the world around. Is that because they believe that they are now the Jews or they believe that the Jews covenant with God has been broken? >> Both. Um they they believe that the Jews while once chosen all uh Rome Catholics, Orthodox, they all believe this except for what we know as Christian Zionist. This is replacement theology. So they believe that the Jews were chosen. By the way, mostly believe the Jews were chosen at one time and enjoyed God's favor, whatever that means. But they lost that choseness because they not only uh did not accept Jesus, but they and [clears throat] rejected him, but killed him. We killed God. And therefore, the church is the new Israel. This is called replacement theology, supersessionism, new Israel. Whole bunch of names. They're all the same thing. And therefore, the church is a new Israel. Now this idea is found in the Christian Bible not this explicit and it probably the Paul as an example didn't mean this in the way that Christians take them to me but he it is said at the end of Romans chapter 2 that those who are who outwardly look like the Jews are not the real Jews and it's only those who believe in Christianity are the real Jews. I'm not going to get complicated in Romans. He uses that device that if you become a Christian, you now are ear to the promises is very very clear. So they oppose the notion of Israel having any sovereignty over I mean the Jewish people have any sovereignty land of Israel let alone television build. This is a complete catastrophe for the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Now if I didn't say this I would be remiss. I'm not going to say every single Roman every single Orthodox Christian is anti-Israel. And as it turns out, there are Orthodox priests and people who are very involved who write to me and how much they love Israel. But these are outliers completely. The Orthodox Church really hates Israel. The Catholic Church, there are many Roman Catholics who really do love Israel. And so there are I want to make this clear. So there are many Roman Catholics who just very pro-Israel. They just love Israel. They think it's a great country and they think the Jews should have a state and we should, you know, not not allow a holocaust happen. So they're really nice people who just like that there is a a a Jewish state called Israel. They just are. So that's one level. They just believe it's a good thing to have a Jewish state. Why not? They're great allies of America. But I want to say that but then there are Catholics there are people who are who are literally Catholic Zionists there are them that mean that's next level and I want you to know these there are such people and that is they believe that the Jewish people returned to the land of Israel according to God's providence and they believe that pest the 10th was wrong and they were wrong about a lot of things and they rejected this is not the you know the the this is not the mainstream, but this is not a weirdo outlier group as well. I can think of many Roman Catholics around the world who are genuine Christians either, but there certainly that's not where the Vatican stand. They oppose certainly oppose Israel having any sovereignty over Jerusalem. They want Jerusalem divided not because they love Palestinian Palestinian. They don't care about that. They do not want Jerusalem in the hands of the Jews to have sovereignty over it because the church fathers would said it would never happen. And remember again the church fathers declared with one voice that the Jews would never come back. They would never have sovereignty. And moreover they said I mean Augustine, Chrysum, Sarah of Jerusalem, Sarah of Alexandria they all said this that the destruction of the temple mount was a symbol of that Judaism was destroyed. That's very this is how they thought in that Jerusalem was destroyed in so far as the Jews are concerned Jews have no sovereignty that shows that the Jews were wrong and Christianity is vindicated. This is very critical. It's only when the Muslims came and defeated the Christians, the Byzantines in the 7th century were did the Muslim want to then replace where the temple stood in the holy of holies was with the dome of the rock which signifies on the inside of the arch that Islam and is the final true religion and Muhammad is the final true prophet. I want to just add one other point. The Orthodox Church, excuse me, is more anti-Islam than the Catholic churches in general because the Catholic Church had a second Vatican council in the early 1960s. And that council while not upending replacement theology was very positive and it changed the way Catholics view Jews. And is that had an effect a ripple effect that was not intended by John the 23rd uh and in that it not only nourished phosmitism and u turned back anti-semitism that was part of the Catholic church to some degree but it inevitably uh affected the way many Catholics view Israel and obviously especially in countries like the United states, which is a country that is friendly to Israel. So, it's it's obvious, it's a nobrainer that in the United States, a country whose founding fathers were phositic. Um, it's a country that uh in Jews enjoyed more freedom than any other country in in exile. There's no parallel to it. the Napoleonic period where Jews did enjoy uh freedom and some sense of equality. It was not the same as a Jew in the United States. So we would expect and anticipate in fact find that if you were looking for Christian Zionists even among Catholics the United States is where you're likely to find it. But the Orthodox Church had no second Vatican council uh and therefore it never developed. It's still medieval. And the Catholic Church of course had the