The One Thousand Year History of Poland's Jews

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. While it's a large part of Jewish history and a part I was largely unaware of, it's time for the Line of Fire with your host biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity.

Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on the Line of Fire. And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. I have to admit, this statement surprised me when I heard it in Poland, when I heard it at the Polish Museum of the Jewish People in Warsaw. The statement surprised me that there is no Polish history without the Jews.

There is no Jewish history without Poland. Welcome friends to the Line of Fire, Michael Brown here. It is thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

Welcome to all those tuning in for the first time. If you have a Jewish related question of any kind, if you're a Jewish person, maybe a traditional Jew, you happen to tune in, you heard about this show and you can't believe here's a Jewish man who says he believes Jesus is the Messiah and you want to talk to me about it, give me a call. 866-34-TRUTH. Maybe you're a devoted Christian and you're wondering about some passages in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, or you've got a question about Judaism or Jewish tradition. Or maybe you're a Muslim and you've got some issues about the modern state of Israel. Phone lines are open. As long as it's Jewish related.

Whether you agree with me or differ with me, that's not the issue. It's your question that we want to get to. 866-34-H, 7884. The earlier in the broadcast you call, the better chance we have of getting to your call a little bit later in the show. Also just got news about the new leader of Italy, the newly elected Prime Minister, the first woman. Not only is she a strong conservative who openly identifies as Christian, as mother, as female, which these days is big, but apparently she's also a strong supporter of Israel. Just found that out moments before the show started.

I'll talk to you about that in a little while. Okay, so as many of you know, I was in Poland this past weekend, and the believers there said it would be really good if you could schedule time to go to the Jewish Museum in Poland, in Warsaw. I'd never heard of that.

In fact, it's only about eight years old, I think. And one of the members of the church where I was speaking was the principal fundraiser, Christian woman, bringing millions of dollars from around the world, especially from the Jewish community around the world, to build this museum. So it's major, it's historic, and the fact that it was built with the help of Christians is of great importance. But when I would think of Poland, friends of mine that have been to Poland and wanted to do Jewish-related tour, of course they would go to Auschwitz. And hopefully in a future trip I can do that, although you've got to be emotionally prepared to do something like that because of the impact that it can have, being in a place like that where so much evil took place, so much unimaginable suffering. But I have to admit that I had a bit of a blind spot in my own knowledge of Jewish history in Poland.

Now here's what I knew. The overwhelming thing when I think of Poland and Jewish history, the overwhelming thing that comes to mind immediately is this. Before the Holocaust there were 3.3 million Jews in Poland. Three million were slaughtered. Three million.

This is the highest percentage in any of these countries where Jews lived. Over 90%, over 9 in 10 of every Jewish family's individuals, slaughtered by the Nazis. It's devastating. As I was on one of these shuttle trains at Heathrow Airport going back from Poland, going back home, one of the transit buses I was on, I just looked around and thought, okay, 9 out of every 10 wiped out. Families that you know, neighborhoods you know, communities that you know, friends that you know. 9 out of every 10 wiped out.

Unimaginable. So I knew that. And then I knew that there were significant rabbis that were Polish and significant Jewish communities in Polish history.

I knew that, alright. But what I didn't piece together, the obvious was there was a reason that there were so many Jews in Poland. In other words, it had been a favorable place for Jews to live.

It's the obvious, but I just didn't think about it. Because half of the 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust were Polish Jews, right? So why were so many living in Poland? I only thought of the aftermath and the residue of Catholic anti-Semitism that was there that resulted in further horror stories for some of the survivors of the Holocaust, which I'll come to in a moment. But I didn't stop to ask what was so favorable about Poland for so long. As I went on the tour of the museum, a guided tour by their top tour guide, and accompanied by one of the pastors from the church that had done a lot of study on Jewish history and things like that, and the woman in the church that had raised the funds for the museum. So that was the guided tour, having the three of them.

As we went around, there was just so much to learn. For example, we're standing there, where the museum is built, it's on the area that was formerly the Warsaw Ghetto, built over the rubble of what was once the Warsaw Ghetto. I didn't know that there were 600 ghettos that the Nazis set up all over Poland. I didn't know that in Warsaw, one out of every three homes before the Holocaust was Jewish. I didn't know that there were 1,200 synagogues.

