I've been remiss, and it's been bugging me through the morning. I should explain Israel.

(Note: People who don't believe the Bible may or may not find this interesting, but that's not the audience for this writing.)

This may come as a shock, but the Jews are not all there is to Israel. Can I assume you(pl.) understand sets? Well, Israel is a set, and the group known as "the Jews" is a proper subset; that is, they are in the set, but not the whole thing. At some point in history(recorded in the Bible), Israel split. The whole thing is still Israel(the people), but then they were divided into two nations, one of which was called Israel, and the other of which is called Judah, from which come the Jews.

The northern kingdom of Israel was sent into exile in Assyria first(2 Kings 17) with Judah being sent to Babylon a few years later(2 Kings 25).

The exile for the northern kingdom continues; however, they dispersed throughout the world instead of all remaining in Assyria or all returning to the land. In practice, they became Gentiles, marrying in with the people wherever they went, but practice doesn't erase bloodlines.

Much of Judah returned to the land, first in 538* BCE, then 90 years later, with Ezra, then 13 years later, with Nehemiah. In the course of time, some of Judah spread out(as seen in Acts 2, where we find them coming from many locations). Also, the Romans took over. Yeshua(Jesus) was born, lived a sinless life, died, rose, and ascended. Many people believed in Him, and spread the gospel throughout the world. This was good, but it had a bad side effect. With all the believers coming in from paganism, and mixing their pagan practices and observances in with the belief in Messiah(Gal. 4:8-10. We know that they *were* pagans, serving false gods, so turning back would necessarily be a return to paganism, same as if someone went from point A to point B would go to point A if he returned, not point C). There was a problem with people requiring new, formerly pagan, believers to obey the Torah right off the bat. This was not going to be immediately possible(I've been working on it for approx. 5 years, and there are *still* kinks in the works! Give thanks to YHWN, for He is good, and His mercy continues forever!). So, they figured out the four most pressing things they needed to do(3 have to do with eating, and 1 of those cuts blood out of the diet), and implied that they could learn the rest in the synagogues, and grow into doing it(Acts 15)

In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, sending many(but not all) of the Jews away from the land again. It wasn't long before the Jewish leaders were faced with a problem. No Temple, no sacrifices. No sacrifices, no blood. No blood, no blood covering, if the Messiah was not accepted, and they didn't want that. He had fulfilled prophecy, but because He didn't come up to *their* expectations, He could not be. So they made up rules for sacrifices so that they wouldn't rely on this false(in their eyes, not mine) Messiah.

Somewhere along the way, the leaders decided that it would be better if they continued certain of the pagan practices and observances rather than (*gasp*) learn His ways, calling His commands "the blindness of the Jews" and pressing Constantine(who had recently added Jesus to his pantheon) to make the day of the week he set aside for the "sun-god" into the official day of worship of the believers in Messiah.

Over the centuries, various people have decided that they need to avenge the death of the Messiah by targeting Jews who weren't even conceived until hundreds of years after His death, forgetting that 1) He forgave it, and 2) no man took His life; He laid it down. Others showed forth the love of Christ by attempting to convert Jews under threat of death, and punishing them if they were found celebrating the feasts of YHWH afterwards.

Now, the prophecy of Ezekiel 37 is starting to come true. The tribes comprising the northern kingdom(aka Ephraim), and the tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah are coming together as one Israel in His Hand. There's currently no hard-and-fast proof for most people of which tribe they're in(although they've identified a commom DNA sequence for descendants of Levi), or even if someone is a descendant of Israel. But there's no God-imposed penalty for keeping Torah as means of showing your love of God, as long as one does not get puffed up because of it, or depend on it for salvation. I've already been given salvation as a gift, and all I had to do was accept it. If Torah is only for salvation, I might as well stop. Also, Israel is told to do Torah. Since no one can honestly say for sure that they're not at all descended from Israel, does it not make sense to not want to be caught not doing it, in case you are?

Nyperold