Mini Episode #24: The Apologetics Series - Judaism (Special Guest: Aaron Abramson)

Here is Mini Episode #24 — Let’s Talk About Judaism! Featuring special guest… Aaron Abramson!

What do Jewish people actually believe about the Messiah… and where does Jesus fit into that conversation?

In this episode, we sit down with Aaron from Jews for Jesus to unpack the heart behind Judaism, the role of Scripture, and why the question of Jesus (Yeshua) is so important. This is an honest, eye-opening conversation that helps us better understand both the faith and how to lovingly share the truth.

If you’ve ever wanted to grow in apologetics, deepen your understanding, and have more meaningful conversations—this one is for 

How you can pray: Pray for Aaron and the Jews for Jesus team—for safety over their ministry, strength in the spiritual battles they face, and boldness as they share the gospel. Pray that hearts would be open to truth, for protection over their staff (especially in light of current events), and for restoration and recovery of their damaged ministry center.

Want to go deeper after today’s episode?

 Check out Jews for Jesus at jewsforjesus.org where you’ll find powerful resources, videos, and articles to equip you in your faith and understanding. You can also connect with communities around the world and even get involved in events and outreach.

Be sure to check out Aaron’s book Mission Design (under their resources section), along with other great reads to help you grow in your walk with Jesus.

Also check out their YouTube channel “So Be It!”—a video project sharing real, authentic conversations with Jewish people around the world, powerful testimonies of lives transformed by Jesus (Yeshua), and what it looks like to live out faith in Him today.

Check out their YouTube page here: https://youtube.com/@sobeit32ad?si=DSeRC5odz3qey0AW 

Want to partner with what God is doing? You can support and donate through their website as well.

Tune in now and be encouraged, equipped, and challenged in your faith! 

Coming up next week… 

We’re continuing our apologetics series as we dive into Universalism—what it is, how it differs from biblical Christianity, and how to have meaningful conversations with those who hold this worldview.

More special guests are coming your way as this series continues! 

And later this month…

Episode #11 drops on Leadership featuring a special guest for April! No matter who you are, this episode will equip and encourage you to grow as a strong leader in life—and for Jesus! 

Stay tuned… you won’t want to miss what’s ahead! 

"Let's Talk About It" is a podcast for young adults navigating real life and real faith. From doubts and church hurt to purpose, relationships, identity, and even financial advice - we dive into the conversations most people avoid but everyone's thinking about. No fluff, no filters - just honest talk to help you follow Jesus in today's world. Enjoy monthly episodes featuring powerful insights from Christian young adult leaders and voices shaping today's faith culture.