I didn't know that before. So again, I had some knowledge of some of these things, but the specifics, the details, but more importantly, the favorable history. That's the part I was just somewhat blind to, because of the devastation of the Holocaust and the aftermath being so horrific, being so overwhelming, that it's difficult to think back to, well, why were so many Jews living there in the first place? And why was it good for Poland and good for the Jewish people?

To the point, to repeat, that it was said to me at the museum that there is no Polish history without the Jews, and there is no Jewish history without Poland. Alright, so, the Warsaw Ghetto was the biggest, the most notorious of the ghettos established by the Nazis, where Jews were herded together, cut off from the outside world, and lived on starvation diets. They said, what's a starvation diet? 300 calories a day?

300 calories a day? And it was there that finally there was the uprising, as the Jews decided to fight back, but with almost no weaponry and against impossible odds, of course, wiped out, devastated. But that was pretty much them saying, we're going to die on our terms, similar to Masada, as was shared at the tour, you know, to think in those terms. We're going to die on our terms, and you kill us, go ahead, but we've chosen to die this way, rather than to die slowly of disease, or exterminated in a concentration camp, or of starvation here. So, Nazis wanted to make an example, and also because there was an uprising within Warsaw itself, there were Poles who fought back against the Nazis, and Poland lost 3 million.

So 3 million out of what? Maybe 38 million versus 3 million out of 3.3 million Polish population versus Jewish population, but still, in Polish memory, 3 million Jews were killed, 3 million Poles were killed, and the Poles were killed, rising up against the Nazis, so that's why Warsaw was so completely leveled and devastated. The Nazis were going to demonstrate, the Nazis were going to make clear that this is what happens to resistance. And if you help the Jewish family, there's a death penalty. I know it's easy for us to say, well, I would have stood up, I'm a Christian, I would have stood up for the Jewish people.

Hopefully so, but when the penalty is death for you and your family, it's easier said than done. It's a whole lot harder to say, okay, I'm going to have my whole family slaughtered, because I'm going to help a Jewish neighbor. At the same time, there were different sentiments among the Polish people. The one that I was most aware of was the, well, let the Jews be killed.

Not our business, not our problem. Or, well, they're Christ killers, they deserve it. That would be the most extreme in the anti-Semitic sentiments in Catholic and Protestant homes. But here, Poland as a Catholic country would have been in Catholic homes. So that was there.

That was there for sure. In fact, Marty Waldman, one of my friends, Messianic Jewish rabbi in Dallas, Texas, I met his dad years ago, his dad's with the Lord now, but his dad was a Holocaust survivor. An absolutely horrific story, among millions of horrific stories. The Nazis rounded up the men, they were ready to kill them, and they said, we need a tailor. Is anyone here a tailor? Well, he was a tailor who raised his hand. Okay, well, he has two best friends, his lifelong friends.

They're there, right? Well, he wants to say, I need two assistants. You can have one. Pick one.

So think of that. You've got your two lifelong friends, so you've got to pick one. Well, you can't have two.

You pick one. So that's devastating. He's got to give a death sentence to one of his friends. Well, he survives, and a handful of his friends survive the Holocaust. They go back to one of the houses that's vacant. They've got, what are they going to do?

I mean, you're just devastated. They're sitting on playing cards. And some of the neighbors found out that some Jews survived and started shooting at them. They ran into the woods and just kept running. That's how they ultimately survived post-Holocaust. When I told that to one of the women at the museum, one of the Christian women, when I told her that, she said, I've heard hundreds of stories like that. Hundreds of stories like that.

So that's part of the memory. There are others that just didn't get involved, hated to see what was happening, but didn't get involved. But others said, these are my neighbors.

These are my friends. And they fought. And they died fighting for the Jewish people. The Christians that I was with were great lovers of Israel, great lovers of the Jewish people, and wanted to emphasize to me that through much of Polish history, there was great tolerance that you could go back five, six hundred years in Polish history and find clear edicts of religious tolerance. And Jews will not be persecuted. And Jews will not be exiled from this country because of their religious faith. And they were free to practice it. So there was a lot more religious tolerance in much of the history. And there's a Jewish tradition that said as the Jews were wandering, exiled from other countries, they found this place, Polin.

There is a place of rest and abiding. And they were looking for that place, and they found it. So it was a nice place to stay. And although there was discrimination at times, and although they were treated as second-class citizens, for much of the history, there was tolerance, which is why there was such a large Jewish community there for so long.

