Category Archives: Daily Thoughts

From Counter-Missionary to Ally: My 21-Year Journey with Tovia Singer and Tamar Yonah

The War of Gog and Magog

I first encountered Tamar Yonah and Rabbi Tovia Singer back in 2005. My wife and I were in our second (almost third) year running Mayim Chaim Ministries, raising money and support for the Jewish families in Gush Katif as the expulsion loomed.

Tovia and Tamar were reporting live from the ground. We watched in horror as Israeli soldiers on horseback charged their own people, dragging families out of their homes like enemies. Friends of ours, Jeremy Gimpel and Ari Abramowitz, were among those forcibly removed. My wife and I sat weeping, hearts broken.

At the time, I was studying intensely, preparing to go to Israel specifically to meet Tovia — convinced I could prove to him that Jesus is the Messiah.

Twenty-one years later, everything has flipped.

This week I listened to Tamar and Tovia again — the first time I’ve heard her voice since shortly after Gush Katif. I now stand with him against replacement theology and the Christian world’s misreading of the Tanach.

In this powerful interview, Tovia repeatedly emphasized: “This isn’t my opinion — I’m just telling you what Ezekiel is saying… what the Tanach says.” Here are every major point he made to Tamar and the audience, drawn directly from the transcript:

On Whether We Are in the Messianic Age

“Are we in the Messianic age? The answer is yes. We are now in the Seder.” We are at the final stage — Nirtzah — of the 15-step Passover Seder. The Seder is called “order” because it is a fixed sequence where each event triggers the next. Jewish history has been marching through this same divine order for 3,300 years. Once you reach the final stage, the process is unstoppable. Ezekiel 38–39, written 2,500 years ago, describes today’s war with Persia (Iran) so precisely it sounds like it was written last week.

On the Structure of Ezekiel

“Ezekiel is divided into three sections:

  • Section one: Why the First Temple was destroyed.
  • Section two: What God is going to do to the enemy nations of Israel (especially chapters 38–39).
  • Section three: Chapters 34–48 — about the Messiah. There is no parallel to it.”**

He urged every viewer: Open Ezekiel 38 and 39 tonight without commentaries. It is easy to read. Rashi would have given anything to live in our time. Only this final generation will fully understand.

On Ezekiel 38–39 and Current Events

  • Persia (modern Iran) is explicitly named and will be drawn in with allies “like hooks in the mouth of a beast” (Ezekiel 38:4–5).
  • They will attack a restored Israel living securely, seeing an “aperture” (unwalled villages).
  • The hottest fighting is directly north — Lebanon/Hezbollah, Iran’s Shia proxy. The text repeatedly emphasizes “the north.”
  • God is hardening the enemies’ hearts (like Pharaoh) so they persist and keep coming back.
  • Massive destruction on the mountains of Israel: seven months to bury the dead, seven years burning their weapons for fuel. Scavengers feast on the bodies.
  • The entire purpose of the war: “So the nations will know that I am God.” (Repeated at the end of both chapters 38 and 39.)

On Replacement Theology

Read Ezekiel 39. The chapters list Israel’s sins that caused exile, then atonement and restoration. This is the physical Jewish people, not the Church replacing Israel. The text explicitly shuts down replacement theology.

On the Kingdom of the North

It is the active northern front right now — Lebanon/Hezbollah shooting at Israel. Tovia refuses to speculate beyond the text: “I’m simply telling you what the text says… take a compass — due north is Lebanon.”

On Mashiach ben Yosef vs. Mashiach ben David

Mashiach ben Yosef is an event, not a person. October 7th (1,200 murdered, 251 hostages) fulfills Zechariah 12 and Talmud Sukkah 52: a traumatic attack on Sukkot (when we read Ezekiel 38–39 as Haftarah) that causes national mourning, unity, and separation of men and women in prayer/mourning — exactly as happened before October 7th. This precedes Mashiach ben David.

On Recognizing the True Messiah

“It’s not true at all” that people will argue about his appearance or clothing. “Everyone will know… all the nations will serve him” (Daniel 7:13–14). There will be no debate. He is a son of David, a teacher who rebukes the nations, fulfilling the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7).

On the Messiah in Every Generation

Yes, there is one ready now (per Sanhedrin). There has been a potential Messiah in every generation. We are at the precipice.

On Aliyah and Living in Israel

It is a mitzvah. Those who returned before the final redemption (the 42,360 named in Ezra 2) have their names inscribed forever in Tanach. Israel is the safest place for Jews. History shows those warned “it’s too dangerous” often suffered terribly elsewhere.

On Easier or Harder Redemption (Isaiah 60:22)

“In its time, I will hasten it.”

  • Righteous generation doing teshuva out of love → more open miracles (like Hezekiah’s deliverance).
  • Otherwise → more painful process. Tovia is optimistic: we are a remarkable generation fusing faith in God with love of the Land.

On the Miracles Happening Now

The April 13, 2024 Iranian barrage (hundreds of missiles/drones) with virtually no deaths was the hidden hand of God — exactly like the Book of Esther. We must recognize Hashem working behind the scenes.

On What We Should Study Now

Study the Prophets (especially those outlining the order before Messiah). After redemption, we will primarily study Torah and Esther.

Twenty-one years ago I watched Tovia and Tamar report on Jewish suffering in Gush Katif. Today they are reporting on prophecy unfolding in real time — and I stand with them.

The only thing that changed is me.

May Hashem comfort every family in pain (including mine right now), strengthen Israel, and bring the full redemption speedily in our days.

Applying Jay Smith’s Standards to Christianity: The Mirror Test

Jay Smith Testing Method

Applying Jay Smith’s Standards to Christianity: The Mirror Test

Jay Smith has spent decades using archaeology, inscriptions, manuscripts, carbon dating, and source criticism to argue that Islam’s traditional 7th-century origin story is largely a later construction.

He asks tough, straightforward questions: Where are the contemporary sources? Why is Mecca invisible in early records? Why do the earliest qiblas all point toward Petra rather than Mecca? Why do the first biographies of Muhammad and collections of hadith appear 200–300 years after the events they describe?

These are fair historical questions. So let’s do exactly what Jay does — but turn the same lens on Christianity. What happens when we apply Jay Smith’s standards to Paul, the New Testament, and the origins of Christianity?

The results are remarkably similar.

The Geography Problem

Jay Smith repeatedly shows that the Quran’s geography doesn’t match Mecca at all. He points out that Mecca is not in a valley with streams running through it. It has no olive trees, no fields, no grass, no clay or loam. It’s not even on any known 7th-century trade route. Most damaging of all, the earliest mosques — including ones built in China, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen — all had their qibla facing Petra, not Mecca.

The Christian Bible has the same kind of geographical and historical problems.

In Genesis 33, it says Jacob bought a piece of land in Shechem. But then Joshua 24:32 and Acts 7:16 both say that Abraham bought that same piece of land. That’s a straight-up contradiction — two different people credited with buying the same property.

Luke chapter 2 says Jesus was born during a census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria. But Roman records show Quirinius didn’t become governor until 6 AD — a full ten years after Herod the Great died in 4 BC. That means Luke’s timeline is off by an entire decade.

The Gospels also treat Nazareth as a real, established city where Jesus grew up. Yet after decades of digging, archaeologists have found no evidence that Nazareth even existed as a town in the early first century. The only early references to Nazareth come from the Gospels themselves.

These aren’t small mistakes. These are exactly the same kinds of problems Jay Smith points out about Mecca — the geography and timeline in the text simply don’t match the real world.