Hosted by Elizabeth Peck.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hey everyone, welcome back to Let's Talk About It. I am so excited about this mini episode. If you're new here, this is our apologetic series where we are diving in and we are learning more about world religions, world beliefs, and how we as believers of Jesus Christ can spread the gospel and just love and point people to Jesus. And today I have a super special guest with me today. I'm really excited about this guest, Aaron Abramson. Aaron is the international CEO of Jews for Jesus, where he has served for over two decades in global ministry and leadership. He was raised in a Jewish family and spent years wrestling with questions about God, faith, and truth. His journey eventually led him to read the New Testament, where he became to believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah. That personal transformation did not just change his life, it sparked a deep passion in him to see Jewish people come to know Jesus for themselves. Today, Aaron is committed to equipping others, building bridges for meaningful conversations, and helping people better understand Judaism, the Jewish roots of Christianity, and how the gospel connects to both. He brings so much wisdom, and I'm really excited for you all to hear his heart and perspective as we dive into today's topic. Thank you, Aaron, for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Thank you, Elizabeth, for having me today. I'm glad to be with you and uh love the opportunity to uh to be able to share a little bit more about uh the Jewish community and Jews for Jesus and all that kind of stuff. So thanks for uh doing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Oh, my pleasure. Such an honor to have you on. I would like to start off, uh, Erin, by asking you if you could share your faith journey with everyone, what your life and faith looked like before Jesus, and what ultimately led you to follow Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, so um I grew up in the United States originally. Both my parents are U.S. born, and uh we were in many ways typical of Jewish communities around the country, in that um I was from an intermarried family. Like my mother had grown up Catholic, my dad had grown up Jewish, my mother later on would convert to Judaism so that we kids could be considered Jewish because Jewishness comes through the mother, technically through Orthodox Judaism and uh the historical kind of um understanding of who would be considered Jewish. And that's why she wanted to do that. And so we grew up um observing a little bit of different things. You know, we we had some of that influence around some of the Christian holidays growing up in America, that we didn't really have like all of it set up every time, like a tree and decorations and all that. But so we would do Hanukkah, we would do Christmas a little bit, we'd do, you know, Easter, we do uh Passover, all that kind of stuff. And so throughout the year, it was pretty full, honestly. Um, it wasn't strange to me that we had this um kind of integrated faith journey, although I wouldn't say faith was really a word I would have used back then. It would have just been like tradition. Um you know, we didn't, I wouldn't say we were uh at least initially very um faith-oriented people. It was more just kind of what you do throughout the year. But at some point, my parents got interested in different things. They were sort of hippies and got into various things over the years. And one of the things they started to get into was messianic Judaism. They thought it'd be really interesting just blending the two because of the background, right? And they wanted me to have a bar mitzvah, things like that. And for those who don't know, a bar mitzvah is when you uh take on the the sort of uh the responsibilities of being a man or an adult. And if you have a bar mitzvah, that would be for women, and it's typically around the ages of 12 or 13. And my bar mitzvah uh was one where we invited Jewish family members, we invited people from the messianic community, invited friends from up the street. It was just a way to kind of celebrate uh taking on those responsibilities. But I read from the Hebrew scriptures, and I remember having to learn what you they have a Torah portion and a haf Torah portion. Those are ones from the Torah, the five books of Moses, and then you've got some that are from the prophets. And so my passage from the prophets was from Isaiah chapter one, and it's all about sort of the state of Israel being mired in sin. And it sort of at one point says, though your sins are as scarlet, they will be made as white as snow, that they, you know, that that forgiveness will completely wash away all that sin. And I didn't quite know what to make of that at that point in my life, but it was interesting that that thematically was something that was in my text that I read from and pondered at that time. And when I was 15, my parents, so my dad took a trip to Israel during that period, around that time, and came back feeling like maybe this is where we should live. And we were living in Seattle at this time. So imagine going from Seattle to Israel. It's just a big change. So we uh initially talked about going for three months. I remember this. I was 15 years old. And if you immigrate somewhere, it's it's not easy. You you kind of go to the bottom of the you know, the pile in a sense. Then my parents moved there, and so as a teenager, you know, you're you're awkward anyway. You know, you're you're trying to, and so I'm like trying to explore what does it mean to be Jewish, what does it mean to be Israeli, um, and learning Hebrew and all that kind of stuff. And suddenly I'm immersed in all these Jewish holidays and festivals and all that, learning language. And then I at 17 had this opportunity to go to a yeshiva. Now I'd been a year at Bari Lan University, I did something uh, it's called a preparatory program, which is you learn different things about Israel and government, modern Hebrew and all sorts of things. And then I went into this year of yeshiva, which is like a Jewish seminary. It's where you go to become a rabbi. And I'm there, completely orthodox in Jerusalem. We're studying from maybe 7 a.m. until like 10 p.m. every day. Except for like one day, maybe a week in Shabbat when you rest. But even Shabbat, you're you're discussing and reading from the scriptures. So it was immersive, and and I had all these questions like, what is what does God want from me? Like, does he actually care that I do all these different things? Right? Like there's certain things you can and cannot do on the Sabbath. So for example, you can't tear on the Sabbath. So in advance of Sabbath, people might tear toilet paper because you don't want to tear it. See, this is the level of depth that it can get into. And I remember just thinking, like, what does God really care about? Like, is that what God wants? And so I kind of had these questions around what's the point? Like, what it what is it all pointing to, and what is it for? And what does God really want us to do the most? What are the most important of the commandments? And the other question I had is what about everyone else? Like, we're small people, you know, there's maybe 15 to 20 million, depending on how you count them, Jewish people around the world. Eight billion people. I mean, that's a tiny number. So I had that question for the rabbis, and they were sort of like, yeah, you just worry about what you need to do as a Jew. And uh that didn't satisfy me. So um, probably after that year, I found myself moving away from identifying as an Orthodox Jew and becoming more and more secular. And uh I ended up being drafted into the military in Israel. I served for three years. Men typically serve three years, and um, it's compulsory for all men to serve in different capacities. Um, and uh during that time, we were actually in there was an area in southern Lebanon, kind of like when you read about what's going on with Hezbollah, like up north. So groups would come up north and they would try and infilter it in. So we would have to go in to try to kind of maintain security in that region. And it was definitely a traumatic experience. You know, I'd been in Israel like maybe two and a half years, and then suddenly at 18 years old, I'm out there and I'm in southern Lebanon, I'm in the West Bank, I'm in places like that. And I became more and more, in a sense, disillusioned. And then what happened was one of my close friends from the yeshiva was kidnapped, and then he was tortured and killed by Hamas terrorists during this time. Um, and I remember just thinking, is there any hope? You know, is there any hope at all? And so, for a person who's pretty hopeless, you know, what do you turn to? Maybe you drink more, you know, on the weekends, maybe you party, and you know, it's almost like hedonism, materialism. What other ism can I find that'll just kind of get me out of this? And so one of those things was escapism. And I thought, I'm gonna get out of Israel after this. In fact, I even thought maybe I can finish my military service sooner, but that wasn't possible. I had to finish my three years. So I finished my three years, saved up enough money to leave, and I left and I came to America. And when I was in America, I just thought, yeah, it's gonna be amazing. I'm gonna figure it out, you know, I'm gonna travel around. And, you know, it's gonna, it's just, it's, it's so great. I had like all these memories of America being amazing, you know. And suddenly I come back, and America felt dysfunctional. People weren't as warm. It was harder to meet people. If it was hard to get work, it was there were so many things that I just thought, I don't know, this is tough. But more and more I just felt a lack of satisfaction. Like, what is what is my purpose being here? Am I just drifting around? Am I gonna get an education and a job and that'll be it? Like, maybe I get married, maybe like what is my purpose? And I started coming back to some of those questions about God. And around this time, somebody gave me a New Testament. And uh I remember, or they challenged me to read it too. They said, Aaron, I think you're gonna find the answers here. And they said it's literally a matter of life and death. I remember that like life or death comment.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, and it was like, it was kind of like, what do you mean? I was like, I just just you should just read it. And so I uh started to read the New Testament. And as I read through the New Testament, I found myself drawn to Jesus. There's no other way to explain it, you know. I was drawn to Jesus, and I kept reading through Matthew and I read through all the gospels, and I just knew deep down that this is true. Like I don't need to even go to the Hebrew scriptures to prove it. I have enough knowledge to understand that if the Messiah came, this would be the kind of Messiah that will come. Number one, he when he's asked what's the sort of central point or the main, the most important of the commandments, he says, Well, it's about loving the Lord your God with all your heart. It's about your heart. It's about loving God, and it's about loving your neighbor. And I just thought, I never thought about it as a heart thing. She felt like a do-it-yo, we just do stuff. And to like say that you actually love God, I was like, how does that work? And I wanted to know more about that. And I felt like Jesus was pointing to how to do that. And then secondly, the idea of what about all the other people in the world? It's like you get to John and it's like, for God so love not just the Jewish people, God so loved the world. And that included non-Jews as well. And to me, that inclusiveness of the gospel was it it resonated. It just felt right. So I started to pray. I'm like, God, I don't know how to do this. If you want me to follow you, I have no idea where to start. You know, I mean, literally, if you saw me at that time, you would sort of go, okay, this is this is this person that's not fit into a church, you know, and I didn't know where to go. And anyway, I came back to Israel during this time when I'm having all these thoughts and praying and stuff, and I remember asking the Lord where I should go first, um, and not knowing what to do about it. And the first church I went to was a church run by a pastor named Isam Hussein, who was uh uh from an Arab background, and he'd become a believer in Jesus radically, and his church was full of former Muslims. And it was just kind of like, okay, if this is real, Jesus is the Messiah and he reconciles, you know, love loving your neighbor as yourself, then maybe this is the kind of thing I'll see. And so I went in there and I remember just feeling welcomed. I remember feeling that he cared about me and didn't see me as, you know, you're this other thing. But no, you're welcome here. Um there are still disagreements and things that we might have not all seen eye to eye on, but it was something that really bore testimony to the reconciling power of the gospel. So I got really excited about Jesus and what to do about it. And I started to try to share my faith on the streets of Jerusalem on a regular basis. And if you've ever gone there, it's it's even more intense back then than it is today. Uh but it was so hard and I didn't know what to do, and I wasn't trained. And fortunately for me, God brought along these other people from Jews for Jesus, and they kind of took me under their wing a little and said, Hey, why don't you get some training? Why don't you come volunteer with us? Why don't you do things like that? And so that's how I got involved with the organization um in the late 90s. So it's been a while, and that's been my journey.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Oh my word. Thank you for sharing that. Uh, that just makes me realize that the gospel is for everyone. And I love how you talked about like um just people all over the world. Um, you know, the Bible says when we seek him, we'll find him. And that's just such a powerful testimony. And I just know that is gonna just impact so many people to hear that. And Aaron, for listeners and viewers who may not be familiar, would you briefly explain what Judaism is and what Jewish people believe today?

