Missionaries, Cults and Fundamentalists - on The Shabbat Show

[Music] hello everybody welcome to the shabbat show it's such an honor to be with you again another week it's amazing how the weeks fly by we are well into summer school's out and uh we're entering in this into this incredible period of time of the year sunday marks the beginning of shiva asaba time was the 17th of thomas which really is the three weeks this is the period of time in which we commemorate challenges tragedies all that happened to us as a nation post-destruction of the temple one of the things that happened to us is that we were if you will exiled throughout the entire world there's a lot of benefits if you will if you can see the positive because god does know how to run this world in being around the world influence that we can have the things that we've learned the way that we reconnect to our own traditions and our own religion when it's more being pushed but part of being around the world is the exposure to other nations what's amazing and this shocked me a couple of weeks ago if you remember we had a show on converts now judaism doesn't push conversion but people want to come to become jewish great we accept them with open arms we take care of them we worry about them we love them one of the things that struck me when we were there and struck the team and inspire was that some of the if you will the the conversations that we had was from missionaries who were actively trying to convert jews away from judaism now to be honest this is brand new to me i grew up and live in the united states of america born and bred from sea to shining sea and i never encountered it maybe i didn't realize it i never understood it and i never thought like there's enough christians out there like i i never even would never dawn on me that there are people who are waking up in the morning and trying to actively take jews from judaism this is just again this is this is new to me and it only came up on the show like i'm only learning this like live with you like i don't know so afterwards the incredible producers we have in particular the indy fatigue bowler by yaakov ginager suggested wait a second let's go speak to the expert on this there is an individual out there who has dedicated his entire life to [Music] to this subject and tonight's show is going to be about that tonight's show is going to be about understanding what's out there understanding what's going on with individuals trying to actively recruit jews away from judaism of course before we go in i want to just mention that this week's show was once again sponsored as a program of the carl you know goldman center for jewish values dedicated by jay goman we thank jay very much for his consistent dedication and support and sponsorship and we're going to do this week is this this week is something i found to be incredibly fascinating we're gonna have a one-on-one with maybe the world's expert on christian missionaries active investments and i want to just share with you listen i love everybody and i respect every nation and i respect people that are people of faith really i do what's interesting to me is the amount of time effort and money being put into converting jews it's shocking and when you watch this interview you're going to be at least i was shocked our guest for today is a rabbi named rabbi tuvya singer he lives in jerusalem and he's the founder and director of outreach judaism which is an organization dedicated to countering evangelical missionary groups whose target jews for conversion every singer is a renowned broadcaster i served as a rabbi in indonesia before making aliyah his thought-provoking broadcasts are viewed on youtube by millions of people worldwide he's the author of two popular he's author of a popular two-volume book let's get biblical he's a world-renowned public speaker who touches the lives of many audiences worldwide you can check more you can check out more of a singer at outreachjudaism.org singer and i had a chance to spend some time together and i wanted and the team here wanted as opposed to getting him for a few minutes i wanted to really delve a little bit further so today's show you're really going to see an in-depth interview with an individual who is the world's expert in this subject before we take before we go to that interview uh check out this video and then we'll go right into the interview check out this video of rabbi toovey singer check this out if you pray tonight show me the truth and hari krishna came to you would you would you become a hare krishna no so why would you ever ask me to accept why would you sweetheart are we is it the bible or it's our authority or not okay then don't tell me to pray and wait for personal revelation no i'm right i love you adam adam but this one you're wrong on it wasn't fair that's let's be honest this one everything else i had to explain thing it's you cannot say oh yeah only if you come up with my version of yeshua then follow your heart but if you come with anything else don't follow it we don't have that the bible is our authority yes or no is it sola scriptora the bible alone is authority only it so why would you tell me go parade tonight and what happens if i pray tonight alibaba from india come to me what am i supposed to do go shave my head off and move to india no come on we don't do this we are following the bible here no i have to say to you you're right on that one be honest that i'm right we don't do such things this is my friend this this is it that's it that's it no praying to yourself and waiting for revelations nothing so rabbi thank you so much for joining us on the show well it's a pleasure to be honest a pleasure to join you thank you very much so talk can you give us a little bit about how you get into all the work that you're doing it began on fifth avenue and 47th street at midnight i was 16 years old my family was coming back from a restaurant that i believe doesn't exist anymore i think it was called