Did Christianity Prepare The World For The Jewish Messiah?

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Rabbi Singer, welcome to the program.

[00:00:02]Hey, great having me on. Thank you for coming back on. I appreciate this.

[00:00:07]There's an email and a couple messages that I got recently and they've been piling up and they all seem to say the same thing. I'm going to read one of them to you and here goes.

[00:00:18]In my humble opinion, Jesus is a Mashiach in the sense that he brings the pagans closer to Torah per Rambam. So, Rabbi Singer, did Christianity prepare the world for Mashiach?

[00:00:31]Uh you know, if the Rambam hopefully does not hear this cuz if he would, it would crush him.

[00:00:40]>> [snorts] >> Because and I encourage you to read it for yourself and there's no text the Rambam wrote that's easy to understand than his Mishneh Torah cuz that was the whole purpose of it was to write something that anyone could understand and and derive the foundations of our emunah. I specifically want you to open the Rambam's Maimonides um Laws of Kings and their wars and chapter 11 and 12 which are probably the most famous uh part of his entire work, which is saying a lot.

[00:01:23]And the Rambam says exactly opposite and I need to lay it out for you cuz a lot of people say this to me that didn't the Rambam say that you know, Christianity is they're all just just to bring everyone to God and soul.

[00:01:40]And the answer is no, not at all.

[00:01:43]The Rambam uh ex- explains very clearly that well, let me reframe him.

[00:01:51]Uh it's striking that after the destruction of the Second temple, uh Christianity emerges as a world religion and certainly once Constantine converts to Christianity, so everything is uh the Roman Empire becomes Christian.

[00:02:13]So, why did this happen? What was the point that you have following destruction of second temple, two major world religions that are both predicated on Judaism. They both believe that Orthodox Judaism, I'm saying that very specifically, uh was true and God gave them commandments and God revealed himself to the children of Israel and that he's one God, except those religions believe that something changed. And the church would say this to you, there's a new covenant, therefore the commandments have been abrogated and Christianity introduces ideas about God that are completely alien to the Hebrew Bible, introduces idolatry through the doctrine of the Trinity.

[00:03:06]So, what's going on here? Why is this all necessary?

[00:03:11]So, the Rambam explains that we see very clearly in the Hebrew Bible that when the true Messiah comes, the nations immediately recognize their error.

[00:03:25]And the nations grab the shirt of a Jew and say, "Nalecha imachem ki shamati Elohim imachem."

[00:03:32]I uh Zechariah chapter 8 verse 23, "Let us go with you because we have heard that God is with you." This is a very critical point. The nations realize instantaneously that they were all wrong, they were wrong, and the Jews had the truth throughout history. But the how is this possible to occur?

[00:03:58]Like, let's play a a thought experiment for a moment. Let's say there had been no Abrahamic religion um after Judaism. That means all the religions the world look something like Zoroastrianism, um Hinduism, religions Shintoism, just religions of the East.

[00:04:20]None of them had any basis on the Abrahamic faith.

[00:04:25]So, if we're very, very close now to the end, in fact, as far as the Rambam is concerned, from the moment Milchemes Gog u'Magog, the end-time war begins between Persia and and Israel, it's we're in the time of the redemption itself itself.

[00:04:43]But in this thought experiment, imagine that there were no other Abrahamic religions. And in fact, that's the way the world was in the 1st century BC.

[00:04:52][snorts] In 1st century BCE, when Pompey entered Jerusalem in 66 BCE, thus beginning the Roman conquest of the land of Israel, um nobody would have known what a Mashiach is. No one They knew about the Jews, and the Jews were well-known people for many reasons, but the No one understood the word uh Mashiach, in Greek Christos, meant nothing to them. In fact, the word Christos literally means to pour oil.

[00:05:30]If you were getting a shiatsu massage, that was a Christos. And the ancient world they used It had no meaning to the ancient world.

[00:05:39]So, therefore, if there would be no Abrahamic religions in the world, if Christianity had never emerged, so when the true Messiah comes, the world would go, "What's that?" They wouldn't turn to the Jews who would have believed the report and look to whom the arm of the Lord has been revealed, which the nations will say when Messiah comes at the beginning of the famed Isaiah 53 that's misappropriated by the church.

[00:06:05]They're going, "What are you talking about? There's a whole bunch of gods or there's a pantheon of gods in the Greco-Roman world." And they would have believed in the gods that are venerated and worshipped in the realm of Ba'al and throughout India. They would go, "What What's that?"

[00:06:22]But rather, the world must be filled with Christianity's example, the largest world religion, which believes all Christians believe that Judaism was once correct. And I don't say Orthodox Judaism in order to to win, but it Jesus, as far as Christianity is concerned, was said to have come from a Pharisaic background.

[00:06:48]Paul, whether this is true or not is germ- not germane.

[00:06:52]Paul claims to have been a Pharisee, meaning that is the exact same thing as Orthodox Jew. The term Orthodox Jew, incidentally, was not coined by Orthodox Jews. It was coined around the year 1800 by Reform Jews. And it was a term of derision. I I might as well just say this because these terms are going to come up here a bit. Uh the the Reform movement that emerges, the Haskalah, the Enlightenment within the Jewish circles, looked at Jews, meaning who are following everything, they called us Orthodox. In Greek, that means the correct opinion.