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Yeah, so I'll try and do this brief. Uh, what is a Jew? It's a very challenging topic. Um, and you might think it's easier than it is to describe, but the reason it's complicated is because there's an ethnicity, like in other words, the DNA of a person who's born Jewish. Um, and like I said before, if your mother was Jewish or in in the Bible, you even see what's patrilineal descent or through the father, so you matrilineal, patrilineal, but the idea that your parents are Jewish, so you carry that on. And that you can't get away from, right? There's there's no unmaking yourself Jewish. It's just part of your part of your background. You can't really do anything. Now, you can also convert to become Jewish, and the way that you would do that is accepting the faith, the Jewish faith. Now, that's another way that we define Jewishness. So when you define faith and you say, well, what is Judaism, right? That's where you can't just say there's one form of Judaism. There's multiple different strains or strands of Judaism, um, kind of like um Christianity. You know, you've got different denominations of Christianity. So similarly, uh it ranges from very, very ultra-orthodox Jewish uh groups, which there's a lot of diversity even within that. But they would typically um take very literally the writings of the scriptures, they would take the writings of the rabbis also, because they believe in not just a written Torah or written law that was given on Mount Sinai, but they also believe in something called the oral Torah, the the Tawashabalpeh, in Hebrew it's called, which means the Torah that was given verbally by, you know. And the idea is it instructs us in how to keep the Torah, but it's essentially the traditions of the rabbis over the years. And those traditions were codified eventually in the Mishnah, which is uh over a hundred years before Jesus, there is this writing called the Mishnah, but then after Jesus, there was the writings of the Talmud, which essentially take that even further. And these discuss all sorts of things, like what does it mean to keep kosher? And how do we live, you know, those commandments out in the Bible that we read about? And what do we do without a temple? Because the temple, of course, was destroyed. And, you know, so Judaism becomes a little bit more deconstructed and reconstructed, right, around those things. Um, so within Judaism, you've got also, so you've got ultra-orthodox, they'd be the most, you know, typically you'll see them with the black hats and the black coats and the long beards, and they're going to take things very, very um literally in the scriptures. Then as you go through, you've got different denominations. You've got Jews that are um in the US, they would call them conservative Jews, which are sort of in the middle. And you've got reformed Jews, which are kind of the most, I suppose, uh, for lack of a better term, like liberal in terms of how they observe and keep things, they're going to be a little bit less um adherent to the letter of the scripture. In fact, some of them are so open with that, that you can you can find rabbis that are LGBTQ, you can find uh ones that don't believe in God, they kind of believe in sort of a uh, you know, almost a new age concept of God, you know, uh an afterlife, all those kinds of ideas. So it really runs the gamut in terms of what they believe, how familiar they are with the scriptures. However, they would all be very proud of the fact that they were born Jewish, or as I said before, you can convert to Judaism if you go through all the teachings and you were to meet with a rabbi and they walk you through that process. And um, so there's a few different ways uh to do it. And basically, I think that reformed Judaism in America is the largest. Um, you've also got just a lot of Jews who identify as Jewish, but that's it. There's no religious expression. Maybe they do something like, you know, a Passover occasionally or light the candles in Hanukkah, but they're not going to synagogue. They're not part of their local, you know, Jewish community in that sort of way. So that, you know, that's the largest uh Orthodox is a fastest growing. It's still small. It might represent maybe 10 or 12% of the world population of Jewish people, but it's growing really quickly because they tend to have a lot more kids. And they, you know, they obviously uh are going to reproduce a lot faster than uh intermarried Jews or conservative Jews. Intermarried Jewish people is an interesting category here because you've got Jewish people like myself that might not be considered traditionally Jewish because of my beliefs. Sometimes they would say, Well, you've accepted another monotheistic belief. So we don't really see you as part of the Jewish community. They might say, I'm still Jewish. You can't really get away from that. They wouldn't see me as representing the Jewish community, which, you know, of course, that's the last category is, you know, messianic Judaism that I want to mention, because I think that there are an increasing number of Jewish people that believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And they are very, very glad to continue to identify as Jews and feel that it integrates naturally into their faith in the New Testament.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Yeah. Oh, that is so interesting. It's so fascinating. Thank you for explaining all of that. Sure. Yeah. And how do Jewish people typically understand their relationship with God and the covenant with Israel?

