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I’m not sure of this but I feel that we are now living in a Messianic period. Which means that the events leading up to the coming of Mochiach are now unfolding. I didn’t hear any voices and I didn’t have any visions but it is very clear to me that all the events that are unfolding now are expressed explicitly, not implicitly but explicitly in Tanakh. And now it’s unfolding in a seder, in an order of events to awaken people that they would repent, they would do teshuvah, they will return back to the God of Israel and not just among the Jews, but among the world. If when Mochiach is coming, that means if we’re in this era right now and now we are living in a time where there’s more study of Torah and a return to Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), there’s more Jewish literacy than perhaps any time since the days of Hezekiah. That we are bouncing back from a very bad time. Meaning a hundred years ago where there was a dearth of literacy and the way you can see or view when do the manifest of the signs that Mochiach is quickly coming, how do you look at that? Well it’s clear that the children of Israel returned to the Land of Israel and the earth, the land gives forth its fruit. In fact the Talmud in the same area identifies that as the most important feature, sign that in fact the coming of Mochiach is absolutely imminent.
Ezekiel chapter 1 is the most difficult chapter for any person to understand; and in fact in the view of our Sages no human mind can understand it. Because Ezekiel is encountering a vision, a non-veridical vision which is so ecstatic he can’t put it into words. And he just expresses it in detail of colours and…If no human being can understand what he is seeing then why is it in the Bible? After all the Bible wasn’t written for angels, it was written for man…
Ezekiel is looking at things that he doesn’t understand and that’s a refrain in the Book of Ezekiel. Most famous chapter in Ezekiel for sure is Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones. God shows Ezekiel exactly that, a valley of dried out, bleached bones, and He asked him can these bones live? God is not asking, ‘Do I have the power to resurrect the dead?’ He knows exactly was is going on. These bones represent Israel. I mean the Temple, which Temple? This is the First Temple, this is King Solomon’s Temple just been destroyed, is there ever hope? And Ezekiel actually responds, ‘I don’t know, only You know’. Why didn’t he go, ‘Sure, of course’? Because this is the grand mystery, how did the Jews? I said this, I’ve been interviewed on a number of atheist shows and I tell them, ‘If the Jews were to disappear you could take the Torah and throw it in the garbage.’ The predictive power of the Jewish faith is that it could say that the Jews cannot disappear. There will always be a remnant. The Visigoths are gone, the Jews are here. The Canaanites have disappeared, the Jews are here, remember that. That’s a covenant, the nation of Israel can’t disappear.
Before Isaac Newton, one of the most brilliant people that ever lived, people really would not have understood this passage. So that’s what’s happening, without understanding that, you don’t understand anything. You always want to take the clear texts in Tanakh, just simple hermeneutics, use passages that are in the light to interpret the passages in the dark. And please my friends, read chapters for yourself from beginning to end. Really, do that. If you don’t you’re very, very vulnerable. And in truth Jewish commentaries generally are just doing the work for you that you should have been doing. Just read the whole chapter through.
It may surprise you that the notion that Jesus was conceived miraculously was unknown to the author of Paul’s letters, was unknown to Mark or Mark just didn’t think, whoever wrote the book of Mark didn’t think that was important enough to mention. You’re arguing from silence?? Yeah, this is too you huge
If you can engage in that kind of theological sophistry what religion then could be dismissed? Then how do you dismiss the claims of the Church of the Latter-day Saints? They too engage in this kind of torturous theological spin. You don’t want to do that. I want to talk to the Protestants for a moment. You don’t want to be doing that, right? Because the Bible says otherwise. Scripture tells us that God forgave people because of how they behaved and not sacrifice. In fact, in the Prophetic part of the Hebrew Bible, if I asked you to come up with an example of someone who sinned and was forgiven for that sin by bringing a sacrifice, (just think about, I don’t think I have ever mentioned this before). If you go to the Prophetic part of the Bible and the Ketuvim (the Writings)…It you be very difficult for you to come up with an instance when someone sinned and the way God forgave them was they brought a sacrifice. And I know that’s a mic drop. If it isn’t that means you are not listening. In truth I can come up with one but it would be very, very difficult. Most people would not. Because the sacrificial system really is used for unintentional sins. Moreover and most importantly, people can’t die, innocent people can’t die for the sins of the wicked.
What is the difference between the Prophets and the Writings? So the Prophets like Joshua, really important Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel…Those books are written with very harsh criticism. The Prophets…basically engage in one overarching theme and that is to criticise the Jews for every mistake they have made and what they have to correct…If the Torah in the instruction…The Nevi’im, that Prophetic part, capital P, is telling you what you can do wrong…then what is the role of the Writings? The role of the Writings is, ‘This is how you get back.’ That means, if the problem is contained in the Prophets, ‘Okay I messed up,’ like Isaiah said, like Jeremiah said, like Ezekiel said, then the Writings [say] this is the medicine to the disease of sin. And go to Book of Psalms and talk to God and this is what you do. So Psalms is the antidote, is the healing, is the medication for Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel…Chronicles is the healing. Proverbs, this is how you fix the problem of sin.
Pastors will never respond to the question of why don’t Jews believe in Jesus in the following way (it would be a very straight forward answer). And the answer would go like this: The reason why Jews don’t believe in Jesus is because they read Scripture and they come to a different conclusion than we do. That’s like so simple…It doesn’t mean they are saying the Jews are right or wrong, but just a simple, flat, straight answer…They’re [religious Jews] reading Scripture and they come to a different conclusion about Scripture’s message than we do. You’ll never hear that.
Paul was very fiercely antinomian. He opposed all ritual law. He couldn’t stand it, hated it…Paul did not advocate murder or adultery or anything like that or theft, he frequently spoke against that. He was against all ritual law. Lest anyone here think that, ‘Ah that was only for Gentiles and he was supportive of the Seven Noahide Laws’, you’re wrong. This is conventional. People think this and I think it’s just repeated so often that people just assume it’s true, it’s not true at all. Paul believed that no one who was in Christ, (this term to be ‘in Christ’ in uniquely Pauline). That Christ dwells in you, that’s Paul. That’s mind-blowing, this is a huge topic…Once Christ dwells in you so all this law has been done away with and this is not just for Gentiles, this is for Jews as well. In fact in 1 Corinthians 9, famously in verse 20-21, he says, ‘To those who are under the law I become as one who is under the law, although I am not under the law. So I may gain those who are under the law’…He is saying he is completely chameleon. So he’s saying I am not under the law either and in Romans 7 he urges Jews in Rome to not keep the Torah, to not keep the mitzvot. He tells them. He uses an example of a widowed woman. And I tell you please look it up for yourself. It’s not pleasant to read. He is speaking to his brethren, he is speaking to Jews.
And the reason why Christians follow Paul is they are not evil, they are not evil. They are good people. It’s just they don’t know. They really don’t. Because all Christians are reading is the New Testament. They’re not reading Leviticus. They’re not reading Numbers. They’re not. And whenever they do read the Hebrew Bible, they are reading it through a Christological grid. What a tragedy. All these nice Christians, they could be so great, they could rise to such heights. But instead they are reading, ‘you know Joseph was rejected by his brothers so that must be that Jesus…’ Why do you do that when you ignore plain text in favour of this silly view.
No Noahide should ever be cremated (God forbid). Don’t ever do that. You’ll find nothing like that in Tanakh…Nothing should be done with the body. The body should be buried and no cremation. I don’t care – you don’t need a coffin, you don’t need a fancy place. No Noahide should be cremated. The bones are there for the resurrection of the dead and you’re not allowed to engage in any kind of practice that destroys the body. This is highly connected to pagan practice. I mean even the church had the brains not to allow cremation…The church! The church was sensitive enough to this, that [it’s] thoroughly unbiblical. The first time the church allowed cremation was during the Black Plague and they simply couldn’t dispose the bodies…Cremation is not even just cremation (I mean, burning the body). The bones don’t burn. Hashem made the bones of a non-Jew and a Jew in the same way. It is loaded with calcium. It’s not that calcium doesn’t burn, but the burning point for calcium, the temperature is so high, the ovens can’t even burn them. And I am going to tell you this, and if you don’t want to hear something unpleasant, then just watch something else. But what they do is they grind the bones up. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is preserving the bones, you see that. You see that they dig up people…so the bones remain. Why do the bones remain? You think this is just God is trying to like show you something cute? No!…The bones are instrumental in the resurrection. Every person who is created in the image of Hashem has a place in the World to Come. There is discussion whether non-Jews resurrect from the dead (Bnei Noach), do or don’t. This is not a clear point and it’s surely: If a person studies Torah or if a person supports and makes it possible for a Jew to study Torah, that person will resurrect from the dead based on a passage in Isaiah 26:19…The Gemara discusses this explicitly. Because it is the light that allows a person the resurrection of the dead. People claim (all the non-religious people claim) that the whole idea of a resurrection of the dead is later invention [and] only appears in Daniel. I don’t know why Christians, I don’t know why they don’t respond, I’m shocked. This is Isaiah 26. Even according to the atheists, even according to them, this is Isaiah, meaning this is 2,700 years old. So do not allow cremation…There are unusual circumstances that occurred in the ancient world which created a dilemma. Because you do find at times that a body would be burned in Tanakh. The body that you find would be burned would be on the battlefield in Tanakh. And it would not be the bones, because remember the bones don’t burn. The calcium will not burn at 1,800 degrees. Will not. So there was a dilemma and the dilemma is the following: You’re on the battlefield, you’re far away from home. And somebody gets killed and you want to bring the bones back to the person’s place where they live. Back to the Land of Israel. The problem was that if you carried the bones, you carry a dead body with you and there’s no refrigeration. The moment any living creature dies, so the body immediately begins to decay. Immediately. And this of course on the battlefield will spread disease. It would be a disaster. So there a technique used where a burning process usually using a kind of lye acid. Some substance was used so that the flesh was removed but the bones remained. And then the bones without flesh could be brought back and that would not spread disease. And that’s what you do find in Tanakh. This is only because of a very [unique situation], normally we don’t do embalming’s [etc], you don’t touch the body. And if it’s expensive to get buried because it’s a fancy cemetery, get buried somewhere else…If you support the study of Torah or the spread of Torah, you will resurrect from the dead. In fact, that’s what one must do. You hear this, Jews? Study Torah!! Make sure that those that you love are engaged in the study of Torah.
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