Criticisms from Michael followed by Brit-Am Answers (23 March, 2014, 21 Adar-2, 5774)
Contents:
(1) The Criticisms
(2)Â Conversion for Money?
(3) What About Ruth the Moabitess?
(4) Torah for Free?
(5) Moneychangers in the Temple?
================================
================================
(1) The Criticisms
Michael wrote:
Re Brit-Am Now no. 2239. Ten Tribes Studies.
 http://hebrewnations.com/features/6/2239.html
#1. Question on Converting to Judaism Via the Internet
Â
Dear Yair
I have a question.
Your conversion to Judaism's by either an upfront fee or a monthly cost (your email below).
I wonder how much Ruth a Moabitess (the Great Grandmother of David - Israel's greatest King) had to pay to the Levites when she said to Naomi your people will be my people and your God shall be my God?
Let alone the question of intermarrying between the Jews and Moabites.
How does it fit with Isaiah 55?
1Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,
and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat;
yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2 Â Â Â Â Â Â Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?
and your labour for that which satisfieth not?
hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good,
and let your soul delight itself in fatness.
3 Â Â Â Â Â Â Incline your ear, and come unto me:
hear, and your soul shall live;
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
even the sure mercies of David.
Didn't J throw out the moneychangers in the temple saying they'd made His father's house a den of thieves.
Doesn't it seem a little incongruous to you?
Regards
Michael
================================
================================
Brit-Am Replies:
================================
================================
(2)Â Conversion for Money?
Michael said:
I have a question.
Your conversion to Judaism's by either an upfront fee or a monthly cost (your email below).
================================
Answer:
The quote you made is what we quoted from another source. It was not said by us.
Someone on the Internet was offering for a fee a course of conversion which would (it was implied) be recognized by Conservative and/or Reform Jews.
We were asked a question about it.
You are commenting on what they said but asking us to comment as if it came from us.
You are referring to our reply regarding a service offered by SOMEBODY ELSE.
Please DO NOT attribute to us things that are not there.
The people making the offer are Reform/Conservative Jews and technically may not necessarily be Jewish themselves.
Or they might be.
This is the Internet with all its faults and virtues. Anyone can say anything.
As we mentioned, the service they are offering is deceptive since their conversions are considered invalid.
What they do or teach in return for the fees they require I do not know.
Whether or not they should take money for it is another question.
We were concerned to point out that the service rendered was not conversion of the type many of those otherwise interested would require.
Conversion by non-Orthodox Jewish groups is not considered conversion by the Orthodox. This can cause complications in Israel and elsewhere.
Those who are interested in converting should know this in advance.
We were asked a question on the subject and answered it.
Our practice is to post out most Questions and Answers when they involve matters that other of our readership may also feel concerned about or interested in.
[We do however try to maintain a focus on Ten Tribes matters so extraneous threads may be cut short, etc.]
The service you spoke of has Nothing to do WITH US!
What however are you so self-righteous about?
Do you work?
Do you get paid for what you do?
If not, what do you live on?
I personally, for example, have no money.
If I should need legal assistance I might go to some organization that specializes in pro bono legal counsel.
I would get it for nothing or for a nominal sum. Someone however, somewhere, pays the bill.
They may do this by taking a little extra from those who do pay.
If they did not I would have to do without the service.
The same applies to everything else.
* * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * *
* * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * *
(3) What About Ruth the Moabitess?
Michael said:
I wonder how much Ruth a Moabitess (the Great Grandmother of David - Israel's greatest King) had to pay to the Levites when she said to Naomi your people will be my people and your God shall be my God?
Let alone the question of intermarrying between the Jews and Moabites.
================================
Reply:
See our article:
King David and the Oral LawÂ
Loyalty to David is Required: Ruth and the Oral Tradition
http://www.britam.org/DavidandOralLaw.html
There was a prohibition against accepting Male Converts from Ammon or Moab.
Deuteronomy 23:
3 An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the LORD forever, 4 because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.
The Sages had a tradition that this prohibition applied only to males and not to females. It would not therefore have been pertinent to Ruth who was a woman.
Some British Israelite types dislike this explanation. They try and say that Ruth was really an Israelite who only happened to live in Moab and worship other gods etc.
People believe what they wish.
The claim that Ruth was an Israelite does not correspond with Scripture.
The Book of Ruth tells how in the time of Judges there was a famine. Elimelech and Naomi, from Bethlehem in Judah moved to the Land of Moab east of the Jordan. In Moab their two sons took Moabite women. Elimelech and his two sons died leaving Naomi and the consorts of her sons bereaved. Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem. The two women of her sons began to accompany her.
Noami dissuaded them saying she had nothing to offer. One of them, Orpah, turned back. The other, Ruth stayed with her.
Ruth said to Naomi:
Ruth 1:
16 And Ruth said,
'Do not press me to leave you
  or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
  where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
  and your God my God.
17 Where you die, I will die'
  there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
  and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!'
In Bethlehem Ruth met Boaz a kinsman of Noami. They married and had a son named Obed. Obed begat Jesse and Jesse begat David (Ruth 4:17).
Ruth the Moabitess was therefore an ancestress of King David.
