Jewish Continuity Within Messianic Judaism

For this issue, Kesher editor Russ Resnik brings together four younger Messianic Jewish leaders to discuss multi-generational continuity in our community — how it is going currently and the prospects looking forward.

Kesher: I’m excited to be joining four friends and colleagues, who are leaders in the Messianic Jewish community in different capacities, four influencers who are all of a generation or two before mine, all of whom I’ve learned to value as friends and colleagues, interacting with them over the years. So, panel, I’m going to let you introduce yourselves. We’re going to be launching into a discussion of continuity within the Messianic Jewish community, or of Messianic Judaism as a vehicle of continuity, and perhaps as a defense against assimilation, which in some ways is the opposite of Jewish continuity. So let’s go around the room and let you introduce yourselves and then we’ll dive into that topic. Let me start with Shawn.

Shawn: I’ve served as a rabbi and worship leader and elder at Baruch Hashem Messianic Synagogue in Dallas for the last ten years. I was raised in a secular Jewish home and my grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi. I had some Orthodox uncles and aunts and other varieties of Judaism in the family. But I wasn’t really interested in it and we weren’t involved in synagogue life growing up, but my mother wanted my sister and me to have bar and bat mitzvahs. So she hired a Hebrew teacher who happened to be Messianic. She told her, don’t talk about this, and she didn’t. The teacher was very good with it. However, she did invite us to her wedding and there they sang and danced about Yeshua and my mother would plug my ears and my eyes to prevent this from permeating my being. I was in agreement with that; I wasn’t interested in Messianic Judaism. As a college student I was studying aviation and I met a girl who would become my wife, who was a believer from India. She’s not Jewish. Her life witnessed to me in such a way that I came to faith a year and a half later. Six months after that we were married, and we’ve been married 21 years, so it’s really through her witness. And it was in seminary that I was reintroduced to Messianic Judaism through Doctor Ray Gannon in a way that I could receive. And I’ve been serving in the movement since then, since about 2008.

Kesher: Thank you, Shawn. Erik, why don’t you go next?

Erik: I was born and raised in the Messianic Jewish community. Actually my dad, who’s Gentile, grew up Christian and my mom is Jewish. She came to faith through his witness and actually professed her faith publicly for the first time at a Messianic Jewish Yom Kippur service before they got married. So by the time siblings and I were born, they actually chose to raise me and my siblings at that same Messianic synagogue. So I was really born and raised into it. And in that way, I’m a second generation Messianic Jew. And since then, after I came to faith I’ve been serving the Messianic Jewish community for about 11 years. I placed my trust in Yeshua when I was 17, at a Messianic Jewish youth retreat hosted by my synagogue where I grew up and was a bar mitzvah. I served there since then as a youth shammash and then in the wider MJAA and YMJA context. My congregation was MJAA and I helped organize the YMJA Messiah Conference for two years while I was in college. I served in the YMJA mentorship program and I’ve taught in various capacities for the YMJA each year. And I’ve also served in other capacities with the UMJC and other kinds of grassroots Messianic Jewish initiatives as well.

Kesher: Great; thank you, Erik. Elisa, tell us about your background.

Elisa: I am a third generation Messianic Jew and I was very strongly raised in a Messianic Jewish environment. I was immersed in a Messianic Jewish congregation; I attended Messianic Jewish summer camp; I attended Messianic Jewish conferences, and I even attended a Messianic Jewish day school. I attended the Birthright-equivalent Messianic Jewish Israel trip. My parents have really blessed me with a strong Messianic Jewish identity and it’s been my home and priority for basically my entire life thus far and continues to be. So — while Erik was volunteering with YMJA, I was volunteering with the UMJC Youth. I started out volunteering on the UMJC Youth Board and have continued to be active in youth and young adult ministries in our community.

Kesher: Thank you, Elisa. So we have an Alliance-Union union between you and Erik, bridging the gap. Stephanie?

Stephanie: I am a second generation Messianic Jew and my mother is Jewish; my father is not. They both raised me in the Messianic Jewish community since birth and I’ve been consistently attending Messianic congregations since I was at least 10. So this has been my home, my foundation. My mom, ironically, came from an assimilated family, but she really wanted to reclaim her Jewish identity. And she raised me in that way as well. Ever since then, that’s been my home. I also grew up going to Messianic Jewish summer camp and have been a part of the Union since 2010. And now I’m the Director of Ashreinu School, the online Hebrew school for the Union. So that’s what I’m up to these days.

