“Hear, O Israel! The L-rd is our
G-d, the L-rd alone.” (Deuteronomy
6:4) JPS Hebrew-English TANAKH, 2003
“The very existence of the State of
Israel is a denial of basic Christian doctrine, according to which the Jews
lost the rights of Eretz Yisroel and their role as the Chosen people. The
Christian church seeks to resolve the contradiction between the State of Israel
as a historical entity and the
Evangelion, by conversion of the population.”(Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “The
Rav Speaks: Five Addresses on Israel, History, and the Jewish People”; pg.
122)
The
spiritual enemies of the Jewish people who harvest the Samarian vineyards take
no sabbaticals during shemitah. They
of course refrain from picking grapes for the year, as they must, out of
deference to the enduring Mosaic shemitah
Law. Yet the most important crop of all is harvested year-round regardless of
season. Evangelicals see every season as a time to bring the “good word” to
Jews, or to be blunt, to harvest Jewish souls. For the devout evangelical, the
Jewish soul is sweeter than grapes, and like all difficult quarry, the
religious Jew is most desirous, since he represents the challenge of an elusive
prey who poses an eschatological road-block. The kind of prey who supposedly
can’t be caught, yet according to their religious beliefs, must be caught, in order for the “Second Coming” to arrive.
Trying to
bring religious Jews to the cross is no easy task, as long as Torah Jews remain
insulated from evangelicals. As such, they require the aid of Jewish insiders
to penetrate the castle. And they have found them. Previously insular
communities in Israel are no longer a fortress. The missionaries have
discovered that for the right price, their religious Jewish friends will open
the door. More than that, at least one prominent religious-Zionist rabbi has
even sanctified his presence in the agricultural fields by declaring that “the
harvesters” are fulfilling prophecies. And these same Jewish friends battle on
their behalf by hurling defamation and invectives towards the few Jews who have
the courage to say anything.
And so it
should come as no surprise that Tommy Waller’s “Hayovel Ministry” is working
overtime during shemitah, even as the
vineyards of Samaria remain dormant for the year. The off season is when they
return home to their American congregations and communities to amass their
forces. Now is the time to schlep
Jewish representatives around with them on the speaking circuit, to generate
energy and excitement as they try to bring “the good word” to Jews in Israel.
It is a labor of love. This is where their cadre of Jewish friends come into
the picture; those perplexing individuals with kipot and tzitzit who
have participated in some of the most outrageous interfaith events to
date.
“Religious” Jews for Jesus?
Most Jews
have heard of “Jews for Jesus” and recognize the spiritual threat they pose to
our people. But how many Jews know about
the growing number of religious Jewish leaders and advocates who have become a
new kind of “Jews for Jesus”? How many know about the particulars where these
same Jews have trampled upon Halachic boundaries and thrown themselves into the
forbidden waters of interfaith dialogue? How many Jews are privy to the gradual
process where these Jews are sanitizing Jesus and making him kosher for Jewish
consumption? How many are aware that these individuals are inadvertently aiding
the missionaries in their ultimate goal of converting Jews? Allow me to
clarify:
• When I
speak of “religious Jews for Jesus” I
am not speaking of actual messianic Jews who believe in Jesus and accept him as
divine, but of those religious Jews whose clarity has become so blurred and
distorted due to their involvement and exposure to evangelicals. I speak of
rabbis who have described Jesus as a rabbi, and as a “kosher” concept that Jews
can embrace without sacrificing their most basic Jewish beliefs.
• I speak of
“Halachic” Jews who have either unconsciously or otherwise mastered the tongue
of Christian theology, as they try to harmonize inherently contradictory teachings,
out of a desire to strengthen an alliance with Christians.
