Jewish man who has accepted Yeshua, has some questions

READER COMMENT:

Hello. I have recently become a messianic Jew. But I do not know where to fit in. Evangelical Christianity accepts me but tell me to reject my jewish roots. Rabbinic judaism - well, we won't go any further.

But what do I do? Can I still wear Kippot? Can I still wear tefillin and say shema? Can I still wear tzit-tzit? I just need a little guidance on these issues. What about clothing and not wearing certain materials together? Do these laws still stand today?

Yeshua was jewish and I never want to forget my jewish roots.

OUR RESPONSE:

Thanks for writing.  This "not fitting in" feeling is common, and will probably not go away.  Neither side will "understand" you for they are both in their respective "trenches", so-to-speak.

So what do you do?  Keep on obeying and demonstrating the Truth!

• YES, you can wear Kippot!  (Not a command, but “tradition”)
• YES, you can wear tefililn and say the Sh'ma!  (Exodus 13:1-10, 13:11-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:12-21)
• YES, you can wear tzitzit!  (It’s a command - Numbers 15:37-41)

You are a LIGHT! Be a LIGHT! If they are blinded by your light, then that is their problem!
The ENTIRE Bible teaches you to do exactly what you have come to see.  Just be gentle with your nay-sayers and move on...

To answer your question about clothing, there is a thorough explanation in our article.

As you surely know from reading Torah, YHWH laid down many Divine Rules - all of which were designed to set HIS people apart from the nations. ("His people" included all 12 Tribes AND the gerim who were standing at Mt. Sinai and had accepted Him as their God.)

Anyway - as you surely know - most of those Torah rules were only for the Levite Priests; some were only for men, and some only for women.  (It's a common-sense thing.  For instance, men never had to "live outside the camp" for a week because they don't menstruate.  [Plus, where is "outside the camp" today?]  Women in ancient times had no real way of keeping clean during menstruation; and therefore, HAD to get away from the general population for health reasons.  Today, we have all kinds of products for use during "those days" and there's really no need to stay out of the general population anymore.)  You can find some in-depth info in our article concerning Torah rules.

The problem with Christianity is that most of that religion (which contains well over 40,000 different denominations) is still "in the nations." What I mean by that is, their theology is based mostly on the misunderstood writings of Paul who is, unfortunately, viewed only through the "Greek mindset" that talks about a "Greek god" type of Messiah who came to "bring grace" and abolish all of His Father's Divine Instructions - instructions that even suggest Torah is a curse!  (Please check out one of our articles about Paul.)

They don't get it.  They don't realize that YHWH didn't send His Divine MESSIAH to "be God" OR abolish His Torah! (GOD cannot be born or die!)  Why WOULD He have?  Torah is mankind's ONLY blueprint for moral, holy living!  Please see our blog article, Is Jesus God?

The most important thing for a Jew who has come to recognize that Yeshua is THE Messiah, is to simply remain a Jew … a Jew who has accepted ALL of YHWH's Truth.  You don't have to wear the traditional Orthodox garb or a kippah if you don't want to - as those are just TRADITIONS. Simply learn to separate the "traditions" from the "forever commands" (i.e., Shabbat, the mo'edim, the covenant of circumcision - all of which say things to the effect of "do this forever" or "throughout your generations").

Since we don't have Yeshua or Moshe or anyone else who sees God face-to-face walking among us today, the bottom line is that one simply has to constantly be IN Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, and learn to use some common sense today about "what still pertains" to us.

By the way, what I've just shared with you, is simply knowledge that my husband and I have gleaned from our own research and constant study of Scripture, from our studies under Messianic rabbis, and what I personally learned in my Messianic yeshiva studies. 

Please understand, we're not trying to pass ourselves off as the "be-all-end-all" who have ALL the Truth - because we DON'T!  The purpose of our website is to get people to find their way to the WHOLE Truth of our ELOHIM and to READ His Word for themselves - where they can then ultimately make up their own minds about Scripture.

Shalom and we hope this helps!