This afternoon, we were invited up onto the roof top of a synagogue overlooking the kotel. Not many people are allowed to come up here and certainly not many who are unrelated in any way to the Jews who own this real estate. We happen to be with one of the attendees.
We met the rabbi who is in charge and next thing we know, we are gazing out over all of Jerusalem. We can even see as far as the mountains of Jordan across the river. It was an incredible site. What we found up there was one of the two largest scale models of a future 3rd temple. Of course, this sparked up a lively conversation.
I asked the rabbi if Moses guessed about the blueprint and design of the Temple he was instructed to build. Did Moses guess at the design of the Bronze Laver? Was Moses told to use his creative license to design the Table of Showbread? Did he come up with the details of the Menorah? Or perhaps were every single one of these designs accompanied by explicit detailed instructions from the Father Himself and wasn't Moses warned NOT to vary in any of the design instructions? (by implication, where are these instructions for a third temple and the articles therein?)
Okay, maybe I baited the rabbi a little but what happened next was a downhill slide into a lengthy discussion wherein I was told that these things don't really matter. Nadab and Abihu's own version of the incense isn't really a problem since we are all allowed to use our brain. Nehemiah's insistence of genealogical records to confirm priesthood after only 70 years of exile, isn't going to interfere with their own appointments of priesthood (without genealogical records) even though it's been 2000 years. I cannot possibly understand the Bible without being able to read it in Hebrew and even then I need a rabbi to tell me what it means. REALLY?
I asked this man if he was going to stand in judgment for me? Do I really get to point to a rabbi and say "he told me so" and that lets me off the hook with the Creator of the Universe? Maybe, just maybe we should go to God ourselves and let Him tell us what His word is saying and maybe we should believe Him? Novel idea I know but since I don't find the verse the rabbi told me that forbids me from turning on my lights on the Sabbath, or the one that forbids me to eat cheese on my hamburger, I'm going to assume my Father is ambivalent about these issues regardless whether the Jews are not. They have simply made up a whole religion around the rules and doctrines to men.
To say that the conversation took a definite turn for the worse would be an understatement. What came to my mind is a flood of understanding just how Yeshua was met by the elite on a daily basis. Their power structure was threatened by a Guy who rebuked them for "adding to" and "taking away from" Torah. They could not get Him to submit to their rules nor answer the charges against them when they were in clear violation or even clearly ignoring the teachings of scripture. Did they want Him gone? You bet! They killed Him over this very thing.
Today, this same power structure is controlling people in all religions. The top three on display in Jerusalem are greatly affected by the desire of men to have power over others. All YHVH wants from us is to surrender to HIM and Him alone. He doesn't have a "moses" today except Yeshua. He clearly forbids a corporate power structure in His church, so much so that He even commanded that titles be refused by both the one with the title and the ones to which that titled person is speaking. Are we as guilty as this Jewish rabbi of ignoring our Father and making it up our own way to suit our own power structures? Yep!
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