I can’t tell you how many times I have heard Christians tell me that the God of the Jewish Bible is cruel, punitive, and unforgiving, whereas Jesus is all about love and forgiveness.

Of course, you won’t hear that from Jews because, well, Jews don’t read or even recognize the New Covenant as scripture.

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If you ask me, saying that God was different before Messiah came is not only wrong on every count, but insulting to God. It can only come from someone who doesn’t know God, or messiah Yeshua (Jesus) at all, and is probably just repeating what they have heard from someone just as ignorant as they are.

Do you think the God we read about in the Old Covenant is cruel? Well, he did allow Job to suffer greatly for a long time, he enslaved his people for 400 years, and he completely destroyed both the Northern and Southern kingdoms, even allowing his house in Jerusalem to be wrecked- twice!

But isn’t this the same God who killed Hananiah and his wife, Shapira, simply for lying about how much they received from the sale of their property (Acts 5)? I mean, really?- loving and compassionate, forgiving and caring but still, if you lie to me you die! That sounds like the same God of the Old Covenant to me.

And what about Yeshua in the temple, when he turned over the money changing tables and wrecked the booths of the people selling animals? If he was truly forgiving, wouldn’t he have nicely asked them to leave the temple? Something like, “C’mon, Guys, you know this is not what God wants from you. Please take your business out of the temple area, OK? Thanks a lot, hey- love ya!”

But who was it that said, in Ezekiel 18:23, that he doesn’t get pleasure from anyone dying, and prefers that they turn from their sin, and live? It was the God of the Old Covenant.

And who regathered his people from exile and protected them as they rebuilt the temple? It was the God of the Old Covenant.

And who gave them a miraculous victory over the Seleucid king who tried to destroy them completely? It was the God of the Old Covenant.

Wow! Ya know sumthun? He ain’t so nasty, after all.

There was a big difference between what God had to do in the Old Covenant and what he was able to do in the New Covenant. Actually, in the New Covenant, God didn’t do much himself, but did things through Yeshua.

You need to understand that God doesn’t work on a finite level, which is the only level we humans can understand. God sees everything on an eternal basis, so when he speaks of life and death, he doesn’t mean breathing or not breathing, he means where you spend eternity.

When God first chose Abraham to be the father of his chosen people, a people chosen to bring God’s salvation to the world, he had to first build up this man into a nation. That is why he told Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved for 400 years (Genesis 15:13). Now, to those who don’t know how God works, it seems silly that he will make them a nation while they are enslaved. But it isn’t because he was cruel, it’s because he was smart.

The world back then was cruel and dangerous- a king of a town would destroy other towns, left and right, in order to become larger. If a small group of people, such as the 72 or 73 members of Abraham’s family, were to ever grow into a large number of people, they would have to be protected. So, God positioned them inside the strongest nation that existed at that time so they would be protected and given that chance to grow into a nation.

Yeah, OK, so they were enslaved and tortured and lived a horrible life, but that was also part of the plan, which was so God would be able to show them how powerful he was once the people were ready to fulfill God’s plan for them.

And once they were freed, God then had to be very strict with them to get them to leave their comfort zone of paganistic rituals and lifestyle, and take on the mantle of righteousness that they would receive from obedience to the Torah. If you read carefully, and think about it, every punishment that God exacted on the people when they were disobedient may seem cruel, but he was training the Jews to be his nation of priests (Exodus 19:6). When we read of a punishment, we also see that right after the punishment God followed it up with a way to avoid the punishment.

In Numbers 15, when the man was stoned for collecting sticks on the Shabbat, God ordered us to wear tzit-tzit as a reminder not to disobey.

In Numbers 21, when God sent snakes to punish the people, he also had Moses make a bronze serpent so the people could avoid dying.

When Abihu and Nadab were killed for offering strange fire while drunk (Leviticus 10), God ordered that no priest should drink liquor before approaching the sanctuary.

I was in management most of my career, and one of the things I noticed about good managers was that when they first took over, they were very strict. They wouldn’t “loosen the belt” until the people responsible to do the job proved trustworthy to do the work correctly.

This is what we are told in Proverbs 22:6, which says

“Train a child in the way he should go; and, even when old, he will not swerve from it.”

That has to be coupled with Proverbs 23:13-14, which says:

Don’t withhold discipline from a child — if you beat him with a stick, he won’t die!  If you beat him with a stick, you will save him from Sheol.