That's the part that should have been obvious. There was a reason they were there, but because of the devastating Holocaust history, and after that, it's a part of the history I really didn't know about. I was sent back with this gorgeous volume, all pictures, one thousand years. That's how far back it goes. One thousand years of Polish Jewish history. And look at how Satan, the devil, working through human beings, so obliterated something with such a history. Wow, there's a lot of evil that has taken place, carried out through human beings.

There's also a lot of good that's been done. Noble causes, the friends, how we need a redeemer. How we need a redeemer. We'll be right back with your Jewish-related call. Stay right here. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again, it's Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday on the Line of Fire. You know, one thing that we definitely plan to do on our Israel trip, May of next year, God willing, is to have some time praying together. Really seeking God together. Praying for God's purposes for Israel and the Jewish people, and praying for you that God would fulfill his purposes in your life. So if you're there, definitely want to do that one of the nights.

Have a special prayer time and I believe God will draw near to us as we do. If you haven't signed up yet, we still do have seats available as we were able to free up some additional hotel space in Jerusalem. So go to AskDrBrown.org.

A-S-K-D-R Brown.org. Get all the details. You get to make your own flight arrangements in terms of what airlines you want to fly on and how you want to work that out. And then we cover everything on the ground so it gives you more flexibility. We all meet up at a certain time and then take you through everything from soup to nuts and you are in perfect hands.

And then when you go, you get back home the way you set it up best for yourself. So check out the details on the website. But the sooner you sign up, the better because seats are limited. Alright, also if you haven't explored our new massively revamped, this brand new website, AskDrBrown.org. And our brand new Jewish outreach website, RealMessiah.com which you can link by just clicking on Jewish there on the website, AskDrBrown.org.

Check it out. You'll be enriched. You'll be blessed.

And the Real Messiah website, great place for Jewish seekers, great place for those wanting to grow in their understanding of Jesus being the Messiah of Israel. Alright, let us go to the phones. And we start with Caleb in Wise, Virginia. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey, Dr. Brown, thank you for taking my call. And I want to say real quick, I'm a son be a minister with the Assemblies of God.

I'm a young guy and you've blessed me greatly. But my question is, I've been dealing with a group called the Christian Identity or Christian Israel Movement that claims that Germanic, Anglo-Saxon people are the real Jews, which I know sounds crazy. But I've been trying to minister to some people in my hometown that are in this group. So my question that would help me to maybe help them is are modern, are the modern day Jews the same as the Jews that we read in the Bible?

And how would we trace that to show that? And thank you so much. Sure thing.

And thanks for the kind words, Caleb. Okay, do you have my book, Our Hands Are Staying with Blood, The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People? I do not, but I'm aware of it. Yeah, let me encourage you to get it. Make sure you get the new edition that came out in 2019.

The original is 1992, but we updated expanded it in 2019. So make sure you check that out. I do have a section where I deal with some of these lies and misstatements and misinformation, and I give some references to DNA and historical data that's helpful. So you'll find some really good material in that, okay?

Our Hands Are Staying with Blood, you'll find some useful material there. But today's Jews, which would include people like me, we are directly connected to the Jewish people of the Bible, but not exclusively. What I mean is that there has been intermarriage and there has been conversion from other people groups into the Jewish people, just like Ruth got added in as a Moabite or Moses married a Cushite woman, she gets added in. So where Jews have stayed for long periods of time, so say in Africa or in India or in China or in Europe, there's going to be a lot of conversion from the people around them marrying into the Jewish people. If you marry out, if a Jewish person stops practicing Judaism, marries into the larger world around them, then they completely assimilate. So within a few generations, there's no knowledge of their Jewish history, that's just gone. But if someone converts, like Ruth joining the people of Israel, or someone in modern history converting to Judaism, and now they marry in, well if you have enough of the surrounding people that marry in, you're going to start to look like the surrounding people.

That's why you have white Jews and black Jews and Asian Jews and things like that, whereas originally you would have had Middle Eastern Jews, more like brown Jews. So we can trace things back, but there has been intermarriage in. And how can you trace it back? Well, you can trace it back with DNA.

