Messianic Jews Doing It Wrong

misspepita: I can’t read Hebrew, but if anyone can offer...

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 11:29:33 -0700

I can’t read Hebrew, but if anyone can offer insight into what this says, that would be great!!

It’s one of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not murder (lo tirtzach).”

Having grown slightly bored with the Shema, this Messianic...

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:58:00 -0700

Having grown slightly bored with the Shema, this Messianic worship leader decided to mix things up by pretending to perform the Birkat Kohanim at the same time. “If this doesn’t excite the congregation,” he thought, “I’ll try the Batusi next week.”

“A shore kiddy Shane, ooh, by mitzvotav!”

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:15:58 -0700

“A shore kiddy Shane, ooh, by mitzvotav!”

Sheol (שְׁאוֹל) is a place mentioned in the Tanakh as the...

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:48:15 -0700

Sheol (שְׁאוֹל) is a place mentioned in the Tanakh as the destination of the dead. Shaul (שָׁאוּל) is the Hebrew name for Saul, the first Israelite king, as well as Paul the Apostle. Messianic congregations frequently use “Shaul” in place of “Paul” to make the New Testament seem more Jewish.

Note that the consonants for both words are the same in Hebrew. As you can imagine, this poses problems for Messianic congregations whose leaders can’t actually read Hebrew—for example, Yeshuat Yisrael, which put together this slide for one of the many PowerPoint sermons it offers on its website.

Tisha B’Av is usually a day of mourning and...

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 10:22:58 -0700

Tisha B’Av is usually a day of mourning and fasting—but not this year, thanks to this exciting Messianic concert scheduled on the same date!

(Hat tip: Jews for Judaism Canada)

Update: The concert has been cancelled, but Dan David still plans to perform on Tisha B’Av.

Why does everyone have a tattoo of a hebrew phrase?

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:31:00 -0700

cursive-writing:

Is it not the weirdest thing ever! Everyone from Victoria Beckham to Justin Bieber to your mom has one.

And then you have the people who get the Hebrew wrong—which is what you’d expect, really, when people get a tattoo in a language they don’t understand. Have you seen Bad Hebrew Tattoos?

(My favorite entry, by the way, is the person who designed a religious tattoo by switching her keyboard to Hebrew and typing in English letters. Oh, and the word she picked doesn’t even mean what she thinks it means.)

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is still heavily involved...

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 05:05:00 -0700

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is still heavily involved in the Messianic Jewish movement—no surprise there, given that they remain dedicated to converting Jews to Christianity. Here’s a photo from an affiliated service held right before the 2011 SBC Annual Meeting in June:

“Ric Worshill, left, a police chaplain in Lindenhurst, Ill., and David Foster, a member of Beit Yuash Shem [sic] of Meridian, Miss., worship during the meeting of the Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship at CrossPoinTempe Church in Tempe, Ariz. The services were held Saturday, June 11 prior to the start of the June 14-15 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Ariz.”

The Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship, by the way, has a membership of just over thirty congregations and twenty ministries with names like “Tikvat L’Chaim” and “Congregation Adat Shalom.” And that’s not counting the congregations I mentioned earlier that are part of the SBC itself.

(Oh, and how funny is it that the SBC website misspelled “Yeshua?”)

Protip: When you pick a name for your fake synagogue, pick a...

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 03:17:36 -0700

Protip: When you pick a name for your fake synagogue, pick a name you can pronounce correctly.

If a tallit is nothing more than a dance prop to you, I suppose...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:23:00 -0700

If a tallit is nothing more than a dance prop to you, I suppose it’s not much of a stretch to use the tallit as a mop, too (3:58).

When the Messianic movement appropriates Jewish ritual objects,...

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:41:00 -0700

When the Messianic movement appropriates Jewish ritual objects, it often alters the objects to promote Christianity. Take this “New Covenant Prayer Shawl,” for instance, designed to look like a tallit. It even has a blessing in Hebrew!

What is the usual Hebrew blessing written on a tallit?

Blessed are you, Lord, our G-d, sovereign of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to wrap ourselves in the tzitzit (fringes).

And what is the Hebrew blessing written on this shawl?

The main Prayer in Hebrew on the (Atara) reads in English as follow: Blessed are you O’ Lord King of the Universe Who has fulfilled all of the law through Jesus the Messiah and have covered us with his Righteousness. [All errors in original text.]

If the law about wearing tzitzit no longer applies, there’s no need for a prayer shawl whatsoever. If you want to wear a prayer shawl anyway, there’s no need to make it look just like a tallit—unless, of course, you’re really just playing Jewish dress-up.