• I speak of
those who are engaged in activities that no religious Jewish leader in history
ever engaged in. I speak of those who would been condemned by great Rabbis in
previous generations, when we had strong Torah leadership.\
Hayovel and
other evangelical missionary groups require such Jews. They require individuals
like Jeremy Gimpel, a renowned Jewish advocate, radio personality, and ordained
orthodox Rabbi, who has done as much as anyone on the scene, to grab the
evangelical hand and pull him in for an interfaith bear hug. “JewishIsrael” recently came out with a shocking expose regarding Gimpel’s participation as
the main speaker at a Hayovel sponsored event in Nashville. Every Jew must read this disturbing
article and watch the accompanying
video. The
jaw-dropping finale featured Caleb Waller inviting the notorious Jew obsessed
missionary, “Papa” Don Finto, onto the stage to bless the
audience. (A brief internet search will tell you all you need to know about
Finto.) Don Finto proceeded to lay his hands on Jeremy Gimpel to bless him and
Hayovel, and even concluded with a recitation of Birkat Kohanim! And all
throughout this whole disgraceful episode, Gimpel remained on stage.
I need not go into great detail,
since the article presents all that transpired. Yet I would like to reiterate
one salient point to the reader. Bear in mind that this is yet another documented
example of Hayovel’s missionary agenda.
Despite the same shrill cries of their Jewish enablers, Hayovel’s
sponsored event saw Caleb Waller invite a notorious Jew missionary to bless the
audience. Those who would still deny their intentions are either cognitively
impaired, naïve to the point of cognitive impairment, or lying for any number
of reasons. There are no other logical explanations.
The
following article will address another disturbing event. On February 16th,
2015, the same Jeremy Gimpel participated in an interfaith Question &
Answer session at the Fellowship Bible Chapel in Columbus, Ohio. The chillul Hashem that transpired from his
involvement in such an affair, as well as the responses he gave to the audience
was astounding; and they require an uncompromising response to bring clarity to
the picture. I will be addressing several of Gimpel’s more outrageous
statements point by point. (Those with strong stomachs can also view excerpts
of this video here.)
As an aside,
while I have never met Jeremy Gimpel, he and his co-host Ari Abramowitz were
kind enough to have me as a guest on their Voice of Israel radio show a while back to discuss my articles
addressing the dangers of evangelical support for Israel (minute 27). I found
them to be genuinely friendly and warm, and they gave me a fair opportunity in
the allotted time to present my views. In short, I harbor no animus towards
Jeremy or Ari. I liked them both.
There is
nothing personal here, save for my concern over what I consider grotesque
violations of Jewish behavior, in the form of the most extreme examples of
prohibited interfaith dialogue. As I hope to show, from a Torah perspective,
Jeremy’s responses were outrageous. Many were inaccurate and theologically
ambiguous, and some even bordered on the kinds of positions that could be
deemed heretical or worse. Indeed, Jeremy’s own words could Heaven forbid be
used one day to ensnare Jews.
A quick word
on interfaith dialogue, since this is the back-drop to this whole tragic
affair. How did this all come about? In recent years, prominent “modern-orthodox”
(I hate the term) leaders and others laid the groundwork for the various forms
of interfaith dialogue we are witnessing today. They created a forum for
discussion/meetings which never existed, and by doing so, many of them trampled
upon their rebbe’s Halachic position. As is well known, Rav Soloveitchik (of
blessed memory) prohibited any form of religious discussion, debate, or
dialogue with members of other faith communities, and his position was
articulated fully in his classic essay “Confrontation”, his subsequent addendum, and other written works. The Rav's
views represent the most comprehensive ideological approach to date on the
matter of interfaith relations/discussion, and his position both asserted and
demanded that we Jews respectively maintain a distance between the two faith
communities, and refrain from any attempts to merge them. (Naturally, since
this essay was written in the context of the American Jewish experience,
allowances were made for situations where Jew and gentile shared communal
concerns and only addressed such non-religious matters. In Eretz Yisroel, the biblical prohibitions inherent in the discussion
render many of the points of the article less relevant or perhaps even
irrelevant, since the Halacha clearly defines which gentiles may even enter the
land.)
