Torah Tuesdays: Harsh Idolatry Commandments, and How Some Jews Weaponize Them Against Christians

It may surprise some readers to know that in Israel, "missionary" is a dirty word.

Already in Israel, it is illegal to encourage a minor to change his religion. In 2023, a bill was introduced by fundamentalist religious leaders to criminalize all solicitation for religious conversion. (The bill didn't pass, though it gets re-upped every few years by far-right religious parties who see it as their religious duty.) Even tourists can be denied entry into Israel if they're suspected of missionary activity.

What does this have to do with the Torah? 

As part of EtzMitzvot, every Tuesday I add more commandments to the visual tree. This week I added the highlighted commandments concerning idolatry:

Specifically these commandments:

• Don't pity idolaters.
• Don't show compassion to idolators.
• Don't save idolators.

Whew - "don't pity", "don't show compassion", and "don't save them" - harsh! Certainly not politically correct. Maybe even counterintuitive to what many Christians understand to be God's character. 

But it nonetheless is God's character to hate idolatry. Historically, idolatry nearly destroyed Israel on multiple occasions. The Torah's harsh prohibitions on idols reflects God's character: it shows God's deep love and care for His people. God doesn't want His people to turn to delusions, sexual immorality, or self-harm, and the Canaanite cults involved all three.

These 3 commandments are one of several idolatry commandments that Maimonides derives from the Torah, and all three are based on Deuteronomy 13:7-10:

“Suppose your brother—your mother’s son—or your son or daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your best friend of your own soul misleads you secretly, saying, ‘Let’s go and serve other gods’—that you and your fathers have not known, from among the gods of the peoples around you, near you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other. You are not to give in or listen to him, your eye is not to pity him, and you are not to spare or conceal him. Instead, you will surely put him to death. Your hand should be the first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. You are to stone him with stones to death because he tried to entice you away from Adonai your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and never again will they do such an evil thing as this in your midst.

In essence, anyone who tells Israel to turn to other gods receives the death penalty. No citizen of Israel can hide an idolater, pity him, save him from penal judgment. Instead, he is to be stoned to death.

This commandment was given at a time and context where the nations were worshiping figurines of gold and silver, sacrificing humans to gods. The Canaanites were self-mutilating to worship Baal and engaging in temple cult prostitution, homosexuality and bestiality as forms of Asherah worship.

A Canaanite tablet from 1300 BC depicting Asherah, a Canaanite goddess whose worship appears repeatedly in the Tenakh. It is this sort of idolatry ancient Israel was surrounded with. God's commandments in the Torah were mean to prevent such idolatry.

To the original Israelite audience of the Torah, these prohibitions on idolatry would have been clear: worshiping Baal and Asherah is forbidden under threat of death.

What do commandments about idols have to do with modern Judaism and Christianity? Much, it turns out.

Some forms of Orthodox Judaism misapply these commandments to forbid Christianity and persecute Christians.

Chabad, for example, reinterprets these commandments as prohibitions on "missionaries" and "missionizing":

Suddenly, the commandments about not worshiping idols like Asherah now apply to Christians following the God of the Bible through the Jewish Messiah from Nazareth.

It is no wonder that some Jewish religious extremists have harassed Jewish followers of Jesus: barging into Christian events with bullhorns, denying or revoking citizenship of Jewish Christians in Israel, planting bombs at the homes of Messianic leaders. In the eyes of some religious extremists, people who call the Tenakh their Bible, call on the God of Israel, and follow the Jewish man from Nazareth are idolaters and missionizers.

I understand why some hardline Jewish religionists believe that. I understand how they misapply it to Christians. To them, Christians aren't following God, they're following a false god named Jesus. (Some religious Jews are more nuanced and will say that Christians are following God plus another entity besides God.)

The reality is hard to understand but nonetheless true. Christians are following only one God, the God of the Bible. 

God sent Jesus to bring humanity to Himself. He provided atonement and forgiveness of sins just before the Temple and Levitical system was destroyed. God revealed that Jesus is not merely a man, but an appearance of Himself, not unlike how God appeared to Abraham. This is not two or three gods, as Islam and Judaism misunderstand. God, Messiah, and the Spirit of God are not 3 gods. It is one God.

This is why Christians have no problem with Jesus saying that the Shema -- "Hear O Israel, the LORD our God is one" -- is the most important commandment. God is one, and the most important commandment is to worship him alone. 

If Jesus is a different god, as some parts of Judaism and Islam believe, then indeed it's right to apply these anti-idolatry commandments to Christians.

But if Jesus is an appearance of God, and there's only one God, then worshiping that one God is right, and applying these Torah commandments against Christians is a grave misinterpretation and perversion of the Torah.

I’m discouraged by Jewish anti-missionaries

The Rosh Pina Project is a fantastic blog run by a two Messianic guys who, among other things, document anti-missionary abuses of Messianic Jews and Christians.

And I’m discouraged and stressed out when I read the nastiness that goes on in the Rosh Pina Project comments.

The comments on the Rosh Pina Project is an internet war zone of the worst kind:

Many unbelieving Jews, most of whom are anti-missionaries, battle it out with Messianics and Christians in a perpetually-burning theological slam down.

And while some of the “professional”, official anti-missionaries (e.g. Moshe Shulman) are usually civil, most of the ilk there are the amateur, unscholarly, I-hate-all-things-Jesus kind of folk, and their battles are the bare-knuckled, gloves off kind that the internet is famous for.

I can’t even call it debate; I love debate and reasoning, but most of what goes on is mockery; real hatred manifesting itself.

It gets nasty.