[00:07:31]That's all it means. But they didn't The The Reform movement or what The Haskalah movement, the Enlightenment, they weren't calling uh traditional Judaism Orthodox because they thought we were right, but rather they the word orthodox had already been used was in long use by the Orthodox Church.

[00:07:54]A very, very large denomination and the Orthodox Church was known as and still known as a very rigid version of Christianity. So, it was sort of a derisive term. Orthodox Jew, like you're like the Orthodox Christian. And in fact, the the rabbis of the 19th century didn't like that term Orthodox because it it wasn't meant, but eventually we needed to come up with a term as the reform movement emerged. And eventually, even though Samson Raphael Hirsch and others didn't like it cuz they knew it wasn't, but we adopted. This is very very often the case where a name that's being used was not comes up from an opponent and eventually the group adopts it. Like I think of Methodist, Kel HaAvodah, all So, just to understand that Judaism, this was the religion that Christianity emerged from. Proudly, except they're saying that everything changed. Now, when the true Messiah comes and please God it's imminent and we'll see it very soon.

[00:09:03]So, the nations will immediately recognize their error. Meaning, they'll understand that Jesus is not the Messiah.

[00:09:12]And well, if Jesus is not the Messiah, every Christian would concede, every Christian, although this would not be a very generally not a very pleasant conversation, but if pushed, every Christian would concede that Jesus is not the Messiah and the and the teachings of the Christian Bible and the apostolic and the fathers, all all of it was wrong. There's no trinity, God is a unity, there's no other God. He's not None It's all completely false.

[00:09:41]So, they'll all recognize that Judaism is the default baseline. Means it would revert back to what they knew to be true. So, it all returns back to that and that's exactly perfect. So, the world until the Messiah comes that means we're living in a world of lies. We're living in a world of false teachings now. Now, the question is what should the world religions look like?

[00:10:06]Well, it is much better that the world religions are predicated on Judaism are Well, Abrahamic would be a good term now to use. [clears throat] That means they're all predicated on Judaism. They all believe that uh Judaism was once true. However, because of our prophet or our demigod, you don't have to keep the Torah anymore. You don't have to keep Shabbos anymore.

[00:10:30]Christianity goes way further in that it turns to a complete idolatry that there's three persons within the Godhead and it's not it's complete idolatry and it's the most vulgar version of it. And Maimonides refers to Jesus explicitly. Read uh Mishneh Torah Laws of Kings chapter 11. He called He refers to Jesus as the most vulgar among them. He He was not trying to be insulting. He wasn't trying to He was just being very clear.

[00:11:06]And it's intriguing incidentally that he brings up the issue in that context of Bar Kokhba that in that even though there were many rabbis who thought that Bar Kokhba, when he began his revolt in let's say 132 many of them thought he was the Messiah, but they had guardrails in place. There was something to catch them. So, when Bar Kochba we call Bar Koziva, it's a a pejorative. When he got killed by the Romans because of his behavior, so they had guardrails in place to say, "Okay, he's not Mashiach." The church had no guardrails. That means the church today appeals to the church fathers, which is a very important thing, which means they they have no way of escaping.

[00:11:56]They have no guardrails. They have no halakha. That's all gone. It's all been dismissed. So, therefore, the false religions that dominate the world today must be based on Judaism. Meaning, they must know that there's a one God concept. And they must believe that there were commandments incumbent upon the world and the Jewish people, except those commandments, especially the ritual commandments, have been nullified because of their religions. Once the true Mashiach comes, this is the key part of everything.

[00:12:30]All the nations will know that I am Hashem. Period. Full stop.

[00:12:35]The Mashiach is not going to go around doing miracles. He's not going to go around healing people. All if you you think in this way as the Mashiach has some sort of hidden hero, it's because you've been affected by the the the stench of Christianity. And we grew up in Christian countries, a Christian culture. That's why you think that way. It's in the days of Mashiach there will be uh everyone will want to be close to the Jewish people. There will be no more wars in the world. All of our opponents will become our allies.

[00:13:12]And even more, they'll want to take part in the final building of the Temple and the Commonwealth. See Isaiah 60 verse 1, 2, 3. For the whole chapter is about the the whole end of Isaiah is about the realization of the non-Jews.

[00:13:27]Uh and and how do they instantaneously know that? So, therefore, Christianity is the perfect religion. Perfect in that it's the perfect false religion.

[00:13:37]What does that mean? It means that when Messiah comes, everyone go, "Okay, I got it.

[00:13:44]The Jews were right all along." Isaiah 53, as a tangent, is they don't don't understand why the Jews were persecuted.

[00:13:52]That's very interesting for you to know, and I'm throwing this in even though it's not germane. Isaiah 53, the non-Jews then have a big question. If the Jews were right all along, why did they suffer so much? So, they conclude that the Jews suffered as a result of their sins. And number two is Jewish suffering was a trigger for the non-Jews to repent, which is an amazing thing.

[00:14:14]And many people over the world tell me that it was the suffering of the Jews throughout history, certainly Shoah, October 7th, that brought them to have a new record. Jewish suffering has an indelible effect on non-Jews. So, therefore, God fills the world with with Christianity and Islam.

