Scary Worldwide Phenomenon Spreading Fast

Hey, you. Stop right there. There's a phenomenon that's spreading like wildfire. This is not a normal phenomenon. This is something very, very divine. And as time has gone on, it's only spread more and more. This phenomenon that I'm discussing with you has spread probably faster than the coronavirus. And I want to make sure that everybody's prepared for it because if you have not encountered it yet, it is coming your way. This phenomenon is called anti-Semitism. Let's talk about it. Hey, welcome back to the Knees in Black Show, where on this podcast we discuss our faith, we discuss growing and becoming complete and true servants of God, even in a world that abhors him, even in a world that is against him. We will stand up and we will fight for what's right. And that's what this podcast is all about. So, discussing today a topic that everybody is very familiar with right now. If you haven't been familiar with it, it's because you've been living under a rock. And it's anti-Semitism. But I don't want to just talk about this. I want to talk about it from a biblical perspective. We need to be able to see this as the phenomenon that it is. This is something that is divine. It's been going on forever. We're living in a time right now where there are many Jews who have only thought about or only looked This is something that has affected their ancestors or their their, you know, their grandparents even, but never thought that they would be living in a time where they would be able to see it, you know, face to face like we are seeing it right now. Now, I want to discuss something straight out of the back. I'm 38 years old. So, that means 38 years of my life I've been black, African-American, whatever you call it. I call myself black. I'm from America. That's what I grew up knowing, so I I'm more comfortable comfortable with the term black. However, I've been Jewish for about going on 12 years. And I've said this publicly in other forums, and I'm saying it here on my own podcast because, you're my audience, so I'm making sure that you guys understand how I honestly feel. I have had way more anti-Semitism in the last 12 years than I've had racism in the last 38 years of my life. And that's very, very important because when I say that this is a phenomenon, it's something that really, really doesn't make sense. That the whole entire world, bar none. I'm saying maybe there's some places, but ultimately most places have some type of opinion on the Jewish people, whether good or whether bad. There's never been a time, you know, I I'm from Seattle, Washington, so there was never a time I remember on my way to synagogue on on a Saturday morning that anybody ever yelled at me on Seward Park Avenue, "Oh, you black this." "Oh, you inward." "Oh, you this." I I just can't remember a time, not only when I was on Seward Park Avenue, but anywhere in the world that I've ever been, that somebody has said something to me outlandish because of the color of my skin. As opposed to when it comes to anti-Semitism, I've been everywhere. And I'm not going to say in every single place I've encountered it, but I've encountered it a crazy amount of times for a person who myself wasn't born Jewish. We'll get into that, what brought me to Judaism because it's very, very important for this podcast today. However, for a person that wasn't even born Jewish, I've encountered so much anti-Semitism. And some of these things you could see yourself. You could see, and I don't know if everybody's the trolls or if they're if they're bots. I'm sure some of them are. There's some ways to tell if whether or not they're bots. Even if you look at my socials, right? Which many of you should are already see because you should already be following me. So, you many of you will see on my socials, on my Instagram, whatever, the amount of comments, uh Twitter, whatever it is, that come from people that are so anti-Semitic and so anti-Israel for no reason. I can be I can be walking a dog. I don't have a dog and I and I and if I did, I probably wouldn't walk it and then they probably can take my dog. But, I don't have a dog. But, if I was walking a dog, all I have to do is put up a a picture of me or or a a video of me and I'm going to get I don't know how many 37, you know, free Palestine, you baby killer, you this, you that. And I don't understand it. I'm being honest with you that this is a phenomenon that I don't All I have to do is breathe and I'll be called some type of anti-Semitic slur, whether it's on the comments pages, whether it's messages uh that people are trying to send to me or whatever it is. So, this is something that the world has never seen before and and I'm not always trying to compare, but I just That's I, you know, I'm a part of both minority groups. So, for me, it's very, very important for me to be able to give you that, for you to understand. Now, many people have been trying to define what it is to be anti-Semitic. What is anti-Semitism? I don't know if I can actually define it as much as I can tell you its symptoms. Sometimes, we can't define exactly what it is. I had a friend who had a surgery the other day and it was a very well-known, you know, surgery due to something that, you know, people go through medically. And my wife asked me, "What is that?" And I tried to explain it to her, but the only way I could really explain it to her was to tell her what the symptoms of it is. And what's interesting about anti-Semitism that I don't find by any other bigotry, any other race racism or any other hate towards another group, is that anti-Semitism usually turns into some form of action. You know, there were times in American history, even during the Jim Crow South, there were times, uh you know, even after that era, or saying growing up that I'm sure that there were a lot of things that were said inside of people's living room. And I'm talking, you know, for you know, in this particular case, you know, we'll say a white living room that people may have felt about, you know, their black neighbors or counterparts or whatever, different things like that. That was said usually privately. Also, the only thing I would say that is probably different that I will will be honest about, we weren't living in a time where there was social media. But I think in general, the way that people were years ago, they were more cautious of the things that they would say publicly and the