From Christian Worship Leader to Torah Observant Jew (A Deep Dive into Pentecostalism, and Transitioning to Judaism): Episode 21

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
All right. Welcome to the Pulling the
Threads podcast. Today I will be interviewing Ben
Wagon Maker. Is that how you say last name?
Yeah, Wagon Maker. Wagon Maker, was your your
ancestor? Did did they make wagons?
I mean, I'm. Sure they did.
Probably 6 or 7 generations ago,yeah?
Yeah. So we connected on a couple of

(00:31):
the forums on Facebook and you're currently going through a
process of conversion. And so, yeah, we're just going
to kind of do an interview. Do you want to kind of give a
little bit of a background on yourself first?
Just kind of like what you do, where you're at and kind of how

(00:53):
you come to this. Sure, sure.
Of course. I'll start by saying that of
course they say there's nothing new under the sun.
So I'm sure that some of the things I'll share, somebody else
can relate to it. Even if it's just one person.
If there's something I say that you can't relate to, that's
fine, but someone else will probably relate to it.

(01:14):
So that being said, my background is I come from a
very, very Christian background.My parents going back several
generations, it came from the established church tradition and
my mom came from the Baptist Church tradition.
Her dad, I'm eternal grandfather, was actually a

(01:36):
Baptist minister for a time and I grew up in the Baptist Church
and I went to a Baptist school from K to 12.
That means we had compulsory Chapel every week, regularly,
and we had compulsory Bible classes where we studied the

(01:56):
Bible on an academic novel for 13 years.
And so I was very biblically literate from an early age where
we had to study the Bible, not just read it.
And we actually were encouraged to memorize not just verses, but
chapters, entire chapters. I remember I old, and that was a

(02:18):
part of the standard education of what we did in the Baptist
Church. They're very heavy on the
Scriptures. And of course I knew in at least
in my mind, I knew the Bible as good or better than a lot of
people who went to seminary or went to Bible school after they
graduated high school. But of course, in a standard

(02:39):
Christian mindset, knowing the Bible as it were in air quotes
means knowing the New Testament and knowing the parts of what we
call they call the Old Testament, as much as only to
the extent that it confirms whatthe New Testament says.
So basically, like any good Christian, I knew about the

(03:01):
Torah, but I only really only knew what the New Testament says
about the Torah. I didn't really know the Torah
itself, even though it was in myBible the whole time, because as
lots of people who grew up in the similar background know, the
New Testament is considered the primary.

(03:22):
It's that's considered the primary revelation.
And the Old Testament was basically this mysterious thing
that can only be interpreted with the light of the New
Testament Revelation. And so that's kind of how I grew
up in the Baptist Church. And I that was my background
until I was in early, until I was an adult, and then I

(03:44):
actually became a Pentecostal. And so that was actually a very
dramatic change going from Baptist to Pentecostal in the
sense that it was the same Bible, but it was a very
different application of a lot of the same, a lot of the same
teachings. To make a very Long story short,

(04:05):
parents were very concerned for me.
And of course, Pentecostals tendto be concerned about Baptist
and vice versa. And of course, as you and I both
know, there are over 40,000 Christian denominations and
they're all concerned about eachother's soul.
So anyway, I was caught up in that for a while.
And in my Pentecostal part of myjourney, I discovered really

(04:28):
good church music. One thing, I mean, say what you
all about Pentecostal churches, they have excellent music.
They, a lot of them have rock bands.
They have bands. They have good music mixes, They
have light shows, especially themega churches.
And I visited a couple mega churches in in my time and I
actually I I got caught up to that.

(04:49):
I was a church musician for years before that, but in the
Baptist Church it was not quite as exciting because it's usually
a piano or an organ, or at leastit was at that time.
And then when I became Pentecostal, I actually joined a
my first worship band as a keyboard player and really
enjoyed it. I was a worship leader for over
20 years when my wife and I met.We were both worship leaders and

(05:14):
of course she comes from the same background I have that I
that I came from. Her parents were both
Christians. Going back a while, her siblings
are Christian, My siblings are Christian cousins are Christian,
like my cousins are Christian. And so I was very deeply
anchored in both my wife and I'sjourneys.
Now that pretty much brings me up to date up until last year.

(05:37):
OK, so I kind of want to ask some questions.
You know, I don't want to move too fast through everything.
One, I'm going to ask some questions based on what you
said. One, you said you were
biblically literate, so you had studied.
So the New Testament you're reading, you know the context,

(05:58):
the whole chapter, not just the verse.
Absolutely. Your view of the Old Testament
was more reading verses, maybe that you saw in the New
Testament or where you felt likethe verses confirmed the New
Testament, but you had you, you had not yet started reading the
Old Testament and looking at thewhole chapter context yet.

(06:19):
That is pretty much it. And that is how a lot of
biblically literate Christians operate.
They're biblically literate to the point where they read the
New Testament and they require alot of integrity when they read
the New Testament has to be in acontext.
And I was actually taught to study theology from the

(06:39):
standpoint of and and this is something that is carried that
I've carried into Judaism with me is there is a principle of
let everything be established out of the mouths of two or
three witnesses. And even the Jewish law that
speak when someone is punished or accused of breaking a payment
under Jewish law, they need there needs to be witnesses.

(07:01):
And so theologically speaking I was taught that every doctrinal
point should be established out of the mouths of two or three
witnesses. And so if you what that means is
that if you see one isolated verse that seems to confirm a
weird theory, you can't just make a document you can't run
and make a doctrine out of one possible interpretation of one
verse if it's going to be authoritative.

(07:22):
And as a doctrine, it has to be established out of at least two
or three sources within the Bible.
Of course, in the Christian context, that would be in the
New Testament. Now in Judaism, I'm looking at
taking the same principle, taking the Pashat or the obvious
interpretation of a meeting. And if it can be established out

(07:45):
of two or three verses in the Tanakh, then I'm totally
comfortable on seeing it as a doctrine, something that's very
foundational, something that could be a rule, not the
exception. And so that's kind of how I was
taught and that was actually a very sound practice that I've
I've, that I've actually carriedover into Judaism with me.

(08:08):
Now, so I mean that's very interesting because if you apply
the three witness, the method you're talking about to the Old
Testament. Now a lot of these passages that
Christians used to say Jesus wasa suffering servant or the

(08:28):
various things in the Tanakh, they start to unravel because
you don't have a consistency of witnesses that say the same
thing. You have a verse that one
they're relying on a Greek Septuagint translation, not a
Hebrew translation. So therefore it's already lost
its meaning from the original and then they're stringing

(08:48):
verses together. But if you're looking at the
whole chapter, the context is different.
It's maybe speaking about Israel, not an individual.
So if you were to apply that three witness to so.
So kind of my question is, so how did?
Because like in Bible college, Ilearned exegesis, hermeneutics,

(09:09):
and we learned about the proper context of a passage and stuff.
And of course, they applied it to the New Testament.
But as a child myself, I had read the Tanakh twice in the New
Testament once, and I always hadproblems with the New Testament.
And even though I was raised, you know, 'cause my mom became a
Jehovah's Witness, I was raised in that.
And then, like you, I went into a Pentecostal experience and

(09:32):
then Messianic before convertingto Judaism.
But there were, yes, there were things that stuck with me, the
exegesis, the hermeneutics, trying to see what's in the
passage, understanding to whom is being spoken to, where, what
the why, the how, all this stuff.