In one of
the more egregious examples of blurred theological lines that invariably ensue
from such encounters, one former student of “The Rav” even adopted the language
of the missionary, and he was featured several years ago in videos where he
called Jesus "Rabbi Jesus," and used such ideologically problematic
terms as "branches" and "grafting," which are laden with
unmistakable Christian associations. The missionaries had a field day with this
trove of material. Is it any wonder that we have a new category today, of a
religious Jewish activist who engages in the kinds of things that none of our
forebears would have ever thought possible or permissible?
Jeremy’s Q&A Session at the
Fellowship Bible Chapel
Those Jews
who may have met or heard Jeremy Gimpel speak, may be taken aback by my
remarks. I allow Jeremy’s own words to speak for themselves. Again, I advise
the reader to refer to the video footage of this
encounter. Here are
some of the highlights:
●
Quoting the Gospels: Early on in the session, Jeremy
referenced the “humble of spirit” and participated in a rare spectacle which
boggles the mind. Consider the image of an ordained rabbi standing before an
audience of evangelical missionaries, quoting from the book of Matthew (5:5). “The meek will inherit the earth,”
declared Jeremy, “that is the spirit of
the bible.” My response: When a rabbi quotes “Matthew” what more
can one say? Can there be a greater desecration of Hashem’s name?
●
“A Jew Is a Jew”: In response to an inquiry from a
participant about the status of a Jew who converts to Christianity, Jeremy
responded that despite a Jew’s attempt to leave the faith, he nevertheless
remains a Jew. While this is generally accepted as true according to Halacha,
Jeremy failed to emphasize that despite the Jew remaining a Jew, acceptance of
Jesus as either divine or a messiah is inherently incompatible and contrary to
Jewish beliefs. Even Jeremy’s mentor, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, (who has been involved in
questionable interfaith- exchanges himself) has explicitly stated: “Jews can never accept Jesus as the Messiah
– anyone who does so is ipso facto not a Jew…” Acceptance of Jesus is the
antithesis of Jewish belief. Jeremy’s failure to point this out plays right
into the hands of the missionaries who maintain that such a belief actually
makes the Jew more “Jewish” by “completing” him.
●
Granting Legitimacy to Christian
Interpretations:
When one woman inquired how a religious Jew such as himself would interpret a
certain prophecy of Zachariah, Jeremy went into a convoluted, inaccurate, and
dangerous response, which legitimized the standard Christological distortion of
the verses, and exposed a confused perspective on a host of Jewish concepts. It
was patronizing and pandering, and his answers illustrated the dangers and
futility of trying to harmonize incompatible beliefs. Ironically, the
questioner seemed equally dissatisfied with his responses. Here was the
exchange:
Jeremy:
“To answer really simply, maybe everything that you believe in the book of
Zachariah, that the messiah will do, we believe too. I mean that’s why the
argument is sort of like…uhh …it’s not a waste of our time… but like….When a
man comes and he fights the wars of Israel, defeats the enemies, builds a
temple, peace on earth, the leader that did that, we will all kneel before the
king. (Jeremy actually kneels down.) Do you know what I mean?
Whoever that is…so your vision of
that, you say it’s a second coming, OK, we say it’s a first coming…we actually
do…what do we...we know that we don’t know…that’s sort of like where the Jews
are at right now…we just like…uhhohh (inaudible sound)…I guess when the messiah
comes, the messiah comes. Right now, that’s just not uuhhh…right now, what do
we have to do? We got to be good with G-d. We have to like bring G-d into our
lives, that’s really important.”
At this point, Jeremy made a clumsy effort to reconcile the
impossible divide, and reassure the woman of our “shared visions”:
…….”your vision of the messiah’s
second coming is our vision of the messiah’s first coming. All of the messianic
prophecies that will be fulfilled, when they’re fulfilled, we’ll recognize that
as messiah.”