maisha p king whatever it was famous all the time i don't think it's around and i saw these young fellows they were pasting up posters on lampposts in midtown manhattan and it said they had glue they were paid it said come to jews for jesus this tuesday night for a meeting a bible meeting and learn more about your jewish messiah that's what i saw i'm i was 16 years old and i thought i lost my mind to the idea that a jew should become a christian that there are people who are trying to convert jews to christianity who claim to i don't know if they were jewish or not but this was so it was like a bomb went off and i began to argue with them my whole family was there we went out there in midnight in the middle of night and it was a conversation that was going absolutely nowhere very quickly and then while i'm talking to them apparently the elderly jewish man was watching this whole spectacle in manhattan he grabbed me by the arm he schlepped me away from them and he said don't argue with them you don't know enough if you want to do anything tonight that's productive follow them around and as they paced up their posters you slept them down and i was like shocked i mean i went to the mirror chief i had like a very you know very full jewish education mishma and all i don't know enough to argue with these i should be real i was so blown away by this the following summer i visited israel i was praying at the western wall was staying at my uncle lives in the jewish quarter and a fellow came over to me i'm davening there it's the first time i was ever in the holy land a guy taps me on the shoulder i turn around and he asks me do you know the lord like what am i doing here like it was like i'm at the western world he asked me dude no i was i'm what are you doing wait this isn't so i told him i went to yeshiva what are you kidding he said you mean you know who yeshua is and i said to him of course i do i went to yeshiva with him he was in my class i was thinking about yeshua jacob was it it it mamash took me a moment to grasp what was going on there essentially i blew my two-week vacation on him we continued to study when we both returned back to new york area and he did shuver it took a few months i knew then there was no question in my mind that i didn't know it would go to this level like you two i think we have 14 million viewers 41 000 subscribers and books and i didn't know idea but i knew that there was this that this was my tactless this is my purpose is bringing jews out of the church and more importantly preventing other jews from getting involved in christianity the first one is chapter 53 and where is the word meshiach in isaiah 53. mentioned about the messiah was cut off and was despised despised by jewish people actually in all of isaiah 53 you don't have the word meshiac and you don't have the word jewish people but the problem is that christians are not reading isaiah 52. let me ask you a question what is isaiah 52 about i don't know what is isaiah 54 about i forgot oh we're only 53 this is why christians are worshipped what does it say in isaiah 9 8 9 8 you don't know isaiah 10 no no see what happens is christians only know two verses it's and it's almost translated yeshua i know but it doesn't say that there see what happened let me tell you this wasn't there listen christians know 53 but they don't know 52. they don't know 54. yeah but if you look at john chapter 19 37 it says that's not messages talking about roman soldiers and the soldiers hears the sight of jesus you don't know your own christian bible this is a very very serious problem so quickly for the viewers the christian religion is by far the largest in the world one out of three people on this planet identifies as a christian the majority of them are the majority of them are roman catholics who are not interested in converting jews today 75 years ago is a different game and neither are the orthodox christians it's among the protestants specifically the fundamentalist evangelical christians the good ones the ones who are pro-israel these are the ones who are deeply committed to converting every jew to christianity there are about 70 million of them in the united states about one out of five people in the united states lord is the largest voting bloc that a committee is bringing you and those that you love to christianity how big is the problem it's a nightmare the estimates are hard to come by but we we we probably have lost in the united states alone roughly 300 000 jews to the ranks of jews for jesus that would be like the entire jewish population of chicago converting to christianity they if you're in the new york area chosen people ministries is there jews fiji's has an enormous center on 31st street there are over a thousand messianic congregations in the united states these are christian missions devoted to bringing you to the cross the estimates are that they're spending somewhere along the lines of 300 million dollars annually on jewish evangelism and i'll i'll share this with you i made ali i moved there to shirl two years ago almost to the day i made aliyah from indonesia where i spent five years because there'd been so many jews who became christians in the fourth largest country in the world largest muslim country in the world i came you talk about debating christians i came to eritseram in 2018 to debate a christian at the king solomon hotel the place was packed and after the debate it was exciting was that's on youtube a lot of people came over to me who brought their friends with them some of them charade them with paius and the who have been lost to the ranks of jews for jesus i realized immediately that i i knew there was a huge problem in israel not that i didn't know i just didn't know that it was stage four cancer here and for those viewers who are not familiar with this there is no stage five it's a nightmare here you have it if you're in the brooklyn area chosen people ministries has a huge center in flatbush serving the jewish community