[soc.religion.christian] After Jesus, Are Jews practicing *real* Judaism?

jygabler@aggie.ucdavis.edu (Jason Gabler) (06/05/90)

	The answer to my 'subject' heading is: "YES!".  There are somethings
in the posting I am responding to that I wanted to clarify, and give a better
understanding, IMHO, of who the Jews are today inspite of their rejection of 
Jesus and who is practicing (abstractly said) "Judaism".


>In article <May.23.23.31.18.1990.17316@athos.rutgers.edu> emory!dragon!cms@gatech.edu writes:
>In a technical sense, we celebrate Passover every
>time we celebrate the Mass, albeit in a new way which is different from 
>the way those Jews who rejected Jesus continued to celebrate Passover
>after the Resurrection. 

No. Not at all.  Of course, the Passoever Seder does show MUCH about God's 
spiritual meaning in Christs life, death and resurrection, and  even many
of the factual occurrences in  His life and death.   However Passover is
also the story of the Jews.  It is mainly (that is over the story of the life
of Christ) the story of the Jews' hardship in Egypt and the Exodus and God's
faithfulness to them.

Mass and Communion represent none of those ideas (well, except for God's
faithfulness ;).  They no longer have anything to do with Judaism.

When ever I go home to my family, that is not a Chrsitian family, we have
Friday night Shabbat Kiddush.  We light the Shabbat candles.  We say the
blessing over the bread and the blessing over the wine.  It has to do with
thanking God for the goodness of his gifts of the earth.  You may say it is the
Jewish way of saying "grace".  This is very different than the promise of the
Messiah, or His return that is.

> Judaism became a different religion from ancient Judaism when it
>rejected Jesus.  Christianity continued the old religion by practicing the old
>religion in the new way according to the fulfillment of the prophecies.  This
>isn't a swipe at Judaism.  

	Actually Christianity is very different with many Gentile (non-Jewish,
at the the time of Jesus till let's say 1000AD, you could say 'pagan')
customs.  Even the time of Christmas is (IMHO) when it is because of the
pagan holiday of the new year (reaching of the winter solstice).
	Judaism, as described by God, has feasts to celbrate.  This is my main
point.  How may Gentile Christians (I hate to differentiate like that) do you
know who celebrate Succot (Feast of Booths), Rosh Hashanna (New Year),
Passover, Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement....I will explain the 'Chrsitian'
possibilities of celebrating this holiday in a bit), and other feasts that are
required by God.

-----BTW about Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement....

	Yom Kippur is the day to go to God and be forgiven of your sins through
repentence to you brothers and sister and then to God.
	In my Church back home (associated with ABMJ, now known as Chosen
People Ministries), we used this say for Communion.  We get our hearts right
with God.  The pastor then tells us is there is any strife between any present
that we ought to resolve it then.  And people actually get up in the middle of
the service and go to others that have sinned against.   We get our
relationships right  with the Body, and then we pray together, and then we have
Communion.

-------

	Also, Judaism is not only a religion.  It cannot be separated into such
concise parts of religion, 'race' & culture.  All three of those aspects are
intertwined.  I think one cannot know what it means to be a Jew unless you
understand the persecution, unless you understand the hatred for your people 
in the Holocaust.  Unless you can become a Christian, go home to your family,
and out of tradition and respect you go to synagogue and know that most likely
the everyone around you is spending eternity separated from God.
	With culture come tradition.  Although tradition is not mandatory, it
*is* Jewish.

	After the ent of the first century AD, Christinity rapidly began to
cease looking like Judaism, Jewish Christians - the sect of Judaism, and became
soley Christianity, a very un-jewish religion, with adopted pagan customs.


>. . .  What I'm trying to say is, many people say Christianity became a        
>different religion without noting that Judaism also became a different         
>religion; unfortunately, since modern Judaism retained the name Judaism,       
>people are often confused on this point.


	In a sense you are right.  The Jews did not accept Christ.  They did
not follow God.  But, they have not followed God from the beginning, have they
never been Jews?  Rediculous? Of course!
	You see, *God's plan changed*, Judiasm did not.  God's plan CHANGES the
theology of Jews to Christianity, but still leaves them culturally,
traditionally, and 'racially' as Jews.  (BTW, in actuality the theology did not 
change,  the Father had planned Christ's comming since the Fall)
	The early Christians, the Jewish sect, was extremely filled with Jewish
culture.  Major tradidion, like circumcision was abandoned, because it purpose
was no longer needed..hearts were now circumcised.  But this is because of the
change in theology.  But the feasts were still celebrated, by all, Gentile and
Jewish Christians.  The reason this died away was because the influence of Jews
on the CHristian community died away as a result of the Roman destruction of
Jewsih ssociety and the Diaspora (spredding out of the Jews all over the
world).

----

	This argument is applicable to any culture.
	This is why anyone from any culture/religion, is STILL a Muslim, a
Roman Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a (...), even though they accept Christ as
Lord and personal Saviour.
	Judaism is not 'just the name'.
	Personally, I have dealt with this subject many times, so I understand
your perspective ( also, I can understand in my learning to better understand
Roman Catholics, who they are as true believers ).  

	God allowed (made?) this world to be one of may differnt cultures and
peoples.  Is Christianity supposed to erase all that beauty?  I would hope not.
So much of it glorifies God in so many differnt ways.  And despite all that
diversity, don't you just feel God's presence and see his grace when you see
an Arab and an Jew worshipping together as Christians?




jase



Jason Gabler   UCD Computing Services, Data Communications Group  *cable grunt*
ccjason@castor.ucdavis.edu  jygabler@ucdavis.bitnet  dungeon-master@ucdavis.edu

[Actually I don't think it's historically accurate to say that
circumcision was abandoned because it wasn't needed.  After lots of
arguments, the Church decided to allow Gentiles to join.  Circumcision
did not apply to them because they were not under the covenant with
Moses.  For some time there were Jewish and Gentile Christians
coexisting.  Presumably Jewish Christians continued to circumcize
their children.  In effect circumcision was abandoned because the
Church agreed to admit Gentile, to whom circumcision had never
applied.  --clh]