I have an email conversation with Steve, a new reader of mine from Florida.
He writes:
Dear Luke,
It would be really nice for you to actually do some homework before sharing your thoughts with the world. It was John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace and was one of the major influences and inspirations in the abolitionist movement. He was a mentor of William Wilberforce (look it up) and that movement eventually moved to the USA where these penitent sinners ran the underground railroad, risking their lives as slaves were helped to freedom for decades preceding the Civil War.
Oh yeah, when you converted to Judaism didn’t you learn the concept of Teshuvah? How about Yom Kippur? Judaism is not a religion that has to put down the faith of others to exalt itself.
…Believe it or not, I was looking for a representation of the statue in the book of Daniel for a Bible study. Because there evidently was a reference to Jew or Jewish, guess who popped up? So Luke, how involved into the Jewish culture are you? Is it more cultural than religious or is it both?
Was that video an isolated incident or is this a foray into 21st century mass communication? I am bearly computor literate myself. I get the cool thing about being able to express yourself by uploading stuff but it just seems like magic to me. Just getting up to speed for cell phones when they came out with the earpeice. Is that like a more direct way to get brain cancer?
…Really not into religion in the dictionary sense, e.g. man’s attempts to please G_d by his own efforts. If I had to categorize myself, I would go with messianic Jew. This should not to be confused with my brethren according to the flesh who are still awaiting Mosiach.
I do not want to offend, but I am also extremely sensitive to the fact that 2000 years of anti-Semitism in the name of Y’shua has not endeared him to the Jewish mindset.
Really much more into relationship (spirituality) rather than organized or even disorganized religion.
I am midway through a dissertation for a Ph.D. I started when I was paralyzed back in 2001. I had what we used to refer to when I worked in the clinical lab with the tongue-in-cheek label of IDS or impending death syndrome. I had been given a very bad medicine that was supposed to lower my cholesteral and it lowered my life expectency. I spend 12 weeks in ICU, coded several times, and went into multi-organ system failure.
Bottom line, all my skeletal muscles melted, literally. I ended up paralyzed (could only open and close my hands) and on a respirator and dialysis. Praise G_d I not only survived but even a pace maker they gave me has since been removed. I’m told that almost never happens. All this drove me to go back to school so my brain would not deteriorate the way my muscles did.
Seven years later and I am off dialysis and mobile. All that to say that my reading has been limited to the Bible (always a good choice and of course a timeless best seller at that)
I have been reading reference books and books related to my dissertation subject. The latest one is entitled The Temple by that infamous meshumed (takes one to know one) Alfred Erdersheim. It is really very fascinating cause he gives excellent insights into the inner workings of the Temple. Not extremely relevant to my dissertation which has the incredible wordy title of: "Health, Wellbeing, and Wholeness in Leviticus and its Implications for Public Health in the 21st Century: A Theological and Pastoral Case Study Focusing on the Levitical Priest as a Public Health Practitioner."
Biblical and Talmudic Medicine was a real eye-opener for me. It has enormous insights into our people’s medical practices going all the way back to the Exodus. Really very enlightening. I was first moving in a direction of looking at the kosher laws and the fact that the L_ord promises that "none of the diseases that the Egyptians suffered would come upon them if they obeyed His instructions. Then I found out that it would be almost impossible to do this so I went in another direction, e.g. the connection the Levitical Priesthood plays in the healing dynamic noting the difference between cure (the absense of pathology) and healing (which may include facing chronic illness, disability, etc. successfully) and not just the absence of disease.
…Friends and family stuck by me pretty well. Some people in the faith-based community decided to go elsewhere but I don’t mind so much anymore. It bothered my daughter more than it did me. After all, I was comatose for much of the time early on so I did not now who stuck around and who didn’t.
My daughter when see saw me (It happened just as she graduated from UCF with a BA in Psychology) she promised to do everything I wanted her to do educationwise, e.g. go on and get her MS, etc. If I knew that would work so well I would have pulled this near-death thing sooner. She did better than I asked, she is finishing her schooling with a Ed.D. in counseling and physcology.
Still, it was a mixed blessing. I am no longer suffering from high cholesteral or on dialysis and my heart is in good condition. The medicine that almost took me out was taken off the market the very day I went into the rehab hospital 3 months after I got sick.