Kesher: Thank you, Stephanie. So we really have a spectrum, from Shawn who is not only first generation, but whose previous generation was trying to close his ears and eyes to Yeshua, through a third-generation Messianic Jew. We’re already demonstrating the reality of multi- generational Messianic Judaism. A friend of mine once quoted a critic concerning our claim that we can remain Jewish as followers of Yeshua, you know, just the basic Messianic Jewish claim. And this critic was arguing with my friend. He said, “OK, you may still be Jewish, but what about your grandchildren?” And note that he didn’t say “what about your children?” He said “what about your grandchildren?” implying that we might be able to pass on our Jewishness to one generation, but multi-generational continuity was unlikely. So how valid do you think this criticism is? I mean, Elisa counters that criticism. She is a grandchild of a Messianic Jew. But what other evidence do you have, pro or con, to that idea of multi-generational continuity? Whoever would like to can jump in first to respond to that question. What evidence do we have to support the idea that Messianic Judaism can be multi-generational, can be a grandchildren-producing community, or evidence that we’re not doing so well with that?

Stephanie: I don’t have that much to say other than it is a valid criticism. But it’s not because of who we are, but because this is a valid criticism really for any movement or any religious group. I think even in the mainstream Jewish community you’re going to find the exact same questions and the same concerns. You know, “I’m Jewish and I have a strong Jewish identity. My kids, you know, they come for the holidays, but my grandkids, not at all.” So, this is something that we see across the spectrum, not just of Messianic Judaism, but of Judaism as a whole. And I’m sure people from other religions would say they might feel the same way or have some of the same concerns. So I would say we’re no more susceptible to it than anybody else.

Shawn: I do like that Stephanie connected those things and I agree. I just wanted to add that it can happen in different ways, of course. My mother came to faith. And I was thinking about this recently. She didn’t come to faith until after my grandfather passed, and she was asking questions for years before that. But I’ve wondered in recent years if this gatekeeper of the family had to pass before she could enter into the Messianic community, because they wrote me off. He wrote me off as a grandson for a time and then he changed his approach. But I think that when he passed, it allowed my mother to enter without, I don’t know, certain feelings of shame maybe that she grew up with. So we now have this multi-generational thing, but it didn’t come in the traditional way.

Kesher: You influenced the older generation rather than the other way around.

Shawn: I like to think maybe I played a small part, but yeah, however that transpired, it wasn’t through my effort because that certainly seemed like a big failure for years and years.

Kesher: Elisa, you’re the most multigenerational panelist here. Can you share anything about how that worked? What enabled your grandfather to raise up some Messianic Jewish grandchildren?

Elisa: From my dad and his brother’s side, I can’t speak for them entirely and I’m sure there are a lot of factors, but their mother, who is not a believer in Yeshua, continued to go to a Conservative synagogue and ensured that her sons had their bar mitzvahs at a Conservative synagogue. So there was pressure from both parents to remain Jewish. That was kind of the consistent force in the family. You had the issue of faith in Yeshua on one side, but from both sides there was expressed Jewish identity. And for my parents, that was really the priority growing up. My family is multicultural, but the number one priority was Jewish faith, Jewish tradition, Jewish life-cycle events. My family was very consistent in that; you know, I couldn’t play certain sports because they played on Saturday or even if I did join the team, I would never compete (which made me a not very good teammate). And as I was growing up, my parents were very solid in wanting me to marry Jewish.

So I think at the individual level and ideally at the parental level, this commitment to Jewish identity and this strong foundation is incredibly important. This is the identity that God has given you, God has given us, and we have a responsibility to maintain it, not just for ourselves, but for our children and our grandchildren. Without that solidarity, I think just as Stephanie described, we have the same issues as any other community, such as Reform Judaism or Conservative Judaism. We’ve done so much in our community to try to help this — we have these camps, we even have a matchmaking group now, which is amazing. I do wish there was just more basic conversation for young adults about how important it is to marry Jewish. And if you don’t marry Jewish, how important it is to have these conversations, these really serious, practical conversations that you don’t necessarily think to have when you’re in love, but are really important if you do insist on your grandchildren remaining Jewish. I do think that if a kid grows up in an intermarried home, they are more likely to consider the option of intermarriage, because that’s what their parents did. And we’ve met numerous people who just say, “I have a Jewish grandparent,” and they don’t necessarily claim that identity for themselves.

Kesher: “I’m not Jewish, but I have a Jewish grandparent.”

Elisa: Exactly. And that’s the risk that I think our community has, even more so than maybe Reform or Conservative Judaism.

Kesher: So as you just mentioned, if you’re going to marry someone who’s not Jewish, you should have that serious conversation, you’re saying, a serious conversation about how you’re going to raise the children and to have an agreement.