(09:52):
Now those methods help me to like, look into the passage
deeper. But again, like even in my in
Bible 'cause they they briefly mentioned the document
hypothesis regarding the Old Testament.
I don't know if they really got into.
I don't think they ever got intotextual criticism when it came
to the New Testament. Maybe in passing, but the

(10:15):
textual criticism, looking at how documents made you know and
looking into like The Who, what,why, where and how in the
fullness of the passage is something that I always took
when I was looking at passages. How did I guess did this play
into your starting to look at the this the New Testament use

(10:37):
of the Tanakh. I prefer the term Tanaka over
Old Testament. How did it start changing like
your view of either the New Testament or Christian use of
the Tanakh and? OK, Well, I think there's two
different ways to look at this. And I'm going to start with
going back to my Christian mindset.

(10:59):
You know, I'm going to speak forthe way I used to see, and I'm
not going to suppose that Christians still see it this way
or any other Christians use it this way.
This is how I, when I was a Christian, viewed it using the
three witness rule, the New Testament played very heavily.
Better if the Old Testament mentioned something once, OK, in

(11:19):
that context. If the Old Testament, which we
now call the Tena, I now call the Tena.
But I've used the Old Testament talking of my old life.
But what I used to call the Old Testament, if there is just one
verse that the New Testament repeated twice to me that was
sufficient as the three witnesses.
So if Isaiah 53 was mentioned, you know, and they don't even

(11:45):
meant it's, it's allegorical. And it's The funny thing is
allegory by definition is not clear, but people think it's
clear and it's clearly X when it's really not X at all.
But that's kind of the way they see it.
If the New Testament interprets a Tanakh passage as X, then to a
Christian it's X and nothing else because the New Testament

(12:07):
says so, because that is their word of God.
So that it that plays heavily into their three witness rule,
at least how I understood it back in the time.
Now Fast forward to when the Tanah started changing for me.
Fast forward to last year. Up until the point of the

(12:29):
beginning of last year, I had been a lifelong Christian and I
was still a worship leader at mychurch.
But I had started reading Biblical Hebrew and learning
Biblical Hebrew, and so my focuswas Tanak, Tanak, Tanak.
Less New Testament. And the more I read the Tanakh,
the more I I saw the discrepancies, the more I saw

(12:50):
the eternal nature of God's covenant with Israel and how it
was irrevocable. And, you know, frankly, eternal
means eternal. It's not replaceable.
And this might seem like a very small detail even to you or to
anyone else, but to me it was a very large detail to me.

(13:11):
Just the idea that in the New Testament, when Jesus claims to
be the way, the truth of life and no man comes to the Father
but by me, that's an that's a claim of exclusive access to
God. And that bothered me.
That bothered me that he would say that he had exclusive access
to God when God had an eternal Sting covenant that existed

(13:38):
previous to him. He was around before he was in
the portrait. So, and that bothered me so
much, that, you know, I finally had to reconcile the idea that
both cannot simultaneously be true.
One has to be true and the otheris untrue.
So after probably several weeks of, I guess, painful

(14:05):
introspection, I decided that the New Testament was not true,
and I decided to just follow Torah after that and never
looked back. Now I don't know if you want me
to keep going or if you have anyquestions to clarify.
I mean, you know if you try to keep track of where you're going
and your thoughts, I do have some questions and stuff here

(14:25):
and there that I may interject. But so for me the the three
witness thing would require it to be consistent within the
Tanakh. You have to have 3 consistent
witnesses in the Tanakh to that to be something you can consider
if there was an additional revelation or whatever.

(14:47):
I find it highly dubious to say there's one verse in the Tanakh
and there's two to three confirmations in the New
Testament. Well, honestly to me that would
invalidate the New Testament by the simple fact that it's not
first confirmed in the text theyuse for support.
So if the if the New Testament wants to, you know, which I I

(15:11):
don't subscribe to it as inspired or inerrant, it's a
human document that the full surviving copies we have are 4th
century and beyond, made me fragmentary before that.
We have no original attestation of 1st century at whatever may
have or did not exist, if it even existed.
So I mean I don't take it as a true infallible word of God, as

(15:34):
it's not it's a human document that we know has had multiple
layers of redaction. But all that aside, if we're
going to discuss the merits of whether based on its own
testimony, one of the things that I did when I was converting
to from because my mom began to Jehovah's Witness when I was
like, 4, that's how I was raised.

(15:56):
When I was deciding to leave, one of the first things I did
was like, well, let me test the thing against itself to see if
it holds to be true. Because I was hearing, you know,
from a Christian apologist, that's a cult, and there's this
stuff. And so I started researching
within its own movement within itself to see if it was true to
itself. And so that I I started looking

(16:18):
into their translation of the Bible, the the Greek and English
interlinear, you know, trying toyou know study the Greek words
and and what was actually in thethe Greek text they used for
their theirs. And I found inconsistency
inconsistencies there. So, you know, kind of searching
deeper, but something should hold true within itself.

(16:42):
When you find inconsistencies within itself, then you start
have to question it. And I think maybe that's kind of
a a similar experience you had when you start to get into the
Hebrew and you're starting to see some inconsistencies.
I I genuinely feel like if you want to start with you say, the
Old Testament, your foundation, then you need to find a

(17:04):
consistent theme that can generally be recognized by, you
know, the average unlearned mind.
It doesn't have to be complicated.
You know, Strange math, you know, tinfoil hat conspiracy.
Well, you know it says this vaguely, says this vaguely this
allegory and then it paints thispicture.

(17:24):
No, there needs to be 3 clear witnesses at least for there to
be a continuing and. And if even, you know, you know,
if you move into, say, Messianicor other Christians who kind of
try to say that it's grafting inthis this kind of weird thing,

(17:45):
well, you can't graft into something.
If you disconnect and become something else, like that's
you're not grafted in at all. If you don't follow the existing
revelation and have a consistency within that.
And whatever you're doing, you're not even grafted in.
You're off in some other, you know, existential realm.
You're not in that same realm. So I I I feel like just for me

(18:07):
like definitely that that consistent theme of yeah,
minimum three, clearly like easily understandable you would
need. But yeah, you know you had made
the comment the Old Testament confirms only in reading the
verses, whereas the context might, you know, have a

(18:29):
different meaning. Were there any passage passages
specifically like in the Tanakh you did mention the eternal
covenant. Were there any other passages
when you were studying Biblical Hebrew that started to stick out
to you as maybe what the text issaying versus what the New
Testament or Christianity is saying didn't line up with what

(18:51):
you had been led to believe in your Baptist or Pentecostal
experience? Actually, nothing really
particular, just the main passage that bothered me is the
one that I mentioned earlier, John 14 Six.
That's the one that made me derail.
That's the one that derailed everything for me.
Because if John 14 six is untrue, then that is a central

(19:13):
teaching of what they call the New Testament.
And if the central teaching of the New Testament is untrue,
then the New Testament itself isuntrue.
And really that is the one single passage that derailed on
my Christianity. That's the single passage.
And other than that, I mean, since then I've I've noticed
other inconsistencies, of course.

(19:34):
Let's say in the book of Acts, you see two very different, even
in the same book. It's, it's funny how you know,
you look at this in retrospect and you see that in Acts of it
was Acts 9. Paul supposedly has his private
vision that no one else witnesses.
And there's Acts 9 and there's Acts 22.