The Silence of Contemporary Witnesses

Jay Smith points out that the earliest Arab inscription mentioning the name “Muhammad” doesn’t appear until 691 CE — almost 60 years after he supposedly died. The first full biography of Muhammad doesn’t show up until 833 CE, over 200 years later.

Christianity has a very similar problem with silence from people who should have seen it all.

Philo of Alexandria was a well-educated Jewish writer who lived from about 20 BCE to 50 CE. He lived right in the Jerusalem area and wrote detailed accounts of Jewish life and major historical events happening in Judea. He was even there during the huge crisis when the Roman emperor Caligula tried to put his own statue in the Jewish Temple.

Yet Philo never once mentions Jesus. He never mentions any miracles happening in Jerusalem. Philo never mentions a group of disciples following a man from Nazareth. He never mentions a crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. Nothing.

This is a man who was alive at the exact time and in the exact place the Gospels describe — and he says nothing. That silence is very loud.

Late Sources and Textual Construction

Jay Smith’s strongest argument is that virtually everything we know about Muhammad and the Quran was written down 200–300 years after the events. The first complete Quran manuscripts only appear in the 8th and 9th centuries, and even those contain thousands of textual variants and corrections that continued for centuries.

The same pattern appears in Christianity.

Professor Nina Livesey argues that the Pauline letters are not genuine 1st-century letters written by Paul. She believes they are 2nd-century fictive compositions, most likely produced around 144 CE in or near Marcion’s school. These letters read like carefully crafted rhetorical exercises — full of self-promotion, exaggeration, and repeated disjunctive pairs such as flesh versus spirit, law versus faith, and slavery versus freedom.

Tovia Singer, a well-known Jewish scholar, points out that Paul repeatedly misrepresents the Hebrew Bible. In Romans 10, Paul actually cuts Deuteronomy 30 in half. He removes the part that says the commandment is “not too difficult” and can be done. Singer calls this a deliberate distortion designed to diminish the value of the Torah.

The Jesus Words Only ministry takes it even further. They show that Paul doesn’t just say the Torah was given through angels instead of God — he goes on to call those angels “weak and beggarly” and “no gods.” That is a triple insult that has no parallel in any Jewish source.

Borrowed Elements and Pagan Roots

Jay Smith shows that many core elements of Islam trace back to pre-Islamic pagan sources centered in Petra. The name “Allah” itself comes from the Nabataean god Ilaha. The Black Stone in the Kaaba, certain rituals, and many stories in the Quran have clear antecedents in earlier pagan and Jewish-Christian traditions.

Christianity shows the exact same pattern.

Much of Pauline theology — the idea of a divine Son, the concept of the Logos, and the foundations of what later became the Trinity — draws heavily from Hellenistic philosophy and the surrounding mystery cults of the Roman world.

As Tovia Singer has repeatedly pointed out, Paul’s writings feel far more Greek than Jewish. He often seems to be “thinking in Greek” and appears to have only a superficial knowledge of the Hebrew Bible. His interpretations frequently twist or remove key passages from the Torah to support his new theology.

When you apply Jay Smith’s same critical lens — tracing ideas back to their actual historical and cultural roots — both religions show heavy borrowing from the pagan and philosophical ideas that surrounded them, rather than being pure restorations of Abrahamic monotheism.

Political Construction by a Later Figure

Jay Smith identifies Abd al-Malik (685–705 CE) as the key figure who standardized Islamic identity. He builds the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, mints coins with the Shahada, and uses strongly anti-Trinitarian inscriptions as imperial propaganda against the Byzantine Empire. This is when the full narrative of Islam really begins to crystallize.

A very similar process happened in Christianity.

The version of Christianity that ultimately prevailed was shaped far more by the Roman/Greek world than by Jerusalem. Paul’s theology largely displaced the more Torah-observant Jerusalem church led by James. The full doctrine of the Trinity wasn’t settled until centuries of church councils — long after the events described in the New Testament.

In both cases, a powerful later figure (or movement) standardized the religion, gave it its final theological shape, and projected that final form backward onto the founder.

The Mirror Test

When Jay Smith applies rigorous historical criticism to Islam, he concludes we have “the wrong man, in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time.”

Apply those same standards to Christianity, and many scholars reach parallel conclusions about Paul: the letters appear to be later literary creations. The theology diverges sharply from the Hebrew Bible. The geography and timeline have problems. Contemporary witnesses are silent. The texts show signs of heavy editing and rhetorical construction.

Both religions claim to restore pure Abrahamic monotheism. Both show clear signs of late theological development, borrowed elements from surrounding pagan cultures, and political standardization when examined with consistent, rigorous historical criticism.

This is the mirror test.

Jay Smith’s method doesn’t just challenge Islam — it challenges the foundations of Pauline Christianity with equal force.

The evidence doesn’t bend to tradition. Tradition eventually has to bend to the evidence.

Hazan Gavriel ben David

Values — Parshat Emor: The Pathways to You Are Always on Their Heart

The Exodus

This past week, that question stopped being theoretical for our family.

At three o’clock in the morning, I received a call that my granddaughter had been grazed by multiple bullets at a party. Her boyfriend was shot in the head and murdered, and one other killed, and five others are in critical condition, and four were injured.

In the middle of that kind of pain, Rabbi Goldstein’s question suddenly becomes very real: What are your values actually worth?

When death walks that close to your family, you stop asking what you say you believe. You look at what you’ve actually been living for. You look at where your time, your money, and your heart have really gone.

Because in the end, values are proven in moments like this — not in comfortable conversations, but in the choices we made long before the phone rang at 3 a.m.

The Receipts- Not Just Words

“Ashrei adam oz lo bach, mesilot bilvavam” — Happy is the person whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to You. (Tehillim 84:6)

Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein asks: What are your values truly worth? When we claim “family, honesty, integrity,” are we willing to sacrifice time, money, comfort, or ego — or are they just nice-sounding opinions?

This brings us back to the Garden, and to the very first test Hashem gave us after leaving Egypt.

The Mean God Of The Bible

Many Christians say the God of the Old Testament is mean and angry. But look at the facts. Pharaoh was cruel. He called us lazy, stopped giving us straw, yet still demanded the exact same number of bricks from every person. The strong gathered more straw, the weak gathered less, but the quota never changed. Those who fell short were beaten.

Hashem’s very first test after the Exodus was the manna — and it was literally impossible to fail. If you gathered more than an omer, it still measured exactly one omer. You could not gather less than an Omer because it still came out to one Omer. If you tried to keep some overnight, it turned into worms.

If you went out on Shabbat, there was no manna at all — but you had received a double portion the day before, so you could rest. Every single person received exactly what they needed. No beatings, no impossible demands. Just perfect fairness and built-in rest. Hashem was proving to us: “I am not Pharaoh. I am a loving Father who provides for everyone equally.”

dreamstime.com

What Kind of Construction Did the Israelites Do in Egypt? - TheTorah.com

thetorah.com

Parsha Emor Not By Your Hands

In this week’s parsha, right in the middle of the holidays, the Torah places the Omer offering. Rabbi David Fohrman shows us a beautiful intertextual triangle. The Omer in Emor connects to the manna in the desert and to the moment in Joshua 5 when the people first ate from the produce of the Land — the day the manna stopped forever.

The Omer is Hashem’s bridge. It reminds us that even when we plant, harvest, and bake with our own hands, Hashem is still the One who provides. The land is simply a new form of the wilderness. The moment we forget that, our values drift away from their Source.