That's one large way that you can. For example, descendants of Aaron had a certain DNA that was traceable, we call it a priestly DNA, and you can find it in say Ashkenazi Jews that have last names like Cohen, they can trace back to that. Or, in Zimbabwe, the Lemba tribe, so here you have Caucasian Jews, and then you have African Jews, black Jews, and both of them can trace back genealogically, or excuse me, through DNA, back to the Aaronic line.

So DNA is a part of it. The other thing that I would do if I'm ministering to people like this, is I would use the exact opposite strategy, which I would say the whole question is, are you in Jesus? If you're out of Jesus, then you're in the flesh, and you're going to die in your sin. If you are in him, then you are a son of God or a daughter of God, and that's what matters. And your lineage doesn't matter at all, because they're caught up in lies, they're caught up in, the problem is that they have misinformation, and they have their sources for it, but it's all bogus, there's no substance, there's no fact to it. And what you could ask them to do is, well, you know, why not get a DNA test and see how it lines up?

You know, in my case, I'm 90% Ashkenazi Jew, 10% Sephardic Jew, but this can all be traced back, and if you trace back the origins of Ashkenazi Sephardic Jews, you can trace that back ultimately to the ancient people of Israel. But the problem is, often, facts don't matter to these folks, you know, it's a spiritual stronghold as well. So I would emphasize being in Jesus, having that as one's identity, and putting these other identities aside to try to set them free from their wrong thinking, alright? Alright, thank you, and I just give them the gospel and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. Yes sir, yeah, that's a key thing to do here, not get caught up in these other things. If they get saved and they're sincerely born again, and now they're confused, then you help them.

But yes, that's the best approach, which is what I was saying at the end, focus on identity in Jesus. 866-348-7884, let's go to San Antonio, Texas. Crystal, welcome to the line of fire.

Hi, thank you for taking these calls, I love watching you. Well thanks. Hey, so my question, I hope it's not a silly one, it's regarding Jewish astrology. I know that there was like a, it was like a picture, I guess you could say, found in like an old temple that had shown it with like Jewish or Hebrew writing. And I was, I don't see anything in the Bible with that, and I'm just wondering is that something that maybe the devil has like corrupted, I guess maybe God intended it, you know, for a different reason? Okay, it's a great question, actually.

It's a great question. So, when most Christians think of astrology today, you know, they think of a horoscope or something like that, or, oh I was born in this month or under this sign and it has this symbolism and we just completely dismiss it as either imagined or demonic. There is a place of astrology, not in that same way, not in the hip way, oh I'm a Pisces, I'm a this or that, but that the astrological signs do have certain significance, you know, you would have astrological signs for different months of the year in Judaism. And, you know, so there was, I don't, personally I don't believe Satan corrupted a good thing, I don't think there was ever anything to it.

In other words, what Satan corrupted I don't think was good to start, right? But the way it is found in certain aspects of Judaism, it's not like modern astrology, as you know, but there is more of a sense of the constellations, the stars, that they are symbols or signs or are related to human life a little bit more. So, I would say it's kind of in between our view, which is to completely discount it as, you know, forget astrology, in between that and the modern check your horoscope every day, it's kind of an in between thing, saying like in creation God established these things.

And, you know, Genesis 1.14 says that the stars, the sun, the moon, these things are for times and seasons, and one of the words used there in Hebrew is Muaddim, which is the appointed times, so many would say that God put them there to tell us when to celebrate certain holy days and things like that. Oh, okay. Yeah, so that would be more of the significance, then from there it's not that big a jump to say that they have other symbolic meaning and things like that. Right, because I couldn't find anything on it, and I was just wondering if you might know anything about it.

That gives me good insight. Yeah, also, if you check out Jewish Encyclopedia, right, and then this is an old work but it's available free online, and it's got great scholarship for its day. Yeah, Jewish astrology.

Yeah, there it is. Astrology, if you type in Jewish Encyclopedia, and then a space, astrology. Oh, they got heavy hitters here, Marcus Jastrow, Ludwig Blau and Kaufman Koller, these were some of the top Jewish scholars of their day.

Yeah, so they will get into it, they will mention the background and where this comes in and things like that, and to what extent, you know, it's just from the pagan world, and to what extent it's recognized within Judaism, so great question, I appreciate it. Not a problem, thank you so much for your time. Sure thing. Alright, 866-34-TRUTH, we've got some phone lines open, excuse me, if you'd like to call in.

