First of all, the other answerers were right. "messianics" are not Jewish. Most of them never WERE Jewish–they are Christians who get a kick out of "playing" Jewish, while at the same time gutting Judaism of its true beauty and meaning. They don’t understand why we object to their disrespectful behavior…and *I* don’t understand WHY they don’t understand!
Having said that, they make a really sad stab at doing things the same way, but from what I’ve seen, their efforts are fairly laughable.
My daughter attended a Jewish school, and they showed the kids a tape of a messianic "worship service", in an attempt to educate the kids about Christian attempts to deceive Jews. The school administration needn’t have worried about the kids–because the service was so strange as to be laughable. That’s what my daughter told me–that the whole assembly was actually laughing, watching messianic attempts to emulate Jews.
From personal experience, I’ve seen messianics trying to keep Jewish traditions and having absolutely no idea what they were doing. It’s painful to watch their profane trampling of sacred traditions.
And of course, there are many of our traditions that they PURPOSELY twist and change. When I was converting to Judaism, I bumped into a few messianics who tried very hard to convince me that they were good Jews–but who wanted only to bring me to Jesus. Before I realized who they were, I accepted materials from them, like tapes of prayers in Hebrew, etc. I listened to these tapes, and even I–a new convert-to-be–could tell that the blessings sounded off, as if whoever had made the tape didn’t know what they were doing. It took me awhile to realize why, but when I got to the "blessing for the new covenant", I realized why.
The messianics still denied that they believed in Jesus. They had infiltrated the congregation, were missionizing a lot, and had the nerve to LIE about their man-god. But then, their hero, Paul, said that he made himself into "all things" so that he could reach all men. So I guess that lying is a messianic tradition.
Sorry–I have no respect for them. Give me a good old fashioned Christian who is strong in his/her beliefs and has good moral character, and we’ll get along fine. But messianics aren’t honest–even with themselves!–and their attempts to ‘copy’ our traditions are pathetic.
September 9th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Not in the slightest. Rather – they mock Judaism.
They do things like take a Jewish holiday, use it’s name, switch it’s meanings around, then claim it’s "Judaism." For instance, for Passover they’ll take the three maztos, declare they are about Jesus & the holes in the mazto are about his "piercings." Meanwhile, it’s grossly violating to Judasim to worship a person as sacrifices or God as human form & killed. And consider ….those piercing holes they use…? Where added about 150 years ago as part of the manufactoring process. Handmade matzo most carefully made for the seder does -not- have holes.
If they called it something else, & made it clear it’s THEIR religion… Judaism would have no problem with it.
Passover is about freedom. One key is freedom from the ruler Gods such as Pharaoh common in those days. The sacrifical lamb of Passover, is curiously choosen because it’s was a symbol of the Egyptian God. So, when Messanics claim Jesus was the sacrifical lamb, within the Passover story… Also, all sacrifices had to be unblemished, without wounds & JC certainly doesn’t fit that.
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On Nadine’s comment on Mormons vs. Christians…
This isn’t equivalent. Judaism doesn’t have sects. So this a group of Hindus setting up as Southern Baptists who don’t believe in Jesus & declaring to the world, now you can be a Southern Baptist following all the So. Baptist holidays but with special designs to not believe in Jesus.
Christianity has many different sects & this isn’t the difference between sects, like So. Bap. vs. Mormans. In that way, again Messanics prove they are Christian by using a Christain way to define religious groups (based on theology differences) & not a Jewish one (one religion with different implementation levels).
Resource sites:
http://www.jewsforjudaism.org
http://www.whatjewsbelieve.org
http://www.outreachjudaism.org (the audio tapes on the about us page cover a lot)
http://www.messiahtruth.org (not very PC written but lots of scripture references.)
On Judaism itself:
http://www.jewfaq.org
http:/www.aish.org
http://www.askmoses.org
On Aish’s comment –
It’s not "jews in Israel"… its every Jewish organization around the world. For a community that can’t agree on much, it should impress that we are certain on this. It takes knowing & understanding Judaism to realize how much these groups simply are Christian using a few Jewish rituals with Christian theology imposed on them…. That’s why I included links to Judaism itself above. Also notable, the foot soldiers in these groups are often nice people who don’t realize what they are involved with (aren’t told from the top down & don’t have enough knowledge of Judaism to know). It’s terrribly scary to them to learn of this. Consider that all these groups have to do is NOT falsely call themselves Jews against Jews wishes, yet that is that they choose to do ON purpose. How would you like someone to claim they are a member of your family when they violate the beliefs of your family?
References :
September 9th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Yes they do. I have a friend who considers herself this. She and her family celebrate some stuff like:
.Feat of Trumpets
.Feast of Weeks
.Sukkot
.Purim
.Passover
.Yom Kippur
.That Chanaka (She’d have to spell it)
.Sabbath (She doesn’t go anywhere from Fri sundown to Sat. sundown, literally)
and probably some other ones that I can’t remember. She has quite a few rules and things to follow. (certain meats she can’t eat, etc)
She says that Christians don’t do these things (but that they should too) She also reminds me, a christian, that the first followers of Christ were in fact a group of Jews.
I don’t think she is wrong. But I still dont do all the things she does. But I read about those same festivals and stuff in my own bible. Sometimes I get to thinking….
anyway, take care.
But I just wanted to say that I know of some jews who believe in christ and they do everything that the regular ones do.
(oh and one more thing to the JPA person. She doesn’t worship Christ. She says there is God, the one and only, and then there is Christ (who is NOT God and that Christians lie) that is beneath him, yet above us.)
References :
What is the big issue with these jews that believe in Christ? Why do jews in Israel not seem to like them?
September 9th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Messianic Jews are *not* Jewish. Therefore, whatever they celebrate is completely irrelevant.
References :
I’m Jewish.