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Yeah. So again, there's some like there's some spectrum within that. You have ultra-Orthodox Jews, for example, that believe that the land of Israel is God-given, but they would believe that the restoration of Israel to the land needs to happen by the Messiah. So they don't really believe, for example, or support necessarily the idea of a secular Israeli state. Because Israel is largely secular. I mean, it's it's based on democratic kind of secular values. It's not, there is an Orthodox contingency in the in the government. You've got all of that. You even have um Arabs that are part of the Israeli government and parliament. It's called the Knesset. So a lot of people don't realize that almost two million or over around two million Arab Israelis are part of the nation of Israel. So it's kind of like a there's a breadth when it comes to Israel. But you do have groups, like I said, those ultra orthodox groups, and you've got other Groups that are very, very like progressive Jews that would be very against, for example, some of the political ideologies and things. Um, they would be post-Zionists or anti-Zionists or whatever they want to call themselves. Um, but I would say those are kind of on two more of the ends of the spectrum. And you've got a lot of people here which kind of feel that the land of Israel is incredibly important based on history. You know, the Jewish people during the Second World War didn't have anywhere to go. And so um, throughout history, the majority of the waves of Jews that have moved to Israel have moved there because things in their home countries became so untenable that they had to run. And so you've got Jews from Yemen, Jews from Morocco, Jews from uh Egypt, Jews from um, you know, Syria, you've got Jews from Iraq, um, you've got Iranian Jews, you've got Jews from uh the former Soviet Union where anti-Semitism became bad. You got Jews from Poland and Germany from the 1930s that were running away. So Israel is largely, they they either went to like America or they came to Israel. Those were the two major destinations where Jews ran. So Jews in America have celebrated a relatively low compared to some of the Jews that grew up, like my grandmother, who grew up, all her family came from Eastern Europe, and it was horrible to be there back in those days. Um, Jews in America have had a relatively peaceful experience living side by side with non-Jews and have found a way to navigate that. Jews in Israel, on the other hand, have felt they've had to defend themselves in their homeland for the last 48 years. And prior to that, if they didn't have a homeland, they were being persecuted. So there is a sense that they feel a significance and an importance and a necessity of the current modern state of Israel.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Wow. Oh my goodness, that is just, yeah, so interesting. And uh, what are some of the biggest differences between Judaism and biblical Christianity?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah, so um, like I said before, if let's just say more like traditional Orthodox Judaism, okay? Traditional Orthodox Judaism would believe in an afterlife. Um that's talked about in the book of Daniel. Uh, exactly what that is and how they describe that is a little different than we would talk about it. It's not emphasized, it's not something that's discussed all the time, but the idea of what's called tsukumata matim, which is the resurrection of the dead, is an idea that exists in Judaism. Um, the idea of original sin, that you know, the fall of man and sin entering into the world is not what happened according to Orthodox Judaism. They believe in something called Yetzer Hara, which means the bad inclination. And in a sense, all humans have the good inclination and the bad inclination, which it's almost like you can be pulled in either direction, but you're a little bit more neutral. Whereas Christians would feel that sin has tainted the world and the idea of the Messiah coming and dying, you know, for the sins of mankind, it was also sort of dealing with our sin nature, not just aspects of sin or behaviors. So all of that is kind of a little bit obviously, like I said, is different. Um, their understanding of Messiah is different as well. So there's a concept, this is very interesting, of what's called Messiah, son of David, and Messiah, son of Joseph. Okay. And it's not Joseph like Jesus' father, Joseph. It's a different, it's like Joseph in the Yosef in the Bible. But you see Messiah, son of David, the idea of the Davidic king, right? The idea of the one that's sitting on the throne, the one that's executing judgment and all of that sort of stuff. So when rabbis talk about the Messiah, we often think in terms of the Messianic kingdom, you know, when he's on earth, justice, wars will end, all these things, which we read about. But we also read about the idea of a messiah that would suffer, the idea of a messiah that would ride into Jerusalem lowly on a donkey, the idea of a messiah that would um suffer on behalf of his people, even. Um, that idea also exists within Judaism. So, in a sense, there's almost this concept that maybe there's two, right? And so obviously, as Christians or people who follow Jesus, we would believe that there is only one, but that the first time he comes, he's coming as a suffering servant. And the second time, because we know that he's returning, he is the returning king. And the idea of him coming in power is a concept that we read about in the New Testament as well. So that is different on that front. Um, they also wouldn't believe that the Messiah is divine. Although, if you were to go way back to the first century, some of those ideas could be found within Jewish literature. But today, you have to also understand there's been a lot of reacting over the years. Christianity to Judaism and Judaism to Christianity. So think about it this way: why doesn't Christianity have some of these more Jewish elements in it anymore? You know, maybe like Passover, or maybe the idea of uh, you know, eating certain things and not eating other things, things like that. Some of those traditions, maybe early on, uh, or even Jews not keeping those, you know, keeping customs and doing things, those traditions early on were normative. But as time went on, there started to be reactions, right? Where like, hey, Christianity defines itself against Judaism, and Judaism defines itself against Christianity. And so what happens is they start to react to each other. And so some of the things that were interpreted one way later on start to get reinterpreted in different ways. So maybe they said, hey, this text was originally a messianic text, and then later on they say, Oh, it's not anymore. You know, things like that. You also see within Christianity, it's almost like de-emphasized the Jewishness of Jesus, of the disciples, of the traditions, which is pretty funny if you think. I mean, funny, it's kind of sad if you think about how much we're missing, because you know, when I when I pull this up, this is a Tanakh in Hebrew. This is my Tanakh. This is, let's not forget, this whole story has to do with Jews. Right. It's not like to be confused. It's a Jewish story. It's not that it doesn't apply to uh, but today we almost go, oh no, no, that all points to the church now. And it's like, hang on a minute. There was a people that are still around today that God established, you know, a relationship with. And through them, bless the world. So what does that mean? So I think sometimes we sort of de, we we make this, we sort of make it not Jewish anymore. And we make the New Testament not Jewish, but they're thoroughly Jewish books.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah. I I totally agree with you on that. And one thing I remember I went to college at Liberty University, and yeah, and we had these wonderful prayer groups, and I remember I love learning about the Jewish traditions and things like that. I think it's called the Feast of Purim. Um, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I loved that. We like my prayer group leader, just um did talked about it, went into the history of it, and that was one of like my favorite memories of learning that. So I totally agree with what you said. It is real people. Uh, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and it's just, yeah, it's so neat to learn about. Totally. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Well, and Purim, just just to comment on that, Purim just happened on the Jewish calendar not that long ago. And it was crazy because it has to do with um the Persian kind of back in those days, a Persian kind of leader that's trying to eradicate the Jewish people, which is Iran, modern-day Iran. So it was kind of like weird because all this was happening during the war right now with Iran. And it was just so strange to see how this kind of correlated and connected with the book of Esther.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yes, yeah. I love the book of Esther. Oh my goodness, such a beautiful book. Yeah. Yeah. How is sin and forgiveness understood in Judaism, especially since the temple sacrifices are no longer practiced?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah, so that's a that's a a complicated one. So um, so there is no real assurance that your sins are completely forgiven. Um the idea of of forgiveness in the Tanakh, of course, is connected, very connected to the practices in the temple and to the offerings and to those different things. Um there's an element of a contrite heart, there's an and those things still, of course, exist. But it never says in the Bible, by the way, do a bunch of good deeds, and those are gonna like those are gonna sort of undo your bad deeds. It literally says, like I think it's in Isaiah, it says, those good deeds are like filthy rags before the Lord. So it's like there's nothing that we're gonna be able to do that's gonna be so amazing that we're gonna undo all the sins we've done. So that's why the idea of the scapegoat or the substitutionary sacrifice was something embedded within the Jewish practice. It was like, hey, there's something outside of yourself that God's provided. I mean, it goes right back to the story of Isaac and and Jay and Abraham and Isaac when he's offering Isaac, you know, the Lord says, offer your son, your only son. And then, of course, right when he's about to do it, he says, I see that you are, you know, somebody who is has faith that you could even, that God can even raise his son from the dead. So essentially what he does is then says, Go get that ram in the thicket over there, right? So, right from the outset, God is providing a substitute. Like we see that all the way through the scriptures. And I think the idea of that is hard to get away from, but the temples destroyed, the altars destroyed, all those sacrifices that we used to offer have stopped, they've stopped being offered. So now you have a quandary. Well, what do you do? Now, this wasn't the first time Israel experienced a quandary. I mean, Israel, there were different times when they weren't in Israel, right? Like there were times, like, for example, the Babylonian exile when Israel was not in the country. So the idea was like when they go back to the country and they establish the temple, then they can kind of almost play catch up for the years that they didn't offer. So there's kind of an idea within some Jewish circles that at one point we're going to re-establish a temple and things will get sort of worked out when that happens, retroactively, kind of, you know, is the idea. But in the meantime, prayer, a contrite heart, you know, asking God for forgiveness, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, you fast. So you're afflicting your soul, it says in the scriptures. So they do those things. Um, but it is there's a missing component there. And so what they would say is, well, that's how we have our sins forgiven, and we hope that they're forgiven, and we know that ultimately at some point things are going to change, but right now this is the way it is. Now, if you go to a more kind of progressive, like reformed Jewish synagogue, they're not really thinking that way. They're just like, hey, be a good person. Wow. The idea that they might celebrate Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement, things like that. I'm not saying they don't. They would have occasions, holidays, things like that, special days, but they don't have the same weight of, oh my goodness, I'm, you know, like the the sinner. Lord, forgive me if I'm, you know, you know. So in a sense, it's it's different. It's more of a almost more of a secular humanist worldview.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Right. Well, thank you for explaining that. And it just it um it makes me think of the image when uh that veil was torn in two. Like, you know, now we can, as believers, go right directly and access God at his heavenly throne anytime, anywhere, and all of our sins, uh, he forgives us. The Bible says that. So what advice, Aaron, would you give to someone who feels unsure about sharing their faith in Jesus with Jewish friends?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