Response: There is no commonality whatsoever
between the Jewish understanding of a righteous human Messiah who will fulfill all the Halachic criteria and fights the
wars of G-d, and the pagan notion of a divine man (part of a triune godhead),
who died for mankind’s sins, was resurrected, and will eventually return in a
Second Coming. The latter belief is for those who sacrifice their rational
faculty to accept a theology borrowed from the major pagan religions of the
ancient world. In a final attempt to harmonize the validity of the two faiths,
Jeremy expressed his perspective on how the arrival of the messiah will play
out, in a way that accepts the legitimacy of both.
“I always feel like how is that
gonna to play? Are we…is one of us just gonna have a theological crisis…I mean
like oops…or is it going to be like somehow we are both right? I don’t know. I feel like G-d’s ways
are more than what we think. I intuit… that somehow both of us are gonna to be
right, but not in the ways we think we are gonna to be right. I don’t know.”
Response: Moshe
Emet V’Torato Emet.
The words of Moses are true and his Torah is true. Judaism 101. With all due
respect to the other faiths who maintain a similar position about their own
beliefs, we are not both correct. The truths of Judaism are inherently in
opposition to Christianity and there can be no harmonizing of the two faiths.
The truths of Judaism and Torah are the only truths. There is no theological crisis.
“For in point of fact, Judaism and
Christianity are not basically one but are, as Professor Freidrich so aptly
states, fundamentally opposed to each other.” (Judaism and Christianity: The Differences, Trude
Weiss-Rosmarin; pg. 10)
●
Jesus- as played by Gimpel the
actor: Jeremy
borrowed a page from basic Christian theology which posits that the Mosaic Law
is impossible to keep, when he “admits” that as a Jew, “Jews, often get lost in religion.” (Where have we heard that before?) And in a theatrical performance that in this internet age will
never go away, he fell into the character of Jesus by explaining:
“That was what Jesus was talking to
Jews. He’s like folks, you’re getting lost in the law. You’re getting lost in
the details. Don’t forget the big picture.”
Response: How to convey the shock one feels
when he hears a Jew speak this way? Images of classical Christian anti-Semitism
come to mind, replete with invectives hurled towards “the Pharisees.” There is no way to get lost in the law for one who
truly upholds it. As an example, to the extent that man’s adherence to the law
could cause him to behave in an ill manner to his fellow man, this is hardly
proof of getting caught up in the law. On the contrary, this constitutes proof
that the individual never truly followed the law! When properly kept, the
Halacha is the only solution for the religious Jew. Torah is not merely law. It
is a way of life required by Hashem, and it remains the only way for man to
perfect himself. Jeremy gave the missionaries an unexpected gift with these
statements. This is precisely what they argue when they try to explain how
G-d’s law is no longer relevant or obligatory, at that only a blind acceptance
of Jesus can bring one “salvation.”
Since Jeremy
referenced a historical Jesus, a few words need to be said about the question
of the historicity of Jesus. Jews who speak of a historical Jesus who was both
“religious” and even a “rabbi” are playing a dangerous theological game. The
obvious conclusion of such thinking is that you can “follow” him and still
remain a good Jew, the same position which the messianic argues. The
missionary’s challenge is to expand upon this concept and convince the Jew how
to follow Jesus. Not only is this a perilous path, which from the onset is
contrary to Jewish thought and Law, it also blindly accepts the notion of a
historical Jesus as a fact.
Did Jesus Exist?
