http://www.shmuley.com//news/details en luis@shmuley.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-02T00:17:33+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/n_the_discussion_of_jesus_jews_should_go_on_offense/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/n_the_discussion_of_jesus_jews_should_go_on_offense/#When:00:17:33Z In the Discussion of Jesus, Jews Should Go on Offense Published 1 February, 2012, Official Launch Day of Kosher Jesus By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach By the time the dust settles on the ferocious battle over Kosher – and it will settle – the reputation of several people will have been affected. Rabbi Yitzchok Wolf of Chicago, who started the controversy by writing that both the book and I should be banned from Chabad while admitting he had never read it, will have compromised his standing as an educator. After all, what kind of educator doesn’t believe in making educated statements? Rabbi Immanuel Schochet, I predict, will be known over the next few years for the book he banned more than any book he wrote, so devastating was his declaration of Kosher Jesus to be heretical without offering a single argument to back up his claims. His son, Rabbi Yitzchok Schochet, whose two-decade obsession with me would be flattering if it weren’t so disquieting, will have undermined his credibility further with his invention of three judges at his father’s debate declaring him the victor over Dr. Michael Brown. And while this construction out of whole cloth was well-intentioned – designed as it was to make his father appear better – all it did in reality was make all Rabbis look worse. His issue is no longer with me but now with the many Christian missionaries attacking him for his fabrications about the debate with Brown. Then there is the cowardly Rabbi who seemed to attack me without having the courage to even mention my name.  He was always friendly to me and we even talked about a number of large-scale educational projects we could work on together.  He never once voiced a word of complaint about my books or actions.  And yet when it became fashionable to attack me, he retroactively decided to condemn – in the most vicious language imaginable – both me and my past work. I will reciprocate his compliment by leaving him to his own nameless oblivion. Now we have Michael Skobac, the education director of Jews for Judaism attacking Kosher Jesus and beginning with an unfortunate, gratuitous, personal, cheap shot that only undermines his argument, saying that I revel in the attention my book is receiving and that I am “desperate.” I really have to wonder, is there no one who can discuss this book without getting personal? Judaism does not fear intelligent discussion. It is not a closed-minded religion. So let’s leave the personal invective out of this and go back to the issues. Indeed, I am grateful to Skobac for at least offering his reasons for fearing my book and for tacitly breaking with Schochet by not declaring the book heretical because he knows the suggestion is ludicrous and cannot be sustained. Indeed, given Skobac’s fairness, I would appeal to him and Jews for Judaism to please refrain from the dissemination of a pirated PDF copy of the book to others for comment, not only because it is illegal and unethical, but because it is an earlier version and is riddled with errors. As Rabbi Gil Student tweeted after being sent a bootleg copy of Kosher Jesus by another party, “Woe to the generation in which rabbis send each other illegal copies of books.” Now let’s consider Skobac’s points. Skobac first writes that the pamphlet of his which I quote where he entertains the possibility that Jesus was a Torah-observant Jew who never sought to invent a new religion was “written with a counter-missionary agenda, directed primarily to Jews who have embraced Christianity. The goal was to provoke them to consider the possibility that Jesus did not deny the binding nature of the Torah and did not claim to be divine.” Unfortunately, this argument just doesn’t work. When you put something on the internet, it is there for the entire world to see, and the idea that there is an intended audience becomes completely irrelevant.  Furthermore, it is deceptive to claim that your pamphlet applies to one group of people but not to another. Indeed, one of the foremost anti-missionary arguments against Paul of Tarsus is that he seems to do precisely this: “… And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law, that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.  Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.”(1 Corinthians 9:20-23) People like Rabbi Skobac regularly criticize Paul for seeming to change his arguments based on whom he is addressing. But truth is truth. It does not change no matter whom your audience is. Rabbi Skobac cannot say that the letter he quotes from Rabbi Yaakov Emden where the basic theory of my book is endorsed only applies when addressing “Jews who have embraced Christianity.” I could easily have hid behind the same argument and said that Kosher Jesus is written primarily for a Christian audience – which it is – and that Orthodox Jews are not its intended readership. Still, the book must have universal application and I have therefore defended the book vigorously in Orthodox Jewish forums and against Orthodox Jewish attack. Skobac then says that there is “no evidence” that Jesus was a devout Rabbi or holy man, when the whole purpose of Kosher Jesus is to demonstrate precisely the opposite. He is well aware of the fact that many scholars who have preceded me, most notably Hyam Maccoby whom I quote extensively, believe precisely the opposite to be true and that many scholars have provided abundant evidence to support this conclusion, a great deal of which I synthesize in Kosher Jesus. I suggest the reader read Kosher Jesus and decide for themselves. But Skobac’s main complaint is “Boteach’s implication that Jesus was a prophet and that the Christian scriptures were divinely inspired.”  So let me be clear. Kosher Jesus has three principal purposes. The first is to educate Christians as to the Jewishness of Jesus so as to deepen the authenticity of their own faith. The book maintains that Christians cannot fully understand or appreciate their religion without examining its Jewish origins. Embracing the Jewishness of Jesus will, of necessity, force Christians to focus on the humanity rather than the divinity of Jesus, something the Noachide covenant demands. Though there are many halakhic, Jewish legal opinions as to what is required of a Noachide, I would just point to what Rabbi Isaac Herzog, the second Chief Rabbi of Israel, wrote in his book T’chuka L’yisroel al Pi Hatorah.  In it he concludes that Moslems have the status of gerei toshav – in this context, people who live by the Noachide covenant –  and after a long discussion in the matters of the Trinity, he explains that Christians have this same status.  According to this line of thought, if Christians sees Jesus as a teacher and prophet, but not divine, then they join in the Noachide covenant.  Islam, as well, sees Muhammad as a prophet and, while Judaism would disagree and reject the prophecy of Muhammad, there is nothing wrong with Muslims believing in Muhammad as prophet, and Judaism, of course, respects Islam as a monotheistic faith. Second, the book argues that the light of Judaism has permeated the world but is seldom given credit for doing so. Hence, Jews rarely take pride in their tradition. They see how huge Christianity is compared to how tiny we are when the truth is that Jesus’ teachings are based almost entirely on the Torah and to the extent that they were modified it was done after Jesus’ death by Paul and others mostly in an effort to appease the Romans. Third, the book offers the textual proofs as to why Jews reject the divinity and messiahship of Jesus so that both Jews and Christians are well aware of what we can never embrace about Jesus. Based on this, was Jesus a prophet? Not to the Jews, of course.  As Kosher Jesus argues forcefully and with many proofs, he was another rabbi and a martyr for his people whose memory was later ripped away from us and whom we should reclaim. If the evidence points to his being a devout member of his people, why should we allow him to be taken from us without resistance? But can non-Jews who have discovered the existence of G-d and some of the essential teachings of the Torah from the teachings of Jesus see him as a prophet who brought the knowledge of G-d to the masses? As long as he is not deified, then yes, of course. Why would Skobac be concerned with my labeling Jesus a prophet to the non-Jews? It’s his deification that is the problem. Indeed, the term prophet is regularly used even in modern times for people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and it is in this overall sense that I use the word. Here it is important to note the opinion of Rabbi Yaakov Emden. Rabbi Emden was one of the greatest Talmud scholars of the past millennia and held that Christianity was mistaken in rejecting the laws of the Torah and believing Jesus to be divine, and hoped for the day when all would recognize Judaism to be G-d’s revealed religion. Nevertheless, in his commentary to Ethics of Our Fathers, as translated by Blu Greenberg (Judaism 27:3 1978 p 351-363) Rabbi Emden goes even a step beyond my conclusions in his understanding of Christianity. I quote: “In his commentary Eitz Avos (40b-41a) on Pirkei Avot (4:11), Emden describes Christianity as a ““religion in the service of God,” a religion which God sees as good and, therefore, He sustains it; it came to spread the word of God to those ‘who, until then, had worshipped wood and stone, who denied the existence of God altogether, who did not believe in good and evil, or in the afterlife. Christianity spread the notion of one God, one Ruler of all the universe who metes out justice to His creations. Christians accept the seven Noachide Laws and many other mitzvot which they voluntarily take upon themselves. In addition to these good qualities, God also gave them prophecy through their righteous ones, and through these prophets gave them laws and commandments by which to live.  Because of all this - because they met these tests of a holy community - their religion was upheld and maintained by God.” Emden continues: these two families, Christianity and Mohammedanism, which God selected as vehicles to bring faith into the world, were never brought under the yoke of mitzvoth (commandments) of the Torah; their fathers never gave it to them, nor did they stand at Sinai; neither were they slaves in Egypt; therefore, they are not obligated for the 613 mitzvos and are thus exempt from the prohibition of shittuf (loosely translated here as the Trinity).  