things that they would keep private to themselves. So, a lot of times people didn't really encounter you know, face-to-face racism. I'm not talking about the Jim Crow era, I'm talking about these these eras after, you know, these the 90s, the 80s, whatever the case. I'm saying the pre-social media age of what we've been dealing with. Most people, if they had an opinion about anything about Chinese, about whatever, you know, it usually didn't make the public forum. And people would feel uncomfortable and rather they would feel very embarrassed that if they did say something and it got out, how they would be looked at. Today, we are facing a brazen generation where people don't really care about the things that they say and how that's going to affect another people. Specifically with anti-Semitism, the difference between that, and I've seen a lot of other influencers and people say that, you know, we all we can we can attack the Jews just like we can attack any other race or you know, they I I don't think the word is attack, but we can be critical, that's the word. Be critical of the Jewish people, we can be critical of Israel in the same way that we do the black community. Look how critical we were against Black Lives Matter or or other things like that. There's a big difference. Because being critical of other groups, other races, um other ethnicities, other cultures, does not usually you It does not usually lead to a worldwide disdain and campaign of hatred towards that particular group. It It if anything, it could be very localized against the adversary group. It could be very, you know, localized to a certain uh culture of people, the disdain that they have for the other culture. But when anti-Semitism is brought into the to the picture and this, you know, critical Now, I'm not saying you can't be critical of Jews and you can't be critical of Israel. But it's not necessarily the same thing. And no matter who the group is that a person's being critical of, a person always has to ask themselves, if them criticizing that people, that nation, that whatever, where is it coming from? Why do I feel the need to be critical? What and and how well-versed am I in on this particular people or this particular group? And this goes to everybody, not just anti-Semitism. Person usually doesn't think about like, where does my strong opinions about this other group come from, right? It's very, very important to understand what's going on. With anti-Semitism in particular, usually leads to Now, I I've never seen somebody say, you know, uh first off, something bad about me because of color of my skin, which leads to, you know, 10 other black people being mugged, you know, and uh in in in the Bronx or any other place or are beat to smithereens or every time that, you know, black people on and multiple uh uh different communities come outside, they see nooses and and and, you know, burning crosses on the front lawn. We're not We're not dealing with that today. During the Jim Crow era, there was some instances of that. That's going to be for a whole different podcast, but the truth of the matter is is that when it comes to anti-Semitism, what you see is that in Germany, there's a uprising. In Amsterdam, there's uprising. And many of the Arab nations, there's uprisings. All throughout Europe, the United States, college campuses, we're seeing this spread very, very fast. Do in large part because of social media. And because of social media and its widespread, allows for things to get out there faster. But the question is, why is everybody hating on the Jews? What is the real question? And I really want to get into that. So, because the reason why it's important for me is because Jewish suffering is one of the biggest reasons on why I converted to Judaism. It's one of the biggest draws that there was for me to realize that the God of Israel was the one true God. And I'mma tell you why. I grew up in Seattle, Washington. I was very, very exposed to gun violence and different things like that. Hey guys, what's going on? I want to tell you really quickly about an organization here in Ramat Beit Shemesh named Colel Korel. Colel Korel is an organization that provides essential support to kids with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. They do everything from making sure that they have personalized lesson plans, all the way to advocacy, which is very important. A lot of these kids are falling through the cracks in the regular system, and a lot of them are misdiagnosed. But Colel Korel, through their assessment, has found that most of the time it's just learning disabilities. Unfortunately, because of the war, people have reallocated their funds to different war efforts and misplaced families, rightfully so. But unfortunately, what it's led to was a lot of these kids falling through the cracks. And now this wonderful organization is at the brink of turning kids away. I will never advocate for something unless I was able to personally tell you how amazing the organization is. I want everybody that can, please go to kolcare.org and make a donation. We must keep this organization open and running and being able to service all the families that they service. For a long time, when it comes to organizations, many people have asked me about unless I know personally that I'm dealing with real people, I will never ask my audience. So again, please make a donation today to Kol Care, that's k o l k o r e h dot org. And I can honestly say that you will be changing lives. Okay, back to the show. For the whole entirety of the story, I'm going to have to refer you to other podcasts. But my introduction to religion was Islam. My grandfather was a Sunni Muslim. He taught me how to pray in Arabic. I prayed with him five times a day. Uh unfortunately, he he lived with us for about a year, year and a half or so, um before he ended up going back to prison. That's where he was for most of his life he had he he had he had spent in prison. I think that's initially where he converted to Islam, um which is a bit different because there it's well known that a lot of African Americans or black men who are in prison would convert to the Nation of Islam, but not necessarily to become a Sunni Muslim. But anyway, that was what my grandfather did. He came to live with us and he taught me how to pray. I would go with him to the mosque on Fridays. But one of the things that he did to me, did for me, I guess I would