by Alexander Zephyr
'Judah and Israel will be as though I had not cast them off,' Zechariah 10:6 (The Israel Bible.)
Recently I ran across your video-lecture on a subject of the Lost Ten Tribes and was pleased with your presentation, which shows a deep research and good understanding of such a complicated issue. Many readers will have a better view of the Ten Tribes and its destiny thanks to your effort.
Some scholars have conveniently substituted Israelites by the Jews, because the existence of the Ten Israelite Tribes in exile is, for them, a myth and fairy-tale. According to a general opinion of the rabbis, the Jewish people are the Biblical Israel of the Twelve Tribes. The future prophecies of reunion and redemption apply to the Jews only, and there is no such thing as the 'Lost' Ten Tribes of Israel in exile. It could not be farther from the Biblical truth!
As I have observed, some Jewish officials and theologians very often react on discovery and regathering of 'the lost and hidden Jews' from all places of the World as Subbotniks of Russia and Ukraine; Falash Mura or Beta Israel from Ethiopia; Igbo of Nigeria; Lemba from Zimbabwe; Pashtuns of Afghanistan; Kaifeng's Jews of China; Bnei Menashe from India; Sicily, Spanish and Portuguese Bnei Anousim and Marranos, just named few among others, as that the most of these people are the descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes. I do not think that this is the case. First of all, the Jewish people are not the Israelites of the Ten Tribes. Secondly, we learn from Scripture that the Northern Ten Tribes were rebellious from ancient times, as it is recorded in the Hebrew Bible: 'They and their fathers have transgressed against Me even unto this very day' (Ezekiel 2:3). Even before the Assyrians defeated and exiled them, the Israelites of the Ten Tribes, with the help of its first king Jeroboam, had been idolatrous, stubborn, stone hearted people who turned away from Hashem and begun worshiping Baal, Ashtoreth, and Molech. And because of their abominated deeds, the Almighty 'scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed throughout the countries' (Ezekiel 36:17-19). So, how is it possible that the Ten Tribes of Israel, who totally forgot its Hebrew identity, God of their fathers and His divine Torah, who were the first nations accepted Christianity, the religion of 'gods which cannot save,' who did not keep the holy Sabbaths, did not perform circumcision, kashrut, levirate laws, not celebrated Biblical holidays, and not followed Jewish tradition at all. How could those people be the descendants of newly discovered 'lost and hidden Jews'?!
From the all Tribes of Israel only Judah has never abounded the Torah, kept Commandments, has not lost its Jewish identity and belief in Hashem, despite unspeakable suffering and persecution. It is exiled remnants of the Jewish people who went to all over the word in search of safe and peaceful places, where they could worship God of their fathers and practice Judaism free and without fair, including remote geographical places of Africa, India, China, Afghanistan, and other countries of the globe. It is logical to conclude that 'lost and hidden Jews' from those places may indeed have Jewish roots, not from the 'Lost' Tribes of Israel.
Now let us consider the numbers of the Jews in the word and compare it with the numbers of the Ten Tribes. The number of the Jews in the world is approximately 15-16 million. I do not mind adding one million of 'lost and hidden Jews' from any other places of their discovery. And what is the population of the Ten Tribes today? They are numerous people, as prophesied in the Hebrew Bible: 'Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as stars of the heaven, as the sand of the seashore, which cannot be measured nor numbered' (Genesis 22:17; 48:19; Hosea 1:10). At the end of the first century the celebrated Jewish-Roman historian Josephus Flavius confirmed that 'the Ten Tribes are beyond the Euphrates and are an immense multitude whose numbers cannot be estimated' (Antiquities of the Jews, book XI, chapter 5:2).
If the Chinese people from 55-60 million two thousand years ago have grown to astonishing 1,445 billion in modern time, why the multitude of the Ten Israelite Tribes could not be grown for the same period of the two thousand years to the prophesied numbers of 'as the sand of the seashore and as stars of the heaven'? Surely, such words could not apply to Judah, whose population (due to constant killings and holocausts) cannot approach this description, which properly fits the Ten Tribes of Israel. The Ten Tribes have not had the tragic fate, which unfortunately befallen on the Jewish people in its terrible history of persecutions; in most events the Israelites were in the first line of the countries that victimized and oppressed Jews. In my estimation, the number of the Ten Tribe in exile today is approximately 600 million.
Who are the Ten Tribes of Israel today and where are they geographically located? The Ten Tribes of Israel are alive and flourish. They are not located in far away countries of Africa, Asia or the Middle East. According to the remarkable researcher, the founder of the Brit-Am Hebrew Nations and outstanding writer of many books on the subject of the Ten Tribes, Yair Davidiy, yair@britam.org, 'Unlike the Jews of Judah, the Ten Tribes tended to remain together in the same groups. Eventually they moved to Western Europe. From there they populated North America, Australia, and other regions. England, Wales, Scotland, North Ireland, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, all contain a significant proportion of Israelite descendants. Proof of this is in the Bible, Rabbinical texts, historical records, archaeology, linguistics, mythology, and other sources. That the Ten Tribes are mainly located in the West approved by Scripture: 'When the LORD shall roar like a lion, His children shall tremble from the West' (Hosea 10:11).