Elisa: Yeah, and I mean, Erik’s family is an amazing example of successful intermarriage. Even though they still had Christian traditions and celebrated Christmas with his dad’s side of the family, Judaism was at the center. But that’s also really difficult.

Erik: Yeah, it was difficult because for my parents, they didn’t even know what Messianic Judaism really was by the time they got married. So they couldn’t have really intentional conversations about it. Even my mom didn’t really know what Messianic Judaism entailed. She knew what Judaism was because she grew up going to a variety of Reform, Conservative, Orthodox synagogues, but her family itself was kind of varied in their adherence to tradition in the home. And so she didn’t really know what a Messianic Jewish household would look like. So just the two things of my mom’s stubbornness in raising us Jewish and my dad’s willingness to really allow for that commitment and have the Messianic Jewish synagogue be our home, to let the Jewish calendar be our calendar for the home, and celebrate the holidays and doing Shabbats. I really owe my Jewish identity to both of them, because my father was willing to participate in that way. If he hadn’t been willing, I don’t know where I would be at with my Jewish identity. It would at least be much more confusing, for sure.

Kesher: I want to clarify one thing with Elisa: It sounded like you were saying that your grandmother, not being Messianic Jewish, and still being connected with a Conservative synagogue, actually helped to sustain a Jewish identity among her kids.

Elisa: I think so. I mean that’s my understanding at least and I think my Savta is very proud of having done that, but yeah, I’d have to talk with both of them to confirm.

Shawn: I can interject. A few years ago when I met Erik, he shared something that stuck with me since. He was talking about continuity, and he referred to Reform Judaism, which everyone considered perhaps Judaism light or they didn’t approve of it, but since it was around so long, it became an institution that we all regard as a Judaism. Just this element of staying power, even if others disagree with us, but just by persisting and remaining added validity to the movement. So I don’t know, Erik, if there’s anything more you wanted to say about that concept in light of this discussion. But I really love that insight and it’s stuck with me however many years it’s been since.

Erik: I think that it relates very much to the initial criticism of what are the odds that your grandchildren will be Jewish? That’s really dependent on the community at the time, which as Reform Judaism has shown over the last hundred, 150 years, is that communities evolve. So, if Reform Judaism had stayed as it was in its origins, which involved much assimilation, maybe they wouldn’t have had any Jewish grandchildren, but over time they matured and adopted more and more Jewish tradition, which, over the course of the last thousands of years, has proven effective in perpetuating Jewish identity. Reform Judaism has evolved to the point where their odds have increased over time in having Jewish grandchildren, because they’ve evolved over time. And so when it comes to Messianic Judaism, I think it’s the same for us. The odds, the probabilities of us having Jewish grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren are really dependent on how our community is making those changes along the way. We’ve seen this in our own history where Hebrew Christianity was very churchy, even in its name. But over time we’ve evolved into Messianic Judaism. And we can still poke and prod at our weak points to see where we can improve.

On one hand, you could probably make the case that our success rate should be higher. I personally desire it to be higher for Jewish identity passed down generation to generation, for that to be more of an explicit focal point. On the other hand, the fact that we even exist and do provide a space for Jewish people to express their faith in Yeshua in Jewish ways has successfully produced more perpetuation of Jewish identity than would have happened if we didn’t exist at all. We have been a multi-generational community despite our weaknesses and we still can improve in this area. We have done it better than other Jewish Jesus-following communities in the past. I think that at least that much is clear because there haven’t been many intentional attempts at all.

Kesher: You’re referring to the tendency in Reform Judaism to become more traditional over the years. I remember reading about the dinner banquet for the first graduating class at the Reform seminary in Cincinnati, where they served shrimp cocktails at the event. I grew up Reform and looking back, it was a more traditionally oriented Reform temple. We didn’t say synagogue; we said it was a temple, which was a kind of a less Jewish sounding name that now is not as common as it used to be. But in my temple we wore yarmulkes. We didn’t say kippot back then; we said yarmulke. And I know some Reform temples did not wear them. So they were so assimilated that they didn’t favor that custom. The tendency has been over recent decades to be more traditional. And I guess you’re saying, Erik, that you see that same tendency within the Messianic Jewish community?

Erik: Yes, I think so. Or, if you kind of zoom out, look at the timeline and look at the evolution at least from Hebrew Christianity and literally it was the Hebrew Christian Alliance of America. It evolved in some ways, at least by name, overnight into the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America in the mid-70s and that marked a change in attitude towards Jewish tradition. And so, it’s not like the community all of a sudden went from having a church service to a very traditional Orthodox style synagogue service on Shabbat. But it did mark an evolution that we’ve seen slowly percolate throughout time, which I think has improved our odds of having perpetuation of Jewish identity, generation to generation.