That’s why the laws of pe’ah and leket — leaving the corners and gleanings for the poor — come right after the Omer. Just as no one could hoard the manna, we are not allowed to hoard our harvest. God still retains a stake in what we produce.

Today, many Jews say the Third Temple will simply descend from heaven when Mashiach comes. But Rabbi Fohrman’s lesson echoes the words of the prophet Haggai: we cannot sit and wait for some philosophical ideal.

Our Heavenly Partner

We must begin the work with our own hands, exactly as our ancestors did when they entered the Land. The Omer teaches us that Hashem partners with human effort. He fed us with manna, and now He feeds us through the work of our hands — but only if we remember Who is really providing.

Nathaniel Jeanson’s book Traced proves with DNA that we are literally one human family. We all descend from Noah’s three sons. If we are one family, we need one Father’s house rule—the Ten Commandments.

Rabbi Fohrman shows that Hashem at Sinai deliberately echoes Rebecca’s words to Yaakov in Genesis 27: “Listen to my voice.” The family story is redeemed. The Ten Sayings become the constitution for one united human family.

עץ (tree) equals 160 in gematria — the same as צלם (image). Only by holding onto the Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life, do we truly live up to being created in God’s image.

The Table Is Set

Pirkei Avot makes it clear:

“Let your house be a meeting place for the Sages, sit in the dust of their feet, and drink their words thirstily.”¹

One who learns even a single letter must honor his teacher.²

“Let the honor of your student be as dear to you as your own… and reverence for your teacher like reverence for Heaven.”³

“If there is no Torah, there is no derech eretz; if there is no derech eretz, there is no Torah.”⁴

This Shabbos in Emor, as we count the Omer, ask yourself honestly: Do I truly study the word of Hashem, or do I just say I love Him? Do my actions — my fruit — show that I remember Who feeds me every day?

The pathways to Him are always on our hearts. We cannot wait for the Temple to fall from heaven. Like our ancestors, like the generation of Haggai, we must begin the work with our own hands — remembering the manna, living the values, and repairing this one human family together.

Shabbat Shalom. Chazak ve’ematz.

Footnotes ¹ Pirkei Avot 1:4

² Pirkei Avot 6:3

³ Pirkei Avot 4:12

⁴ Pirkei Avot 3:17

Shabbat Shalom — Parshat Emor: The Pathways to You Are Always on Their Heart

Ashrei adam oz lo bach, mesilot bilvavam” — Happy is the person whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to You. (Tehillim 84:6)

Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein asks in his Emor shiur: What are your values really worth? In the market, worth is only what someone will pay. So when we claim “family, honesty, integrity,” are we willing to sacrifice time, money, comfort, or ego — or are they just cheap opinions?

This question takes us back to the Garden. Hashem commanded Adam: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat” (Bereishit 2:16) — including the Tree of Life in the center. The plan was slow and relational: start at the edges, taste new fruits, come back to Hashem with every experience, and let Him teach good and evil from His perspective. The pathways to Him were meant to be walked in constant conversation.

Every Child Should Know Good and Evil

But the Tree of Knowledge stood there too. As Rabbi Fohrman teaches, eating from it first meant seizing the power to define morality yourself instead of receiving it from the Creator. Relationship with Hashem — the Tree of Life — had to come first.

Rabbi Manis Friedman flips the story beautifully: Eve wasn’t weak. She understood the deeper plan. Staying immortal in perfect Eden would leave their children with no mission, no challenges, no growth. She chose mortality and a broken world so her descendants could do real tikkun and reach heights angels cannot. That’s why she’s called Chava — mother of all life.

During these Omer weeks of Parshat Emor, we count seven perfect weeks from Pesach to Shavuot because the whole point of leaving Egypt was to receive the Torah — the Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life we sing about every Shabbos.

The Torah itself proves this isn’t just opinion — it’s woven into the text. In Rabbi Fohrman’s A Book Like No Other series on Shavuot, he shows that when Hashem gives the Ten Commandments, He deliberately echoes Rebecca’s words to Yaakov in Genesis 27: “And now, my son, listen to my voice — ve’atah b’ni shema b’koli — to what I command you.”

Genesis 27

At Sinai, Hashem says, “And now, if you will listen to My voice — ve’atah im shamoa tishma’u b’koli — and keep My covenant.” The exact phrasing, the exact order, even referencing Yaakov’s name — it’s all there. The family story of deception and blessing is redeemed and becomes the foundation for the Jewish people to become one family under the Ten Sayings.

Nathaniel Jeanson’s book Traced proves we’re literally one family. Using Y-chromosome DNA passed from father to son, he built a global family tree. Every man alive traces back to the same small group of ancestors — matching the biblical line from Noah’s three sons. Modern genetics confirms what Torah always taught: we are all brothers and sisters.

Traced: Human DNA's Big Surprise: Nathaniel Jeanson: 9781683442912:  Amazon.com: Books

amazon.com

File:World Map of Y-DNA Haplogroups.png - Wikimedia Commons

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If we’re truly one human family, we need one Father’s house rules. That’s the Ten Commandments — the Aseret HaDibrot, the Ten Sayings. Without them, brothers fight, families fracture, and nations collapse. Only by keeping “I am Hashem your God,” “Honor your father and mother,” “Do not murder, do not steal,” can we live as one united family.

Stone Tablets With The Ten Commandments Of God In Hebrew. Vector  Illustration. EPS 10. Royalty Free SVG, Cliparts, Vectors, and Stock  Illustration. Image 214159662.

123rf.com

Stone Tablets With The Ten Commandments Of God In Hebrew. Vector Illustration. EPS 10. Royalty Free SVG, Cliparts, Vectors, and Stock Illustrations. Image 214159662.

Pirkei Avot makes the foundation clear:

Yosei ben Yoezer taught: “Let your house be a meeting place for the Sages, sit in the dust of their feet, and drink their words thirstily.”¹

One who learns even a single letter must honor his teacher, just as David honored Achitophel.²

The Tree of Life and Adam and Eve

Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua said: “Let the honor of your student be as dear to you as your own, the honor of your colleague like reverence for your teacher, and reverence for your teacher like reverence for Heaven.”³

And directly: “If there is no Torah, there is no derech eretz; if there is no derech eretz, there is no Torah.”⁴ Without Hashem’s word, proper conduct has no root.

Professor Haim Shore and Baal HaTurim reveal the math: עץ (tree) equals 160, same as צלם (image). Man is created in the tzelem Elohim — only by connecting to the Etz, the Tree of Life, do we truly live up to that image.

Here’s the Hebrew letter values chart:

Gematria - Bible Odyssey

bibleodyssey.org

Secrets of the Five Special Sofit Letters | Mayim Achronim

mayimachronim.com

And this is the living Etz Chaim we sing about every Shabbos:

Kabbalah Tree of Life Pt 1 - The Sephirot | Walking Kabbalah

walkingkabbalah.com

Etz Chaim Cheatsheet: An Interactive Exploration of the Sefirot

cheatsheets.davidveksler.com

Where do you derive your values? When culture shifts, do you shift — or do you turn first to Hashem’s word? Are you willing to pay the price?

Adam and Eve chose the harder path so we could have this mission. The kohanim in Emor keep themselves holy to bring Hashem’s sanctity into the world. We are called to do the same — to root our values in Torah, walk the highways always on our hearts, and live as one family under the Ten Sayings.

Shabbat Shalom. Chazak ve’ematz.

