Further to my last message, “Not nice to have to say, but…”: There are a couple more points that must be added as to how the leaders, rabbis and people of Israel need to return with pride to our true mission.
The Children of Noah
“Tell His glory among the nations”. Israel are commanded to spread the knowledge of God and the Seven Commandments of the Children of Noah to the people of the world. Today we are seeing frenetic and highly successful Muslim outreach across the world, while Israel and Judaism are being demonized all over as the godless villains, drinkers of gentile blood, etc.
Jews need to call to the nations and set before them the Seven Noahide Laws at every possible juncture, in every public forum, via social media, and in all our contacts with gentiles. Why are so few of our rabbis and leaders addressing the importance of outreach to the nations? Serious promotion of the Noahide Code would surely accomplish far more than all the heavily-funded Holocaust awareness projects, despite which global antisemitism is now at peak fury.
In the last 20 years I have had the privilege of contact with many serious Noahide seekers, I have attended Noahide events and conferences and have taught many live and internet classes for Noahide individuals and groups. Since 2012 I have been in daily contact via WhatsApp with Noahide groups in English-speaking countries across Africa.
In 2014, a deeply spiritual and highly educated black Nigerian with whom I had been in contact via Azamra.website for some years asked me if I could arrange an entry visa for him to visit Israel for two weeks in order to study Torah as it applies to the Noahides. I was delighted with the prospect of being able to fulfill the verse that “Torah shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”. I went in person to the Misrad HaPnim (Israel Interior Ministry) to apply for the necessary visa. As background, I should add that in peaceful times, tens of thousands of black African Christian pilgrims visit Israel throughout the year on organized tours in order to pay their respects at the sites that are holy to them.
You might have thought that in the Jewish State of Israel, in times of worldwide antagonism towards us, the government would welcome all serious non-Christian gentiles whose purpose in visiting the country is only to learn the Torah of Israel as it applies to them.
The Interior Ministry official grilled me about how I knew this person, what does he do in life (top engineer in a major Nigerian power station), why does he want to come to Israel and what guarantee can I give that he will leave at the end of his stay??? At the end of the interrogation, the official said that she could certainly issue the visa if I would put down a deposit of 50,000 Israeli Shekels (then equal to about $16,000 US) to be returned only when the visitor certified to have left the country. I need not tell you that neither my friend in Nigeria nor I could lay out the necessary funds, and an opportunity for teaching Torah and magnifying the glory of HaShem was lost because of myopic Israeli government bureaucracy. Imagine what might happen if the State of Israel made it easier for gentiles seeking the authentic Torah to enter the country and study in the Land of the Torah.
The “Lost” Tribes of Israel
The land occupied by the State of Israel as well as all the territories from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea and from the Nile to the town of Antakya (ancient Antioch) in present-day Turkey were given by God in an eternal covenant to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants. Here is not the place to enter in detail into the extensive and complex subject of the Ten “Lost” Tribes, who and where they are today, and what, if any obligation the Jewish people have to seek out our brothers and sisters. Yet it must be remembered that ALL the above-mentioned territories are the Promised Land given not only to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (the “Jews”) but to ALL the twelve tribes, the Children of Israel.
At present the State of Israel is surrounded by large populations of enemies daily plotting and striving to weaken and destroy her (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Hamas and Hezbollah), as well as large populations within her borders, including active Arab terrorist cells and their sympathizers throughout Judea and Samaria as well as in towns and villages within the “Green Line” bounding pre-1967 Israel.
Then why do not the temporal and spiritual leaders of Israel not assert the claim of ALL the Children of Israel to ALL these territories, as promised in writing in the Bible? And why do they show no interest whatever in seeking out the Ten Tribes — Israel’s true natural allies — and reaching out to them?
In 2016 I was in London visiting my late mother (O.B.M.) when the Chief Rabbi of Israel was visiting the synagogue of which she was a member. I knew the rabbi of the synagogue and asked him to let me sit next to the Chief Rabbi for the Shabbat Third Meal, which he was scheduled to address.
Early in the meal, I took the opportunity to put to him a question I had long wanted to ask: Given that across the world (in Africa, Asia, Europe, America, Australia and everywhere else), millions and millions of people believe in their heart of hearts that they are members of the Ten Tribes, should not the rabbis and leaders of Israel take up the matter and actively encourage their return to the Torah and the Land? The Chief Rabbi answered me in one brief sentence: “First we need to bring back all the Jews who are far from the Torah, and then we’ll start with the rest”. After this, he turned to the neighbor sitting on his other side and did not look at or speak to me again.
I leave you to draw your conclusions.