Yonatan in Israel will get you on the other side of the break, how's that? But, 45 minutes from now, 45 minutes from now, 4.15 Eastern Time, we'll be right back on YouTube, on our YouTube station, ASK DR Brown, Ask Dr Brown on YouTube, for our weekly exclusive YouTube chat, Q&A. Yeah, you get to post your questions there, so we'll be back on YouTube, 45 minutes from now.

Alright, stay tuned. It's The Line of Fire, with your host, Dr Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire, by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again, is Dr Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to thoroughly Jewish Thursday, on The Line of Fire, Michael Brown, so delighted to be with you, genuinely, from the heart, highlight of my day every day, is to be with you on radio, and wherever else you take in this broadcast, YouTube, Facebook, Podcast, delighted to be with you. Here's the number to call if you have a Jewish-related question of any kind, 866-34-TRUTH, 8663487884. By the way, just posted an article, if you're a Daily Wire subscriber, just posted an article there, titled, In the Beginning, The Real Purpose of the First Chapter of Genesis.

In the beginning, The Real Purpose of the First Chapter of Genesis. I think you'll find it interesting if you're a DW subscriber. Enjoy it. Alright, in fact, I'm going to tell you a bit about it in a moment, but first let's go back to the phones, our friend Yonatan, in Israel. Welcome back to The Line of Fire. I'm glad to be here, Mr Brown. How are you doing?

I'm doing very well, thank you. So, I will start by saying I didn't reach you guys who sent me the email, because it's a difficult issue for me to open up my relation with God, especially as a messianic Jew. So, I will, I will, I will, but I'm always happy to talk to you. Okay, but let me just encourage you.

The fellow that we connected you with, he's an Israeli, he's a Sabra, he spends hundreds and hundreds of hours with, with Haredi Jews, with Haredi Jews who are off the derech, so used to be ultra-orthodox or not anymore, secular Israelis. So, it's, if you could talk to me, you could talk to him even more easily, because he's got more in common with you. So, just, just to encourage, you know, he just, he'll be your friend in any case, so. Okay. Yeah, okay. I will think about it.

Alright, thank you. So, my question, I intended to ask this question last week, but unfortunately you didn't take any calls, but it's still relevant, because it's about young people, the Day of Atonement. And I, last week was also about the Day of Atonement, so I will leave that, like the Jewish way of Day of Atonement, you cover all this week.

I want to talk about how you, as a messianic Jew, you, and how do you, what do you do on Yom Kippur? Yes. Because, because, if, if you have children, if you're right, yes, so you don't really need Yom Kippur. Yes. And, if, if I'm right, so eventually we, we, we don't need shidduh, because it's kind of contradictive to believe in shidduh and still have Yom Kippur. Mm-hmm. Unless, unless you celebrate it differently. So. Let me, let me just ask you one thing, and then I want to answer you totally directly and totally honestly, okay?

Okay. The fact that if you read Vayikra, Leviticus 16, which lays out the regulations for Yom Kippur, and it focuses on the two goats, the one goat that's killed, and the other goat, La'azazel, the one that's sent out into the wilderness, and you don't have those. You don't have the priest, you don't have the blood, you don't have the, the Mishkan, the tabernacle, or the Beit Hamikdash, the temple, does that trouble you, that the very central elements of the day, and that everything is based on those elements, the, the cleansing by the blood, and the sending away of the, the sins into the wilderness, that you don't have any of those elements, does that disturb you? Well, if you ask me personally, or as I ask you, because it's a little bit different. Yeah.

Because, because for me, obviously, I'm not, I don't believe in God, I'm not an atheist, because an atheist is somebody who contradicts everything that someone who believes in. So I'm not, I'm a Jew, and I practice Judaism on a regular basis, but I don't believe in God, but I can still have an opinion about Yom Kippur and about Judaism, because it doesn't make me not Jew if I'm not an observer. And so, for me personally, of course it bothers me, because the entire Yom Kippur, the entire idea of Yom Kippur, this is the Bible, so in the Torah, not even the Bible, the Torah, which is around 3,000 years ago, so, because we don't really have much about Yom Kippur, besides the shedding of blood, yeah, I know, I thought about it, because the entire day of Yom Kippur is around blood, eventually. Yeah. And if you see in the Beit Hamikidash, yes, in the Tabernacle, for 800 years, that was the day that most Jew that was here, they came to the Tabernacle, the Mishkan, and they came for one reason, to be a part of a torment in a blood ceremony, of course, it's all about the blood. Yes. It's about the parim, how do you say parim, the balls of Yom Kippur, so one is for the koham, the high priest, the second is for the priests, the entire priesthood, and the third one is for the entire people in Israel, the Israelites, and every time you slaughter the ball, and you need to take the blood, and you need to shed the blood on the altar, and on the kapeur, and on, so, of course, but it's funny, because me, as a Habeid Jew, when I was in, like, Khedel, you know, the Talmud or G-d, kindergarten, and, like, until the eighth grade, so I sense that there is a conflict here, right, when the men are married, they're a rabbi, they're a teacher, I was talking about it, I saw, in a young age, there's a conflict here, that when you read the Torah, you see, it's all about the blood, and not about blood atonement, this is how you atonement.