Hazan Gavriel ben David

Footnotes ¹ Pirkei Avot 1:4 ² Pirkei Avot 6:3 ³ Pirkei Avot 4:12 ⁴ Pirkei Avot 3:17

The Torah Is Incredible: Unequivocal Mathematical Proof of Divine Origin — And Why It Survives Every Test

Torah the Blue Print of Creation
Signature: jzh7dRr1x3fjieES/SpRe8QNXFaPEHVbcnv6Yp8PzmKcsMhs6hCE/mUwYJtNQ1P5aJHXhAzAjmGngRNfCKDY3U09fB1OcW9sLIQUnri/uZw1H/yoLxee2hm/xEm/0VtbMG+6Ku/2zibHoDvs3kQsM1YfUNeNifWq+HaMKRwxCpOceS7K5tShc0rkv2jnRMn88zmmTxFORrM2YVzG7e2VZJBhtuRlNbROruJqIRXiA0jzkIHNceKNnuhsbzMBsC+D

I grew up Christian. At five years old, God was my best friend — I spoke to Him every day with no intermediary. At seven, a priest looked me in the eye and said, “You cannot know God without Jesus.” Something deep in my soul immediately put up a wall.

Years later, I discovered I was Jewish through my mother’s Halevi line. My uncles tested as Kohanim. Our family connects directly to Bennett Greenspan, founder of FamilyTreeDNA. Today, at sixty, I weep with joy watching priests prepare offerings again for the first time in nearly two thousand years.

I didn’t leave Christianity out of anger. I left because I started asking the same rigorous questions Jay Smith uses to examine Islam — and the answers destroyed the foundation I had been taught.

Jay Smith’s Method: The Man, the Place, and the Book — Applied Without Favoritism

Jay Smith’s approach is relentless and fair. He demands contemporary evidence from the exact time and place claimed. In his recent lectures, he states:

“Between 624 and 660 AD — that’s the entire period of the so-called Islamic conquests — we have zero Islamic coins. Nothing. The coins we do have from that time still carry crosses or Zoroastrian fire altars. The name ‘Muhammad’ and the full Shahada only appear decades later, around 690–692 AD on coins and the Dome of the Rock inscription.”

He documents a 100-year silence. No contemporary Arab, Roman, or Persian records mention Muhammad preaching in Mecca. No archaeology supports the grand trade-center narrative. The story appears to have been constructed later and projected backward.

When I applied the exact same method to Christianity, the pattern repeated itself with devastating clarity.

Christianity Through the Same Historical Lens

Where are the contemporary Roman or Jewish records of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, the Temple cleansing that caused a riot, public miracles that triggered darkness over the whole land, an earthquake, or saints rising and walking Jerusalem’s streets (Matthew 27)? None exists. The first non-Christian mentions — Josephus (~93 AD) and Tacitus (~116 AD) — come 60+ years later. The key Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus is widely regarded by scholars as at least partially interpolated by later Christians.

The entire New Testament was composed in Greek — the language of pagan philosophers and Roman occupiers. Torah-observant Jews did not write sacred revelation in a foreign tongue. Why would Jews invent a new religion centered on a man dying for the sins of others when Torah states explicitly, “Fathers shall not die for children, nor children for fathers; every man shall die for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16)?

The Gospels are anonymous in the earliest manuscripts. Titles were added later. The canon itself was not fixed until the late 4th century under political pressure from Roman emperors. Early Christianity was wildly diverse — Ebionites kept the Torah and rejected claims of divinity; Gnostics and Marcionites, who rejected the Old Testament entirely. One stream won politically and retrojected its version onto the 1st century.

Fr. Josiah Trenham, an Orthodox priest representing the second-largest Christian denomination, openly admits the filter:

“We don’t follow the Old Testament at all. The Old Testament is our root… But Christians read the Old Testament through the New Testament because everything in the Old Testament was about Jesus Christ… We understand the Old Testament to be… a childish age… So it would make no sense at all for us to follow the Old Testament.”

Rabbi Tovia Singer correctly identifies the problem: there is no guardrail. Once you read Tanakh through the New Testament lens, nothing in the Hebrew Bible can correct the theology. This is exactly the later-construction pattern Jay Smith exposes in Islam.

The Torah Passes Every Test — Mathematical Proof of Divine Origin

While both Christianity and Islam show signs of later development, borrowing, and retrojection, the Torah stands alone as the original Blueprint, proven by objective mathematics.

In his documentary Math Unveils the Truth – Torah is of Divine Origin, Professor Haim Shore demonstrates that Hebrew words in the Torah encode modern scientific data with statistically impossible precision. Each Hebrew letter has a numeric value (gematria). Professor Shore compares these values (HNV) to NASA measurements using linear regression and computer simulations.

Celestial Bodies: Moon, Earth, Sun

The Hebrew word for moon (yareach) has HNV 218. Earth (eretz) = 291. Sun (shemesh) = 640.

When plotted against the natural log of their diameters (standard scientific scaling), the three points form a nearly perfect straight line with a linear correlation of 0.999. Professor Shore states:

“The three points yareach, eretz, shemesh are aligned almost exactly on a straight line with a linear correlation of 0.999… The probability of obtaining by chance only the finding related to moon, earth, sun is 0.2%.”

That is 99.8% confidence that this is not a coincidence. The same words also match mass, surface area, and volume. Changing even one letter destroys the alignment. These words appear in the Torah exactly as written over 3,300 years ago.

Time Cycles: Day, Month, Year

Yom (day) = 56 Yareach (month) = 218 Shanah (year) = 355

Plotted against their frequencies in Hertz, they show a correlation of 0.9992 (a 0.5% chance of occurring by chance).

All Planets in the Solar System

Hebrew names for the nine planets align with log mass (correlation 0.9776), diameter (0.9825), and orbital angular momentum (0.9812). Professor Shore’s simulations show probabilities as low as 0.00003%.

Colors, Elements, Water Phases, Speeds

Color names match light wave frequencies (0.9981). Metals and compounds match atomic weights. Water’s three phases (kerach, mayim, kitor) match specific heat capacities (0.9995). Speeds of light (or), sound (kol), and stillness (demamah) align perfectly.

Big Bang and Genesis Timeline

Using reliable events (light, sun, moon, man), Shore derives an equation linking Genesis “days” to billions of years. Correlation 0.9998 (probability 0.01%). Day in Genesis ≈ 3.007 billion years. Creation begins ~2.94 billion years before the Big Bang — consistent with “darkness on the face of the deep” before “Let there be light.”

Professor Shore summarizes:

“The probability of obtaining by chance… is extremely small… virtually non-existent.”

Rabbi Ephraim Palvanov and Torah as Chemistry

Palvanov shows that the first 92 unique root words in Genesis correspond to the 92 naturally occurring elements. In his “Judaism vs. Zoroastrianism – Fire” lectures, fire symbolizes divine light and wisdom, yet the Torah rejects dualism in favor of absolute monotheism (Isaiah 45:7).

Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson’s genetics traces humanity to three primary fathers and mothers — matching Noah and Genesis 10. Matthew LaCroix documents the Tree of Life symbol across ancient civilizations dating back ~40,000 years.

My Life as Living Evidence of the Returning Blueprint

I am that Blueprint waking up. A proven Kohen with ancient DNA who lived as a Christian, studied with Hebrew Roots teachers (Brad Scott, Bill Cloud, Michael Rood), met Rabbi Chaim Richman in Israel in 2002, and returned fully to Torah. Today I weep over the offerings being prepared again. This is Isaiah 56:6 — lost Jews returning, not random gentiles. Zechariah 12:8 promises that the weakest will be like David. I was the weakest one.

