Embedded Files
by Max Carl Kirk
INTRODUCTION
The blessing of all the families of the earth is through Israel’s salvation and belongs to Israel’s salvation. In you and in your offspring, God said to Avraham, will all the families of the earth be blessed. All salvation is Israel's salvation.
In the cursed world of Adam, where all are under the sentence of death, there is no other blessing than the blessing of salvation.
Any blessing which does not remove the curse, which begins as a blessing of wealth or health or happiness but ends in death, such a blessing was really never a blessing to begin with. At best it was only a whisper, a hint, that true blessing, blessing that does remove the curse might be possible.
In the cursed world of Adam, where all are under the sentence of death, there is no other blessing than the blessing that God promised to Israel.
There is no other blessing than the salvation of Israel which is a true blessing and from which all true blessings come. There is no redemption of Adam that is not simply the redemption of Israel, according to the Scriptures.
MY WRITINGS INTERFACING WITH JUDAISM
YOU WILL FIND WRITINGS HERE THAT INTERFACE:
WITH JEWISH COMMENTARIES ON THE TANACH,
WITH THE TALMUD,
WITH WORKS OF CONTEMPORARY HASSIDIC RABBIS,
SUCH AS RABBI AVRAHAM GREENBAUM OF THE AZAMRA WEBSITE,
AS WELL AS WRITINGS THAT INTERFACE WITH THE WORKS AND TEACHINGS OF REBBE NACHMAN OF BRESLOV.
THEY WILL NOT APPEAR ALL AT ONCE
I WILL ADD THEM OVER TIME.
Also see my site, The Witness Stand for discussion on the relation of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
There is an introduction to this work published there now, and I hope, with the help of G-d, to publish
substantial content there in the remaining months of 2017.
See, also, my site, The Brazen Sea for study of the commandment and prophetic significance of Immersion/baptism.
For a comprehensive listing of all my online publications see the Mellow Wolf Publication catalogue in the
menu above. Or see my site, The Blessed Poor, for a portal into a selected number of my online studies and works.
Please read the attachment at the bottom of this page entitled, Issues of Faith - 1,
to see a presentation of a dialogue between some of the teachings of Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai
and Yehoshua HaMashiach.
SOME ISSUES IN THE CHRISTIAN-JEWISH FAITH DIALOGUE
Can one follow Yehoshua and a Torah lifestyle?
Today many individuals from Christian backgrounds are taking hold of the fringes of the garments of the Jew, (Zech. 8:23). In doing this, some have become ashamed of the name of Yeshua.
I am not among those who are ashamed of the name of Yehoshua. He is the Jew above all others whose fringes_tsitsit I take hold of, as the foremost Jew among many. It is the tsitsit of the Jew that the gentiles take hold of; for G-d is with them.
In truth, it is faithfully following Yehoshua to the end that has led me and many like me to a love of the Jewish people. It is Yehoshua also who has taught me to know that his corporate salvation of the Jewish people is accomplished in heavenly places, and that it is accomplished by his simple eternal love for Jerusalem and All Israel.
Yehoshua shows me continually that salvation is of the Jews. For he is freely taking for himself the position of ultimate shame in the midst of his people, rather than putting Israel in that position of shame.
And this is the source of all hope. It is he who also made my heart like a spring of a fire in love of the Torah. It is Jesus_Yehoshua who kindled the sparks of that love for his Torah within me — and who then breathed on those sparks until they burst into a great river of flames. The Torah of Moses was at the first and is at the last the Torah of Mashiach.
Indeed, it is Mashiach who reveals the Torah, with all of its seventy faces, from Zion unto all the ends of the earth in order to fill the whole earth with the joy of G-d's Holy Spirit and with the knowledge of Hashem. His revelation of the Torah has begun and will continue to the end of time, (Hab. 2:14).
Jesus_Yehoshua is my greatest and most patient teacher in Torah and mitzvot, I do not find in him any deceptive thing, any idolatry or any invitation to idolatry, or anything about which to be ashamed. If I stand alone, face to face, with him, he judges me, I do not judge him.
I find in him the path of reconciliation between two types of souls. On the one hand, there is someone who has been a completely wicked idolater but who grasps ahold of the thin edge of hope against hope in order to repent, and, on the other hand, there is someone who is a most righteous leader, one among the highest tzaddikim, who all also falls short seven times of the glory of Hashem.
