Jhan Moskowitz: Thank you for having me, Dave.
Dave Glover: You bet. Rabbi Tovia Singer is a fellow talk show host. He has a radio talk show in Israel. He is the founder and director of Outreach Judaism which is an international organization dedicated to countering the effects of fundamentalist Christian groups and cults who specifically target Jews for conversion. I’ve ran into a couple because most Christians would be along the lines where I was growing up. They’d say “Oh, boy how did they miss that?” There are those that say “We need to go get God’s people. We need to go, we need to convert them.” Let me bring Tovia on here. Rabbi, thank you so much for taking some time today. We appreciate it.
Rabbi Tovia Singer: Hey, it’s great joining you here from the Holy Land.
Dave Glover: From Israel. Technology is amazing. Okay, let’s start with Jhan. You were raised a Jew in the Bronx.
Jhan Moskowitz: Yes, correct.
Dave Glover: At some point you became disenchanted with your former religion and you became a seeker and you found your answer in Jesus.
Jhan Moskowitz: Well I wouldn’t put it quite like that. I wasn’t disenchanted with being Jewish. I think I had moved from a simple, childlike faith in my conservative Orthodox upbringing. Like most adolescents, I started searching. It wasn’t really until I was in Israel in ’67 that I made an earnest search for a personal God. The personal search took me to many places. I mean part of it was the Kabbalah Jewish mysticism and eastern mysticism and I eventually found the Jewish Messiah – Jesus – and recognized that that’s who and what I was waiting for. I’m in love with him.
Dave Glover: Jhan, what have you been taught about Jesus by your family and your temple?
Jhan Moskowitz: Well my father and mother were survivors of the Holocaust so I was raised in a very strict Jewish home, not just religiously but culturally. We had “us” and “them”. My father said something really sad to me once when we talked about Jesus. He said “If Jesus knew the trouble he was going to make to the people of Israel, he would have never been born.” So Jesus was kind of looked upon - it wasn’t Jesus, it was his followers and the church and the anti-Semitism of Christians – that always obscured the person on who Jesus was. I don’t think a lot of Jewish people have ever dealt with who Jesus really is. They deal with a caricature of him. They deal with all of the rumors and things that people say. Think about it: my folks, their image of Christianity were people who wore crosses and turned the gas on my people, my grandmother and my grandfather. For them to deal with Jesus on an honest level of a Jewish Messiah living in Israel. Most people think Jesus was Italian and the gospel happened in Rome. The idea of a Jewish Messiah and a Jewish Jesus is not something that was current in Jewish thinking. He was alien so that was what I was taught. I want to say something at the outset. I think your Rabbi friend in your introduction really was telling the truth. I think the Judaism of the last thousand years or so is a Judaism that rejects the idea that God would become a man. I think the idea that incarnation, that Jesus is God is repugnant to Orthodox Judaism. It’s been so since the place called Yavne when the Jewish people after the destruction of the Temple codified what we call the norm of Judaism today. The question isn’t whether Judaism today repudiates whether God could become a man. The question is was there a belief in that during the time of Jesus that was Jewish. That’s really the issue that we should probably be talking about.
Dave Glover: Okay, Rabbi?
Rabbi Tovia Singer: Yeah, I think from the outset it’s important for your listeners to understand that I am an Orthodox rabbi. You mentioned it briefly. We don’t believe in movements or culture. The Bible is our foundation; that’s very important. The Scripture Tanakh – that’s our authority. We don’t have any other authority. So I would say that it’s very clear that your pastor growing up he had his beliefs and the rabbi at Jhan’s synagogue when he was a little boy had his beliefs but ask the question that goes something like this: what does the Bible say? What does the Scripture say? That’s the foundation of the Jewish faith. So yeah there’s no doubt that Jews for Jesus which is essentially a Baptist mission that’s predicated on converting Jews to Christianity founded on the doctrine of the Trinity, the idea of three Gods in one, that Messiah is somehow a human being. But what does the Bible say? In Scripture in the Book of Numbers in the Torah, it says that “God is not a man”. Now what do I do with a Jew? I’ve got a Bible on one side that says God is not a man and I’ve got Jews for Jesus screaming that God is a man and we should worship him. Isaiah chapter 11 which everyone agrees is talking about the Messiah and it describes in verse 2 and 3 that the Messiah will fear God. I want to say that again because I want to make sure that everybody on Interstate 70 can hear that. The Bible says in Isaiah 11:2-3 that the Messiah will literally fear God. Why would God fear God? Really it’s very important we have a discussion of what I believe or what Jhan believes or what Moishe Rosen believes or what your tech believes. But the question is “what is God’s opinion?” That is what we ask in Judaism. The idea of the Son of God is very important and is very ambiguous because Exodus 4:22 states explicitly that the Jewish people are God’s son, His first-born son. So are we all Jews God’s? No, it does not mean that at all. It means that we are followers of God. You talked a moment ago that 95-96% of Americans believe in God. Let’s talk about the 4% - the atheists. Many of them are Jewish, by the way, unfortunately. The atheists “Are you spiritual?” “Yes, I’m a very spiritual person.” But what does spiritual mean? It’s a very ambiguous term. So what we got to do is we use the Bible. That’s our authority; that’s our foundation. We look at Scripture to tell us what does a Messiah supposed to do. We open up Ezekiel chapter 37. That’s Tanakh, that’s God speaking there. The Bible tells us what’s the Messiah is supposed to do so we don’t have to guess by going to Chosen People ministries or some Assemblies of God group. We go to the Bible. That’s our authority.
Dave Glover: Jhan?
Jhan Moskowitz: May I respond?
Dave Glover: Yes, you may.
