“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Isaiah 55: 6-7

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel (Part 6): The Hasidim

Haredi Jews (a.k.a., the Hasidim and ultra-Orthodox Jews) have distorted the meaning of the word “Jewish”. According to Yahweh, being Jewish has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with lineage, but today, when we talk about Jews, we are referring to people who practice Judaism.

From Yahweh’s perspective, the only real Jews are direct descendants of Judah, but according to Judaism, a person can become Jewish by converting to Judaism. That’s ridiculous. It isn’t possible to become a direct descendant of Judah by converting to Judaism.

A direct descendant of Judah, a real Jew, can practice Judaism or be an atheist or become a Buddhist or a member of any other religion. Regardless of what he does, he does not forfeit his lineage. He’s still Jewish.

In Jeremiah 3: 6-10, Yahweh said that Judah and Israel played the harlot by practicing other religions. Yahweh punished them for it, but they never lost their connection to Jacob/Israel, and the people of Judah remained Jewish:

Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. I thought, ‘After she has done all these things she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. Because of the lightness of her harlotry, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. [Stones and trees are idols or false deities.] Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,” declares Yahweh. (Jeremiah 3: 6-10)

Israel and Judah were two distinct nations. That distinction is lost on almost everyone, including most Israeli Jews. This is how it came about:

Abraham was a Hebrew. So were his sons Isaac and Jacob.
Yahweh changed Jacob’s name to Israel.
Jacob/Israel had 12 sons. One of them was named Judah.
Together, all of Jacob’s/Israel’s sons and their descendants are called “the Children of Israel” or “Israel”.
Only Judah’s descendants are called “Jews”.
Moses descended from Jacob’s/Israel’s son Levi. Thus, Moses was a Levite, not a Jew.
When Moses led the Children of Israel (the descendants of all Jacob’s/Israel’s sons) out of Egypt and they settled the Promised Land, the nation was called “Israel”.
Saul was Israel’s first king. He descended from Jacob’s/Israel’s son Benjamin. Therefore, he was a Benjaminite, not a Jew. Saul died in 1010 BC.
David succeeded Saul as King of Israel. He descended from Jacob’s/Israel’s son Judah. Thus, he was Jewish. David died in 970 BC.
David’s son Solomon was succeeded him as King of Israel. He was Jewish, too. Solomon died in 931 BC.
Solomon’s son Rehoboam succeeded him as King of Israel. He was Jewish as well.

When Rehoboam became King of Israel, he infuriated the people of Israel, and they rebelled against him. Israel won its independence, and the nation Israel was divided into 2 kingdoms very shortly after Rehoboam became king: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

By that time, Benjamin had become a very small tribe, so Judah absorbed it. The Northern Kingdom included the descendants of all Jacob’s/Israel’s sons except Judah and Benjamin. The Southern Kingdom included the descendants of Judah and Benjamin.

In the 700s BC, Israel (the Northern Kingdom) was conquered by the Assyrians and taken captive. Eventually, they were scattered throughout the world, and they assimilated in the countries where they went. As a result, over time they lost their identities as Israelites, and they became known as “the 10 lost tribes of Israel”. They remain Israelites nonetheless, because they are direct descendants of Jacob/Israel even though most of them don’t know their heritage.

Jeremiah wrote his prophecy between 630 BC and 580 BC. That was more than 800 years after the Children of Israel settled the Promised Land and about 100 years after Assyria conquered Israel, the Northern Kingdom. By that time, Judah had followed Israel down the path toward harlotry (idolatry). They adopted other gods, and Yahweh rejected them, too.

Judah (the Southern Kingdom) was conquered by the Babylonians and taken to Babylon as captives. The process of conquering Judah and taking the Jews in Judea captive took place in stages from the early-600s BC to the 580s BC. Jeremiah’s prophecy covered Judah during that time.

While they were in Babylon, Jewish religious leaders created what we call “Judaism” today. They remained in captivity in Babylon for 70 years, but when the Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jews to return to their homeland in 538 BC. Most of them stayed in Babylon, but those who returned to Judea brought Judaism with them.

In Jeremiah 3: 6-10, Yahweh was talking about Judah following Israel’s lead by drifting toward idolatry. All of these things are discussed in the Bible. Anyone can read about it, if they are interested. For more detail, see the SnyderTalk editorials below:

Now, please take a few minutes and read this recent article from The Jerusalem Post: “Understanding haredi society: The hassidim”. The Hasidim in Israel today practice Judaism that was brought to Israel from Babylon. It is also known as Pharisaic Judaism, and the Hasidim are also called ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The article opens with this:

A well-known joke among Litvaks [A Litvak is a Jew from Lithuania or a neighboring country or region.] says the hassidim don’t really need the rule that forbids studying Torah on the night of December 24, for fear it could be for the sake of the Christ: “Hassidim don’t really study Torah anyway on any other night,” tease the Litvaks.

The sad truth is that the Hasidim in Israel today do not study the Torah. If they did, they would not have a problem with the Messiah. See His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition.

The Hasidim study the Talmud, the Mishnah, and the Gemara. Together, they are called “the Oral Law”, “the traditions of the Jews”, and “Halacha”. They pay particular attention to the Babylonian Talmud that was written in Babylon before the Jews returned to Judea.

Everything in Judaism today originated in Babylon. It did not come from Yahweh. Therefore, Judaism is a man-made religion.

As an aside, many of the things that the Messiah did and said (things that are reported in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) can’t be understood correctly unless you understand these things as backdrop. The Messiah purposely attacked Judaism and the traditions associated with it, because Judaism deviates greatly from the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings (i.e., the Scripture/the Tanach/the Old Testament).

Christianity as we know it today is a man-made religion, too. Originally, almost all of the Messiah’s followers were Jews. They were called “Nazarenes”, and they were regarded as a sect of Judaism called “the Sect of the Nazarenes”. Since Nazarenes rejected everything except Yahweh’s word (the Scripture), they were rejected by the religious leaders in Judaism. The split between Nazarenes and Jewish religious leaders became permanent during the Bar Kochba Revolt in the 130s AD when Rabbi Akiva declared that Nazarenes were not Jewish despite the fact that virtually all of them were direct descendants of Judah. See The Trilogy.

In the 300s AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine took control of Christianity and did his utmost to drive Jewish people out of his religion. Today, we know Constantine’s religion as the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1500s AD, Martin Luther led the Protestant Revolt. It diverged only slightly from Catholicism. Like Catholicism, Protestantism is man-made religion, too. Today, more than 50% of the people in the world who claim to be Christian are Catholic. About 36% are Protestant, and roughly 12% are Eastern/Oriental Orthodox.

Right now, Yahweh is in the process of bringing His children together, and He is drawing them out from underneath the gigantic umbrella of religion. He is drawing His people to Himself, to faith in Him and obedience to His Word, and they are being led by His Spirit. I call it “the faith of Abraham”. Nothing and no one can stop Yahweh.

Please read the SnyderTalk editorials below for more detail:

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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”

John 10: 14-18