there the missionary groups all over brighton beach of course evangelizing jews of the former soviet union who are daftko who are specifically very very vulnerable to this it's a problem somebody gatefold why like why why why why is it i mean we're we're a tiny little country why jews versus anybody else like are they coming after us specifically or is it listen you know we're questioning people and you know there's regular people in america and we just happen to be in this space or is it like a specific target towards the jewish people as it turns out fundamentalist christians want to convert the world they they want to convert everybody to christianity that's the great commission found the end of the book of matthew but there is a specific priority placed on converting jews and there are many reasons for this historically and i'll explain the few that are germane to our time to our generation and you the viewer listen like you've never listened in your life so the christian bible says go after the jews that's number one before anybody else the second reason is really more important for us today and that is that although the church wants to convert the world they want to bring the world to the cross the jews play a very important role eschatologically which means in terms of the end times that no one else does evangelical christians believe based on a passage at the end of matthew that jesus cannot make a second coming unless a mass of jews are first converted to christianity jesus we are told is speaking he says i will not return unless you say blessed is he that comes the name of the lord this is a horrific chapter matthew 23 is a flame thrower but the key is that last passage the church understands that to mean one thing that unless the jews are converted to christianity in great mass jesus can't make a second coming we you the jews you are holding up the show and therefore the jews must be brought to the cross before anyone there's a priority place a place on the jewish soul before anyone else and that's why there's some such a push here in israel because they believe the jews have to be in israel for the war of armageddon to occur and for jesus second coming to god to occur and the jews must be brought to the cross that's why there's such scandals going on in israel that i thank god been able to uncover in the last two years since i've been here we had a tv stations that were run by missionaries shut that down we had a rabbi here who's a male and a cipher i mean he's a person who performs circumcisions on a scribe who's really a missionary undercover exposed and completely was in papers all over the world we're stopping them cold wherever we're going but these people know that they have to bring the jews to the cross the so the jews are completely unique here the third reason and i'll stop with this is there's a psychological reason why christians have always been much more interested in converting jews than anyone else and that is that the idea of the coming of a messiah the belief in the messiah is uniquely jewish the idea that a man comes at the end of days and brings in a utopian only the jews believe that and it's only found in jewish literature the romans the greeks the persians they had they didn't even know what that means and the christians claim the church claims that the proof and truth the veracity of the christian claim could be illustrated from your christian bible it's your torah it's your isaiah it's your jeremiah that proves that jesus is the messiah well if that's the case then why is it that the very people that were here in the land of israel 2 000 years ago who were here the chinese the japanese were here no koreans no it was the jews the very people who have a reputation for being fairly intelligent the only people that can read their bible in its original language the only people who were waiting for a messiah met jesus and said we wish he was the messiah but unfortunately is not and therefore it is only the conversion of a judah christianity that can lend any credibility to the cross not to the conversion of a gentile therefore if they can get even one jew they will parade her around like an ornament in churches around the world to give inspiration to the church i can explain more also it bothers the church why religious jews are least likely to convert to christianity and if you're watching this show and you're not in the if you're not the jews i need a free pass here but there is a correlation between the less you know about your faith the more likely it is that you're going to wind up joining jews for jesus and it bothers them because if what i they claim is true then why don't the jews who study scripture join them so this is a huge problem for them and that's why there's such an emphasis on jewish evangelism so when you are in the middle of a debate what what how do you what's what are the key if you will points that you that you're that you're always up against that you try to combat what what are the misconceptions that your if you can i guess highlight them even though we're not debating so we get the benefit of the the the experience what are some of the things that you're going after that come out in debates all what i do is rather than come with an agenda i come with a blank slate and i go second that's the only caveat when i'm debating and i listen to my opponent very carefully and i use whatever he says as a foil to reflect back the truth and beauty of the jewish faith i'm not there i don't want to turn christians into atheists i've accomplished nothing what i do instead is i allow my opponent my interlocutor during the debate to raise issues whatever it is he's going to say that the messiah had to die for your sins and that's what jesus did but as it turns out the core teachings of the church are opposed by the jewish scriptures this is what you think is important let's use that and i'm playing in a sense the black piece in a chess game where i'm responding and that's extremely