Have A Magical Day

Thank you and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Hiya! The full answer can get a bit in-depth but I’ll give the basic overview of it.

Basically, Messianics are folks that claim to be Jewish but still recognize Jesus as the messiah. Heavy emphasis on how Jesus was initially Jewish so all of his followers count too, I guess. Make no mistake, they’re not Jewish. It’s an offshoot of Baptism. Messianic Judaism is not recognized as Jewish by any Jewish body of authority and they still receive funding from the Baptist church. Not to mention how Jesus being the messiah goes against very fundamental views of how the messiah is even supposed to work in Judaism.

Christians and particularly Baptists recognize Messianics as being in a unique position to convert Jewish people to Christianity. I’ve known someone who referred to Messianic Jews as “complete.” We don’t want to be proselytized to and definitely don’t want to convert.

What’s more, they tend to cherry pick parts of Judaism to imitate and often bastardize it in the process. Passover Seders are a big one, especially because a modern Seder looks nothing like what Jesus would have practiced at the time. Passover is deeply tied to Jewish identity and doesn’t really work if you do it outside of a Jewish context. In my area, Christians imitating Passover buy up all the matzah at the grocery store so you have to get in quick if you see it.

https://youtube.com/shorts/P4BM1LY6d0Y?si=W5zx668AIS0Q2AKs

This feels like a “piss on the poor” argument to me, tbh. Naturally the post is meant to apply to people who don’t have anything physically limiting their capacity for empathy and just choose not to exercise it. People who punch down, people who harass strangers or dismiss other people’s problems because they aren’t existing “correctly” or don’t have the exact same perfect takes as you. Nowhere did it say that neurodivergent folks with limited empathy are evil or bad.

Fun fact, reading it made me remember the time I very confusedly asked my great-grandma why we weren't just Jewish. Let's just say I never really understood what made Jesus different. The whole thing about me being a history nerd doesn't help matters much. She answered, but I didn't expect her to be as offended by my question. Usually my curiosity was encouraged.

There's also a part of me that really just wanted to tell you that I ended up with the book in the first place. It just took a while to process everything. The results of attempting contact in 2022 were about as big of an overeager fumble as you can imagine. My social skills needed more work, among other things. But it's going better this time, and I'm just in the waiting game because of busy schedules all around. And the few close friends I know are Jewish sadly aren't local, so I don't get to see them very often.

When I talked to the cantor over the phone, what I technically said was that something felt familiar, though I did want to say 'like home' instead. It's getting harder to contain my excitement.

That’s exciting, best of luck on your journey!