Emden concludes with the repetition of a previous theme: though some of their evil ones cause us sorrow with their violent actions and false accusations, there are righteous ones who protect us from those who rise up against Jews, and wise ones among them who search for truth in our works and find no fault in our faithfulness to our Torah and mitzvot.” Similar views regarding the righteous deeds of Christians are expressed by great rabbis such as Menachem Ha-Meiri, Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, Rabbi Moshe Rivkes, among others.  In a statement adopted by the Rabbinical Council of America in 1964—though it discouraged many aspects of interfaith dialogue—it in part states, “Each religious community is endowed with intrinsic dignity and metaphysical worth.”  Maimonides, in examining the life of Jesus, though he disagreed with Rabbi Emden in many ways, says something similar, even as he rejects the Christian teachings taught in the name of Jesus as false: [Jesus’ purpose] was to straighten out the way for the King Messiah, and to restore all the world to serve God together. So that it is said, “Because then I will turn toward the nations (giving them) a clear lip, to call all of them in the name of God and to serve God (shoulder to shoulder as) one shoulder.” (Zephaniah 3:9). How is this? The entire world had become filled with the issues of the anointed one and of the Torah and the Laws, and these issues had spread out unto faraway islands and among many nations uncircumcised in the heart, and they discuss these issues and the Torah’s laws. These say: These Laws were true but are already defunct in these days, and do not rule for the following generations; whereas the other ones say: There are secret layers in them and they are not to be treated literally, and the Messiah had come and revealed their secret meanings. But when the anointed king will truly rise and succeed and will be raised and uplifted, they all immediately turn about and know that their fathers inherited falsehood, and their prophets and ancestors led them astray.” (Laws of Kings 11:10–12.) As for Maimonides’ strident criticism of Jesus as a heretic who led the Jews astray, I explain in Kosher Jesus that the Talmud’s Jesus’, upon whom Maimonides bases himself, is not the Jesus of the gospels, as Rabbi Yechiel of Paris, and other authoritative Jewish sources, have maintained.  It is a known fact that the name Jesus had been exceedingly common in Second Temple times. Rabbi Gil Student recently published an informative piece on this issue entitled Three Easy Steps to a Kosher Jesus which is well worth reading. http://torahmusings.com/2012/01/three-easy-steps-to-a-kosher-jesus/. “Finally,” Skobac writes, “I never wrote or implied that Jews should reclaim Jesus or embrace him. These are meta-themes of Boteach’s book and a tremendous cause for concern… [Jews will] think of the Jesus praised by Tim Tebow! For an Orthodox rabbi to urge Jews to embrace Jesus is incredibly irresponsible, as it will inevitably facilitate the slide by some down the slippery slope toward Christianity.” This is perhaps my principal point of departure from Skobac. Today there are tens of thousands of Jews who have converted to Christianity in the US and the tide of assimilation is increasing. Perhaps the swarm of Jewish anti-missionaries who have ganged up to malign my book ought to consider a new approach to combat the problem. Kosher Jesus is that new approach. It argues that rather than Jews always playing defense it is time for us to go on the offensive. Jews convert to Christianity? For what? The real religion of Jesus was Judaism, not Christianity. Jesus taught the Torah, kept all the mitzvot, and preached to all his students that they must do the same or they would be the least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:18). Our argument to our Christian brothers and sisters – and especially to Christian missionaries – must be that every time they convert a Jew to Christianity they diminish from themselves the opportunity to discover the truth about Jesus, what he taught, and how he lived. Christians need Jews to discover the truth about their faith rather than the reverse, a point I have made in countless lectures before Christian audiences. We must teach Christians about the Jewishness of Jesus rather than Christians teaching Jews about the Christianity of Christ. Jesus was always a Jew and never a Christian. Period. It has become very evident that Kosher Jesus is not just a “soundbite and headlines” as Skobac derisively writes. It is already, in pre-publication, a best-seller on many of Amazon.com’s lists. It is now receiving, thank G-d, glowing reviews from disinterested parties. Library Journal has just written, “Boteach writes with clarity, force, and intelligence, and his Kosher Jesus is an excellent resource for parish libraries, Jewish worship communities, individual seekers, and all interested in the historical Jesus.” Publisher’s Weekly reviewed the book as an “informed and cogent primer on Jesus of Nazareth. Boteach, rabbi and author of the international bestseller Kosher Sex, takes a brave stab at re-evaluating Jesus through an intensive look at the New Testament and historical documents. This well-researched analysis will certainly reopen intrafaith and interfaith dialogue.” It must also be pointed out that anti-missionaries, through no fault of their own, often employ a myopic view of Christians whereby our principal interaction with them is when they come to convert us. This is not the case and this sort of thinking must change. Christians are our best friends today. A tiny, tiny minority are missionaries. Rather than allowing the relationship to be based on fear where we never ever engage in dialogue out of a concern that they may convert us, I believe precisely the opposite is true. It is time for the Jewish community to stop playing defense and go on offense. We should stop fearing assimilation and start sharing with the world the universal wisdom and values of Judaism, beginning with demonstrating the Jewish sources of Jesus’ teachings The political bridge of support for Israel is not enough. A theological bridge between Jews and Christians must exist as well. Kosher Jesus proposes that Jesus the Jew, rather than Christ the Christian, be that bridge. It is not for Christians to teach the Jews about Jesus, as has been attempted for so many centuries, but rather, for the Jews to teach Christians about how Jesus lived, prayed, worshipped, and died as a Jew. This book is written principally for Christians who hunger to learn more about the Jewishness of Jesus, even as they disagree significantly with my conclusions. And it is written for Jews to finally be knowledgeable about the real story of Jesus so that they can engage in this relationship authoritatively and with an immunity to missionizing efforts. In an age of Jewish-Christian rapprochement, ignorance of Jesus is no longer an option. Skobac and others seem to evince little faith in the Jewish community. For them, Jews are for the most part uneducated and therefore susceptible to missionary charms. But if that is the case, then stop attacking books like Kosher Jesus that seek to teach them. Indeed, write more of your own books to educate our nation and let our people know! This is the reason you’re seeing so many anti-missionaries attack the book. They want us to fear Christians. And yes, we have to stop missionaries. In Oxford, New York, and countless other venues, I worked to do precisely that. And in this book there is an entire section which will offer the Jewish reader invaluable textual proofs to counter missionary encroachment. But that is no longer the essence of the relationship between Christians and Jews. It has changed. Skobac, Schochet, and others risk becoming dinosaurs if all they focus on is how much Christians want to convert us. Today, Christians want to learn from us. But there is a problem. At so many public Christian events in support of Israel, pastors refer to Jesus haltingly if at all, afraid to offend Jewish sensibilities, while the Jews likewise are on guard to ensure that they are not accused of being used as props for a covert Christian evangelizing effort. If Jesus can never be mentioned we risk the relationship between Jews and Christians being a fraudulent one, with mutual suspicion growing on both sides. We are at a stage where the light of Judaism can finally shine through to the entire world, if only we have the courage to embrace the opportunity. And this is what you’ll continue to see in this debate on Kosher Jesus. Two world views. One says that Jews today are not very religious or knowledgeable and therefore highly susceptible to missionaries and there goes Shmuley Boteach opening the door to missionaries to proselytize us. But then there is another group who value the new Judeo-Christian relationship of allied friendship and want the Jews to be the ones to take their rightful place as, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “elder brothers and sisters in the faith”. Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek calls ‘the most famous Rabbi in America,’ was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium and received the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. The international best-selling author of 27 books, this week he will publish “Kosher Jesus.” Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. His website is http://www.shmuley.com Rabbi Shmuley wishes to thank his assistant Daniel Abraham for contributing source material to this column. The column is dedicated to the memory of Machla Debakarov, a close friend of Rabbi Shmuley, who died last year. May her memory be an eternal blessing. 