effective i don't want to impose my view on my opponent i want to listen carefully and respond to those arguments because what you're getting at is at the end of the day the essence of their doctrine is is misconstrued language that if you were able to understand the language the way we understand it um then that would defuse their point is that the essence of it i want to say this first if you're a christian and watching the show i don't mean to offend you but i need to say it the way it is there are a lot of original religions that misconstrue sacred scriptures christianity didn't misconstrue anything it deliberately tampered with the jewish scriptures to make it appear christological it doctored the text deliberately its authors invented verses that do not exist they deliberately molested and you heard that word right these are very strong words they deliberately change the words in tanach all to them so they appear christological there is a reason why in america there's not a single school for children christian school that teaches christian children the hebrew language and they can do it and they won't christian children cannot read hebrew even though christians believe that the hebrew language is holy remember christians believe that tanach our scriptures is the word of god they absolutely believe that so why aren't they teaching children in christian schools hebrew the holy they teach them latin a waste of time all kinds of teaching hebrew and therefore christians are utterly reliant on translations and therefore they're completely vulnerable to what the king james how it renders text mistranslates so these it's not a misunderstanding the or the the people who are on the tragedy is the victims are those who are in the church because they have no access to the original a religious jew we send our kids to yeshiva they can read in the original hebrew in fact they had to hebrew that was it that's how we started out wow so how's it working in israel then i mean in israel they have the knowledge of the hebrew so what how are they using it how is what's happening in israel like are they they're setting up shules that people are coming to and slowly bringing in like how is it working how does it how does it happen it's really it's it's really terrible here there are so many missionary groups here in heritage australia and what they do is they what's a messianic congregation so it's a church designed to look like a synagogue there are no crosses there no celebration of christmas and and they wear key pot and sitzes and the whole thing it's they misappropriate jewish symbols and icons and so you need to respect my right every religious group i do i do i do this is this is a competition of ideas that's right right so that's why why am i letting you right you're not letting me this is not north korea christians have not been in control of standing on that year no this is not your property it's not it isn't no you don't you don't you know that building but you don't you don't know you all know on this this is not no you don't no no that's not true the property line is from here i know that's not true no it is true no it isn't yes it is no it isn't this gate is yours look i'm not i'm not interested how come this is our building what's that this is your building but this is not your building this is this is our building here that's true that is your building that's a a messy let me just do it this way here that that look there that you see again if you could film that a manual messianic gift shop and you see there there's a symbol of a fish intertwined with a symbol of a jewish star and a menorah the fish that you see there is one of the most ancient christian symbols it's older than using the cross as a symbol of christianity so what it is is merging together the fish which stands for jesus christ and the star the jewish star of david in order to produce something where the lines have been blurred and that in effect helps jewish people in their view come to know about jesus or yeshua hamashiach in fact inside you have the lord's prayer it's in hebrew the ten commandments and not only that so then again you've never been inside i i know you think it's my re-dying but you won't find any abu dhabi inside you're welcome to have a look you worship a man of god you believe in the doctrine of the trinity christianity really is appealing the jews for jesus groups appeal to an emotion and you need to understand how someone gets involved in one of these groups if you listen to a christian and their testimony of why they converted they almost always will talk about how i was on drugs i was an alcoholic i was lost i was homeless i was my everything my life just crashed i was the lowest point in my life and then i found jesus and what christianity does is it affirms that it says i know you when you look in the mirror you see something unattractive and they have a point there that sometimes our worst critic is the person we see in the mirror is ourselves and christianity exploits that and says you are in fact a sinner you are in fact hopeless and only through jesus could you have salvation whereas in tanakh it's the reverse the prophets are were committed to conveying to us that no no you don't understand you are created in the image of god let's face it christianity is man's futile effort to create god in his image judaism in contrast was god's successful endeavor of creating men in his image the message of the prophets are very clear you can do it you're created in in the image of hashem return to me and i'll return to you i know it seems impossible this is the haftara we say on every first day isaiah 55 6 through all the way through the end of the chapter that in fact seek god when when you find him call out to him and don't be afraid if you turn back to him he will forgive you but why would you forgive me i feel terrible i feel lost the answer is that my ways are higher than your ways and i would forgive you even though you still have not