(19:56):
And don't quote me on this because I don't remember which
is which, but in one of the chapters that the men who were
with him saw nothing, but they heard a voice.
But a few chapters later, they heard nothing.
But they saw a light. Yeah, and it's in the same book.
And come on. I mean, fiction writers are held

(20:16):
to a higher standard than that. Right.
The inconsistency is yeah. It's crazy because of a fiction
writer. I mean, JK Rowling, Harry
Potter. If she had something remotely
that flagrant and and an inconsistency in her writing,
she would be roasted mercilesslyonline.
And that's, I mean like a. And I'm not exaggerating when I

(20:38):
say that fiction writers are held to a higher standard.
And, you know, if you want to accept something as the word of
God, come on, have a higher standard, at least, than that of
a fiction writer. Right.
I mean, it's fiction, but you know, that's.
Another story. I mean classic literature,
classic literature, literature. But yeah, but still, I mean,

(21:00):
that's the editorial standards at the time may not have been
the same. They didn't have the same access
to information that we do. And so it was a lot easier to
pass off a lie as a truth back then.
Yeah, there was no fact checkersor whatever back that back in
the day, you know, people couldn't just Google whatever

(21:20):
just to make sure it it was true.
But even then, I mean, there were so many inconsistencies and
and even when I was a Christian,there were no inconsistencies
between the. And again, it goes back to the
classic Christian argument, which is why I find laughable
these days. They say that, you know, in a
court of law, if you have four different witnesses, it's normal

(21:42):
and expected for there to be certain inconsistencies between
the stories. And if they are exactly the
same, it's evidence of collusion.
And you know, that's fine in thecourt of law, but when you're
talking about people that are inspired by God, again, there
should be a higher standard. There shouldn't.
I mean, I can understand, you know, some people remembering

(22:05):
certain details that others didn't remember, but when people
remember the same details very differently within the word of
God, it just seems like that's not a high enough standard for
the word of God, and especially when there's inconsistencies in
the same book like I mentioned in the book of Acts.
Well, but that's a very problematic statement.
Like, OK, let's circle back. And it's, you know, there's

(22:27):
these claims that are made and it's like there's cognitive
dissonance going on. But for a judge to find somebody
guilty, there's got to be clear evidence that, you know, beyond
a reasonable doubt. So if you have 4 testimonies
that are not consistent, they rise reasonable doubt.
So you have in a court of law, we're kind of going back to
three. You know, if you have multiple

(22:48):
witness, you need to have at least three that have the base
the same basic consistent theme that beyond a reasonable doubt
we can say, OK, that's most likely what happened.
And maybe the 4th one has, you know, a different story and we
can't explain it, but you still have to have two to three
people. You know, when I remember

(23:09):
looking at law stuff a long timeago, but you have to have a
consistency of testimony that will leave you without
reasonable doubt. If you have four people who give
you reasonable doubt, you can't find somebody guilty.
So even that analogy undermines,like, if you really look into
it, it's like, it's like we hearthese things and it's like and

(23:30):
and I I fell for it back in the day.
The apologists, like, you know, their arguments and you're like,
OK, you don't really critically look at it and go away.
Well, what is what is needed to find somebody guilty or
innocent, right? Oh, there's multiple
testimonies. But to find somebody guilty,

(23:50):
there's got to be consistency oftestimony that's beyond
reasonable doubt. And so I don't know.
It's it the I I fell for these when I when I was in the
Christian world, I didn't critically examine them and go,
oh, wait a minute, that's actually kind of silly if you
think about it. You you hear, hear what I'm
saying. Yeah, exactly.
And you know something if going back to the court example, if

(24:14):
you have the same witness contradict himself, that raises
even more doubt. And so Book of Acts, they
they're contradicting themselvesin the same book with the same
author. And so again fiction writers are
held to a higher standard. And so with that I in my mind
the case is closed. It's it's fiction.
I mean in now it's classic literature.

(24:34):
Look at it. Go ahead.
It's just classic literature. Yeah, like the Quran.
That's where I was going to go with this.
As we look at it, you know it isliterary fiction.
You know Greek literature and itfollows the traditional Greek
motifs. You know the the epic story and
there there are different elements played, pulled in it.

(24:56):
It seems like it may be pulling from four different types of
Greek literature. There may be, you know, if you
get into historical Jesus scholarship and the Q
hypothesis, there might be oral sayings of a guy who existed
nothing like what's in the New Testament.
But these oral sayings were there.

(25:17):
And on all you have for most people who look at the 1st
century is there were probably maybe oral sayings of this guy.
And then you have, you know, in the 2nd century, the first
written tradition we have is Marcian finds Paul's letters and
his proto gospel he wrote and then you start having other

(25:38):
gospels appear in written form. Of course, Christians say they
existed in the 1st century. There's the oral, the the
wording. It sounds like something that
was written in, you know, the 1st century.
Yet we we have first text Marcy,and then we start having other
gospels and epistles appearing, and then this textual tradition
just becomes this huge thing by the 4th century.

(26:02):
But it's highly dubious that there was any of that grand
story in the 1st century. Maybe Sayings.
OK, sure. Maybe.
But then the story has changes and that's where we have the
layers of redaction in the New Testament.
We have different communities with different views of what his
life was. And so it was kind of a process

(26:23):
of grand narrative making aroundthis guy who may have made some
sayings until they have a kind of, I say, government conceived
plot to make it into a cohesive theme by the 4th century.
But that's not really where we're going to go today on this.

(26:43):
But you know, if there was a guy, I, I can't say that the
grand, you know, narrative storythat comes out is what happened.
You know, there's no, you know, it's again, it's written decades
and centuries later. So it's kind of written away
that's on falsifiable because you can't go back and you can't
go, well, what was said, what was done.

(27:04):
You don't have contemporary witnesses and so it's pretty
dubious. Sorry to go on a tangent.
I kind of want to circle back toa couple questions on your
journey. One, you said that you went into
Pentecostalism for a while. What branch of Pentecostalism

(27:24):
were you involved with? Oh, it was.
Most recently, it was what they call the Pentecostal Assemblies
of Canada, because I moved to Canada as a young adult.
OK. And that's.
They're they're kind of related to the Assemblies of God, right?
Yeah, they are related to the Assemblies of God.
Because I stayed in a hotel in Lucerne, Switzerland, that was

(27:45):
owned by them when I did some missionary work when I was in
Christian. Right.
They have a lot of mission organizations that go around the
world. So I think Youth with a Mission
YW AM is one of the organizations that goes all over
the world, especially to Switzerland.
Yeah, I yeah I did it. I did a a traveling performing

(28:05):
play you know through like Western Europe that but it well
it was well it was an Assembliesof God thing but they they were
kind of working with some of thethe Pentecostal Assemblies of
Canada. Yeah, before I moved to Canada,
I was. I was affiliated with the AOG,
what they used to call the AOG, the Assemblies of God.

(28:26):
So it was the classic Pentecostal, you know, speaking
in tongues, prophecy, that type of thing, lying out of hands.
And you know, there was a lot ofthe mega churches you see, you
know, on TV where people lay hands and they fall down and you
know, then they're done. That can't say I'm proud of it,

(28:47):
but I've been there. I I know what it's about.
So I mean, yeah, I mean that kind of the, you know to talk
about you know similarities and journeys and questions about it.
So The thing is in well I've gottwo questions, a statement and
and two questions and I'll kind of start with like the question,

(29:09):
kind of get in a statement and then let you answer.
But one thing is a lot of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God.
Of course the miracles laying out on hand speaking in tongues
is big. But also I've always seen a
familiarity with some of the teaching about festivals and the

(29:30):
Tabernacle and Hebraisms sprinkled in.
So one of my question is how much of that was sprinkled into
your Pentecostal experience? And then the other one is the
emotionalism and the use of rising and swelling music, you

(29:52):
know, to make people excited. How much as a former worship
leader were you aware of? You know like John Wimber, the
founder of the The Vineyard Church talked about power
evangelism that you don't preachuntil you get them into a
certain state their worship thatthey're receptive to the word

(30:13):
now that's how he says it. But the rising swelling of
music, the emotionalism, you know, passionate preaching
calling people forward to be touched.
The social and peer pressure of you got to fall down to get a
get touched from God almost kindof thing.
Like there's a an intense, there's a it's it's intentional,

(30:35):
it's coerced and at times cooperative that you know you're
being worked up into this state that you're more receptive to
the word and the other one is more receptive to giving money.
How much are you aware of that in your experience?
Totally completely aware of that.
That was as someone who was a worship leader, I actually knew

(30:59):
of the power of emotional states, and emotional
manipulation is a huge thing. They don't call it emotional
manipulation because it just sounds too carnal to them.
They want it to make, they want to make it sound spiritual.
But they would say they wouldn'teven call it spiritual
manipulation and call it spiritual movement.