Current Events and the Spiritual War

Tensions in the Straits of Hormuz (named after Ahura Mazda) carry spiritual weight, as Palvanov explains. Political violence against influential leaders like President Trump echoes historical patterns of violence against those challenging imperial systems (McKinley, Lincoln). Yet the Torah remains the eternal guardrail.

The Family Is Being Called Home

We are counting the Omer, preparing once more for Sinai. Genesis opens with a family conflict needing reconciliation. Our generation must heal Abraham’s family — Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau — and return to the original Tree of Life.

Christianity’s “Old Testament through New Testament eyes” and Islam’s late narrative both fail Jay Smith’s evidence test. Only the Torah — proven by mathematics, chemistry, genetics, archaeology, and prophecy — stands as the unchanging Blueprint given by the Supreme Being.

Deuteronomy 4:39 declares: “Know therefore this day, and take it to heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is none else.”

The receipts are overwhelming. The probability of all Professor Shore’s findings occurring by chance is effectively zero. This is objective proof.

The Tree of Life was never lost. The hidden hands of empires and replacement theologies cannot erase it. The family of Adam is awakening. Return to Har HaBayit. Prostrate. Pray. Perform teshuvah. As Isaiah 58 teaches, when Jacob repents, redemption comes.

The Torah is incredible. The Blueprint is returning — right now, in our generation.

Footnotes

  1. Professor Haim Shore, Math Unveils the Truth documentary transcript, sections on moon/earth/sun diameters and probabilities.
  2. Rabbi Ephraim Palvanov, “Judaism vs. Zoroastrianism Part 2: Fire” lecture.
  3. Deuteronomy 24:16; Isaiah 45:7; Isaiah 56:6; Zechariah 12:8; Isaiah 58.
  4. Jay Smith lectures on early Islamic coins and the 100-year silence.
  5. Fr. Josiah Trenham’s statement was analyzed by Rabbi Tovia Singer.
  6. Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson’s genetic research; Matthew LaCroix Tree of Life symbols.

Key Takeaways

  • The author transitioned from Christianity to Judaism after rigorous questioning of their beliefs, especially influenced by Jay Smith’s method.
  • Applying the same historical lens to Christianity reveals a lack of contemporary evidence for key events associated with Jesus.
  • The Torah is presented as the original, unchanging Blueprint, proven through mathematics, chemistry, genetics, and archaeology.
  • Professor Haim Shore’s research demonstrates the Torah’s precise encoding of scientific data and patterns, supporting its divine origin.
  • The article calls for reconciliation within Abraham’s family and encourages a return to the Torah as the path to redemption.

Chapter 1: The Elephant in the Room

The Stranger: Isaiah 56:6

I didn’t discover I was Jewish until I was thirty-five years old. That single fact still sounds strange when I say it out loud. For the first thirty-five years of my life, I lived completely unaware of who I really was. I had no connection to my heritage, no understanding of the Torah, and no idea that an ancient blueprint for reality was sitting there waiting for me.

On 911 everything changed. You’re Jewish, my mother told me. My mother was not religious; she just said things that did not sound like Catholic sayings, like “when the black people rise to take over the world, then you know the end has come”. I can say black because I am 24 % black.

I immediately started learning what it meant to be Jewish. Rabbi Chiam Ricman was on God’s Learning Channel with one of my teachers, Sam Peak of blessed memory. I learned everything from them in the beginning, for about three years, from Passover Sedars to Sukkot the Jewish way.

Along the way, I met a group of Messianic Jewish movements in 2002. The perspective of other Jews, such as Messianic Jews or the Hebrew Roots movement. From the very best, Brad Scott, Bill Cloud, Monte Judah, Eddie Chumney, Rico Cortes, Michael Rood, FFOZ, and Tony Robinson. Scholars like Avi Ben Mordechai. Boaz Michael and Thomas D Lancaster, Dr. Michael Brown.

I knew from the age of seven years old that the religion the Priest told was wrong, and I have always had that in the back of my mind. Then one day I opened the Torah with new eyes, and the first question that hit me was so obvious I couldn’t believe I’d never asked it before.

If the Torah is primarily a book of laws, why does it begin with stories instead of commandments?

The first sixty-six chapters — all of Genesis plus the first eleven chapters of Exodus — contain zero laws. No “thou shalt not.” No legal code at all. Just one story after another: Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel, and the Patriarchs. Why would God structure His eternal blueprint this way?

Rabbi David Fohrman, at Aleph Beta, in his series A Book Like No Other, pointed out something that took me months to put together. The Garden was the message Hashem was trying to convey. Like in life, it is the props that make the movie or video game. His answer was simple but profound. He said:

“The Torah is actually telling a story in the setting… the trees, the garden, and its layout carry hidden meaning.”

He taught me that sometimes the most obvious questions in the Biblical text are the ones everyone skips over — the “elephant in the room” questions. As Rabbi Fohrman explained:

“Sometimes there are these basic questions, very obvious questions, in every Biblical story… the ‘elephant in the room’ questions.”

That conversation changed everything for me. It was the moment I realized the Torah wasn’t just a rule book dropped from heaven. It was a carefully designed blueprint, and the stories were there to define reality itself.

Stories create reality. Chief Rabbi Golstien, in his lecture on Tzav

Quote from Chief Rabbi Goldstein:

“Today what I want to talk to you about is the power of words and what we say. Because on the one hand, it’s quite tempting to think that actions are the most important thing and that words really don’t count. In a way, that is part of what it is all about — it says many times that it is action rather than words.

But there is something about the power of words that can be more transformative, actually, than action itself. Words have power. And if we can try and understand what the power of words is to actually change reality, then we can tap into something that can completely change our lives.”

God did not legislate the universe into existence. He spoke it into existence. “Let there be light… Let there be a firmament… Let the earth bring forth…” Those first words in Genesis are the original operating system of creation — the Tree of Life Blueprint.

Rabbi Fohrman showed how the two trees in the Garden are not random details. He pointed out the parallel structure between the creation of man and the creation of the trees, and then connected it to Deuteronomy 30. The Torah itself tells us that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are linked to choosing life and good over death and evil. The entire setting of Eden is teaching us how to live as soul-body beings in this world.

Adam wasn’t just the first human. He was the human being closest to God who has ever lived. He was created perfect, with intelligence, language, and a direct connection to his Creator that we can barely imagine today. Every generation since has moved farther from that original perfection.

Yet modern culture tells us Adam was primitive — basically an ape who slowly figured things out over millions of years. That’s the elephant in the room.

Dr. Rob Carter, in his discussion on human genetics, put it this way:

“We’ve all heard that human and chimpanzee DNA only differs by about 1%. But there’s new research that says that number might be closer to 15%… The numbers do not work in favor of evolution.”

He laid out four critical questions that must be answered before anyone can claim common ancestry, and the data simply doesn’t support the evolutionary timeline. Life is too complex, too integrated, too finely tuned for random mutation and natural selection to explain in the short time evolution allows.

Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson, a Harvard-trained geneticist, has taken this even further. In his books Replacing Darwin, Traced, and They Had Names, he shows how modern genetics actually confirms the biblical timeline. He explains:

“The creation science model is working very well… It keeps making predictions that work and you can’t ask for anything better according to the courts and really according to the nature of science itself.”

Jeanson’s research on the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA shows population growth patterns that match a recent origin from a single family, exactly as the Torah describes after Noah. His predictions keep being confirmed while evolutionary models struggle.