[00:14:32]The Maimonides is very clearly stating these are false religions. He Course, he his very very very strong criticism is against Christianity cuz Christianity persecuted the Jews more than the Islamic world. And it's absolute complete idolatry. You know, there there's something that a a caveat here.

[00:14:56]Although the nations of the world were given access to radical monotheism and Judaism, that means they're very aware of it. So, this way, when Messiah comes, they right away get their mistake. They right away If the world was full of, as I said, of of Hinduism and all these Eastern religions, they have no they would not know what does that mean? They wouldn't be able to fill these promises. The one thing God didn't allow the other nations of the world to have, intriguingly, is the Sabbath. It's very interesting.

[00:15:31]Although the Abrahamic religions, well, well, well over half the world uh belongs to an Abrahamic religion.

[00:15:40]This is mind-blowing, but the Torah says that's how it happened. In the beginning of Deuteronomy 4, the nations say, "What a wise nation this is that has such a wise Torah."

[00:15:49]The It's interesting that Hashem would not allow them to have Shabbat.

[00:15:55]And it Although it's not in the Christian Bible at all, the church would move the Sabbath to Sunday, and Islam would move it to Friday, which is mind-blowing. Because neither Christianity nor Islam believe that the Jews have the wrong day.

[00:16:13]But they somehow It It's not important how it happened. I mean, Ignatius was a very early church father, the bishop of Antioch. He's the one who really is gets behind this idea that Sunday should be But it's intriguing that Hashem does not allow these religions to have the Saturday, the seventh day, as their Sabbath.

[00:16:37]Why not? Because we say it in the Kiddush. It's in Exodus chapter 31 verse 16 and 17, most importantly, where we're told about the Sabbath that God gave the Sabbath to the children of Israel. And it's an eternal nation beynu u-veyn Bnei Yisrael, between God and Israel. So therefore, what God did is unbelievable, and it's it's not intuitive. You can ask Christians and Muslims why it was changed, and you'll notice that the answers are surprisingly unsatisfying. Well, Jesus resurrected on Sunday. What does that have to do with God very clearly in Genesis 2 says that the seventh day is what was made holy. Fine, you believe something else that well, what does it have to do?

[00:17:24]And it really doesn't make sense.

[00:17:25]Moreover, to prove this point that I'm not I'm not saying something unflattering about Christianity. There has always been sects of Christianity that are regarded as heretical both now and throughout the ages that try to push back the Sabbath to Saturday.

[00:17:45]In our time, you have Seventh-day Adventists, which is a millenarian group. It doesn't matter. Throughout history, there always groups like this and the church fathers and reformers always condemn them like they were the worst heresy in the world. So, it's not like like I'm coming up with this idea because I have an unfavorable view of Christianity and I'd like you to have the same one. This always went on as maybe we should bring it back the Sabbath and that those ideas were crushed as a uh fiercely crushed as a heresy. They couldn't stand it. It's not like they thought it was not the smartest thing in the world. It is a No, they they couldn't stand it. So, the Rambam very clearly is saying that Shabbat is set aside for the Jewish people and he's saying that Christianity and Islam are there to prepare the world for Messiah, but not that they're true, but rather they're replacing the religions of the let's say the Greco-Roman world um with religions that are predicated on Judaism so that Messiah comes, they'll realize that their mistaken beliefs are wrong and then they will fulfill the the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 11 verse 9, the knowledge of God will cover the world as the water covers the sea, and God will be king of the whole world. He will be one, his name will be one.

[00:19:03]Famous Zechariah chapter 14.

[00:19:06]The Rambam didn't not only did not support Christianity as you I get the same emails.

[00:19:14]>> [snorts] >> He was the fiercest opponent and most relentless opponent of Christianity.

[00:19:21]He said the most unflattering things about Jesus in the opening of his letter to the Ammonites.

[00:19:27]He says that what is stated in Daniel chapter 11 about the one who would be the great the one who would the greatest persecutor and lead us astray was Jesus. He was fiercely anti-Christian and held the strongest view that Christianity is absolutely idolatry for Jews and Gentiles. I mean, you couldn't when someone makes that suggestion, it's a tragedy that people are not reading the original text. And let me promise you this, if you you can go online in a second, just go to the laws of kings, laws of kings, chapter 11 and 12. That's the the whole end of it. And you just read chapter 11.

[00:20:09]He he's very >> [snorts] >> I don't even know how he's alive. I mean, I don't know how how he how he didn't get killed over this. Yeah, it was retracted. I think there were many volumes that didn't have this chapter in it for many years. It was hidden.

[00:20:26]But who who's spreading this lie? Is there some malicious reason why people would want to align Judaism and Christianity? Is that something that that you're dealing with?

[00:20:38]>> I don't think it's malevolent at all. I think it's ignorance. It's ignorance.