(31:21):
And so the emotions help tap into, you know, your soul, you
know, and and of course now in Judaism, the soul and the spirit
are synonymous. It's the same thing.
Whereas as a Christian, I thought there were two separate
things. It's kind of an odd theological
point that we don't have time toget into.

(31:44):
Excuse me, but when you are ableto get people emotionally
engaged, that's when they are more their soul opens up, Their
soul is going to, it's going to.Whatever you share in that state
of emotional swelling, to use your words, whatever you say is

(32:08):
going to be more quickly, much more readily, much more deeply
without being questioned. So what we would do is the job
of a worship team is to basically make sure that people
are in an atmosphere where they are emotionally open and ready

(32:32):
to receive readily, without question.
And of course, no one will say that underoath, that's
essentially what they're doing is making sure that people are
emotionally engaged so that they, whatever the creature says
is going to be received openly, readily with very little

(32:54):
question because their emotions are open.
And when your emotions are open,it's amazing how how deeply you
can accept something as truth. And so, yeah, I definitely was
aware. And you know, there's a very
real truth to how emotions can affect you when you have music

(33:20):
that moves your emotions and it makes you open not only to the
words of the pastor, but to divine intervention.
And when I say that, I will say and of course there will be
skeptics seeing the miraculous. I have witnessed people say that

(33:40):
they got healed while I played piano or while my wife sang.
And they'll say I I was this way.
No, not this way. Praise God.
And, you know, I I still to today don't doubt that that
actually happened because I've realized with time that when God
gives you a miracle, it's not topat you on the back and say you

(34:03):
believe the right thing. So I'm going to bless you.
When God gives someone a miracle, it's because he's
merciful. It's not because you have the
right faith statement. It's not because you're one in
one of the 40. You're in the proper
denomination out of the 45,000 other denominations.
So I'm going to touch you so youcan believe something totally

(34:23):
wrong about God, and God will still be merciful towards you,
and he can still give you a miracle because he's merciful,
not because you deserve it. I have a completely different
perspective and I push back on that a little bit.
I don't disagree. In psychosomatic healing, I

(34:44):
don't disagree. So there are Hindus.
Like there was a Hindu guy doingkind of like this laughing
revival thing. It's kind of where the laughing
revival got its roots in Christianity.
Came from a Hindu thing and he would do similar things,
preaching and people were laughing and people experienced

(35:05):
healing. OK, so people experiencing
psychosomatic symptoms of healing is not exclusive to
Christianity. No, it's not.
It's it's not exclusive to a religion.
And it would, it would, it wouldtake a really long discussion.
But there is a majority of the things that people are treated

(35:26):
for by doctors are psychosomatic.
They're mentally caused illnesses.
The majority of the things we goto doctors for is stress
related. Stress can increase anxiety,
asthma, depression, you know, all this kind of stuff.
So I think it's close to 80% of all the stuff that's treated is

(35:46):
mentally related stuff. And in psychology, talk about a
moment of catharsis. So whatever that point of
catharsis is for you, whether it's, you know, a Hindu doing
their prayer, whether it's BennyHinn throwing a cloth at your
face and you falling out. If in your mind you believe that

(36:09):
that relieved what is a psychosomatic symptom of, you
know, a trauma or a stress in your mind, you believe that
relieves it, then your body. Even sometimes, when you don't
actually have a complete healing'cause, sometimes your body
would tell you you're OK and you'll start to feel better.
So I would disagree with the statement that it was God or

(36:34):
divine intervention. While that is possible, I would
say that a majority of and because I've been part of a lot
of healing revivals and missionary work and I've never
seen a true miracle. I've never seen a person in a
wheelchair, crippled and walk. I've never seen a blind man.
See, I've seen, I feel like 100%were psychosomatic things.

(36:58):
Things that could have been treated with antibiotics, things
that could have been treated with proper mental health and
proper emotional, you know, stability.
I don't. I've never seen a true miracle.
Yeah, that's. And I don't doubt that.
I mean with someone else. When someone else recounts what
happened to them, there's no wayto do know for sure.

(37:20):
And of course, people are going to be skeptical, but I'll say
that there was one point where Ihad a lump somewhere and it went
away, you know? So maybe it was God, maybe it
wasn't. But either way, if it was God,
it's not because I believe the right thing.
God can show his mercy to anybody in any religion.
Well, I I don't want to spend too much time on that, you know?

(37:43):
But your other question about Messianic influence, there was a
little bit honestly, and it was actually quite recent or the
beginning of my Pentecostal experience.
There was no Hebrew roots influence at all until about
maybe eight years ago. There was a French speaking

(38:04):
church that was that my wife andI helped minister at sometimes
and they invited us to do music ministry and translation because
we're in a French speaking environment.
Our our church was French speaking, our community was
French still is French speaking.And so we were involved in a

(38:25):
French speaking church for 20 years.
My wife still is in fact. And so one of the things about
ministry in Quebec is you invitespeakers that speak English and
don't speak French. You need a translator.
So they requested music ministryand translation, which my wife
is excellent at. So they invited this minister

(38:46):
from New Zealand who was a messianic and that was my first
experience with a messianic believer and of course I don't
want a messianic Jew. I probably would have in the
past. But as of course I know that
Halaa does not call them Jews, they're Christians.
He's a Messianic believer. So anyway, that was my first
experience with a Messianic, andthat was my first experience

(39:11):
with hearing their message that supersessionism is wrong.
And that's highly ironic. Very, very ironic, because in my
road to Judaism, I've had several discussions with
Messianics in the meantime, and they all believe in
supersessionism to a degree, even though they say they don't.

(39:32):
Well, they they do, but. They do, but they don't.
Well. They believe in a different one.
Well, let me get there first. But they do.
But it's highly convoluted because they they don't want to
get into the antinomianism of Paul where he does away with the
law. So now we got to kind of keep
some of the law but and they want to get rid of the things

(39:53):
that lead to anti-Semitism. But the juxt of what they
believe is that you have to become a completed Jew, and
you're not a completed Jew untilyou believe in their fictional
savior. But that means if I'm completed
there, I wasn't completed as a Torah observant Jew.

(40:14):
Therefore, it's still supersessionism.
But they have couched it in a little nicer words, you know?
And I was talking to Rabbi Tobi,a singer, and he even points out
that they, they excuse supersessionism, but I'm like,
they call themselves completed Jews.
It still is. It's just, you know, it's the
same thing by a different name. Exactly.
And it's very, you know, it's it's devious, the whole thing.

(40:37):
I mean, they say, you know, you know, the whole thing as, of
course, you know, it's an offshoot of the Baptist Church.
And the guy that started the Jews for Jesus, from which most
Messianic movements come, the guy that started Jews for Jesus
was born into a Jewish family orreformed Jewish family.
He became a Christian, decided to missionize Jews.
That was his life mission. And so he changed his name to

(41:00):
Moisha, changed his title to rabbi from Pastor, and basically
changed everything to make it look Jewish and sound Jewish,
even though it wasn't. So it's the whole thing is just
renaming everything so that it looks different, but it isn't
different. It's basically it's it's masking
everything. It's disguising everything and

(41:21):
not being forthright and not being honest.
It's all about dishonesty. It's not it's avoiding thing,
the Bible because we don't want to freak out the Jews.
We want to call it our holy text.
We don't want to call it a church because that'll freak out
the Jews. If you want to call it a House
of worship, and we don't want tocall it the New Testament,
that'll freak out the Jews. We want to call it the Brit
Hadashah. And so everything, and it's

(41:44):
everything about it, is just dishonest.
We don't want to call it what itreally is.
We want to hide its true identity under a Jewish piece of
clothing. And so they don't use the word
supersessionism. Yeah, they don't want to call
supersessionism because that freaks out the Jews.
They call it something else, even though an astute Jew or

(42:06):
third party observer will see it.
As for what it is, it is supersessionism as you've
described. Because they see our faith as
you know, they see toward observance as inadequate,
incomplete, without belief in their Messiah, their divine
Messiah, without whom we cannot be right with God, which is
totally antithetical to Torah. Exactly.