say, during the holiday season from the prisons they would send gifts from family members to loved ones. And my grandfather wanted to get me something, but because he, you know, was a Muslim, he was a Sunni Muslim, there weren't a lot of options for him to actually send me things. He couldn't send me a Quran, he couldn't send me other things. So he wanted to send me something, but he didn't want to send me anything that would lead me to Christianity because, you know, his family he had come from Christianity and he was a very devout and strong Muslim convert, but he wanted to give me something that had something to do with spirituality. That's what ruled his life as a Sunni Muslim. So, he sent me a DVD called the Prayer of Jabez, Yabetz in Hebrew, which is a very, very interesting prayer. You have to see it in the book of Chronicles. I won't go in depth into the prayer, but I remember watching the DVD over and over and over again. And I don't know what it was. I was heavily, heavily, heavily drawn to prayer for some reason. Um I I watched this and it went into me. It gave me desires for spirituality. This is the earliest time of me remembering anything spiritual taking place in my life was watching this DVD. And I remember watching it over and over again and then trying to find a Bible that would lead me to, you know, help me to find where the actual verse was that this prayer took place. And then I would start praying it. Now, I was maybe 7 years old or something like that uh when I had this, but that was the beginning. So, then my grandfather comes to live with us, teaches me Islam. I'm with him, going to the mosque with him. And then he ends up going back to prison. Unfortunately, unfortunately, he violated his parole and his life expired in prison. So, I went on with life becoming a complete product of my environment. Everything that I saw, I did, ran with street gangs, got into a lot of trouble, was expelled from the school district. I found myself in a place where it was becoming very, very dark. And I was running with all the wrong people and I found myself in all the wrong places at all the wrong times. So, finally, I one summer was talking with a friend of mine. I had already recorded maybe two songs already this summer. I was already into rap and everything at that that age. And a friend of mine invited me to go with him to after school program that was at a Christian camp. So, I go to this after school program. I develop a relationship with the people there. They had a hip-hop program. That was a that was a major draw that I was going to be able to record and make music. And I'm going there. It was a Christian organization. And being there at that place saved my life. I would say literally saved my life because of where I was headed was down a very very very dark path. And I've always even still today, no matter how much of a, you know, God-loving, uh, you know, Torah-thumping Orthodox Jew that I am, I have a major um, love and hakaras hatov as we say in Hebrew, uh, major sense of gratitude towards the people that were in my life at that time because it was very very important that I met those people at that time in my life and went through what I went through at that time. So, after being there for maybe about a year or so, I got invited to camp. I end up going to camp. It was like a missionary camp. I was introduced to Christianity at that time on a very very high level, right for me at that point cuz I wasn't religious and didn't have any religiosity so much in my house, um, apart from the time that my grandfather was there. So, being exposed to that and that love that I had towards, um, that that seeking and finding and and questioning and trying to enter into a world of spirituality, which I had developed when I was young when I got that small DVD, everything started to flow again and started to come back. And that really was the beginning of a thriving and real relationship with God. So, I I became a reborn-again Christian. And I it was great for me. Also, it was crucial because I was going into high school. So, then I went into high school and I had a new lease on life, I would say. So I thought that, you know, for sure I would never go back any, you know, ounce to the life that I was living before or getting in trouble or anything like that. So as I get into high school and I'm, you know, exploring my spirituality, I'm very, very strong and active in all different type of things in terms of a ministry and Bible study groups and and I was a summer intern for a lot of the camps there. And I became really the poster child for the organization because I was bringing so many different kids from my high school into this organization for different fellowship meetings and groups and and leadership programs. So fast forwarding a bit, I'm going to go through the whole story, but I found myself taking a major backsliding right after I got out of high school. I lost my mother to overdose, which is really one of the biggest things that really crushed me to some degree in my heart. At least, I wouldn't say crushed me, but it put me in a place to where I was more sensitive to perhaps hear that God may have been calling me in a certain direction. So after I lose him after losing my mother, I I sort of try to close myself to some degree to the to the people that were around me and and only focus on music. I was very, very heavily involved in music. By this time I had some interest from major record labels. And so I really got into the gangster rap even more and more even though that was in complete conflict with where I was in my life at that time. At least where I thought myself to be. So I sort of going into that led me back into that place. So I'm now in a in a even more confusing place probably than ever before because I was very unsure about who I was. So I ended up after this getting into an with another artist which led to a kill or be killed situation. Like I said, you'll hear this in a different podcast. And my life at that point for me is hanging in the balance. I need to figure out what I'm going to do because either I take this person's life or they're going to come and take my life. And I remember being in my living room and falling to my knees and I started crying and I just started praying and praying and praying. I started crying. And this was a deep pain for me because you know, I was personifying a a a career uh a person um that wasn't really who