forgiven yourself sin is not a person it's an event that event happened yesterday yesterday ended last night today is a new day that's the message of the prophets you can come back to me so the christianity and judaism lahavdil are both addressing the problem of spiritual cigarette smoking but christianity is saying quit cigarettes and take crack instead that means a much worse idea judaism says no no you don't need any of it you can come you can live a spiritual a healthy life and that's the attraction to israelis to anyone and that is it's not really the verses the verses only mask what's really going on what you have is a broken heart a s and as a counselor that helps jews in the church i'm watching for that more than the verses i'm listening for that very carefully you know i i'm as you're speaking i'm trying to understand the jewish experience in a christian land right i am a jew i might but i'm a diaspora jew i live in new york so i grew up in a christian world i i live in a christian land and i'm trying to think about what are some of the messages that i have from my environment and how that plays into my jewish background and and i i'm sure that you have a much better um understanding as to how people that grew up just as general americans and how some of their judaism really is just judeo-christianity and not judaism some of their normalized thinking of judaism may not even be judaism right it may just really be judeo-christianity so the answer is that our people are dying for a lack of knowledge for a jew that has a knowledge of the jewish message conveyed to us by moses of blessed memory our teacher so what happened is a kid growing up in new york you know it's hard tough my british accent but i assure you i grew up not far from mcdonald's avenue so what happens is that your kid you grow up in a jewish world but you notice there are christians there at some point you go mommy why do they you know why is there this church on 17th avenue called the holy ghost and they have a statue in the front and why are there christmas trees and santa claus and jesus at some point you just are told of some of the things that christianity preaches that it teaches right and what then happens you then evaluate these teachings in light of the torah and they just complete and we utterly reject it because the idea as an example in the church that you are to eat the body and drink the blood of the messiah called the eucharist found the earliest rice surviving christian writings first corinthians 11. that is insane to a jew the idea that an innocent person should die for the sins of the wicked that's completely opposed by the jewish scriptures human sacrifice the idea of why would people put babies in a fire or virgins are sacrificed in central and south america by the aztecs because a virgin and a baby represent innocence and that's how you appease the gods in tanakh that's the motherload of bad ideas and christianity is the motherlode of vicari of human sacrifice so therefore what is happening for a jew is not that we're more intelligent than the christian is that we are our foundation if it's a proper jewish education is that we first learn about the torah the foundation and then we are later introduced at some point to christianity and we evaluated and utterly rejected something that's completely implausible it's it's not that it's different it's not that it's a different orientation it's completely it's ideas that completely um opposed by the prophets of israel now the christian the christian's a good person but the the christian boy he goes to sleep and his mother puts him to bed and says johnny i want you to know that jesus loves you and that's how it begins they start out with jesus loves you and jesus died for your sins and that's how little girls are put to bed at night little christian children and they grow up with that with jesus jesus jesus at some point they're introduced to the jewish bible at some point they're introduced to jewish literature but what then happens is they simply read the jewish bible through a theologically christian filter so when abraham in genesis chapter 18 encounters three angels that's the trinity the angel is really jesus it just doesn't say it when joshua encounters an angel of the lord that's jesus so what happens is jesus simply interpolated inserted into that age of the lord that appeared to moses through a burning but that's really jesus the the prophet in deuteronomy 18 that's really jesus so what happened is they're just inserting jesus into it and that that's really the mechanics of it's not that one's more intelligent that's why jews look at christians and go i don't know why you believe this and christians go i like you dude i'm talking about the good ones they go i like you guys you're really smart you keep me out of jail and you do my taxes and i have no clue why you don't believe in jesus right and and what you're saying which is you're making a very distinct point that i want to bring up and and which is the idea that someone accepts you for your for your failures it's interesting because in many ways it's a very jewish concept we have a ver we have a very big emphasis on chuva on coming back home on you know everything we do is about chuva everything we do is about repentance our whole beginning of the year is god saying you're never too far you're always what i'm hearing for the first time again to be honest this is my first exposure to this i don't know this i'm exposing myself for the first time with you what i'm hearing you say which is really astute that i want everyone to understand is that what is the jewish what feels like the jewish approach to you're not enough is you could be more you have god inside you i'm not letting you off the hook no i'm not gonna i don't love you less god says to the broken jew it's just that i'm not gonna let you sit on the floor you gotta get up like i know it's hard but you gotta get up and when you make a move to get up i got you back you open