We had a lot of hard lessons to learn when God was teaching us how to be his priests to the world, and God had to be hard on us, since we are (as God has often told us) a stiff-necked and rebellious people.

By the time he sent the Messiah, these lessons were all well-known (but still ignored), and at that point God knew punishment was not going to change anything. At that time, as it is today, the punishment of those who are sinful is not so much now while they are living on the earth, but reserved for them in the afterlife.

God never changes, he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so the God of the Old Covenant is the same, exact God of the New Covenant.

What is different is which part of his plan for humanity he is exercising. He did the training, he did the punishment for disobedience, and the ways to remember not to be disobedient. He’s been true to his word with blessings when we obey, and he’s been true to his word with terrible punishment when we disobey.

We are now at the stage in God’s plan where all that we need to know- his Torah, who his Messiah is, and how we can save ourselves from eternal separation from God’s presence- has been given to us. What is left is God’s loving, compassionate, and patient nature causing him to wait until everyone he wants to have this chance to be saved has been given more than enough time to decide to obey or reject him.

If your religion has told you all that “Jewish” stuff in the Old Covenant isn’t for followers of Jesus, you might want to think about this: Jesus followed all that “Jewish” stuff, which is why he was an acceptable sacrifice.

God never changes, but his method for getting his message across does- from using harsh punishment to initially teach his people what he wants them to do, to sending prophets to get them back on track, to exile, to forgiveness and regathering his people from exile, to sending the Messiah, now our only way to receive forgiveness.

What comes next will be worldwide destruction and the creation of a new world for those who listened and obeyed. I don’t know when this will happen. Hey, even the son of God said he wasn’t privy to the date, so my suggestion is that you ignore your religion and start to pay attention to God, because it is what he said in the Torah that will be the plumb line you will be compared to.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry continue to grow. Subscribe to both my website and YouTube channel, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (but please check that you agree to the rules or I cannot allow you to join).

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

I have seen many postings, especially at this time of the year, about how the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol and should not be erected. I have read how they misuse Isaiah 44:12-28 and also Jeremiah 10:3-4 to make the tree appear paganistic.

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Now, I have no problem, myself, with a Christmas tree because I do not bow down to it or pray to it. It is used as decoration and does not fall under the category of a graven image. Neither do I worship it.

And, for the record, the passages I referred to talk about making the tree into a god or goddess, bowing to it, praying to it, and treating it as an object of worship. I don’t know about you, but I have never seen or heard of anybody who has a Christmas tree doing any of that.

But there are many Christians who have a cross on their wall over every bed in their house, and nailed onto that cross is a graven image of Jesus. They also have statues of saints in their gardens or pictures of Jesus hanging on the walls of their house. They go to church and bow down and pray to a statue of Mary or Joseph.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

If it sounds familiar, it is the 2nd Commandment God gave to the world. He was serious when he said not to make an image of any kind, which includes paintings and statues, of anything, of anyone, anywhere, anytime, ever.

Period.

The truth is that the Christmas tree has ornaments that remind us of our past more than anything else- I mean, really! Who doesn’t have ornaments from their childhood? Who doesn’t recall all the past times they have spent with family or experiences that an ornament represents?

I am Jewish and have never had a tree until I married Donna, and during my lifetime I have been in many Christian homes and seen many, many Christmas trees, but never, ever have I seen or even heard of anyone thinking that the tree is a god or a goddess, bowed down to it, or made drink and grain offerings to it.

BUT, I have been in many Christian homes with crosses, images of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, or a statue of a saint in their garden.

If you ask me, I would much prefer that they get rid of their blatant violations of the 2nd Commandment and keep the Christmas tree.

And for those of you who are against the tree, well, that’s fine with me- I have no problem with that. But, if you have crosses with Jesus nailed to them, images or pictures of Jesus hanging around, statues in your garden, etc., then you are a hypocrite!

Think about that for a while, and especially before you chide anyone for having a Christmas tree.

Thank you for being here, and share these messages with everyone you know. Even if you disagree, they may not, so give them a chance.

Join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please agree to the rules so I can let you join), subscribe to both my website and YouTube channel, and buy my books.

And I always welcome your comments- c’mon, let’s drash it out!

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and an early Shabbat Shalom!