The most righteous and the repentant beggar who has no righteousness must walk into the presence of Hashem hand in hand in hope of his mercy. Yehoshua is one who will stand together with both of these individuals as their equal ally and advocate.
He is not who he has been imagined to be by anyone who has hated the Jews. Nor is he the one he was imagined to be by those who thought he was the leader of those who hated the Jews.
He is forever one of his people. He was yesterday and is today and will be tomorrow a righteous Jew who laid down his life rather than to allow his people Israel to incur irredeemable guilt on account of him.
It is for this reason that G-d has raised him up to sit at his right hand, as he promised his father, David. From there he is able to plant his own spirit of love for the Torah and for the commandments of G-d in the hearts of countless multitudes.
Today, many who call themselves Messianic wrestle with the question of what their relationship is to the commandments of the Torah. Others who see themselves as connected to the tribe of Ephraim or another Israelite tribe, or who see themselves as necessarily having Hebrew roots in their faith, may be wrestling with the Torah in the same way.
Our need is to first get our relationship with the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah right. Only in this way can we get our relationship with the Torah right.
Can one be saved from death by believing in Yehoshua?
There is a great deal of misunderstanding in the Jewish world about the relationship of faith and salvation in Christian teaching. After many years of study of Orthodox Jewish teaching and acquaintance with Jewish People, I am convinced that there is very little clear understanding of what Christianity is as experienced by the wide spectrum of Christians.
Accordingly, there is a great deal of misunderstanding in the Christian world about how to talk about the relationship of faith and salvation so as to bring Jews to truly understand what Christians are saying, rather than allowing their choice of words to cause Jews to misunderstand them. This is because Christians hardly know themselves what they are saying. The little bit they know is of great value, but it is buried like a precious pearl under the great deal that they do not know and yet think they know and try to say.
Most of this confusion starts with the very different, yet overlapping, understandings of salvation in the two worlds, the world of Israel and the world of the nations. Christian replacement theology, because it proposes a false premise of thought, that God has withdrawn his blessing from Israel, sets the stage for confusion and misunderstanding in all fundamental subjects of the Bible.
In Jewish thought, which of course is based on the writings of Moses and the Prophets, the idea of salvation begins with the hope of the salvation of the nation of Israel from its enemies. And these enemies are not understood as being external enemies.
To the Jewish mind, if God saves the nation from external enemies and one walks humbly with the God of Israel, obeying His commandments, in order to be saved from the internal enemy, how could the need for personal salvation in the sense conceived of in Christianity even arise? If someone fails to keep God's commandments the answer is simply to repent and pray for assistance in walking in the fear and love of Hashem.
The need for personal salvation for the Jew will only arise in specific situations, as expressed in the Psalms of David. But the personal existential idea of salvation that seems to be presented by Christianity doesn't make any sense to a Jew if G-d is the savior of the nation of Israel.
Salvation in Christian thought begins from a very different place. Christian thought was not Gentile thought at the beginning. However, it became dominated by Gentile thought over the centuries, especially when Christianity became a religion of the nations, and must be recognized as being largely characterized by Gentile thought in today's Jewish-Christian dialogue.
At the same time, even though Christian thought is largely characterized by Gentile thought, it remains rooted and founded on a specific reading of Jewish thought. This results in Christianity having two distinct layers, like oil and water within the same container.
If you shake the container well you can mix the two elements together but as soon as they settle they separate again until they once again form two distinct layers. As a result, thought about salvation within Christianity itself has never become fully or permanently sorted out, nor can it ever be in the present world order.
Purely Gentile Christian thought about salvation arises from the experience of one moment being convinced of having no true relationship with God, the true God, the God of Israel, and then suddenly, the next moment, being convinced of having a clearly perceived relationship with Him through being told that Jesus, though rejected, is the awaited Messiah and raised by God from the dead, offering forgiveness to all who repent of sin and any further will to reject him.
It is primarily in this sense of experiential crisis, of having no personal access to God and then being told that one is being given complete access, that to Gentile Christian thought believing in Jesus alone results in salvation. This experience seems to be confirmed by many different New Testament scriptures.
