What is the root cause of anti-Semitism?

All right, we're good to go. How are you, Rabbi Michael Lepoff? I'm doing well.

How are you doing, Cassian? I'm doing very well. It's been a long time since I've seen you. I hope you've been well. Yeah, I have been.

I'm just active and busy and tired and excited and just sort of going all different ways at the same time.

Yeah, as every January of every year kind of feels like, right? Yeah. For those of you that maybe didn't hear your first podcast with us, because this is your second time with Biblically Speaking, do you want to introduce some of your work and why we're even talking and how we know each other?

Well, I'm a Messianic rabbi. I've been in ministry for 30 years, approximately 28, 29 years.

We know each other because you sent me an email and asked if I would be on your podcast. I think your sister goes to my church, maybe.

Is that where there was a connection? And she had said that I should talk to you and you should talk to me and here

I am. Here we are. Okay, great. So a rabbi at a

Christian church, that might sound a little weird to some people. Can you summarize why you're there? Yeah, well,

I'm what you would call a Messianic rabbi.

The reason why I make that distinction is that I'm a

Christian Jew, there's so many ways we can call this or words to describe it, but I call myself a

Messianic rabbi, which I am credentialed for and I have gone to school for and so on.

The reason why is because a Jewish person who is not a believer in Christ would argue and they would say to me, you're not a real rabbi because I didn't go to their theological seminary.

In other words, in the eyes of a Jewish person who is not a believer, in order to be a rabbi, you must go to one of three theological seminaries.

If you didn't go there, then you're not a rabbi. So I just make the distinction of being a Messianic rabbi.

But in terms of that in scripture and Ephesians chapter four, verse 11, it talks about five gifts that Jesus gives to the church.

The gifts are apostle, the prophet, evangelist, the pastor or shepherd and a teacher.

So actually the word rabbi is just really means a teacher in Hebrew. So just like you have a pastor at a church who's a shepherd,

I'm a teacher. That's awesome. Yeah, it sounds like the translations just really allow us to kind of create that separation.

But at the end of the day, when we look at the original translations and what they meant, there's a lot of similarity that, would you say like a teacher as in a pastor and a rabbi are very similar or what would be the distinctions there?

Well, in these fivefold gifts in Ephesians chapter four, there's a lot of gifts spoken of in scripture.

There's some spiritual gifts that I believe you received after receiving the baptism and the

Holy Spirit. Then there's sort of gifts of helps and gifts of administration.

But specifically there are four gifts that are given like that are given by Jesus.

And it says for the equipping of the saints of the work of the ministry. So basically a lot of people think in a church that the pastor is supposed to do everything.

But in fact, in scripture it says that Jesus gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

So it's really the job of the pastor and the teacher and the apostle and not to do the work, but to equip people.

In other words, like for example, in our own church, in other words, if someone comes to me and says as a teacher, as a pastor, if they come and say,

I think our church should do this, or I think we should do that. My initial response is, what can

I do to assist you with that? In other words, like what do you need from like me so that you can do what you're being called to do by God?

So in relation to that, the role of the pastor is a shepherd.

It's not exactly the same thing as a teacher, although those five giftings, apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher are not necessarily individual people.

Like, you're the pastor, you're an apostle, you're an evangelist. A lot of times the same person could have like several of those gifts.

So I think that in a lot of our churches, usually the pastor is like a teacher, but yet you can have a great pastor who's a great shepherd, but who's not a really good teacher because that's not his gifting.

And you can have within the church, a great teacher who just really doesn't know how to sort of care for the sheep.

And then of course, in most of the church, we completely ignore the issue of apostle, prophet and evangelist.

It's like, as long as you have a pastor, that's all you need. Well, scripture says that there's actually five full gifts into those ministries.

I know that's a lot more than what you wanted to hear. My knowledge is on the floor.

So everything's gonna be okay. Just for, again, elementary level learning here, what's the difference between a shepherd and a teacher there?

What a shepherd, like what would that look like in real time? Well, I'm sure you understand without a lot of explanation of what a teacher is.

In other words, a teacher is someone who can sort of convey material information to people in a way that they can understand it and they can, they basically sort of like teach things.

A shepherd, a pastor, a shepherd is more compassionate, more caring.

In other words, a teacher isn't necessarily the calling that you have to sit next to somebody at a sickbed or at a deathbed.

Whereas a pastor, who's a shepherd, is sort of like there to care for the sheep.

So it's possible you could have someone who is called to be a pastor, but they're not a very good teacher or vice versa, but that's okay.

In other words, it's not the same calling. I said, the thing that's kind of unfortunate, it's the way it's evolved, is that nowadays in the church, most people in the church think that the pastor is supposed to do everything.

In other words, you're the teacher, you're the shepherd, you're the thing, you have to clean the building if there's no one else there.

And actually, that's not what it says in the scripture at all.

Really, the importance of scripture, you're the one who's supposed to be doing everything. I'm just supposed to be helping.

Wow, that's a really clear distinction. I never, yeah, and maybe that's why I have the confusion that I have is that I kind of went into church as a new

Christian with the expectation and who knows who put this in my head, but I had that expectation that my pastor should be teaching me everything, showing me how to be a good

Christian, going out there and calling people to the altar when they walk down the street every morning.

That was just the idea that I had that this pastor should be doing everything. So when they didn't, and I had the story of going to a pastor and saying, hey,

I'm kind of confused, I need more education, essentially. They were like, okay, well, you should probably go to school then.

And there was that bad taste in my mouth of like, oh, but you're supposed to know everything, right? But it's good that you just clarified like, no, that's not the case at all.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that we all, everybody gets, according to scripture,

I don't have these verses all specifically handy off the top of my head, but it says that we each get a measure of faith, we each get a measure of gifts from God.

So for example, if somebody is in a church and they have a gift to sing, or they have a gift to teach, or they have a gift to cook, or they have a gift, well, what happens is that sort of God places all the sheep, basically, like Jesus is the shepherd, he's the great shepherd.

And he makes like a pastor and under shepherd. So what would happen sort of is when

I was a senior rabbi at a Messianic congregation, or I was, by saying senior rabbi, that was my title, but I was a pastor.

And I had such a great sense of the responsibility that I had to the

Lord for those people that he placed under me. In other words, they aren't my sheep, they're his sheep.

He's the head of the body, he's the savior, he's the master, he's gonna be our bridegroom someday for the bride.

But he made me under shepherd, and he placed a whole bunch of people under my care.

And I'm responsible to him for the care of this flock of these people. So what happens though, is that everybody comes to the church with a gift or separate gifts or many gifts.

