YY Jacobson Shiur: Why Did Jews Reject Christianity.

I’m going to learn excerpts I took out of the Rambam. Zugt de Rambam:

Jews did not believe in Moshe Rabbeinu because of any miracles he did. Why? Anybody
who believes anything or anybody based on miracles is still cynical. If you are an
intellectually honest person, you have to ask yourself maybe this man is capable of we
call voodoo, maguc, kishuf, optical illusions. Yes, he is talented, he is skilled; it doesn’t
mean he’s not a con artist. *laughs* Talented people can be great con artists. We all
know that. People can be skilled in manipulating nature. It doesn’t mean what they’re
saying is true. Maybe they’re lying or maybe they’re delusional, it doesn’t have to do
anything with a lie. Sometimes people are dreamers. They’re delusional. It doesn’t mean
it’s true. So why would they accept Moshe Rabbeinu as emes, without a doubt? Why?
And this is very important to understand. Did Jews accept Moshe Rabbeinu without a
doubt or was it 90% truth? Was it 90% true or was it 100%? As much as humans can
define truth, of course… One event. This is the critical event of Judaism. Maamed Har
Sinai. Why? Our eyes saw it and no stranger; this was no hearsay. Our ears heard it and
no one else’s. Nobody to tell us what happened. The fires, the voices, the lights. Moshe
approaches the cloud. A voice speaks to him. What that voice sounds like? The Rambam
is not telling us; we don’t know what the voice sounds like. If you would have had a
video camera by maamed Har Sinai, what would have the video camera picked up? We
don’t know. Moshe, Moshe! Go tell the Jewish people so and so. And this is what the
Torah says: God spoke to you face to face…

The people he was sent to, they are the witnesses that his prophecy is true. It’s not like
they have to believe the prophet, that he is saying truth. It’s not that his charisma or his
talent or his brilliance or his wisdom or his authority or his power is what impresses
upon them to believe him. But rather they are the witnesses. And he doesn’t have to
perform a miracle because he knows what they know and they know what he knows. So
his miracles won’t add or decrease, just as like he believes himself, they’ll believe him…

Once the entire Jewish nation, every man, woman and child stood at Har Sinai,
experienced what they all experienced together at Maamed Har Sinai, they trust Moshe
Rabbeinu as God’s prophet, not because of a miracle he performed, not because of
something supernatural he did but because they were all prophets like Moshe Rabbeinu.
They all experienced the divine revelation. They all experienced the Ten
Commandments. They all experienced simultaneously God, telling them that Moshe
Rabbeinu is chosen as his prophet. And therefore they will never doubt Moshe
Rabbeinu’s true authority as a Navi…
What does this mean? Any prophet that stands up after Moshe Rabbeinu, we will never
believe any Navi because of a miracle… we will never say, “Oh, do you know why we
trust him? Cause he’s a miracle worker. Eliyahu HaNavi? Miracles. Elisha? Miracles. We
will not say he believe him because of a miracle. Which means if he makes a miracle,
we’ll do whatever he says cause we believe him… We will not do that. You know why we
believe a Navi? Because Moshe said to believe a Navi. Where does he say that? …Moshe
says if he performs a miracle, you should listen to him. It’s part of what Moshe Rabbeinu
told us…

Why do we believe a Navi? Do we know for sure he’s not lying? We don’t. God never
told it to us He told it to him. I don’t know that he’s lying. Oh, he performed a miracle.
Okay! Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s not right, maybe it’s kishuf, maybe it’s not. At least I
can have a doubt. Moshe Rabbeinu said this Navi has certain criteria, God says I’m
telling you to believe him, just like I’m telling you to believe two witnesses, just like I tell
you to believe to put on tefillin, just like I’m telling you to keep Shabbos. And you know
that I am a true Navi, why? Not because I performed the miracle. Cause you saw it. You
saw the miracle. You were part of it. You were part of Maamed Har Sinai…

Here the Rambam brings it to its logical conclusion. If a Navi gets up and performs
major miracles… and he comes to deny the prophecy of Moshe Rabbeinu through these
miracles. He uses them as a method to undermine the navuah of Moshe. In other words,
to undermine the Torah. We don’t listen. And we know that they were magic…