So if Adam was created perfect, why does the scientific story insist that humans evolved slowly from simpler life forms over millions of years? Why does it treat our ancient ancestors as ignorant cave-dwellers when the Torah presents Adam as the pinnacle of creation?

The Torah doesn’t begin with laws because laws only make sense once you understand the blueprint. The stories come first because they define reality itself.

And those stories are mathematical.

Professor Haim Shore discovered something that should stop every skeptic in their tracks. He took the numerical values of simple Hebrew words in the Torah (gematria) and compared them directly with modern scientific measurements. As the transcript records:

“Could there possibly be an unequivocal mathematical proof that the Torah was given by a supreme being? A scientific proof… The answer is yes.”

He showed that Shemesh (Sun) = 640, Eretz (Earth) = 291, and Yareach (Moon) = 218 correlate with actual astronomical measurements at 0.999 accuracy. Time cycles, speeds of light and sound, planetary properties, color frequencies, and even the specific heat capacities of water’s three phases all match with extraordinarily high statistical probability. Professor Shore’s conclusion is unmistakable:

“If you change even one single letter in any of these Hebrew words, the entire mathematical system collapses… There is zero probability of getting all these results by chance.”

This isn’t ancient guesswork. This is a deliberate, precise code embedded in the Hebrew language from the very beginning.

So here’s the real question: If the Torah contains this level of mathematical precision, why does the modern world treat it as primitive mythology?

Because someone has been rewriting the story.

The same culture that tells us Adam was primitive also tells us the ancients couldn’t possibly have known the things they clearly knew. They tell us the pyramids were built by slaves with ropes and ramps, even though we still can’t replicate them. They tell us ancient civilizations were superstitious, even though their writings contain knowledge we’re only now rediscovering.

The Torah never rewrote itself.

It has always presented Adam as the first fully formed, highly intelligent human being. The blueprint was given in its entirety. The code was never random. It was intentional.

And that brings us to the heart of this chapter.

If stories create reality, then the story we tell about human origins determines what we believe is possible. The evolutionary story says we’re accidental, slowly improving apes. The Torah story says we started perfect and have been declining ever since.

Only one of those stories matches the mathematical code embedded in the language itself — and the genetic data that is now confirming a recent, designed origin for humanity.

The elephant in the room is no longer hiding.

The Torah began with stories because stories are the original code. The blueprint comes before the rules. Adam was the first blueprint. And that blueprint was never primitive — it was perfect.

Everything else in the Torah flows from that original design.

Chapter 10:Blindness in Prophecy – Why No One Knows They’re Living It

New Testament Bible Not Part Of The Tanach

The Star Of Jacob

For thousands of years, people have walked straight through the middle of biblical prophecy without recognizing it.

The Israelites witnessed ten devastating plagues, walked through the parted sea on dry ground, and still complained days later that they wanted to go back to Egypt. Jeremiah warned the people of Judah for over forty years about the coming destruction, yet they mocked him and threw him into a pit. Even the prophets themselves often did not fully grasp the timing or complete meaning of the words Hashem gave them to speak.

This exact same blindness is happening again — right now, in our generation.

We are living in the days described in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Persia (Iran) has been directly struck. Damascus has become a heap of ruins. Nations are aligning against Israel exactly as the prophets foretold. Yet the vast majority of people — Jews and Christians alike — do not see it. Why? Because everyone is holding tightly to their own pre-written script of how the “end times” are supposed to unfold, instead of simply reading the Torah as the actual blueprint.

The Unspoken Christian Endgame

Many sincere Christian Zionists love and support Israel. They donate generously, publicly stand with us, and cheer every victory. But behind much of this support lies a quiet theological belief that is rarely voiced aloud: one day, the Jewish people will “look upon Him whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10), realize that Jesus is the Messiah, mourn, and convert. In that scenario, Judaism as we know it comes to an end.

The Hebrew text tells a different story.

The phrase “et asher dakaru” uses a plural verb — “those who were pierced.” It is not speaking about one individual being crucified. The verse describes the people of Israel mourning their own fallen in a future war, with the intensity of mourning for a firstborn son. Afterward, the nation turns back to Hashem. There is no demand that Jews accept Jesus as Messiah. That interpretation only appears when the original Hebrew is altered or ignored.

This is the elephant in the room. Jewish voices and organizations that receive significant Christian support — including figures like Yishai Fleischer and platforms like Jewish Voice — cannot openly correct this misunderstanding. Their work depends on that support. So the full truth remains unspoken on both sides.

DNA and Archaeology Prove Who the Covenantal Heirs Are

The Torah is unambiguous: the everlasting covenant was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — a physical, generational covenant passed through blood and seed.

Modern science confirms exactly who carries that line.

The Cohen Modal Haplotype, a specific Y-chromosome marker linked to the priestly line of Aaron, appears in approximately 96% of Ashkenazi Cohanim and 62% of Cohanim overall. My own grandfather carries this ancient lineage — a Kohen whose documented family line reaches back to 500 BCE. This same genetic marker is shared with many Arab populations, consistent with Ishmael being a son of Abraham. Ancient DNA from Canaanite remains further shows that modern Jews share significant Bronze Age ancestry with the land.

Christians carry no trace of this Abrahamic Y-DNA. Their connection is presented as purely spiritual. Yet the Torah speaks repeatedly of a physical, generational covenant. The genetic and archaeological evidence aligns with the Torah, not with replacement theology.

The Fingerprints of Hashem – Rabbi Jonathan Rietti’s “Fingerprints of Divinity”

If the Torah were written by ordinary men, it would be filled with errors, outdated science, and contradictions. Instead, it contains knowledge that was impossible for any human in Moses’ time to possess.

In his powerful three-part audio series “Fingerprints of Divinity,” Rabbi Jonathan Rietti lays this out clearly and accessibly:

  • In Part 1, he highlights the kosher laws in Leviticus 11. The Torah lists exactly four animals that possess only one of the two required kosher signs: the camel (chews cud, no split hoof), the hyrax (chews cud, no split hoof), the hare (chews cud, no split hoof), and the pig (split hoof, no cud). Modern zoology confirms these are the only four mammals on the entire planet that fit this description. No fifth animal has ever been discovered — not in Africa, Asia, the Americas, or even the isolated Galapagos Islands, which have no native land mammals at all. How did a shepherd in Midian know the complete global list 3,300 years ago?
  • The series continues with the precise order of creation in Genesis, which aligns with the scientific sequence discovered millennia later, and with historical patterns that recur over time — from Haman in the Book of Esther to Hitler, both linked by the number ten and the date of Purim.

These are not coincidences. They are clear fingerprints of divine authorship.

We Are Living Ezekiel 38–39 Right Now

The prophets described Persia (Iran) joining a coalition that comes against Israel in the latter days. In February 2026, that process accelerated dramatically. Israel and the United States struck Iran directly. The regime was shaken. Missiles were launched in response. The players named in Ezekiel are actively moving into position.

This is not speculation. This is current events.

Yet large segments of Christianity continue waiting for a future seven-year tribulation, a pre-tribulation rapture, or an Antichrist who will desecrate a rebuilt Third Temple. While they wait for their script, the actual prophetic events described in the Tanakh are unfolding in plain sight.

The Torah never speaks of a dying Messiah who atones for the world’s sins. It speaks of national repentance, return to the Land, and God sanctifying His Name through the Jewish people. That is precisely what we are witnessing.