It was made by the Bayer corportation for the sole purpose of competing with Lipitor (an organic chemical that is not a killer like Baychol was). We found out that a patient died of what I got during the clinical trials and they didn’t include that in their report. Also 39 people died by the time I got sick so they were just bean counting.
It never went to court. I settled and I don’t have to earn a living anymore at 58. Just devote myself to ministry like before but don’t have work. I kinda miss the clincial lab. It was fun and exciting in a MASH kinda way. Now if I want to reminence, I look at ER and have flashbacks.
People are not always as good or kind as we would like them to be. I came to grips with the fact that some people play the cosmic blame game with you, e.g. when something goes wrong (as they see it) it must be G_d punishing you for something. We play the blame game with one another, e.g. those who fail are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished, so why not the cosmic blame game, e.g. include G_d in the mix.
In any event, I have forgiven them. It is a helpful talent, the ability to forgive.
I was raised in the tradition of Reform Judaism. My religious training ended with my Bar Mitzvah. Came to believe that Yeshua was the Messiah after my 1960’s experience of peace, love and pass the pipe evolved into more dangerous and addictive drug experiences. I had moved to Florida from Brooklyn New York in 1975. It was supposed to be a geographic cure. What I didn’t know was that I was the problem and everywhere I went…well you know the rest.
I was only leaving the apt. to get drugs because if I didn’t I would get sick. I was really at the end of the addiction cycle and I knew I was in bondage to sin at that point. I knew I had leprosy of the soul and I was reading a Bible for comfort. I had gotten a Bible with a NT in it for an English assignment back in high school (this was obviously before they through G_d out of the public schools completely). It was a comparison project between the Book of Job and a Broadway play called J.B. (an updated version of Job, J.B. being a wall street tycoon that looses everything).
I was reading the Gospel of Matthew. I was reading that Yeshua lived in Israel and went around preaching and healing people. Touching lepers and cleansing them (remember, I knew I had leprosy of the soul, a drug addict who could not stop and I had tried all forms of therapy to stop and couldn’t). He was giving sight to the blind, etc.
Still, this is Jesus and I am forbidden to consider him as kosher. It was a real problem so I decided to check out the Bible verses Matthew was using from the Tanach. I had my Bar Mitzvah Bible so I looked up those verses to see if they rang true, were not taken out of context, etc. When I finished Isaiah 53, I prayed a simple, but honest prayer, "If he is the Messiah, I want him to do for me what he was doing for those I was reading about." That was it.
Luke, the Brit ha dasha is not a Gentile invention. It was promised to us by G_d in Jeremiah 31:31-37. It is about knowing the Most High, personally, and being forgiven. Read it for yourself. All I can say is that King David experienced G_d’s Holy Spirit personally and so did I. It is after all a promise of the Brit ha dasha, e.g. to have G_d place his Spirit in our inward parts and write His Torah on our hearts, Ez. 36:24-28. These are should not be unfamiliar to you, however I understand there are many reasons to reject Yeshua as he is presented to our people and our people do not read their own Bibles anyway.
God is echad. Deut. 6:4 is a very accurate about this and you know that our prayerbooks often refer to G_d in terms of His Unity. All of the first believers were Jewish so I do not find it too problematic to believe. Most of my problems come from the goyiem who misrepresent the message, some willingly and knowingly and some in ignorance.
Still, my own personal background has me enjoying the freedom the L_rd has shown me personally. I believe if I were from an Orthodox background, I might be Torah observant today as are some of my Jewish brethren who believe Yeshua is Moshiach both here and in Israel. After all, the Brit ha dasha is a Jewish book written by Jewish men about the Jewish Messiah. As I have noted, 2000 years of anti-Semitism at the hands of Christians has not endeared the concept of Yeshua’s messiahship to our people.
That said, I am pleased that you have asked. I do not mean to discuss anything with you that would tend to offend. I respect anyone who embraces the G_d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Speaking of Jacob, I have been fighting with all who unfairly portray Jacob as anything other than a righteous man who loved G_d. I have been deeply perplexed by both rabbincal and Christian commentary on the subject of Jacob. Have you given our forefather Jacob any thought?