I was at that point in my life. So, I felt even like a counterfeit. I felt very very silly. And so, as I'm praying long story short, I I ended up getting out of the situation with the other person. We talked and and everything got put behind us, but now I'm left with you know, I was praying so hard. I have such a thirst now for spirituality in my life and I want to get even closer to God. So, I naturally picked up the Bible, start going through the Bible. And I had brand new eyes because there was no one around to tell me how to interpret verses, what it was and anything like that. All I had was a major drive to get close to God. And one thing I connected to more than anything else was prayer. I don't know, for whatever reason, prayer became my thing. And I started reading the Bible and I was reading and going through it and as I got to the prophets I noticed something. And this is going to connect to this phenomenon. What I noticed inside the prophets was this major rebuke against the Jewish people. And it happens over and over again. Even it it really starts from the Torah itself. Heavily throughout Deuteronomy, you'll see that Moses is rebuking the Jewish people, called them stiff-necked people, telling them in the future you're going to reject God. This repeats itself in the book of Joshua. He says that that one point you're going to turn away from God, you'll serve the gods of others, you'll leave the Torah, and and this will happen, that will happen, this will happen, that will happen. So, now I'm starting to learn and I'm going through now all the prophets. The truth is that I had never learned up until that point anything about Jewish history. I didn't know anything about it. I grew up in the Sewer Park area where there was a lot of Jews, probably the largest Orthodox Jewish community for sure is in Sewer Park. I grew up seeing Orthodox Jews, but I did not know anything about Jewish Jewish history. So, I start doing my research because I'm reading the biblical narrative. I wanted to see if all these things actually happened to the Jewish people. Now, there was something that I already knew that there was a such thing as anti-Semitism. I didn't know it as anti-Semitism, but there was something that you would hear here and there sly remarks of the Jews, but I didn't really understand. I never been face-to-face with actual anti-Semitism. So, I started doing my own research. And what I found was obviously staggering. Now, I'm telling you I made it through public school most of my years of high school. There was maybe 2 years I was expelled. I went to alternative schools, but there was still no excuse because I was on a normal curriculum. I had never heard of the Holocaust before. Yes, I'm embarrassed to say it as an adult, uh but I I had never heard of the Holocaust. I was 20 years old at this point now. And I never heard of it. I started learning about the Holocaust, the the Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition, and all the different pogroms, and everything that befell the Jewish people throughout the millennia. And when I started to see that, I started to wake up and realize the divinity of the biblical of the biblical narrative and the biblical prophecy, what would be of the Jewish people? That it become clear to me that it was well known from the prophets and many different other places, some of them we'll go over, that in the last and final days before the era and the coming of the Messiah, that the Jewish people would be surrounded by their enemies. That the nations that surround the Jewish nation will be enemies to the Jewish people. So, that was very, very clear. Now, how can you say, how can that bring you to God? Like, why would that be the one thing that would bring you? I mean, it's pretty obvious, like, you know, okay, that's great. You see that that's that's one way, but for me, I was perplexed by this. I was taken aback that the Bible was able to describe with such accuracy the different things and curses that would come upon the Jewish people if they rejected God. But, it didn't stop there for me. Hey, what's going on? I had to stop before a second because I want to tell you, if you like what you're hearing, and if you're getting value from what you're hearing, please like and subscribe to the channel. It helps us get this out there. And ultimately, you know what we're trying to do, spread the name of God all throughout the world. So, like and subscribe, hit the notification bell so that anytime I put out a video, you are going to be informed first. What changed things for me was that the fact that the Jewish people had not only suffered and suffered for thousands of years of exile, but they were restore restored to their home with the same national identity intact. The Hebrew language, the values, the culture, it's all there. Back in Israel. And what makes this is a bigger phenomenon even than anti-Semitism is that the Bible predicts this. Not only did it predict the anti-Semitism the Jewish people will have, I'll cause it not to rain on your land, the land will become barren, you'll be driven to uh to the other nations of the world. When you get to those nations, those nations will chastise you, they will hate you, right? And at some point, there's a shift in the relationship. God says he will start to tap on the heart of the Jewish people and wake them up and they'll realize all of what they've done. They'll call out to God and slowly but surely, after a very long time, it says in the book of of Hosea, that the the Jewish people would dwell for a very long time without a king, without a without a sacrifice, right? So, we know that this is going to be a very long period of time that the Jewish people are away from their land. And then God says, then I'm going to bring you out from all those nations and all those lands, and he's going to re-establish the Jewish people in Israel. This is insane because when you look at this, we are living in a time that right now is like biblical prophecy is screaming and yelling at every single one of us and any person who believes in God, who who who knows that, you know, God's word and and and the Torah is true. We'd be sleeping if we didn't recognize this and we didn't think God that we were living in such times to be able to actually witness things that were foretold from many years ago. So, this is the one reason I would actually say why I never will understand a person who calls himself