Is Yeshua the Messiah? Is Jesus the Messiah? Is either one of them God?

Or are we still looking for the Messiah, the one God promised to send throughout the Tanakh?

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The answer will change, depending on how you were raised, or which religion you listen to, or what you choose to believe despite how you were raised or which religion you listen to.

Me? I was raised as a Reform Jew, and like almost every Jew being raised by Jews (although, to be honest, my parents were not very “religious”, at all), I was taught that Jesus (growing up Jewish, I never heard the name “Yeshua” used, ever) was born a Jew but created a new religion called Christianity which hates Jews, so he was a traitor to his religion and his people. And he was definitely NOT the Messiah- we are still waiting.

Thank God that even though it took 40 years, I was introduced to Christians who did not ignore my Jewish beliefs, and showed me who Yeshua was, and is- the Jewish Messiah sent to the Jewish people, through whom all people can be saved.

Since then, I have learned that the early Jewish Believers did as always, but as more and more Gentiles were recruited, so to speak, by Shaul (Paul) and other missionaries, the Jewishness of the movement, as well as that of Yeshua, himself, was swiftly removed. By the 2nd century CE, instead of these believers following the Jewish way of life, as Yeshua did, they had a new guy, somebody named Jesus Christ, who was their Savior. The religion named after him, Christianity, is based almost totally on the letters that Shaul wrote, a Pharisee who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah God promised, but who has been completely rebranded as someone who converted to Christianity when he had a vision of Jesus.

Since that time, his letters have been misused, misinterpreted, and mutated into polemics against people following the lifestyle and form of worship that Yeshua did all his life, and they have become the foundation for most of the tenets of modern Christianity.

So, who is Yeshua? He is the Jewish Messiah.

Who is Jesus Christ? He is the blond-haired, blue-eyed Christian savior who has sent his people to convert everyone they meet to Christianity. And as for Jews, the ones who killed Jesus, well- if they won’t renounce their religion and accept Jesus, then they should be killed.

Of course, you can torture them for a while; you know, just to give them a chance to change their mind.

How can I say such a terrible thing? I say it based on history- the Crusades, the Inquisition, Martin Luther, even the Nazi’s, whose belt buckles said “Gott mit uns”, which means “God is with us”.

Now, let’s talk about whether or not either Yeshua or Jesus is God.

Actually, let’s not- it doesn’t really matter as far as salvation through the Messiah is concerned, so choose what you want to believe. However, let me mention this: if you choose to believe that either Yeshua or Jesus is also God, himself, and you also believe (as most Christian religions teach) that Jesus did away with the Torah, then you will need to decide on one or the other of the following:

• If Jesus is God and he did away with the Torah, that means he changes his mind about how to worship him, so he could also change his mind about how to be saved, and if so, then how can you trust his promise of salvation?
• If Jesus is God and, as we have been told, he never changes his mind or goes back on his word, then if you have been ignoring the commandments regarding lifestyle and worship (which includes holidays) he gave in the Torah, you have not been following God, but men, and you have been sinning.

Not very pleasant alternatives, are they?

What to do? If I may suggest, you can re-evaluate your belief system by comparing it to what God says in the Torah, read the rest of the Tanakh, AND the entire New Covenant. And when you read the letters from Paul, do so fresh- as if you do not know what they mean. Compare them to what Paul learned about the Torah as a Pharisee, how he lived his life (sorry, but he never converted to anything- he was a Jewish Pharisee his entire life), and why he wrote those letters.

If you do that, I believe you might come to see that he was not writing the words he heard from God, but giving managerial directives to the congregations (there were no “churches” during Paul’s lifetime) he formed who were having either interpersonal issues or problems with maintaining faithfulness.

Let’s finish up with my answers to my own questions:

Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah God promised to send (please-don’t be childishly prideful about the correct pronunciation of his name- we are saved by faith in who he is, not by how we pronounce his name).

Jesus, as portrayed by Christianity, is not the one God sent. In fact, the name “Jesus Christ” a Latin translation of a Greek transliteration of the name “Yeshua” with the title “haMaschiach”.

(If you want the whole story about how that came to be, you can find it in the Introduction to “The Complete Jewish Bible”.)

The Messiah may be God, he may not be God- for me, it doesn’t matter: he didn’t come to the world in order to replace God but to be God’s messenger, and to sacrifice his life so that many can be saved. That is what we know from the Bible, and anything else is conjecture. Period.