So the idea that um a Jewish person doesn't need Jesus and they have their own way is just not biblical. Um the idea, even throughout Paul's writings, we see in Romans, Paul ultimately says, you know, don't misunderstand um that the partial hardening of Israel, in other words, they were not receptive to Jesus. Many of them did not receive him. Some of them did. We see in the first century there's a whole community of Jewish followers of Jesus, but not all of them did. And so he says that partial hardening ultimately will lead to the gospel going out to the nations, right? That's where the gospel then goes out. God understood that that needed to happen, but he says, you know, don't be misunderstanding that, that ultimately Israel will be saved. Now, I think what he's saying is there's going to be his hope, his eschatological hope is that ultimately God is going to restore Israel spiritually, not just physically, but spiritually. And we haven't seen that happen at a scale yet that I think we read about in the scriptures. That's my personal conviction. So I'm still holding out for revival among the Jewish people and praying for that. So if a person's saying, well, it's hard, you know, I don't know how to do it, you're right. It is hard. Reaching Jewish people is is very challenging at times. But I will say this the idea that you have to be Jewish to reach Jewish people's not correct. Most Jewish people come to faith through a non-Jew. And I would encourage you um to not hesitate in the opportunities that you have if you do know somebody that's Jewish. And I can give a few pointers on how to do that. But um I would say God can use your story and your testimony in some ways even easier than he can use mine. And I'll tell you why, because I'm kind of like the guy that in some ways sometimes they see me like a traitor. Like, how could you become that? You know, and so they have some some real initial hangups with it. Not everybody, but some. For somebody that was raised Christian or believes in Jesus, they kind of assume you were born Christian. Uh you're born Jewish, you're born Christian, right? They don't really distinguish in the way that you know we might. So um they don't have any hostility toward it. Now, if you try to be pushy about it, of course, then there are going to be sensitivities. And some people more than others might be kind of concerned about that. But you'd be surprised. Um, Jewish people can be very direct, and so it's not always the worst thing to be direct. Um, and I always just challenge people to pray for them, pray for Jewish people, uh, ask that God would give you opportunities, ask questions. I think one of the secret weapons of evangelism is just asking good questions.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Amen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