Kesher: I’m going to throw this out to all of you. What can we do to improve our multi-generational continuity? You know, it might be true that we’re not any worse than the general trend, but we want to be better than the general trend. What do you guys see based on your own experience? What would be areas of possible improvement within the Messianic Jewish community?

Stephanie: Well, obviously I am the director of a school, so I tend to focus more towards education, especially children and the younger generation. But I really do think that where a lot of it is going to lie is in the home. The home, the family life in regards to Messianic Judaism needs to be consistent. It’s not so much about what we do. It’s how we do it and if we do it consistently. Even in the stories we just shared, we heard about Elisa’s family who probably didn’t do Christmas and Erik’s who did, and still you guys both had a solid sense of Jewish identity and you’ve come together and you’re figuring out what you’re going to do in your family. I don’t think it should be, “One year we’re doing this and the next year we’re doing that.” I’ve seen in my personal experience that growing up with a sense of confusion ultimately leads to just taking off and going to do something else — wherever they’re going to find the most stability. Usually that’s in a church. Sometimes it’s not with religion at all, but churches tend to give a lot of stability for whatever reason, or at least symbolize that. The kids might not lose their faith entirely, but will definitely lose their identity. I think confusion is really at the root of that. And it starts in the home. The congregations can only do so much. They can only go so far.

I think it’s important to choose, OK, this is our community and, you know, barring any kind of move or whatever, this is where we’re committed to be. Before my husband and I got married, I told him, “This is pretty much my only stipulation. We need to live within 35 to 40 minutes of a solid Messianic Jewish community. That’s it. Because that’s how I’m raising my kids. No jumping around, no coming down the mountain, you know, for the holidays, a three- hour drive or whatever. It’s just not what we’re doing.” And so that’s what we’ve done and so far so good. I don’t claim to have the answers two years in with a kid, but that’s just how we’re doing it because it speaks to me as being most effective.

Shawn: I’m piggybacking a bit on Stephanie because it seems like we all come from more longstanding Messianic communities. The congregation I’m part of has been here for 40 years, which I know in terms of Judaism isn’t too old, but is one of the more longstanding congregations. I think yours are as well; they’ve been there for decades and there’s stability in that. But I was thinking also of this idea of training children, you know, both within the congregation and outside the congregation in the home. There’s this tendency for people who have been trained in something in their early years to go off as young people or at college age to go find themselves and break off from that protective shell of parenthood or find their own identity. But there is also a tendency as people get older to return to their roots. I don’t know how this is reflected in the multi-generational discussion, this tendency of people to get more traditional and more religious or spiritual as they get older. Are we just talking about the problems of young people wanting to maybe rebel against even their own upbringing for a season, even if they return to it sometime later?

Kesher: Yes, it’s a good point. I’m going to shift slightly to focus on a unique aspect of Messianic Jewish community and continuity. Unique to us within the Jewish spectrum, which is that our congregations are constituted of lots of non-Jewish people as well as Jewish people. The typical Messianic Jewish congregation actually would have a majority of non-Jewish members or people involved; that’s probably safe to say. And yet one of the keys to Jewish Continuity is helping to immerse the upcoming generation into Jewish culture, into connection with real live Jewish people and real live Jewish culture. Yet our own congregations are culturally quite mixed. Any comments on that challenge before I get into a little more specific question about that. Do you all see that as a legitimate distinction that I’m making?

Stephanie: Well, that’s definitely legitimate. I think everyone’s going to agree with that for sure.

Kesher: OK, so to what extent do efforts to counter assimilation by maintaining clear Jewish-Gentile distinctions turn people away from Messianic Judaism? To what extent are we able to do that without creating lots of offense, lots of tension within our communities? And, to be honest with you, I’m thinking specifically of when I was leading a congregation for a number of years, there were several times when Jewish members were offended by me overdoing the Jewish-Gentile distinction. This or that is a Jewish thing, I might be saying, and a Jewish member would come to me and say, well, you’re overdoing it. We’re Jews and Gentiles and we’re all one in Messiah and we don’t want to make such harsh distinctions. Any thoughts about that — how we might address or how we are addressing that challenge?