One last answer- are we still looking for the Messiah, the one God promised to send? Well, yes…and no.

My Jewish brethren, for the most part, are still waiting because they reject Jesus as the Messiah and have never even learned about Yeshua. They don’t know the Messiah God sent, and they really don’t know why to reject Yeshua- they do so because they have been told to do so.

Christians, who believe Jesus is their Savior, aren’t waiting, but they believe only because they have been told to believe. In truth, they do not know the real Messiah God sent, either.

So, what should you do? I never tell anyone what to believe or what to do, but if I may make a suggestion? Read the Bible from Genesis through Revelation, and look for what is said in the New Covenant that matches what is said in the Old Covenant, because God really doesn’t change: he doesn’t go back on his word and he has never said his Torah is invalid, and- just for the record- neither did the guy we read about in the Gospels. And when you read the Epistles, as I said earlier, try to do so without already knowing what they mean.

If you can do that, honestly and with a truly open mind, using Circles of Context and Hermeneutics (if you aren’t familiar with those terms, you can learn about them here: Interpreting the Bible), I believe you will be surprised at how you have been spiritually misled by those who you have trusted.

They didn’t do it on purpose, though, so don’t be mad at them- they were just teaching what they were taught.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages, buy my books, especially my newest book (click here for a trailer), subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please make sure you read and click that you agree to the rules).

And remember- I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and an early Shabbat Shalom!

Oh- and an early Hanukkah Sameach, too!

There have been many times I have heard people tell me that because of Yeshua, the covenants God made with Israel do not apply to those who believe in Yeshua and follow him. Some even go as far as to say that Yeshua did away with the “law”.

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I have also heard many Christians tell me they were told that the only requirements for a believer in Christ to follow are the 4 commands from the Elders that they sent in a letter to the churches throughout the Middle East (Acts 15:23-30).

Before we go any further, let’s get something straight right off the bat: there were no churches in the First Century. There were congregations, called Kihilot, composed of believing Jews and gentiles, and many of those congregations were mostly, if not completely, made up only of gentiles who had been practicing pagan religions but were being taught how to convert to the proper worship of Adonai, the God of the Jews.

God made a total of 5 covenants, and the newer covenant included and built upon the prior one. These covenants are known as:

1. The Noahdic Covenant
2. The Abrahamic Covenant
3. The Mosaic Covenant (this is generally referred to as the Torah, or the Mosaic Law)
4. The Davidic Covenant
5. The New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31)

Each covenant was made between God and mankind.

You may be thinking that these covenants, because they are all in the Tanakh (the “Jewish Bible”) are only between God and the Jews because God made these with the Jewish people.

BUT…God decreed the Jewish people were to be his nation of priests (Exodus 19:6), and as priests they would not be administering to themselves, but to the goyim (nations), i.e. the world.

The Jews are God’s chosen people- chosen to be his priests to the world to teach everyone how to attain eternal life through obedience to God’s instructions. When the world, starting with us Jews, continually failed to do as God said, he sent the Messiah- again, through the Jews to the world- so that when they did t’shuvah (repentance), through Messiah Yeshua’s sacrifice they could find forgiveness.

So, let’s forget about Christian teachings that the covenants are at an end, and see what God says about that.

In Jeremiah 33:17-22, God tells us exactly when his covenant with the Jewish people (which, as I have already shown, is his covenant with the world) will end (CJB):

For this is what Adonai says: “There will never be cut off from David a man to occupy the throne of the house of Isra’el. Nor will there ever be cut off from the cohanim who are L’vi’im a man before me to offer burnt offerings, burn grain offerings and offer sacrifices every day.” This word of Adonai came to Yirmeyahu:  “Here is what Adonai says: ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that daytime and nighttime no longer come when they are supposed to, then my covenant with my servant David also can be broken, so that he will not have a descendant to reign from his throne or L’vi’im who are cohanim to minister to me. To the degree that the armies of heaven are past counting and the sand by the sea past measuring,
I will increase the descendants of my servant David and the L’vi’im ministering to me.’”

And Yeshua tells us, in Matthew 5:18 the following about the laws he followed and taught:

 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah — not until everything that must happen has happened.

