THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT ALSO CONTAINS PERTINENT INFORMATION NOT INCLUDED IN THE DVD INSERT:

These six sessions give a decent overview of the Messianic (i.e., Christological) prefigurements exhibited in the Jewish ritual traditions of Passover, Pentecost, Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles--the Hebraic feasts of the Old-Covenant liturgical calendar which continue to be important ethnic distinctives of those who identify as Jews, whether religio-ethnically or simply ethnically. Christological reference is also made to Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication, inaugurated by the Maccabees in celebration of a Miracle of Divine provision. The presentations given herein direct the eyes of viewers to recognize in these rituals the foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, One of the Holy Trinity, and to those who have more discerning eyes, foretokenings of the Orthodox Church.

The weaknesses of the presentations lie in the exclusionary constraints forced upon Dr. Nadler's presentation by the Protestant reductionism which unfortunately restricts his form of messianic Judaism from finding greater fulfillment in the Fullness of the Holy Orthodox Faith. Consequently, Dr. Nadler falls short of acknowledging the Paschal prefigurements of Messiah's communication of Himself--Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity--to those who partake of Him in Holy Communion, instead, denying the reality of His Incarnate Presence in the Holy Gifts and claiming they are but symbols void of His Resurrected Body and Blood. Dr. Nadler owes this assessment, not to Jewish tradition, but to the teachings of radical Protestant reformer Huldrych Zwingli.

Nevertheless, despite their Protestant limitations, Dr. Nadler's presentations provide important information to those who wish to behold the prophetic significance in these Jewish rites which most certainly developed under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Christian familiar with the words and rubrics of various of the Church's rituals will recognize spiritual parallels between these Jewish rituals and Orthodox Christian liturgical traditions. One such parallel is found in the Jewish trinal waving of the lulav and etrog (citron) in the Sukkah ("Booth" or "Tabernacle") toward the four cardinal directions during the autumn Feast of Sukkoth ("Booths" or "Tabernacles") and the Orthodox priest's blessing of the four cardinal directions with the Holy Cross during the autumn Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross.

In addition to opening our eyes to Christological meanings in the Festal Celebrations commanded by the LORD in the Torah, we, as Orthodox Christians, are reminded that these Jewish Festal traditions, rather than opposing the Orthodox Faith, actually illustrate and testify to important elements of Holy Orthodoxy. These illustrations and testimonials are evident to those whose eyes have been illumined in varying degrees by the Grace of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, the Church ought not to repudiate the ethnic practice of these distinctively Jewish traditions developed under the guidance of the Spirit of Prophecy. In saying that, we must also continue to recognize that such Jewish traditions, while they may be freely celebrated, are not to be slavishly observed by believers in Yeshua haMashiach, Jesus Christ, but only celebrated, or not celebrated, whichever one may choose, in the freedom we have in the New Covenant, wherein Love is the fulfillment of all the demands of the Torah.

The Canon VIII of the Holy and Ecumenical Seventh Council is a difficult canon to digest when we consider the whole of salvation history and the personal nature of ethnic identity. Canon VIII reads:

"Inasmuch as some persons who have been misled by their inferences from the religion of the Jews have seen fit to sneer at Christ our God, while pretending to be Christians, but secretly and clandestinely keeping the Sabbath and doing other Jewish acts, we decree that these persons shall not be admitted to communion, nor to prayer, nor to church, but shall be Jews openly in accordance with their religion; and that neither shall their children be baptized, nor shall they buy or acquire a slave. But if any one of them should be converted as a matter of sincere faith, and confess with all his heart, triumphantly repudiating their customs and affairs, with a view to censure and correction of others, we decree that he shall be accepted and his children shall be baptized, and that the latter shall be persuaded to hold themselves aloof from Jewish peculiarities. If, on the other hand, the case is not thus, they are not to be accepted under any other circumstances whatever" (THE RUDDER. Translated by D. Cummings. (Chicago, IL: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957), p. 438.

Of course, many of the “Jewish peculiarities” are actually given by God to the Jews at Mount Sinai, providing them with outward signs of their ethnic distinction as physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This canon is requiring much more of converts from Judaism than of converts from paganism. In effect, it is commanding Jewish converts to stop and obliterate any practice that would identify them not only as religiously Jewish, but also ethnically Jewish. Does God command Americans to give up baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet upon converting to Christ? Of course not. But the Church seems here to have required Jewish converts to give up all distinctively ethnic peculiarities of Jews. (Note: Judaism is both religious and ethnic. To convert to Judaism is to become ethnically a Jew as well as religiously one.) One is hard-pressed to find in the pages of New Testament any requirement for Jews to give up all of their ethnic practices when they are baptized into Christ. Yes, Gentile converts are told not to seek to be circumcised. Surely, the Epistle to the Hebrews counsels Jewish believers not to trust in the sacrificial system of the Jewish Temple, which has been fulfilled in Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, the New Testament does not forbid observing the Jewish dietary restrictions commanded by the Torah. It does not forbid Jewish converts to circumcise their children as a sign of Jewish ethnic distinction. It does not forbid the continuing observance of Jewish feast days by Jewish converts.