You know, and I think sometimes people think it's all about saying the right thing. Sometimes it's just sort of seeing where somebody's coming from and then sharing your conviction about that and asking a question. And so you can ask Jewish people, hey, it's Passover's coming up. I read about it, and then they just in the New Testament. I'm just curious, do you do you still observe it? Or uh, you know, what are your what are your memories of it growing up? I'd love to understand a little more. Um, asking questions is a great way to get to know somebody.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

It's a great way to understand what's going on with them. Um and they might ask you a question back and then it gives you an open door, right? Yeah. You know, they might say, Well, why do you believe that? And it gives you an opportunity to frame what you're saying. Try to do it in a way that doesn't use so much Christian jargon. Because a lot of times they don't really understand that stuff. Right. Right. You might even think the word like sin is obvious. A lot of people don't know what that even means exactly. Like chocolate could be sinful. Like, what exactly is it? You know, so when you say, you know, it's wronging one another or it's hurting others, or you know, those kinds of things, they, oh yeah, of course. Um, but we do have something on the juiceforjesus.org page. You can go to our website and we have some um resources that are free. One of those is um on something called the Juice for Jesus classroom. We have a short, I think it's like eight part or nine part, I can't remember how many parts, but it's a a little bit of like a video series that helps somebody kind of talk to Jewish people and think about who they are and that kind of stuff. Um and we have some pointers and other articles. So we do want to help people as they do that, but I believe God can use you powerfully. So don't underestimate your own abilities. Um, I've met Jewish people, lots of Jewish people that have come to faith uh through Christians, and I've just been amazed at how their testimony has just been so powerfully received.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