Yes. Then, you know, you've been told, okay, just come back to Hashem, just read about what you did, and it isn't really, like, a supplement for the blood, but, yes, it was in the Torah, okay, so if you jam a thousand years later, in the Talmud, when they didn't have, they didn't have, they didn't have the blood, and so they tried to create some other way of atonement, but the way I feel that, when I was in Yeshiva, when I was in the Talmud, it's a bad supplement, because they cry, okay, G-d, we don't have the tabernacle, we don't have the Midash, we can't atone with the blood, how do we do it? And eventually, they create this day, okay, so young people, you come to the synagogue, you pray to G-d, you accept them as, in Rosh HaShanah, you accept them as king, and you repent, and you, young people, you repent, and you get atonement, just by doing that. So, yeah, it was a difficult issue to me as a kid, and a teenager, and how, yes. Yeah, Yonatan, what I was just going to say was that, as I've spoken to different people over the years that were former Haredi Jews, it was the same kind of thing, that they had questions, even as children, and something wasn't lining up in the system, but they felt they weren't allowed to question the system, that this is how we do it, this is what we believe, so you could have questions within the system.

You know, the shakla v'tarya, the back and forth, the dialogue and discussion, but you couldn't have, you couldn't question the system itself, and then, of course, they end up leaving. What I'm saying is your questioning was absolutely right, because Messiah came, because these sacrifices, the blood was all pointing to him, the one who would take our place, the one who would die for our sins. Again, to quote one of my favorite verses in the Bible, Isaiah 53,6, kulano katsontainu, ishludakopaninu, v'donaihiv giabo etavon kulano. So, all of us have gone astray, all of us like sheep have gone astray, we've each turned to our own way, but the Lord has laid on him, the mashiach, the servant of the Lord, the iniquity of us all.

U'vachavar atonir palano, and at the cost of his wounds, there's healing for us, so this was all pointing to him once he shed his blood, once he died, we haven't needed those things anymore. We're under a new and better covenant, so for me, Yom Kippur is not a day where I seek forgiveness, because I've been forgiven in terms of reconciled to God. It is a day when I especially pray for my Jewish people in synagogues around the world, that God would open their heart, that God would open their mind, that God would make them realize something's missing, that we don't have the goats, that we don't have the blood, that we don't have the atonement. So, this is a major, major theme, I pray for that, that God would open my people's eyes to recognize their need for blood, and that the Messiah is the one who shed his blood.

It's also a time, though, because it's such a sober time in the Jewish community around the world, even non-religious Jews become more religious then, I will also lay my life before the Lord. I do this often, not just at this time, but often, I lay my life before the Lord, search me, God, search my life, look at me, is there anything displeasing, is there anything dishonorable? But I do it as someone who has been forgiven, who has been reconciled, I don't need to hope that my name is written in the book of life for another year because Messiah's blood has been shed for me, and because of that I have been cleansed, I have been washed, my conscience is clear. And in fact, I'll tell you this quickly, before I was a believer, you know my story, I lived recklessly for a couple of years, the worst thing that I did was steal money from my own father, and I used to boast about it. And then when friends began praying for me that had come to faith in Jesus, I didn't know they were praying, but I started to feel miserable about the things I had done, we call it the conviction of the Ruach, the Holy Spirit's conviction. I started to feel miserable about these things, and when I came to faith in Jesus, I remember the night I asked God to cleanse me and wash me, and I acknowledged Jesus died for my sins and rose from the dead.