Yet, this canon of the Seventh Ecumenical Council does. Though this canon may have made sense to the holy fathers in their day, this canon would have excommunicated the Apostle Paul and Saint James, the first bishop of Jerusalem, along with all his Jewish presbyters who continued to serve Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through observance of the Torah as an expression of their Christian Faith and continuing Jewish identify as Christians. As Saint Jerome rightly observes, the Apostle Paul, devoted to Christ, took upon himself the “Jewish peculiarity” of a Nazarite vow as commanded in the Torah and “shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow.” Thus, he terminated his vow and planned to complete the Nazarite ritual by saving his shaved hair and burning it in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, to where he was now headed.

In consideration of the possibility and validity of a Hebrew Orthodox Christian identity, we must keep in mind that the Ecumenical canons also command Christians not to go to Jewish doctors. No one observes this canon anymore. The relevance of a canon comes and its relevance may go. We live in a different period of Church History. Saint John of Damascus speaks of the time when, according to his understanding of Malachi 4:4, the Jewish fathers of the synagogue will turn their hearts toward their children--Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother, the apostles, and the whole of the Orthodox Church (John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 26:4). If this is so, then the second half of the verse must also be true: there is coming a time when the Orthodox Church will turn its heart toward the Jewish fathers, recognizing Christ in many of their practices, not rejecting these practices, but encouraging their observance in the Light of the Gospel, to which they point, not supplanting Orthodoxy, but expressing Orthodoxy, not replacing Orthodox practice in the Church, but encouraging Hebrew Christian observances in the home as expressions of Hebrew Orthodox Christian faith. Saint John also states the following: "If you reject icons on account of the Torah, you should also keep the Sabbath and be circumcised, for these are severely inculcated by it. You should observe the entire Torah, and not celebrate the Lord's Passover outside of Jerusalem. But you must know that if you observe the Torah, Christ will profit you nothing" (Saint John of Damascus, On the Holy Images 2). Is Saint John saying here that every commandment in the Torah should be broken by Christians? Does he intend that the law of Sabbath observance, found in the Decalogue, should be broken along with the laws against adultery, stealing, bearing false witness against a neighbor, or coveting his blessings? Certainly not! However, he certainly would agree with the Apostle Paul that taking upon oneself the yoke of the Torah in slavish observance of its commands in attempt to gain God's favor is a slap in the face of Christ!

Christ has brought a new Torah, the Torah of the Spirit--the Law of Love--which does not mistreat, defraud, or disrespect one's neighbor, but rather seeks to benefit one's neighbor, treating him or her the way you yourself wish to be treated. When we follow the Torah of Christ, we may actually fulfill the Spirit of the Torah while not observing the symbolic actions it requires. At the same time, we need to be reminded that it is possible to observe certain Torah commands out of love for Christ and love for one's neighbor so that the Christian is free to observe or not observe the Torah's commands as long as he is doing it for the sake of love of God and love of one's neighbor. As Saint Paul says, "To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the Torah I became as one under the Torah (though not being myself under the Torah) that I might win those under the Torah. To those outside the Torah I became as one outside the Torah (not being outside God's Torah but under the Torah of Christ) that I might win those outside the Torah" (1 Corinthians 9:20-21). Can you see how the Christian is free to observe or not observe what the Torah commands? Can you see how it is possible to serve Christ and obey His Law of Love, which transcends ethnic distinctions, including Jewish ones, while observing ethnic distinctions--even those commanded in the Torah to the Jewish people? Can you see how it is possible to serve Christ while still identifying ethnically as Jewish? As the Apostle says, "As the Lord has called each person, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches. Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called" (1 Corinthians 7:17-20). God's commandment is love. In other words, if you are a converted Gentile, don't try to live like a Jew; it you are a Jewish person who has been baptized into the Holy Orthodox Church, don't try to look and act like a Gentile. But if you are relying on Torah observances to be accepted by God you are under a curse (Galatians 3:10). "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters. What matters is faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6).

As this video demonstrates, the Jewish observances of the Feast Days commanded in the Torah can be understood in a manner pointing to Christ and disclosing their nature as precursors of the Holy Orthodox Faith. Many Jews have turned toward Christianity, but unfortunately they often fail to appreciate the Jewish heritage of Orthodoxy--the Orthodoxy whose historical canons required Jewish converts to expunge every remnant of their Jewishness. Consequently, many such people join the Protestant "Jews for Jesus" movement or "Messianic synagogues," which serve a Protestantized form of Judaism. Thankfully, the Orthodox Christian Liturgy is served every Saturday in Hebrew at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Jerusalem with Protopresbyter Alexander Winogradsky Frenkel. This is a start toward something marvelous. Someday, there will be a Hebrew Orthodox Church, just as there is a Greek, Russian, Georgian, or Romanian Orthodox Church. Jewish ethnic observances will be recognized as a way of proclaiming faith in the Holy Trinity without being taught as requirements for salvation or inciting schisms as was done by the Judaizing heretics in the early Church. And so, as the Apostle Paul, says, "If the casting away of the Jews be the reconciliation of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" (Romans 11:15). ( )