2012-02-02T00:17:33+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/why_american_religion_isnt_refining_american_values/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/why_american_religion_isnt_refining_american_values/#When:22:59:27Z Why American Religion Isn’t Refining American Values By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuley-boteach/why-american-religion-isn_b_1223299.html At the heart of the American experience is a profound contradiction: How are we so incredibly religious and yet so seemingly decadent? While only 35% of Britons believe in God and 43% say they have no religion, 92% of Americans are believers and 80% are church-goers. Those same Americans, though, also make 68 million pornographic search engine requests every day, spending more than $3,000 on pornographic websites every second. How are we to understand the materialistic impulses that had us spending $52.4 billion on Black Friday weekend shopping alone, and the bizarre accompanying stories like the woman who injured 20 shoppers by firing pepper spray into a crowd to clear her path to an Xbox? Every four years, our presidential election cycle suggests the answer: Our public figures are obsessed with gay marriage and abortion to the exclusion of all other values. Watch the Republican debates on television and you would think that America faces not a single social challenge other than stopping gays from marrying and women from aborting fetuses. America is a religious nation whose religious convictions have been hijacked by these twin issues, even though they have little to do with most Americans. While approximately 7% of the American population is gay, more than 50% of all marriages end in divorce. In fact, gays seem to be the only men in America who are still passionate about marriage. Straight people don’t need help from gays to destroy the institution of marriage, having a done a mighty fine job of it ourselves, thank you very much. But rather than pastors pushing real policies that might stem the tide of divorce – like making marital counseling tax-deductible – they dwell on a politically divisive distraction. In 1999 I published a book, Kosher Sex, which was pilloried by Jewish and Christian clerics for offering explicit erotic advice about how to make the marital bedroom passionate again. Yet the No. 1 cause of divorce in America is sexual boredom and lack of erotic interest, with the Washington Post reporting that one of three American couples is entirely platonic. Were pastors more willing to teach, say, the Song of Solomon, with its deep erotic secrets, rather than obsessing over gay marriage, millions of American children might not end up as yo-yos shuffling between parents’ homes on weekends. In 2008, the American economy nearly collapsed. For bankers and consumers, homes were never big enough and cars never new enough. If ever there were a time for American religious and political leaders to examine materialism, gluttony and greed, it was then. But my evangelical brothers and sisters responded instead with Proposition 8, a national campaign to overturn gay marriage in California. Abortion has also become a major distraction ignoring the values that underlie it. Almost all abortions are sought by single women who have been impregnated by men in an out-of-wedlock relationships. Yet where is the national conversation about a culture that degrades woman and portrays them as the libidinous man’s plaything? Tim Tebow is pilloried for the unseemly act of prayer in the secular cathedral of the stadium. But women jumping up and down in lycra to the accompaniment of pompoms and cleavage creates no offense. From the 4.2 million porn websites in the U.S. to the recording industry peddling soft porn and magazines idealizing dangerously thin models, the dream of women being appreciated as much for the their brains as for their bust is undermined. Yet we see no push for school uniforms, for example, that could inculcate values of modesty and respect for the body among American teenagers. In the African-American community, nearly 70% percent of all children are born out of wedlock, resulting in single mothers raising children on their own. Aside from Bill Cosby’s courageous speeches on the subject, pastors largely ignore men’s obligations to their children in favor of the Supreme Court’s obligation to the unborn. It’s a cruel failure of leadership on the part of our religious, political and cultural icons. And this campaign year already looks like it’ll only perpetuate the problem. Rabbi Shmuley’s newest book, Kosher Jesus (Gefen), examining the Jewish life of Jesus, will be published on February 1st. In 2010 he published “Renewal” which detailed the 7 universal Jewish values that could bring healing to America. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. 2012-01-23T22:59:27+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/an_authoritative_rabbi_bans_kosher_jesus/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/an_authoritative_rabbi_bans_kosher_jesus/#When:22:52:31Z An “Authoritative” Rabbi Bans Kosher Jesus By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach By right I ought to thank Rabbi Immanuel Schochet for banning my book Kosher Jesus which further propelled it up the international bestseller lists, even in pre-publication. Bizarrely writing of his own views as “authoritative”, Rabbi Schochet declared the book heretical, banned anyone from reading it, banned me from speaking about it, banned others from hosting me, and refused to offer a single reason or explanation as to why (if only he could have at least told them it was still OK to buy it!). This dictatorial edict follows a growing wave of religious fanaticism hitting the world Jewish community all at once with right-wing reactionaries seeking to impose their primitive dogmatism on those who believe Judaism can be orthodox yet informed, Torah-based yet educated, true to Halakhic sources yet fearless in the marketplace of ideas. The Jewish community is not Iran and Rabbis are not the Revolutionary Guard. Let Khomeini burn books and condemn authors. Jews are the people of the book rather than the people who ban books. We Jews have all too much experience with the medieval practice of outlawing books and Rabbi Schochet’s attack deserves to be pasted on a wall of Meah Shearim rather than mailed, as it was, to Chabad emissaries around the world. Kosher Jesus is a work of scholarship which Publisher’s Weekly just reviewed as an “informed and cogent primer on Jesus of Nazareth…. a brave stab at re-evaluating Jesus through an intensive look at the New Testament and historical documents… and a well-researched analysis that will certainly reopen intrafaith and interfaith dialogue.” It goes back to the original gospel source materials to uncover the real story of Jesus and portray him for whom he was prior to later Christian editors significantly modifying the story to accommodate the Romans. Jesus was, as many, especially Hyam Maccoby, have argued before me, a Torah-observant Jew whose mission it was to restore Jewish observance fully among his brethren and fight Roman persecution and paganism. For doing so he was turned over by the Roman collaborator, High Priest Caiaphas, who owed his office to the Romans, and was murdered by the Roman prefect Pontias Pilate. Jesus was a martyr for his people who never claimed to be divine, who never changed the Torah, and who would be scandalized to see his teachings – nearly all of which Kosher Jesus traces back to their earlier Jewish sources – misused to persecute his people. It was Paul, who never met Jesus, who later deified him and said he came to get rid of Torah practice. Far from this theory being heretical, as Schochet libelously claims, it is expressly conveyed by Rabbi Jacob Emden one of the greatest Rabbis of the past thousand years, who wrote in 1757: Therefore, you must realize – and accept the truth from him who speaks it – that we see clearly here that the Nazarene and his Apostles did not wish to destroy the Torah from Israel, God forbid; for it is written so in Matthew (5:17-19), the Nazarene having said, “Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Torah. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. I tell you this: So long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Torah until all is accomplished. If any man therefore sets aside even the least of the Torah’s commandments, and teaches others to do the same, he will have the lowest place in the Kingdom of Heaven, whereas anyone who keeps the Torah, and teaches others so, will stand high in the Kingdom of Heaven.” This is also recorded in Luke 16:17. It is therefore exceedingly clear that the Nazarene never dreamed of nullifying the Torah.” Michael Scobak, the Director of Education for the orthodox Jewish anti-missionary group Jews for Judaism, similarly notes in his pamphlet The Da Vinci Code: A Jewish Perspective: “The Torah-positive stance taken by Jesus was maintained after his death by his disciples based in Jerusalem under the leadership of his brother James… What a stunning example of history being written by the victors! For all intents and purposes, Christianity as we know it today is an invention of Paul.” But in reality the battle over my book is about something far bigger than me. Rabbi Schochet came of age when Christians were seen primarily as proselytizers and enemies of our people. Today, however, they are the State of Israel’s most reliable allies and stalwart friends. Still, there are Jews who are not convinced and seek to undermine the relationship between Jews and evangelicals. That is the principal purpose of Schochet’s attack, resting as it does on the belief that any Jew who seeks to educate Christians about the Jewishness of Jesus must have gone over to the other side. No matter how much someone like Glenn Beck – who beautifully endorsed my book – or Pastor John Hagee supports Israel, fringe Jewish critics will accuse them of ulterior motives. I disagree. Jewish evangelical support for Israel is real. The information contained in Kosher Jesus grants Jewish readers an immunity to missionary efforts at proselatizing but is written primarily for my Christian brothers and sisters – whose praise the book has justly earned – who hunger to learn more about the Jewishness of Jesus, even as they disagree profoundly with my conclusions that Jesus never claimed to divine, cannot be the Jewish Messiah, and insisted on the eternity of Torah law. And why shouldn’t Judaism get the credit it deserves for the values it has disseminated to the world through Christianity. We gave the world G-d. Today his name is Jesus Christ. We gave the world the Sabbath. Today it’s called Sunday. We gave the world the Ten Commandments. Today it is called morality. And we gave the world the Biblical insistence that all humans are created equally in the image of G-d. Today it’s called democracy. Virtually all Jewish ideas that have shaped the world have been taken from our people without attribution, so that Judaism is treated today as a discarded relic with little contemporary relevance. It’s time these universal Jewish ideas that have so influenced the world be traced back to their original source. It’s time that the Jewishness of Jesus be rediscovered by Christians. And it’s time for the wisdom of Judaism to brighten the world so that the Jews to live up to their ancient Biblical mandate as a light unto the nations. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium and received the American Jewish Press Associations’ Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary as well as the National Fatherhood Award for his national TV Show Shalom in the Home. The international best-selling author of 27 books, his newest work Kosher Jesus will be published on February 1st. Follow him Twitter @RabbiShmuley. 2012-01-23T22:52:31+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/The_West_Coast_Launch_of_Rabbi_Shmuleys_Blockbuster_and_Controversial_/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/The_West_Coast_Launch_of_Rabbi_Shmuleys_Blockbuster_and_Controversial_/#When:21:29:24Z The West Coast Launch of Rabbi Shmuley’s Blockbuster and Controversial book Kosher Jesus 2012-01-20T21:29:24+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/rabbi_shmuleys_kosher_jesus_book_launch_feb_8_dont_miss_out/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/rabbi_shmuleys_kosher_jesus_book_launch_feb_8_dont_miss_out/#When:23:43:15Z Don’t miss out on Rabbi Shmuley’s New book launch “Kosher Jesus” on Feb 8 at Parish Hall 74 Trinity Place New York, NY 10006 click here to buy tickets 2012-01-19T23:43:15+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/what_is_motivating_the_global_ban_on_kosher_jesus/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/what_is_motivating_the_global_ban_on_kosher_jesus/#When:23:40:57Z What is Motivating the Global Ban on Kosher Jesus? A Response to Rabbi Schochet http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuley-boteach/post_2875_b_1216383.html By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Rabbi Immanuel Schochet, who recently issued a letter banning anyone from reading my book Kosher Jesus, calling it heretical, is someone whose writings and lectures I have long admired. I also twice had the pleasure of hosting him at the University of Oxford where he spoke to my students. Nevertheless, I must retain the right to defend myself against the appalling and libelous charge of heresy.  America is not Iran and Rabbis in the American Jewish community are not the Revolutionary Guard. We are different to the Khomeinis of the world who ban books and declare interdicts against their authors. We Jews are the people of the book, not the people who ban books. To the extent that Rabbi Schochet found anything objectionable in Kosher Jesus – and since it is only being released on 1 February I fear the book’s detractors sent him a pirated, electronic copy that is unlawfully being circulated and which is full of errors – he could easily have contacted me or publicly stated his objections. But banning a book on the charge of heresy without any mention whatsoever of what the heresy consists of is outrageous, an affront to decency, and a betrayal of scholarship. Calling an author a heretic without backing up the charge is positively scandalous. Rabbi Schochet seems to have significantly changed his approach to Judaism and Christianity since his lectures under my auspices. Back then he orated openly on Jesus and the New Testament, rebutting missionary claims and engaging missionaries in public dialogue and exchange. There are hundreds of his tapes that attest to this fact. But in the letter he sent to Chabad websites, where I have been pilloried for the past week, he suddenly refuses to even mention the name Jesus, capitulating to the websites demands that Jesus be referred to as “J” and banning my book and calling it heretical without citing a single example as to why. What motivated him to betray his own reputation as a scholar? He himself wrote in his condemnatory letter, “It is not normally my style to write letters of condemnation.” So what changed? Kosher Jesus is, after all, a book which Publisher’s Weekly – the platinum standard in book reviews – called an “informed and cogent primer on Jesus of Nazareth…. a brave stab at re-evaluating Jesus through an intensive look at the New Testament and historical documents… and a well-researched analysis that will certainly reopen intrafaith and interfaith dialogue.” If Rabbi Schochet disagreed with Publisher’s Weekly, surely he should have cited scholarly arguments – even a single one – based on Jewish sources, rather repudiating the very essence of scholarly discourse by bizarrely resorting to medieval book banning. Many people, myself included, look up to Rabbi Schochet and respect him specifically because he is one of the few outstanding scholars of secular subjects in Chabad. No doubt they will be deeply puzzled by his self-denigrating act of banning books on community noticeboards that normally focus on birth and engagement announcements and which have few, if any, journalistic standards. I had already experienced something similar, about 14 years ago in Britain, when Rabbi Schochet’s son, Yitzchok, with whom I am friendly and who is a communal Rabbi in London, debated me in his synagogue on my best-seller on The Jewish Guide to Adultery: How to Turn your Marriage into an Illicit Affair, which uses Talmudic wisdom about erotic attraction to create passion in marriage. I will never forget how Rabbi Yitzchok Schochet proceeded to tear pages out of my book in front of the hundreds in the audience, as he went through his arguments, and cast them on the floor. I did not find this to be a dignified form of debate and said so. Destroying books in public is not the sign of a gentleman. Nor is it the sign of someone who is serious about intelligent debate. We Jews have had our experiences with those who destroy books. Rabbi Yitzchok Schochet has also been strangely obsessed with Kosher Jesus ever since it was announced, Tweeting incessantly about it, including this one from last week, in advance of his father’s coming condemnation, “It’s not petty inciteful posts u should bother with. It’s what’s brewing behind the scenes by real experts that should worry u.” And moments after his father’s letter was published he Tweeted, “BREAKING NEWS: Worlds leading Jewish cult buster and authority on missionaries condemns @RabbiShmuley book.” Indeed, his father, who wrote this bizarre attack on me out of the blue calling me a heretic, had an absolute responsibility, as part of full disclosure, to mention in his letter that both his son Yitzchok and I are being openly discussed as possible candidates for the position of Chief Rabbi of the UK, with significant media speculation as to my candidacy growing over the past two weeks even though, despite many high-profile endorsements, I have said I am not a declared candidate. But be that as it may, as a renowned scholar, I believe, Rabbi Immanuel Schochet should treat books differently. A great expert of both Jewish and non-Jewish subjects is surely someone who respects scholarly publications, even ones he disagrees with, and should raise intelligent challenges and cite source material to corroborate his objections. But to ban a book outright and command thousands of people with such utter authoritarianism that they dare not read it, with absolutely no explanation? This has no place in scholarly discourse and is the kind of action that tarnishes the reputation of a serious scholar. I deeply respect Rabbi Schochet and am humbly offering to engage in a written or oral debate on the subject of my book at any reasonable time and place of his choosing. But in defense of my book, let me say this: Kosher Jesus goes back to the original gospel source materials to uncover the real story of Jesus and portray him for whom he was prior to later Christian editors significantly modifying the story to accommodate the Romans. Jesus was, as many have argued before me, a Torah-observant Jew whose mission it was to restore Jewish observance fully among his Jewish brethren and fight Roman persecution. For doing so he was turned over by the Roman collaborator, High Priest Caiaphas, who owed his office to the Romans, and was murdered by the Roman prefect Pontias Pilate – the Saddam Hussein of the ancient world – for doing so. Jesus was a martyr for his people who never claimed to be divine, who never changed the Torah, and who would be scandalized to see his teachings – nearly all of which I trace back to their earlier Jewish sources – misused to persecute his people. It was Paul, who never met Jesus, who later deified him and said he came to get rid of Torah practice. But Jesus himself said the opposite, in Matthew 5:18, that anyone who does not keep the whole Torah would be cast out of heaven. This is the ultimate argument against Christian missionaries and my book, for those Jews who care to read it, will offer significant information to argue convincingly against any Christian attempt to evangelize Jews. Far from this theory being a heretical, as Rabbi Schochet says, it is expressly conveyed by Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697-1776) who, as Michael Scobak, head of education for the orthodox Jewish anti-missionary organization Jews for Judaism, notes in his pamphlet The Da Vinci Code: A Jewish Perspective was “one of the greatest Talmudists of the past 350 years.” Rabbi Emden, in 1757, authored a well-known letter about early Christianity which I quote: Therefore, you must realize – and accept the truth from him who speaks it – that we see clearly here that the Nazarene and his Apostles did not wish to destroy the Torah from Israel, God forbid; for it is written so in Matthew (5:17-19), the Nazarene having said, “Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Torah. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. I tell you this: So long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Torah until all is accomplished. If any man therefore sets aside even the least of the Torah’s commandments, and teaches others to do the same, he will have the lowest place in the Kingdom of Heaven, whereas anyone who keeps the Torah, and teaches others so, will stand high in the Kingdom of Heaven.” This is also recorded in Luke 16:17. It is therefore exceedingly clear that the Nazarene never dreamed of nullifying the Torah.” Scobak himself goes further and adds, “The Torah-positive stance taken by Jesus was maintained after his death by his disciples based in Jerusalem under the leadership of his brother James. Many of this group believed that non-Jews recruited by Paul should fully convert to Judaism by becoming circumcised and observing the entire Torah. Paul disagreed, and James chaired a conference in Jerusalem to decide the issue (Acts 15:1-29). Obviously, if the Jewish disciples led by James were not totally Torah observant themselves, they would have never insisted that all converts must maintain this standard and become Torah observant. James resolved the issue by deciding that Paul’s Gentile recruits would not have to convert to Judaism, but just observe the seven universal Noachide laws… The dominant voice of today’s Christian Bible is clearly Paul’s, either through his letters and epistles or through the writings of others under his influence. What a stunning example of history being written by the victors! For all intents and purposes, Christianity as we know it today is an invention of Paul. And all this, despite the fact that Paul never even met Jesus!” So here you have Scobak, an orthodox Rabbi who heads education for the world’s most respected Jewish anti-missionary group, agreeing with my thesis which Rabbi Schochet, without a single source, calls heretical. It is now Rabbi Schochet who must explain his objections lest he be guilty of character assassination without justification, a grave sin in Judaism known as motzi shem ra. But in reality this battle is about something far larger than me. Rabbi Schochet, through no fault of his own, came of age when Christians were seen primarily as proselytizers and as enemies of our people. But the past few decades have changed everything. Christians are today the State of Israel’s best friends. They visit Israel and support it arguably even more consistently than the Jewish community. They travel to Israel to show their love even during wars, with bombs falling on Israeli cities. Still, there are Jews who question their motives and wish to undermine the relationship. No matter how much the Pastor John Hagees of this world support Israel, or Glenn Beck, who gave a beautiful blurb for my book, some Jewish critics will say that they are doing so for ulterior motives, their love for the Jewish people not being genuine. I disagree. Jewish evangelical support for Israel is real and must be appreciated. And this book is written primarily for my Christian brothers and sisters who hunger to learn more about the Jewishness of Jesus, even as they disagree significantly with my conclusions. Many Christian personalities endorsed the book – so desperate are they to learn more of the Jewishness of Jesus and the Jewish origins of Christianity – even as they profoundly disagree with my insistence against the divinity of Jesus and the abrogation of the Law. They believe in the Bible and they believe that through the Jewish people they will be blessed. They yearn and hunger to discover more about the Jewishness of Jesus in order to experience their own faith more authentically. No matter the pressure, I will not submit to a Judaism that is about censure, anti-intellectualism, close-mindedness, or contempt for scholarship. I believe in a Judaism that is orthodox, Torah-based, informed, modern, engaging, open, educated, fearless in the marketplace of ideas, and confident in its ability to win intelligent debate. And why shouldn’t Judaism get the credit it deserves for the values it has disseminated to the world through Christianity. Virtually all Jewish ideas that have shaped the world have been taken from our people without attribution, so that Judaism is treated today as a discarded relic with no contemporary relevance. We gave the world G-d. Today his name is Jesus Christ. We gave the world the Sabbath. Today it’s called Sunday. We gave the world the Ten Commandments. Today it is called morality. And we gave the world the Biblical insistence that all humans are created equally in the image of G-d. Today it’s called democracy. As a result, young Jews are not even aware of the transformative ideas of their religion, which might explain why they take insufficient pride in their tradition. It’s time these universal Jewish ideas that have so influenced the world be traced back to their original source. It’s time that the Jewishness of Jesus be rediscovered by Christians. It’s time for the light of Judaism to brighten the world and for the Jews to live up to their ancient Biblical mandate as a light unto the nations. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium and received the American Jewish Press Associations’ Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary as well as the National Fatherhood Award for his national TV Show Shalom in the Home. The international best-selling author of 27 books, his newest work Kosher Jesus will be published on February 1st. Follow him Twitter @RabbiShmuley. 2012-01-19T23:40:57+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/rise_of_jewrys_right_wing_religious_radicals/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/rise_of_jewrys_right_wing_religious_radicals/#When:21:53:07Z Rise of Jewry’s Right Wing Religious Radicals By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Three forms of religious extremism confronted me recently. The first, when I lectured in the United Kingdom at Limmud where a full one percent of all Jews in Britain gathered for a Jewish studies conference. Every Jewish group was represented, that is, with the exception of the orthodox Rabbinate who boycott the event because of the Reform and Conservative (Masorti) Rabbis present. The second and more insidious example of frightening religious intolerance hit me as I landed in Israel a few days later for the press launch of my book Kosher Jesus in Jerusalem and discovered a country up in arms about Haredim (poorly translated as ultra-orthodox) who had spit on an orthodox eight-year-old girl for immodest dress (she was wearing a knee-length skirt with shoulders and elbows covered) and another Haredi man arrested for calling a female Jewish soldier a ‘whore’ for refusing to move to the back of a bus. On New Year’s eve Haredi activists dawned holocaust prison garb with yellow ‘Jude’ stars in a vulgar attempt to allege Nazi-like persecution at the hands of Israeli society when in truth all they accomplished was to trivialize the gassing of six million Jews. The finishing touch was placing their own children in concentration camp garb before the world’s media which added the violation of innocence to the defamation of the Jewish state. And the third was here in the United States where a noted Rabbi, aided by hundreds of incendiary on-line rabble-rousers, publicly demanded I be cast out of Chabad for penning Kosher Jesus (the book, based on Christian and Jewish sources, champions the true story of the Jewish Jesus, refutes once and for all the idea that the Jews were in any way involved with his murder, and encourages Christians to trace Jesus’ teachings back to their original source in the Torah), with some going so far as to demand I be ‘burned out’ of the community, whatever that means. The Rabbi admitted he had not so much as even seen the book. There is a common thread uniting these stories. Religious extremism festers when decent people are cowed into submission by fanatics whom they falsely believe to be more religious than them. But there is nothing holy about Rabbis refusing to teach 2500 young Jews pining for Jewish knowledge for fear they might legitimize reform clergy. More importantly, it is an abomination to faith for men to treat women abusively. And character assassination based on ignorance and hearsay is an affront to Jewish laws of slander. A black coat will never redeem a dark heart and a long beard is poor compensation for a shriveled soul. In Israel the fanatics’ defenders pointed out that these heinous acts are perpetrated by only a small number of extremists. True. But in the face of Islamic terror outrages we in the West rightly demand that mainstream Islamic leaders condemn the fundamentalists, lest their silence make them complicit in the violence. The Jewish community must be judged by the same standard and Rabbis of every stripe must these abuses as a sickening betrayal of the core of Judaism. Other defenders maintained that while the behavior was deplorable secular women were also at fault by insensitively visiting religious neighborhoods immodestly attired and inflaming local sensibilities. These apologetics are a disgrace. Judaism’s central value is freedom of choice and men calling themselves religious must choose to transcend even the most rousing provocation. Violence in the name of G-d is never allowed, a point we have repeatedly made to some of our Muslim brothers who justify Palestinian suicide bombers with arguments that “Israeli humiliations” incite the murders. The Jews suffered extermination at the hands of the Nazis. But that never led them to blow up nurseries and buses, and Haredim who feel provoked must register their protests respectfully and lawfully. The Talmud is clear: a religious man who humiliates a woman by calling her a whore in public has lost his place in eternity. There is something magical about England’s Jews. They proudly hold on to their Jewish identity, generously support an endless array of Jewish social welfare organizations, and have a higher percentage of children in Jewish education then we in the United States. But there are now only 250,000 Jews in all the United Kingdom and the community can ill afford civil war between reform and orthodox especially given the rapid rise of anti-Semitism in the UK where Israel is regularly lambasted as being more wicked than North Korea. But British Jews are curiously submissive to their Rabbinic leadership, even when they feel in their gut that some of the rulings contravene basic Ahavas Yisrael and common decency. The Baal Shem Tov extolled the virtue of ordinary Jews who were not Rabbis. Even non-scholars are aware of simple courtesy and must pressure their spiritual leaders to work with non-orthodox colleagues to increase Jewish learning and defend the State of Israel. At Limmud I was peppered by journalists asking whether I was a candidate for British Chief Rabbi and the strange speculation reached a fever pitch when The Jerusalem Post published a long feature on the conference’s third day exploring the possibility. I spent eleven years of my life building Jewish student life at the University of Oxford and six of my nine children were born in Britain. I am deeply attached to the country and the community. But the office of a Chief Rabbi which muzzles its occupant from reaching out to thousands of young Jews for fear of offending right-wing sensibilities cannot cater to anything but vanity and egotism. And while I am certainly not immune to those ills, I have never allowed myself to be silenced for any title and no self-respecting person ever would. A Chief Rabbi is not an Ambassador but a leader. The office must be expanded from its current focus on mesmerizing the BBC, thereby perpetuating a myth of Jewish subservience and the need for Jews to win non-Jewish approval, and focus instead on electrifying Jewish youth, before it can attract serious candidates. The Jewish homo religiosus is not the submissive man of the spirit but rather Yisrael, the rebellious man of faith. And if we Jews are enjoined to emulate our patriarch Jacob who wrestled with an angel, then surely we must also respectfully challenge our spiritual leaders and reclaim our human voice, lest Judaism be overtaken by forces of darkness who masquerade as angels of light. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium and on February 1st will publish Kosher Jesus, a ten-year study of Jesus’ Jewishness and his life as a Rabbi. Twitter @RabbiShmuley. Website: http://www.shmuley.com 2012-01-11T21:53:07+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/religious_incitement_over_my_kosher_jesus_book/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/religious_incitement_over_my_kosher_jesus_book/#When:21:35:28Z Religious Incitement Over My Kosher Jesus Book http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/01/11/continued-incitement-over-my-kosher-jesus-book/ By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach As the two Jewish websites publishing the most incendiary attacks against me over my book Kosher Jesus have severely limited my ability to respond – with COLLIVE having removed my response completely –  I have decided to do so here in my regular column. The only reason I have decided to address Rabbi Yitzchok Wolf of Chicago and the legion of irresponsible on-line hatemongers he now heads, is for the sake of my children. I raised them to love Chabad for its devotion to every Jew, its heart, and its humanity. Read the comments that are attached to Rabbi Wolfe’s attacks on me and what you’ll see is something utterly unrecognizable. A frenzied rabble accusing me of being a Christian, invoking Hitler’s name and mine in the same sentence, demanding that I be thrown out of a Jewish movement – or worse! And rhetoric so inflammatory that is borders on incitement. I just returned from Israel where the country was up in arms over a Charedi man who spat in the face of an eight-year-old girl and where another Charedi man was arrested the next day for calling a female soldier a ‘whore’ on a bus for refusing to move to the back of the bus. The comments attacked to Rabbi Wolfe’s diatribe sadly seem to be the natural continuation of such dangerous, religious fanaticism. Only this time, tragically, it is members of Chabad, the Jewish educational movement committed to being different. We are witnessing a battle for the very soul of the movement. Will Chabad be overtaken by ignorant extremists who condemn a book that they have never even seen, let alone read, and call for the excommunication of a Rabbi who has devoted his life to fighting the battles of the Jewish people? Will they call me and the book to be banned? My children go to school in Crown Heights, and I am highly concerned at them having to read these sickening, stomach-turning comments and attacks. The incendiary comments being posted on Crownheights.info and Collive are a violation of Judaism and Jewish values. The incitement must stop. One would expect that Rabbi Wolf who is himself an educator would be more responsible before launching a series of rabble-rousing personal attacks. One shudders to think of the example he is setting for the impressionable young minds who are his charge. Rather than engaging in an intelligent discussion of the subject, based on Jewish sources and facts, he continues to indulge his rank ignorance of the Second Temple period and early Christianity, libelously claiming that I am advocating that Jews embrace a Christian Jesus while in fact the very essence of the book is that true story of Jesus is of a Jew who adhered to Jewish law and taught his followers to do the same. Kosher Jesus is a work of scholarship and it is difficult to convey its complexities in a defensive article on a website. But one of the core ideas which Rabbi Wolf in his considerable illiteracy of the development of early Christianity and the Talmudic take on Jesus overlooks is that, according to the Talmud, there are at least two major Jesus figures. He is confusing the Talmud’s Yeshu, who was a student of Yehoshua ben Perachia (Talmud Bavli, Sotah, 47a), with the Jesus who would later be connected to Christianity. The two cannot be the same person since no one disputes the fact that Yehoshua ben Perachia died about one hundred and thirty years before the destruction of the Temple, that is, at least one hundred years before Jesus was even born, which makes it impossible for Christianity’s Jesus to have been his disciple. The Seder Hadoros likewise explains, based on these Talmudic sources, that there were two major Jesus figures. (Josephus goes further and speaks of approximately 22 historical figures of the time with the name Yeshu). Hence, Rabbi Wolf’s continued insistence that I am asking Jews to embrace Jesus is a deliberate attempt to simplify an extremely complex and scholarly argument. That’s the problem with the knee-jerk religious extremism. It dismisses nuance and seeks to create bogeymen.  My book Kosher Jesus explains all of this. It is designed to educate Jews like Rabbi Wolf who are utterly ignorant of the source materials, as most Jews are. Indeed, one of the reasons that Jews fall prey to Christian missionaries is that they don’t know the facts. All too many Jews have been lost to a faith not their own through a simple inability to respond to missionary claims. Rabbi Wolf would prefer to keep them in the same darkness where he himself resides, even if it robs them of the immunity to missionary arguments that Kosher Jesus offers, although that is not its primary purpose. The reason missionaries make inroads in converting Jews is that most of our people are utterly ignorant of the Jewish and Christian source material with regards to Jesus and how to respond. Rabbi Wolf could have easily read the book, or at least got in touch with me, prior to his unforgivable call that a Jew and fellow Rabbi be expelled. He did not do so because his purpose is seemingly to attack rather than enlighten. His focus on the Israeli Haaretz newspaper account of my press conference in Jerusalem was deliberately taken out of context. I said that Jews should embrace the truthful version of Jesus as opposed to the heavily edited Christian depiction. What missionaries seek to do in converting unsuspecting Jews is portray Judaism as a failed religion that was replaced by Christianity. Their intention is to show Jews that without a divine Jesus they cannot achieve salvation from sin. But contrary to these demeaning and false claims, Christian scripture is itself absolutely clear that Jesus kept the entire Torah and advocated that any Jew who did not do likewise would be cast out from heaven. It is this Jewish Jesus – the one that Kosher Jesus uncovers from the pages of the New Testament itself which was edited so as to deny some much of Jesus’ Jewishness and intentionally Romanize him – that I am asking Jews to reclaim. The book seeks to inspire Jews who have embraced Christianity to come back to their people and keep every letter of Jewish law as Jesus himself both advocated in the New Testament and adhered to himself. Jesus, according to even Christian scripture, led a completely Jewish life and was killed by the Romans for opposing their tyranny and paganism, as the source material quoted in Kosher Jesus explains. How absurd that Jews would accept a deliberately distorted version of Jesus’ life – designed to appease Rome and blame the Jews for Jesus’ death – rather than discovering the truth. Publisher’s Weekly, in its first review of Kosher Jesus, called it an “informed and cogent primer on Jesus of Nazareth…. a brave stab at re-evaluating Jesus through an intensive look at the New Testament and historical documents… and a well-researched analysis that will certainly reopen intrafaith and interfaith dialogue,” and it is good to get their stamp of approval on a book that will no doubt be challenged by my Christian brothers and sisters as to its conclusions that Jesus never claimed to be divine and fought the Romans on behalf of his people. Rabbi Wolf could easily have used the very same computer with which he sent his harangue to COLlive to simply Google my name where he would have encountered tens of audio and video debates between me and leading Christian missionaries all over the world where I am at the forefront of combating efforts to evangelize Jews and reverse the trend by bringing Jews who have converted to Christianity back to Judaism. Those efforts are the reason that Christian missionaries – may of whom I have come to know personally through our debates – are feeling so threatened by the book and working overtime on a response. In my book I actually included blurbs from leading missionaries who condemn my conclusions due to how it proves that Jesus never intended to do anything but persuade Jews to keep Rabbinic Judaism. That is why at the press conference it was Christian reporters rather than the Jewish journalists who debated the book’s conclusions. (The full audio and video of the press conference will be made available on my website.) They argued that my book, which demonstrates from Christian and Jewish sources that Jesus never claimed to be divine and struggled to uphold the Torah, is insulting to Christianity. I have repeatedly said that I mean no such insult to Christianity. On the contrary. The book is written primarily for my Christian brothers and sisters to rediscover the lost Jewishness of Jesus, how he kept the Sabbath, ate only kosher food, observed the Jewish festivals, respected the Jewish purity rituals, and enjoined all his followers to do the same, emphatically stating in Matthew 5:18 that anyone who did not would be the least in the kingdom of heaven. The book likewise dismisses the lie – once and for all, and with considerable scholarship – that the Jews had anything to do with his death. Indeed, Luke 13:31 makes it clear that the Rabbis actually saved Jesus life when Herod tried to kill him. Similarly, in the first verse of the same chapter describes the brutality of Pilate as a mass murderer, even as the New Testament later tries to absolve him of the death of Christ and blame the Jews. In Kosher Jesus I to trace back the major teachings of Jesus to their original sources in the Torah as a means of demonstrating, not only that Jesus never meant to found a new faith, but also to show how the light of Judaism has permeated the world, even if our faith is given little credit for doing so, with much of its global spiritual contribution going today by a different name. Here are some simple and basic examples from Jesus’ most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus teachings are easily shown to be extracted from earlier Hebrew Bible