Shawn: I wanted to just say something that might be preliminary to this discussion, but one thing I’ve struggled with in a Messianic Jewish setting is the extent to which we are a deterrent in ourselves to Jewish people coming and even our facility is like this. As a recognizably Messianic Jewish building, it’s taboo. It’s like the biggest hurdle for a Jewish person, not a Gentile, to overcome necessarily, although I’m sure there are cases of that too. But for Jewish people to even enter into our building . . . We recently saw someone walking around and as soon as we came out to greet them, they scurried away. It’s like a shameful thing in the Jewish community that they had this curiosity about us. I think that’s one of our biggest challenges that maybe isn’t as predominant in gentile communities that are really excited about us. You know, many gentile Christians are really excited to come here and they don’t feel those same emotions. And then one of the peculiarities that we have is that those who advocate for more strict Jewish practices tend to be Gentile, and those Jews in the community, they don’t need to prove identity or anything like that. So they might be more lenient in terms of Jewish practice. And I just always find it funny. I don’t know how to solve it.

Stephanie: I don’t think you can solve it. I think Paul wrapped it up pretty well when he said that they’re going to be making us jealous for a long time. But that’s neither here nor there. Just reminded me of that.

Kesher: Well, OK, so one reason I’m talking with you all in particular is, I’m a boomer and a lot of the founders, and even to some extent still the institutional leaders, in Messianic Judaism are boomers. We may be maintaining a status quo in this issue of Jewish-Gentile distinction, Jewish-Gentile identity, a status quo that’s not so effective. Do you see ways that we might consider changing or that you would like to see things change as you continue to be involved and bear influence in this community?

Stephanie: I will just jump in and say that I think it’s very important to draw attention to the distinctions. How we do that is a much different question. I don’t think we could just say, “OK, this place isn’t for you” and send everyone on their merry or not-so-merry way. I think we are called to be a light to the Gentiles. Honestly, I think across the board we really need to figure out what that means. And I think we need to create a more unified approach and not just not talk about it, just sweep this thing under the rug, like, “OK, you’re Gentile, we’re so glad you’re here. Let’s not talk about your responsibilities or what this means for you to be a part of the Jewish community” or anything about that. I think in most congregations, we don’t talk about it at all. So that’s where the confusion comes in. I really love what my congregation does in this. Before anyone becomes a member, they go through membership classes and those classes really focus on what it means to be either a Jew in a Jewish community or a Gentile in a Jewish community. And they do their absolute best with that. And of course there’s exceptions to everything, but I’ve seen it be very effective. Gentile kids who are raised in our community have a confirmation and not a bar or bat mitzvah and they all understand what that means. They’re trained at the synagogue to understand they’re taking on a faith, but not necessarily a national identity, although they are part of the community. It’s been healthy, it’s been good. So I don’t think we should drop the distinctions or the attention to them completely, but I think as far as change goes, how we approach it and approaching it in general would be a really good start, not just pretending that it’s not happening.

Kesher: So are there separate classes for gentile perspective members and Jewish perspective members or the one class addresses both groups?

Stephanie: The one class addresses both groups.

Kesher: Does anyone else have a synagogue experience that is similar to that? That’s deliberate in addressing this issue?

Shawn: I do think this is maybe our biggest struggle. I feel horrible when I see kids who grew up in the synagogue and then as college-age kids or young adults are struggling with who they are because in a way we’ve given them a very convoluted sense of identity. I was talking to one young gentile college student who grew up here in our synagogue and he told me he wasn’t proud of this, but he said when people ask me about my identity, I just tell them I’m Jewish because it’s easier than explaining how I’m not Jewish, but I was raised in a Jewish community and they might not have an hour. And so I just tell them this. But he doesn’t have a better solution to it. And I feel horrible.

Kesher: Did you try to help him come up with a better solution? Or could you theoretically think of a better answer for this young man?

Shawn: I don’t think so. I mean, I try, but I feel they’re paltry attempts. And I personally don’t have that worked out. I mean, we teach so much on what Jewish identity is and what Israel is. Our founding rabbi will say, “This is Israel’s family diary,” holding up the Bible. But we don’t say, you know, what is the Gentile family diary like? There’s Jews and there’s everyone else. So if we have a Jewish studies class, do we have a gentile studies class next to that? How gigantic would that be? And I mean it, it becomes absurd in some ways. So yeah, I’m always looking for better ways to approach this and certainly don’t have the answers. So thank you for inviting me to the discussion. I’m sure I can be a great help.

Erik: To maybe tie some of these things together, the gentile identity confusion that in many ways we have caused shows the potency of Jewish ritual, Jewish rhythms of life, Jewish community. That is how I would respond to the Jewish person who says, we shouldn’t do the traditions, we’re one new man; we shouldn’t have these distinctions. Jewish tradition has had thousands of years to fine-tune its ability to instill and strengthen Jewish identity. For this reason, Jewish followers of Yeshua who care about having Jewish children and grandchildren should engage with Jewish tradition. On the other hand, we need to be careful about how we navigate Gentiles engaging in Jewish tradition in our communities because that tradition is designed to instill and strengthen Jewish identity. I’ve heard of Messianic Gentiles feeling insecure or uncertain in their gentile identity, which, in some ways, comes as no surprise because they are engaging in traditions and a culture that strengthen Jewish identity specifically. This even leads to some Gentiles leaving their faith and converting to Judaism to find identity security. I think that’s something that we need to take a lot more seriously.