I was going to mock this video for the poor Hebrew and the Star...

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:49:00 -0700

I was going to mock this video for the poor Hebrew and the Star Wars-style scrolling text, but the heavy echo effect makes it feel as if ~~Jesus~~ Yeshua is right here with me.

Aaronic? No. Moronic? Yes. Seriously, this Jewish playacting is...

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:19:00 -0700

Aaronic? No. Moronic? Yes.

Seriously, this Jewish playacting is just awful. The last line of his so-called “blessing” may as well be random syllables because he forgets so much of it.

Your cultural appropriation ::headdesk:: moment for the day

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:04:00 -0700

Your cultural appropriation ::headdesk:: moment for the day :

scarygodmother:

-“Embracing this Jewish tradition just brings a richness that we miss out on sometimes as Christians when we don’t know the history,” said Mrs. Austin, 29, a business manager for AT&T. “Jesus was Jewish, and we appreciate his culture, where he came from.”

Yes, because God forbid the dominant-to-the-point-of-suffocating religious observers in this country “miss out” on anything. Appreciate, appropriate, tomayto, tomahto.

This article isn’t about Messianic Jews, but the theme of Christians appropriating Jewish customs is clearly relevant.

Also, the “Jesus was Jewish, so everything’s okay!” argument doesn’t apply when you’re appropriating customs that emerged after Christianity began. Jesus would have never had a ketubah like the Austins’, for example, because Jews didn’t begin decorating the ketubah until the Middle Ages.

Speaking of which, I like the author’s sly reference to the Austins picking “one of several texts from the Reform Jewish movement”—texts which also happen to be written by a female rabbi. I wonder how that aligns with the views of the megachurch to which the couple belongs.

These people are going to give themselves whiplash if they keep...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:25:55 -0700

These people are going to give themselves whiplash if they keep bowing every time someone says “baruch” or “blessed.”

Also, did anyone else read Highlights for Children growing up? This video reminds me of the “What’s Wrong?” puzzles on the back cover. “Can you spot the five silly things this congregation is doing during the Torah service?”

Biola University, a Christian school, now offers a...

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 05:58:00 -0700

Biola University, a Christian school, now offers a master’s degree program in “Messianic Jewish studies.” The program operates out of the school’s New York City branch. According to this promotional video:

…after a few years of ministering in New York City among Jewish people and studying, you’ll be well-equipped to do Messianic Judaism.

In other words, Biola’s charging people thousands of dollars for the chance to convert Jews in New York who don’t want to be converted. I bet Jews for Jesus is seething with envy since they can only get away with charging $2,000 for the same thing—and they have to provide food and housing, to boot.

The Hineni Messianic Fellowship is back with more...

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:07:00 -0700

The Hineni Messianic Fellowship is back with more flags—this time for Rosh Hashanah! Messianic congregations love flags almost as much as they love “Davidic dancing”; I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the next major Jewish holiday.

This video also shows the importance of good lighting when you record a video. This flag-bearer walking in below looks as if she belongs to, um, a different group altogether:

I was prepared for him slaughtering Hebrew and adding a line...

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:18:00 -0700

I was prepared for him slaughtering Hebrew and adding a line about Jesus to the blessing for putting on a tallit, but he still managed to surprise me by unknowingly ending his blessing with “todah rabah” (“thank you very much”).

Who needs the first two thirds of the blessing over...

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:52:00 -0700

Who needs the first two thirds of the blessing over wine—y’know, the part that actually makes it a blessing—when you’re Messianic? Jesus will fill in the words for you.

What it means to me...

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 21:14:00 -0700

What it means to me...:

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Ki Tetze - “When You Go Out” - Debarim/ Duet. 21:10-25:19

This woman’s Messianic congregation claims to follow a traditional Torah reading schedule, yet she’s over two months early with her commentary on Ki Teitzei.

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor mistake. (I confess I couldn’t make it through the paragraph-less pink text, so there are probably far worse things in the commentary itself.) At the same time, though, it’s a great example of the way in which Messianics feel free to take whatever they like from Judaism—in this case, the idea of scheduled Torah portions—and use it as window dressing.

This site looks like a parody, but some research online suggests...

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:11:00 -0700

This site looks like a parody, but some research online suggests that it’s for real. The head of this ministry, “Elisabeth Elijah Sherrie Nikomia,” has been making apocalyptic prophecies for over a decade. Its younger members have also uploaded hundreds of videos on YouTube about Messianic Judaism, like this video on hosting a Messianic Passover Seder—or this video on “Project BLUE BEAM & Alien DECEPTION.”