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Judaism has added a variety of extra biblical materials to their spiritual resume which has led to other authoritative materials outside of the bible such as their rabbinic writings along with the Kabbalah.

Much of this information has been supposedly passed down through generations of oral tradition and has led to the folklore of superstitious religious beliefs. You can see this clearly just from reading the Jewish Book of Why.

Anyway oral tradition is not a credible form of transmission as it often evolutionary as being in a constant state of flux. Its one thing to credit these resources as being culturally ancient but quite another to categorize them as inspirational truth.

Ironically Moses was directed by God concerning his revelation to write these things down when it came to God’s commands, laws, and decrees. Also God instructed the Israelites not to add or subtract from the content of the scripture and yet Judaism has failed this test due to its oral traditions and supplemental texts, Deuteronomy 4:2.

Again in regards to the law of God as found in the torah or pentateuch, Moses finalized the text as writing down all things from beginning to end as a complete text, Deuteronomy 31:24.

Additionally, these oral traditions were not confirmed in the Jewish council of Jamnia in 90 AD as being apart of the canon of scripture. Also if oral traditions were so ancient in going back even to the beginning of time and were firmly embedded in the culture then why were the people oblivious to the biblical commands during the reign of King Josiah when the book of the law had been lost whereby it had to be subsequently reinstated? It was to the astonishment and the remorse of the chief ruler who didn’t have a clue to the content of the book of the Law and therefore if the supreme potentate didn’t have such knowledge then what hope was there for the commoner, 2Kings 22? No wonder God had Moses commit the law to script instead of memory and had he not done so where would we be today? Yet surprisingly even with these biblical texts the word of the Lord is still being revised or improvised and this is what was done through such writings as the Qaballah and the Talmud. How far would this adulterated script have progressed or regressed if we wouldn’t of had any of these sacred documents which argues even more loudly for the necessity of a written revelation as opposed to sanctifying the practice of oral tradition. When God wanted his message passed on to future generations by word of mouth it was only from rehearsing and elaborating on the written revelation not by establishing other traditions or extra sources. No wonder the prophet Isaiah admonished the people of his day and future generations who would take these oral traditions and circulate them in such a way to define a man made religion of what has been formally known as Judaism today.

 

Isaiah 29:13

¹³ The Lord says:

“These people come near to me with their mouth

and honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me

is made up only of rules taught by men.

 

When looking at Cabala it can be compared to neo-Gnosticism as being pagan by incorporating occultic rituals that are more in alignment with the astrology of star gazing and numerology rather than what would be considered scriptural truth. Also it is on par with such things as the DaVinci code, prophecies of Nostradamus and movies like National Treasure which relate to some kind of conspiracy theory.

Yet the Hebrew bible denounces this kind of activity that would be considered in league with the devil. That’s why its not surprising to see those who have a close association with the occult as comfortably participating with such knowledge as being antithetical to the God of the Hebrew bible and in turn is supported by such groups as the Wiccans and is even alluded to in the sorcerer’s handbook. God gave specific instruction to have nothing to do with these occultic practices.

 

Deuteronomy 18:9-13

⁹ When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. ¹⁰ Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, ¹¹ or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. ¹² Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. ¹³ You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

 

This movement also has ideas that have been borrowed from the Eastern religions with varying concepts that are reminiscent of dualism, panentheism, pantheism, and reincarnation and it also shares in a common view with the mysticism of Sufis along with the practices of Asian culture.

Yet God forbade the Israelites to associate with foreign religions which would be a snare and a stronghold to draw them away from the Lord and would eventually lead to their demise and foreign domination along with a consequential Diaspora.

Regarding the Cabalah many presuppositions are made from manipulating letters and words to form a new meaning or a deeper understanding to the hidden code of the bible and now with super computers the bible can be unlocked like never before in opening up the way to all different possibilities of enlightenment. Even medieval Christianity developed this faulty methodology as finding hidden clues within the plainer view or more literal sense of the text. This can be quite dangerous as it makes the scriptures speculative and subjective in being relativistic versus an objective form of truth. To take historical genre and convert it to allegorical and metaphorical language is heretical and can lead to the destructive properties and consequences of personal interpretation which not only  can violate and conflict with biblical doctrine but it can also lead to bringing harm to its practitioners and others. Intuitively mainstream Judaism rejects the Cabbala today as being authoritative and those who hold to this esoteric script are more towards the outside fringes of Judaism which are mainly the Hassidim.

