לזכות גילה שושנה בת נעכא גיטל לזרעא חייא וקיימא
לרפואת מרים בת חיה
Continuing the thought from the previous post....
There are over 2 BILLION Christians in the world. That is about 32 percent of the world's population. Not that I counted but I trust the information I accessed. Imagine if they would all give but one dollar per person a year to support yeshivos!! Boy - that would be the end of every yeshiva's financial woes.... Ahhhhh:-).
Anyway, Christianity is the wayward child of Judaism. Its leader was Jewish and they maintain that the Tanach is a holy, Divinely written or at least Divinely inspired work. That means that they all believe [officially] that we, the Jews, were the chosen people. The Tanach is quite clear about that in many places. So what happened??
We were rejected. No more. Now to be saved one must believe in Yoshke and he or she [today it is no longer "he or she". One can be both, either or neither:-)] is set. [To be fair Christians are also encouraged - sometimes, like when priests weren't handing Jews over to the Nazis, or sexually abusing little boys - to live moral lives, which historically has not always been the case but this post is not about history but about theology. There is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy and evil intermingled with Jewish values such as tzdaka. So the average Christian might be a good person and might not - like everyone else on the planet].
Since they believe in Tanach it is interesting to explore if the possibility of the Jews being rejected is ever considered. In fact, we see AGAIN AND AGAIN in the Chumash and in the later books of Neviim that it is prophesied that the Jews will veer from the path, they will sin, they will be unfaithful, they will sleep with Gentile women [end of parshas Pinchas], they will sleep with Jewish wives, but not only their own because they will swap wives [!!! See Amos 6-4 with Rashi based on the Gemara], they will be killers and thieves [see the first perek of Yeshayahu], they will serve idols [all over Tanach] etc. etc. We might control the worlds banks because we also have a not so geshmak side to us...
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YET!!!!! Despite everything Hashem never says "Fellows, I am done with you. We're finished". The ol' text "Sorry Rachel but this relationship is OVER. I have met another women and she is much better than you. It was cool while it lasted. You're a cheat. Have a great life. Dave." NEVER. Time and again we find that we are promised that after we stray and are punished, we return to Hashem and are accepted with open arms. For example, in Hoshea, after we are compared to an unfaithful wife, we return and Hashem says וארשתיך לי לעולם וארשתיך לי בצדק ובמשפט ובחסד וברחמים - We are FOREVER betrothed to Hashem.
There is no HINT ANYWHERE that at any time the need to keep the Torah is revoked and that belief [that a human being is god] is enough [as they claim]. Ever. On the contrary, we are warned NEVER to add or subtract from the Torah [Devarim 13/1].
אֵת כָּל הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם אֹתוֹ תִשְׁמְרוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת לֹא תֹסֵף עָלָיו וְלֹא תִגְרַע מִמֶּנּוּ.
Not only that, we are told that if someone comes and says in the name of G-d that we should serve idols [such as turning a human being into G-d], he should be ignored and killed [Devarim 13/2 and on and Devarim 18].
It is clear that the Jews are chosen forever - regardless of how we behave at any given point.
There is a prophecy [Zechariah 8/23] that at THE END OF DAYS, ten gentiles will grab the garment of the Jew and ask to follow him because Hashem is with him.
כֹּה אָמַר יְ-ה-וָה צְבָאוֹת בַּיָּמִים הָהֵמָּה אֲשֶׁר יַחֲזִיקוּ עֲשָׂרָה אֲנָשִׁים מִכֹּל לְשֹׁנוֹת הַגּוֹיִם וְהֶחֱזִיקוּ בִּכְנַף אִישׁ יְהוּדִי לֵאמֹר נֵלְכָה עִמָּכֶם כִּי שָׁמַעְנוּ אֱלֹהִים עִמָּכֶם.
Aren't we supposed to be rejected by then? No - never. Until and including the end of days we are Hashem's chosen people.
So the foundation of the entire Christian belief system runs entirely contrary to their belief system.
אשרי העם שככה לו אשרי העם שה' א-להיו!!!