If Moshe Rabbeinu’s nevuah was authenticated because of the miracles, now we have to
compare! *laughs* Moshe did this? Hey, this man is not bad! He’s a good runner-up.
Maybe he even transcends him… We believe him, we believe him. Rambam says we got
it wrong. We don’t trust Moshe’s nevuah, we don’t put on tefillin, we don’t keep
Shabbos, we don’t eat kosher, we don’t do Yom Kippur, we don’t accept the 613 mitzvos
of the Torah because of Moshe’s unique performance as a miracle man. Completely not
that! So therefore there’s nothing to contrast. Why do we believe Moshe? We were at
Maamed Har Sinai. Maamed Har Sinai remained a reality upon which all of Judaism is
based that no Jew can doubt. Or to put it put it this way: Yes, you can say that three
million Jews… How many you have? You got 600,000 between 20 and 60 males. Then
you have at least that amount females. So that’s 1.2 million. And you have all the
children till 20 and all senior citizens above 60? So you’re dealing with 2 or 3 or maybe
more million people. You can say that 3 million people had an optical illusion? Yes, you
could. I could also say that I’m standing here and that it’s night. And I can tell you that
it’s not a piece of paper. And I can tell you that this is not a cup of coffee… Of course,
you could! But then you would have to do that everywhere. Every time in life. Then you
shouldn’t walk on the ground. Then you shouldn’t eat food cause it may be cotton…
Fine. If you want to live your life based on the fact that you believe your eyes are
completely not attuned to the total truth, I understand. Gesunderheit. Not a problem if
you don’t have to be intellectually consistent. Never in history do we find a
phenomenon… where millions of people should conspire to say something that they
know is not true and nonetheless they decide to state a lie. And what type of lie? A lie
that is going to challenge their lives forever. At least if you’re… making up together that
God told you something, why in the world would you decide that this God wants you to
free your slaves after six years…? Not to have anybody work on Shabbos. And once in
seven years, all your savings accounts are open for everyone to take… Yeah, you could
be meshugeh, no question. Now, we don’t have that precedent. Now does this mean
that these people don’t believe lies? Of course, they believe lies. Take even the Germans,
after the defeat of Germany in the First World War, who was blamed? The Jews. But they
didn’t come to German people and say, “that the… Jews, lay down on the roads and
didn’t let the tanks go to the front lines”. Why did nobody say that? …Cause nobody
would believe that. That the Jews backstabbed us, they undermined us secretly. Because
we don’t have a precedent that millions of people should for sure it’s a lie but
nonetheless conspire to state it as a lie and give it over to their children, knowing it’s a
lie… There’s not one religion in the world that claimed millions of people saw God
choosing the prophet. Why not? It’s a much better story. It’s a much better story than
the story of Muhammed experiencing his revelation, of Joseph Smith experiencing his
revelation and founding the Mormon religion, of ocoy haish experiencing his revelation
with maybe his twelve disciples. Why does no other religion have a story of the entire
nation, millions of people seeing it? You know why? *laughs* What do you think? …We
don’t have a precedent of anyone getting away with such a thing. Somebody will tell the
secret. Somebody will come out and say, “You’re a meshugah. I’m not part of this
game”…

So the Rambam says this as an important idea. Jews didn’t have a doubt that Judaism
was true. They saw; they experienced it. Did they understand everything they saw? That’s
a good question. Could they articulate exactly what they saw, what they heard? …But
they were absolutely persuaded so the Rambam says this remains the parameter of
Yiddishkeit. Emes. Now the Navi comes and performs miracles. I don’t look how great
his miracles are. I ask one thing: Did Moshe Rabbeinu say I should listen to him? If he
has the criteria Moshe Rabbeinu said I should listen to him, I listen to him, just like I
listen to two witnesses. This is what Hashem wants me do, this is what I do. What
happens if he comes and undermines and denies the Nevuah of Moseh Rabbeinu? Now
he wants me to rely on his miracles. Now I have to contrast him with Moshe because he
says Moshe is a liar. That I can’t do…