Some readers may wonder: if those countries are of Israelite origin, why do they act as enemies against the Jewish state and generate so much anti-Semitism which has forced countless Jews to flee to Israel and other countries which offer safe haven? Beside an explanation that the Ten Tribes of Israel completely lost their Israelite identity; that they were the first nations who accepted Christianity; that the light of the Torah no longer shines for them, the best answer is in the words of the Almighty: 'Then I cut asunder Mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel' (Zechariah 11:14) or: 'Manasseh devour Ephraim and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah' (Isaiah 9:21). These prophecies illustrate precisely the geopolitical reality in the world today: America, England, and Europe are becoming increasingly hostile towards Judah, the State of Israel, and each other. There is no need to dig further for an understanding of this issue. This situation is clearly the work of God and His essential divine plan for the future.
The Ten Tribes have never returned to the Promised Land and reunited with Judah. The great Rabbi Nahmanides (1194-1270 AC) said that the overwhelming majority of the Ten Tribes never returned to the Promised Land though they are destined to do so in the future. 'There was no redemption for the Ten Tribes who remained in exile. They should be ashamed not to recognize this fact!' (Sefer HaGeulah). It is the Word of God that all Twelve Tribes of the House of Israel will be represented among the nations in the End Times. The greatest prophecy of the Bible is the prediction of the final ingathering and redemption of the nations of Judah and Israel in the latter years of the advent of the Messiah.
The paradox is that even in their wildest dreams people of the Ten Tribes couldn't imagine themselves being the chosen people of God in the same way as the Jewish people are. The Almighty made a Covenant with all Israelites, not only with the Jews.
The Ten Tribes of Israel are not Jews. But they are still our brothers. They are also the chosen people of God. To bring the Israelites Tribes back does not literally mean to bring them to the Promised Land only. God will bring back the newly repented, the Torah accepting Israelites with a new heart and a new spirit who finally will get out of their graves of the exile and out of the chains of false religions (Jeremiah 10:3-4 ; Isaiah 45:20-22). The sooner they repent, the sooner they will be reunited and redeemed by the Almighty.
As the Bible says: ;The children of Israel in the Last Days will seek the Lord their God; (Jeremiah 50:4-5). "The LORD their God," most definitely means God of Israel, not anybody else. As Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935 CE) noted at the turn of the nineteenth century, those Israelites who were assimilated in ancient times, as well as their descendants, have gradually become more suited to receive the Divine Revelation of their Israelite identity. As time passes, they will yearn and strive to reclaim their Israelite inheritance (Shemoneh Kevatsim, Kovets 8:205). Hashem has always remembered exiled Israel: 'For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee' (Isaiah 54:7). He loves and protects Israel: 'I am the father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn' (Jeremiah 31:9).
One of the most crucial tasks that God has given to the Jewish people is to go to the countries and places where the Ten 'Lost' Tribes of Israel in exile reside (mainly in the West) and do everything possible to bring them back to the God of their fathers, to His everlasting Laws, and to the Promised Land. In fulfillment of this ambitious goal, the Jewish scholars and Rabbis should enlighten the Israelites with the knowledge of God and kindle in their hearts the flame of love for the divine Torah that its light may shine on them once more. The Lost Ten Tribes need to know who they are!
The idea that the Jewish people are obliged by the Almighty to teach the lost Israelites the Torah and bring them back to the Holy Land finds its full support in the Tanakh, the Talmud, and the rabbinical literature. The Midrash (Yalkut Shimeoni on The Song of Solomon 1:16) fully supports and validates the prophecies regarding the future reunification of God's chosen people: 'The Ten Tribes who were exiled beyond the Sambatyon River are they whom the exiled of Judah and Benjamin are destined to go unto and to bring them back in order to merit with them the days of the Messiah and life in the World-to-Come, as it says. 'In those days the House of Judah shall go unto the House of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land I have given for an inheritance unto their fathers' (Jeremiah 3:18). The descendants of Joseph will come to Judah for reunification: 'With cries they will come and with mercy I will lead them' (Jeremiah 31:8).
Although Judah and Joseph have their own separate tasks to fulfill, they are equally included in God's Plan as His chosen people of Israel (Isaiah 11:11-13; Ezekiel 37:16-22). Even the Ten Tribes have been lost to human history, not so with God. His words are self-evident and require no explanation: 'Mine eyes are upon all their ways; they are not hidden from My face' (Jeremiah 16:17). He speaks to the people of Israel in terms that reaffirm His love and commitment: 'I have chosen you, and not cast you away. Thou art My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified' (Isaiah 41:9; 49:3).
Where the Ten Tribes are concerned, God's plan is plain: 'I will say to them which were not My people, you are My people; and they shall say, You are my God' (Hosea 2:23). It is the Word of God that He will be always with Israel, and bring them to the Holy Land again, and all nations of the world will be blessed through Israel (Genesis Genesis 12:31; 22:18).
I sincerely believe that the time has arrived for mainstream Christians, descendants of Joseph and other tribes of Israel in exile today, wherever they are, to awake to their Israelite identity, repent and acknowledge the God of Israel and His divine Torah; and start helping Judah in his lonely fight against the unjust and corrupt World, to bring God's Plan to a glorious conclusion.
Thank you 7/15/2021