(42:30):
Yeah. I mean, you know it it comes
across as wolf's and sheep's clothing.
It's definitely cultural appropriation, but it's
Christians do it in every country that they try to do
missions and they they go into Africa or China.
They try to adopt the dress and the culture and the lingual
missionaries. When they go to aboriginal
villages, you know, they I, I remember hearing stories reading

(42:54):
about various missionaries flying into the jungles of the
Amazon, starting out when they learn the language and they
would associate whatever the thelate natives called their God,
they would call their God, but then they'd start to add in and
explain Jesus. But it's very much what
Catholicism did at the beginning.
It's a very syncretic religion where it would blend these

(43:14):
things together and like I feel like since the roots of you
know, Christianity back to Catholicism.
They would always blend things together into something.
But it's a very deceptive practice.
The thing that always stuck intomy mind and was kind of a a Jux
of my transition. I was involved with Doctor

(43:35):
Raymond Gannon. He was part of Jewish Voice in
the King seminary. He was one of the ones who had
founded a he. So he came out of the
assemblies. God, he founded a messianic
congregation in the 70s or something like that in LA.
Because I there's the there's the Baptist ones and then
there's the ones that kind of come from the Pentecostal

(43:56):
background. They come to the the messianic
Jewish background. And anyways, he had talked about
dressing up and he's a Gentile who has not converted, but he
talks about dressing up as, you know, more Orthodox than the
Orthodox to convert them. And always, like I was reading
the the book by by the, the reformed Rabbi Carol Harris

(44:19):
Shapiro who she was trying to study Messianic Judaism and she
called it cross dressing, dressing up in the name of the
cross to convert people. And it always just sticks to my
mind. But it's cultural appropriation.
You're trying to take on the customs of a different people,
to pretend to be the people, to get them to do what you do.
And it's so disingenuous, you know, kind of the to circle back

(44:40):
a little bit when we're talking about the emotionalism of
Pentecostalism, the music and all that kind of stuff.
For me, what was very healing when I came to conversion and
the synagogue was going to a synagogue service without
instrumentation, without rising and swelling music, without this

(45:02):
compelling oratory. And to come forward to have
hands laid on to you and and andin that moment where you feel
good and you feel like things are happening now give me a
bunch of money. You know God wants you to tithe
and if you give you'll be blessed.
It's it felt so great to be in aplace that one I am doing
something where I'm offering it to God and it's a service.

(45:24):
I'm giving him something where I'm not trying to get something
back. And for me, what was healing and
brought unity to my soul was thequietness of, you know, and and
part it and being part of that tradition where we're praying
the same prayers around the world for the past, you know, a
few thousand years, You know, I'm doing something that to

(45:46):
repair my soul versus I'm here like heavenly daddy give me
stuff, you know. So that was very healing for my
soul. I mean, what has been your
transition? How have you grappled with the,
you know, the emotionalism, the music, the excitement of the
concert, the performance to now you're transitioning to you're

(46:08):
going through a conservative conversion right now.
Do they still have because thereare there are variances.
You know I go to one that has, you know, more traditional
service. Sometimes you have ones that
maybe Friday night they'll play guitars or something like that.
But for the most part, you know,it's just people in a room, a
minion, doing prayers and offering them up to God.

(46:30):
Like, how is your transition from the excitement, the
emotionalism, the concert to, you know, Judaism?
How has that been? Well, it's actually it's.
I'm glad you brought that up, just because I do miss the
music. You know, the Pentecostal
churches have great music. I kind of miss that.
But I also appreciate the tranquility and the authenticity

(46:53):
of being there and not being emotionally manipulated and.
But you know something? The whole emotional manipulation
didn't really exist until I was a young adult and went into
Pentecostalism in the Baptist Church.
It was all about Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible, and
less about emotional manipulation and less about
music. There was some music, but not as

(47:14):
or some passionate preaching, but not as much of it.
It was a lot of Bible study. Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible,
Bible, Bible. And so I had that balance that a
lot of Pentecostals didn't have and a lot of Pentecostals.
I'm just going to throw in a tangent for just a moment.
I'm not going to name who she is.
But there was a a woman that I know very well and she would

(47:37):
frequently say, God doesn't wantyour mind, He wants your heart.
And that's very common in Pentecostal churches to believe
that. But in my Baptist root in mind,
I would say, well, God gave me both a mind and a heart.
Why would he not want both? And of course, in Judaism it's
the same thing. God gave you both a heart and a

(47:58):
mind. He wants both.
But you know when you offer yourheart, make sure it's sincere
and not. You know the prods of emotional
manipulation from, I don't know,a preacher that is preaching
after some really beautiful music or whatever.
So Ioffer God in my heart, but it's not after a period of great

(48:20):
rock music that has lifted my soul to the point where, you
know, I'm ready to, you know, I'm, I'm ready to be excited and
receive whatever God has for me.It's going to be something that,
you know, it's going to be consensual if we want to put it
that way on a mental level. And to me, I I prefer that just

(48:42):
because to me, the the mental level, the intelligence level is
the bed from which my emotions are based.
If I have an emotion, it's a it's ultimately based on
something that I believe to be true.
So there's a foundation of intellect somewhere within that
emotion. So to me, the intellectual level

(49:03):
is even more important than the emotional level.
So I don't mind not having that emotional manipulation, because
when God feeds me through the Torah with my intellect, that
intellect is going to be the basis from which my emotions are
going to come in the future. And so whether or not I make a

(49:25):
decision based on emotions or logic, to me logic is is a more.
I guess, I hate to say it this way, but it's it's more logical
because that's the basis for allmy emotions.
So I've learned to appreciate that over the last year or so of
going to synagogue, you know, even though I'm tempted to miss
the show, the music, the lights,I miss it on a level where, you

(49:50):
know, I miss the fun aspect of that.
But at the same time, I do appreciate I have a a very deep
appreciation for the intellectual stimulation that I
get from reading the parsha or having it read or chanted really
in Hebrew, followed by the haftarah in Hebrew and following

(50:11):
along. I can.
What? I can't catch up with the Hebrew
because they're reading so fast.You know, I can, you know, still
feed my intellect by following along in English.
And then that intellectual foundation, you know, is going
to carry me not only intellectual intellectually but
emotionally. And so I've learned to

(50:33):
appreciate that. And I hope that explains, you
know, that explains to you at least the, I guess, the
transition from less emotion andmore intellect and my
appreciation of that change. I mean, you know the the.
I mean, you're essentially goingto a rock concert.

(50:55):
Who doesn't like to go to a rockconcert with their their
favorite artists? I mean it one you are encouraged
to put your hands up put your all into it to dance to to in a
way express yourself. I I do martial arts so Bruce Lee
you know he said it art of expressing yourself expressing

(51:15):
yourself honestly. So you you try to get people
opened up hands up giving all themselves.
So there's a part of you even ifyou're giving yourself up to
some imaginary that it feels good If I'm just like letting
myself be right. Everybody wants acceptance
whether or not and and you know so it's a it's offer of

(51:38):
acceptance but it's got now whenwe get into and we're not going
to do that today. But you get into the theology
and the foundation, it's not there.
But it feels good to open yourself up to be free to you
know those experiences feel goodbut feels good when somebody
does the same thing at a Beyoncéconcert or a Jay-Z concert.