[00:20:43]And I think people say that because they want to believe that we're all just believing in the same God and it's all different pathways that that Chief Pope Francis called it, it's all different pathways to the top of the mountain. This kind of ecumenical thought. So, there were many people who who tried to even in the Orthodox world, there were people who appealed did this who was the Israeli um ambassador to Milan. He said a and he said a lot of He's dead. He can't defend himself. So, I'm not going to attack him. He said a lot of crazy things. He was a very intelligent person, but he wanted to engender a lot of we're all the same. We're all worshipping the same God and in light of you know, Vatican II, he wanted to he wanted diplomatic relations between Israel [snorts] and the Vatican, which he did not achieve, but he he said all kinds of very things that are completely odd, but there were a lot of people who just want to say we all worship the same God.

[00:21:54]You even had rabbis who are very respectful who said, "Look, originally Christianity didn't have a trinity and really you're supposed to keep the Torah. You know, there there are all kinds of people who tried to find that we all worship the same God and these are different pathways to God. It's not correct It's weirdly not correct. And I'll I'll just say this to you that the problem we suffer from, you know, we you and I have done many shows together that have been seen by hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Maybe millions cuz it's on other channels.

[00:22:29]That sad has showed what is common among all the people who were who are making terrible mistakes is this is is this just occurred to me is people are not reading the primary sources.

[00:22:48]Yeah. Like I don't even know how many shows we've done together that have been seen by hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe a million people around the world. You think of all the shows we've done, it's on many many channels.

[00:22:59]Seen by millions of people and we're always addressing something and I think we can conclude that the reason we're out there trying to correct and guide as we're right at the precipice of the of Messiah here that people just have not taken the time to read the primary meaning the original sources but rather they go on on Google and they watch some you know they watch some video I don't know what they do they read some book or they they're they're in Sedona, Arizona and they're just thinking that they're in a vernal some vortex. It's completely incorrect.

[00:23:40]Like in this case like all you would have to do to understand what we're doing here is we're going back to my Maimonides text. I assure you that my what Maimonides says about Christianity is much more critical of of Jesus himself and Christianity that I'm even put- traying. I'm like softening it a little bit.

[00:24:02]>> I think a possuk in Haggai. Yeah, Haggai good Daniel. He I'm we're being gentle here. So this is all wrong and I want to say this this to you cuz I know that you know we we both are on the same exact clear path.

[00:24:22]The mistake people are making is they're just [clears throat] not opening up Ezekiel 38 and 39. They're just not reading uh Zechariah chapter 12. There there's nothing hidden. It's not like you or I have some secret verses and this is some esoteric movement we're starting here like you and I are starting a cult and we are claiming like Paul claimed that we have secret revelation. No, no. Everything I'm we're sharing with you is explicitly, clearly, transparently in the text itself.

[00:24:58]So, the world the major world religions are Abrahamic, believe that Judaism was originally true specifically so that when Messiah comes, they will immediately recognize their error.

[00:25:15]Literally, the prophet said they'll put their hands over their mouths and go, They'll be shocked cuz what they're observing is like what they never considered what they've finally seen like nothing they've ever heard. And they're in stunned. And they're also stunned why the Jews then suffered. Cuz all this time all along the non-Jews thought, why do the Jews suffer? Yeah, we're against October 7th. Yeah, we're against the pogroms. We're embarrassed by it. But why does everyone hate the Jews? So, they because they accepted they rejected our savior and that's why they suffer so much. And they're like nice nice people who are not Holocaust deniers, who not don't deny October 7th.

[00:25:54]They'll say, >> Yes, and why do the Jew this this this rabbit anti-Semite made the statement that why is it that Europeans all persecute Jews? What were the Jews doing that everyone couldn't stand them and threw them out?

[00:26:07]It's like blame the victim. Like why is everyone raping this person? Why is Well, maybe the bunch So, the the it's very important to understand. Listen, holy children, nothing would make us happier and I know I could speak on Rabbi Sackol and myself. Nothing would make us happier then you wouldn't need us at all and then you would go back to the original primary sources. They're very easy to read.

[00:26:35]And then you could figure this out.

[00:26:36]There's nothing complicated about any of these things. There has to be until the Messiah comes false religions, okay? And I don't want any Christians or Muslims to get upset with me.

[00:26:46]>> [snorts and laughter] >> Rabbi Sackol, because all the Christians believe that their eschatology everyone's going to be a Christian or destroyed or whatever. And all the Muslims believe that the end of days everyone's going to be a Muslim, okay?

[00:26:57]So, it's all okay. We could talk this way. We are exclusivist religions. There However, there is a difference between us. There's a big difference between us and that is that Judaism is the original religion which our our friends, the Christendom and Islam, agree we are the original religion. And therefore, the burden of evidence is upon on them, not upon us. But the key point is we're not going to try to be cute here like who's going to win the Super Bowl or anything like that. But we have to be very clear there's a reason why after the destruction of the Second Temple, cuz this is very odd. Why not during the period of the Maccabees as an example, when the land of Israel was an independent state during that period, that was less than a century.

[00:27:49]We were independent. That was a time when we should have the greatest influence in the But it wasn't. During the First Temple period, we weren't. We were not able Everyone was worshipping every rock There wasn't a tree that wasn't worshipped. They all worshipped rocks and stones and their ancestors.

[00:28:06]Why is it now when the Jews are in their weakest state, the weakest state, meaning the last 2,000 years of exile, why is it then that religions adopt Judaism but with a change, with a twist?