sources: Jesus: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5) Torah: The meek will inherit the earth, and enjoy peace and prosperity. (Psalms 37:11) Jesus: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (Matthew 5:8) Torah: Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart. (Psalms 24:3-4) Jesus: If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. (Matthew 5:39) Torah: Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him… (Lamentations 3:30) Jesus: But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33) Torah: Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalms 37:4) Jesus: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7) Torah: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13) Jesus: Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:23) Torah: Away from me, all you who do evil… (Psalms 6:8) Jesus: Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:6) Torah: Do not speak to fools, for they will scorn your prudent words. (Proverbs 23:9) Rabbi Wolf should let up on his vicious attacks and incendiary rhetoric and read the book or at the very least call me to discuss the source materials. He should tell his inflamed masses that there is no place for hatemongering in Judaism. To bring an end to this madness, I am prepared to meet him in public debate on this subject at any reasonable time and place of his choosing – at his first convenience to end this madness. It is a serious offer and I await his response. Rather than fight this out in the pages of websites with attacks against me becoming more and more extreme, let’s have a scholarly and civilized discourse. Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi,” is the international best-selling author of 27 books, won the London Times Preacher of the Year competition at the Millennium, and is recipient of the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. Kosher Jesus will be published in February 1st by Gefen. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. 2012-01-11T21:35:28+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/why_im_a_tim_tebow_groupie/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/why_im_a_tim_tebow_groupie/#When:20:18:08Z Why I’m a Tim Tebow Groupie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuley-boteach/tim-tebow-infiltrates-the_b_1196379.html By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach On CNN a few weeks ago I was asked whether I agree with the sentiment that Tim Tebow’s religious displays in football games are overdone and out-of-place. “Oh yes,” I replied, “it certainly is. Faith should have no place in sport. Indeed, I believe that the only thing that should be allowed at football games are truly dignified displays like women jumping up and down in lycra with pompoms and cleavage, and bare-chested, pot-bellied men with their teams written across their stomachs, and people wearing cheese hats on their heads. But faith? G-d forbid.” Yes, I’m a Tim Tebow fan. And not only because he’s the underdog who pulls off miraculous victories, the scrappy boyish quarterback who always snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. Nor because he is openly religious and celebrates the fact that amid his love for football there are things in life infinitely more important than sport. No, I’m a Tim Tebow fan because frankly my dear he just doesn’t give a damn. Here is a guy who has decided who he is, what his convictions and principles are, and will stick with it whatever the criticism, whatever the price. And in age where people have such wobbly identities, that kind of enthusiasm for one’s core beliefs is positively infectious. The attacks on Tebow are bizarre, the hatred shown to him by critics strange. People seem to loathe his missionary work more than Beth Roethlisberger’s treatment of women (Ben’s repented, so let’s move on). They seem more offended by his morality than by Kobe Bryant’s infidelity. Tebow is touching some real nerve. I believe it is this. America is a religious country, and sincerely so. Ninety-two percent of the population believes in G-d, who is even on our money. It is a Church-going, Synagogue-supporting nation. But it loves compartmentalizing religion. Keep it in the Church, but not in the schools. Put G-d in Presidential campaigns, but never in the popular culture. Aside from those who pay for their air time, like Joel Osteen, notice that you never see religion on TV. There are a thousand different reality TV shows on the cable networks about everything under the sun. That is, except faith. You never see religion it in a concert hall or in Rock and Roll. And aside from the occasional mention of G-d by a coach or a player in an interview, you never see it in sport. Until Tim Tebow. Tebow brought prayer to the secular cathedral of the stadium, and infiltrated the foremost religion of all, worldwide sport. What Tebow is most guilty of, and what gets him under people’s skin, is breaching the line that all are supposed to respect, namely, that which separates the secular from the religious, the holy from the profane, the sacred from the everyday. G-d is a serious subject. People want Him in their lives, and will turn to Him at the appropriate time. But not in their recreation. We just want to have a good time. We want to see bone-crunching tackles, running backs diving into the end zone, not people on their knees in prayer. So Tim, take it to the Church, man. We’ll catch up with you later. We came to watch touchdowns. But people like me admire Tim Tebow precisely because we don’t believe in these artificial lines. We believe in live and let live. We’re not here to ever impose our faith on anyone else. But we won’t accept having it knocked out of us either. We’re not fanatics. We don’t argue that it’s our way or the high way. We’re not going to make you pray but less so are we going to allow you to forbid us to practice our faith. It’s a free country. Some want to spike the ball in the end zone, some want to get on a knee and give thanks. Who does it bother? Public schools should never have mandatory prayer. But as the Lubavitcher Rebbe argued, they should have a moment of silence where students can choose to reflect on something higher if they so choose. G-d should not be mandated at school but He need not be chased out either. Religion should obviously not be enforced in public schools, but parents should get vouchers to send their children to religious schools if they so choose. It’s their tax money, after all. So hack away at that artificial line, Tim. Pray away on the Gridiron. Keep on visiting orphans in your down time while your colleagues do their thing. Keep on being you. We’re rooting for you. And you’re plenty large, whether you win the big game or not. Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi,” is the international best-selling author of 27 books and has just published “Kosher Jesus.” He was The London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium, and received the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. 2012-01-10T20:18:08+00:00 http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/deception_and_desire_an_overview_of_genesis/ http://www.shmuley.com/news/details/deception_and_desire_an_overview_of_genesis/#When:20:39:46Z Deception and Desire: An Overview of Genesis Based on a series of lectures by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuley-boteach/deception-and-desire-genesis-overview_b_1189350.html At the core of the book of Genesis the themes of desire and deception consistently reappear throughout the events described therein.  It is a seemingly never-ending cycle that entangles the lives of even the most righteous of individuals. Unrequited desire usually leads to dire consequences.  The deception at times may be justified and at other times is sinful.  But the very fact that these two themes interfere in the lives of almost every character in Genesis shows how dangerous they can be, even when used for good intentions.  In the events of Joseph’s life, he is confronted with desire and deception, and faces a choice that can cost him his life.  Yet he surprises us in the actions he chooses, which powerfully influence the future Israelite nation, the effects of which still reverberate until today. Upon Jacob’s return to the land of Canaan after his stay with Laban in the land of Haran, the story shifts its focus away from Jacob and onto his favorite son Joseph.  Joseph’s brothers are jealous of their father’s special treatment of him and angered that Joseph tells his father of their wrongdoing.  They decide to kidnap and sell Joseph into slavery at the tender age of seventeen to avenge their dishonor.  Joseph is brought to Egypt and is purchased by Potiphar, who is one of pharaoh’s officers.  Potiphar discovers that Joseph is surprisingly honest, diligent, and bright for a common slave, and puts him in charge of all the affairs of his house.  It is here that God tests Joseph with desire and deception, thereby giving him the opportunity to rise above the coarse materialism and temptations of the world, and take his place as one of Jewish people’s righteous forefathers. The immoral culture that Joseph finds himself immersed in is best expressed by his master’s wife, who casts her eye on Joseph, and is filled with an insatiable lust for the young man.  Yet he refuses her every advance.  Then one day, when it is just the two of them in the house, his master’s wife sees the opportunity to fulfill her carnal desires.  She grabs his garment and implores him “Lie with me.”  It is with these words that Joseph is filled with a powerful urge to surrender to these temptations and abandon the values with which he was raised.  Here he is, a slave boy in a foreign land, with no family or friends, and no civil rights.  And he suddenly finds the mistress of the household and one of the most powerful women in Egypt offering herself to him.  It must have been powerfully flattering.  Furthermore, he knows that if he does not submit to her, she can create any story she wishes and do whatever else is required to have him punished for his refusal.  Joseph also has to consider the fact that even though his master treats him very well, and trusts him completely, Potiphar is still the master and Joseph is still the slave.  Joseph is still by law just a piece of property. But it is at this moment that Joseph is reminded of the pattern of deception and desire that has caused so much pain to his family, and he must choose whether to follow that path, or blaze a new one more fitting for God’s holy nation. No doubt Joseph reflects on the history of his ancestors. It started with Adam and Eve.  