And there is one more place, in Revelation 21:5, where we are told exactly when the covenants end.

In the vision of the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) that was given to John while exiled on the island of Patmos, God reveals that after he has destroyed nearly the entire earth, the Enemy has been conquered and all those sentenced to suffer the second death have been sent there, this is what will happen:

 Then the One sitting on the throne said, “Look! I am making everything new!” ”

So, you can choose to believe what religion tells you about God and his promises, the covenants, etc. being done away with, although, God tells us when that will happen and, for the record, it hasn’t happened yet.

You can accept that Christianity is telling you to worship Jesus instead of God and pray to graven images of human beings that are dead, and that’s all OK to do because it isn’t idolatry, despite what God says in the 2nd Commandment and in the Torah that Necromancy (talking with the dead) is a sin.

You can buy into Replacement Theology, which says God has rejected the Jews, and is calling God a liar because in the Bible, many, many times God says he will never reject the Jewish people.

Yeah, he has punished us, and he has destroyed many, but he always promises to leave a remnant and to return us to the land, where we will live in peace, forever.

If you want to, you can ignore every law and commandment God ever gave and think if you are just a good person, believe in Jesus, and love others you will go to heaven. But, consider this: In Mark 10:18, Yeshua said no one is good except God, every demon in hell believes in Jesus, and every demon in hell loves each other, so do you think they go to heaven? Besides that, the Bible never says any of us go to heaven.

Think about what your religion has told you, and compare it to what God says in the Bible, then choose who to believe.

As for me and my house, we choose to follow the Lord.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to this ministry on both my website and YouTube channel, buy my books and share them with others, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please be sure to read the rules and click on the “I Agree” button).

And remember- I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for this week, so Happy Thanksgiving to you all, l’hitraot and Baruch Ha Shem!

What am I talking about when I say the “old” and the “new”?

I am talking about the Old Covenant, that “Jewish” Bible, and the New Covenant, the “Christian” Bible.

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For those of you who know me and are members of this ministry (thank you for subscribing and sharing), you know that I consider both of these to be one book, one Bible talking about one God who sent one Messiah. From Genesis through Revelation, it is all the same.

Except it isn’t, really, when we consider how the heroes in these different sections of the Bible are treated.

One thing I have seen repeated often in my studies (over the past 25 or more years) is that scholars state one way we can be certain of the truth of the Tanakh is that its heroes are not perfect.

What they mean is that if we really wanted to “sell” people on how wonderful it is when you worship God, then everyone would be like Superman- always truthful, always dependable, fighting for truth, justice, and God’s way.

But let’s look closer:

• Adam and Eve both disobeyed God
• Cain killed his brother
• Noah got drunk and exposed himself
• Abraham pimped his wife- twice! (Genesis 12 and 20)
• Isaac pimped his wife once (Genesis 26)
• Jacob took advantage of his brother to get his birthright
• Jacob lied to his father, and it was his mother’s idea
• The patriarchs of 11 of the 12 tribes of Israel tried to kill their brother
• Moses tried to weasel out of accepting God’s calling
• Jonah tried to avoid saving Nineveh
• Esther didn’t want to approach the king for fear of her life (it wasn’t until Mordecai told her she wouldn’t escape the slaughter that she finally said she would approach the king)
• David murdered his friend in order to steal his wife

And that’s just off the top of my head!

But, when we look in the New Covenant, we read that the Apostles are oh-so-perfect!

Well, OK, Judas Ischariot was the bad guy, but that’s it.

The other Apostles are treated like saints (pun intended). No one ever does anything wrong, no one ever makes a mistake, they are perfect in every way.

And when it comes to Shaul, gee…he starts off as a bad guy, then he does t’shuvah (turning from sin) and saves thousands of people by converting nearly all of the Middle East. What a man!

We know that each and every book in the Bible has been written by men and translated into hundreds of languages by men. If you ask me, of all the books in the Bible, the Torah (the first 5 books) is the most dependable of all as far as being close to what God actually said. In fact, this is the only place throughout the entire Bible where we are told that God told someone to tell the people what they must do.

But you might say “Wait a minute! He also did that with the Prophets.” And I would agree he did talk directly to the prophets, but he only told them to tell the people to return to doing what he already told us to do in the Torah. There were no new commandments or laws ever given to a Prophet.