Short answer for the Jew. Who cares? There is no definitive evidence that a specific
historical Jesus existed that has any commonality with the many contradictory
and mythical accounts in the gospel. Any scholarship that argues such a position is premised on a particular
historian's viewpoint, which is contested by many other scholars. From a
Torah perspective, whether or not Jesus was a real Jewish figure, a composite
of several figures, or based upon two different figures in the Talmud, Judaism
doesn’t venerate his memory. If he existed at all, he was not a good Jew. The
ancient historians certainly don’t provide a strong case for a historical
Jesus. In “26 Reasons Jews don’t
believe in Jesus”, Asher Norman notes:
“The works of 41
historians who lived during the first century and early second century and
wrote about Judea and Rome have survived. Significantly, none of them mentioned
Jesus, his alleged disciples, his apostles, or any of the so-called
“miraculous” events described in the gospels. It is difficult to understand how
this is possible, if the gospel stories about Jesus described historical
events.” (Page 182)
The Talmud never mentioned a “Jesus of Nazareth.” The
Tosefta and Baraita reference two different men that people mistakenly
associate with Jesus. Take Yeishu Ben Pandira for example. He was never
crucified. He was stoned to death for sorcery and hung from a tree. This
occurred one hundred years before Jesus, during Alexander Jannaeus's reign in
Jerusalem. Yeshu Ben Stada presents other problems. He lived one hundred years
after Jesus. And while his manner of
death and subsequent hanging for sorcery on the eve of Passover are the same,
he was killed in Lydda. These were clearly two different personalities, and
neither of these men were killed by Romans. They were executed in different
towns, and neither was killed via crucifixion. The dates don't correspond to
the dates of Jesus that Christians accept. Did Jesus exist according to
rabbinical sources? Rabbi Jehiel ben Joseph said that the Yeshu referenced in
rabbinic literature was a disciple of Joshua Ben Perachai, and NOT Jesus the
Nazarene. Nachmanides rejected the idea that the Talmud referenced Jesus,
whereas Maimonides maintained that it did. (Norman, 186-187).
Believing in an historical Jesus is not a fundamental tenet
of Judaism. Ultimately, the historicity of Jesus is irrelevant for the
believing Jew. But believing in the ideas associated with him is not
irrelevant, and they constitute a rejection of everything Jewish, and a descent
into idolatry. And the theology that is based upon the figure of Jesus is
prohibited to the Jew as idolatry according to all rabbinic positions.
●
Jeremy Kashers Jesus: Jeremy continued to stumble, by
explaining that a theoretical belief in Jesus as the Messiah is not
problematic, as long as he is not deemed divine.
“It’s much less a problem for Jews,
the Messiah part of things.”
As proof, he cites the unfortunate case of what has
transpired in the Chabad world which is rife with the tragic belief that their
deceased Rebbe is the messiah. Jeremy incorrectly maintained that this aberrant
belief is acceptable to mainstream religious Jews, in a sense, by arguing that
it boils down to the theological equivalent of one’s preference for apples and
another man’s penchant for oranges.
My response: The reality on the ground says
otherwise. Outside the influence of Chabad circles, mainstream religious Jewry
finds these notions anathema to Judaism. What transpired in Chabad is terrible
and has created a dangerous un-Jewish belief system which threatens fundamental
Jewish beliefs. The notion of a dead Messiah is abhorrent to mainstream Torah
thought. (I don’t want to get side-tracked but I would like to say one thing.
As someone who doesn’t follow Chasidism, I nevertheless revere the legacy of
the Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed
memory. What has occurred today is a disgrace to his righteous name.) Jeremy
continues:
“When Christianity became like woe,
that’s different, is the divinity of Jesus that too much for Jews to swallow…..
If we hold that G-d is one there should be no other G-d’s before him, G-d is
G-d the father and there is no other trinity manifestations. It’s just one. That’s where the real challenge becomes.”
My response: What challenge? What a foolish use
of words. There is no challenge for us. G-d is One. These are the basic tenets
of Jewish thought and belief as expressed in our sacred Shema prayer. It is a concept of Oneness that is unlike anything else in the world, including our
standard perception of the concept of one. Defining it as a challenge is
dangerous for two reasons:
1)
It
suggests that the challenge can be intellectually met, and that theoretically
someone could present an idea that could bridge this gap and make the idea
palpable to Jew.
2)
It
challenges the missionaries to overcome this hurdle. It also defines the “hurdle,”
and feeds the missionary agenda.
As if that wasn’t enough, Jeremy dropped another bombshell:
“As far as the messiah, there is no
problem to believe that Jesus is the messiah…really, according to Jewish law.