They should have rejoiced with their blessings and not lusted after the one thing they could not have—the forbidden fruit. But the serpent deceives Eve. He excites her forbidden desire, saying to her, “G-d has made the fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil forbidden because He fears that if you consume it you will obtain His powers and become divine.” His ploy works and she buys into his deception.  She then deceives Adam to eat the fruit, and afterward they try to hide from G-d because of their sin.  Their actions bring corruption into the world, breeding insatiability, longing, and insatiable desire. And it is now through cunning and fraudulent means that mankind will attempt to obtain what they want. In this lies the key to human corruption. The effects of their sin are contagious.  Following his parents’ example, Cain, in a jealous fit, strikes down his brother Abel. And like his parents, he believes he can deceive G-d. “Where is your brother?” G-d asks, to which he responds, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Abraham fears that the Egyptians will take away his wife Sarah and murder him and asks her to share in his ploy so that he might live. “Tell them, I beseech you, that I am your brother.” Although he is a righteous man, in this world where envy and corruption govern, he must use deception to survive.  Isaac must contrive the same story many years later with Rebecca to save his life from Abimelech king of the Philistines. Lot’s daughters believe he is the only man alive after they escape the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  They encourage him to imbibe large quantities of wine, and they then have relations with him during his intoxication. Esau is able to convince his father that he is saintly when in reality he is the complete opposite.  Isaac cannot see his son’s faults, and desires to give him the firstborn blessing. Rebecca turns to deception in order to correct her husband’s blindness – more metaphorical than literal – and give the blessing to its more deserving recipient, Jacob, whom she now ropes into the dupery. In a world where evil outmaneuvers good, Jacob learns from his adversaries and becomes a master of outwitting the wicked in order to survive. Laban swindles him into marrying the wrong sister but Jacob fights back and uses manipulation to take most of Laban’s wealth and flock.  When Jacob concludes that he must leave his father in law, the bible says, “Jacob stole the heart of Laban” by fleeing without telling him.  Soon afterward, Rachel thieves her father’s idols and then deceives his search for them by feigning sickness.  Simon and Levi tell the city of Shechem to circumcise themselves in order that they may become one people.  They deceive the entire town, and in an act of vengeance for the brutal rape of their sister kill all the men while they are recovering from their surgery. Joseph then thinks back to his father Jacob’s mistake of favoring him over his brothers, and giving him a special coat, sewing enmity between his children. Jacob’s sons eventually sell Joseph as a slave and deceive their father into believing that Joseph is dead. They bring him the very coat he personally constructed for Joseph, filled with blood, and Jacob concludes that Joseph has been torn limb from limb.  This pattern continues even after Joseph is sold.  Judah promises Tamar his third son, but does not intend to let them marry.  Tamar then disguises herself, and seduces Judah in order to become pregnant and carry a child from the house of Jacob. When analyzing all of these events, Joseph can see a pattern.  The lies and deceit of his uncles Laban and Esau are all for wicked purposes.  Lot’s daughters’ intentions are morally ambiguous given the circumstances.  But his own ancestors are different.  Abraham and Isaac understandably mislead about their wives to avoid their being murdered.  Jacob misleads to his father to prevent his wicked brother from receiving a blessing that he will use for evil.  Jacob also manipulates Laban to obtain what is rightfully his.  Rachel, Joseph’s mother, beguiles her father Laban by stealing his idols and lying to him about having done so, both to prevent her father from worshipping them and to ensure he does not use them to divine Jacob’s intentions of fleeing. So far, all these misrepresentations have a somewhat justifiable purpose.  But then afterward, Simon and Levi deceive the city of Shechem to take revenge, and the brothers lie to their father about selling Joseph as a slave, all because of their jealousy.  Judah deceives Tamar about his third son out of convenience, and Tamar lies to Judah in order to fulfill her desire to have children with holy lineage.  Joseph sees that all the untruths are creating ever greater moral ambiguity.  He understands the obvious fact that G-d hates falsehood.  He contemplates the axiom that Jeremiah will one day prophesize “The Lord G-d is truth.”  He realizes the real strength behind his forefathers that the prophet Micha will proclaim, “He gives truth to Jacob, kindness to Abraham.”  He’s become convinced of the future Jewish teaching that “the seal of God is truth.”  He finally concludes that although trickery may be necessary at times to save life, it is a dangerous endeavor that threatens to consume all goodness and righteousness in its path. Joseph’s insight is born out from God’s words through Moses.  When G-d gives over his commandments to the future Israelite nation, he asks the leaders and the people themselves to place fences and barriers to ensure they do not transgress His laws.  If relations with a married woman are forbidden, one should never be completely secluded with a married woman.  If work on the Sabbath is forbidden, one should not even pick up a tool with which work can be done.  If one is an alcoholic, one should not even have liquor in the house.  Yet there is a single commandment where God himself places the fence before us.  In Exodus 23:7, G-d commands “From a falsehood, you shall keep far away.”  He does not command that we should not lie, he instructs us to stay far away from anything close to a lie. Joseph makes a bold choice that he knows must be done in order to undo this destructive cycle of deception. He draws a line in the sand.  Enough deception.  Enough manipulation, even for a righteous end.  He will become the idealist.  But he will take this idea to a new level.  He will risk everything, including his life, in order to hold on to truth.  He will not encroach on that which belongs to someone else. He will not behave as Cain who wanted his brother’s intimacy with G-d.  He will not behave as the Egyptians who craved Abraham’s wife, or as Abimelech who coveted Rebecca. He will not be jealous of another man, as his brother’s were of him.  His master’s wife is just that, another man’s wife and he will forego all desire for her. And he will do this even if it means she will savagely retaliate.  He realizes that he must take this course of integrity and veracity to its farthest reaches in order to change the destiny of Gods chosen people, who will look to him as their righteous royal ancestor whose life they should emulate.  Joseph is aware of God’s providence watching over him in Egypt, guiding the events of his life and drawing him closer to his true mission on earth.  He trusts that G-d will protect him in his pursuit of uncompromising faithfulness and righteousness.  And his rejection of cunning will hopefully reverse the plague of treachery that is ravaging his brothers and his family. Yet in all this, there is one more story of deception, and it is orchestrated by Joseph himself.  However, this ruse is very different from every other story of duplicity in the book of Genesis.  There is a well known principle in Jewish thought that one of the truest forms of repentance from sin is to be in the same circumstances, with the same strength, and the same desires, and yet to avoid repeating the evil deed.  Joseph, now promoted by pharaoh to the position of Viceroy over all of Egypt, learns of his brothers’ presence in the land.  They do not recognize Joseph, and he interrogates them and treats them very harshly.  He knows that Benjamin, his full brother, is the only other son from Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel.  Joseph can be sure that Jacob treats Benjamin with extra care and concern as a result.  Therefore the brothers have all the reason to be envious of Benjamin, and desire to be rid of him as they were with Joseph.  So Joseph forces his brothers to travel back to Jacob in Canaan and return with Benjamin.  After a series of events, Joseph threatens to take Benjamin and make him his personal slave.  Joseph does this to recreate the scenario in which the brothers sold him into slavery.  It is in these near identical circumstances that the brothers—after pleading for Benjamin’s return—bravely offer to Joseph that they all become his slaves.  They cannot return to their father without Benjamin, and they would rather protect him while in chains, than live free without him.  In doing so, their sin is greatly atoned before God.  Joseph’s deceit is unique, in that he faced no threat to his life, and had no personal interest or vendetta in concealing his identity and testing his brothers.  In fact he wanted nothing more than to reveal himself to them, and hug and kiss his estranged siblings.  Yet he held back his tears, and exerted mastery over his emotions to help his brothers cleanse themselves of the evil they had done.  It is, ironically, a selfless story of deceit. And it is because Joseph chooses, finally, to live for truth that he is rewarded with becoming the great dream interpreter, the man with the power to see the difference between reality and fantasy, to discern dream symbols, and separate wheat from chaff, dream prophecy from useless dream imagery. Joseph had the insight to know that deception and falsehood are the tools of the primordial snake.  Even justifiable lies told to save one’s own life should still be repented for.  Lying to others can soon turn into lying to ourselves, which leads to a distortion of reality in order to satisfy our desires.  When we see falsehood, we must stay far away from it.  God is truth, and we must love and pursue truth to have any meaningful and lasting relationship with Him. Shmuley Boteach was the London Times Preacher of the Year 1999 and is the author, most recently, of Ten Conversations You Need to Have with Yourself. (Wiley) In January he will publish Kosher Jesus. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. This essay is written in memory of Machla Dabakarov, OBM, the mother of a dear friend of Rabbi Shmuley, who passed away earlier this year. 2012-01-06T20:39:46+00:00