(52:00):
So it's not the the experience itself is not religious though
it's in a religious setting but you're convinced by the people
telling you from the stage it's religious.
Though I know personally that the the churches I went to were
concerned about air conditioningcause certain levels facilitated
the Holy Spirit better than others, which was comedic to me.

(52:22):
Just the thought of it put me onthe floor like God needs an air
conditioning unit. Are you kidding me?
You've got to be kidding me now.You know, it was enjoyable but I
enjoy a good concert too. I mean you know, so I it's it's
not that it's not. And yes, part of me is like it'd
be nice if maybe there was a a atruly Jewish movement where

(52:44):
maybe they had elements of that it would be kind of nice.
But you know Hola ka when it comes to playing instrument on
Shabbat, you know you know the reforming conservative, they'll
make room for it. Reform more than conservative on
that. But they they still tend to be a
little traditional on their usage of music.

(53:06):
Part of me is like if we could blend a little bit of the
vineyard music with you know, conservative movement, it'd be a
fun service. But that's not traditionally the
Jewish way So but it is it is enjoyable but you know I want to
touch on something you said though cognitive emotive or

(53:27):
cognitive behavior theory deals with like cognitive no motive
theory, it's your thoughts lead to your emotions lead to
actions. Now when people get you to by
bypass your thought get into emotionalism, they can control
your action. Whereas if it's a thought that
leads to emotion and you're morein control of your actions.
So personally I prefer to my emotions line up with my thought

(53:51):
than be LED into an emotional state to be led by another
person. I don't want to dwell too much
on it, 'cause I kind of want to transition into what's your
experience been as you're, you know, going through conversion?
When I was going through, I was doing various experiments on,
you know, keeping kosher, working on being shomer, Shabbat

(54:16):
observance of the festivals. My rabbi, you know, he was a
Conservative rabbi. He had come to part of his
Jewish experience was through the Reconstruction movement.
But the shul itself was an independent minion.
But my conversion was conversionConservative.
But because it came from Reconstruction, it was more of a

(54:38):
make Judaism your own and personalize it for yourself.
And so we did all these experiments kind of.
It was kind of cool kind of. Plus we did Mozart's kind of as
a spiritual tradition. I really enjoyed.
What is your experience been as your, you know, you know, taking
on kosher Shabbat? Like what?

(54:59):
What has your experience been asyou've been going through
conversion? Got it.
I'm going to qualify what I'm about to say by saying working
closely with my rabbi on this. And so people are going to
probably disagree with a lot of how I see things or how I've
been going about my conversion. But you know, my Yiddish kite,

(55:25):
my conversion to a Jewish lifestyle is basically under
supervision between myself and my rabbi.
And he and I are comfortable with the process that we have
undertaken. Now, with that in mind, and I
say it because there will be some critics of my journey, but,

(55:46):
you know, I'm at peace with my journey and, you know, they have
no bearing on my relationship, my covenant with God.
So they can think whatever they want to.
That being said, my rabbi was raised Orthodox in a he was
raised in an Orthodox home, but he is Conservative and I believe
he was, he's been conservative for, you know, several years, at

(56:08):
least 20 years. And of course, our shul is
conservative, egalitarian. But of course we are a little
bit stricter in some areas, likethe fact that, you know, we
don't have instrumentation on Shabbat services.
And since he was raised Orthodox, he's very strict
about, at least in shul, no cellphones on Shabbat, don't take

(56:31):
pictures in Shabbat, on on Shabbat on in the shul, you
know, very strict. And we have a meal after the
service. It's always kosher.
And of course, he will encourageall of his members to keep
kosher and Shamir Shabbat to thebest of their ability.
Now what that means for me is I live an hour away from my shul.

(56:54):
First questions I asked him whenI approached him for conversion
is, is it a problem if I live anhour's drive away from shul?
And he immediately told me that,well, the conservative movement
since the 60s has allowed driving to and from shul on
Shabbat and Yom Tov. Only, you know, you don't drive
everywhere. You can drive to shul and back.

(57:15):
And so I live an hour's drive away.
I drive to and from shul, so he is OK with that.
I'm OK with that. The other thing is with keeping
kosher. I told him that I live over an
hour away from the nearest kosher butcher, you know, and I
am part of an interfaith family at this point.

(57:36):
The second question to him when I started talking to him about
conversion was, is the problem that I have a non Jewish wife?
I've been married to my wife. At the time it was a little more
than 20 years. Now it's over 21 years and he
said, you know, in his initial that's fine because with hala
ha, there is room for a single Jew to convert with no family

(58:00):
who may or may not ever have Jewish kids.
And so why there should not there be room for a member of a
couple to convert by themselves who may or may not have Jewish
kids. So in his opinion, it's the same
thing. He's had experience with
converting what number of a couple with a non Jewish spouse
in the past. He won't marry an interfaith
couple, but he will allow one member of a couple to convert.

(58:24):
So there's a difference there. So that's the case with me and
since my wife is still a devout Christian, I am officially in an
interfaith household. So that affects my Schmish about
it affects my cash quote keepingkosher.
And so my cash quote journey, myjourney to keeping kosher with

(58:45):
my rabbi is basically do the best you can with what you have
and of course do the best you can.
Doesn't mean don't worry about it at all.
No, it means that you know with with the within the bounds of
Shalom vice since in any interview couple Shalom vice
takes precedence, Shalom vice ispeace at home.

(59:05):
And so if I try to impose kosherdishes, kosher cookware, kosher
silverware in an interfaith household, and it affects Shalom
vice, then I can't do it. I have to keep in my channel
bias. So with respect to Shalom bias,

(59:25):
in that environment, I keep cashew to the point where I, you
know, I'm no longer. I don't eat pork or shellfish,
but I don't buy kosher meat because I live more than an hour
away from the kosher butcher andmy rabbi's aware of that.
He's OK with it. I don't have kosher cookware.

(59:45):
I don't have kosher silverware, kosher dishes where rabbi is
aware he's OK with that, you know.
So I I do mind what I can withinthe bounds of Shannon bias.
If my wife is ever to the point where she's able, if she's
comfortable with me only buying kosher meats, going an hour and
a half to the kosher butcher an hour and a half back, paying

(01:00:05):
double the price, then it'll happen.
But that's not where I'm at right now.
So within the bounds of Shannon bias, I keep kosher to the best
of. Those bounds, if that makes
sense. Shamir Shabbat is basically the
same thing. I don't want to make waves with

(01:00:26):
peace at home because basically ultimately I have to be a light
at home. I have to make Judaism appear
non threatening to them. But the trick is without I don't
want to be completely kosher free, you know, I don't want to
be completely compromised. I have to say, OK, I want to at

(01:00:46):
least do my part, do what I can.That doesn't affect the
household. I can at least be pork free,
shellfish free without affectingthe household.
But and shomer Shabbat, I can get away with not using
electronic devices and have it not affect anybody.
And you know, that's so far thatseems to be working out so far.

(01:01:07):
And again, Orthodox Jews are kind of probably pulling their
their hair out at me saying all this, But where I'm at with my
rabbi and me, and as long as I am doing the best that I can,
not putting it aside but making goods a concerted effort to

(01:01:28):
actually do it within the boundsof Shalom Baeus, then my rabbi's
happy. I'm happy.
And that's that's where I'm at as far as Shalom, Baeus and
Kashkot and shame Shabbat. OK, I I guess I was lucky when I
went through conversion, my wifeand son went with me and so we

(01:01:50):
were able, you know to transition the kosher dishes.
And you know, we we never lived close enough that we had to
drive to shul. So I mean, but conservative has
accepted that for, like you saidsince the 60s, so you try to
keep kosher style, you don't eatpork.