up a small little needle hole and i'm going to blow through it i'm going to but you got to come to show and you don't keep it you got to try to be bitter and you got to make amends and you got to give the money back but but you as a human being i respect and love it's just that your actions have to be reformed what i'm hearing you say that people are hearing which now i understand why the jew who feels like he's not enough and is rejected by his own people can hear a message of no you the way you are broken is fine stay broken give me a belief structure if you believe in something else that in itself can save you that is a very attractive proposition to somebody who feels like he can't stand up and be bigger and i understand now why someone who's i would say very jewish you know guilt complex gotta be more like not out to lunch and tuned like i could see so many people that have so many jewish equalities but for one which is the confidence that no matter how far they go god's still pushing them in the back my gotcha i can see now as you're saying it that if there was an option that said no be who you are stay where you are but just believe in this new structure they would say i got it i'm in and that would give them the comfort that they're looking for at a moment where they're on their their own they're on their their their lowest and if that's what's going on right now that i can now understand in myself why that's a massive catastrophe because there are people that are struggling and this seems like a much easier way out than actually doing the jewish route which is stepping up doing the work getting better we just buried a giant rabbi dr twersky a psychiatrist who wrote many many books and all of his books are based on helping people with low self-esteem if you the viewer ask yourself you can make a like a chart in your life think of every bad decision you've made in your life that you really wish you hadn't and think of every wise thing you've made you can pretty much size up that every mistake you've made that you wish you could turn the clock back on was the result of a terrible self-esteem you you you married wrong you just so many decisions wrong because you thought who else will take me who else will marry me who else would want me and it's this this this this mental psychological loneliness that christianity feeds it and nourishes it telling man that you are born in sin that meant that the false baseline is you're going to go to hell and that man is totally depraved in fact that's a christian doctrine that total depravity that there's nothing man could do to save himself that man is infected with a sin that occurred six thousand years ago and therefore you can't save yourself tanakh is saying just the opposite not only that the oldest book in tanakh is the book of job who who's a ben noah and what was he he was a righteous person who was then tempted with god's bishops satan tempted him cast forth blandishments and job never gave up and he withstood the test he never cursed god he came close to cursing the womb from which he was born but never cursed god and and this is an inspiration to every one of us and the very book we read on yom kippur is the book of jonah a story about a reluctant prophet sent to the worst people in the world the capital of the assyrian empire in envy and they were told that in 40 days the city would be overturned they repented they turned back to god and they were forgiven jonah chapter 3 verse 10 if these books stand as a monument against the teachings of the church all the prophets want you to know this you may feel you're hopeless but god is madly in love with you from chapter 14. the context says do not engage in excessive mourning you are children of the lord your god you create in the image of and that's a jew and non-jew every person is a is creating the image of god you can do it i love you you may have given up on yourself but i will never give up on you moreover and i'm gonna say this straight away there are people that you haven't forgiven and you project that onto god and god says don't make me in your image i can forgive you even though the people you haven't forgiven christianity exploits this terror and judaism comes to heal it interesting is it fair to say again i i'm speaking from really from a lack of knowledge so i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm saying in a question is it fair to say that as i hear it without judging each one that the constant of being a man of god it's a son of god if you will has a lot of responsibility and in the jewish faith we all have to be a son of god so therefore we all have to step up whereas is it fair to say that maybe in the christian faith they already have a son of god so the the rest of the the people don't have to be a son of god because they have a son of god so they just have to believe in that son of god whereas in the jewish faith he's saying god's saying no no no you all get to be a son of god so that means you gotta you gotta do stuff like you gotta step up is that a distinction that is driving again i'm not judging a christian i'm saying i'm talking about a jew who is now in a situation where he or she is saying i'm not worthy to be a son of god and so this is my only way up is that what's going on oh come so completely i have a whole chapter on this topic in volume one of let's get biblical so actually christianity and judaism are using the same phrase son of god and as we're using the same term messiah and saying we mean something completely different but we're using the same term and this gets everybody an enormous amount of trouble for christians the son of god means in a greek sense that you're literally a divine like hercules like uh romulus like the fountain like julius caesar and and alexander the great these are divine mortals what tanakh means the son of god is that you create in the image of the holy blessed be his name he loves you you can do it i mean look at these words they're so delicate