I’m very encouraged to hear that Stephanie’s synagogue does intentionally try to sift through those issues, and I think that’s something that’s terribly lacking in our community at large. We really do need to grapple with it. We need to learn how to have gently confrontational conversations about Gentiles wearing tallises or even having payos, which I’ve seen every once in a while, or wrapping tefillin or having a ceremony that’s called a bar or bat mitzvah. These rituals have a potent effect on our view of self and how others view us. That should say a lot both to Gentiles and how we inform Gentiles about what our community is like, and also to how we explain to Jewish people the importance of what we do with Jewish tradition and how we can pass down Jewish identity.

Kesher: So you seem to be saying that we would do well to leverage these few distinctive practices that are limited, or should be limited, to Jewish people. That we would do well to emphasize that limitation, that specificity about those practices.

Erik: Yeah, yeah, and I think a little can go a long way. I think the little move of placing a sign by the tallises that says “For Jewish men” or “For Jewish people,” however your congregation wants to treat that issue. But even just that sign alone will at least inform Gentiles who are maybe haphazardly choosing Jewish traditions to follow, or seeing other people wearing a tallit and thinking, “I guess this is what I have to wear if I’m going to the synagogue.” But over time that has an effect on their view of self and how others view them that we’ve seen is actually very harmful for them. And we have a responsibility to protect them. We’re not just protecting Jewish identity when we make these distinctions, but we’re learning that we’re also protecting gentile identity and their view of self as well. And I think we should explain that more clearly and more consistently. That actually helps ease the tension of calling out those distinctions and why we’re making them. It’s not just for Jewish people to be Jewish. But it’s also for Gentiles to not experience confusion and ambiguity in their identity and who knows what other effects happen later in life as we’re learning in real time.

Kesher: A common thread in what all of you are saying, I think, is that these questions, these issues, need to be discussed, acknowledged, and processed communally rather than just letting them ride because we’re afraid of stirring up a hornet’s nest.

Elisa: I think it’s this decade that’s going to decide whether we become a Messianic movement or whether we continue as a Messianic Jewish movement and what our priority is going to be. Are we going to move towards just going with the flow and creating a Gentile-Jewish mishmash where we do some traditions and not other traditions and allow Gentiles to do some and we don’t have any kind of thing that we’re committing to besides this general Messianic vision, or are we sticking to the idea that this was a community created by Jewish followers of Yeshua who want to maintain that for their kids and for their generations after them? Among my peers, I hear “Messianic” much more often than “Messianic Jewish,” which is partly just ease of speaking. But I think a real part of that is because there’s a discomfort with distinction, and a growing comfort with us just becoming a Messianic movement, a Messianic community.

I really think it is the next few years that’s going to decide which direction we go. And if it goes the Messianic route, I think there’s going to be a whole new thing that spurts up to accommodate Jewish families who don’t feel like this is their home anymore. I completely recognize that we have Gentiles in our community who also need opportunities to lead in sharing their stories, as we’ve talked about. We all feel the fear of identity for Gentiles and how youth will grow up and how they’ll raise their kids. So I think it’s also the next few years where we need to create spaces for young gentile adults to share their stories and to share how their experience has been so we can factor that into how we move forward.

Kesher: Elisa, you were really specific in saying this decade will be decisive. Is that because you’re seeing a demographic trajectory that has to be resolved one way or the other, or why do you see the next few years as so critical?

Elisa: It may be my limited perspective, but the Messianic movement was only founded two generations ago, by our grandparents. And the stories they share and the pictures I have in my mind of what that looked like, I’m sure was very Christian, but it was also filled with Jewish people and it was filled with a shared, confident awareness that we are Jewish followers of Yeshua. We’re figuring out what that looks like, but we’re committing to that. And sometime between, you know, my grandparents’ generation and today, there’s been this gradual switch. And I feel that it’s getting to a point where we’ve gone from basically 100%, or maybe 90%, because you have intermarried couples, to now some congregations where Jewish people are 10% of the attendance. In some places, I’ve heard, there is just one Jewish family and that’s the rabbi, or it’s just one Jewish family that attends. And so I don’t see us lasting much longer before the Jewish people are no longer in many of our Messianic communities.