And the purpose, we're supposed to stir up our gifts.

In other words, if sort of God gives us a gift. I can't say specifically what your specific gifting is, but for example, you're right now feeling compelled by the

Lord to have a podcast. Okay, that's something that God has placed in you.

In other words, there's a gift for you to be able to talk to people, to ask the right questions, to do these things.

So what happens is as a pastor, as a teacher, as any of those fivefold ministries, my job is to help you become everything that you can possibly be for Christ.

Whatever he's given you as gifts, I wanna help you achieve that. Which is why you're here on this podcast, right?

Yes, I know that I am here, so. You're global at this point, not just in Arizona.

Whatever. No, you're doing a great job. Sorry, I don't like to say whatever, but whatever it is, it is.

No, so easygoing. And I meant to say this at the beginning, because right when you start the podcast, you get in podcast mode, but I wanna say your podcast that we recorded last time has changed my prayer life.

Like your testimony - Praise God, that's wonderful. Your testimony has me in my prayers, like, thank you, God, for my skin.

And I think just like the visual that you and that experience you had with God of like your skin falling off, like without God, you have no skin.

Like just, I think, full stop. Obviously everything else, you don't have a house, you don't have a family, you don't have, but like the things

I take for granted. I just thought that kind of came with the whole body, but no, like you could have skin falling off.

Yeah, well, that's great, I'm glad. I just wanted to make sure I said that or else I was gonna forget. Thank you.

Thank you for making that distinction. I think that is very good to know the different expectations and roles and roles that you can have when you go to church, not just what you can expect, but what you can bring and who to lean on who.

I know that this is gonna be a good conversation today because we're gonna lean into something that earlier in the year with the wars going on and just one celebrity after the next with their anti -Semitic comments, it was really hard for me and my friends who were

Jewish. They were struggling, but I wasn't really sure how, as I, as a Christian who doesn't go to temple, doesn't read the

Torah, doesn't really understand what they're going through, how to love them. And I said this before we started recording, but I grew up in Ohio.

For me, that was very like early stages, not that deep, not global at all, very small town. I'm Christian and you're

Jewish and you're Muslim. And those are three different, I wanna say species, but it felt like that. It felt like there was no overlap there.

You do your thing and I'll do my thing. And there's no way that those things can mix. And these conversations have kind of led me to understand that there's a lot more overlap, but I think understanding the history of how

Judaism transformed into Christianity just from a historical perspective, that's great.

But now in present day, how do I, as a Christian, if I'm not going to temple or reading my

Torah, how do I love my Jewish neighbors and brothers and sisters? Well, how do you love any people?

Whether they're Jewish or, I don't think that there's, as a

Christian, we're called by God to love everyone. Not only everyone, but Jesus says that we're supposed to look like, that we're supposed to love our enemies.

We're supposed to pray for those who curse us. We're supposed to bless those who curse us.

I don't think that there's anything specific to, you know, sort of like, you know,

I'm loving a Jew than there is to loving anyone. I'm sorry.

In other words, I'm like trying to answer specifically that question.

I think that more important maybe for a

Christian in approaching the idea or the concept of Israel is, you know, how does

God see Israel? What is Israel to God? In other words, if we are God's people, if Jesus, who is a

Jew, is our savior, you know, well, you know, are we supposed to love

Israel? Like, why are we supposed to love

Israel? And that thing, when you look, yeah,

I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit like baffled by the question because we love, we don't care what color or what race or what religion or what, in other words, for a

Christian to love a Jew, a Christian should also love a Muslim, a Christian should also love, you know, whatever color, whatever thing.

Yeah, I understand. You know, is it really as simple as you do what any Christian would do to love another

Christian? You would pray for them, you would support them, you would love them essentially and be there for them. But I think what makes me have that full stop is when it comes into like the

Jewish traditions that I don't practice, should I practice them with them? Should I go to temple with them?

Should I celebrate with them? You know, I think there is that, yeah, I think there's a protection of, you know, what

I do and what they do. Well, I think that to a certain extent, and I believe that the church, like by and large, really doesn't understand

Judaism and the Jewish people. In terms of, in the world that we live in now today,

I would say, this isn't an exact figure, but it's pretty close. I would say that about 6 % of the

Jewish people in the world are, you know, Orthodox, meaning they're very observant.

They observe the Torah, they go to synagogue, they know the laws, they believe in God. Now, then you also have

Hasidim, which is about like maybe, you know, like one or 2 % of the

Jewish people who are kind of like the, you know, Amish Jews, when I kind of call them the

Amish Jews, because, you know, they all wear like, you know, a white shirt and a black coat and a hat and, you know, have like pay us and whatever, but that only accounts to maybe like, you know, sort of 2 % of the

Jewish people. The reality is that in America, for example, but even in Israel and the world, about like 94 % of the

Jewish people are secular Jews. If they go to temple, if they go to synagogue, you know, it's sort of like, sort of Christian or a

Christmas and Easter Christian. In other words, a majority of them, they don't know the

Bible. They don't know the Torah. They don't know what it says. They've never gone to Sunday school or Shabbat school.

I'm talking about now in America. So what happens is as far as their traditions, you know, it's kind of like in the show,

Fit Around the Roof or the movie Fit Around the Roof, you know, when asked like, you know, sort of why do you do this?

You know, like Tevye, the lead just goes, it's our tradition.

I don't know why we do it. We do it because my parents did it. But so the thing is, is that in terms of a faith perspective of things, you know, like Jewish people don't, a majority of them are very secular humanists.

They don't, they're not people who have strong faith in God. They have a great identity in, you know, like all those years that I was a

Buddhist, you know, that we had talked last time. I didn't believe in God. I didn't go to temple.

I was a practicing Buddhist, but I'm a Jew because that's who I am. You know,

I'm a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And so the thing that I can tell you is that, you know, when you were talking about like, you know, being a child in Ohio and seeing the world as you do,

I can say up until, you know, Islam became as big as it is today, to a

Jewish person, most like Jewish people look at the world and they see you're either a

Jew or you're a Christian. In other words, they don't see like Jew and Gentile.

In other words, when I was a kid, I didn't, I could not distinguish between, I didn't know what a Gentile was.

I knew what a Christian was. A Christian is somebody who believes in Jesus and they're not a

Jew. So it's like, we're Jews, everybody else is Christian. Now, of course, anyone who's a real

Christian would go, well, wait a minute. In other words, like once upon a time, Constantine, the emperor of Rome said, okay, from now on the

Roman empire, you're all Christians, but that doesn't mean that they really had faith in Jesus or that they were born again or that they, so this like label of being a

Christian came out. Now, the thing is, I think I had sent you a link for a book that's called,

Our Hands Are Stained With Blood, which is an amazing book to read.

Basically for a majority of, you know, Jewish people in America, and I'm sure that this is where you wanted this conversation to go, but.

Wherever it goes, I'm happy. Well, for a majority of Jewish people in America, basically our history, the history of the church and the

Jewish people is one of antisemitism, is one of like Jewish people being killed by people holding up crosses.

So, you know, Constantine, who was the emperor of Rome kind of became,

I guess, the first Pope or the second Pope after Peter, if you wanna count that, he began antisemitism.

I mean, antisemitism began in that Catholic church, and it was a political thing.

I can get into all the little nitty gritty details if you want, but, you know, again, that's a whole story.

But the thing is, is that, so to, when I was a sort of child growing up, you know, we were just always taught stay away from those

Christians. In other words, you know, basically they either wanna convert you or kill you because the history of the

Jewish people. Again, I'm getting into areas and I can get into very detail if that's what we wanna do.

But in other words, the, you know, it's sort of Holocaust. Adolf Hitler, he enacted the

Holocaust. It was actually, you know, what, you know, there was, you know, actually a Martin Luther's idea.

In other words, yes. Yeah, no, you see, here's the thing, that book that I was suggesting, our hands are stained with blood, if and when you get it and you read it, everything in that book, the

Jewish people know. And everything in that book, I've gotten thousands of copies of that book out in the church.

Yeah, I didn't write it. It's just, you know, a great book. And every time somebody like reads that book, they just go,

I had no idea. I had no idea. I had,

I never knew any of this. And what happens is that, and I said, well, the Jewish people know everything in that book.

So what happens is over the years or centuries, when, you know, a lot of people who are

Christian, they don't understand like, you know, why don't the Jewish people, you know, accept

Jesus? And like, why don't the Jewish people talk to us more? The answer's in that, it's not just in that book.

I can give you all the details and explanations and things. But in other words, there's a long history, you know, now

I'm not saying, it still exists. Anti -Semitism in the church still exists. But, you know, what happens is that you just have, you know, a

Jewish people in general are suspicious of Christians because we've been, for centuries, it was either convert or die, convert or die, convert or die.

So, yeah, well, as I said, you're kind of, but I don't know that we wanna do that this year.

I mean, I can get into details. Yeah, I don't know if I wanna spend the podcast telling you all the horrible things. Right, I can get into all the details.

By the way, everything I'm saying, it's all, you know, you can go read the stuff on that Council of Nicaea.

In other words, again, I'm not gonna answer this question now because it would take a while, but like, you know, sort of where did

Easter come from? In other words, like, why do we celebrate Easter? Where did that come from? See, up until the year 325, the church, which was

Jew and Gentile, celebrated the resurrection of Jesus on Passover. That's when they celebrated it.

Easter came at the Council of Nicaea under Constantine. And the whole invention of Easter was antisemitism.

It was to eliminate the Jewish people from the church. Again, all this stuff,

I'm not making, obviously I'm not making any of it up. I can like read you the documents and the things.

And if I like read it to you, you would sit here and just be like, oh my God, that's horrible.

It's horrible. Now, just maybe this is not what we wanted to go here either, but just so you understand, you know, we tend to look at life and everything through a temporal view.

In other words, like my life, my things, I have to pay the bills. My car's not working. What are we doing?

But for God, there's an eternal view. In other words, God has a plan and a purpose.

And there's this great thing that he's doing, which

I don't even understand all of it, but which you can see now. What happens is that the issue of antisemitism, ultimately, it's not flesh and blood.

You know, it says in the book of Ephesians, our enemy, our warfare, it's not against flesh and blood. It's a spiritual battle.

See what happens if you go back, if you want me to stop and go in a different direction, just tell me.

But what happens is that going back, if you look in the book of Esther, the book of Esther, you're familiar with Esther and Haman and King Ahasuerus and just the whole, yes, do you know?

Are you familiar with this story? Okay. Esther, well, the book of Esther, it's a book in the

Old Testament. It's what we celebrate as a holiday. That's called

Purim. But Esther is a Jewish girl who ends up becoming the queen over Persia.

There's a lot more to it than the story than this, but basically what happens is there's a bad guy.

By the way, like Persia is Iran, okay? So just same country, same country, just old name or a new name.

It's Persia, it's Iran. So there's this guy, his name's Haman. And Haman hates the

Jewish people and he wants to kill all the Jewish people. And he makes this elaborate plan that on this particular day, all the

Jewish people are gonna be killed and whatever. Now, the thing is, from a spiritual standpoint,

Satan knew, knows, knew that the Messiah was gonna come through the

Jewish people. So if you can kill and you can eliminate all of the Jewish people, there's no

Messiah. In other words, the birth of Jesus, if there's no Jewish people, there's no

Messiah. So he's trying to kill all the Jewish people and like God plants a

Jewish woman in to be queen. And I don't wanna get a whole story about Esther, but basically she exposes the plot and instead the king kills

Haman and his family and the plot against the Jewish people is thwarted. But if the Jewish people, that spirit of Antichrist in Haman had succeeded, then the

Messiah could never have been born because there would never be any Jewish people. Now, move forward.

This is between the Old Testament and the New Testament, but you're probably familiar. There's a sort of holiday that we celebrate as a

Jewish people, that's Hanukkah. And Hanukkah is around the same time as Christmas.

Again, there's a whole lot of intersection there. But what happens is that at the time, 150 years before Christ was born,

Antiochus the fourth, by the way, this was all prophesied in Daniel.

It's prophesied in Daniel chapter eight. Matter of fact, right now on our Shabbat services on Friday night, here's a little plug.

If you're in Tucson, next Friday night, I'm basically going through Daniel seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, and 12 verse by verse.

Those are all end time prophecies. And we're just like really digging in to see, what does the

Bible tell us about the last days? And this stuff was all prophesied. And again, I'm probably getting off in too many different -

Do you have to be available virtually or do you have to be in person? Got to be in person. Got it. Yeah, got to be in person.

So - So fly in. Fly in, no, don't. It's not, it's good, but it's not that good.

So anyway, so the thing is, is that again,

Antiochus, this was after Alexander the Great. In other words, you have all these kingdoms,

Alexander the Great comes out of Greece and overtakes the whole world. Alexander dies, the kingdom split into four.

And there's this guy, Antiochus IV, who's the ruler over the area that is

Israel and the Middle East as we know. And Antiochus hated the Jewish people and he wanted to eliminate

Judaism. He wanted all Jews to become like sort of Greek. He killed well over a hundred thousand

Jewish people, but he also, this is spoken about in the book of like, Daniel, and it actually is a precursor to the

Antichrist in the last day. Matter of fact, they both intersect. What happens is that he goes in Antiochus and he pours like pig's blood on the altar in the

Holy of Holies. So the altar and the temple is like desecrated and he erects a statue of Zeus in the

Holy of Holies, which is called at the time by the people there, the abomination of desolation.

This is the same thing that's going to happen in the last days. It's basically, they're both written about in Daniel and it's almost like a parallel thing going on.

But - Do you think in the last days, it's gonna be identical like pig's blood and the upright of Zeus, or do you think it's gonna be an interpretation to modern day?

I think that the story of Hanukkah, which is not by the way in scripture, you can find it, it's written.

It's not in the Bible because it's in the inter Testament period. In other words, it's between when the

Old Testament and the New Testament began. I think that just like in the same way that the sort of killing of the lamb at the

Passover was a type and a shadow of what was gonna happen with Christ on the cross.

The story of Hanukkah in Antiochus is a shadow of the reality that's gonna come to place at the end of time.

Yes, it's going to be that. And it's in Daniel, well, again, right.

Don't keep going, I'll let you cook. Okay, but here's the point though, that in all of this though, is what happened is

Antiochus was gonna destroy the Jewish people 156 years before Christ was born.

Okay. Destroy all of them or just the people in his region? Well, destroy like Judaism. In other words, kill all the

Jews in there and turn everybody into sort of Greeks basically. And what happened again, this story is.

They're like Greek Christians though, right? Just Greek. No, he didn't care. He wasn't a

Christian. There was no Christianity. This is before Christ was even born.

But so, this is between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Okay, thank you. So what happened though is 150 approximately young Jewish kids or young men fighting out in the woods ended up overthrowing

Antiochus' army. In other words, it's like a miracle story. It's what we celebrate Hanukkah.

That's what the celebration is about. Again, I'm not getting into all the details. I just want the point was in terms of the satanic battle with God, if Antiochus had succeeded, there would not have been a

Messiah. It was 150 years before Christ was born. So again, if you could kill all the

Jews, well, the Messiah has to come through the Jews. Matter of fact,

Jesus even said salvation is from the Jews. So what happens is he doesn't, he fails.

And now the Messiah is born. Now Christ is born. So what happens is that Satan knows and understands.

I think we may have gotten into this a little bit last time or not, but basically the second coming of Christ is dependent on the

Jewish people coming to faith in him. You touched on this, but you did not go deeper. Okay, so the thing is, well,

I don't know that I'm gonna go, there's a lot to go into there. But so what happens is that Satan knows, okay, the only way, if there's no

Jewish people, then Jesus can't come back and I win.

If there's no Jews to recognize him as their Messiah, so what am

I, I'm speaking now like third person for Satan, but what am

I gonna do? Well, there are two things I can do. One, I can kill all the Jewish people, or if I can't kill them all,

I'm going to make the name of the one that they need to know as their

Messiah, the worst abomination to them. So what he does is from the time that Christ was born until now, there've been attempts to kill the

Jewish people. Every, I mean, the thing I always find that's funny, I'm sort of saying this a little bit dependent, like tongue in cheek, but like whites hate blacks and blacks hate whites, but everybody hates the

Jews. And the Shiite hate the Sunnis and the Sunnis hate the Shiites, but they all hate the

Jews. The Serbs hate the Croats and the Croats hate, but everybody hates the Jews. In other words, one thing that it seems like all of civilization has is they hate the

Jewish people. And it's because it's a battle between light and between darkness.

So what happens is that Satan, through people like Constantine and others or whatever, he makes it so that you have in the church, the

Crusades, the Crusades, people wearing crosses, folding up crosses, killing

Jews and Muslims, people who won't convert to Christianity, kill them.

As a matter of fact, that's why - Didn't you say that Satan is a masquerade for light? So kind of - Well, absolutely. But so the thing is too, as I also tell

Christians, it's like, don't ever, and this is kind of sort of kidding when

I say don't ever, but you don't want to invite a Jewish person to a Crusade. Invite them to like an arts festival.

You know how like they would have sort of like a Billy Graham Crusade. It's like, we've already been to the

Crusades once. We don't want to go again. It's like, one time going to Crusades was enough.

But so the thing is you have the Crusades. Then what happens is in Europe, there's a black plague.

The black plague happens and the church says, it's the Jews, the Jews have like poisoned the water supply.

And again, I'm not making any of this up. You have like people using crosses to lock

Jewish people in synagogues and burn them while singing Silent Night outside.

You have the expulsion of the Jews by the church from France, the expulsion of the

Jews by the church from England, the Spanish Inquisition, where it's like, again, you know, either eat cork or die.

And then you have the sort of Holocaust. And as I explained, even the Nazi Holocaust, Adolf Hitler did it, but it wasn't his idea.

It was Martin Luther's idea. Martin Luther in his like later years was virulently anti -Semitic.

Wanted, you know, the Jews should be killed or whatever. So what happens is you have -

Just real pause. Why would, like, what was his reasoning there? If it's not just Satan possessing him to say that, like, how could he start -

Yeah, no, I can explain that to you pretty simply. I mean, this is a simple answer, but what happened is that like Martin Luther, he was reading, when he was a young man, he was like reading scriptures and all, and he thought, he saw that the

Jews need to come to faith in Christ. And he thought the problem is it's the Roman Catholic Church and all of their stuff and all this.

But when I reformed the church, then the Jews were all gonna get saved. And what happened is he reformed the church, got rid of all the

Roman Catholic or whatever stuff, but the Jewish people didn't come flocking to Christ.

And he was like, they all need to, you know, just, in other words, he was so angry that they didn't respond the way he thought they were going to.

And by the way, you know what, John Calvin was also incredibly anti -Semitic.

As a matter of fact, again, this is getting into a whole other realm of things, but when you look at the Protestant Reformation, I would suggest that the

Protestant Reformation has failed. And the reason I'm saying the Protestant Reformation failed is that if you look right now at like, you know, what's going on in like Germany and Geneva, Switzerland, the cities that were the basis of the

Protestant Reformation barely have a church functioning in them anymore. If the Protestant Reformation were the answer, then the church would be alive and thriving.

And where the Protestant Reformation went wrong, they had a lot right. Where they went wrong was regarding Israel, regarding the

Jews. It was the hatred of the Jews that, in other words, that was the piece of the

Protestant Reformation, and that's what still is going to come, but we're still waiting on that to come.

This is amazing. How could I have ever known any of this? Because clearly my pastor is not gonna stand up and tell me any of these things.

Your pastor probably doesn't know any of this. I'm sorry to say that. I don't know your pastor.

I'm in the church. Most pastors, that's the problem. Most pastors don't know any of this.

Because it's not part of like the seminary curriculum. Whatever, I'll leave that one with you.

Okay, so I think back to the original question. The thing that I think is kind of funny when you talk about it being the seminary curriculum, if you look at the book of Romans, Romans is this incredible theological book in the

Bible written by Paul. And when it gets taught in a seminary, you're talking about seminary curriculum.

When it gets taught in a seminary, when it gets taught in a church, when I was a new believer and I was first in the church and getting some, what happens is -

A new Christian believer. Yes, yeah, a new Christian believer. What happens is, first of all, you know there's no chapter in the

Bible. In other words, like Paul didn't write like Romans 1. He just wrote a letter.

We're the ones who put the chapters in there. And we put them in so that it would be simple to find things.

In other words, you have this big book, how do we find what we're looking for? We segmented it. But what happens is when you see like Romans taught in almost any church, they teach

Romans 1 through 8. They call it, it's called the

Roman road. The Roman road. It's where Paul goes through the plan of salvation and that we're not saved by works, we're saved by faith.

And so the Roman road, Romans 1 through 8. Then what happens is there's this

Romans 9, 10, and 11 that's all about Israel, right in the middle of the book, all about Israel.

And what God's plan for Israel and everything is. And then you have Romans like 12 through 16.

And whenever anybody ever teaches Romans, it's like Romans 1 through 8, the

Romans road. And I believe again, I'm sort of kidding a little bit tongue in cheek when I say this, the way that the church reads the book of Romans is they read it.

Okay, Paul was sitting there, in Rome and prison, but in sort of a home prison.

And he's there writing the book of Romans and he writes Romans 1 through 8.

And then he gets really hungry and he wants to get a corned beef sandwich down at the corner. So he leaves to buy a sandwich and somebody sneaks in and they write

Romans 9, 10, 11. And then like Paul comes back from lunch and he finishes the book 12 through.

In other words, the thing that was amazing when I was a new Christian, a new believer, back then that was a time that we still had actual, you know, paper

Bibles. And we used to underline and like write notes in the margins.

And I would look at somebody's Bible, at our pastor's Bible. I love my pastor. And I'd look at his

Bible, Romans 1 through 8, notes, notes, notes, underline, underline, underline. Romans like 12 through 16.

Oh, you know, every day we'd have to give our bodies as a sacrifice to God.

Romans 9 through 11, nothing. And yet it's the heart of the book of Romans.

And so, in other words, when you're talking about like what people teach in seminary and what, yeah,

I mean, as a matter of fact, the thing that's sort of funny is Paul says, well, here in like Romans, I just,

I always find this funny. It's like, he says in Romans 11, 25, after I'm in going through this long explanation, but he says,

I don't want you brothers and sisters to be ignorant of this mystery. Now that word ignorant in English, the root of the word ignorant,

I suppose you could say would be ignore. In other words, now Paul, by the way, only says that three times in all of his letters.

I'm not gonna go into the other ones. One is about spiritual gifts, but basically saying,

I'm gonna tell you something here. Don't ignore this. Don't be ignorant about this.

And he says, lest you become like wise in your own eyes. You know, you start to think that you know it all.

A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

And in this way, all Israel will be saved. Now there's lots to talk about with that.

But the thing I find that's so funny is that Paul says, okay, listen, don't ignore this.

Don't be ignorant about that. This is important. You need to know this. And what do we do?

We ignore it. Wow. Yeah, wow. My gosh.

This is incredible. I feel like at the beginning, I worded the question wrong because I didn't have any of this prior knowledge.

And now that you've kind of explained to me the hardness of what Jewish, what Judaism and what the

Jews have gone through, now for me and what they're going to go through based off prophecy, how do

I love them knowing that, hey, you, my Jewish neighbor, have a history of torment and torture and deaths and killing.

How can, like, what do I need to know as a Christian to love them through that? Like, what should I be aware of before I kind of broach that conversation and support them knowing what they're gonna go through?

I think that's the better way to frame that question. I don't think you have to know anything, and I don't think you have to say anything specific.

Again, there's a verse earlier in, like, Romans, but I think that it kind of pertains to the question you're asking here.

In Romans 11, 11, Paul talking about Israel. I mean, as I said, Romans 9, 10, 11 is all about God's purpose for Israel and all in this great master plan.

It says, I say then, if they didn't stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be.

In other words, it's talking about Israel, the Jews, but by their false, oh, let's see.

I'm not reading the NIV. I know you like the NIV. Okay, again, I ask, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery?

Not at all. So in other words, again, if somebody ever says, like, Jews have their chance.

They're never gonna get saved. Paul asked, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? No, the answer is no, not at all.

Rather, I love this. Listen to this. Because of their transgression, because of the

Jewish people's transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make

Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world and their losses mean riches for the

Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring? In other words, you think the church is good now?

Wait until the Jews come back. And then it's like, you ain't seen nothing yet.

So the thing, though, in answer to your question, it says salvation's come to the Gentiles to make

Israel jealous, to make them envious. Well, the thing is is that the best thing that we can do as Christians is to live as Christians.

I know that, in other words, I'm serious. In other words, what happens is that the

Jewish people are supposed to, right into the scripture, see us, our walk with God, our belief in God, our life, our victory, our joy, the love that comes out of us.

And they're supposed to go, wow, I want what you have. I'm jealous,

I want that. What do I have to do to have that? To have the Christian relationship or to say

I need to go back to my Jewish faith? Get away from these labels.

Okay. I want God. In other words, how, it doesn't, are you supposed to go to church on Saturday or Sunday?

Who cares? Or like both. We're supposed to worship God every day, not just Saturday or Sunday.

In other words, the issue is not, not, here, just in terms of the

Jewish or even sort of Christian thing, and it applies in Colossians chapter two,

Paul writes, there's some questions like, are we supposed to do this? Are we supposed to observe that?

Paul writes, he says to let, like, no one judge you regarding a new moon, a

Sabbath, or a festival. These things are just shadows of what's to come, but the substance is

Christ. And what happened was when I was a new believer, well, this gets kind of weird.

I don't, I might've talked about this a little bit last time, I don't remember, but when I was a new believer, I had been a

Buddhist for 16 years. I didn't practice Judaism since I did when I was a kid. I come from an Orthodox kind of a background, or conservative, but Orthodox schooling.

And, you know, I didn't wanna practice, like, Judaism. I knew

Jesus. I don't even wanna be the Christian. I don't like religion. I like my

Savior. I like my Lord. But we're, so, but we need religion in some sense.

We need other people. We have to practice in community. So what happened was I asked

God, I was praying to the Lord, just going, Lord, you know, am I supposed to observe Shabbat on Saturday?

Do I have to keep kosher again? Am I supposed to do this? And the Lord led me to that verse in Colossians.

It just says, this stuff is all a shadow. This is not just a shadow. The substance is

Christ. And God spoke in my heart and said to me, whatever you do, do it out of love.

If, you know, excuse me, if you wanna observe the

Sabbath on Saturday, do it because you love me, not because you have to.

If you don't wanna observe it, do it because you love me, not because you have to. If you wanna eat kosher food, do it because you love me.

Don't do it because you have to. Because none of this stuff, it's just all, it's like smoke and mirrors.

By the way, I'm not saying that it's all bad. It's not bad. Whatever gets us closer to God, to loving

Him, to knowing Him, that's good. You know, sometimes like people ask me in our services, you know, like at our services, you know,

I always wear a prayer shawl. And some people come and say, well, should I wear a prayer shawl? Or people who aren't like Jewish.

If that's gonna help you get closer to God, if like sort of putting on a prayer shawl and praying is gonna help you to get closer to God, then wear a prayer shawl.

If it's not, there's nothing magic about a prayer shawl. In other words, it's not like a magic garment that we put on and, you know, then all of a sudden -

It's so much less complicated, yeah. It's so, so the thing is though, is, you know, getting back to that thing about the

Jewish people and so on, what happens is that I believe everybody, and I believe that the

Jewish people, especially because of what God's done in and with us, people have a yearning and a desire for God.

So when I said just like, be a Christian, not a Christian in a religious sense, a

Christian in like - That's awesome. A Jesus sense. Yeah, wow.

What sort of - That is so refreshing to hear. But what sort of happens is that you're not going to win

Jewish people by an argument or a theological. You can quote scriptures to the

Jewish people until you're blue in the face. Well, you know, it says in this book that you're this or that, it's like, they don't care.

And if you try to quote the Old Testament to them, they've never read it. I'm not talking about the 6 %

Orthodox, I'm talking about the 94 % that you meet every day. They've never read it.

So they don't care what it says in scripture. What they care is when they see your life and your love and just the way you live your life, the peace that I hope you have.

I know we all have sort of good days and bad days, but the peace that you have, you want the

Jewish people to go, wow, there's something different about Cassian.

I want what she has, I'm jealous. She has something, a relationship with God that I don't have.

What do I have to do to get that? That's how you get, so, and by the way,

I'm like basing all that - This is how I feel when I talk to you, Michael, is I want your peace and the way that you bring everything back to Jesus.

Like what you're talking about is how I look at you. We're gonna go off into a little bit of a different thing here, and I don't know if this is the appropriate place to even be talking about this, because I'm not sure who the people are that are gonna be listening and so on.

But when I was a new believer in the first six months of my walk with the

Lord, God gave me a vision. And when

I say he gave me a vision, I was praying in the church. My eyes were open, my eyes weren't closed, and I didn't see it with my eyes, but there was a beautiful woman, a bride in my heart.

And the bride was just like dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing.

And my heart was just overwhelmed with the presence of God.

And when it was done, I sort of asked our pastor, I said, wow, what just happened?

And I had never read this before. He read for me from the book of Revelation about the marriage supper of the lamb.

Well, I don't wanna go further with that there, but now it's like 33 years later.

And the Lord in this season, in this time, it says that the bride has made herself ready.

The bride is clothed in our righteous acts. And I really believe that we're in a season right now where Jesus, Yeshua, is calling to his bride.

And the thing that's incredible is that, I spend a lot of time alone with the

Lord. I go off every six months for a week at a time to pray in a cabin and several hours every day.

But what happens is that this isn't just, this isn't a religion.

We are destined to be wed to Jesus. Now, just like the sort of the

Trinity is a concept that we don't fully understand.

We are individually his bride and we are collectively his bride. But I think, so I mean, that's like, well,

I can't get my head around that. How can I be, how can I, I'm a man. But the thing is, is when you think about the relationship between a husband and a wife, and a wife and a husband, that is the relationship that he wants to have with us.

And he's calling us and drawing us into it. And we just have to turn aside and spend that time with him.

So, I mean, I don't know, it's like, I'm a pastor, I'm a man, you can sort of give me whatever title you want.

And I've got lots of things up on my wall, certificates right in front of me here on my wall.

But none of that, it's the relationship that, but he wants that with everyone.

Jesus is not concerned with what we do for him.

He wants us. And in having us, we do lots of things for him.

In other words, I'm not saying that, sit around, don't do anything. But there's a verse in Isaiah chapter 60.

I don't wanna misquote it. So Isaiah chapter 60, you've heard this before,

I'm sure. It says, arise, shine, for your light has come. And the glory of the

Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples.

But the Lord rises upon you, and his glory appears over you.

It says that, when nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn, and it goes on.

Now, the thing is, some people read that, and they go, oh, well, that's talking about after Jesus returns to the millennial kingdom.

But no, it's not. Because it says, see, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people.

After Jesus returns, darkness isn't gonna be covering the earth. It's talking about sometime,

I believe now. Man, well, I'm gonna throw something out here that it may, again, just like, it's just, you know the story of the mount of a transfiguration.

You don't know the mount of a transfiguration? You don't know the mount of a transfiguration? Okay, you know, Jesus, in one of the sort of gospels, he's at what they call the mount of transfiguration.

It was probably like Northern Israel. But, you know, like Jesus and Peter and John and James go up the mountain with, you know,

Jesus. And all of a sudden it talks about how he starts to shine bright, like light, like white.

And that like Moses and Elijah come down and are there talking to Jesus. You sort of know the thing.

Yeah, yeah, it's coming back. Like Peter is there going, Lord, Lord, you know, should we set up three tabernacles here for you?

By the way, that has a meaning, but I'm not gonna go into that now. That isn't just like a random thing.

Like, oh, hey, let's set up three tabernacles. There's a meaning in that. But what happens is that the point

I wanna make, and again, you know, people may think I'm just off wherever, but, you know,

Jesus shone bright. There was like light emanating from the sky.

But he wasn't in a glorified body yet. He was still in a human body. In other words, you know,

Jesus had not been crucified yet. He had not died and come back and had a different body.

He had a body just like yours and mine, but it radiated light. And that verse

I was just reading from Isaiah 60, arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the

Lord rises upon you. See, the darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the

Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. I think that's talking about us now. I mean, look at the world.

There is like a darkness covering the earth and there's thick darkness over the peoples.

And yet those that are our gods, those that find that intimacy with him, that place of where we are going to radiate the light of Christ.

In other words, you know, you may remember in like Exodus, you know, after going up onto Mount Sinai, you know, like Moses comes back and the people are going,

Moses, please put a veil over your face. We can't take it.

In other words, like Moses being God's presence was radiating so much that the people just went, it's way too bright.

You know, you've got to put a veil over your face so that we don't. Well, so the thing is, is that when

I'm talking about like, you know, being a Christian and making people jealous, you're not even aware of it or you won't even be aware of it.

The time you spend with God, the time you develop that relationship with him, the glory of God will start.

It's like, especially in a dark world, the darker the world gets, the crazier everything gets out there.

Those that are truly, truly Christ's, his glory is going to shine out upon us.

And like, people are going to look at us and we're not going to be aware, but they're going to go, wow, like, you know, you're sort of like shining.

Like, why are you radiating light? I don't know. Am I? I'm not aware.

I don't know, you know. But the thing is, is that whether it's Jewish people or Gentile, but especially

Jews, if you live a great Christian life, you don't have to, you know, like sort of go through a theological debate with them.

It's not going to work. Why is it not going to work? I've debated other people that are rabbis.

In other words, I, you know, and I can win the debates. In other words, I've got the truth on my side.

And so I can bring the scriptures and show the things and whatever. Especially with those people individually, it really doesn't matter.

Maybe somebody who's sitting there listening to the debate, it changes them. You know, that's good.

But in other words, anyway, all right. I've been like ranting and raving for a while here.

I was going to let you cook as long as you wanted to. So, no, I think that, you know, you're saying so many things that are such big ideas to me that I wasn't sure how it was going to tie all together.

But I think when you say that it is up to us to be good Christians and to essentially make

Jews jealous of that connection that we have with God, and that is going to be shown through a light shining through us that God has come upon us.

And that's going to be a noticeable light through our love for Christ that others people can be so jealous that they get tied and brought back to their creator, whether that's in whatever form, on whatever day of the week, in whatever clothes or food that they want to eat.

It really is that simple. And I think it's just so perfect the way that you answered my question for the first time, you know, just love them to now it makes so much more sense.

And I think that, you know, now that I know that there was a huge amount of suffering done by the

Jewish people, you know, obviously you know about the Holocaust, but you learn about that and then you're done, but I'm definitely going to check out this book.

What was it called again? It's an amazing, you should definitely read this book. It's called, Our Hands Are Stained With The Blood.

It's by, you know what, Dr. Michael Brown. Yeah. Who is also a

Jewish believer scholar. He's by the way, got lots of PhDs and that's all.

I'm going to be emailing him. Yeah, well, you know, I know Mike and he's got a pretty crazy schedule.

But actually, you know, he has a podcast of his own.

It's called, you know, Ask Dr. Brown is the name of his podcast, but in any event. Fascinating.

Yeah, no, you know, he's been a leader in the church for, you know, years, but he wrote this book,

Our Hands Are Stained With Blood. And the thing about Our Hands Are Stained With Blood, by the way, that is really good.

Although I don't know if I call this, you know, it's good, it's not fun. Is that what he does is there's other books that talk about all this stuff, but it goes into excruciating detail.

And to read the book, you have to like really be determined to read it.

What he does is this book has footnotes, like up the wazoo.

I mean, at the end of the book, he footnotes everything. So everything he says, here's the source and here's the thing.

And you know, you can research it, you can find it, but he presents it in a,

I'm gonna say in, you know, easy to read way. It's not a difficult reading experience.

It is gonna break your heart. In other words, I'm not saying this, you know, placating, make sure to have a box of Kleenex, you know, sitting next to you when you read this book, because you're gonna read it as every

Christian that I know who has read it and just be like, oh my God, I had no idea.

I had no idea. And that's the problem. 100%, we didn't know.

I feel like we do our best as Christians to love one another, but we can only do the extent of what we know.

And then once you know better, you do better. And now knowing about this, it's an obligation.

It's a responsibility to do the due diligence, read these books and know better. And I think through that, know what our

Jewish brothers and sisters went through and just be aware of that. I mean, I think that's really what

I was really searching for is how do I understand what they're going through and love them better? And I think that,

I don't know, it just makes you a more conscious Christian as far as how to love somebody when you know the hardships that they've gone through.

Yeah, well, the thing, I'm gonna throw a statement out. And again, it's just like, we're not gonna go into this now, but the like restoration of Israel and Israel's coming back to God is the church's responsibility.

And the church is completely involved and it's our responsibility.

And the problem is so much of the church has no idea that it's our responsibility.

They don't know that we're, you know, it's sort of funny. I was actually, I'm sitting here looking at some notes for something

I'm gonna be speaking about next week. But, you know, when you talk about the end of days and, you know, like when is

Jesus coming back? And, you know, a lot of people, there's a verse in Mark where Jesus says, it says, he was saying, the kingdom of God is like a man spreading seed on the soil.

He falls asleep at night, he gets up by day and the seeds sprouts up and grows. He himself doesn't know how.

Automatically the earth spring forth a crop, first the blade, then the head, then the full grain of the head. But when the grain is ready, at once he sends in the sickle for the harvest has come.

In other words, the harvest comes not on a calendar date or time.

It comes when the grain is ready. And it's like, what happens all the time is like at home, my wife, if she listens to this, will probably get mad at me.

But what happens is it's like, I'll come home, I'll go, hey, Nancy, what time are we gonna eat dinner?

She goes, oh, dinner will be ready at six. Well, at six o 'clock, she follows the directions on the thing.

It says, you know, like, please preheat the oven to 350 and then put the food in for 45 minutes of that.

And then it'll be cooked. And six o 'clock comes and she pulls the thing out and she puts the thermometer in, it's not ready yet.

It's not cooked yet. I need to put it back in the oven. And what happens is in the last days, people think, again,

I get into lots of verses and things with this, but people think that it's like, you know, God has a date on the calendar.

Like on Thursday, you know, December 12th, like sort of 2064, that's when

Jesus is returning. Now that may be the case. And God knows what that date is because he sees the past, present and future.

He doesn't live on a linear timeline, but it's not dependent on a date on the calendar.

God isn't looking at his watch. He's looking at the crop.

He's looking at the church. And what happens is that when

Jesus returns is absolutely dependent upon us.

When we're mature, when we're ready, and until we're ready,

God's just like, oh, it's not ready yet. Now, ultimately, because he sees the future of the past, you know,

God knows when it's gonna be ready because he's already seen it. But the thing is, is that, you know, like Peter says, we're supposed to look for and hasten the coming of the day of the

Lord. If we can hasten it, that means that what we do or don't do has an effect on when the coming of the

Lord is. And, you know, Jesus says to his bride, the bride has made herself ready.

The bride is clothed in her righteous acts. Well, what happens is all these things, these last day events and things that we look and come,

God isn't looking at his watch. He's looking at the church. Are they ready yet?

No, they're not ready yet. We need to cook them some more. I mean, when you look at like Moses, I mean,

I find it fascinating with like Moses, you know, God told Abraham, God told

Abraham, your descendants are gonna be slaves in Egypt for 400 years. Okay.

The scripture then says in Exodus, it says, Exodus 12, 40, 41. It says, so it happened at the end of 430 years, the very day.

So wait a minute, God said it was gonna be 400 years. But they were there for slaves for 430 years.

What happened? Well, like Moses, again, based on stuff, when he was about 40 years old, he'd been living in Egypt, he'd been growing up, he came to this, and he was the redeemer.

And he kills this Egyptian. And he thinks everybody knows he's supposed to be the redeemer, but they all mock him and Pharaoh wants to kill him.

And he runs away and he goes to the desert. Now, there are suffering people in Egypt, crying out to God, please,

God, send us a redeemer, make this stop, send us a redeemer.

And they're suffering. And like Moses, basically, when he was 40, he went out to be the shepherd of sheep.

God wanted him to learn to be a shepherd. So when he was like, when he turned 50, that would have been 400 years.

If it was 430 years, he was in the wilderness for 40 years. After 10 years, that would be 400 years.

So it's like, is Moses ready yet? No, he's not finished. He still needs to cook a little longer.

He's not ready. And it's like, at 60 years old, is he ready?

No, not yet. He needs to just... And in the meantime, people are suffering and they want a savior.

Now, if that was us, we're like, send him already. He's not cooked yet. He's not ready.

And the thing is, the point with that is that God is looking at the church. We're not ready, but he's calling us to become ready.

Man, we've been, I'm all over the place here, but anyway. No, this was an amazing conversation.

And there's no way to plan a conversation like this. I think that's maybe why I was struggling with what's the best way to word this question, but you have answered the question and then some.

That's why I like having you on here because you always tie it all together. I mean, we're not just staying in Romans.

We went to Colossians and we went to Revelations and you really showed how the word is really tied together and then very ever -present in today's life and how to come.

And I, unfortunately, we have to wrap, but this is one of those conversations that I just wanna keep scheduling with you because we're gonna keep finding more gems in the word that for new

Christians like me and for people that just want to kind of put the puzzle pieces together. Maybe you're an expert in the

Gospels or an expert in the Old Testament, but the way that you put it together make it, makes it make sense in a way that like, you're right.

We can study all day long, but the answer is always gonna come down to your relationship with Christ and how you love them.

Yeah. Can I, I just, I feel prompted to say something and I may offend some of your listeners when

I say this or whatever, but if you are listening, if you're one of the people that are listening to the conversation, you know, all the like sort of backbiting and bitterness and well, they're wrong and their theology is wrong, their thing, just stop, stop.

You heard him. Stop. It's, you know, none of us have it all right and none of us have it all wrong, but it's like,

I mean, for people listening, think about this. This is a really tough one. If you are truly in Christ and only you know and the

Holy Spirit is your witness, well, the bride of Christ is all of us. You're gonna be with those people that you're yelling at and you're talking about like Jesus' wife.

There's when you're, you know, well, this person is out and you don't know how you're doing it.

You're talking about his wife and you're part of it, hopefully, but just please.

When I heard Cassian say that, and I see it on Facebook, I see it on all these places, it just really breaks my heart.

I mean, you gotta get a life. It's like, there's so much more to our walk with God.

Sorry, there's so much more to our walk with God than this like, well, I'm right and you're wrong and it's not that and it's three days, not two days and it's just stop.

Anyway. I think that's one of the most beautiful parts about our faith is that, and I was well -warned before I started this that you're gonna offend people,

Cass, you're gonna get hate and that's okay. That was one of my triggers of, I'm clearly reaching people if they're getting this passionate.

For me, it's fine. I know that I'm being drawn to do this for at least one listener.

You know, like if anything, I reach one and I think it's me, you know, like I think that's the joke but at the end of the day,

I think that it's a beautiful thing that people are so passionate and I just wanna say, a lot of interactions with the people that listen and thank you, first of all, for the people that listen and the people that interact and follow.

I mean, this is amazing but one of the interactions I had with somebody was clearly two passionate people kind of trying to argue me being one of them and I, you know, you have to be graceful.

You got a life, I'm sorry. This is my life. No, when

I kind of turned to the person and was like, listen, I understand what you're doing and this is what I said.

Instead of fighting, I said, I know that you're trying to love me and I know you're trying to love God and fight for your

God but listen, it's the way that you're saying it isn't working for me. So just as a person to person, can you just say it differently?

And oh my gosh, the conversation changed. I think we're friends now. We're yamming.

She's like, oh, my husband's a rabbi. I'm like, great. I'm recording with a rabbi. Like, it really was just the humanity to humanity of like, we both have the same goal.

We're just both angry at who, you know? Yeah, no, I know.

I just, unfortunately, you know, I see on like Facebook, I'm not really active on Facebook but I see on Facebook and, you know, just even from our church, when we have a service, somebody is always like writing, you know, we said this and they said that.

And we're like, we don't have enough time for this.

Anyway. It's one of those like, I'm glad you're here. What else can I say? Like, you can have opinions that never end but at least you're here.

And I'm so glad that you're here. Even the people that think I'm doing things wrong and messing up,

I am doing my best and I hope you are too. Amen, amen. But truly, thank you for providing such insight.

You have no idea, like the changes you're making in my life, let alone the people that are DMing me. Truly, truly,

Rabbi, thank you so much. And I hope that I can have you back on again very soon. We'll see.

Have a great rest of your day and go to Shabbat if you're in Tucson, Zion City. It's at 6 p .m.

On Friday, February 2nd. It's basically every first Friday of the month we do a Shabbat service.

It's at 6, 30 p .m. Okay. Zion City, the website is zioncity .me,

M -E, and there's information on there. But please, if you're in Tucson, come.

If you're in Tucson, if you're in Phoenix, if you're in Glendale, make the trip. Yeah, okay. Thank you so much,