[00:28:19]The answer is because the moment the temple was destroyed. This is a little key.

[00:28:23]Mashiach, one of the things the Messiah will do is build a temple, right?

[00:28:27]Very clear that he will the temple will be built with his coming. It doesn't literally say he will build it. But look at Ezekiel 37:26-28.

[00:28:37]And the whole end of Ezekiel is about the building of the temple. So, therefore, the Messiah comes after the temple is destroyed. So, the cuz you're you're going to build a new temple. And the Third temple, described in Ezekiel 40 through 48, is not the same. I mean, it's in general the same as all the other temples. Means it'll have many all many the accoutrements of it, and the sacrifices will return. Maimonides talks about this in this section. But, the key point is the moment the temple was destroyed in 70, the potential for the Messiah to come was immediately released. The kinetic energy was there. Then, it was up to every generation to repent fulfilling Isaiah 59:20, so that the true Messiah would come. So, therefore, it would make sense, and it does, that that these Abrahamic religions would only emerge after the destruction of the second temple.

[00:29:33]It it reminds me of Malachi starts a hefty ask him. God through Malachi, Ezra, or Mordecai tells the Jewish people the sinners actually, the ones who did return, who were not from the elite, and he tells them, "I love you." And that message of I love you was coming directly from Hashem. That Hashem was telling the entire the entire Jewish people that he loved them. Perhaps explain that to the viewers.

[00:30:01]So, in Christianity, although Christians say that God is love, they would always say that. I don't want to mischaracterize it.

[00:30:10]But, they will say that God is inaccessible in that you're a sinner.

[00:30:17]So, what they do is they create a barrier. This very much is like Maimonides explaining how idolatry began. I mean, he just nails everything.

[00:30:25]I don't and I I don't understand how it's humanly possible such a person could just know and understand everything, and understand our times um uh completely. But, what's what's very very striking is that Um, at the end of days, all the nations of the world will come to know the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because it's all predicated on um on on Judaism. And this way, the nation will understand. However, Christianity immediately began to portray the God the Father, the creator of all, as inaccessible. You're a sinner and you can't reach him. And that's why Paul says in in 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 5, that there's one God and one mediator between God and man, and that's the man Jesus Christ. He's placing that that you have to go through somebody in order to reach God because God is way up here. He's inaccessible.

[00:31:28]This is very much an idea that emerges from the Greco-Roman world. That of course, for instance, in the in the Greek I understanding of God, it was called a henotheism.

[00:31:43]Which of course, there was one great God, Zeus in the in the Roman Empire, it would have been Jupiter. It didn't matter. But they were Of course, that was the great God. No other great God in the pantheon was equal to Zeus or Jupiter. No way. They would have laughed at you if you said that. But no one prayed to Zeus. Jupiter was completely inaccessible. There were state ceremonies with sacrifice to the great God, but people didn't talk to Zeus. You couldn't talk to him. So, the idea was God is just remote. We are broken. This is really gnostic um middle Platonic thinking. And there was something there has to be gods in between the great God and man. And in Christianity's case, it's Jesus very much the intercessor and [clears throat] it should be said that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church go further like even Jesus not completely you know accessible and therefore you can pray to Mary who's in the Orthodox Church was the Theotokos the mother of God and she you can venerate her and in the liturgy in an Orthodox Church which is highly structured they speak of her as a savior and as someone who's an intercessor and they pray to the saints. I mean in the Orthodox and Catholic Church they they won't say worship the saints but they're just using different words as a as a fig leaf to hide the idolatry they so they venerate and pray to Chrysostom who was the Archbishop of Constantinople to Cyril of Alexandria the Patriarch of Alexandria These guys were crazy anti-Semites just crazy idolaters.

[00:33:50]Augustine the Bishop of Hippo they pray to him. It's not like they look to him as like a brilliant genius you know as they would look to Origen or they look to Aquinas as a great philosopher. Oh it's way so they but what they're doing I wouldn't do this so to get away from that what they're doing is what are they doing with their icons kissing icons and they and in case you think like have to we kiss the Western Wall no they hold in the Orthodox Church that these icons that you see all over the place kissing them and crying praying don't ask what's going on they see this as not as some something to remind you and focus on and bring No, they call the window to heaven. They These Mary icons and of all the sayings are win are an encounter with the divine. But so of course you and I can sit there and go, "Wow, that's that's really terrible." And it's horrible that, you know, people who come who believe that Tanakh is from the word of God would believe that. Remember no guardrails. That's what we started with.

[00:34:59]These These expressions, they had no way of correcting. Like Rabbi Akiva was able to when Bar Kokhba was killed by the Romans, go, "Okay, then he's not a Messiah." There's a guardrail. You It is so critical. The Christianity has no guardrails. Nothing. Cuz they say the New Testament reinterprets the Hebrew Bible. And they see the Hebrew Bible straight through the Christian Bible.

[00:35:22]That means you have no You have no mechanism in place to correct the church. I don't know This may be too deep for the audience. I hope you're catching this all.

[00:35:32]We, if we think one way and it turns out the other way, so we we have guardrails.

[00:35:36]They have no guardrails at all. And that's why don't walk You're not allowed to walk into a church. But if you happen to see an Orthodox Christians and watch what's going on, you would flip out. And I want everyone, please, never ever I just say this. If you see Christian priests here in Israel, nuns, smile at them, nod to them. We all do in Jerusalem. But never ever ever ever ever ever ever use violence. Just the opposite. Always smile. Always nod. It makes a very It makes a big kidush Hashem. It has a big effect on them. But always smile. There is an arena of disagreement, and that's with words and ideas that are thoughtful. But never never anything else. I'm sharing this with you not to God forbid that you should These people don't know any better. That's the truth. These These nuns and priests walking down the streets of Jerusalem, this is all they know.

[00:36:33]This is all they know, all they understand. And therefore, always with thoughtfulness, not to them I always always in passing the priest if they make eye contact with me, I always say good morning. I smile always to that.

[00:36:48]>> Rabbi Singer, do you ever get mad? Ever?

[00:36:52]No.

[00:36:53]>> [laughter] >> I know. I do. That's not normal. I I I I I I I I I I get disappoint No, I don't I have not raised my voice. My children have told me My My youngest daughter told me when she was getting married. She said, "Thank you, Tati."

[00:37:11]Yiddish for father. She told me this right before she walked down the aisle.

[00:37:14]She thanked me. I hope you don't mind me saying this. She thanked me for never raising my voice at her ever.

[00:37:21]And to me it doesn't make sense. It It It's just the work It doesn't make any sense at all. There are people who get very angry at me and go crazy on me on the internet. But really, you couldn't It's such a It's just It doesn't make any sense to me. In any case, I'm I am disappointed in people. Yes, but that's true.

[00:37:41]No, but I don't No, there's no reason to. I did a a show with Jesse Lee Peterson. He interviewed me. He's a conservative fellow from America who's kind of very interesting. And he just couldn't believe that I don't get angry, but I don't. I Because it's not I don't think this way.

[00:37:59]I'm just allergic to people who are who just get angry. I just I'm allergic to that. And it has to be a very weak way of convincing people. I mean, it's so nice to convey something in a thoughtful way and to ideas. It happens to be my faith is the true faith. The God of Israel is true. So, why would I need anger?

[00:38:22]Like I'm saying, here's $100. I don't need to get angry. It's like I'm something beautiful. So why get angry?

[00:38:27]If you're trying to mug someone, so you need to use violence and anger to get someone to give you money that they ordinarily wouldn't want to share with you.

[00:38:36]>> [laughter] >> It doesn't make any sense. In any case, so I do tell the viewers we So these are very serious matters. It's immediate.

[00:38:43]But please do always, you know, pun intended, just always have a a nice smiling face when you, especially Jews who live in Israel, are encountering Christian uh priests and nuns and and clergy and so on, always be smile. I go out of my way to smile, to nod. So then they come over to me and they recognize me and they ask me questions. We have very delightful conversa- conversations.

[00:39:08]So please go back to the original. I'm I'm speaking on behalf of both of us.

[00:39:13]Everything we're talking about is we're not sitting here and doing some calculations of Gematria and making some sort of Tisha B'Av. We're not. It's just plain plain plain the text. And today we live in a time In the old days, you and me, when we wanted to have Mishneh Torah, so my grandmother, blessed memory, gave me that as my bar mitzvah, which I still have. Big the the Mishneh Torah she gave it to me. So we had to actually open a book. Today you can go in 3 seconds, go online and read everything you want. So it's >> And don't trust listeners, don't trust ChatGPT. I've tried many times to research things with it. It is always, if not This is not a plug against it. I don't want to get sued, but I'm just saying that's not a source. ChatGPT is not a source. Get real sources. Um so that's also important.

[00:40:04]>> I'll say one interesting thing. I don't know if you've done this. If you I'll about share this with you and I have no clue if you've done this. So sometimes I'll ask chat I don't know. I'll Whatever. I'm I'll ask chat GPT something and to see what it will say and it says something that's completely incorrect and the one thing I'm going to say about the character of chat GPT the one thing about chat GPT is it will always apologize to me and says you are correct. It does. It never throws a tantrum. So chat GPT it says right it happens all time. So I I want to make sure that I correct it.

[00:40:45]But it's the typical American. That's that's exactly what it is. It's just It's it's I'm not saying this in a derogatory way. It has that respect the American kind of respect that that is you know very American to give that type of respect. But you correct chat chat GPT chat chat GPT all the time will tell me you are correct and I always I was I actually asked it about a certain ecumenical council of the church second council and I see that doesn't matter.

[00:41:18]But the point is chat GPT said something incorrect. I said that is incorrect.

[00:41:23]Here's correct and it said you are correct and didn't throw a tantrum or anything. So we stopped using it in the Navi show. We every time we had a question and Navi would ask it and it would make up Rambams. It literally was able to write a perfect Rambam and it that didn't exist.

[00:41:43]So it's very it's a very dangerous tool in that sense. There were Christians who did that by the way. There was a guy named Raymond Martini who was a contemporary and a the person who was the mentor of Pablo Christianity who famously debated Nachmanides in 1263.

[00:42:01]So this you want to hear something weird? This crazy.

[00:42:05]So Pablo Christianity was a Jew who converted to Christianity and they became he became a priest, a monk, and he went on to debate Nachmanides, the Ramban, in 1263.

[00:42:20]Who was his guide? It was a man named Raymond Martini, who was a scholar, and he was a scholar of Hebrew.

[00:42:31]He And he's a real Hebraicist. I mean, he really knew his Hebrew.

[00:42:35]And he literally invented midrashim, invented midrashim that do not exist.

[00:42:43]But, he had such a He was such a master of the Hebrew language that he was able to create midrashim which did not exist.

[00:42:53]He just made it up, and some of them crept into printed editions later on because some of the people involved in in the printed editions of Tanakh and other sources were Christians, believe it or not. I know it's going to drive you nuts, but the the Mikra'ot Gedolot what we use, the first publisher of it, despite the name of the were not Jewish, and they hired a a Jew converted to Christianity to do the layout that we now have, which created I know everyone's losing their mind hearing this, but >> we have this discussion every time we're learning Navi. We learn Navi every night. So, so every time they bring up the perek, you know, it's been split up by the Christians, and I always bring the argument that the the names of every month were taken from Babylon, right?

[00:43:44]Elul, all these names, and we still darshan, we still say you know, Babylonian name. But, there is some influence that the world has on Judaism in that sense that that the Torah was affected in a certain way by the Christian by the Christians. It's just a fact. It has affected and should we reject that part of it? I mean that's that that that's that's always been an ongoing debate we had in our Navi class.

[00:44:13]So, um So, we the person who invented our chapter breaks that we currently use.

[00:44:21]Now, there are many places we don't go with the Christians on it. It could just full disclosure. For but not usually not for theological reasons.

[00:44:30]I'm not going to whether they mean So, it was the an Anglican archbishop. His name was a 13th century medieval. His name is Stephen Langton.

[00:44:40]He's the guy who invented all the chapter breaks and verse things that we adopted. And we felt we need something in common. Plus Jews and Christians were really interacting with each other and there was polemics going between so we needed a common reference tool to point to it. So, we largely adopted it. Now, there are many times where the church did it.

[00:45:04]I don't I'm trying not to confuse everyone. So, they for instance in Psalms very often what says mizmar david a song to David. So, they don't be following the Septuagint design that's like a title text. It doesn't get verse one. So, our verses are usually one ahead of theirs. That's not nefarious at all and we don't go with them on that.

[00:45:24]We don't follow them on that.

[00:45:26]There are breaks really which are theological christological reasons. For instance, um Isaiah 8 ends differently in a Christian Bible than in a Jewish Bible.

[00:45:39]But they they jam two verses together because of Matthew chapter four. I'm not here to teach New Testament. They did it for theological reasons. The last verse of Deuteronomy 12 in a Christian Bible is different than in a Jewish Bible. I mean in a Jewish Bible Deuteronomy 13 begins by saying it's talking about the false prophet and it begins by saying you can't add to or take away from it. And if a prophet dreams and dreams arise and tells you follow the gods you did not So, the church did not want you should add to or take away from the Torah to be connect to the false prophet. This parsha is right to Deuteronomy I'm I'm not I know you're going I know right now everyone's going online and looking creating two browsers or whatever windows whatever it is and looking at the sorry side. You'll find exactly what I'm saying. So, you'll see Deuteronomy 13:1 in a Jewish Bible begins with not adding to or not taking away from it in the context of a false prophet. And the church did not like that at all. So, it shoves that verse to the end of chapter 12. So, that's really nefarious.

[00:46:49]You get it? So, there are a lot of examples of that.

[00:46:52]>> [laughter] >> But we don't go with them on that. When they were playing, as they say in biblical Hebrew, mufky-fufky, so that we don't go with. But now, the Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky is a friend of my rabbi.

[00:47:06]He addresses the question of why we adopted He addresses it just brilliantly. He was so brilliant.

[00:47:16]We I was at his levaya at Tiferes many, many years ago. I met him as well when he was 97 or 98 I met him. He was such He had such clear clarity of mind. He knew everything and his ability to communicate >> His love, his love for his show, very, very important, incidentally. He was just a gift of of dripping love. He was And then at his It was said at his funeral I think he had a funeral both at Tiferes. That's where I was there. And I don't know how many people were there. I don't know if it was 100, 200,000 people. I just don't know. It was just couldn't move. And I think he had another one in Monsey. I think cuz he actually lived in Monsey in his old age. And there were nuns along the route that were waiting there. I didn't see it, but it was reported that people ask why would nuns standing in the entourage of his this has relevance to what I said. What would nuns doing at his funeral at the procession? And the nuns said that when he would pass by a convent every day and see us, he would always say good morning, good afternoon.

[00:48:19]He would always nod and smile and it meant a lot to them. So, I'm just saying this what happened here in Jerusalem was a horrible horrible thing to attack a nun.

[00:48:29]What the horrible nun ever do that? I'm saying to all of you.

[00:48:33]It's a horrible horrible thing. Never.

[00:48:35]Just beautiful words and but he getting back. So, Kamanetsky addresses this question, which is a probing question. Why in the Second Temple period there were many things changes that occurred.

