Re'eh - False Prophets
In Re’eh, this week’s Torah portion we learn that Moshe warned the people of Israel about prophets and miracle workers that try to turn people from the ways of Torah. Even if something that a miracle worker prophesied comes to pass, if they tell you to go against the Torah, they are still false prophets. Miracles and prophecies are not the ultimatum. God wants us to care about his words, the Torah, and not about his miracles.
Conventional Judaism believes that Yeshua is a false prophet, and the teachings of conventional Chistianity only help to confirm their beliefs. Messianic Judaism believes that Yeshua is being misunderstood by conventional Judaism, but that Yeshua is also misinterpreted by conventional Christianity. Since the dawn of the second century, Gentile followers of Yeshua have taught that Yeshua crossed out the Torah. They believe that the beginning of the Bible, from Genesis all the way up to the latter prophets, was done away with. They believed that the so-called New Testament proved that the Jewish people were going to be replaced with Christians.
Because Judaism saw that Christianity wanted to convince people to turn from the Torah, they declared Jesus a false prophet. Traditional Christian principles state that the Jews are condemned for not accepting Yeshua, but who can blame them? When you compare the Christian interpretations of Yeshua’s teachings to Deuteronomy 13, it’s quite clear that Yeshua is a false prophet. The Jews are rejecting Christianity to serve God as He taught them to do in the Torah, and Christianity is accusing the Jews of rejecting God. It is just like it says in Mathew 7:2, “For the way you judge others is how you will be judged — the measure with which you measure out will be used to measure to you.”
Deuteronomy 13:6-11 says,
“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.”
Anyone who tries to try to convince someone else to worship another god besides the one true God deserves the death penalty. Torah teaches that you should kill people who try to sway you from the Torah, but most Jewish sects teach to treat that person as if they were dead. For example, as soon as a Jew is caught trying to convert another Jew to Christianity, his entire community shuns him, and his family mourns him as if he were dead.
As long as Yeshua is depicted as a pagan man-god that did away with the Torah and the commandments, the excommunication will continue. A good Jew will do this in order to follow the Torah.
This is why it is so important that we re-examine Yeshua’s teachings and point out what’s wrong with Christianity’s view of Yeshua. We need to bring out the true Yeshua, the one who was a believing Jew, and had Jewish teachings. Any evangelism on Christianity’s part will do no good until they re-examine their own beliefs about Yeshua. Christianity has to realize that the Jewish people are not to be done away with, but to be followed. It says in Romans 11:15, “For if their casting Yeshua aside means reconciliation for the world, what will their accepting him mean? It will be life from the dead!”
Both Judaism and Christianity are holding on to misinterpretations and scars of the past. Anti-missionaries discredit Yeshua by saying that Yeshua usurped the Torah and taught others to do so, and Christianity does nothing but confirm these beliefs. As Messianic Jews, it is our responsibility to correct this accusation by living according to the Torah and interpreting Yeshua’s life and teachings the way they were meant to be, according to Judaism. Yeshua didn’t come to start a new religion and replace the Jewish people. His words to the Samaritan woman in John 4:22 ring true even today, “Ye worship what ye know not, but we (Jews) worship what we know, because salvation is of the Jews.”
There is a Chasidic story that illustrates the situation:
A certain Chasidic rebbe had been badly slandered among the other Chasidim. The libelous slander infuriated his disciples so badly that when they heard other Jews insult and malign their humble and righteous teacher, they could not endure it. They burst out with angry words, threats, and sometimes even blows to defend their rebbe’s honor. One particular disciple, however, always remained calm. His colleagues asked him, “How can you remain so calm when people speak such wicked things about our rebbe?” He explained, “When I hear someone speak evil about our teacher, I think to myself, ‘If that person really knew my rebbe, he would know that my rebbe is nothing like the person he is describing, and he would not say such things.’ So obviously, he does not know my rebbe, and since he does not know my rebbe, he must be talking about someone else. If he is talking about someone else, why should I get upset?”
If the Jewish people really knew Yeshua, and what he taught, instead of the pagan man-god that Christians portray him to be, they wouldn’t speak against him. One day, God will correct everyone’s view of Yeshua, and no one will speak against him.
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