It is self-evident, as well as being taught, that it is through this faith and the personal relationship it creates that one who is separated from God by sin can have a relationship with God. This idea does not fit into normal Jewish understanding because having no perceived relationship with the God of Israel is by definition not a part of Jewish experience.
Still, the question is left open how it is possible for the gentile to be attached to the Messiah of Israel at all! For the Jew, who does not understand Yehoshua (Jesus) as being the Messiah of Israel, this is only a question about how gentiles who call themselves Christians would answer this.
Replacement theology is all about answering this question in a way that simply puts the gentile in the place of the Jew, but in doing this the gentile creates a confusion in which they cut out from under themselves the foundation of their own faith. Ultimately the cloud of confusion clears.
It is then that the Christian, having despite the confusion of replacement theology come to a hope in God, realizes that "salvation is from the Jews," (John 4:22), and then takes hold of the tzitzit of the Jew, saying, "We have heard that God is with you," (Zehariah 8:23).
Suddenly being saved through believing in Jesus_Yehoshua takes on a whole new meaning. Instead of salvation being all about the "me" who I think I know, salvation comes to be about the new creation of all things, including me, through the redemption of Israel. "Salvation is of the Jews."
The Essence of The Messianic Good News According To Yehoshua's Emissaries
The Jewish thought that is to be found at the root of Christian thought has been well shaken and mixed into gentile thought, where the Jewish thought has been mostly concealed. But it is once again settling out, the oil from the water...
What is the Jewish teaching of Yehoshua's emissaries about the relationship of faith in Yehoshua and personal salvation? This can be presented in the following simply way.
It has to do first with the ruach (spirit) and life force coming to each person originally from Adam and leading ultimately to death, because death is in the life force of Adam.
As Adam was and is the source of natural life, and as that life is now cut short, Adam is now the source of death. Adam is the source of the failure of life to continue, to thrive.
Yehoshua's teaching and that of his talmidim (students), and specifically his emissaries (apostles) is that Israel, as the only God-chosen corporate representative of Adam's family, receives a new connection of the ruach_spirit of life through the Messiah. Regeneration is of the Jews.
This new Israel connection to God for Adam ultimately leads through death out of death to everlasting life. Even if the confusion of replacement theology has caused a cloud of darkness to cover the earth, anyone who has faith in the God of Israel and in the promise of Israel's Messiah will come in time to walk according to Messiah's instruction, and they will partake of Israel's new connection of ruach_spirit and life force.
That new spiritual life force is the essence of a divine union, and comes from that divine union to us, the divine union that is now coming about between the Messiah and Israel. What, example then, does Messiah give us in his love for the Jew?
The example of love by which Messiah is secretly winning Israel's heart and soul and building her up in heavenly places is to love All Israel with God's own gracious love, to let mercy toward every Jew be the source of one's sacrifice. What is Messiah's instruction for the Gentile?
Messiah's instruction for the Gentile is to attach themselves to Israel, through him, through his love for Israel. It is to learn the joy of Adam and Eve on the day, when in the ecstasy of prophecy, they blessed Abraham and Sarah, as the act of their personal repentance.
Although this account of the version of Jewish thought that is at the first root and foundation of Christian thought is not representative of traditional Gentile Christian understanding of the teachings of Yehoshua and his students, I believe that it is the source of genuine faith in the heart of all sincere Christians. Genuine Gentile Christian thought about salvation must be and will be brought back to face the challenge of its source in the Jewish thought of the Messiah.
This radical re-examination of the Good News within Christianity itself has not yet truly even begun to take place. Although Jewish/Christian dialogue is helping to bring it about.
The more the differences of thoughts in Jewish/Christian dialogue about salvation are elaborated and clarified, the more, I believe, they can be and will be mutually respected within that Jewish-Christian dialogue. This, of course, does not necessarily imply agreement. It only implies understanding and respect, which is the greater agreement..
See the article, Sotah 5b - Psalms 51:17 for an in-depth essay on
the subject of repentance in Jewish/Christian dialogue
STORIES
You will find below in the form of an attachment one of my stories.
This story illustrates the power of the Torah's kindness and charity in
the judgment of unclear conversions.
The Cripple and The King
Rabbi Nachman often repeat the statement, "There is no King Without a kingdom."
Here is an allegorical commentary On this principle.
or use url to go to the tittle page with individual chapter links:
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse