Celibacy and the Catholic Church (part 2)

Just to clarify for my readers: The indented text is quotations from Mr. Korn’s comments to my previous post (with the italics him quoting my words from said post). The unindented text is my responsa to Mr. Korn’s comments. (For anyone who has not been following the discussion since the beginning, I suggest reading this post in which I respond to Mr. Korn’s comments to my post Moses’ Black Wife.) In Mr. Korn’s rantings, he frequently moves off topic, so I decided to ignore much of his tangential ranting each of which can be a discussion in its own right. I have continued to focus on the issue of whether or not there is a precedent in Judaism for the concept X-tian concept of celibacy. I begin with Mr. Korn’s strongest argument:

Actually, I don’t agree with what you wrote. You write that separating from his wife was necessary for him to attain the highest level of spirituality in order to redeem his people from bondage, but that is simply not true. In fact, Moses only separated from his wife after he had already led the Jews on their Exodus from Egypt and only after he served as the main conduit of HaShem’s will at the Revelation at Mount Sinai, not beforehand. His so-called “celibacy” was not necessary for him to reach his level, it was an outcome of the fact that he had reached his high level like I have already explained to you in my previous post. Even without Rabbi Nachman's chiddush about the true meaning of shal na'alecha ma'al reglecha as referring to prishut min ishto, one can calculate very clearly from Torah chronology that from the time of the burning bush Moshe never slept with Tzippora again. They started out traveling together to Egypt, but after she saved his life from the serpent, he sent her back to Midian. Then when Jethro returned with her after Kriyat Yam Suf Moshe was busy preparing the people for the Mt. Sinai revelation, so it is certain Tzippora was not with him during the Exodus events out of Egypt and reasonable to assume she did not live with him during the Omer period leading up to Matan Torah at Mt. Sinai, which was the culmination and purpose of the Exodus from Egypt. This is even more certain according to the opinion that Jethro and Tzippora did not come to Sinai until after Matan Torah!I realize you have an ideological desire to pretend that Moshe was holy enough to invoke the miracles of the Exodus and to confront the Evil Mouthed Pharaoh (Pe Ra) and the initial stages of wilderness wanderings still cohabiting with his wife, but you have made a grave error that even a child who is familiar with the story of the Exodus would recognize. If your dissembling is not deliberate, then frankly I am shocked at your naivette. Perhaps you should study Talmud less and Torah more.

Even if you are right that Moses first separated from Zipporah from the time of the burning bush all the way through his  travelling to Egypt and the Ten Plagues and the Exodus and Matan Torah until reuniting with her and Jethro (which I am not convinced is true), the fact still remains that Moses was NOT COMMANDED to separate from his wife until Matan Torah when all Jews were commanded to separate from their wives and were afterwards allowed to return their wives except Moses who received special instructions, ואתה פה עמוד עמדי “And you—here—you shall remain with Me” (Exodus 5:28). This is the source for Moses’ understanding that it was HaShem’s will for him to separate from his wife. He may indeed have separated from her beforehand, but that was not due to a commandment, but was rather because of circumstantial situations.

Indeed, chastity is a virtue. Chastity means preserving one’s sexual innocence when outside the context of a permitted marriage in order to use their sexuality in such a context. Chastity is something to be admired. It requires one to only engage in allowed sexual conduct, but it obviously presumes the existence of permitted sexual relations. Celibacy, on the other hand, whereby one vows to never engage in sexual expression, is simply a dream. Thank you for affirming the blessedness of chastity. As for celibacy, you are right that for an unbeliever in Yeshua who has not yet surrendered his life to the Divine Messiah, it would be a pointless dream. But sometimes our dreams lead us to our reality, if we desire the vision of hope the Holy Spirit has planted within us. So for now forget about celibacy, since so long as you resist the Holy Spirit as manifested in God's Son, you cannot possibly recognize its validity or legitimacy or even feasibility. As Yeshua said: What is impossible for man is possible with God.

So you agree that it takes a miracle for a healthy man to remain celibate? In Judaism, we don’t believe that serving HaShem and doing the right thing requires a supernatural miracle. Every person has his own ability to make his or her own decisions and live based on those decisions. People can choose between doing right and wrong. If celibacy is “the right thing” but is impossible to achieve without a miracle, that means that it can’t be the right thing, for it is not naturally attainable. Nahmanides (to Numbers 5:20) writes that there is no commandment or law in the Torah which depends on a “miracle” (with one exception, see there). One may pray to HaShem to get help in carrying out his decisions, but ultimately, the final decisions on what to do rests within man’s abilities and responsibilities.

There is not such thing as a “spiritual gift”. High levels of spirituality are not given to people as “gifts”, they are attained through hard work in perfecting their character traits, studying and keeping the Torah, and maintaining a close relationship with HaShem based on both fear and love. We can agree partially. We believe that the new birth through Jesus Christ brings us to the point where we can then follow His advice about sanctification. But no spiritual progress can be made without first surrendering ourselves to Him. Just as no Jew can partake in the customs of the Jewish liturgical year without first eating of the Qorban Pesach. Jesus is the starting point, but it is not an easy road. He speaks of the narrow gate through which we must endeavor to pass. But He also tells us: "My yoke is easy and My burden light."

Why do I have to first submit to the bastard from Bethlehem is order to achieve completion? Why can’t I submit completely to HaShem Himself? From where did you make up that no Jew can partake in the customs of the Jewish liturgical year without first eating of the Korban Pesach; there is no such rule! Perhaps the narrow gate through which one must endeavor to pass refers to the defloration of virgins whose vaginas are narrowed due to their hymenal tissue which shows that even the bastard from Bethlehem understood concepts unbecoming of someone who was supposedly celibate.

On the contrary, according to your Christian fairytales, the bastard of Bethlehem was really a son of “god” because “god” had impregnated Mary. From here we see that “god” himself does not adhere to the standards of celibacy preached by the church because “god” himself impregnated a woman. In fact, he impregnated a married women! Not only does the Christian god not believe in celibacy, he actually engaged in adultery. No wonder Christianity is such a corrupt and debauched religion. I thought Jews believe that in every marital union and pregnancy there are three parties: husband wife and Holy Spirit? Don't you claim that all sexual unions are simply a conduit to bring down a godly soul from Heaven into the conceived child? Isn't this the Jewish ideal of being fruitful and multiplying? Doesn't Rashi say in Parashat Bala'am that God sifts through every drop of semen emitted in holy sexual union to find the seed that will produce Messiah?

It’s true that Jews believe in every martial union, the presence of HaShem (Shekinah) is there, but Jews also believe that martial unions when done properly and with the proper intentions, are a commandment and are actually positive actions. When a man is having relations with a woman, the Shekhina is there. If X-tians believe that such sexual relations are impure, then why would the Shekhina come as a result of an improper action? According to Judaism, HaShem is not a hypocrite, He does not command people to do things which He Himself does not follow. For example, HaShem Himself keeps the Shabbos and thus can expect his constituents to do the same. According to X-ianity, god is a hypocrite. The X-tian god tells people that in order to achieve completion, one must refrain from sexual relations, yet, according to their folklore, he himself engaged in sexual relations (with a married woman no less) to impregnate Mary the hooker. How does X-ianity reconcile this discrepancy?
In the days leading to Matan Torah, HaShem commanded all the Jews to separate from their wives in order to achieve an extra-special level of holiness in order to receive the Torah. This extra-special level of holiness meant that all the Jews should be free of sexually-caused ritual impurity (other ritual impurities such as niddah, zav, meis, metzorah, etc… were not addressed in this commandment). This arrangement was done more for the women than for the men. Men who experience a seminal emission (whether through normal sexual relations, masturbation, involuntary nocturnal emissions, etc…) may immediately immerse in a Mikva and would become pure upon nightfall (as long as he is not seeing a certain type of gonorrheal flow of semen for three consecutive days which could render him impure for more than a week in which case he is a zav). So for the men, abstinence of only one day would suffice to insure purity at the time of the reception of the Torah. However, there is a halacha that a woman who discharges semen (originally received through relations with her partner) within three days after engaging in sexual relations immediately becomes ritually impure like a man who experienced a seminal emission. Now, in order to avoid the women being ritually impure at the time of the receiving of the Torah, HaShem had them separated from their wives in order to make sure that they would not have inside them semen that was less than three days old and thus would not become ritually impure. As mentioned above, after the receiving of the Torah, HaShem commanded every many to return to “his tent” (a euphemism for his wife) except for Moses. If meeting HaShem directly to accept the Torah necessitates abstinence in order to achieve certain purity, then surely HaShem himself practices abstinence for He is the epitome of purity. If so, how can X-tians say that god impregnated a woman, an act which is, according to X-tian theology, dirty and impure?

If God chooses to impregnate a woman without a male union, how is that "adultery", especially since God chose a woman who was betrothed and thus legally married in every sense of the word even requiring a Get of divorce to end the union! I fail to see why you would consider this an act of vulgarity.

I fail to understand the logic of your argument. The definition of adultery is one engaging in sexual relations with a married woman other than his wife. Mary the whore was not “married” to god, she was “betrothed” to Joseph (who, if he was Chinese would definitely wear a Green Hat) and essentially married to him, not to god. Therefore, it would be forbidden for her and god to engage in sexual relations and it would even be hypocritical of god to do so if he commanded that one may not lie with another’s wife. Why should that not be considered an act of vulgarity? (And by the way, how did Mary the harlot remain a virgin if she was supposedly penetrated by god who deflowered her and stripped her of her maidenhood?)

Again, the exact opposite of what you are saying is true. As is readily evident, when one is busy travelling and is in “foreign” territory and situations, his sexual urges peak. This is clearly seen from the Torah allowing one to engage with a “woman of beautiful form” should he chance upon such a lady when at war (see Deut. 21:10-15). When one is away from home, his sexual desires become stronger. Accordingly, celibacy would only be more difficult in such a situation. In fact, if Paul really did travel the world to try and dissuade pagans from their religion, he probably took his wife with him, or had multiple wives in different cities, or engaged in “call girls” and the like to fulfill his sexual appetite. (And that’s if we judge Paul favorably and assume that he did not engaged in illicit sexual practices such as masturbation, pedophilia, homosexuality and the like). Thanks for judging Paul favorably. I meant to write that scholars estimate he travelled 20,000 miles by foot, not 2,000. There is no way he would take a woman on such arduous and perilous journeys, especially since his life was constantly at risk. Paul loved and respected women enough to desire their safety and not simply to use them as a release for his own selfish sexual desires. Your point about Isha Yafat To'ar is interesting, but it again is not the norm. The Sages say it is not a recommended course of action but a concession to fallen human nature which in the heat of war is easily aroused to sexual defilement. But St. Paul walked in the Holy Spirit and spoke of the fruit of the spirit all believers can enjoy; Love Joy Peace Patience Kindness Goodness Faithfulness Gentleness Self-Control. They are gifts from Yeshua to all who trust in Him.

Let us allow history to speak for itself. Over the span of several X-tian expeditions in their so-called "Crusades”, the Church sanctioned the raping and murder of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of women by holy knights on a holy mission to liberate Jerusalem from the Moslems. Read any history book, rape is the most common action that men engage in when on expeditions away from home, especially in times of war. This is the natural inclination of all men, it is unavoidable. Whether one believes in the bastard of Bethlehem does not change the reality that men have urges that have to be addressed. I would assume that Paul either did not really make the journey he was reported to have taken (an approach taken by many) or that he also raped and pillaged along his way as X-tians have done in the past or that he took his wife with him or perhaps he turned to his hand or his male companions for “comfort”. Perhaps if X-tians hadn’t tried to endorse this impossible ideal of celibacy, they would not have had such a sexually violent history.

I definitely do hesitate to respond to all the members of your CC list. Many of them are on your blacklist against their will. Ever since you decided to add me to your list, I have seen many people who requested that you remove them from the list (from some reason they click reply all instead of just reply), but you hesitated to do so and delayed doing so (although, granted, it seems that eventually you do remove them from your list). I have removed them from our conversation and also have directed them to your blog. I apologize for intimidating you. They are people with whom I have had many religious dialogues and also are fascinated by Jewish rabbinical teachings. I thought they would enjoy interacting with you, but I think many of them are grieved at the animosity they think I have provoked in you. For example they blame me for inciting you to write "bastard of Bethlehem" and think you would be better of spiritually had I never bothered to write to you in the first place, according to the principle that it is better to oppose Jesus silently than actively openly and audibly. If I have provoked your animosity to Jesus I apologize.

To whom are you apologizing? Don’t let your close-minded friends stop you from engaging in your path towards finding the truth. One can only discern the truth through rigorous debate and cross-examination. By continuing in this discussion with me, you are showing to us all that you yourself question and in fact debase the values and doctrines of the Catholic Church. Of the people on your famed CC list, I happen to know two of them personally and they both told me that they are on your list against their will and have all your emails set to go straight to their junk mail/bulk mail folder.

What you are saying is true that there is not one right decision in Judaism. But the truth is that different people have different abilities and inclinations and no two people tick the same. Your examples about the proper way of spending excess money and the proper way of engaging in prayer are good examples of this. Different people have different ways of expressing their servitude of the HaShem. רחמנא ליבא בעי. אחד המרבה ואחד הממעיט ובלבד שיכוון לבו לאבינו שבשמים. These concepts tell us that HaShem does not want quantity, He wants quality. Even when a person acts within the confines of Torah Judaism, there are still many personal and private choices which need to be made and there is not general right-or-wrong answer for everyone. Judaism is not a one-size-fits-all religion. There are various different strains of legitimate Judaism with each one focusing on a different facet of serving HaShem (even if sometimes their concentration on their focii are a cause in some laxity in other areas, as long as they don’t systematically and purposefully abandon one area of the Torah). For example, Chassidim may focus more on serving HaShem through prayer and immersion in the Mikva, while Misnagdim focus more on serving HaShem through Torah study and intellectual pursuits, Centrist/Modern Orthodox people may focus more on serving HaShem through perfection of their interhuman relations, Sephardic people might focus serving HaShem through Kabbalah, etc… All of these are legitimate answers and legitimate options, as long as one stays within the confines of Judaism. Thanks for explaining this. If so, then why was there such opposition to Chassidism when it first emerged? And why did so many Chassidim oppose Rabbi Nachman when his approach was revealed? If each approach is tailor made to the unique spiritual qualities of different Jewish people, why were they so cotroversial even to this day among other Jewish groups? Can't one group recognize that its spiritual pathway might not suffice for the needs of other kinds of Jews?

Good questions! I see you are indeed a thinking person… The answer is that had there been no opposition to Chassidism when it first emerged, then the movement would have indeed shifted to such a far extreme that it would have left the confines of Judaism. An historical example of this is X-tianity which started out as a sect of Judaism with its own small quirks in how to serve HaShem. As X-ianity matured, it veered farther and farther away from Judaism eventually dispensing with the most vital clauses of the Torah and becoming a religion of its own. The Jewish opposition to Hassidism insured that Chassidism would be kept in check and would not veer too far from traditional Judaism with its focus on certain aspects of Avodas HaShem. Hassidim always wanted to be considered part of the mainstream Judaism, and so as their movement developed, they did not deviate too much from mainstream Judaism, so that they can remain within the community. At the end of the day, no self-respecting Jew would count a Xtian in a minyan, yet even the most vehement Misnagid would count a Hassid in a minyan. We see in our days that because opposition to the Chabad-Lubavitch Messianic movement is so clear and outspoken, the movement will be faced with a dilemma within the next generation: They will have to completely separate themselves from the Jewish community at large and face ostracization or they will have to tame them extremist views in order to be more compatible with mainstream Judaism.

I do not believe that all Catholics priests are unchaste either, but certainly the overwhelmingly majority of them are. Of those priests who have taken an oath of celibacy, only those who are truly mentally or physically impotent are able to keep their oath. This is pure conjecture on your part. You have no concrete evidence for saying this. Perhaps it is even wishful thinking. Just check out Padre Pio, Edith Stein, Catherine Drexel, and so many many other Catholic religious celibates and saints!

You are right it is mere conjecture on my part. But it is an educated analysis based on the reality to which even you agree as mentioned above. Regarding the specific examples which you cite, two of them are women. We are not discussing celibacy for women and I must iterate that I never doubted the reality that a woman can physically in fact remain celibate (even though Judaism does not necessarily condone such a practice). Our entire discussion is regarding the priesthood (which is denied to women in the Church) which requires taking an oath of celibacy. The third person whom you cite was known to have had various physical maladies (and apparently some mental issues as well) and it is not surprising for me to hear that he had no sex drive.

Everyone has tests which HaShem expects them to overcome and doing certain things can make those tests easier or harder. For example, for someone who has the test of a strong desire for pedophilia, it is a good idea for him to get married to help him deal with his test better rather than to try and remain celibate and end up stumbling with the altar boys and the like. Even St Paul says this: It is better to marry than to burn with illicit lust. But it is even better to seek the gift of chastity. That's why Catholics say that both marriage and celibate priesthood are sacraments, but the priesthood is greater. Also Catholics considering celibacy are given an opportunity to experience the lifestyle before taking the vow. They are never locked in and never accept it unknowingly.

Judaism believes that all Jews are priests, HaShem says that the Jews are “a nation of Priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Thus, if celibacy is something expected of the priesthood, then it should be something within the reach of every single individual, not just a few “lucky” individuals. Do yohu not find it hypocritical that the Church allows and even encourages one to indulge in all sorts of sexual promiscuity before taking the oath of celibacy. If sexuality is bad, then ban it altogether (which, of course, is impossible), and if it is good then what is the great sacrament of celibacy?

Everyone has different types of tests from Heaven, some people pass those tests and some people fail them; I don’t see that sexual crimes is more prevalent in the Orthodox Jewish community than it is in other communities. Every community has its individuals who do not fare with HaShem’s tests and indeed it takes wisdom and humility to seek His help! (The website to which you referred me is blocked on my web filter on suspicion that it contains pornography and profanity.) So are you saying that even with the Torah to guide them Jews cannot expect to turn out more sanctified than anyone else? This surprises me!

Why does this surprise you? Everyone has the ability to make their own decisions. Sometimes some people—even holy people—make the wrong decisions and choose to follow the path of evil. That does not detract from the sanctity and/or truism of the Torah, it simply reaffirms the fact that HaShem had granted people free will to choose their own paths. If everyone only did the right thing and could not do anything else, then there would be no free will and there would be no point in life. As I already mentioned, reward and punishment is meted out based on a person’s good and bad actions. HaShem gives people tests as a chance to accrue more reward if they pass the test. Not everyone is fortunate to pass every test with which they are presented. If one indeed follows the path of the Torah, that can simply reveal to a person what is considered good, but it does not negate his ability to make his own decisions. Those members of the Orthodox Jewish community who commit crimes know that their crimes are wrong, but that they chose to do so anyways because they could not overpower their temptations for sexual indulgence, or money, or honor, or whatever it was that drove them to do whatever it was that they did.

The website is not pornographic. It is run by a former Chabadnik who became disillusioned with what he believes is the failed messianism of the movement and has put up a blog revealing abuses. He himself is still an Orthodox Jew and has blocked me from posting comments on his blog since he too hates Yeshua.

Tell that to my web filter because it says that FailedMessiah is a pornographic webpage.

I will, however, note that there is not prohibition barring a Jew from marrying a girl who has not yet reached puberty. You must understand the social context of those times and it was quite widespread and accepted for men to marry pre-pubescent girls even though they cannot become pregnant. I thought the Talmud Kabbalah and Chassidism speak of a biyah ra'uyah levlad, that intercourse must be done in a way that could cause impregnation. I do not believe that any self-respecting and God-fearing Jewish parent would allow pre-pubscent daughters to be married and become sexually active, and if they did they should be put in jail for child abuse! I will have to ponder whether I should draw attention to your comment that seems to authorize and encourage sexual depravity within Jewish society, exactly as many anti-Semites charge about Talmudic rationalizations for child molestation and erotic sex with boys, etc..

You are right that the it is not a good idea for one to marry off his pre-pubescent daughters. The Talmud writes that this is included in the prohibition of Leviticus 19:29. To saw that they should be jailed for child abuse makes a lot of sense in light of current social norms and mores, but in the context of the ancient world, it was not as serious a crime. Marriages were often not about sex as much as they were about power and wealth. Regarding the oft-repeated anti-Semitic charge about Talmudic rationalizations for child molestation, etc… I suggest reading this article by Gil Student and in fact his entire website entitled The Truth About the Talmud.

An excellent paper about this subject showing the difference in opinion between Judaism's encouragment of sexuality and marriage and Christianity's rejection of those concepts in favor of celibacy and abstinence has been written by Prof. Adiel Schremer. Here is a copy of his paper on the topic:Marriage Sexuality and Holiness

Celibacy and the Catholic Church (part 1)

An associate of Mr. Korn arrested for emotional and sexual abuse

Menachem Mevashir/Michael Korn responded to my previous post in the comments section of this blog. I will now address some of the issues which he brought up and offer my own analysis of the discussion at hand.

rabbi Chaim the Small,
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.
I am glad you survived the rigors of the fasting and were able to give your attention to this important point.
Of course I realize that Moses was married and sired children prior to the command to him to separate from his wife. But the point I am making is that such separation was necessary for him to attain the highest level of spirituality in order to redeem his people from bondage. On that I am certain you can agree.

Actually, I don’t agree with what you wrote. You write that separating from his wife was necessary for him to attain the highest level of spirituality in order to redeem his people from bondage, but that is simply not true. In fact, Moses only separated from his wife after he had already led the Jews on their Exodus from Egypt and only after he served as the main conduit of HaShem’s will at the Revelation at Mount Sinai, not beforehand. His so-called “celibacy” was not necessary for him to reach his level, it was an outcome of the fact that he had reached his high level like I have already explained to you in my previous post.

Jesus and St. Paul also spoke about those who make themselves celibate for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. These people are not sexless or neutered, but rather are able to embrace a much larger family unit in Divine Love due to their celibacy, which perhaps more accurately could be termed chastity. That was all I wished to apply to my Christian friends: for them to understand that indeed there is precedent in Judaism to praise the virtues of chastity and celibacy.

Indeed, chastity is a virtue. Chastity means preserving one’s sexual innocence when outside the context of a permitted marriage in order to use their sexuality in such a context. Chastity is something to be admired. It requires one to only engage in allowed sexual conduct, but it obviously presumes the existence of permitted sexual relations. Celibacy, on the other hand, whereby one vows to never engage in sexual expression, is simply a dream. The very idea denies the truism of what it means to be human. It seeks a standard which for almost everyone is unattainable and almost intrinsically condones and excuses unchaste behavior. I will repeat clearer what I have already stated: Any man who claims to be “celibate” is either unhealthy (physically and/or mentally) or lying.

So far as your comment about Jeremiah, I have no idea what you mean. See here for example.

I was proving to you that Jeremiah was not celibate. He in fact had a daughter. Your example from Jeremiah 16 proves nothing about Jeremiah’s celibacy. It simply shows that HaShem told Jeremiah not to marry and have children while he was in Anatot.

It also is obvious that celibacy is not the norm and is a rare spiritual gift. The point is not to force it upon anyone but rather to help people recognize its blessedness.

There is not such thing as a “spiritual gift”. High levels of spirituality are not given to people as “gifts”, they are attained through hard work in perfecting their character traits, studying and keeping the Torah, and maintaining a close relationship with HaShem based on both fear and love.

And certainly our estimation of Jesus as God's Son and Divine Redeemer makes it totally understandable that celibacy is an appropriate and expected way of life for Him.

On the contrary, according to your Christian fairytales, the bastard of Bethlehem was really a son of “god” because “god” had impregnated Mary. From here we see that “god” himself does not adhere to the standards of celibacy preached by the church because “god” himself impregnated a woman. In fact, he impregnated a marry women! Not only does the Christian god not believe in celibacy, he actually engaged in adultery. No wonder Christianity is such a corrupt and debauched religion.

Likewise for St. Paul, whose commission to remove pagan idolatry from the Roman Empire and to travel perhaps 20,00 miles in arduous missions journeys also makes celbacy a necessary concomitant to his spiritual calling. (Indeed I have often wondered if rabbi Shlomo Carlebach would not have had a much more successful and less controversial and morally compromised ministry if he too had embraced celibacy, but unfortunately Judaism has renounced this high idea!)

Again, the exact opposite of what you are saying is true. As is readily evident, when one is busy travelling and is in “foreign” territory and situations, his sexual urges peak. This is clearly seen from the Torah allowing one to engage with a “woman of beautiful form” should he chance upon such a lady when at war (see Deut. 21:10-15). When one is away from home, his sexual desires become stronger. Accordingly, celibacy would only be more difficult in such a situation. In fact, if Paul really did travel the world to try and dissuade pagans from their religion, he probably took his wife with him, or had multiple wives in different cities, or engaged in “call girls” and the like to fulfill his sexual appetite. (And that’s if we judge Paul favorably and assume that he did not engaged in illicit sexual practices such as masturbation, pedophilia, homosexuality and the like).
The same is true with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Because he was constantly travelling around the world to preach his message. I don’t know if he took his with wife him on these music tours, but even if he did, the mere opportunity to meet so many different types of places and people (many of them vulnerable and looking for spirituality and companionship) probably gave Rabbi Carlebach a very difficult time trying to preserve his sexual innocence for permitted venues. A wife is not always a foolproof way of satiating one’s sexual appetite. Sometimes sexual relations with one’s wife is also prohibited (e.g. if she is menstruating or if she just gave birth as well as on Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av and several other days of the year according to Kabbalah). Had Rabbi Carlebach attempted celibacy in his situation, he probably would have been worse off and his sexual crimes and misdeed could have potentially been more heinous. In fact, even the great sages of the Talmud did not trust themselves to act properly when situations could potentially arise whereby they would be in a situation of great sexual anxiety such as travelling. Their response was not to engage in celibacy, that would be foolish and would only serve to exacerbate the situation. Instead, the Talmud relates that several sages would arrange to have “local temporary wives” for the duration of their visit to various places in order to combat their sexual impulses (see Yevamoth 37b, Yoma 18b and other places). Celibacy simply does not work for human beings.

Regarding your allegation about the "bastard from Bethlehem" I urge you to watch these shows on the Holy Shroud of Turin which present scientifically verifiable evidence for Christ's crucifixion and resurrection:
The Real Face of Jesus From the Shroud of Turin
The Lost 40 Days of Jesus - Full Documentary
May God illuminate your eyes with His Holy Truth and pull away the veil from upon your mind and the stone from within your heart.
Mevashir

I don’t watch videos. Do these videos say anything intelligent or are they simply the same Christian propaganda that has been spread for hundreds of years in Audio/Visual format?

PS Please do not hesitate to respond to all the Cc list. These people are both Jewish and Christian scholars with a deep respect for Jewish roots in order to understand the life and works of Jesus. They will be most grateful to interact with an Orthodox Jewish scholar of your eminence. Indeed when I was at Ohr Samayach in the 1980s, a number of my instructors were associated with the Mirrer Yeshiva (eg Avraham Rockmill), so truly it is an honor and privilege to communicate with a scholar from that most famous of yeshivas! But from this point forward I will try to post directly to your blog, beseder???

I definitely do hesitate to respond to all the members of your CC list. Many of them are on your blacklist against their will. Ever since you decided to add me to your list, I have seen many people who requested that you remove them from the list (from some reason they click reply all instead of just reply), but you hesitated to do so and delayed doing so (although, granted, it seems that eventually you do remove them from your list).

PPS Your answer to my question about whether God would raise from the dead an evil man in order to test Jews is truly sobering:

<< BEGIN QUOTE>> I do not find it problematic to say that HaShem would stage a massive deception and corruption of His own Torah in order to test the strength of the Jews' commitment to it. We have seen this countless times throughout history. The entire creation of the state of Israel and Zionism (according to the Satmar Rebbe) is a test by HaShem to see who will remain faithful to His Torah and who will stray from it. The same is true of the horrors of the Holocaust, the intellectual draw of the Haskala movement, and many other such instances (many of which have long been forgotten). HaShem enjoys giving extra credit to those who are faithful to Him, the way to achieve extra credit is by passing His tests. Life is full of such tests some bigger some smaller. They are all chances for one to prove his steadfast commitment to the Torah and Judaism and gain greater reward in the Heavens. <<END QUOTE>>
It raises the question of whether we can ever trust God to speak to us via signs and miracles in order to shatter our complacent existences! I am well aware of the warnings of Deuteronomy 13 and 17 about false prophets who perform signs and wonders which also is sobering. But Jesus Himself seems to have addressed this. When accused of using satanic powers to exorcise people (as I believe the Talmud asserts against Him), Yeshua responded saying that personal insults against Him can be forgiven (such as your calling him bastard from Bethlehem) but insults against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, since they blaspheme God's very spirit operating within us! Jesus also explains that satan would not exorcise people thereby dividing and weakening his own wicked kingdom. But this raises the very question you pose from Deuteronomy about a false prophet displaying signs and wonders that we are meant to disregard. How can we reconcile this?
Perhaps the answer is that the false prophet displaying signs and wonders of whom Deuteronomy warns us does not help people at all. Rather he might do what Isaiah did to demonstrate a sign to King Hezekiah: turn back the sundial. But Yeshua seems to be saying that any act of genuine love and compassion such as releasing a person from demonic oppression, cannot possibly be an act of satanic deception! And furthermore He warns us that anyone who claims so is guilty of blaspheming the Holy Spirit! See here:
(quotes from the so-called “New Testament” truncated)
Could one have argued that Moses' splitting of the Red Sea and indeed performing all the miracles associated with the Exodus were deceptions, since he was leading the people out of the wilderness 190 years too early according to some calculations? How about all the signs and wonders Moses performed? Were these too deceptions? Furthermore, you seem to ignore the fact that you cannot fulfill the Law properly, that most of the commandments are null and void today, and that even the ones you do perform are riddled with hypocrisy and inconsistency.
For example, let's say you have $1000 to spend any way you wish. How should you allocate it? Should you upgrade your tefillin and mezuzot (assuming you are blessed to have a home)? Should you buy an extra set of tefillin like rabbeinu Tam? or perhaps three extra sets as Moshe Sternbuch is reputed to do? Should you buy Torah commentaries? Spend money on your wife and children? Give tzeddaka to a yeshiva? To a hospital? To hachnassat kala? To feed the poor? You see the problem: since your religion is based totally on works without faith in the sacrifice of Yeshua as atonement for the world, then you are faced with a hopeless task of sorting through innumerable possibilities without any certainty of what is the right decision!
Another example: the Talmud teaches that the chassidim rishonim would pray nine hours per day: three hours for each of the three prayers. But in shuls today, most people rush through Shacharit in perhaps 30 minutes and then run off to get to work, kollel, or whatever. Now why can't a person say If it is more righteous and pious to pray longer and with more attention, then I will prolong my prayers and trust God to make up the lost salary! This is an obvious idea based on the Talmud extoling the faith of these people, yet hardly anyone does this. Instead they rush through their prayers in what I call Fax Machine Dovening, spewing words out with little attention, and then rush off to pursue their secular careers. Who says this is what God wishes? Who says He even accepts it?
We who follow Jesus can trust that the Holy Spirit He sent to us will stir our emotions and thoughts to do the right thing which we discern through prayer and contemplation. But you who do all based on works or righteousness are faced with a hopeless task of trying to weigh an infinitude of halachic and Talmudic possibilities and choices with no assurance you are making the right choice. You in the end are like the Moslems, who after all their fervent religious devotions have zero certainty they are fulfilling Allah's will or that they will get to Heaven. How dreary and discouraging!

What you are saying is true that there is not one right decision in Judaism. But the truth is that different people have different abilities and inclinations and no two people tick the same. Your examples about the proper way of spending excess money and the proper way of engaging in prayer are good examples of this. Different people have different ways of expressing their servitude of the HaShem. רחמנא ליבא בעי. אחד המרבה ואחד הממעיט ובלבד שיכוון לבו לאבינו שבשמים. These concepts tell us that HaShem does not want quantity, He wants quality. Even when a person acts within the confines of Torah Judaism, there are still many personal and private choices which need to be made and there is not general right-or-wrong answer for everyone. Judaism is not a one-size-fits-all religion. There are various different strains of legitimate Judaism with each one focusing on a different facet of serving HaShem (even if sometimes their concentration on their focii are a cause in some laxity in other areas, as long as they don’t systematically and purposefully abandon one area of the Torah). For example, Chassidim may focus more on serving HaShem through prayer and immersion in the Mikva, while Misnagdim focus more on serving HaShem through Torah study and intellectual pursuits, Centrist/Modern Orthodox people may focus more on serving HaShem through perfection of their interhuman relations, Sephardic people might focus serving HaShem through Kabbalah, etc… All of these are legitimate answers and legitimate options, as long as one stays within the confines of Judaism.
Christianity’s dogma essentially states “If you believe, then you’re okay, if you don’t believe, then you are going to hell” and doesn’t require much beyond that. Judaism (like Islam but even more than Islam) requires its adherents to actually do something. Judaism is not a religion of dogma, it is a religion of action. HaShem does not want Jews to “just believe” to get into Gan Eden. He expects a Jew to act and live like a Jew, not just believe like a Jew. There are no “credit cards” in Heaven, if you deserve reward, you deserve reward, if you deserve punishment, you deserve punishment. HaShem weighs people’s actions and judges if they are doing the right thing or the wrong thing. In Christianity, you can do whatever you want as long as you “believe”. You can be a pope and father scores of illegitimate children through your papal harem, yet Christians will still view you as the holiest man alive. In Judaism, your status is dependent on your actions, not just your beliefs.

I recognize that it is unlikely that you will be able to admit your admiration for Jesus especially publicly.

This is a logical fallacy (it is similar to a complex question) because you assuming something with is simply not true and then justifying my silence regarding said assumption.

I was able to become His follower only after many years of suffering, in which I lost my marriage and was basically a nomad within the world of Orthodox Judaism. The Messianic teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov also prepared my heart to embrace the truth of Yeshua. I realize I was in a unique position to accept Jesus with minimal embarrassment or sacrifice vis a vis the rest of the Orthodox Jewish community.
So my goals with you are humble. I just hope to jog your mind and spirit a bit and help you see Yeshua in a different light than 2000 years of rabbinical animosity would normally permit. Start perhaps with this article from Roi Tov, a former IDF officer who has become a follower of Yeshua: True Faith in the Word Notzri!
Thanks again for your willingness to correspond and for the long and thoughtful response you formulated.
Shalom baShem Yeshua,

If your goal is to change my view about the bastard of Bethlehem, then the exact opposite has occurred. You have only once again proven to me that the bastard and his followers are simply mindless irrational drones who repeat the same drivel for hundreds of years without bothering to think about what they are saying and even address the many works which have already answered their unfounded claims. You have once again shown that Christianity only cares about drawing members away from other religion so that they can swell in popularity and influence. The bastard himself (if he really existed) already tried to dissuade Jews from the Torah and was largely unsuccessful. His efforts were continued by several of his students and eventually the mission was taken up by the early Church which tried several other tactics.
I sympathize that you were in an unfortunate situation as a sort of pariah within the Jewish Orthodox community and that Christian missionaries saw a good opportunity in you to proselytize another Jew (as they have been wont to do for centuries) and therefore took advantage of your poor situation to transform you into one of their mindless drones spewing their anti-Jewish faith to the masses. This lowers my opinion of Christians more than before.   
In another comment to post Mr. Korn writes:

I have no thought that Moshe would engage in masturbation, God forbid. It never occurred to me and I wonder why you would imagine so. I never posed this question to you in my initial email either. Perhaps you are projecting or protesting too much?

I never said that you asked that Moses would engaged in mastrubation. I was simply answering the unspoken question that if the point Moses’ “celibacy” was to maintain a high degree of ritual purity, then it is not necessarily foolproof because sometimes nocturnal emissions of semen do occur when one is sleeping and that would render him impure. My answer is that since Moses was “in control” of himself, he did not have these lapses of sexual expressions which occur naturally to most human beings. I admit that my wording on this point was unclear there.

I do not believe that all Catholic priests are unchaste. Or Catholic nuns or monks either. I imagine a small minority of them engage in unchaste activities.
And perhaps you should contemplate the sobering reality of rampant sexual abuse within Orthodox Jewish society, as this website somberly attests: http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/
Why do you suppose all these happily married rabbis are molesting young yeshiva boys? Clearly marriage in itself is no assurance against sexual depravity.
When I lived in Israel I read an article that claimed close to half the clients of the many prostitutes who have proliferated throughout the unHoly Land are Orthodox Jewish men!
Clearly your community is in great need of spiritual deliverance, and you have zero cause for smugness or complacency!
As our Lord taught:
(quotations from the so-called “New Testament” truncated)
Here are the unhappy and sobering sex abuse links:
Please note that in the previous link about sex abuse in the Orthodox community, there are over 10,000 reports! This is a community in deep need of spiritual deliverance that only Jesus Christ can provide! May you have the wisdom and humility to seek His help!

I do not believe that all Catholics priests are unchaste either, but certainly the overwhelmingly majority of them are. Of those priests who have taken an oath of celibacy, only those who are truly mentally or physically impotent are able to keep their oath. The others have a little something(s) on the side and with that release their sexual frustrations, as I mentioned before. You are right that marriage itself is no assurance against sexual depravity, but attempting celibacy is almost certainly an assurance for sexual depravity. If even happily married men have sexual desires which have to be fulfilled and lead them to committing horrid sexual crimes in order to abate their desires, then certainly one who is not happily married will have even more difficulty keeping his sexual desires in check. Marriage is not an assurance against sexual depravity, but it certainly helps the situation, as opposed to taking an oath of celibacy which not only does not help, but it actually hurts. Everyone has tests which HaShem expects them to overcome and doing certain things can make those tests easier or harder. For example, for someone who has the test of a strong desire for pedophilia, it is a good idea for him to get married to help him deal with his test better rather than to try and remain celibate and end up stumbling with the altar boys and the like. Everyone has different types of tests from Heaven, some people pass those tests and some people fail them; I don’t see that sexual crimes is more prevalent in the Orthodox Jewish community than it is in other communities. Every community has its individuals who do not fare with HaShem’s tests and indeed it takes wisdom and humility to seek His help! (The website to which you referred me is blocked on my web filter on suspicion that it contains pornography and profanity.)
In another comment to the previous post he tries the old virgin birth shtick with me. He writes:

rabbi Chaim the Small,
In our bible study tonight we discussed the Virgin Birth of Jesus to the Blessed Virgin Mary. I'd like to ask you about Rashi's comment to Isaiah 7:14 which Christians believe alludes to the birth of Christ to a virgin.
You can see the Rashi at this link on the chabad website:
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15938#v=14&showrashi=true
Immanuel: [lit. God is with us. That is] to say that our Rock shall be with us, and this is the sign, for she is a young girl, and she never prophesied, yet in this instance, Divine inspiration shall rest upon her. This is what is stated below (8:3): “And I was intimate with the prophetess, etc.,” and we do not find a prophet’s wife called a prophetess unless she prophesied. Some interpret this as being said about Hezekiah, but it is impossible, because, when you count his years, you find that Hezekiah was born nine years before his father’s reign. [[And some interpret that this is the sign, that she was a young girl and incapable of giving birth.]]
Please note the second part of Rashi in the section marked with [[ ]].
Can you explain why Jews find this miracle of a pre adolescent girl falling pregnant and giving birth more plausible than the New Testament account of Jesus' birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was a mature woman and betrothed in marriage?
Indeed, if a girl were too young to give birth, what Jew would marry her? Aren't marital relations forbidden if a girl has not yet reached puberty?
Thanks for clarifying. I feel that Rashi is alluding to a miracle like that reported in the New Testament, but not quite as plausible or reasonable.
Blessings to you for your erudite response.

Much ink has been spilled debunking again and again the legend of Mary the prostitute, I will not delve into this topic. I will, however, note that there is not prohibition barring a Jew from marrying a girl who has not yet reached puberty. You must understand the social context of those times and it was quite widespread and accepted for men to marry pre-pubescent girls even though they cannot become pregnant.
When Mr. Korn sent his lengthy responses to my previous post to his mass mailing list, one of his “groupies” asked him why he is so busy with trying to delegitimize Judaism. Here is a copy of their email correspondence along with his answer:

-----Original Message-----
From: JoAn Karkos <joan.karkos@gmail.com>
To: Menachem Mevashir <mevashir@aol.com>
Cc: a whole bunch of people
Sent: Mon, Sep 16, 2013 11:54 am
Subject: Re: Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi on Moses' Black Wife and Celibacy
Why are you so focused upon Judaism that does not have the fullness of the truth and denies the Crucified Christ and Resurrection?​
---------- Original message ----------
From: Menachem Mevashir <mevashir@aol.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 9:22 PM
Subject: Re: Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi on Moses' Black Wife and Celibacy
To: joan.karkos@gmail.com
Cc: a whole bunch of people
They are my people and my mission field.
I do not want to be like the Catholic priest from India who boasted that of the millions of Hindus who attend Catholic schools, not a single one has converted to Christianity!!!
Menachem Mevashir
mevashir@aol.com

And so the true nature of Mr. Korn is revealed by Mr. Korn himself—he wants to convert all the Jews to Christianity. He is not interested in debating and having intelligent discussions of Biblical history and theology, he has already made up his mind in what he believes to be the truth, he is simply using debate as a forum for spreading the religion of the bastard from Bethlehem. In fact, according to my sources from Ohr Somayach, Mr. Korn was already a member of Jews for Jesus when he was studying at Ohr Somayach and his entire purpose of studying there, it seems, was simply to sway other Jews from the proper path. Furthermore, his attempts at defaming the well-respected late Rabbi Nachman Bulman only serve to strengthen the idea that he is not really trying to search for the truth, rather he is attempting to hide from it and conceal it.

Moses' Black Wife and Celibacy

Due to the popularity of my essay on Moses' Black Wife (a Qoton Qlassic) both here and on academia.edu, I have recently received several letters via email from a Christian missionary trying to read Christian ideas into my writings in an effort to sway Jews from HaShem and His Torah to follow in the path of the bastard of Bethlehem. I will try to address some of the issues raised by this missionary, even though some of his drivel is simply so ludicrious and nonsensical that it barely deserves the recognition granted to it by refutation.

On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 10:14 AM, Menachem Mevashir <mevashir@aol.com> wrote:
From the fact that even after the seventy judges were appointed Moses still did not live with his wife, Miriam understood that Moses had separated from her because he was a prophet. Based on this understanding, Miriam complained to Aaron that both she and Aaron were prophets and did not have to refrain from relations, so why did Moses. To this complaint, HaShem answered that Moses' prophecy was on a higher level than any other prophet's was so he required a higher level of purity.

Dear Rabbi Chaim,Your article explaining Miriam's complaint about Moses in Numbers 12 is fantastic!!! Very few people realize this important Jewish teaching about the celibacy of the greatest Jewish prophet! (See passage cited above.)
I am a Jewish believer in Jesus. I lived as an ultra-Orthodox Jew and later follower of Chabad and Breslov for 18 years before being baptized. I have been Protestant most of the time since my baptism, but lately I have been exploring the claims of the Roman Catholic Church to be Christ's True and Original Church body.

I'm sorry to see that you have changed direction so much in life. To go from a regular Ultra-Orthodox Jew to Chabad to Breslov to Protestantism to Catholicism. You must be a truly confused individual. I pray that you finally return to the one absolute truth. Living a life of uncertainty and confusion is not fun.

As you probably know, the Catholic Church has a celibate priesthood. I have shared with people the Jewish tradition about Moses' celibacy following his vision of the Burning Bush. (Indeed Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says that the instruction to him to remove his sandals was a veiled command to separate from his wife, which was required for Moses to attain the supreme level of personal sanctity necessary to liberate his people from Egyptian bondage.)

I fail to see the connection between Moses' celibacy and the practice of celibacy in the Catholic priesthood. As far as I understand, Catholic priests are required to take a life-long pledge of complete abstinence from sex and are barred from ever getting married. Moses was actually married. According to some explanations, as I mentioned in my essay, Moses actually did marry the Queen of Cush for forty years (granted according to some commentators he did refrain from sexual relations with her). And surely he married Zipporah, who bore him two sons, as attested to in the Bible. Moses contributed to the continuity of humanity by engaging in the commandment of procreation and ever fathered offspring to continue his progeny to the next generation.

Furthermore, the Talmud (Yebamoth 61b-62a) mentions a dispute as to how many offspring one is required to produce in order to fulfill the commandment of procreation. According to one opinion (Beis Shammai), one is required to have two sons and the source of this opinion is Moses who fathered two sons before separating from his wife Zipporah. Everyone is required to engage in procreation to contribute to mankind in a perpetual way, even great Rabbis like Moses did so. In fact, the Talmud (Shabbat 31a) tells that when one dies, one of the first questions he is asked in the Heavenly Court is whether or not he engaged in procreation (עסקת בפריה ורביה).

According to the other opinion (Beis Hillel), one is required to have a son and a daughter, but, nonetheless, Moses had a special dispensation which exempted him from fulfilling this commandment because HaShem agreed that his prophecy was on such a level that he could not longer sustain normal intimate relations with his wife for technical reasons: that is, sexual relations includes seminal emissions which renders one ritually impure. If Moses had stayed married to Zipporah, he would, as part of his husbandly duties, be required to sexually satisfy his wife which inevitably requires ejaculation of semen which would render him ritually impure. Moses attained a level of prophecy greater than any other prophet as explained by Maimonides (Foundations of the Torah chs. 7 and 8) in that he was able to speak to HaShem on demand without making preparations like other prophets. HaShem would sometimes appear to Moses very suddenly. As such, it would be inappropriate for Moses to be ritually impure if maybe HaShem might decide to speak to him in that state. Because of this, Moses separated from his wife and continued his life in abstinence, even though he had yet to fulfill the commandment of procreation.

But--you ask-- even if Moses would separate from his wife Zipporah, he could still potentially be ritually impure when HaShem wants to speak to him from other types of seminal emissions not related to sex. The answer to this is simple: Moses was so great and powerful that he was able to control his sexual urges and desires so much so that he did not have an seminal emissions. This means that Moses did not engage in masturbation or pedophilia with altar boys or non-marital fornication or homosexual sodomy.He simply had no need to express his sexual desires. Moses was and is alone in this ability. No one else is able to suppress their most natural desires and inhibitions. Catholic Priests who outwardly live a life of "ascetic chastity" are known to be the most debaucherous depraved individuals. They have no outlet for channeling their sexual desires and passion in a permitted way because they are sworn to a life of abstinence. Instead, they engage in the most heinous of sexual crimes in an effort to indulge in their sexual depravity. They are known to engage in regular masturbation, pedophilic acts, homosexual acts, and the like. The lucky priests are the ones housed at monasteries which also host nuns, that way they can ease their sexual frustrations with their equally promiscusus female counterparts. People who do not have an accepted socially permitted medium for releasing their sexual frustrations will turn to illicit channels for doing so.

I am aware, too, that other Old Testament saints, like Jeremiah, were celibate.

I am not aware of any source which states that Jeremiah was celibate. In fact, I am aware of sources to the contrary. See Otzar Midrashim (pg. 43) which quotes an oft-repeated Midrash that tells about the parentage of Ben Sira: One time Jeremiah was sitting in the bathhouse when he happened upon a group of wicked men who were masturbating. Jeremiah began to reprove them and reproach them to save them from this horrible sin, but to no avail they did not stop and instead threatened to sodomize him if he did not join them in their ritual masturbation. Seeing that he no choice, Jeremiah succumbed to the request of these wicked men and ended up releasing semen into the bathwaters. (The sin of masturbation is to be considered a lighter sin than homosexuality, see here.) The Midrash tells that HaShem miraculously preserved the sperm in the drops of semen emitted by Jeremiah until Jeremiah's daughter happened to chance upon the same bathhouse and became pregnant with her father's seed. See there for the continuation of the story. The point is that Jeremiah actually a daughter and it seems she was indeed his legitimate daughter, unlike your blasphemous assertion that Jeremiah was celibate.

I am not aware off-hand of any other Old Testament characters who were celibate other than Deborah the Judgess. According to some sources, Deborah separated from her husband for forty years because she was a reincarnation of Zipporah and was required to fix the sin of Zipporah's forced abstinence by engaging in her own consensual abstinence.

The only other important figure who I can recall that was celibate seems to be Ben Azzai. Yet, nonetheless, Ben Azzi was lightly castigated by his Tannaic contemporaries who did not agree that his complete and utter devotion to his Torah studies precluded his ability to get married. Also, according to some sources, Ben Azzai was actually briefly married to a daughter of Rabbi Akiva.

Can you explain why rabbinical Judaism has abandoned this principle of celibacy? Many Jews mock the celibacy of Jesus and also of the Roman Catholic priesthood, but it seems clear that Jewish Tradition upholds the concept of celibacy as a concomitant condition for attaining the highest levels of prophecy and spiritual leadership.

I do not see any principle of celibacy in what you have written. The celibacy of Moses (which only started when he was EIGHTY YEARS OLD and already had at least two sons) is the exception rather than the rule. No one else, male or female, was ever expected to remain unmarried or to separate from sexual relations (expect for perhaps Deborah and Ben Azzai). Moses, an explained above, was unique in two aspects: Firstly, the level of prophecy that he attained has never been reached by anyone else. It was this level of prophecy which created a very close relationship between HaShem and Moses that blocked Moses from maintaining his marriage. Secondly, only Moses had complete and utter control of his sexual impulses so that abstinence of marital relations would serve to purify him as opposed to all other human beings for whom abstinence of marital relations would simply serve as a catalyst for sexual release in other venues, which are certainly prohibited.

Thank you and Shana Tova Metuka vaMetukenet,

Sincerely baShem Yeshua,Michael Korn/Menachem Mevashir
PS Please reply to everyone in the Cc line above! Toda Rabba!!!

I do not send out mass emails to people who are not interested. I will email you alone and not to all the other people which you sent your letter. If you want to continue this discussion, you can do so in the comments section of this post. Please encourage your entourage to do the same.

Have a Happy Sweet New Year!!
Sincerely,
Reb Chaim HaQoton
http://rchaimqoton.blogspot.com

On 09/10/13, Menachem Mevashir<mevashir@aol.com> wrote:
[Full article by Reb Chaim HaQoton- ר' חיים הקטן appears at end of this email] 
[Another perspective on this strange story from the Chabad organization.]
M&A were jealous of Moses; they were interested in promoting self (not an uncommon tendency in humans). The excuse was Moses’ wife. Was it because she was dark-skinned? The punishment given to the sister (“white as snow”) may support such this theory. In other words, perhaps it was something like this: You complain about dark skin, preferring white. Okay, you are going to get some white skin—see if you like it.
Pastor Paul,
This is a good insight. Mida kenegged mida - Measure for measure. Very good! But only as far as it goes. 
You were unaware of the importance of Moses' celibacy in Jewish Tradition. You cannot be blamed for that, but now that I have found a good article about it, please ponder more deeply!
Jesus and Paul both taught that celibacy is a great gift. If it is not for you, then don't do it. But I don't think we should denigrate those who do. That will only bring unimaginable curse upon us I fear.

It close to impossible for a mere mortal to truly engage in celibacy. Anyone who says otherwise is either unhealthy or fooling himself (and fooling around).

Obviously celibacy has been viewed as a virtue from the earliest times of Christendom. Even the Orthodox churches who permit priests to marry require monks nuns and bishops to be celibate. Since this practice prevailed for 1500 years until the time of Martin Luther, I think it is upon the "Reformers" to prove the old way is wrong and their way is better. Even St. Paul spoke about the role of sacred Tradition in his own teachings. Likewise Paul referred to himself as a "father" to the flock of his disciples. And similarly he spoke of "my Gospel."

Another point is the saying in Pirkei Avot that a strong man is one who overcomes his desires. This suggests that a celibate priest is among the truly mighty ones of Israel!

It also is of interest that the Hebrew word for separation as the Midrash says Moses did is Prishut - פרישות which is the root for the word Pharisee! And Jesus praised what the Pharisees taught (eg, the celibacy of Moses in order to attain the highest levels of prophecy) if not what they did!

Finally, it is more than ironic and also unjust to condemn Catholicism for supposedly restraining God's command about be fruitful and multiplying. It is safe to say that there is no Christian denomination more fecund than Roman Catholicism! This is due to its prohibition of divorce, contraception and abortion and its view of marriage as a sacrament. So it seems clear to me at least that the demand for priestly celibacy in no way impedes the first commandment in the bible!

Since I have rabbi Chaim HaQoton's attention, I would like to ask him two more things relating to the use of the word HaShem for God or YHWH and also the use of Olam in the Hebrew blessing formula: Eloheinu Melech HaOlam = Our God King of the "Universe". I think both these expressions may be related.

If you do a concordance search for the word Olam, it almost always is an adjective meaning Eternal or Invisible. In Yeshiva we were told that the rabbis created Olam as a noun meaning "Universe" or World to connote the idea that God is hidden or concealed in the Creation, especially after the fall of man in Eden. Unfortunately Olam seems similar to the pagan Greek notion of an eternally existent uncreated universe, which surely contradicts the Creation story in Genesis 1! I wonder if on a subconscious level Jews use this term because they do not accept the Christian claim that Jesus is the revelation of the fulness of God!

Much has been written about the dual meaning of the word Olam in the Written Torah (Bible) as a dimension of time and in the Oral Torah (the Rabbinic writings) as a dimension of place. I will only add one more point to this discussion and that is that in the Dead Sea Scrolls the word Olam is used in its Rabbinic context i.e. to refer to space, not time. Most scholars agree that the DSS predate the supposed existence of the bastard from Bethlehem. If so, it seems that the usage of the word in such a meaning does not attempt to delegitimize Christianity--that fairytale did not exist yet. As for the rabbinic concept of Olam seeming similar to the pagan Greek concept of eternal existence (a concept which Maimonides goes at great lengths to chide Aristotle for believing in), it would seem to me that the Rabbis adopted a word whose meaning is similar to the concept to which they are trying to relate even if the term does not exactly mean the same thing. There are countless examples of Latin, Greek, and Persian words in the Mishna, Midrash, and Talmud whose meanings are slightly different from their original meanings in those languages.

This point is even more relevant given that Jesus demonstrated in the Lord's prayer the following wording:
Our Father who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy NameThy Kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus uses language that hearkens back to the Genesis 1 Creation account of heavens and earth:
Bereishit bara Elohim et hashamayim wa'et ha'aretz - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Jesus does NOT use the strange rabbinical term "Olam" alluding to a hidden and eternal universe. This is even more relevant since there are many parallels between the Lord's Prayer and the Jewish Kaddish prayer, with the great exception that Kaddish uses "Olam"!
Related to all this is the Jewish use of HaShem as a euphemistic substitute for YHWH or even Elohim - God. The source for this unusual word seems to be in Leviticus 24:10-16, when a member of the tribe of Dan curses God. Scripture there employs HaShem to serve as a buffer before the Divine Name, so the man is cursing the name of YHWH rather than YHWH itself. Thus HaShem seems to be associated with the idea of cursing God's Holy Name.
Again I wonder if Jews utilize this as a subconscious reflection of the fact that they curse and denigrate Jesus as a bastard (mamzer) whose Virginal Mother was a whore (God forbid) and who engaged in witchcraft to "lead Israel astray." Anti-missionary rabbis love to quote the warnings of Deuteronomy 13:1-12 and Deuteronomy 17:1-7 about not following a false prophet or miracle worker who teaches against Torah, but they are hard pressed to explain why God would raise from the dead such a "deceiver"! I have heard Orthodox Jews claim that God would indeed stage such a massive deception and corruption of His own justice simply in order to test the commitment of Jews to the Law of Moses. This reflects an understanding of God's nature that truly seems paranoid and sinister, to say the least! 

I do not find it problematic to say that HaShem would stage a massive deception and corruption of His own Torah in order to test the strength of the Jews' commitment to it. We have seen this countless times throughout history. The entire creation of the state of Israel and Zionism (according to the Satmar Rebbe) is a test by HaShem to see who will remain faithful to His Torah and who will stray from it. The same is true of the horrors of the Holocaust, the intellectual draw of the Haskala movement, and many other such instances (many of which have long been forgotten). HaShem enjoys giving extra credit to those who are faithful to Him, the way to achieve extra credit is by passing His tests. Life is full of such tests some bigger some smaller. They are all chances for one to prove his steadfast commitment to the Torah and Judaism and gain greater reward in the Heavens.

I would be grateful, rabbi Chaim HaQoton, for any insight you might be able to share.Shalom baShem Yeshua -  שלום בשם ישוע Peace in the Name of Jesus
Ayn Shalom bli Sar haShalom -  אין שלום בלי שר השלום No Peace without the Prince of Peace
Shalom haShabbat rak im Adon haShabbat -  שלום השבת רק אם אדון השבת Shalom of Shabbat Only with the Lord of Shabbat
Michael Korn/Menachem Mevashir -  מנחם מבשיר

I hope that I have adequately answered some of your misconceptions about Judaism and that my letter will help in bringing you closer to the one absolute truth.

Kol Tuv,
Reb Chaim HaQoton
http://rchaimqoton.blogspot.com

On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Menachem Mevashir <mevashir@aol.com> wrote:

I hope you will see that I made a few improvements!

By the way, rabbi Chaim calls himself HaQoton - the little - because the famous head of his Mirrer Yeshiva was also called rabbi Chaim. You might find of interest the amazing story of how he and his entire yeshiva found refuge in Shanghai during WWII. The Japanese official who helped them escape from the clutches of Nazi Germany was awarded honorary Israeli citizenship for himself and all his descendants in perpetuity!

I hope you will see that I made a few improvements!
By the way, rabbi Chaim calls himself HaQoton - the little - because the famous head of his Mirrer Yeshiva was also called rabbi Chaim. You might find of interest the amazing story of how he and his entire yeshiva found refuge in Shanghai during WWII. The Japanese official who helped them escape from the clutches of Nazi Germany was awarded honorary Israeli citizenship for himself and all his descendants in perpetuity!

True True, but there is more to it than that...