seek the lord when he's found these are the opening passage of the hafter on a fast day isaiah 55 6 seek the lord when you found him scream out to when he's near why do i have to look for him if i found him why scream when he's right nearby because we feel that god he'll never forgive me what occupies a dark place is there are things i've done there are thoughts i've had if my wife would know she she'd walk out the door in a second but god knows my every thought he'll never forgive me and that's why the prophets are there saying you don't get it will forgive you just come back to him he loves you you're his child you created in his image and you can do it and even though you haven't forgiven yourself who's ready are you ready for that relationship without kojima that's the exact message christianity says you can't do it you're you're doomed and therefore and the wages of sin is death romans chapter 6 and all this what i'm saying to you is this is the precise message that you find particularly in the letters of paul to occupy a sizable part of the christian bible our entire our entire belief in our connections to god is based on scripture and that's what we're going to be looking at it is not possible i would i would posit to you to look at the christian bible and from that you're going to prove the truth you can't you have to go to that text that we all know is the word of god the uncorrupted word of god in that scripture tanakh the hebrew scriptures judaism can be true and i'm afraid christianity could be false christianity cannot be true in judaism false the christian unless you're a mercy unite you cannot believe that the christian bible is true and the jewish bible spoke that's not possible and therefore you have to look at the postulate and what is axiomatic when we want to look at god you cannot look to the book of john you've got to look to the book of isaiah jeremiah and ezekiel you got to look at exodus and jeremiah you've got to look to the prophets of israel and then you examine these claims and ask yourself do the claims of the church match with the hebrew bible are they consistent or are they opposed by the prophets of israel wow are there any stories that you can share with us anything that just comes to the top of you i know i'm not putting you on the spot we didn't prepare this so there anything like debate stories or stories that you have to show us um just people's journeys or the things that you grappled with or places you went to and you were surprised anything that anything anything from the road that you can share with us i got a phone call from a mother crying hysterically her daughter got involved in a juice for jesus group while attending boston university and she asked me to meet her and i went to great neck new york didn't even know they made houses like that this is really a nice place i was like wow this is really really and and this young lady told me her story she was in boston university dating a fellow in medical school there and that's why she went to boston university because he was and one day she said out of nowhere she totally didn't see it coming he broke up with her she it destroyed her life she describes like the lights went out in her world as her world went dark she had mentioned earlier that her roommate as it turned out was a born-again christian who gave her a christian bible on the first day they met she wouldn't read it she knows she's jewish she wasn't that religious but she knew that it's not for jews she tossed it aside but she goes back to a room curls up in a like a baby and this is crying her world everything that meant anything to her had come to an end with the loss of this relationship and as she lay there in bed crying she remembered the bible that her roommate gave her the born again christian gave her and she thought to herself well who knows maybe there's something so she took out the christian bible that she had set aside and she said rabbi i began to read it and i counted a verse in the book of mark in the christian bible that was so beautiful it touched me so deeply it was such an enumerous experience that it changed my life and i knew that this new testament had to be the word of god i knew immediately that jesus was the messiah i thought i read through the new testament a few times and i was curious like what possible the christian bible was so i asked her like what verse is it and i and i handed her across the kitchen table we were sitting in gray what verse did you read so she opened up the and she and she begins to read this to me and it read you shall love the lord your god with all your heart all your soul and all your might from the book of mark this nishamu this broken soul didn't even know that this is the most sacred creed of the jewish people the first passage a little boy a little girl should learn from deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 which we recite should recite twice a day and it's the last words on the lips of a jew when he's 120 years old and she didn't know it she didn't know that the this christian bible quoted wow cortex and a cloud we when i pointed out to her essentially there are true things in the new testament but anything true in the new testament isn't new and anything new in the new testament isn't true that's the key wow the following week on a tuesday afternoon she was on an ll flight she went to nevada and today she has a very large family in in baltimore wow married to a very hush of a man oh it's so powerful it's shocking to me just how people are filling the gap of our lack of education and taking advantage really of our own failures to educate our own tell you this i'll tell you this i'll tell you this i was speaking in fairfax virginia fairfax is right outside of america's capitol i was back lecturing in a temple there years ago and i met a fellow a lot of people there in fairfax area who work for the federal government he's this guy who works for the for the secret service of the united states he