8-10-24 Message to Roeh Israel Abilene
Torah Portion: Deut 1:1 – 3:22 Devarim (“words”)
Haftarah: Isa 1:1-27
Suggested Acheron K’tuvim: Mat 5:16
Under the Law – Part 12 – Antisemitism
Central question of this message: Will you stand for G-d and oppose those who engaged in baseless hatred around us?
We are now beginning the book of Devarim. Its name comes from the third and fourth words of the passage in English, and the second Hebrew word in the parasha. Devarim means “words.”
Deut 1:1-4
1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel
across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah
opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel and Laban
and Hazeroth and Dizahab. 2 It is eleven days' journey
from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-
barnea. 3 And it came about in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel, according to all that the Lord had
commanded him to give to them,
The Torah’s books before this one are characterized by the phrase, “And the L-rd spoke to Moses, saying…”. In Devarim, we find that Moses is the speaker. Moses spends much of this book reminding the people of what G-d has already said in the first four books, and setting forth blessings and curses associated with the observance of Torah… or rebellion against it.
Thus, Devarim is the written record of Moses’ final message to the people before he turns over the leadership to Joshua, whose true Hebrew name is pronounced as “Yehoshua”, and this is the longer version of Yeshua’s Hebrew name.
Yehoshua was commissioned by G-d to take a mixed multitude of G-d’s people across an impossible physical boundary (the Jordan River) into the Promised Land as our forever home, a place where G-d’s Temple would be built, and He would dwell.
Yeshua was commissioned by G-d to take a mixed multitude of Gd’s people across a greater boundary, into a greater Promised Land as our eternal home, a place where Yeshua rules supreme and sits on His throne in a greater Temple that has yet to be constructed.
The theme of the entire book of Devarim can be condensed to a single sentence. “Study the Torah, and don’t depart from it, for if you do, G-d will withdraw His protection and His blessings from you.” That warning is important to our nation today.
The messages in Devarim were directed to the mixed multitude – which the L-rd called “Israel” at Mt. Horeb – which multitude now stood poised to enter the Promised Land under the leadership of
Joshua. This book serves as an encouragement as well as a warning to our people.
And there are other portions of Torah which are directed to the nations which encounter Israel and offer them an encouragement as well as a warning focusing on how these nations deal with Israel – the people as well as the land.
Gen 12:1-3
12 Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your
country, And from your relatives And from your
father's house, To the land which I will show you1; 2
And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless
you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a
blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And
the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all
the families of the earth shall be blessed."
This covenantal promise has never been withdrawn. It applies today.
The prophets reaffirm it as a continuing promise. in the Neveim.2
1 The land He showed us is now occupied by Jews, and today is known as “Israel.” It is not fully occupied, though. That more full occupation will occur in the future.
2 The Neveim (Prophets) is the third segment of the Tanach, which many today call the Hebrew Bible.
This brings me to speak regarding a day of remembrance which is coming to us on this coming Monday night, and extending until Tuesday night. It is called Tisha B’av. The ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av.
The 9th of Av has been a day which has seen more than its share of catastrophes. According to tradition, the sin of the ten spies (omitting Joshua and Caleb) began the annual fast of the 9th of Av, for upon that day the people wept. And according to the Mishnah four more events occurred on (or near) the ninth of Av:3
2. Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 587 BCE.
3. The second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE.
4. The Romans overcame the revolt of Bar Kokhba, and
murdered almost 600,000 Jews in 135 CE.
5. and on that same day somewhat later, the Roman
commander Turnus Rufus plowed over the site of the burned Temple and the surrounding hills to further destroy the evidence of Jewish life.
Accordingly, the ninth of Av is considered to be the most sad day of the annual calendar.
3 Taanit 4:6
One might ask why we Jews would mourn for the loss of the Temple(s) for so many generations. It’s because the Temple was so central to the faith of Israel. And because the Temple was central to G-d’s kingdom on Earth.
The Temple was the place where G-d chose to establish His throne on this earth. He lived as a neighbor to us, and we miss that closeness. The evidences of mourning for the Temple’s destruction is not merely seen on the ninth of Av. It is likewise seen every morning, as Jewish men don their tallis for prayer.
Although the Torah commands that we have a garment of four corners, and that those corners be adorned with tzitzit (often erroneously called “fringes” in most translations), and that the tzitzit have a single blue thread (known as the techeles). But we have not had the blue techeles for the last two thousand years. Why?
After the conquest of Israel by Rome, they issued a decree that only the “blue blooded” (royal blood) were permitted to wear the color techeles because of its great rarity and high value.
The Jewish dye-makers then had to make the techeles dye in secrecy. And then the death-knell to this dying process occurred by 639 CE, when the Arabs conquered Israel, and the process of making the techeles color was lost altogether. So
our tzitzit today lack the blue techelet
strand as was commanded.4
After the Temple was in ruins, stripes on
the tallis appeared, and were black in
color, to represent mourning associated
with the destruction of the Temple, and all
that came with that event. When you see the tallis lying across the back of a man standing in front of you, you see there the black stripes quite clearly.5
Every time we see the black stripes of the tallis, and the lack of the techeles in the tzitzit, we are further reminded of the destruction of the Temple. Tisha B’Av became an even greater day of mourning, and even our holy garments changed to reflect that loss.
4 It has been reported that the original formula, together with the source of the blue has been discovered, but such has not yet been widely accepted by the Jewish community.
5 As I was teaching in a sweet church as a guest speaker once, I donned my tallit and a sweet lady gasped behind me. She said, “Those are like the stripes on the back of my Savior!” I was blessed by that comment, and hope that those stripes remind us daily of that sacrifice as well.
I believe G-d wishes for us to continue to lament and mourn that which our people have lost, and also to recall what we lack today.
That mourning also reminds us to anxiously await the coming of Messiah.
This brings me to the topic I wish to address today – the antisemitism that is spreading in this world, and sadly, also in America.
The antisemitism of the normative church has deep roots. All one needs to do is to see the documentary, Let the Lion Roar, put together by Derek Frank.
The venomous advice of Martin Luther has been followed by churches through the ages, and even were the theological underpinning for the Holocaust. Some examples are:
“What shall we Christians do with this rejected and
condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us,
we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy.
Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of
divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we
convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we
must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might
save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse
than we could wish them already has them by the throat.
I shall give you my sincere advice:
First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no
man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom,
so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying,
cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his
Christians. (remainder omitted).
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and
destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in
their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a
roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and
blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder
omitted).
Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses
(Deuternomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them
to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although
Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They
wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary
to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. (remainder omitted).
Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be
abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no
business in the countryside, since they are not lords,
officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let them stay at home.
(remainder omitted).
Sixth, I advise that usury6 be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from
them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other
means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such
money should now be used in no other way than the
following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he
should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three
hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest.
With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the
maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.
Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in
the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they
should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our
6 Usury is lending money at an unreasonably high interest rate.
faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the
Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss
out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.
“But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews' synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to
pray, to teach, to utter God's name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they were doing it publicly. for our knowledge of their secret doings and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God.”
I wish that the words of Luther had faded to obscurity, but this same spirit seems to be active today. This week, I received an unsolicited email dated August 4 from Tom Hemenway on behalf of
AmericaNet. The article he penned and forwarded to me is entitled, Patriot Pastors vs. The Judaized Church. The theme of the article is that America was founded by Christian pastors who had courage to stand up and fight for freedom.
He cites the Reverend Moses Hemmenway, who he says was a close friend and confidant of John Adams, in A Sermon Preached Before John Hancock and The Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1784 who stated:
“The apostle [Paul], in the words now read, appears to
have had both the mentioned extremes distinctly in his
view. As there were some who, by endeavoring to
impose the observance of the abrogated ordinances of
the Jewish law, encroached on the rights and liberty
of Christians, St. Paul asserts these their rights,
reminds his Christian brethren that Christ had made
them free, and exhorts them to stand fast in their
liberty to which they were called, and not be
entangled with a yoke of bondage.”
The author continues then, to condemn any movement of the normative church which he sees as a “Jewish” conspiracy, which he blames primarily on Cyrus I. Schofield, and his version of the KJV:7
“The Judaization of the American church began on
two fronts each encroaching from opposite ends of
7 Only relevant excerpts from the larger article are copied here, for sake of brevity.
the socio-political spectrum. On the right was
Christian Zionism and on the left Cultural
Marxism.”
“The scheme was to alter the Christian view of Zionism
by creating and promoting a pro-Zionist subculture
within Christianity. Scofield's role was to re-write the King James Version of the Bible by inserting Zionist-
friendly notes in the margins, between verses and
chapters, and on the bottoms of the pages. The Oxford
University Press used Scofield, a pastor by then, as the Editor, probably because it needed such as man for a
front. The revised bible was called the Scofield
Reference Bible, and with limitless advertising and
promotion, it became a best-selling "bible" in America
and has remained so for 90 years.”
Scofield, whose work is largely believed to be the
product of Darby and others, wisely chose not to
change the text of the King James Edition. Instead, he
added hundreds of easy-to-read footnotes at the bottom
of about half of the pages, and as the Old English
grammar of the KJE becomes increasingly difficult for
progressive generations of readers, students become
increasingly dependent on the modern language
footnotes.
Scofield's notes weave parts of the Old and New
Testaments together as though all were written at the
same time by the same people. This is a favorite
device of modern dispensationalists who essentially
weigh all scripture against the unspoken and
preposterous theory that the older it is, the more
authoritative. In many cases the Oxford references
prove to be puzzling rabbit trails leading nowhere,
simply diversions. Scofield's borrowed ideas were later popularized under the labels and definitions that have
evolved into common usage today--"pre-millennialism,"
"dispensationalism," "Judeo-Christianity," and most
recently the highly political movement openly called
"Christian Zionism."
Oxford edited the former 1945 Edition of SRB in 1967,
at the time of the Six Day War when Israel occupied
Palestine. The new footnotes to the King James
Bible presumptuously granted the rights to the
Palestinians' land to the State of Israel and
specifically denied the Arab Palestinians any such
rights at all. One of the most brazen and outrageous of these NEWLY INSERTED footnotes states:
"FOR A NATION TO COMMIT THE SIN OF
ANTI-SEMITISM BRINGS INEVITABLE
JUDGMENT." (page 19-20, footnote (3) to Genesis
12:3.)
This statement sounds like something from Ariel
Sharon, or the Chief Rabbi in Tel Aviv, or Theodore
Herzl, the founder of Modern Zionism. But these exact
words are found between the covers of the 1967 Edition
of the Oxford Bible that is followed by millions of
American churchgoers and students and is used by their
leaders as a source for their preaching and teaching.
There is no word for "anti-Semitism" in the New
Testament, nor is it found among the Ten
Commandments.
All of this language, including the prophecy about the
future being really bad for those who "persecute the
Jews," reflects and furthers the goals of the Anti-
Defamation League, which has a stated goal of creating
an environment where opposing the State of Israel is
considered "anti-Semitism," and "anti-Semitism" is a
"hate crime" punishable by law. This dream has become
a reality in the Christian Zionist churches of America.
Only someone with these goals could have written this
footnote.
Today it is not unusual to hear the ideas of Zionism
and Cultural Marxism preached from the pulpits of
“Christian” churches. Yes, as Shakespeare once said:
“Hell is empty and all the Devils are here.” Indeed,
Hell has been imposed on our society through Zionism
and Cultural Marxism.”
This is not unusual talk, for there is antisemitism running rampant in our streets. America is becoming 1930s Germany.
Here is the “heat map” of recent antisemitic events generated by the Anti-Defamation League.8
8 https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-to-track-hate/heat-map
We in America are at an inflection point. Much of what America will become in the future will be determined by what happens in the next few months. It’s not merely the election. That is important, but it is also only a part of the puzzle. The remainder is what we individually will do when in our daily interactions we encounter those who curse Israel. They have already begun in the USA.
In 1939, Germany had about 52 million people over 15. Nazi party members represented about 12 percent of the population. In the last totally free election in Germany in 1932, the Nazi party beat out every other party, winning about 33 percent of the vote and taking
control of the parliament, or Reichstag. That election put Hitler on his path to running the country.9
If only another 40 percent of that country had risen up to oppose Hitler, history would have been very much different. The German people allowed what happened to happen – with their silence or tacit approval. Will we do the same?
The Talmud10 tells us that the Second Temple was destroyed because of “baseless hatred” - not merely among the leaders, but among the people at large.
Today, there is much baseless hatred expressed in the streets of our cities and on
college
campuses of
G-d’s
standards for
holiness, and
against the
Jews, and the
9 Politifact article by Jon Greenberg dated August 28, 2015 criticizing a statement by Curt Schilling that in 1940 only 7 percent of Germans were Nazis.
10 Yoma 9b
land of Israel. We are on borrowed time to return to G-d and avoid Him removing His protection from us as He did for our fathers before us.
America has been blessed because we have blessed Israel and the Jewish people. America has been blessed because we have adopted many of the holy precepts of Torah into our laws, and into our individual lives.
Today, our country is heading down the same path as Germany did in the 1930s. Will we continue to ruin? Not if we rise up today, to support righteousness and G-d’s standards for holiness… before it is too late.
Matt 5:16
16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that
they may see your good works, and glorify your Father
who is in heaven.
It is time that our light shine forth. It is time that our voices be heard for righteousness.
