Tov and Rah

As I mentioned, I enjoy helping make my own matzos for any Pesach when I’m in Israel. Today’s activity was to transform the grain, harvested long ago, from something resembling bulgur into regular old flour. We do this with a one of these, a small manual grist. So another volunteer and I did our best imitation of the motor that ordinarily could be used to drive one of these things. The work is slow, and really tiring, think of a rowing machine but with an opposite direction of work, one person pulling while the other pushes. Teamwork is the key to not making the grinding process unbelievably hard, but getting into a rhythm can be slow at first…

The solution is wisdom from the goyim:
Work Songs

If I sang "Po' Lazarus" the chassids that hired me would probably have me killed, so I had to do a little “outside the slave spiritual” box thinking. My first try was “Am Israel Chai”; but that didn’t really take and if a work song isn’t sung enthusiastically it’s useless… After trying a few songs I found one that worked, “Boruch elokeini avosaini…” And to the rhythm of blessing our G-d we ground out almost 20 kilos of flour in about 3 hours.

I’m sad right now. I’m sitting in Coffeebean, on the corner of Yaffo two, maybe three, blocks from the old city and who is sitting next to me: Jews, who were born that way, who (at least half) are Israeli discussing tactics for evangelizing in Israel. A few weeks ago a large evangelical organization took out a full page ad in the NYTimes, apologizing for what the church did in the past while affirming their right to preach to the unconverted. I have no real beef with them, other than the fact that they are completely wrong about everything and can only lead our people into spiritual galus, they are practicing what they preach… Except for the last two points of their “apology”:

• We recognize that it is good and right for those with specialized knowledge, history and skills to use these gifts to introduce individuals to the Messiah, and that includes those ministries specifically directed to the Jewish people (1 Corinthians 9:20-22).
• We deplore the use of deception or coercion in evangelism; however, we reject the notion that it is deceptive for followers of Jesus Christ who were born Jewish to continue to identify as Jews (Romans 11:1).

I ask this question to the Christians, “if what you believe is ‘the way the truth and the life’, why must you use deceptive practices to encourage people to come into your ‘life’?” If you can make the argument based on the strength of your faith, the correctness of your doctrine, why must you come like wolves in sheep’s clothing under the guise of “messianic Judaism”. You are correct, a Jew is a Jew until he dies, but when he/she is missionizing, he/she is a lost Jew, a sad manifestation of the calamities that have befallen our people from time immemorial. And a Jew that is lost in this way is not acting as a Jew when he/she represents Christ, he/she is a Christian. If your beliefs are correct, then shout proudly the convictions of your faith and identify yourselves as such. It is a war crime for soldiers to dress as civilians and fight the wars of man; why are you committing those same crimes to fight this far more essential one?

Labels: Matzoh, messianism, Pesach