second Vatican council which by the way this uh society of St. Pius the 10th and other such radical traditional Catholic groups hate despise it. So as a result there are many Catholics that are pro-Israel and many of them actually believe that it's God's plan and that the church fathers were mistaken about the point of the Jews would never return. Deuteronomy 29:23 talks about the goim seeing the desolate burnt up land of Israel and asking the question and Moshe tells writes in the Torah that the answer why we were in exile was because we have walked away from the path of God's commandments and that he will ultimately restore us and that fulfillment of prophecy right now as the way you describe is what happens right before Messiah comes that there's this awakening And for some for some people in the world they'll embrace this awakening and join and some people will come up against us. Is this essentially what go is? Go Ezekiel 38 and39 is a final war that occurs after the children of Israel come to the land of Israel. So I want to this is going to be very confusing for the viewers and I want to just line this up very carefully. Jeremiah 30:7 is the shower. No question. You're going just so you understand. I'm not into I don't believe in UFOs. I'm not into it's just very very transparent. This is called Jacob's trouble. Okay? It's the worst event in history. Period. Full stop. But it says it in the text. Mayo. So that occurs. You have the Jewish people returning back to the land. Same chapter Jeremiah 30:3 as an example. You have the Jerusalem is liberated is in the hands of the Jews. Zechariah 12. It's just very transparent. Everything I'm saying is very transparent. And the nations come to attack Israel over Jerusalem. And the Jews are empowered. So you and they're able to destroy all the enemies. But in turn, the nation of the world prior to this hated us, despised us. This is part of the essentially the ta that began in Deuteronomy chapter 28. But then the Jewish people turn back to the God of Israel and that's Deuteronomy chapter 30, we have the repentance and the restoration. So while the children of Israel disobeyed God. Now when the Torah used the term disobeyed God like during the Babylonian exile, it does not mean there were there are no religious Jews in God's view during those times. Like during the Babylon exile we had many religious Jews. Daniel was a great it doesn't mean zero people was it means that however at the end of days there's this massive restoration and a turning to the God of Israel. So much so they were told in Zechariah that the Gentiles will come to you and say let us go with you because now we know that God is with you. So there's a massive repentance. Uh October 7th was a very traumatic day, but it's also a day of Messiah, a great tribulation, which turns the children of Israel back to God. And of course, it's very tied to sukus. We're told this explicitly in the Talmud in trackctate mula 31a. We're told this explicitly that sukus is connect to go. In fact, it says in the Talmud explain the bottom of the page that in fact we read the haurra of Ezekiel 38:39 where Persia attacks Israel on Sukkot because it is on that day the language of Talmud that gagumago comes and it was on simus which is the last day of Sukus when when the tragedy occurred and we read it's mindblowing. So this is in the Talmud which is not quite 2,000 years old saying it's going to happen on Sukus and it's going to be Persia coming to attack Israel and the Jews are going to be there. So this is very heavily connected. Uh, I should say as it turns out that it's not an accident that when the non-Jews choose the God of Israel, those who do, they will, we're told in Zachchariah that will celebrate Sukkot with the Jewish people. Zechariah 14:16. So this is not like, you know, some something like poetry. This is very clearly in the text of the non-Jews turning to the Jewish people at the end of days. One last question if I can and that is you mentioned before previously that the Christians some believe that they are replacing the Jews. So why don't they keep Shabas? There's no answer for this. It it's mindblowing. I I hope you the viewer understand the magnitude of the question you've just heard. So the notion in the church that Sunday is their Sabbath is not in the Christian Bible. There's nowhere in the Christian Bible said that the seventh day is no longer the Sabbath, now it's Sunday. If you looked at the 99% of the Christians, 98% of Christian, that's how they behave. But that idea that the Sunday should be their Sabbath was invented was launched by a church father Ignatius in the early 2nd century who was the bishop of Antioch. And this makes no sense at all because even if Christians think somehow that like God won't punish them because they believe in Jesus. So therefore, like they're not under they somehow dodge any punishment. But why wouldn't you hollow the seventh day? Like it it's holy. It just Shabas is intrinsically holy. I I want to make a point that I think even our religious Jewish audience might miss. We're introduced to Shabas in Genesis chapter 2. What's very striking is that that passage which all every Jew knows by heart because it's our kins should recite Friday night. Um God says he set it aside because he rested on seventh day whatever that means but he makes Sabbath intrinsically holy. What is absent from those passages who recite on Friday night is any commandment to keep Shabas because uh the people of Israel haven't yet been created. So that's going to come later where the what the commandments are. But like Shabas is intrinsically and eternally sacred. So why don't Christians go, well, you know, I'm just going to consider Sabbath