an atheist. Not just an atheist, a Jewish atheist. And this is the reason why it would never it would never make sense for me because this is probably the biggest oxymoron that there could possibly be in the world. And I'll tell you why. All of biblical prophecy points to one or two things. There's many different things discussed about what will happen in the final hour of humanity. And I'm talking about those last days. And every single one of the prophecies, bar none, prophesy about the future being revolved around the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, the Jewish state, and the Jewish king. Please God so. So, the whole entire story begins and ends with the fact that there would be a Jewish people. That's all the biblical prophecy, bar none. Everything surrounded surrounded around Israel, and I invite anybody to look just to check if you want to. All throughout the biblical narrative, all surrounds the Jewish people. So, the reason why the Jewish atheist becomes oxymoron is because the Jew becomes the very proof to God, to the rest of the world, that he exist. So, the rest of the world has been busy for many years trying to use science, biology, different things like that to disprove or to discredit God. But nobody ever asked God how it is that he can prove that he exist, right? Obviously, because they they don't believe. But we don't think did God ever give a way that we would know that he exist? Did he ever leave some type of way that we would know? I mean, after all, he's God, right? So, this is amazing if you think about it this way. If all the biblical prophecy revolves around the fact that there's a Jewish people at the end, and God that same God tells us that things would actually befall the Jewish people that actually be befell them. And it's over thousands of years, so you can't say that anything is rigged because, first off, you know, if you look at any religious text, most people would never say anything bad about themselves or the religion or the people of that religion. Everybody who comes from that religion would be generally a righteous person unless they are the betrayer of, you know, whoever the dominant figure of the religion is, any person of that religion or that faith is generally in all religions spoken about with the utmost respect and the utmost admiration and and never did a does anything wrong and they are the state of absolute perfection. It's not only in my Christian and Muslim circles, it's all religions, right? Judaism is the only one that spins the majority, probably, of all the for sure all the prophets and even the Torah itself labeling the mistakes of the Jewish people, talking about the the downs and and how imperf- imperfect the Jewish people are. It's the ultimate story of grace. This is the ultimate story of return and restoration. It's the fact that God says to the Jewish people, no matter how far you go, I will always be there for you. I will be a father, I will be a king, and ultimately my promise is true that I'm going to bring you back to your soil. And this becomes the way that God says. So, I'm going to show you just from a few different verses how God says to the rest of the world that I exist. So, it says in Ezekiel 36:23-24, says, "I will sanctify my great name." That means God is going to sanctify comes from the word to to separate, right? The mikadesh, I'm going to make my name holy, right? That is, it's been desecrated amongst the nations, which you have desecrated among them. Saying to you, oh Jewish people, you when you were in those nations, uh you you failed to to respect me in the way that you should have. You you failed to respect my honor my name. So God says, "Listen, I'm going to do this once and for all." Then the nations, he says, "will know that I am Hashem." How How is that? How will the nations know that I'm God? Not through science, not through biology. This is how the nations are going to know. The word of the Lord Hashem Elohim Hashem God when I become sanctified through you, Jewish people, before their eyes. That means that I'm going to be separated by you. In the beginning, God's upset that his name was not being carried and honored in the right way amongst the nations. But then that very through the very same people that desecrated the name of God, he says that I'm going to flip it and through you sanctifying my name and making it holy, I'm going to show the rest of the nations that I am God. How? For I will take you from among the nations and I will gather you from all the lands and I will bring you to your own soil. The rebirth of the nation of Israel here, in Israel, is the for sure fire way that a person should know that God is real and God is true. Moving on, Ezekiel also says in 37:28, he says, "Then the nations will know that I am Hashem." How will they know? Who sanctifies Israel? When my sanctuary will be among them forever. Sanctuary meaning obviously the the temple when it's being rebuilt. Uh also bringing of the Jewish people, bringing back and restoring the the sanctuary. Isaiah 52:10, Hashem God has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations. And all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. So once the nation start to see the salvation of the Jewish people, I mean, the returning of the exiles and the and the and the and the gathering of the Jewish people, which is only becomes a spectacle becomes something to see only after the nations have seen the suffering already of the Jewish people. But once this redemption begins, then ultimately that is how the nations are going to know that God is God. This is This is why the idea of a Jewish atheist doesn't work because God's entire his business card, his whole entire integrity of his existence, he places on the Jew. This is This is a phenomenon. This And we're going to discuss more and more how this how this is led to anti-Semitism. So, I will make my holy name. This is Ezekiel 39:7. I will make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel. And I will no longer allow my holy name to be profane. I is really really does not like when his name his sake is being profaned and not being upheld. So, we see this pattern. It says, "Then the nations will know that I am Hashem, the holy one in Israel." The Jewish people are going to be and are the indication of the fact that there's a God. The existence of the the Jewish people, the thriving of the Jewish people, which is a very very small