So oh, that's so wonderful. And I uh so agree with what you said about the power of asking questions is huge in evangelism. And how can Christians lovingly and respectfully point to the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Yeah, so you know, one of the things that I've brought up to people is how would you know who the Messiah? Okay, first of all, how do we know about the concept of Messiah? People say, well, it comes from the Hebrew scriptures, which is true. The idea that God, you know, would send a Messiah is something or an anointed one that he would come, and there are different things associated with that, is something that Jewish people have understood from the very beginning through the scriptures. So if it's found in the scriptures, how do we then read the scriptures in such a way that we're they're pointing to Messiah? Now, I think that when you talk to Jewish people about these texts, there's going to be disagreement, right? They're going to interpret them often in different ways. So, you know, you might um pick like um a passage, like, for example, um maybe like Isaiah chapter 53, which is a popular one. Or um there's different texts in Isaiah that are that are really good, like Isaiah 7:14 or Isaiah 9, you know, there's different ones that you could touch on. They might now say, well, no, that's pointing to Israel. But the idea of a suffering servant is something that you see is painted in a way that looks like an individual. And it really paints the picture of an individual who would take the sins of mankind on himself. And so the the rabbis understand that the Messiah would be from the line of Judah. They understand it'd be from the tribe, you know, from the land of the city of Bethlehem, that he'd be from um, you know, that he come into Jerusalem in a certain way, that he would, you know, there's all these different things that point to the Messiah and who he would be and what he would do. And so um going through those can be very informative to a person who doesn't know them. In fact, it can be really mind-blowing. I'll give you one example. I sat down with a guy who teaches the Hebrew text. He used to teach, uh, he's an Israeli guy who moved to New York. He used to teach the Hebrew text. His name was Ariel. And Ariel would basically um sit with me to study the Bible. He was an older man and uh ask, we'd talk, and he understood the scriptures very well. One point we looked at Isaiah 53 and he just went, he just started laughing. And so, why are you laughing? He goes, because this is clearly talking about the guy you keep telling me about. I said, Really? He said, I gotta look at the commentary and see what they say. So he pulls down this commentary of, you know, it's like an Israeli rabbinic commentary. And he looks at it, he looks at what they say, and he goes, I disagree with what they're saying. I think that his pointing to Jesus is so obvious. This is what he's saying. And I'm laughing, and he's laughing. And I say, Well, what does that mean for you? And he goes, What are you gonna do? I said, Well, you could follow him if he isn't a Messiah. He goes, My father would never let me. And my father passed away and made me promise him that I would never uh become a Christian. And I said, What if I told you that you're staying Jewish, but you're following your Jewish Messiah? And he went, Well, so that's an example of sitting down and unpacking the scriptures. And there's a book that actually David Brickner, our former executive director and CEO, wrote. And uh, it's a book that Is all about the messianic prophecies. And uh it highlights, I think, 12 key messianic prophecies in the scripture. And uh I'm trying to think if I have the uh the the URL for that. It actually you can find it in the store. It's like yeah, store.juiceforjesus.org. I think you go there, and the book is called Does the Jewish Bible Point to Jesus by David Brickner. It's yeah, so it's in the Jews for Jesus store. Um and so you just store dot Jewsfor Jesus, all one word dot org, and you can find it there. It unpacks 12 key messianic prophecies that you can use not just in sharing with Jewish people, but in understanding your own faith and why the Bible really does point to Jesus. Um, there's another book that is written by a guy named Avi Snyder. I'm just seeing it on here. It's called Jews Don't Need Jesus and Other Misconceptions. And uh he kind of highlights how the scriptures really point to the purpose of a Jewish person being called to be light to the nations and all that. And so when you lead them to faith, they're fulfilling their destiny and you know, so oh my word, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

And I will we will put all that in our notes here as well. Great. Um, I definitely want to pick that up because that's what separates Christianity from all these other world religions, is we have a messiah that even before he was born, just how they were predicting and how he fulfilled all those prophecies is just beautiful. Can you tell us more about the mission of Jews for Jesus and what your work looks like day to day?

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Yeah, so Jews for Jesus is um it's an organization. It's uh it's also a group of people. Sometimes people say, Well, I'm a Jew for Jesus, and you can use that term, but it's also an organization. It's our the name of our organization. And uh we are a group of Jewish people who have discovered the Jewish Messiah, and we want our people to be able to hear about that, and we want to kind of advocate or create a compelling gospel message for them. And so we share the gospel with them in all sorts of different countries around the world, or in many places where there's um largely dense, densely populated Jewish communities, and we have a website and we have live chat, social media, and all sorts of different things. Um, and our goal is to sit down with Jewish seekers and just unpack what the scriptures say, just like we were doing, talking about before, and kind of does it point to Jesus? And if he is the Messiah, then as Jewish people, first and foremost, this applies to us. Like he came to his own, right? He came to the lost sheep of Israel, is what we read. And we ultimately want our Jewish people to hear that. And most of them have not. And so we make it our all our business to get out there, to talk to Jewish people about Jesus and to walk with those who do want to follow him and really disciple them and get them plugged into churches because many of them have never been stepped foot into a church, and they're like, why would I ever go there? And so we kind of help them understand maybe they should go to a messianic congregation near them, or if there's no messianic congregation, obviously there are churches near them. We want them to get fed and be in community. And we also help people in the church that are kind of grappling with some of these Jewish ideas and kind of how to share their faith with Jewish people. And uh, we believe that God can really work through uh Christians around the world to make a big difference. Uh, like I said, there's between 15 and 20 million Jewish people. We're about 275 uh people on the Jews for Jesus staff. So we're just a drop in the bucket of what God is doing globally. So we we love partnering with Christians of all sorts of different denominations and churches and organizations uh to see more Jewish people come to know their Messiah.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

With everything that's happening in Israel and the Middle East right now, how can Christians be praying?