Examples:

Mocking Christianity as a pro-human sacrifice religion:

“Of course the irrationality of Xstians is forcefully strong if one stopped to consider that the religion is pro human sacrifice as per the pagan religions it is based on. I do think J was a virgin – maybe it was a virgin human sacrifice?”

Mocking Jesus as a fake godman, also ridiculing Messianic organization UMJC and Messianic leader Stuart Dauermann:

Stuart Dauermann’s attempts, and thus the UMJC”s attempts to misdirect and make issues out of who or what constitutes supercessionism really is inconsequential to the fact that at the end of the day, SD and his crew at the UMJC are still misdirected Jews who cling to the idea of JC/Yoshke as godman.

Ridiculing the idea that a Jew can follow Yeshua, coupled with a plea to “come home” (read: abandon Yeshua and convert to Judaism):

You actually can peer into the constant identity problem that Jews have with this messianic movement. Don’t you see how a “raw nerve” is touched in your very Neshama [soul] by this ridiculous attempt at trying to reconcile being a Jew and following jesus? Come home already.

Assertions that Jews who follow Yeshua are no longer Jews. Mentions various Messianic leaders by name.

Though of Semitic descent you may be, taking that step into JC’s territory takes you out of Judaism’s territory. Period. Yes people can blow steam out their ears and pontificate and rehash yet again every tired old saw that we have been subjected to again and again on not just this site but so many others (Boaz, Derek et al.).

Almost zero debate, virtually all comments degrade into little personal vendetta fights:

You sad sorry little person. Does your brain hurt from trying to balance that many contradictions at the same time? You know absolutely nothing about me, you pathetic little git. Is it so hard to fathom inside that “spirit filled” little intellect of yours that aside from the great bogey-men “anti-missionaries” that …believe it or not, most Jews really dislike you.

And that’s just a few samples from a single recent thread; the Rosh Pina folks regularly encounter far worse.

I feel bad for the Joe Weissman and Gev, the folks who run that site, who have to put up with that level of hate and insults. They mostly rise above the fray. Can’t say the same for everyone who comments there, Messianic or Jewish.

One good that comes out of Rosh Pina is this: I am reminded that Messianics must band together. On my own blog, I’m held back from posting critiques about the latest Messianic theology being pushed by the big Messianic organizations. I don’t care so much about smaller theological problems on the inside when there are outsiders who are openly hostile to the whole group. Why nit-pick brothers on the inside when those who hate you are tearing down all of us from the outside?

Messianic musician Ted Pearce mentioned that he loves anti-missionaries:

I LOVE Anti-missionaries! Rav Shaul (Paul) was anti-missionary.

I'm pretty libertarian about secular discussion groups or public social networks. If we want to be free to speak to people about why Yeshua IS the Messiah, then those who might say He isn't should have the freedom to express their position in an intellectual way also.

Either Yeshua was raised from the grave or we are the most miserable of men. Every person really should be 100% convinced before putting their trust in Him. As long they aren't violent, we have nothing to fear from those guys.

I have a hard time really loving anti-missionaries. How can you love people who are so openly hostile, mean-spirited, angry, demonizing you and your family, your whole faith in God, and trying to make you abandon your hope?

Man.

I’m distressed seeing the hostility.

Caleb Myers on Israel and Yad L’Achim

It should be stressed that Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, while the actions of Yad L'Achim are not consistent with either the noble values of Judaism or the values of democracy.

[Israel] is a country that arose on the ashes of a people that was persecuted for its religion, and has resolved since its establishment to bear the standard of full equality, without discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion or nationality.

Caleb Myers, from the Jerusalem Institute for Justice’s request to dismantle the Yad L’Achim organization, a religious purity organization which has persecuted Messiah’s followers in Israel over the past decade.

Nehemiah Gordon – an anti-missionary?

(UPDATE: Nehemiah Gordon responded to this post, explaining his side of things: the anti-missionary website linked below was inherited from Gordon's mentor, Mordechai Alfandari, after his death. Gordon explains his heart has never been into anti-missionary work. Read his response and decide for yourselves.)

In yesterday’s post, I relayed a letter from prominent Karaite Nehemiah Gordon regarding his views on Yeshua, Messianics, Jews, and Christians:

I have not converted to Christianity nor do I attempt to convince anyone to change their faith. [Emphasis mine]
Let me start with my views on Jesus of Nazareth, or as he was known 2000 years ago, "Yeshua". Over the past few years I have gained a great respect for his teachings, but I have not embraced the Christian faith nor have I become a "Messianic Jew." I clearly state this in all of my presentations in order to avoid any possible confusion.
…
As a Karaite Jew, I await the coming of an anointed King (in Hebrew: "Messiah") who will be a direct descendant of King David. I have no idea what his name will be and therefore I do not rule out the possibility that his name will be "Yeshua".

Despite Gordon’s claims that he does not try to convert Messiah’s disciples to the Karaite religion, it’s been brought to my attention that Gordon actually runs an anti-missionary site.

This makes Gordon’s letter ring hollow and deceptive.


I don’t lightly throw around the term deceptive, but it would appear Gordon is deceiving people when he says he he doesn’t try to convert people to the Karaite religion, then behind the scenes, operates a site that will try to persuade you, with all the tired arguments, to abandon our hope in the King.

Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising: modern Jewish anti-missionaries borrow much of their arguments from a famous medieval Karaite anti-Yeshua work. Karaites have a history when it comes to denying the Master.

I am contemplating removing yesterday’s post as I have no interest in promoting false statements from folks who, lip service aside, ultimately reject the Messiah and apparently try to persuade others to do the same.