The Real Battle Has Always Been About the Jewish People

Behind the politics, the military moves, and the headlines, the West continues to wrestle with the ancient question: “What do we do with the Jews?”

This spirit of Amalek has existed since the moment God chose the Jewish people at Sinai. It manifested as Haman, as the Spanish Inquisition (led by a converso, Torquemada), as Hitler, and now moves through Iran and its global proxies. The Talmud warned about “Germamia” (Germany) long ago. History proved the warning correct. The same force is active today.

The difference in our time? The Jewish people have returned to their ancestral land, exactly as the prophets foretold. God promised He would gather us “from the furthest corners of the earth” — and He has done it. My own life stands as living proof: born to a Black father and a Levite mother whose father was a Kohen from ancient times.

Closing: Prophecy Is Quiet — But It Is Here

The strongest evidence that we are living in the days of prophecy is that most people still do not recognize it.

Just as in Egypt, just as in Babylon, just as in the time of the prophets — daily life continues. People argue, support causes, criticize, donate, and wait for their preferred version of the story.

But the Torah continues its perfect, unbroken record. The DNA matches. The science matches. The historical patterns match. And the events on the ground continue to match.

The Star of Jacob has risen. The long silence has been broken.

Now is the time to open our eyes.

Hazan Gavriel ben David

The Eternal Struggle of Self: Reincarnation, the Expanding “I,” and the Soul’s Never-Ending Journey

(Insights from Chief Rabbi Goldstein’s Teachings on the Divine Spark Within Us)

In his profound exploration of Jewish wisdom, Chief Rabbi Goldstein illuminates a fundamental human tension: the deep, natural love we have for ourselves versus the Torah’s insistent call to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Torah also calls us to give selflessly and to connect with the Divine through acts of kindness. This is not a contradiction but an invitation to growth.

As Rabbi Goldstein explains around the 17:17–19:20 mark of his lecture, self-love is baked into our very essence—“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) acknowledges that loving the self is the baseline, the core from which all other love flows. Yet this same self-awareness can tip into selfishness. This happens if our definition of “I” remains narrow.

The real struggle, he teaches, is learning to expand that “I” until it encompasses not just our body or even our soul. It must also include family, community, the Jewish people, all of humanity, and ultimately our unbreakable bond with God.

Expand I Unto The Whole World

This struggle is beautifully framed in Pirkei Avot 1:14, where Hillel declares:

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Rabbi Goldstein draws on the commentary of the great Talmudic scholar Rabbeinu Yonah (often referred to in the tradition as illuminating this Mishna) to show that the answer lies in how we define “self.” A person at the lowest level sees “I” as merely the body.

A slightly higher soul understands “I” as body and neshama—the divine soul. But the truly great soul expands further: “I” includes spouse, children, parents, community, and ultimately every human being created in God’s image. As Rabbi Goldstein notes around the 20:34–21:59 timestamp:

“The greater the person, the greater the expanded definition of the ‘I.’ … God placed within us the love of ‘I,’ the awareness of self. The greater the human being, the more they expand that sense of ‘I’ to make space for all of the other human beings. And that is the journey of growth.”

Please Hashem and Please Man

This expansion is the antidote to prejudice, racism, and division. It echoes another key teaching from Pirkei Avot 3:14, where Rabbi Akiva states:

“Beloved is man for he was created in the image [of God]. It is a sign of even greater love that it was made known to him that he was created in the image.”

And Pirkei Avot 3:10 reinforces the unity: one who pleases his fellow human beings pleases God Himself, because the soul of every person is a direct, intimate breath from the Divine—the same spirit God blew into the first human being, Adam.

Here is where reincarnation—gilgul neshamot, the cycling of souls—enters as the profound mechanism that allows this journey to continue beyond a single lifetime. Reincarnation is the only way to fully experience the soul’s never-ending life. The soul is eternal, a divine spark that cannot be extinguished.

Yet one short lifetime is rarely enough to complete its mission of tikkun (rectification), self-mastery, and the full expansion of the “I” to embrace all of creation. This is why some souls, upon understanding the reality of gilgul, find the courage to save another person’s life. Sometimes they do this even at great personal cost.

Save Your Life First

The classic desert scenario in the Talmud (where two travelers have only enough water for one) illustrates the tension: Torah law says “your life comes first.” But when a soul grasps reincarnation, the calculation shifts. Knowing that this life is but one chapter in an eternal story frees one from the narrowest form of self-preservation.

Saving the other becomes an act of expanding the “I” across lifetimes—because that other soul is part of the greater self, part of the collective Adamic blueprint. In this way, reincarnation transforms the struggle. It gives the soul multiple opportunities to choose generosity over selfishness, to love the neighbor as the self, and to fulfill the mitzvot that bind us to God and to one another.

This truth is hinted at in the powerful verses of Job 33:26-30 (especially 29-30):

“He prays to God, and He is favorable to him; he sees His face with joy, and He restores to man His righteousness. He looks upon men, and says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it profited me not.’ He has redeemed my soul from going into the pit, and my life shall see the light.” “Behold, God does all these things, twice, three times with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of the living.”

To Learn The Light Of Life

Jewish mystical tradition, from the Zohar to the Arizal’s Sha’ar HaGilgulim, has long read these verses as a direct allusion to gilgul: God gives the soul two, three—or more—chances to return, to be pulled back from spiritual destruction, and to bask once more in the light of life. Each incarnation offers another opportunity to expand the self. It also gives a chance to repair what was left unfinished, and to live out the vision Rabbi Goldstein describes: seeing the godly soul in every person we meet.

For those writing on Adam as the Blueprint, Rabbi Goldstein’s teaching offers rich material. Adam HaRishon was not merely the first man; he was the primordial container of all souls. When God breathed the neshama into him with that intimate act of “blowing,”

He embedded the divine spark into the very prototype of humanity. Every subsequent soul carries a fragment of that original blueprint. Reincarnation allows these sparks to reunite, to heal, and to expand collectively across generations—turning the individual “I” into the cosmic “We.”

And for reflections on the Tree of Life, consider how the Torah itself is called the Tree of Life (Proverbs 3:18). The “details” of mitzvot—Shabbat, prayer, acts of kindness—that Rabbi Goldstein calls “the commentary” on the core vision of the godly soul are the branches and leaves that sustain eternal life. Reincarnation is the soul’s ascent up that Tree: lifetime after lifetime, climbing toward full rectification until every soul can declare, with Job, that it has been redeemed from the pit and now sees the light.

In the end, Rabbi Goldstein’s message is one of profound hope. The struggle between self and other is not a flaw—it is the very path to greatness. By expanding our “I,” recognizing the divine spark in every human being, and embracing the soul’s eternal journey through reincarnation, we tap into a transformative power. This can change not only our own lives but also the entire world. As Hillel taught: if not now—when?

May these words, drawn from Rabbi Goldstein’s wisdom and the eternal teachings of Torah, inspire us all to live with a greater, more inclusive sense of self—today, and across every lifetime our souls are granted.

Hazan Gavriel ben David

Why Bart Ehrman’s Audience Should Look at the Original Tanakh

A Historical, Linguistic, and Prophetic Case for Re-examining the Hebrew Bible

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Bart Ehrman is one of the most influential biblical scholars in America today. Through his books, lectures, and paid online courses, he has guided hundreds of thousands of former believers to the conclusion that the Christian Bible is unreliable — a human document full of contradictions and later edits. Many who started with strong faith walked away as agnostics or atheists.