(01:02:10):
Have you stopped mixing milk andmeat where I live?
So Trader Joe's has kosher meats.
There's a Ralph's over here thata kosher meat section.
But then, you know, San Diego has a large Jewish population,
so I I have an ease of access tokosher meats.
My city has a Jewish population of one you that know of.

(01:02:32):
Oh, there's nothing kosher. There's halal, but there's no
kosher than an hour of. Halal is not kosher, right?
But. It's the closest thing, but it's
not kosher. Well, they don't always drain
the blood and salt the meats, though.
Sometimes they just bless the meat, so the.
It's not the same. It's the closest thing, but it's

(01:02:53):
not kosher. I realize it's not kosher.
Do you know how to cashier your meats like?
You I do know how to, but I've I've spoken to people who do it
for a living and they say if youbuy non kosher meat there's no
way to make it kosher, even if you cashier it.
If you buy a non kosher, passuring it does not make it

(01:03:13):
kosher. I've always had access to to the
mean time, but I know that like they were telling me when I went
through conversion that you can drain it and salt it and do it
yourself, but you know, always an option.
But as long as you're working with your rabbi and he's OK with
things, everybody has their own journey.
How does your wife feel about your conversion and?

(01:03:34):
She is growing more and more, I guess, tolerant, you know, say
passively tolerant. She was very kind of resentful
at the beginning, and it's growninto a passive tolerance.
It took a long time for her to allow me to buy Shabbat candles.
It took a long time for her to allow me to buy kosher wine

(01:03:57):
because I can't buy kosher meat within an hour and a half drive.
But I can buy kosher wine and I can buy kosher dairy.
So, and of course, fruits and vegetables, you don't really
have to worry about it. So I don't worry about it, but
but as far as everything else, Imean, she passively accepts that
I will drive to and from shul once a month, and right now it's

(01:04:19):
not more than one a month because with Shalom bias.
And of course I've had this discussion with my rabbi.
We have one family vehicle rightnow, and if I take the vehicle
an hour away, I have to leave the house at 8:30 to get there
by 10. And of course, the service lasts
usually till 1:30. And if there's a kidosh
afterwards, I might not leave till two, might not get home

(01:04:39):
till 4:00. So I have to deprive the family
of the family vehicle for close to 8 hours.
So with respect to them, I can'tgo to shul more than once a
month, so I go to When I go to shul.
She's passively tolerant of the fact that I will go to shul once
a month. She's passively tolerant of the
idea that I cover my head and I where I keep under my cover.

(01:05:03):
She doesn't like my keep up. Is she a Christian?
Does she come from a Christian background?
Oh yeah, she varied about she's still working.
Here know that in the New Testament Jesus is said to wear
talits and tassels and. It doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter to her. The tradition is, you know, the

(01:05:24):
Christian tradition is. It's considered impolite to
cover your head indoors and especially at the dinner table.
Yeah, whereas I started. To open them, they have their
little. Yeah, that's it.
And you know, one of the first things in my rabbi told me is
that he said, you know, we coverour heads when we pray, when we
eat and study Torah. And when he said we, I mean

(01:05:45):
nobody told me to do. When he said we, this is what we
do. I considered myself as part of
the we and I started doing it. And he of course told me he
doesn't have to be a coupon. And I said, well, since I'm
converting, can I buy a coupon? He said, well of course, you
know, since you're converting, it's not appropriation.
It would be appropriation if youwere trying to integrate it into

(01:06:07):
a non Jewish lifestyle. But since you're converting, you
can wear it. So I wear a coupon under my my
hat and I wear a hat over in public so I don't get, you know,
lynched or you know, if I don't get attacked.
Because in Quebec, anti-Semitismis very, very high.
It's very. Rampant.
I mean, if there's only one one other Jewish person there, then
I can imagine it's yeah, it's unfortunate.

(01:06:28):
Yeah. So I'm very careful to cover my
coupon when I go out in public and when I'm at home, I can just
want to keep a, especially if mywife is in the other room.
And it's a funny thing because I've been wearing a thoughtful
time since October, mid-october,shortly after the the attacks, I
decided, you know, I'm not just going to wear a flat cap
anymore. I'm going to wear my just to

(01:06:49):
remind me of who I am and whose I am at all times.
And my wife still doesn't like it, but she started to get
sensitized to it. I'm starting to normalize it
step by step and it just takes baby steps to get people used to
it. My my son is used to it.
My wife is. I hope to have her used to it
soon. And it's it's kind of a funny

(01:07:12):
story about the other day I was doing dishes and I was just
wearing my keypad and I heard her in the other room and she's
coming in. I my instinct was like put on
your flat cap, she's coming in. And you know, my other voice, my
inner voice said no, no, no, don't, don't put it on.
I want, let her see your coupon.I want her to see the coupon.
So she came in, she saw the coupon.
She didn't argue. She didn't give give me a hard

(01:07:32):
time. She just said what she needed to
stay and left And you know, so it has to become a little bit
normalized, bit by bit, step by step.
And that's kind of where I'm at in this transitional phase of
being this new reality of being an interfaith household.
Yeah, well, I mean, it sounds like you're doing your best to
manage it. How long have you been married?

(01:07:54):
At this point, a little over 21 years.
OK, good. And when I announced to her that
I was converting and I was no longer Christian, we had been
married over 20 years. And so was a shock.
I had to spend a couple nights in the couch and, you know, we
had some, we had some some very frank discussions of whether I
wanted to divorce her. The answer was no.

(01:08:14):
Whether she wanted to divorce me, the answer was no.
Whether she wanted me to leave, the answer was no.
Whether I wanted her to leave, the answer was no.
So a little. Bit of tension there, huh?
A bit. And of course it's it's a little
bit of still there, I won't lie.But you know, in an interfaith
household, I mean that's that's part of the reality of being in
an interfaith household. You know, when we got married,

(01:08:36):
we had a Christian wedding and we the whole base of our, even
knowing each other, was on the premise of loving Jesus.
And so that's been taken away from her.
And so there's still a little bit of resentment that is still
there, that comes across from time to time.
But she's becoming more and more, I guess, again using my

(01:09:01):
term, passively tolerant, and it's becoming a little bit less
aggressive or less resentful with time.
And so with time, it's just going to, it'll resolve itself.
And you know, we have the rest of our lives.
I mean, hopefully in the next 30years, I mean, she'll at least

(01:09:21):
be open to visiting the show, maybe once or twice.
Who knows? I mean, there's time.
I mean, it takes a while for things to grow on people, I
guess. Yeah.
So I mean, when I first married my ex, we had a messianic
wedding, and then we went through conversion later, and
then we had a Jewish wedding. And since we already had the

(01:09:46):
Jewishness built in, it wasn't so hard.
And she kind of went a lot. Well, she wanted to go through
conversion and so did my son. They both actively chose to do
that. So, I mean, it was nice, 'cause
we were able to do it together as a family.
It was wonderful to go to the Mikvo with my son, like the
Mikvo was a it was a wonderful experience.