percentage of people actually in the world, but seems to be on every single news station and always on the radio or something. It's always in some type of headlines. Nobody ever thinks about this that this is the biggest phenomenon in the world, anti-Semitism. Why do so many people If you look at this, I want you to think about this. How you know that this is purely divine. You can take the far right and you can take the far left, who can't seem to agree about anything, right? One thing that they can agree about is that they hate the Jews. They're anti-Israel. They're you know, there's some place if there's no place at all where they see eye to eye, where they begin to see eye to eye is their hatred for the Jewish people. So, some person who's not got all the screws on right, for sure not spiritually, goes and looks at look at that you must be that bad that if you know, if extreme and that extreme both hate you that you know, what does that say about you? The truth is what does it say about the individual's relationship with God, with the God of truth? Is it the God of truth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has put something out in the world. And what I'm going to say is going to be a very, very, very bold statement. I'll say it now, I'll say it again at the end, because I want you to live with this. We're going to see and we're already starting to see that God is starting to separate the nations from those who will follow him, who will believe in his word, and and part of believing in his word, a major part of believing in Hashem's word, and believing in the Torah, believing in the prophets and biblical prophecy is which how one either treats, looks at, or um deals with the Jewish people. And this comes completely from the Bible itself. Not only does God say it to Abraham, he also says that he says it twice. He says it twice to the people. He says that I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you. So, he says it once to Abraham, and he also says it to the whole entire nation. So, there is a very, very clear perspective that God is putting out into the world that no matter how things may look, no No how many conspiracy theories you look up online, no matter how much you are getting into the newspapers and everything else, be very, very careful about who and where you align yourself when you are on this journey because God is very clear about where he stands. And not only is God very clear about it, I had to go to this because one of the most profound and game-changing um discoveries that I found along my journey didn't even actually come from the biblical narrative at all. It came from Mark Twain. Mark Twain has a few different essays that he did where he's covered the Jews one in the article in the paper and I from my experience and from what I know of Mark Twain, he wasn't like this super like Jew lover. He's not He doesn't have a whole lot of uh Jewish content, I would say, out there um for positive. But the few things that he did write are groundbreaking and I want to share with some with you some of these things. So, Mark Twain visited the Holy Land in 1867. And he documented his journey in a book The Innocents Abroad. And his observations about the desolation of the land of Israel were stark and memorable. One of his famous quotes describing the state of the land at that time is as follows. He says, "A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. A desolation is here that cannot even imagination that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We never saw a human being the whole route. Right? So, free free Palestine, right? Mark Twain is writing, he didn't even see a human on the whole route. As he was going up and down the roads, he didn't see a human, let alone not even a Palestinian. Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. And he traversed the land. If anybody knows about the his his journeys, he he went throughout the land. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of worthless soil, had almost des- deserted the country. This is Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, chapter 46. If a person wants to go actually look it up. So, his description matches the biblical narrative. What does God say? What was one of the punishments for the Jewish people? Says not only will you be exiled, but you are going to be sent far out of the land, and the land itself will become desolate. There will be no growth, there'll be no vegetation there in the land. People who pass by would jeer and look and gnash their teeth and say, "Oh, what what was there before?" So, we know that the Bible actually predicts that this will actually happen. Mark Twain went there in the 1800s, and he experienced it for himself. Twain also went on to say this. So, he says in this famous quote about the resilience of the Jewish people, it appears in 1899 in this essay he he wrote called the Concerning the Jews. It was published in Harper's Magazine, so here's the excerpt from that. He says like this, and I need you to listen to this. Jewish atheist, I want you to hear this come from the Whoever, I don't care who you are, but you have to hear this. If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but 1% of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of a stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. It's very poetic. It's hard to read some of this stuff sometimes. He says, "Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of. But he is heard of." Sounds like something we hear today. Jews are 0.2% of the world's population, but we cover a vast amount of news stations, you know, all over the world, not just here and in the United States, but all over the world. It's interesting. Shouldn't be heard of, but he is heard of. He has always been heard of, says Mark Twain. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people. And his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion proportion to the smallest smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are always are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. Meaning that there's so much the Jewish people has has contributed to society, to humanity, but they're very very small people, and it does not add up. Just another thing, not only anti-Semitism, this is a divine thing, the imprint that the Jewish people leave on the world, which is for sure because of the blessing that God gave through Abraham. He has made marvelous fight in this world. And all the ages, he's made a marvelous fight in the world, and in all the ages, he has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and he could be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, they all rose, filled the planet with sound and with splendor, and then they faded to dream stuff and passed away. The Greeks, the Romans, they followed and made a vast noise, and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch for a time, but then it burned out. And they sit in twilight now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all. I mean, the Jewish people have lived throughout civilization after civilization. They saw all of these nations. In many cases, of course, from the biblical narrative and shortly after, we see that the Jews have had, you know, not so great encounters with all these nations. But the Jew has saw them all, he says, and beat them all. And is now what he what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, not getting older, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal, says Mark Twain. But the Jew not. All other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret? What is the secret of his immortality? So, these quotes came from Mark Twain. And you see this. This matches up completely with biblical prophecy of what is said to be with the Jewish people. And where we stand today, where you see anti-Semitism and all of its offshoots, people have to deal with what the real truth is. People have an issue with God. And I want to say this because I want to get this out of the way. I know a lot of people are going to say, "Oh, well, this is like that whole Jewish my nation's better than any other nation and we're we're the best." It's not that at all. The Bible tells us that God says to the Jewish people that I chose you not because you're the greatest. You're not greater than all the nations, but rather the least of all the nations. Now, there's many different biblical commentaries, even in the Torah world, that tackle this. But I want to handle this only on face value and I want you to also see what's going on here and why God perhaps chose the Jewish people or what he let us know he chose the Jewish people. Of course, one of the things was Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob was so sweet and so precious to God that he says that I'm not going to allow children from from these guys to go without being a beloved people to me. So, that's one thing. But, the actual biblical narrative for sure tells us that the Jewish people, because of the least of the nations, they get to be the chosen people. I want you to think about it like this. If Goliath kills David, do you have a story? You don't have a story. Goliath is, I don't know how many times bigger than David was. But, for sure, you have nothing to talk about. There's nothing to write home about because that's that would be the obvious. But, if David kills Goliath, you have a story. So, look at it this way. In the book of Exodus, God has to choose a savior to go and save the Jewish people from out of the midst of of of Egypt and to bring them to the holy nation of Israel. So, when God chooses a spokesperson to go and speak on the behalf of the nation, he goes and gets Moses that has a list. Why not Aaron, his brother, who was obviously so profound that God sent him in a lot of times to go actually talk to me half because he he he helped him out. So, why why not someone else? Why not a awesome, powerful, charismatic speaker to go and speak on the behalf of the Jewish people? Why does it have to be Moses? So, Moses goes out, and he becomes the one that speaks on the behalf, and he's stuttering, he has a list, but he has a Whatever the case is, however, you know, the commentaries explain it. But, Moses is not 100% He would not be the charismatic speaker that you would want to go be the spokesman on the behalf of the Jewish people. So, when God says that I chose you because you're the least, but not the greatest. If you even if we go back to King David, I wanted to highlight this also, too. He had seven older brothers that bigger, stronger, that were in every way in the outer appearance, they were the ones that should have been the king. They should have been considered to be the king. David was so not even thought of. He wasn't even brought out when Samuel comes to anoint the king at the house of Jesse, Yishai. And he asked him to bring his sons, he doesn't even bring David from the back. Can't be him. That didn't even think about him. And all of a sudden after Samuel tells him, "Listen, do you have any more kids because it's none of these guys?" He anoints King David to be the king. What God is trying to tell all of humanity and why anti-Semitism is very, very dangerous and how it's a phenomenon and how a person could get swept up in it and any person wants to save themself and wants to be close to God and does not and and this person does not want to be on the wrong side of of the narrative once it's all said and done. You have to look at this biblical principle that God is telling us. And it happens over and over again. We see this in Gideon fighting with 300 men. As I mentioned in the last podcast, you'll see this over and over this recurring thing. God chose the Jewish people and allowed them to be the nation because God's might can show greater to a nation that's the least of the nation. A nation that's not the biggest, the strongest, the fastest, the the warriors of all the nations, you know, the the simple accountants, doctors, you know. This is who God chooses in order to show his whole entire might and to sanctify his name. Because if it's any other nation, of course it was them. Of course of course it was that had to be that person. Of course had to be this nation. God says, "No." He says, "I'm going to sanctify my name through the Jewish people who is the least of all the nations." And this is a lesson, personal lesson that each and every one of us can also take. But a person has to understand that we don't want to be on the wrong side because it's very, very clear that God chose the Jewish people. And people that have a hate and disdain if they are to ask themselves really deeply where it comes from, people have an issue with God. They have an issue with God that the fact that he would choose the Jewish people. When the Jewish people, and I'm saying this very openly because the Jewish people have