You could believe that. And you can follow in his ways, like literally hold him
as a Rebbe…and even the idea of a righteous rabbi dying for atonement is not a
foreign idea in mystical Judaism. So there is so much that there is what to
work with.”
Response:
Here I find it difficult to convey
what I am feeling, because I am screaming inside. WHAT? No problem to believe
in Jesus as the messiah? Of course there is! Jesus, real or imagined, never
fulfilled the criteria to be the Jewish messiah! Furthermore, we Jews believe in the coming of the messiah, not the
messiah himself. Allow me to explain. The messiah will not require a blind
belief, because by fulfilling the criteria, he will identify himself to be the
correct individual. Jesus met none of these criteria. Judaism rejects Jeremy’s
notion of atonement as being compatible with Jewish belief. It is not. He can
cite “mystical Judaism” which is a vague term that doesn’t mean anything. We
don’t believe in a dead messiah who didn’t complete his mission. By its very
definition, death is the most obvious proof that one was not the Messiah.
Yet the most troubling notion can be found where he states,
“So there is so much that there is what
to work with.” What does this mean? If ever there was an open invitation to
the missionaries of the world to accept Jeremy’s ambiguity as a call to try
harder, this is it. This is a call for missionaries to become more creative by
working with Jeremy’s concept of a flexible ideology, in order to harmonize
Jesus. This was an outrageous statement that was as dangerous as a hail of
bullets shot into a crowd of Jews. What
is there to work with? What does that even mean?
Jeremy
Panders To Christians Regarding The Temple Mount: Jeremy spoke about the unfortunate
situation on the Temple Mount, where the Jordanian Waqf prohibits Jewish
prayer. The problem with this exchange was that he reinterpreted the prophetic
vision of a Third Temple, as one where Christians can pray as Christians under
the rubric of Isaiah’s “House of prayer for all nations.” Christian prayer and
worship are certainly not acceptable on the Temple Mount, neither in its
current state of ruin, nor in the eventual Third Temple. Halacha will determine
who can even enter the land, not to mention who can ascend the Temple Mount,
and how prayer can be offered. (As for those righteous gentiles who intend to
truly call out in Hashem’s true Name, the Third Temple will certainly be a
place where they will have a means of expressing proper expressions of thanks
and praise to The Almighty.)
Reflections: Jeremy and others often present
these interfaith events as a unique and new opportunity in Jewish history to
engage in a form of Jewish outreach to Christians. When I was interviewed on his
radio show, he
admitted to me as much. I rejected the notion that even if one could avoid the
problems of interfaith dialogue, one could never engage in outreach with
evangelical missionaries. I recommended that we Jews invest our time with the
righteous gentiles of the Bnai Noach world instead. There are so many of them
today.
It is
interesting to note that at the conclusion of this event at the chapel, Pastor
Steve Mitchell reiterated and reaffirmed for the audience, the primary
Christian beliefs, as I see it, to negate any of Jeremy’s final words. These
evangelicals are clearly not open to becoming B’nai Noach, and they themselves do not want their flock to believe
that Judaism offers an alternative path to the truth. They are firm believers
in their faith, and their uncompromising belief in a divine Jesus, and we
should understand this without accepting the naïve notion that it’s a mitzvah
to engage with them. Our own people will only lose spiritually in such an
encounter, because the evangelical isn’t interested in reason, but the blind
faith of dogma and indoctrination. And his theology allows him to engage in
duplicity to lure the Jew in.
Human Psychology
Selective
Vision. As the old adage goes, we see what we want to see. As complex people we
all engage in this delusional process to some extent. Selective sight allows us
to continue to live the way we want, and avoid the things we refuse to confront
or accept. There are many reasons we ignore the obvious. Some dwell in darkness
because ignorance can be comforting. Some of us prefer not to dwell on things
that make us wince. We sometimes wear filters over our eyes to ensure that our
world schema remains intact.