My point in all this is to say that if the scholars are right (and I agree with them) in saying that one proof of the validity of the stories we read in the Bible is that the people we read about have human frailties and human desires, then there has to be some question as to the divine influence of the New Covenant writings. The only “bad” people in there are the ones who were against Yeshua or his disciples and followers. But everyone who believed in Yeshua was good, never sinning or making mistakes or even saying anything wrong.

Yeah, OK, except Judas- we already covered that.

I see the same thing in so many Christian churches, preaching about all God will do for you, and never talking about what you have to do for God. It’s a sugar-coated salvation, making it seem that heaven is a “Come-As-You-Are” party for anyone who believes in Jesus, is a “good” person (remember that Yeshua said the only one who is good is God-Mark 10:8), and who loves others as themselves.

Sorry, but that isn’t how it works.

Yes, salvation is free; and yes, salvation can’t be taken away from you (but you can throw it away); and yes, God loves you and is not just willing, but desires to forgive you (Ezekiel 18:23).

BUT– and this is a truth that you rarely hear from any church- salvation is hard to keep.

So, what am I saying about the New Covenant? I am saying that because there are no imperfect heroes that I believe it is not all divinely influenced.

I do accept that the New Covenant is a trustworthy narrative of the life of Yeshua, and that the letters written by the Apostles and the Book of Acts is also trustworthy as a historical record, and I believe the New Covenant (at least, parts of it) should be included in the Bible.

But it isn’t God’s direct word, dictated to a prophet or intermediary, changing anything he already said in the Tanakh. In fact, the only place we are told God speaks in the New Covenant is Matthew 17:5, the transformation on the mountain where all God said was “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”.

There are no new commandments, and the ones we already have are still valid for everyone who accepts Yeshua as their Messiah and, as such, becomes grafted onto the Tree of Life and an adopted child of Abraham.

My opinion is that the majority of the New Covenant, because it was put together between 200 AD and sometime in the 5th Century, long after the gentile leadership had separated themselves from the Jewish forms of worship that Yeshua, his disciples, and the original Jewish and gentile believers in the First Century practiced, should be considered as one of the “writings” (Ketuvim in Hebrew), such as Esther, Psalms, Proverbs, Kings, Chronicles, and the other books of the Tanakh that are not directly the result of what God told someone to say.

I am probably pushing a lot of defensive buttons with this message, and I pray that it shocks some of you into thinking that maybe, just maybe, you should read the New Covenant (especially the Epistles) anew, with an open mind, not already knowing what they mean, to see if you might agree (at least, a little) with what I am saying.

I am not saying the New Covenant is untrustworthy or that is shouldn’t be part of the Bible, only that it should be read and understood for what it is- the writings of men relating the early history of the Messiah and the accomplishments of his Disciples.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to this ministry on both my website and YouTube channel and join my discussion group on Facebook called “Just God’s Word” (please make sure you read and click that you accept the rules).

If you want to know more about how Christianity has changed who the Messiah is, read my latest book, “The Good News of the Messiah for Jews: Debunking the Traditional Lies about the Jewish Messiah“. It’s available on Amazon and through my website.

And remember, I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for today, so L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Of course, I am talking about the name of the Lord, the one and only, the creator of the universe, the Almighty, our shield and savior, our father in heaven…you know, that guy.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

I have talked about the name of God, and what the word “name” represents many times. Yet, to those who insist that we must pronounce the Tetragrammaton, the 4 letters that make up the name God told Moses at the burning bush, as often as possible, no matter what I say or how many Bible scholars agree with what I say, they will still call out and use the Holy Name.

And how do they pronounce it? Well, I have heard no less than three different pronunciations, but I won’t repeat them because being Jewish, we Jews don’t even try to pronounce those 4 letters.

Recently, I was able to have a nice discussion about the very passage where God gives Moses his “name”, which he said is “אהיה אשר אהיה” (ehyeh asheh ehyeh, which means I am that I am”, although some translate it to “I will be that which I will be”), adding that Moses should tell the Israelites that “I am” sent him to them.

Now, let’s forget everything we think we know about the name of God, and look at this passage: is “I am that I am” a name? No, not really; to me, it is more of a condition. God is not giving a name, like Tom, Dick, or Steven, but he is telling Moses that he is eternal: he is what he is. He never was anything else, and he never will be anything else, he just…is.