[00:48:50]Um, the this we went from the Ksav Ivri, which is the earlier writing of meaning the font of Hebrew changed in the First Temple that we used Ksav Ashurit. That's what we use today.

[00:49:05]Number two is we went to from speaking Hebrew in the First Temple that was that was what Jews spoke to each other.

[00:49:14]We see that explicitly in Tanakh and it's called Yehudit.

[00:49:19]He Anyone let anyone say Judaism isn't there, it is there. Yehudit is clearly there and also the names of the month.

[00:49:29]Like what Like why did it happen? Like why did those things happen? He addresses that.

[00:49:36]And he says something that I think is just just so it always takes my breath away.

[00:49:41]He says that the great sin of the Jewish people is here we were a non-Jew says to the Jews return come back to the land of Israel and we have a prophet that lived nearly two centuries earlier that named to my name that he would do this, which means in Babylon they knew clearly that this was an act of God, and they didn't come to the land of Israel, but they rather they stayed behind in Babel, and only 42,360 Jews moved to the land of Israel initial. There would be other waves that would come subsequently.

[00:50:19]And this was a the temple could have been built at that time, and what I'm saying is in the Gamara, it's the Gamara in Sota, it could have been at that in the days of Ezra Messiah could have come. In fact, the Talmud says that's why we needed prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi during the Persian Empire. Why? Cuz if they would build the Beit Hamikdash, they wouldn't need prophets. And it didn't happen. So, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, zichrono livracha, says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu I forget his words, but saying to show us, yes, you're going to get a temple.

[00:50:54]We see in Daniel 2 when he when the angel Gabriel was telling Daniel about the building of the second temple, cuz that's why Daniel was so distressed. He says it would be in a time of in great trouble. The whole second temple period was basically problematic. Sometimes worse than other times. It was almost all a nightmare. It was the whole second temple period was a difficult, difficult times. So, in order to show the children of Israel that you're living in a time that's in Yiddish nedrik lower, so therefore to be a constant reminder to us that things are not I'm giving you a temple.

[00:51:35]You see you this temple I'm giving it to you, but you I'm you you handle this all a nightmare that you didn't come back right away. Instead, you went they mamash went to a banquet that gave instead of coming to assist in building a temple, which is crazy.

[00:51:53]He says, "For that, because of this, therefore, the outer symbols of the Jewish people, namely the language." So, Aramaic is a sister language of Hebrew, and it's used in Tanakh, so it's a holy language. So, of course, the It's only the font that changed, not the not the text. It's just what font they're using. So, the font went from Hebrew and that we would adopt the months of that preceded it. All this was a symbol to the Jews that God was He was displeased with everything. Now, still it was Ezra who would do such a thing, and these months are mentioned in Tanakh. So, any you Karaites out there that want to throw a tantrum, drop it right away cuz these months that we use now are used in Tanakh. Then, you open up the book of Zechariah, you have these months there. So, don't think this is I know you guys are going to come after the rabbis cuz you you know, for you it's a national pastime. I'm not talking to Karaites, it's all of you guys. Don't Don't even try it.

[00:53:04]Don't even try to come after us.

[00:53:07]It's in These names are in Tanakh, so we know that this was the will of God. This was not like, you know, you know, blame it on the rabbis. Don't blame it on the rabbis. It's in Tanakh, which means it's codified in the canon.

[00:53:20]So, but it's a signal to us, and you see it in Daniel that the second temple was going to be it's going to be in a a problem time, but that's how things went. So, that's sort of Yaakov's explanation, which resonates cuz then it it solves everything. It explains the whole deal from beginning to end, and it was the going to happen that the Jews stayed in Babylon, which was fantastic. I mean, life must have been good there. It must have been like, I don't know, the Five Towns or Miami, North Miami.

[00:53:54]And but it was a it was a grave sin that they didn't come in and because that Messiah didn't come. And Hashem had it in and one day, you know, now I'm going to really put you in your place. You're going to have to sit in the corner with a dunce cap, which means you're going to be using these names that you're so in love with of Assyrian names and the font and the language. And this was meant that I want you to know you messed up.

[00:54:21]Those are essentially the soiled garments, you know, the the externals that are that are all dirty. Uh the the Sfas Emes says a similar idea as well that the 70 nations, the 70 languages that Moshe translated the Torah was he was instilling in each one of our exiles a certain Torah which would come out of that that exile. That there's a different way that an American learns a a daf gemara than a French person, Italian person, Israeli person. They all have their personalities, each language which can express the Torah in a different way. And Moshe hid that and we went went into exile to retrieve that.

[00:54:57]So, Rabbi Singer, thank you so much for joining us. Maybe you could lead us out with a bracha.

[00:55:02]Uh thank you.

[00:55:04]We're living in special times. The according to the Rambam, which is the source of this entire show that we've enjoyed together, um the Milchemes Gog u Magog, the war between Israel and Persia is the beginning of the Geulah. Please read it for yourself. So, we are now in the time of the redemption. It's very simple. And we are very fortunate. Why God chose us to be here, I don't know. We should but it's according to his will and his perfect knowledge and may we merit to see the time when all the nations will worship the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and speak in a pure speech and we should witness this glorious moment quickly in our time. Thank you so much.

[00:55:51]>> [music]