holy. Now, they're not supposed to be keeping the all the commandments if they're not Jewish. But the commandments are for the Jewish people. Exodus 31:16 and 70. But why don't they just say Sabbath is a holy day? And I consider that a really holy day and God um assigned it that way eternally. It the problem becomes more shocking because we're told in Tanakh that when Messiah comes the Jews will be keeping Shabas. It says it openly in Ezekiel 37:24 open open that they'll be keeping all the commandments. So none of it makes sense. I I hope so. What's funny is that our Christian viewers get us and our Jewish viewers won't get us. I mean, so if Christians hold and for the sake of argument to say they hold that Jesus died for the sins, which the innocent cannot die for the sins of the wicked, but the sake of argument, I just want to put that aside whether you think you get punished or not, keep it or not punished, but why wouldn't you do it anyway? Because it honors God and it doesn't make sense. It it's completely irrational. Now spiritually it does make sense. It's an interesting thing in that because the laws of Shabas only given to Jewish people. So God according to his eternal wisdom actually moves Christianity Sunday and Islam will move to Friday. So Shabas is set aside for the Jewish people as a unique covenant of keeping law. I want to make this uh point clearly cuz I have viewers just don't understand me. The laws of Shabas are a an eternal covenant to God in Israel. Now I know viewers are going to say to me, "What about Isaiah 56:7?" There is talking about the sons of the strangers. That's talking about Jewish people that will keep the Shabas, but they didn't know they were Jewish. That's messianic. it. But the laws of shops is a unique covenant god in Israel. But that does not mean that a man, his name is Tony, he works for the New York Fire Department. He's not Jewish as far as he knows. There's no reason for him to say, you know what, I'm not Jewish and but I know that God made Saturday holy and I just think it's holy and therefore I'm gonna conduct my life differently on that day. That's fine. The only thing that's prohibited because I don't want people is for them to say that the non-Jews are bound by the laws of Shabb. It's not that they can't say because Shab is a holy day. So not say Sunday is a holy day. Now this as I explained many times is a work of God. We see it from my man is the laws of kings. So it is very striking how a Jew who becomes converts to Christianity which is all ideal in like how do they explain why they don't keep Shabas like Jews for Jesus just shut down this cafe in Jerusalem because there were protests and it created a lot of it was very distracting for them. They wanted to convert Jews to Christianity and the whole thing became a big war between secular Jews and who should have not been protesting like that was terrible thing to do. It was a terrible mistake to do it. Very few people did it. So, but Juice Jesus came out and said ah we realize it causes friction so on and we therefore changed our mind about it and it was in all the papers everywhere. Well, like Juice Jesus was given a softball. All they had to do is they could have hit it out of the park and said, "You know what? We went back to the Torah and we found out that you're n you're not allowed to you have to observe the shabas and keep it holy and certainly know how to do and in case any Christian would say we believe in only biblical law and not rabbitic law which they all do. This is a nonse silly because the commandment to not kindle a fire on the Sabbath day like not cooking is explicitly your Torah. You don't need any rabbi for that. the the teaching that on Shabas you're not allowed to engage in commerce is explicitly in at the end of the book of in fact in 13 we're told that people came to Jerusalem buying and selling food on Shabas which is exactly what the cafe did this is like if you don't believe this thing with the cafe is messianic and is there to redirect us then you are blind do you understand the how monumental that is so for whatever reason very interested in telling us that the Zionists are building the second temple, many of them are not religious. Incidentally, if you're a religious Zionist, you know exactly why they're doing this cuz they're pointing ahead to the Zionist who would come later. But let's set that aside. I don't want to be distracted. Literally ends chapter 13 with people coming to Jerusalem on Sabbath buying and selling food. Not kidding. And there's an explosion. What are you doing? Why are you engaging in business uh commerce on chabas? And the context is buying and selling food on chabas. I mean are is are we not being pointed to the messianic age right now as we're saying now? So there's no good answer. There's absolutely no answer that would be satisfying to anyone. Anyone should say okay let's say you're a person is a Christian person should still be saying well you know um God said it's holy. All right. I won't get punished. I don't go to hell far as they're concerned. Why wouldn't I honor it? Makes no sense. There's no good answer. >> Thank you, Rabbi Singer. Thank you for joining us. Uh please lead us out with a blessing. >> Well, we're living in a remarkable time, my dear brothers and sisters. Um I don't know why, but we were selected to be part of this doro. May it be as we approach Rashana. May it be like the generation that approached in Ezra chapter 3. We should be a one people with one heart and may we see the coming of the true Messiah quickly in our time. >> Thank you very much Rabbi Singer. Uh it was a pleasure having you on. Shatva and may we all be inscribed in a healthy new year. Thank you. Kam Lamar. [music]