I think God did this because there isn’t any way for mortal minds to comprehend eternity, so instead of a name, as we know what a name is, this eternal, omniscient, omnipotent entity gave Moses a descriptive statement to help us know more of what he is than to tell us what to call him.

I just found an interesting note in the Tikkun when I was researching a reply to someone who commented on a video I had done called “What Constitutes Using God’s Name in Vain?”

What I found was that in Exodus 3:14-15, when God tells Moses that he will be known as “The God of your Fathers: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, and that this is how he wants to be remembered forever, the Hebrew word “forever” is spelled differently than other places it is used.

In Hebrew, forever is spelled לעולם, but in this passage it is spelled without the vav- לעלם, which is a different word that means “hide”. That is why Judaism doesn’t pronounce the name of God: the Rabbis say that based on this spelling in the Torah, God is saying that the Tetragrammaton is to remain hidden. That is why he said that the “forever” way to know him is as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

When we read in the Bible the term “call on the name of the Lord”, or any reference to “the name of the Lord”, when taken in proper context and historical usage of that term, the word “name” doesn’t mean the Tetragrammaton, but refers to the reputation and renown of the Lord.

If you ask me, even the word “God” doesn’t really count as a name, but more of a description. God our savior, God our shield, God our provider….none of these are names, they are descriptions of who he is and his relationship to us.

The only reason anyone or anything needs to have a name is to be able to identify it from other things that are the same.

For instance, if I have a cat, I can call it “cat”, which is a description of its specie. But, if I have two cats, I can’t call each one “cat” because they wouldn’t know which one of them I was referring to when I call for one.

Of course, we’re talking about cats, so they don’t care what I call them- they won’t come, anyway.

The point is, each cat would need to have a different name to identify one from the other.

When it comes to God, there is no other- he is totally unique. Separate, exclusive, different from anything or anyone else that exists, so there really isn’t even a need for him to have a name- “God” works as a descriptive identifier of him for all intents and purposes.

God is not his name, neither is HaShem (Hebrew for “the name”), neither is Adonai (Hebrew for “lord”, used as a title of authority), or Jehovah (which is the Tetragrammaton letters with the vowel points for the word Adonai added to create a specific pronunciation). Yahweh is another pronunciation that is essentially the same as Jehovah, only using the more ancient pronunciation of the vav (ו) as a “w” sound instead of a “v” sound.

So, if you write God as G-d, or G.d, I appreciate the fact that you are showing respect for his name, but God isn’t his name. I used to write G-d all the time, then I realized that writing G-o-d wasn’t in danger of using his name in vain because, well, G-o-d isn’t a name: it is a title. I do capitalize the “G” to differentiate him from false gods, which get a small case “g”. Other than that, even using the text shortcut “OMG” to mean “Oh my God”, I don’t see a real problem with that in that we are not using his name in vain. If you think it is wrong, it isn’t really your issue- that would be between them and God.

Besides, OMG could easily mean “Oh My Gosh”, or “Oh My Goodness’, depending on what the writer was thinking at the time they used it. If you see it, and don’t feel comfortable with the “Oh My God” version, then don’t read it that way and you will be “safe”.

So, I use “G-o-d” without fear of insulting or disrespecting he who is the God of my fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And let me tell you this: I am happy to use the word God because it is much easier to write than the entire description he gave Moses.

However, when I hear people throw God’s Holy Name around like they were drinking buddies, I do find that disrespectful.

Would you call the President by his first name if you met him? I certainly hope not because that would be disrespectful

Would you call your favorite teacher by his or her first name if you met them? Unless they told you you could, that would also be disrespectful.

Even though people wouldn’t address an important human using their first name, out of respect for them, they find no problem using God’s Holy Name so easily. And, more than that, many say God commanded them to do this!

I can’t tell you what to do, but for me, I will keep the Tetragrammaton hidden, as the Rabbis have said we should, and feel comfortable using God, or haShem, Adonai, or Lord (with a capital “L”) without restraint.

Maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, so I will leave you with this, my friends: we will all meet God one day, and when you do, do you want to have to explain why you used his Holy Name so easily?

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Also subscribe to this ministry on both my website and my YouTube channel. Please buy my books and I always welcome your comments.

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That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and an early Shabbat Shalom!

PS: Happy 246th Birthday to my Unites States Marine Corps! Uh-Rah!