doesn't protect the president nice jewish fellow he trains agents how to protect the american currency u.s currency is printed on a special he trains agents one of the mandates of the secret services to make sure the count of the currency defined it and all the counterfeiters to keep it out that's the actually the original mandate and i asked them you know you guys must have this quite a collection of counterfeit money that you've confiscated over the years and the new recruits they probably have to study all kinds of counts of money and stuff he said rabbi that's really not the way we do it here the way we train our agents how to detect counterfeit money is we want them to know what real money feels like and looks like i didn't know this real american currency is printed on a paper material there's nothing like it in the world that american government makes sure that and there are fine line engravings the agents learn the where the shifting water marks are much green and blue red fibers are in the paper these agents learn everything there is to know about real currency why because you take an agent with that kind of training and you dare put a count to fit in their hands they'll know it immediately what am i saying to you the viewer listen carefully am i suggesting that every one of you have to stop no stop studying the gospels and know matthew by heart in order to resist the blandishments of jews for jesus you're wasting your time know the real thing know your judaism know your own torah know your own prophets know the foundational core iconic messages of our prophets our prophets are the greatest men and women that ever lived if you know your judaism no missionary will be able to rob you of your faith with your creator what a charge rabbi thank you for your uh for your leadership for your time for what you do for putting yourself out there i can only imagine you know what risks that you take and what sacrifices that you make throughout your entire life to to do what you're doing and we appreciate it and we thank you for who you are and for shining your light on this world thank you for having me i enjoy this thank you you know one of the things i took away from this interview and that i want to leave you with today is the power of pride you know it's interesting that wherever singers said more than once was people are fighting for the jews people are fighting for your soul the christians believe that our soul is valuable the christian christians believe that our heart and where we dedicated to is valuable do we believe that do we appreciate just how valuable our own soul is do we appreciate just how valuable the education and the inspiration and the dedication of our own hearts towards god towards judaism and the hearts of our own brothers and sisters wherever they are what struck me throughout this interview was the incredible emphasis that people are placing on the dedication of a jew to a god are we dedicated to god do we appreciate just how valuable it is that people around us are fully dedicated to god fully get dedicated to our beliefs you know in many ways that's what shabbat's all about it's god's way of saying slow down and realize that what you dedicate your life to is who you are and if your life is dedicated to the six days of the week you're never going to stop and if you know people because we all know people whose lives are so dedicated to moving that they can't slow down it's impossible i tell you we do these trips the trips to israel which you know about it shocks me sometimes when i'm speaking to certain guys and i'm saying look like i get it like you're in jerusalem just how about leaving your phone in the room for a night they're like nah i can't why because what if what if i'm like one night disconnect you're not they can't they can't they can't they can't they can't they're wonderful they can't they can't let it go they're so used to doing doing responding being available going they're so used to so we're all like this and god says here's what i'm gonna do for you on shabbat i'm gonna shut it down you know why because i need you to know that what you're dedicated to is deeper who you are is not your work who you are is your soul and that soul needs time to breathe too if you dedicate time to me god says we're going to create a relationship that's indestructible so much of the interview i'm thinking about the more passionate we are the more prideful we are the more we know who we are the less we are we are impenetrable and maybe all the money and time and attention that's being put into other people making us believe in things other than our own faith should remind us just how important our dedication to our faith is just how valuable our opinions are just how valuable our heart is just how valuable our souls just how valuable a time a week that we have to just dedicate it to something more than ourselves but if somebody sees the value in us why can't we see the value in ourselves but take this seriously we have to share our judaism with other people we have to dead it we have to strengthen our judaism into ourselves we have to become strong proud impenetrable jews when we see another jew out there who isn't strong we see the value in lifting them up and strengthening their faith because we're one people and we're a small people we need everybody and if there are those that are trying to pull us away we need to do is hold tight together and get stronger i think that's what god wants from us on shabbat slow down hold tight and get stronger so on behalf of me and mine to you and yours i wish you a shabbat shalom may we realize how valuable we really are and may we strengthen ourselves in each other so that we never have anybody else convincing us otherwise i hope next week to see you in jerusalem but if i can't hope to see you right back here so we have all of us here have an incredible weekend look at chavez and of course shabbat [Music] shalom [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music]