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Well, let me tell you, um, I've said this to a number of our team members and to uh some of our partners out there. Uh I think it's in 1 Corinthians 16, if I'm not mistaken, where Paul says, uh a door of opportunity has been opened to me. Um, and he talks about praying. I think it's there, but I there's a couple places where he talks about the door of opportunity being open and uh you know to pray that uh there would be opportunities there. And I think that there's an opportunity right now. That Jewish people, because of what's been happening around the world with the global rise of anti-Semitism, um, people in Israel don't feel at rest. They feel like it's constantly in a state of you know, people that obviously don't want them there, and there's just attacks constantly and things going on like that, and there's obviously bombings that are still happening now for the citizens of Israel and things. So people are kind of going, where do we turn? Right? And so that I think has is created some spiritual openness, right? Um, some questioning. And so I challenge people right now. I think that Christians have a wide open door to meet with Jewish people, to connect with them, to say, hey, how you doing? I'd love to connect with you and just be able to hear a little bit more about your experience and you know, be able to pray for you. Most Jewish people um are very receptive to that. And and it's heartfelt. Like we went around Israel and during um when the when the um hostages were first taken after October 7th, we just went from person to person on the streets. And we have a channel called So Be It, and you it's on YouTube, and so you can kind of see like street videos with us just kind of man on the street, they're great videos. We just walk up to people and we're like, hey, I don't know if you knew this, but uh Christians around the world are praying for you, and they just like start crying. They're like, No, why? Why are they praying for us? And it's like, well, because they care about you, they do, you know. So people don't know that. And that is a huge opportunity that Christians, I think, have right now. Um Jewish people represent such a tiny minority in the world. I mean, that they're like a speck. I mean, literally, the the great, they're like one town in North, you know, in big, big city somewhere. I mean, there's more people in New Delhi than there are Jews, okay? India. There's cities around the world that have way more people than there are Jewish people, like double the amount. So the Jewish community is very small and they feel very marginalized right now. I mean, the whole world is kind of like, you know, you go on college campuses, you go to the streets of London, you can go, and you're gonna have people that are like, Israel doesn't have a right to be there, they shouldn't be there, you know, all that kind of stuff. And so there's a lot of people right now that just feel like, what place is there in the world for me right now?

SPEAKER_00 51:09

And how can our audience specifically pray for your ministry and for you personally?

SPEAKER_01 51:15

Yeah, thank you so much. Uh I I will never say to somebody, no, if they say, How can I be praying for you? I love that. Um, I believe that we are in a spiritual battle. I really do. I mean, um, anti-Semitism on paper doesn't even make sense. It's like, why don't people even care about this? You know, it's like a tiny little speck, you know, of people groups out there. But somehow they're always in the top of the news. They're always in, you know, everybody's always, you know, eyes fixed on that. And I think we're gonna continue to see that. And so I would ask for prayer that as the Ministry of Jews for Jesus goes out and does its work, and the partners, you know, that we're working with, and the people that are sharing the gospel, Jewish people, that God would open hearts, that they would have an incredible open door, that that opportunity of of openness that we talked about before, that they would experience that. And, you know, just see Jewish people that um their hearts are receptive and open. Because unless a person's heart is being, you know, softened by the Lord, it's all words. You know, the other thing I would encourage you guys to do is share the hope that you have with people. You know, hey, I believe that there's there's a bigger, higher power here, and God's in control of all of us. I think that's just like mind-boggling to people who just feel so hopeless. So those are some things that I think you could pray for us. Um, pray for protection, uh, because we are experiencing some physical attack. Pray for our teams in Israel. We have a lot of ministry staff in Israel right now, and they're running from bomb shelter to bomb shelter. Um, you know, and many, you know, our windows got blown out of our ministry center that's also a coffee shop. Um, we sort of use hospitality and coffee and art and things like that to bring people together. And the windows got blown out when a missile hit nearby. And, you know, so that stuff happens. They're sort of used to that landscape and the day-to-day, but it's fatiguing because you have to understand they'll launch missiles every half hour in the middle of the night sometimes. So the alarms go off. You get your kids down and the alarms go off. You know, most of the time they're in a bomb shelter, so they're safe, they feel safe, unless the bomb shelter takes a direct hit. You're usually um pretty safe if you're in the shelter, but it's just so fatiguing. So pray for that.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Yeah, definitely we'll be praying. Where can people stay connected with you and your ministry? And how can they get involved and support your ministry?

SPEAKER_01 53:47

Thank you. Yeah, so um, JewsforJesus.org is a really great place. Um, there's a few different things you can do. One, we have something called the upper room for people that want to be tuned into what God is doing in a more regular way, and you can find out more about that. Even if you go to our website, um, there's a little chat box, and you can just in the chat say, Hey, how do I get involved with this or that? And they can, there's people there that will literally direct um you to where you, you know, and help you find out. And if you leave a message, if there's no one there, it's the middle of the night or something, they'll they'll they'll help you find a way. But you can support Jews for Jesus on that website. Um, it's just JewsforJesus.org. Really easy to remember. Um, not to be confused with other groups that sometimes pop up in Google because they'll often steal our Google term, like Jews for Jesus, and then other groups will sometimes come up. But um, JewsforJesus.org is the name of our organization. And um, there's a social media page I was mentioned before called So Be It. So be it is is kind of fun. It's just we put out content, I'm on there, others are on there regularly. Um, you can if you sign up to things too, we do video updates, different things like that um to people who are tracking with us and kind of want to be aware we have a newsletter and different materials like that that keep people abreast as to what God is doing in Israel and around the world and help them to kind of know how better to share their faith with Jewish people.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Oh, that's awesome. And we'll have all of that information in our notes. And I just want to thank you so much, Aaron. We will be praying for you, your ministry, and thank you for what you're doing to just uh advance the gospel and just grow God's kingdom. We're so thankful for you. Thank you for joining.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

Well, thank you, Elizabeth, for doing this and for having uh featuring different groups like ours on here. I think it's great.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Oh, awesome. And thank you all for joining us and listening. We hope that you've enjoyed this conversation and we'll see you next time.