Jhan Moskowitz: Well first of all I commend you, Tovia. It’s a great thing that you’re saying we go to the Scriptures. Let’s be fair and honest, okay? The Jehovah’s Witnesses use the Scriptures. The Mormons use the Scriptures; even the Muslims use the Scriptures. Orthodox groups use the Scriptures. Fundamentalists use the Scriptures. We all appeal and we all say “You have your opinion but we believe what the Bible says” which has a certain ring or arrogance. The point I’m making is we’re all going to appeal to the Scripture. We’re all going to say that the Scripture is the basis that we understand it. The question is how we interpret the Scriptures. The very text you gave – which, by the way, I would also offer - also would have a different way of understanding them. Let me follow through with one of them. I think the New Testament clearly talks about a mystery. We have a mystery where here’s a person we think Scripture says has the attributes of God and yet he is thirsty, he says he had limited understanding or even worse, here’s the idea of how can God be separated from God. “Why have you forsaken me?” You know the real answers to these things and if people want to pursue them, they can. But it’s unfair to just throw these texts out and say “Well this is the Biblical understanding and this is how it’s done and we have the answer.” I’m ready to wrestle with all of these with you and any other listener who’s there but a little bit of humility. I’m struggling. I think the point of Son of God and that’s where we started. Let’s go back to that. You’re right, Exodus does talk about Israel being called the sons of God. In the Book of Psalms chapter 2, we have what we call in fancy theological terms an enthronement psalm. It means that this psalm was probably written by either David for David or David for Solomon about when his son would become king. It’s reminiscent of some of the psalms or prose that were written when a new eastern king was being crowned. It talks about “this day I had begotten thee. This day thou art my son.” And then it says “Ask of me for the nations, I’ll give you the nations.” Then it says “Nations, you better pay homage to this person. You better bow down because there’s only refuge in him.” Now look, that psalm may have been written for King David or for Solomon but by the time it gets in the Scriptures, it means something different. The people who say the Scriptures together, the people who are the canoniclers under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit put that in the beginning of the book and they said something about “If you want to understand the Book of Psalms, you’ve got to understand Psalm 1 and 2. That’s kind of the introduction to everything.
Dave Glover: You are listening to Jhan Moskowitz there with the group Jews for Jesus and Rabbi Tovia Singer. He’s calling in from Israel. We’re going to take a break and we come back, we’ll continue this for the next 40 minutes. Is Jesus the Son of God? If not, why not? What are they looking for in a Messiah? We’ll take your phone calls - 314-969-9797, toll-free from anywhere 866-455-9797. Dave Glover Show will be right back. [After the break] Welcome back, Dave Glover Show just about 5:30 here. We’re talking about “Are Christians and Jew alike?” and the really most important question “Is Jesus the Son of God?” We talked about this kind of thing on the priest and rabbi once a month. Then when Rabbi Shmuel introduced me to the thought that according to Jewish thought, according to their interpretation of the Torah, the Messiah would not, was not and will not be a deity or supernatural being or certainly not the Son of God. That right there when someone shows up and says “I’m the Messiah”. “Really? Okay, are you the Son of God?” “Yes, I am.” “Move to the left. No, you’re not.” I’ve never had that thought in my head. I said we need to have the whole show on this. Jhan Moskowitz is joining us. He is with the organization Jews for Jesus. Rabbi Tovia Singer is joining us from Israel. He is the founder/director of Outreach Judaism. As I would expect, the phones have gone crazy on both sides of this issue. I believe Rabbi it’s your turn if you have something to respond to Jhan or lead us to a new thought, go right ahead.
Rabbi Tovia Singer: I’m not even sure what his point was. I don’t mean that in a derisive way. I say that with all due respect. I’m clueless at what the point is. In Psalm 2, it says that “You are my son and this day I begot you.” Let’s think about that Psalm 2:7 which Jhan quoted. If the Messiah, if that’s talking about the Messiah at all which is not there in the text at all, that’s why the rabbi’s work is so important – to elucidate the text – it says “On this day I have begotten you.” Now if this is talking about the Messiah, how could on this day God beget you but what was the day before? God is eternal. He has no beginning; He has no end. The fact is so important for the church to crystallize so it makes it appear that it talks about Jesus.
Dave Glover: Jhan and Tovia, let me stop you there because you’re both talking. I’m not sure if it’s because Rabbi is in Israel but you’re both talking at the same time and it appears you can’t hear each other so we have to be very, very careful with that. Once both of you start talking and you add me into it then no one can hear anything. So Rabbi, finish the whole point because we still have another half hour of air time and then we’ll go back to Jhan.
Rabbi Tovia Singer: You know, this phone call is really a paradigm of what the situation is. The situation is that Jewish people, rabbis like myself are going to speak about the Bible and Christians – not normal Christians, that’s important for your listeners – the guys who are right now at the Arch in St. Louis, they’re not into this stuff Jews for Jesus. They go to their Presbyterian Church, they’re not trying to convert Jews. But I’m saying these fundamentalist Christians, they read text, they read verses in the Bible that just aren’t there. They’ve been altered. They’ve been mangled unfortunately by a fundamentalist church and then they expect Jewish people not to speak. I’m sitting here talking to you and teaching the Bible and Jhan wants to jump in. He wants to say “Hey, Rabbi stop. I want to explain to you what the Christians believe.” But the Bible says “On this day I begot you.” The Bible says that God is not a man. The Bible says that the Messiah is to fear God. Now God doesn’t fear anything so the text is so clear. What I encourage is and I’ll say this and then I’m going to be quiet and you can turn it over to Jhan or the listeners, I’m going to give a plug because our website is OutreachJudaism.org and anyone who wants to study these texts, that’s where you begin. What does the Bible say? What is God’s opinion?
Shalom
better off? Not entirely; for I already made the charge that all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, are controlled by sin.