I remember the guilt, all the guilt I had, it all disappeared, I tried to find it, and it was all gone. That's what happens once for all through the Messiah. Hey, let's just do this, since you're on the phone, stay right there, we've got a break coming up, alright? But I just want to get your response on the other side of the break, because you asked me the question, I want to get your response and see how I can be of help to you on your journey, on your spiritual journey. And friends, would you pray for Yonatan, would you do that? Ask God, here, a prayer he could agree with, ask God to open his eyes to the absolute truth, the absolute truth about God, the absolute truth about his life, the absolute truth about Jesus. This is a prayer we should all be able to agree with. Do that, Abba, for our friend Yonatan, open his heart, open his mind. Lord, I think of the prayer of the psalmist, Gah-lay-nay-vah, be-tah-nif-lah-ot-mih-to-ra-techa, uncover our eyes, open our eyes that we may behold wonders from your teaching, from your law. Do that for our friend Yonatan.

Alright, we'll be right back to continue this discussion, and remember to join me 30 minutes from now on YouTube, Ask Dr. Brown channel on YouTube for our exclusive Q&A chat, we'll be right back. This is how we rise up. Hardest being faster, feels like thunder, magic static, call me a fanatic. It's our world, they can never have it. This is how we rise up. It's our resistance, you can't resist us.

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Here again, it's Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire. I'm back with Yonatan in Israel. Yonatan, I should mention that there are many messianic Jews who will go to a messianic synagogue on Yom Kippur. They will fast, but they do it in solidarity with our people, and they do it for personal soul searching and purification, but not to receive forgiveness the way the rest of the Jewish community would. And then others, like I said, my own practice is to especially pray for the opening of the hearts and minds of my people on that day. And thanking God for the redemption and forgiveness that I already have. So because of Jesus, yes, it makes a massive difference as to how I relate to Yom Kippur.

So what do you think of my answer? So again, it's an interesting perspective. And in a way, in the Jewish teaching, this is what the Messiah will become eventually, because in the Chayei Ramab'at, the next world, in the Messiah world, the Jewish Messiah world, we won't even need atonement in Yom Kippur.

It will be different. And we won't need kolbanot, we won't need sacrifices because we don't need the shed blood anymore. So, it's an interesting perspective, but I don't know how much time we have, because for me, it doesn't really add up in my teaching of Yom Kippur, in the Torah, of course, and in the days of the Medvedash. Because it's not in the Torah that God says, okay, you do this and you do that, and every specific has to be in the same way.

He needs to wear those clothes, and he needs to wear those clothes, and he needs to do this. And there's nothing about it, but one day we won't need it because Messiah will come. If only it's in later tradition, the entire idea of Messiah and saving us and atoning from us, it's in later tradition, it's not in the Torah.

It's not directly. Yeah, the thing that I would point out is that the Torah has its purpose, right? In Jewish tradition, it's kind of the beginning and the end of everything, but the Sinai covenant had its purpose, and we failed. We failed repeatedly, so the ten northern tribes, the northern kingdom, go into exile. And then the southern tribes, then we go into exile in Babel and Babylon.

And then we come back, and then the temple's destroyed again, and we've been scattered around the world. The covenant failed, which is why God said he would make a new and better covenant, which is why we need Messiah. If we would all just keep the Torah, and Israel would be observant, and kulanat sadikim, all of us righteous, then we wouldn't need Mashiach. The reason we need Messiah is because we continually fail, and the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, that's the picture of our failing, and as to why we needed a new and better covenant. Because we failed, the covenant itself was good, but we fell, we fell, we fell, so now everything that was needed, atonement, making us right with God, the Messiah will do that. Because we're going to keep failing otherwise, we're still going to fail, but this way we have redemption, we have forgiveness, and now we have hope of a better life in him. And it makes sense, you know, we haven't had the Beit HaMikdashah all this time since Jesus came into the world and died one generation after that temple was destroyed.

And God has been saying, hey, the work has been done, the price has been paid. And one last question, just real quick, and then my big question, when you were say 14, 15 years old, how many hours a day did you spend in the yeshiva in terms of from prayer time to study time, how many hours a day were you engaged in this? Well, I was supposed to do 150 hours a day, from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. Right, and that was the normal day in your community, right, that much time studying and praying, yeah. So that devoted, and yet you had a conflict inside of you during that time.