Ammon and Moab were descended from Lot and his two daughters (Genesis 19:36-38). It was forbidden to accept male converts from Ammon and Moab (Deuteronomy 23:4) but females were allowed (Yebamot 77;a). The Bible says the prohibition against Ammon and Moab was due to their not going out to succor the Israelites on their journey through the wilderness to the Land of Canaan. [When the Israelites wished to pass through their lands to get to Canaan Ammon and Moab forbade them.] They also hired Balaam the pagan prophet to curse the Israelites. The Sages pointed out that actively going out to provide provisions to travelling groups was something males, and not females, would have been expected to do.
In Genetics we find certain traits passed through the female line and not through the male and vice-versa.
A prohibition against male but not against females may therefore have a certain rationale behind it.
Not only do we find Ruth from Moab being accepted and even glorified but also Naamah from Ammon.
Naamah the Ammonitess was the mother of King Rehoboam. From this line emerged the Kings of Judah and from here will come the future Messiah.Â
1-Kings 14:
21 Now Rehoboam son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. His mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite.
cf.
2-Chronicles 12:13
Ruth the Moabitess had gone to live in Bethlehem of Judah. She therefore attached herself to Judah. She became a Jewess.
The declaration Ruth made to Noami reflected an intention to convert.
Ruth 1:
16 But Ruth said,
'Do not press me to leave you
  or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
  where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
  and your God my God.
17 Where you die, I will die,
  there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
  and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!'
Ruth wanted to go with Naomi who was returning to Bethlehem in Judah.
Ruth prepared to share the fate of Naomi, to accept her God, and her people, to live and die as they did.
Ruth was not making conditions nor negotiating terms, nor offering half-measures as a favor.
Ruth was the Prototype of the ideal convert.
In the End Times non-Israelites who have attached themselves to Israel will be accepted alongside whatsoever Israelite tribes they dwell amongst.
Ezekiel 47:
21 So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel. 22You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as citizens of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. 23In whatever tribe aliens reside, there you shall assign them their inheritance, says the Lord God.
* * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * *
* * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * *
(4) Torah for Free?
================================
Michael said:
How does it fit with Isaiah 55?
1Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,
and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat;
yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2 Â Â Â Â Â Â Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?
and your labour for that which satisfieth not?
hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good,
and let your soul delight itself in fatness.
3 Â Â Â Â Â Â Incline your ear, and come unto me:
hear, and your soul shall live;
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
even the sure mercies of David.
================================
Reply:
God gives the opportunity to Return and Learn for free.
A lot of Jewish organizations offer teaching and learning opportunities for nothing.
The Bible is open.
WE too, i.e. our organization Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations, give our services for free.
BUT we need money. We are not angels. Food does not palpably fall from heaven in this generation. We also need a place to sleep, an operation to maintain, needs to fulfill, family to support, etc. All this costs money.
Do you get everything for nothing where you are?
We try to keep going through selling publications and receiving offerings from those who wish to help us and be a part of what we do.
Do you have a problem with this?
* * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * *
* * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * ** * * *
(5) Moneychangers in the Temple?
Michael said:
Didn't J throw out the moneychangers in the temple saying they'd made His father's house a den of thieves.
Doesn't it seem a little incongruous to you?
Regards
Michael
================================
Answer:
A similar incident is recorded in the Bible from the time of Nehemiah:Â
{IOnterestingly this same passage also speaks of the prohibtion agaisnt Ammon and Moab and the incident with Balaam.
Nehemiah 13
1 On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God,
2 because they did not meet the Israelites with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them, yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.
3 When the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.
4 Now before this, the priest Eliashib, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah,
5 prepared for Tobiah a large room where they had previously put the grain-offering, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, singers, and gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests....
7 ... I then discovered the wrong that Eliashib had done on behalf of Tobiah, preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God.
8 And I was very angry, and I threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the room.
9 Then I gave orders and they cleansed the chambers, and I brought back the vessels of the house of God, with the grain-offering and the frankincense.
What the account concerning J was referring to, I do not know. It is not something we are preoccupied with.
The Temple however did have money-changers.
The Temple was a national center.
100s of thousands, and probably millions, of people came to the Temple every year.
They needed to make sacrifices. There were all kinds of sacrifices. Each one had different requirements.
There were sacrifices that required bulls, others cows, or calves, or grown ewes, or lambs, rams, pigeons, doves, wheat flour, barley flour, oil, wine, etc, or a combination of several of these ingredients.
Those making the sacrifices would go to the official money-changers, pay what was necessary, and receive tokens according to whatever sacrifice they needed.
The tokens would then be exchanged for whatever combination of animal and/or vegetable and wine offerings they were making.
This is a study in its own right.
As for paying money, in principle NO-ONE takes money for conversion. At least they should not do so.
It happens however that many people want to convert.
The Orthodox Jewish community does not really want converts BUT if someone comes banging (figuratively) on the door they will take them.
This however can take a year, 2 years, 5 years, and is never certain.
Someone who is born of a Jewish mother does not need to convert. Nevertheless, a Rabbi should be consulted.
We ourselves ARE NOT INTERESTED in converting people and know little about it.
Our understanding of Christianity is that it is a tool of Divine Providence to enlighten the world and prepare the Ten Tribes to return.
The Ten Tribes it appears shall return as a group.
Our own calling appears to be confined to specific Lost Ten Tribe identification and spreading the news about it.
This is a lot.