Kesher: So what can we do or what can be done? I shouldn’t say what can we do? There’s just a few of us here. But what can be done? What are changes or directions that would help Messianic Judaism to become more relevant to actual Jewish people, to real live Jewish people of the 21st century? What changes would need to happen for us to be relevant and accessible to typical Jewish people of today?

Elisa: Well, I really like what Stephanie shared regarding things being consistent in the family. So for example, if a congregation doesn’t allow circumcision of Gentiles, but does allow Gentiles to wear a tallit, there’s confusion, there’s disorder. The more we can move towards consistency and clarity, the better, even if it is not going to happen across all of our congregations. I really liked how Stephanie described that in the family and I think it is applicable to synagogues as well.

Shawn: I was thinking also about going back to the discussion of the Reform movement. There are these parameters of who is Jewish and who is allowed to be part of the community that may be more broad in a Reform setting. I think I’ve been hesitant to bring up the question of who is a Jew, but it does factor into this discussion also, of course. For Jewish and Gentile couples, the appeal of many Messianic congregations is that they do feel welcome as mixed families because it’s not just one or the other. For some this is appealing and for some it might be. I was just talking about the multicultural aspect of at least our Messianic synagogue. I’m intermarried myself and I share in those same struggles. But I realized while the multicultural aspect may turn away some Jewish people, it would also attract people just like it does in a Reform setting, right?

Stephanie: As far as I’m concerned, I don’t know the answer either. I’m just doing what I can with what I’ve been given. And that, of course, is the school. And I truly think that at least my part to play, and whoever else is a part of this, is that I want to see the next generation of Messianic Jewish kids really confident in who they are and not having to explain themselves all the time when they go out into the world. I want them to just be so confident about it that they go into the workforce or to college and walk into a Hillel and they’re going to know all their liturgy. They’re going to know everything that they need to know. And not for the purposes of quote, unquote, sharing the faith. If that happens to be a part of it, then OK, but for the purpose of being who God has called them to be and being so publicly. But I also want the same thing for the Gentiles who are in the school, who are part of the community, to have that same confidence in their identity, and I think the more people we’re sending out into the world that way with all the information, you can only hope that that’s a turning point. That’s what I’m trying to do.

Erik: I think Stephanie touches on a really important point about how we could provide kind of a self-evident proof of our authenticity to our kids and grandchildren, if Messianic Jewish spaces actually equip them to engage in the wider Jewish world and in community at least. I’ve been doing a little side personal project of watching a bunch of Messianic services online, approaching 30. And I’m taking notes on the liturgy that they did in 30 different congregations. The vast majority of them would not be equipped to step into a Conservative synagogue and participate, by and large, with the service, which is kind of a Jewish experience in itself. You know, to step into a Chabad and be like, “I don’t know what they’re doing,” or for a secular Jew to even step into a Reform synagogue once a year and think, “I don’t really know what they’re doing.” That’s kind of a Jewish experience in itself, but we are claiming to be a Jewish religious community and what we do here should have resonances and enough overlap and similarities that it is a recognizably Jewish community.

The more I’ve personally taken upon myself to learn more and more Jewish liturgy, when I step into a Conservative synagogue and I participate, I’m able to participate even just like with 60% of the service, there’s just something self-evidently affirming about that. I’m just like, “OK, yeah, I am a Jew who follows Yeshua.” You know, it’s like both of those things are true. Especially in the diaspora, being Jewish is behaved, it’s acted, it’s doing certain things and being able to engage in community in certain ways. And so if our spaces are not providing that kind of equipping, if a Jewish friend actually invites them to their Conservative synagogue, the Messianic Jewish kid has gone to their own synagogue their whole lives and all their service does is the Shema and a modified Amidah. They step into a Conservative synagogue and the service is three hours and they don’t get any of it. That’s going to shake somebody, whether it’s leaving Messianic Jewish community or even leaving their faith because it’s like, “how can I trust this community that made all these claims? And now I step into the wider Jewish world and it’s all different.”

Kesher: When you say Conservative synagogue, often the whole service is in Hebrew, and I imagine that’s what you’re referring to as well, right?

Erik: Yeah. But I would even include Reform. I mean, if you take a light Reform synagogue service and what would be considered a heavy Messianic Jewish synagogue service, they’re somewhat comparable; they’re alike in liturgy. But in most Messianic synagogues, at least in my experience, the liturgy is nowhere close to even the typical Reform synagogue. So I’m being wordy here, but essentially to affirm what Stephanie was saying, something that we can do is see that our community reflects the wider Jewish community enough to where it really affirms and reinforces the Jewish identity of our own kids. So then when they go to a non-Messianic synagogue, they’re actually affirmed in their Jewish identity instead of challenged by it.