I wrote my book, The Ten Sayings, specifically for that audience.

Before you conclude that the Bible is not factual, I invite you to examine the original Hebrew Tanakh through the lens the Jewish people have used for over 3,000 years — not as ancient literature, but as a precise, multi-layered code containing the blueprint of creation.

A Secular Historian’s Astonishing Discovery

Francisco Gil-White, a secular anthropologist and historian with a PhD from UCLA, made a striking observation while studying the history of the ordinary world. A tiny, seemingly insignificant people appeared in the ancient Near East, and their ideas — monotheism, justice, human dignity, and moral compassion — ultimately reshaped Western civilization. Gil-White calls the Jewish people “the most successful system ever created for changing humanity.”

This is not a religious claim. It is a historian’s evidence-based conclusion.

The Unique Power of the Hebrew Language

At the foundation of this system lies the Hebrew language. Jewish children begin their education with the Aleph-Bet. In Hebrew, the word דָּבָר (davar) means both “word” and “physical thing.” The sages understood this to mean God’s spoken words are the actual building blocks of reality — functioning like chemical elements.

How Traditional Jewish Scholars Read the Torah

We do not read the Torah like a novel or a collection of moral stories. We study it as a precise code in which every letter, spelling variation, dot, and numerical value carries intentional meaning.

The Baal HaTurim: Reading the Code

Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (Baal HaTurim, 1269–1343) was a master of this approach. Here are three examples:

  1. Genesis 1:1 – בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ The verse contains exactly 28 letters. The word כֹּחַ (koach – strength) has a gematria value of 28. The Baal HaTurim teaches that God created the universe with His full creative strength.
  2. Genesis 33:4 – וַיִּשָּׁקֵהוּ (vayishakehu – “and he kissed him”). This word has 11 unusual dots above every letter. The Baal HaTurim explains that the dots reveal Esau’s kiss was insincere — his descendants would wage an eternal ideological war against Jacob’s descendants.
  3. Exodus 32:6 – The word “to play” (לְצַחֵקl’tzachek) is spelled with an extra י (yud) only in the golden calf story. That single added letter transforms the meaning from innocent play to immorality and corruption.

Professor Chaim Shore: Hebrew as Scientific Blueprint

Professor Chaim Shore, an Israeli engineer, used statistical analysis on Hebrew gematria. He showed that the numerical values of Eretz (Earth = 291), Yareach (Moon = 218), and Shemesh (Sun = 640) align almost perfectly with their actual physical diameters. The probability of this occurring by chance is extremely low. He has documented dozens of similar patterns.

Ten Specific Prophecies Fulfilled in History

The Tanakh made detailed, testable predictions about the Jewish people that have unfolded with remarkable precision:

  1. Scattered among all nations (Deut. 28:64)
  2. Persecuted and few in number
  3. Preserved as a distinct people for millennia
  4. Hated without a rational cause
  5. Regathered from the four corners of the earth in the last days
  6. The land of Israel was left desolate while they were in exile
  7. Jerusalem was trampled by Gentiles until their time was fulfilled
  8. The Torah going forth from Zion again
  9. Every empire that tried to destroy them collapsed
  10. A final return greater than the Exodus from Egypt (Jeremiah 16:14-15)

The Ongoing Conflict Between Esau and Jacob

Efraim Palvanov’s five-part series “Understanding Edom” traces how Esau’s descendants became Rome and later shaped aspects of Christianity. This may explain why Glenn Beck recently said Western Christianity is falling apart and he doesn’t understand why. The Torah gave the reason long ago through the dotted letters above Esau’s kiss.

My Personal Journey

My grandfather, Luz Ramirez Diaz, passed away in December 1988. I was very young and knew nothing about being Jewish. As he was dying, he told my mother he must be buried within 24 hours. She asked me, “Junior, what does he mean?” I had no answer.

I barely knew my uncle, Joseph Diaz. From age 18, he walked the streets for the Baptist church, devoting his life to bringing people to Jesus. He was a dedicated Christian who knew Jesus deeply — but he never knew he was Jewish, and he never knew he carried Aaron’s DNA.

Eight years ago, my uncle Joseph took the Big Y DNA test through FamilyTreeDNA. The results showed that he carries the Cohen Modal Haplotype — the genetic marker indicating direct descent from Aaron, the High Priest.

Only then did the pieces begin to come together.

A Final Invitation to Truth-Seekers

If you are someone who once believed in the Bible but lost faith after encountering modern academic criticism, I urge you to give the original Hebrew Tanakh a fresh look. Study it not as ancient literature, but as the living code it has always been.

You may discover that what you thought was an unreliable myth is actually the most sophisticated operating system humanity has ever received.

The Ten Sayings was written for exactly this purpose.


Footnotes

[1] Francisco Gil-White, writings on The Management of Reality (managementofreality.com) [2] Based on classical rabbinic interpretation of the word davar. [3] Baal HaTurim commentary on the respective verses. [4] Baal HaTurim on Genesis 33:4. [5] Professor Chaim Shore, Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew.

Becoming Aware of Your Soul: The Tree of Life Blueprint Christianity Never Answered

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In my book, Adam, the Blueprint, and the Tree of Life, I ask a question that has gone unanswered for years: Why did God place the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden yet never mention it to Adam?

He only gave one command — don’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. As Rabbi David Fohrman teaches in his powerful Aleph Beta series, this silence was intentional. God wanted Adam to learn through real experience.

He wanted Adam to eat from the trees, return to his Father, share what he had experienced, and only then receive guidance. That process builds genuine trust. Only after that earned understanding would Adam naturally eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.

Three Partners: Father, Mother, Hashem’s Breath

This is the blueprint Christianity has never fully dealt with.

Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, in his lecture “Becoming Aware of Your Soul,” takes it deeper. He explains that “love your neighbor as yourself” only makes sense once you understand what “yourself” truly is. It is not the body. It is the neshama — the immortal soul that carries the divine spark. Every single human being possesses this spark because every person is created in God’s image.

Rabbi Goldstein draws this directly from Pirkei Avot:

  • Pirkei Avot 3:18 — “Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God.”
  • Pirkei Avot 3:1 — Know where you came from, where you are going, and before Whom you will give account — this “you” is the soul.
  • Pirkei Avot 4:29 — The soul exists before birth and continues after death.
  • Pirkei Avot 3:19 — Free will is given to the soul.

This same divine spark is the original code placed in Adam — the code that was meant to be lived, not replaced.

Love Your Neighbors as You Love Yourself

Rabbi Fohrman shows how this connects to real love. When someone does something wrong, the Torah does not say “just forgive and forget.” It says: Don’t hate your brother in your heart. Instead, speak up. Reprove him. Tell him what he did, but do it privately and carefully so you don’t embarrass him or cause yourself to sin. Only by putting your cards on the table can hatred be dissolved, and real love take its place.

This is the missing piece. A religion that waits for another figure to rebuild a temple while ignoring the Torah’s clear moral instructions has strayed from the original blueprint.

Follow The Science: DNA DOES NOT LIE

Modern genetics actually confirms what the Torah always taught. Nathaniel Jeanson’s research in Traced shows that all humanity traces back to one man — Adam — through Noah’s three sons, exactly as Genesis 10 describes. The divine image is not just spiritual. It is literally carried in our DNA.

Every soul matters. No one is condemned. Everyone carries that spark from Adam. Our job is to live the blueprint with honesty — correcting one another with love, expanding our sense of self, and walking the path that leads back to the Tree of Life.


Hazan Gavriel ben David