To show how bizarre and cultish these beliefs are there has been a considerable controversy within those who are associated with the Kabala Centre which has led to such allegations as money grabbing, deceptive marketing, hero worship and the abuse of their members. So much for being a torah focused group which forbids adultery yet has allowed their founder to leave his wife in order to hook up with his secretary in which she believes they had met during a reincarnated state in the Spanish Revolution. This sounds more like New Age rather than a Jewish movement.

Anyway from an external appearance this teaching may seem genuinely concerned with connecting with God as a transcendent being and has become a way of dealing with the difficult language of eschatology and apocalyptic literature as related to supernatural phenomena by trying to make it understandable and accessible. Yet being sincere in your approach doesn’t necessarily ensure you that you are sincerely right.

Also sometimes mankind has a desire to connect with the ultimate reality or Almighty and there is a part of humanity who wants to somehow harness something that is real and tangible even to the point of compromising their common sense to desperately seek out something of significance.  However, what may appear from a first glance to look like wisdom literature is nothing more than foolishness. Kabbalists should consider that God alone reserves the right to maintain the mystery of His being and for a person to think that God has preserved this special knowledge for an elect few is by definition cultish behavior. There is always that tendency to think that you are the few chosen and elect individuals who have access to the key of life and succumbing to this ideology by finding a religious identity of superiority is presumptuous. The bible says in

 

Deuteronomy 29:29

²⁹ The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

 

Isaiah 55: 8-9

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 

If Kabalah was meant as a means to bridge the gap between knowledge and ignorance  then why has this historical movement reserved it participants to be males of 40 years of age or older? Also why do some think this knowledge should only be preserved within the exclusivity of the Jewish culture even if others are desirous of the truth? How about those who didn’t have access to these ideas for millennium but were left in the dark? Also why is the Kabbala so hard to understand if it is to unravel mysteries?

Perhaps there has been a disappointment with the failed appointments of messianic expectations and the oppression felt by the anti-Semitic sentiments of the nations and the scars that have been left from the banishment of the Diaspora but does this somehow demand an altered interpretative method for the biblical text?

Perhaps its an effort to reconnect with something real like the tangible presence of God by which the Jewish people have been deprived of in regards to the temple precincts and the prophetic voice along with the patriarchal figures of its past by somehow reviving the traditions of biblical faith. Maybe there is a void by which somehow something seems deeply wrong and oddly missing from the continuation of the biblical text which has led to a strange and unexplained silence.  Maybe this lack of connectivity and experience has driven them to fill the void of their emptiness by searching for something more relevant in pacifying their identity crisis and therefore where the bible has seemed to leave off in the life of the religious Jew the Qabala has made up the difference by establishing once again a solid connection between the Kabbalist and the storyline of the Bible.

If the scripture has failed to fulfill you and in turn you have a need to peer into the crystal ball of special revelation then maybe it’s because you have missed the exegetical views of key biblical texts that are outside the normative prejudicial views of rabbinic thought.

To rearrange and internalize the text for a more mystical experience may appeal to seducing the mind but does it really diminish the tension of unfulfilled biblical expectations?

One thing I would like to offer, especially for someone who is desperately open to seeking truth by going as far to consider cabalistic teaching, is to meditate on these verses  taken from

 

Jeremiah 31:31-34

³¹ “The time is coming,” declares the Lord,

“when I will make a new covenant

with the house of Israel

and with the house of Judah.

³² It will not be like the covenant

I made with their forefathers

when I took them by the hand

to lead them out of Egypt,

because they broke my covenant,

though I was a husband to them,”

declares the Lord.

³³ “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel

after that time,” declares the Lord.

“I will put my law in their minds

and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be my people.

³⁴ No longer will a man teach his neighbor,

or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’

because they will all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest,”

declares the Lord.

“For I will forgive their wickedness

and will remember their sins no more.”

 

Here it is obvious that the old way of approaching God would be replaced by a new system and therefore how effectual is the Torah to bringing one near to God when it has become obsolete and inferior to a new covenant? Not only that but of the 613 commandments, of which Judaism claims, how many of these cannot be fulfilled in the life of the worshiper today due to the loss of the temple and it’s associated ceremonial rites? Also how is it even possible according to Jewish expectations for the Messiah to return if the law can not be technically upheld?

I know its hard to teach and old dog new tricks but perhaps Jewish tradition is clinging on to something that has been changed. Covenants can and do change such as the  dietary laws from the Adamic covenant in making allowances for the meat eaters of the Noahic covenant. Same God but He changes how He relates to mankind.

After all God is sovereign and to remove the religious centerpiece of the Jewish world and allow the Dome of the Rock to be built on this holy site is an emphatic statement that God is replacing a legalistic form of worship by desiring worshippers who have a heart towards God. This new covenant will be marked  as a time when God would not only give His Spirit to an elect few but would pour out His Spirit on all flesh as prophesied in Joel. A time of exchanging a hardened heart of stone for a heart of flesh as outlined in Ezekiel. A transitory time when the worship of God, which was central to Jerusalem, would no longer be just localized to a city nor just to a few elect people or even a nation but rather there would be an exodus of people from the world community that would rise up to worship the Lord.

 

Isaiah 49:6

⁶ he says:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant

to restore the tribes of Jacob

and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,

that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

 

These scriptures are all characteristic of the first century messianic movement which began under the new covenant reign of Yeshua which continues today to impact the world in mass route and even the Jewish community of which there are perhaps over 300,000 strong.

This inauguration took place as Jesus took the role as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 in being a type a paschal lamb who was identified as the one who takes away the sins of the world as an atonement whereby we have been justified by His salvific work in whom we identify with in Jeremiah 23:6 as being “The Lord our righteousness.”

There is nothing exaggerated about the numerous scriptural claims of a messianic identity concerning Yeshua and many Jews who don’t have a religious prejudice are able to plainly see that some of these prophecies such as Psalms 22 are recognizably speaking about the person of Jesus. Some will even think that these passages were taken straight from the Brit Hadasha not even realizing that these words proceeded from the pages of the Tanakh.

Whether one wants to admit it or not Jesus is the most influential jew from a world wide perspective and to imagine that the world which has largely persecuted jews, including pseudo christians, would follow after a Jewish leader as their King and Lord should be a sign not from the pages of the Zohar but from the plain text of the bible that He is the Messiah.

There have been many messianic hopefuls among Judaism’s elite, such as Schneerson, who will only live on in the contemporary minds and hearts of a few and subsequently will only serve as a reference to the history books. Therefore  he does not even come close to making a universal impact but rather he has only made a small contribution and imprint to the scope of world Jewry which disappointedly came short of fulfilling the role of Messiah.

Also what of Sabbatai Zevi who was a major contributor to Kabalistic teaching and who thought that he was the Messiah but who later submitted to Allah by converting to Islam? What a major setback for those who held to the insightfulness of these encrypted texts and what a disappointment to those who were left with yet another false messiah.

When contemplating Kabbalistic teaching in searching for hidden codes this can be a real avoidance of something that at times is so obvious that there must be a real blindness and stubbornness to overlooking the Messiahship of Yeshua or Jesus. Perhaps the truth of the matter is that He is not the Messiah you wanted and that would be perfectly in line with His rejection as expressed in Isaiah 53. Yet how does this herd mentality of Judaism readily affirm the truthfulness of its position which has historically rejected Him and yet when looking at their track record from the pages of the bible there is  a consistent theme by which corporate Israel has continually turned away from God and His anointed leaders over the course of biblical history?Therefore the idea that the majority rules may work for the democratic vote but it doesn’t affect the theocratic vote of the one true God.

The old covenant which led to the banishment of Israel under the subjection of foreign occupancy along with the destruction of the temple does not mean the defeat of the Jewish faith but rather it is God who is opening up a new and living way.

To try to maintain the Mosaic covenant by a replacement theology of prayer, good deeds, and fasting to compensate for the rituals of the Old Testament covenant is a pacifier and a lie to implement a man made system that “works” and to uphold to any of these extra biblical texts such as the writings of the Rabbis and the Kabbalah is just another golden calf which has robbed the people from a full disclosure to the revelatory wisdom of God. To try to make your own way is no different than the idolatries of Israel’s past who prostituted themselves to a foreign reality of a god kind by developing a spiritual aptitude that is unrelated to the biblical text in making a god after their own image.

If Kabbalah is the real gatekeeper to the storehouse of God’s knowledge then why did it take so long to establish after the canon of scripture? To give Qabalah an earlier date such as the second century or before is truly gratuitous and speculative at best and most don’t even really know when it all began but many have assigned it to the medieval time period in being developed as a reactionary and revolutionary response versus a revelation.

As a biblical injunction false seers and prophets were condemned as flirting with God’s word and this is no different than the falsehood and error that is practiced among these Kabalistic visionaries.

So to force and coerce the scriptures like a magician is only an illusion to truth and in the end it will only prove to be trickery and deception.

Additionally, manipulating God’s name as a hocus pocus is what many occultic cultures do when they pronounce blessings or curses in thinking that somehow they are invoking the supreme power by their words. It is believed among some of these cultures that by knowing someones name that you obtain a type of mastery or control by which to influence the person or situation.

Therefore can we really order the universe by finding the right key to knowledge and can a person master their own destination strictly through the intellectualism of a book?

Also to categorize these books as being in alignment with science is plain dishonesty as this movement is associated with merely hunches, speculations, superstitions, and intuitions about concepts of metaphysical entities or properties  which are beyond the boundaries of phenomenal science which would put this in league more with science fiction than the scientific method.  This can be seen through its beliefs on the  pronouncements of curses, the practice of mystical rites and the use of magical words, along with the arrangement of ones bed and the donning of the red string, etc., etc.

Additionally, biblical faith and macro-evolution are at odds and to say that evolution, which may be true to Kabbalistic teaching, is compatible with the scriptures is really a denial to the plain truth of the Torah and is characteristic with unbelief as submitting to the spirit of this age. By expressing faith in the philosophy and theory of macro-evolution is not only bad religion but it’s also bad science as well.

Lastly, if the precise wording of the Torah is tantamount to the credibility of this interpretive science then what about the scriptural nuances that are prevalent in the copies of the Hebrew texts by which we have no original autographs? This can be readily seen when comparing the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Masoretic Text.  Even though the copyist did a tremendous job in preserving the text there are still minor variations which can not be reconciled to a system which utterly depends on the complete accuracy of every letter, word, and accent.

In closing, by reflecting on Yeshua it might be a deviation from the traditional way of Jewish thinking but I can’t imagine why such a Jewish figure who had such a positive and universal influence on society not be given serious consideration concerning His messianic credentials.

Is it possible that by looking through the lens of the Kaballah that you have been blind sighted by overlooking what God has openly revealed through the “Word of God” in speaking about the person and work of Yeshua?

If you are vulnerable and desperate enough to reach out to this erroneous mystery novel then why is searching the New Testament necessarily forbidden. Perhaps you should look again and see if there is anything which can be learned from this primary Jewish resource.

Also I know that I have said some very challenging things and that my language has been very pointed and I apologize if I have offended you by overstating my position. Its just that I would like to offer a challenge to you in order that you might benefit in finding the spiritual intimacy that you are really longing for.

So in closing all I would ask is that you would prayerfully reflect and ask God to reveal to you the truth of the matter concerning Jesus and in so doing by connecting with God in a real and personal relationship.

 

 

How to have a relationship with God

How to know God

 

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“Reprinted by permission.  “(Nelson’s Illustrated Guide to Religions), James A. Beverley, 2009,Thomas Nelson Inc. Nashville, Tennessee.  All rights reserved.”

“Should a Christian be a Mason”, E.M. Storms, 1999, pg.20, Impact Christian Books, 332 Leffingwell Ave., Kirkwood, Missouri 63122.