Kesher: Good way to put it. And I know we all agree that this kind of emphasis does not at all require a sidelining of Yeshua, or sidelining of distinct New Covenant realities. The beauty of it is being able to integrate and bring the two together without diminishing either one. That would be the point, right? Any other insights or concerns about the direction of Messianic Judaism, especially regarding continuity and the multi-generational issue?

Shawn: I just thought, and it might be counterintuitive, but you know, in addition to affirming Jewish identity, I believe in affirming secure Gentiles within our community. I don’t know if I could delineate it all and spell out what that means, but I know when I see it as far as someone who is confident and affirmed in their own identity as a non-Jew and maybe even celebrates that or embraces that. And it’s not easy to do within our context, but it takes a lot of strength. And when we see these examples, I think we should make a place for them and allow them to be non-Jewish in our midst. Because sometimes it’s like a celebration about Judaism or something. And that could be a false narrative as well. We need to actually practice the honoring of righteous Gentiles or people who are secure in their non-Jewish identity as an example to others. To go along with what Erik was saying, like those distinctions do exist but in a way to protect and aid both sides instead of to erect barriers.

Elisa: Absolutely. I think that is so important. The tricky thing that also emerges with that is, no doubt, we always want to celebrate when a Jewish believer in Yeshua claims their Jewish identity and holds to it. With Gentiles, we also want to be careful that we’re not glorifying a Gentile in our community so much so that we act as though all other Gentiles are less than or that if you don’t take on this status that you are somehow not really receiving all of the blessings or all of the experience of following Yeshua. It’s interesting, Stephanie, when you were talking about the class that spent all this time on Jewish identity and all this time on gentile identity. For me, when I recently took a new members class, a large proportion of the time was also spent on gentile identity, so much so that I thought after one particular class, “Wow, 90% of what we did today was on gentile identity,” which is really good. But a lot of that class was almost, at least in my perspective, kind of pushing people to feel bad if they didn’t have the calling to join the Messianic Jewish community. And so yes, we want to celebrate those really secure identities, but we also want to do so in a way that we’re not encouraging all Gentiles to follow that specific model necessarily. Gentiles in our communities sometimes feel like they’re experiencing something better than what others experience in churches, which I don’t think is true.

Kesher: So, an affirmation of the church, of our brothers and sisters in the church world and the whole history and contribution of the church, would actually be a part of a healthy Messianic Judaism as you’re seeing it.

Elisa: Yeah, yeah, I think so, absolutely, for both the Jewish and the Gentile members.

Kesher: To me that goes hand in hand with something I think all of you have brought up, which is the priority of remaining connected to the wider Jewish community. As one who’s seen the course of Messianic Judaism over many years, that’s something that I’m really happy about. I think there’s a much better attitude in the Messianic Jewish world toward the wider Jewish community. Years ago I participated in a group where one of our value statements was that the Jewish people are us, not them. That felt a little radical and cutting-edge at the time, but now I think that’s more of a given. And to me, that’s tremendous progress. One of the safeguards, one of the reinforcements for Jewish continuity is not allowing ourselves to be isolated and polarized vis-a-vis the wider Jewish community. And paradoxically also not being polarized regarding the church community. They’re not us. We are different, but we’re positive. We’re fraternal in our approach and connected as far as we can be.

Elisa: I was just going to say, I think the more that we can also connect with the church and be together as one body in Messiah and coordinate activities with the church, the less our own Messianic communities become this hub of one new man. Rather, this larger body of Messiah becomes a depiction of one new man. So yeah, I completely agree: be a part of the Jewish community. Be part of the Yeshua-believing community and a strong, secure Messianic Jewish community.

Shawn: Rabbi Ari here at Baruch Hashem embodies this well. He is very supportive of the local Jewish community in what they do, not to make them into Yeshua believers, but just to affirm them in their own efforts and to support local Jewish businesses and to give to local Jewish causes. Because we are seen as this kind of dangerous entity. I feel that this approach does far more help than harm in terms of rebuilding trust in the community that we are not an enemy, we are a friend, we are an ally, we are Jewish brothers and sisters. We’ve seen more reciprocity in this type of approach in terms of people, surprisingly, because we always expect those in the local Jewish community to see us as the enemy, and we’ve been seeing this not happen where we’ll be complimented by a local Jewish entity or they’ll welcome one of our members to be in leadership or something. And it’s affirming of this kind of more supportive and less adversarial model.

Kesher: That’s a great note to conclude on. As I said, we probably could keep going for another hour or two, but I think we’ve captured a lot and I appreciate the insights and the level of articulation that you all have brought. So thank you and maybe we’ll convene again on a related topic someday. Shalom.