(01:10:06):
Forever cherish that. I don't want to go on too long
here. I'm going to ask like a last
basic set of question or question.
And this is kind of about, so your moderator in a few Facebook
groups kind of deal with common objections.
What's the purpose of it? What are some of the common
objections and stuff that you deal with there?
And kind of what's your goal behind, you know, moderating the

(01:10:30):
the various groups on you know leaving Christianity for Torah
the you know the other, but the the name is like Noahide
Judaism, I know. It's a bunch of Judaism,
noahideism, messianism and Christianity is the the main
group that I started. That was the first one I started
moderating. It's a, it's an interfaith group
where it is basically a a, it's a Tena discussion group where

(01:10:55):
people discuss the Tena and Christians and Messianics are
welcome to join in the discussion.
And so there's a lot of discussion on reconciling.
The idea is that a lot of Christian ideas are actually New
Testament mythology that don't line up with Tanakh.
And so there's a lot of Christians that are shocked and

(01:11:17):
offended at the idea that their beliefs are not universally
accepted and it's not a an echo chamber that we're not going to
wave hankies and yell Amen when they say Jesus is Lord.
So anyway, it's it's an interesting point of view on
being a moderator in an interfaith context and I bring

(01:11:40):
my personality with me and my. I guess my experience as a
moderator. I've been I've been moderating
Facebook forums for over 20 years.
Well, not Facebook, but online forums.
Even before Facebook existed, I did on forums and I was a
moderator going back to 2000. And so I have a lot of
experience with making sure things are civil, making sure

(01:12:01):
that people attack arguments andnot each other.
And so and I try to bring in my personality in the sense where,
you know, I told you in the past, I left Baptist Theology
for Pentecostal theology and I became a little bit of a
fundamentalist for a while. And I actually had resentment
against my former faith, the Baptist faith.

(01:12:24):
And it took, it took me years toget over my resentment toward
Baptists, and it took me a whileto get over the fundamentalist
personality. So when I made the transition
from Christianity altogether to Judaism, I had the same focus.
I I wanted to keep the same lessons with me.
I basically told God I don't want to be fundamentalist.

(01:12:47):
And I don't want to hold hatred toward my former faith because
some a lot of the people, you know, I can hate the teachings
or disagree or strongly dislike the teachings, but I can't hate
the people. There's some great people, great
sincere people who are just sincerely wrong.
And so I try to encourage peopleto have the same approach in

(01:13:11):
their interfaith dialogue, and Itry to demonstrate the same
thing. And so when it's a Christian, I
try to do my best to question, to challenge their arguments
without insulting them. And of course, since Christians
are accustomed to being agreed with all the time, they get
offended when their ideas are challenged.

(01:13:31):
Often not all of them, but often.
Very often. Too often, in my opinion, I have
to tell them, hey, look, I'm challenging your opinion.
I'm not insulting you. And sometimes they'll realize
that that and I'm making sense. Sometimes they'll just pick up
their toys and leave. But my goal in interfaith
dialogue is to challenge opinions, change belief

(01:13:54):
statements while remaining civil.
Because if you push people away,they're not going to listen to
the truth. If you insult them and mock
them, they're going to pick up their toys and leave.
They're not going to stick around long enough for it to to
hear what you have to say, let alone listen to it and try to
make it make sense. And my job, as a converting to

(01:14:18):
at least, is to be a light, and I can't let my light shine.
People are not going to see my light if I'm just making fun of
them all the time a light has, they have to be drawn to it.
So I'm not going to mock them asa person.
I might playfully mock a belief system or challenge a belief
system or, you know, a faith statement or an opinion.

(01:14:43):
I might go so far as to call it New Testament mythology, even
though they don't like that, Butit'll make them think, OK, is
this really a myth? You know, there's usually I I
use certain words deliberately to get people to to provoke
thought because God invites us to reason together.
And so that's really my whole focus and my approach toward

(01:15:05):
interfaith dialogue in Facebook.Hopefully that answers your
question. Yeah, I mean, you seem to have a
pretty balanced attitude there. And I mean, when I I was, I got
into Christian apologetics when I was in, you know, involved in

(01:15:27):
Christianity. So I don't know if I ever got to
like the fundamentalist phase, but I definitely was into a
phase where I was heavily into apologetics.
But when I, you know, when I goteventually to the point of
converting, you know, I got to the point when I converted
Judaism. I just want to be a human being.

(01:15:50):
You know what I mean? That I enjoy the life that I
exist in. And you know, if the light
shines, it shines through. I don't know the goodness of,
like, me as a person, what I experience as a person versus me
trying to convince other people of what I believe.
It's very interesting. Like, I had no plans to start

(01:16:14):
like this whole podcast, blog thing because, you know, because
I converted 2014, so it's like 10 years now, right?
I had no plans of doing this at all.
And then somebody, because I wasengaging, I on, you know, a few
of the forms there just started answering and dealing with

(01:16:37):
questions because I've been to Bible college and ministry and
all these things. So I have information in my
head. I just wasn't using and I
started interacting with people and you know, then I I started
getting a podcast interview request and I'm like, OK.
And after doing that, then I then I was talking to other
people and, you know, lined up some interviews and stuff and

(01:16:59):
you know, like my goal, and thisisn't to convince people of the
truth, but to share things I learned on my journey.
For those interested in going ona similar journey themselves,
whether people do what I do or something differently is
irrelevant to me. Like, you know, I found things
helpful on my journey. So if I can, share things that
are helpful to others on their journey as they question, look

(01:17:20):
at things to reason, try to havea sound mind, try to be
grounded, look at, you know, facts and history, not just what
people want to tell us. So I mean, I've tried to have
more of a holistic approach. Understand people's emotional
mental state that people are, you know, they they, they good

(01:17:42):
people strongly believe things they've been led to believe that
may not be true. They're good people.
They want to do good. It's why they believe it.
Therefore, just telling them it's a myth or a lie is, you
know, it's it's it's a challenging thing.
Now sometimes when you state those facts in in forums you get

(01:18:03):
like the common thing I see is the character assassinations.
They start coming at you pretty hard, and it's hard for me to
fight my sarcastic urge to say very similar things back to
them. Just kind of human nature, I
guess. But you know, in general I I'd
rather be helpful than harmful, but.

(01:18:25):
Oh yeah. One thing you'd you'd hit on,
which I want to hit on as well, is just the freedom.
You said that you got into this phase where you were into
apologetics, and usually apologetics.
That usually means missionizing to me, letting your light shine
aggressively to the point where you tell other people how to
live. Yeah.

(01:18:45):
Couldn't believe. Yeah.
And one of the things that I find so freeing with Judaism is
there is no proselytizing. We don't proselytize.
We just let our light shine. We just do the right thing.
And if somebody is attracted to it and they ask you questions,
sure, you answer the questions. But there's no pressure to tell
people how to live or what to believe because we're judged

(01:19:07):
ultimately by what we do, not bybelieving the right thing.
So that to me was one of the biggest relief feelings of
relief that I've felt in a long time.
Just no pressure to have to go out and, you know, win souls or
anything like that. Yeah, it's nice to not have to
to, you know, it's funny, you know, they talk about works and

(01:19:29):
the laws. It's nice to not have to work
for God, to have to try to convince and convert people, you
know, It's funny how Christianity creates a false
dichotomy, yet they create new works and new laws.
But that's a different discussion for another day.
So I want to thank you for coming on here.
It's been a good conversation. I'm glad we got to connect like

(01:19:50):
this. Is there anything you want to
say last minute like wrapping uphere like?
No, nothing really to add other than if if anyone is listening
out here on your podcast and they.
Feel like they would like to consider Judaism as an option.

(01:20:11):
If they're not satisfied with Christianity, or they see
discrepancies that they're not familiar with, talk to Jeremiah.
Reach out to Jeremiah, or reach out to myself.
Reach out to a rabbi. There is no commitment when you
do that. It's just reaching out, asking
questions. There's no obligation to become
a Jew if you do that. And so if you feel like you have

(01:20:35):
questions, you see a light that is intriguing, and you want more
information, again, reach out toa rabbi that you know of.
Reach out to Jeremiah. Read out to myself.
We'd be answer any questions youmay.
Have. All right.
Great. Excellent.
Well, thanks for coming on today.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Pulling The

(01:20:56):
Threads podcast. We're at the pleasure to
interview Bandwagon Maker. Make sure you like, subscribe
and follow and share this podcast everywhere you can.
And I want to thank you for tuning in.
Have a great day.

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