been the preservers of the Torah and the book, the Bible, which actually talks about the the the ills of the Jewish people. Jews we never we've never started any conversation with the rest of the world to say we are perfect. In fact, we are probably the only nation, the Jewish nation the only ones that have begin that their whole entire existence, you know, from talking about with the biblical text to be able to tell the rest of the world we are imperfect, but we're all imperfect. So nobody's been more critical to Jews than Jews have. I'm I'm just talking from the biblical narrative throughout the Torah, all the prophets. The stories are there. But what it leads to and what it has led to is worldwide anti-Semitism, which is a divine phenomenon that the world takes on that they can't really even put their finger on. Most of it through peddling conspiracy theories or whatever the case is or so in some cases is a religion that that hates Jews, whatever the case is. But this is something that has grown. And ultimately for a person to be on the right path, to have the proper trust in God, you have to take the biblical principle that God shows his might through that which is small, that which people are not going to say, "Oh, it's because he's great or she's great or they're great." That's the biblical principle that God is showing to all of us through the Jewish people. And because of that, the world hates Jews. Because not only are they angry with God, but they're angry that even for themselves, they can't redeem themselves. People can't redeem themselves for their from their own situations, and everybody wants what we call the koach bi yadi. We want to be able to have the power of my right hand my hand. My hand, I'm going to do it. I did this. I make this money. I am the I'm the breadwinner. I'm the person who's who's in charge. I'm I'm ruling my life. I'm running this. And the Jewish people represent, "I can't. Only God can." And the world doesn't want to deal with that part of itself. So, the spiritual phenomenon of anti-Semitism comes specifically from the fact that I have to rely on God, and the world doesn't like it. And I'm telling you this is what's behind it. And we should do our best, with God's help, to make sure that we're aligned with God, and that we see things in the way that he wants us to see them. We're living in a time right now where biblical prophecy is unfolding before our eyes. Wake up. I want to read with you from the book of Ezekiel. One of the last things that I want to share with you because I think it's very, very important. It's very powerful. If you look at the book of Ezekiel in 36th chapter, starting from verse 7, there's a prophecy that happens in the land of Israel. And this is very important. This is not the space for it, but I I encourage anybody to look into this. You can look at agriculture, what's happened in in Israel over the last, I don't know, 100 years or so, 70 years, whatever the case is. And you can even look in other places. There are places that in in terms of biblical Israel, it's part of Jordan, Syria, um Lebanon, all these other places. And you can even see these from satellite map, look at it, and you are going to be blown away at what has taken place. We were already told from God that the punishment would be, so to speak, is that the land will become barren. But the restoration, we're told now here in Ezekiel 36, beginning of verse 7, that the restoration, what is going to be the sign of the of the last and final days. How do we know even now that we're we're all everybody's so talking about it right now that we are in the end times? What How do we know? How can we be positive? So says right here in the book of Ezekiel 36:7. Yes, prophesy about the land of Israel, he tells Ezekiel. And say to the mountains and the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, thus says the sovereign God, behold, I declare my blazing wrath because you have suffered the taunting of the nations. Thus says the sovereign God, I hereby swear that the nations that surround you shall in turn suffer their disgrace. So this is another indication that we know that the in the final um the final era of of humanity before the coming of Messiah, the redemption, the final redemption, that the nation of Israel will be surrounded by its enemies. The land will be surrounded by it. It says, but you, oh mountain of Israel, this is verse 8, shall yield your produce and bear your fruit for my Israel. For their return is near. Now, we're standing at a time right now where the majority of the the the I wouldn't say the majority of Jews, that's not the right number. The highest population of Jewish people in one place is now inside of Israel. Not that there's 50% but that's the right way to say it actually is that the the the largest concentration of Jews all in one uh particular country is now in Israel, which is a major major shift. This is uh these numbers are are amazing. It says in verse 9, "For I will care for you. And I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown." That means the land is going to start being tilled, and it's going to be sown, and I will settle a large population on you. And the whole house of Israel, the towns should be resettled. And the ruined sites rebuilt. I will multiply human and animal upon you. And they shall increase and be fertile. And I will resettle you as you were formerly. And I will make you more prosperous than you were at first. And you shall know that I am God. The writing is on the wall. Right now is the time for a person to choose where you stand. Where you stand with God, where you stand with God's people, where you stand with God's with God's word, his his Torah, his revelation into the world to humanity. But only thing I would say is choose wisely. Because how anti-Semitism is beyond just racism or bigotry or uh you know, someone's political agenda. Anti-Semitism does will and can ultimately affect you for all of eternity. Thanks for joining me. Hey, what's going on? I had to stop before a second because I want to tell you if you like what you're hearing and if you're getting value from what you're hearing, please like and subscribe to the channel. It helps us get this out there and ultimately, you know what we're trying to do, spread the name of God all throughout the world. So, like and subscribe, hit the notification bell so that anytime I put out a video, you are going to be informed first.