You heard me correctly! The Counter-missionaries are at it
again with their attempts to discredit me. To my credit I think I handled this
situation pretty well considering the bad names I was called. Below I am going
to post links to the websites and add a summary of the comments made. If there
is a dispute with my characterization of the events please feel free to make
your case in the comments. My moderation is very light unless you are simply
spamming.
The matter started off long before this ever came to light
but I am going to give a little background on the current situation. A while
ago I posted on a forum called Isaiah53.com. Now, to my credit, I did not know
that this site is actually run by a messianic organization called “Chosen people
ministries.” I simply thought this was a discussion and debate forum where
ideas and points of view could be debated. I found out later that it was run by
them. I want to make it clear that I do not support their actions and have thus
ended my posting there after my response to Moshe Shulman (discussed later). I
posted a post in response to some accusations from CMs that the word לָמוֹ
in Hebrew only means “to them” and that Isaiah 44:15 reads plural. This claim
by CMs also relates to the usage in Isaiah 53:8 and how their view is that לָמוֹ
should be read as plural in this verse. I actually agreed that in Isaiah 53:8
it should be read as a plural reference to a compound entity called “Israel!”
My problem was Isaiah 44:15 and what it reads.
In my post I noted that the Radak and the Aramaic Targum
Yonatan both saw an issue with the plural view for different reasons. Radak’s
problem was a conflict between a grammatical reading and the interpretation
which he illustrated and solved in favor of the interpretation of פֶסֶל
being plural. Radak did note here that grammatically the word לָמוֹ
is functioning as the word לו which only made his
problem complicated and thus would serve a reference to a possible singular
usage of לָמוֹ. The Targum on the other hand goes
directly for the third person singular suffix in its use of מִנֵהּ
“from it.” I took great care to say that despite this possibility, and my
personal opinion, that I maintain the interpretation of the Rabbis. This
wouldn’t be good enough for CMs and we will find out why.
Enter Moshe Shulman:
Moshe Shulman is a very popular counter-missionary and has a
website called www.judaismsanswer.com.
He is sometimes called Rabbi Moshe Shulman or Reb Moshe Shulman, depending on
who you are talking to and where you are. He uses the Forum and paltalk
nickname of “RebMoshe.” His learning and knowledge is vast and in quite a few
ways would exceed my own in the realm of Rabbinic writings. I concede that he
has a much more Jewish based learning than I do since he more than likely grew
up in the Bobover Chassidic dynasty. To be very clear, Moshe Shulman is not a
“Rabbi” as we would think about it. The Bobovers do not simply ordain Rabbis as
the Lubavitchers, Breslovers or as other streams of Orthodoxy does. So he is in
essence a very learned lay person! I grew up in a very secular household to a
gentile Father and a Jewish mother. I became a BT at age 21 and resolved to
make up for many of the things I should have learned as a child. I started
going to an Orthodox Shul and learned as much as I could from the Rabbi. I
resolved to learn Hebrew and be able to do it as well as possible. So I went
the College and earned a degree in Hebrew. I was proud of myself and am still
pursuing this at the university level to attain a Masters and then Doctorate in
NELC. I can read Hebrew now as I should be able to at this age growing up with
Hebrew in the household. I am by no means a native speaker but I can carry on a
decent conversation minus all of the street slang that comes up every day in
Israel and my American accent. I can read and understand Aramaic in its various
points in time. Enough about the backgrounds lets dig into what happened!
Some time after I posted a post on Isaiah53.com,[1]
I received an email from Moshe Shulman calling me and one other person an
Apikoros in his opinion. He only knows me and this other person by our paltalk
nicknames but, the accusations start flying. Moshe Shulman is known to be pompass
and arrogant at times setting himself at the top of the pedestal of piety
while, unless you are a CM, everyone else is lower than he is. He sent me an
entire email laying out his feelings and opinions as if they were some sort of
fact. Accusing me of Chillul HaShem and being apikoros because I “insulted
Rashi and the Sages” by disagreeing with Counter missionaries without citing
anything within Jewish law that I would have broken that would indicate that I
am as he stated. I am assuming he has never read Hilchot Teshuvah 3:6-8 in the
Mishneh Torah or hasn’t recently. It outlines what an Apikoros is in detail
while summarizing the Talmudic references in Bavli tractate Sanhedrin. In a
private message in Paltalk I made sure to thank him for his kind words and tell
him I thought it was cute that he would equate disagreement with a CM with
insulting the Sages. Yes, it was all sarcasm but this person needed and
deserved it!
In the discussion forums at Isaiah53.com, Moshe Shulman goes
on the attack quickly by attacking me as a person and any credibility that I
may have. That is usually a last resort for those who know that they are going
to have a hard time winning the argument. He then offers his own translation of
the Radak and criticizes me for improperly translating the comments and
misunderstanding. Sorry Moshe, but the bottom line is that I had to point out
what your translation is lacking, why you didn’t translate some things at all
and what the Radak’s point actually was. I didn’t misunderstand or mistranslate
anything and as of 1/24/2014 there has been no response. It took me two days to
get to his post as busy as I am, but this looks like it will end here for the
time being. It has been 4 days and counting!
That isn’t everything! There is more and you are going to
enjoy this one. I have my own thread at messiah truth discussion forums![2]
These are the forums where CM bigwigs like Uri Yosef, Sophiee1, and Moshe
Shulman frequent to share ideas and ask questions for answers. In this thread I
am played out as being misguided, as “Sides with missionaries,” and an Idiot.
The one thing I like about this is that it abruptly ended with a request from a
poster ProfBenTziyyon (Professor Mordechai Ben Tziyyon) to look at what I
wrote. The good professor ends by saying “I’ll
take a look at this idiot’s “other Jewish interpretation of the word lamo in
Isaiah 53”[3]
when I wake up, too tired now.” Guess what, the crickets are still chirping
and the good professor has not even tried. I guess he has been too tired to
respond also.
The moral of this sad story is the Moshe Shulman’s opinion
means exactly squat. What matters is what Jewish law says and what I am
definitely not and that is an Apikoros! I feel that I have ranted enough on
this matter and will leave it to you to decide.