Yes, of course. Yeah, so what would it take for you to more deeply consider my position? I guess me being in a certain phase in my life, because it's a big issue, I lived through, let's say I'm 20, early 30s, and I hope that people will believe I'm in all these 20s, because I'm old, and because for a lot of years I was lost. I don't know how much you were addicted to certain stuff, but I was addicted to drugs, mostly weed, but still, and gambling, and bad behavior in general. And I didn't really have a hard time to think about God, and it took me a while, but let's say for four and a half, maybe five years I'm more or less sober, and I don't gamble, and I'm straighten up my life, but it's still such a subject to start searching God. Yeah, I understand.

It wasn't a pleasant relationship, you know? Look, Yonatan, let me really encourage you, you're calling the show you're always welcome to, okay? You're absolutely always welcome when I see your name come up on the board, it's like, wonderful, my friend Yonatan, that means you're still listening, you're still here, and that means a lot of people are praying for you. One day, hopefully, you'll find out how many people have been praying for you. I just know it, because of how many people listen to the broadcast, watch the show, and then love to pray for people just like you. So I'm sure you're getting a lot of people praying, but let me just encourage you, just consider opening the door a crack to email our friend in Israel who reached out to you, and he's not aggressive, he's not, if you want to chat, he'll chat, when he's in the land, I think he's out of the country right now, when he's in the land, just want to have a cup of coffee one day or something.

Just a fellow Israeli, a fellow Sabra, that knows so many people, with similar stories to you, your own story is unique, your own journey is unique, but just consider that possibility, in the meantime, keep checking out the broadcast, keep watching our videos, keep calling in with your questions, and we'll keep praying for you, if that's alright, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, just one quick question, do you have any book that translates to Hebrew? I have The Real Kosher Jesus has been translated into Hebrew, and volume two of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, where I deal with a lot of the subjects, the nature of God, the nature of atonement, things like that, that's translated into Hebrew, so if you, if we exchange that email information, if you tell us, if you email or tell us how to get you the books, we're happy to do it. But yeah, The Real Kosher Jesus has been translated into Hebrew, and tell you what, because I have your email information, right, you gave it to us once, so I have it, we didn't give it out to anybody except my one friend, as per your agreement, I will, I will email you personally, how's that? Alright, I'm normally not able to do this, I will email you personally, yeah, okay, that would be an absolute joy, okay, so I will personally reach out to you, Yonatan, and then you can tell me how we can get the books to you, alright, so God bless, I've got to run, we're out of time, but thank you for the call, it's great talking to you.

It was, like always, it was a pleasure, and you know, last time you talked, you told, you said it, and consider me about Luqta, and Chavutah, and me too, and we don't have to agree to be a companion in, in, in Shachar Atariah. Yes, absolutely, thank you, thank you so much, I'm honored to have the companionship, alright friends, let us pray for Yonatan, God has kept him, God has preserved him, that God would open his heart and mind and reveal Yeshua to him, oh, what a joy it will be, and my joy to, to reach out personally, okay, um, hey, I promised I was going to do this, so let me, let me just do this, uh, Italy's new leader says she is a strong supporter of Israel, considered far right, even fascist, by her opponents, yeah, by her opponents, Maloney, uh, equates herself with the Republican party in the US, and Likud in Israel, though Italy's likely, this is, uh, from allisrael.com, great site to go to, though Italy's next likely prime minister has been scrutinized for her right-wing politics, Georgia Maloney is a strong supporter of Israel, and, despite her party being labeled by some as fascist, her victory does not worry the local Jewish community. Uh, last year, Maloney praised Israel at the Jerusalem prayer breakfast event in Rome, in which another prominent politician called on Italy to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, now wouldn't that be wild? Wouldn't that be wild if Italy went ahead and did that? Whoa, that'd be big.

That'd be very big for Europe. Alright, friends, a little over 15 minutes from now, a little over 15 minutes, we'll be back on YouTube, Ask Dr. Brown, Ask Dr. Brown on YouTube, the Ask Dr. Brown station, we'll continue with Q&A there, and, once more, my appeal, please pray for Yonatan, that God will open his heart and mind, he's calling, he's interacting, and says, yeah, we can be partners in dialogue, even in the midst of our disagreement, so may the Lord open his eyes, and every other Jewish person listening, watching, may God reveal his son to you. Another program powered by the Truth Network.