And yet,
taking human psychology into the equation, I still cannot fathom how Jews allow
themselves to be deluded by these dangerous organizations. As I’ve noted many
times before, there is a world of documentation confirming the dangers of the
evangelicals in Israel. And thanks to JewishIsrael’s
recent article, we now have yet another piece of video footage exposing the
notorious Waller family and their Hayovel Ministry’s missionary agenda. The
vitriolic responses of those self-appointed Jewish leaders who aid Waller and
others, cannot negate the facts, even if they choose to cast them aside.
Most native
born Israelis have no understanding of the evangelical personality and are
ill-equipped to read his pulse. Their unfamiliarity with English renders them
vulnerable to the evangelical’s clever use of language to convey theological
beliefs. But the fact remains: the missionaries are here in Israel, and many of
them are relying upon religious Jews to sanitize their image. People like Jeremy
Gimpel, who are well intended, but are nevertheless engaged in spiritual
Russian roulette, and others who have been featured in some of my past
articles, are harming the Jewish people. As Jewish boys and girls continue to
be exposed to a strange admixture of holy and profane, it won’t be long before
some of them eat the forbidden fruit. It is a subtle process, which Hayovel’s
beloved messianic preacher “Papa” Don Finto understands well. He is ecstatic,
because he and his ilk understand that they never had such an opportunity in
history to enter religious communities and break down the barriers between Jew
and Christian. He foresees the day when more Jews will (Heaven forbid) kneel
before the cross and accept “that man.”
Various
efforts are underway to apprise major Jewish leaders and organizations of the
full extent of this spiritual menace, which is not monolithic, but an elaborate
network of missionary organizations. Many Jews are ignorant of the problem.
Many more allow themselves to remain so. There are several good rabbis who are
mortified about what is going on, and yet for some reason, they lack the
courage or the organizational ability to take a strong stance. So we continue
to fight the lonely battle to chip away at their resistance. Because if we
don’t fight the good fight, the spiritual death toll for the Jewish people will
be incalculable.
Every Jew in
turn can do his part by writing about this problem, speaking with other Jews,
and informing their community leaders. Jews need to write letters to major
Jewish organizations both in Israel and across the diaspora, demanding that
they publicly acknowledge the problem and articulate an aggressive plan of
action. Of course, the battle needn’t be left to religious organizations. All
concerned Jews are welcome to contribute. A major part of the effort to combat
this spiritual period of “shmad”
requires that we publicize all of the major personalities who work with these
evangelicals. As such, the actions of Jeremy Gimpel and others must be exposed.
“Good intentions” are no excuse, when Jewish souls are in danger.
Ironically,
many of the same Jews who promote the evangelicals are upset when Israel
consistently appeases the murderous beasts of Fatah who mask their true
intentions, which mirror the genocidal dreams of Hamas and Hezbollah. Yet they
fail to recognize Fatah’s spiritual equivalent, and on this issue at least,
they show the equivalent stupidity of any card carrying member of “Peace Now.”
Learn to recognize the missionary equivalent of the duplicitous Arab. Learn to
recognize “Brother Esau” who comes to us with a smile, lots of cash, a
willingness to harvest grapes for free, and an undying enthusiasm to bring the
“good word” to us. Learn to scream, “mechabel”
- “terrorist” - even when the assailant holds nothing in his hand but a cross
and a fervent desire for you to kiss it.
Learn to
comprehend his duplicitous language, so that you can read what is really in his
heart. Here’s a brief lesson to get you started. Conversational Evangelical
Language 101: When he says “the Father”
he really means Jesus.
“V’alu moshi’im B’har Tzion, lishpot
et Har Esav…..”
– Ovadyah 1:21
Don’t delude
yourself. Our visions and beliefs are incompatible. Santayana’s words are
certainly true for the Jew. History always repeats itself. Har Ha’Carmel 2015.
Where is
Elijah?
*I
would like to thank Avraham Leibler and Ellen Horowitz of JewishIsrael for their contribution to this
article.
