SIGN THE PETITION
In 2018 the Israeli news service Haaretz published an article about a Noahide missionary organization in Israel called the "Noahide World Center" (http://www.en.noahideworldcenter.org) The article states that the center has the official support of the Israeli government, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu. According to the article, Noahidism is subordinate to Judaism and some Rabbis are promoting the idea that the Noahides must accept that the Jews are not only spiritually superior but also racially superior to non-Jews, they must also recognize Zionism and the state of Israel. Members of one Noahide colony in the Philippines are quoted by scholars as saying that White Jews are the rulers of the world and are superior because they have the blood of the chosen people; the Noahides believe that Jews have five levels to their souls while non-Jews only have three and are animalistic, a flaw which can only be overcome by guidance from Jews. Indeed, some Rabbis openly proclaim the Noahide movement is a new form of racial colonialism and refer to the Noahides as the new "global south". The leader of the Philippines Noahide Mission, Emmanuel Villegas, had his former Christian followers renounce Christianity and burn their Bibles; the practice of Christianity is punishable by death under Noahide Law (here). The project believes that this mission is part of the ushering in of the Zionist messianic age when Israel will become a theocracy with the support of the Gentiles. Prime Minister Netanyahu met with these Filipino Noahides personally and affirmed that the Noahide Laws are obligatory for all non-Jews. It is stated that The Temple Institute (https://templeinstitute.org) which receives funds from the Israeli government also supports Noahide evangelism. The Temple Institute follows the opinion that Jews are not to wait for the Messiah to build the Third Temple but are commanded to build it now on their own, despite the fact that the Temple grounds are currently occupied by the Muslim Dome of the Rock, which would obviously have to be removed to make way for building. Perhaps they are hoping to get (military?) help from converted Noahides to make this prophecy come true and usher in the Zionist age.
Noahide Mission Supported By Israeli Government
HaaretzOpinion:The Messianic Zionist Religion
Whose Believers Worship Judaism
(But Can't Practice It)by Ofri Ilany - Sep 12, 2018
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-the-messianic-zionist-religion-that-wants-to-recruit-7-billion-members-1.6455144
The Noahide Project, which has Israeli governmental and rabbinical support, is trying to proselytize members of remote communities. Just as long as they don’t call themselves Jews, right?
“Our friends all over the world, the Noahides… You are the lucid persons in a perplex world. You are the hope of the world. Happy good day.” Thus, in somewhat broken English, Rabbi Oury Cherki, head of the Noahide World Center, greeted his followers in a video clip on the occasion of “Humanity Day,” the holiday of the Noahides (also known as Children of Noah), which was last celebrated on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Marheshvan (Nov. 10, 2017). According to Jewish tradition, it was on that day that Noah and his family emerged from the ark and received the seven commandments that apply to all human beings, among them the prohibitions on idol worship, on murder and on eating flesh torn from a living animal. When Noah left the ark, he built an altar and made a sacrifice. Which is why the Noahides eat grilled meat on their holiday.
But who are these Noahides? They are members of a new religion, subordinate to Judaism, founded by rabbis from Israel, mainly from Chabad and the religious Zionist movement. According to the World Center, there are dozens of Noahide communities across the world, with more than 20,000 believers. That’s a hefty number, given that the religion was only founded at the beginning of the decade. Small Noahide communities exist in various countries, with the largest one in the Philippines.
Cooperation between Israel and the Philippines is constantly growing, and this week reached new heights with the visit to Israel of the country’s president, Rodrigo Duterte. The Philippines are a key arena of Chabad activity, and one of the primary venues where the new religion is being disseminated. There are four Chabad centers in the country, and in addition to assisting Jews, they support 10 Noahide houses of prayer. The Hasidic emissaries view the Philippines community as the model for Noahide communities in other countries. A group from the community was brought to Israel two years ago, and its members met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has also sent his greetings to all the communities worldwide.That there are countries in which groups and communities identify themselves as belonging to the Jewish people, or as descendants of the 10 lost tribes of Israel, is nothing new. Similarly, we’re familiar with Christians who admire Israel. But the Noahides are a theological phenomenon of very recent vintage. It’s a form of Zionist mission, which seeks to create a world religion whose believers adore the Jewish people and the State of Israel – without belonging to either. The believers are required to accept the supremacy of Judaism but are not accepted into the Jewish people and are even barred from upholding such commandments as Sabbath observance. Anyone who wishes to be a Noahide is called upon mainly to recognize the Jewish people and its state.
Last month, Nova Religio, a journal devoted to emergent and alternative religions, published an article by Rachel Z. Feldman, assistant professor of religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College, in Pennsylvania, titled “The Children of Noah: Has Messianic Zionism Created a New World Religion?” In the summer of 2017, Feldman visited Noahide communities on the Filipino island of Cebu, which are supervised by Chabad rabbis. Like most Noahides around the world, the members of the Cebu community came mostly from Protestant churches, but had abandoned their belief in the New Testament.
One of the groups Feldman observed lives in a mountainous, “financially challenged” rural region. In the past its members were cave dwellers who belonged to a Sabbath-observing church called Sacred Name Believers. Their leader is the Noahide preacher Emmanuel Villegas. For years he visited poor communities on various islands and converted them to the Children of Noah. He called on them to renounce Christianity and to burn their holy books – though not before cutting out the Tetragrammaton (God’s Hebrew name) from the texts.About 20 years ago, the community’s members moved to the village of Lamac, where they built a house of worship marked with a large Israeli flag at the entrance. In accordance with the directives of Chabad rabbis, they no longer observe Shabbat, as this precept is reserved for the members of the Jewish faith alone and is denied to Noahides. They are permitted to greet each other with the words, “Happy seventh day,” but not to utter the word “Shabbat.” Instead of the Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony used by Jews to welcome the Sabbath, the Chabad rabbis invented a ritual for them in which they light seven candles (to denote the Seven Noahide Laws).Feldman quotes one members of the community, who explained to her, “You are very lucky because you are white, and white people are rulers of the earth. But you are also a Jew. You are very gifted because you have blood from the Chosen people, from Abraham and Isaac.” In his sermons, Villegas explains why his community is forbidden to uphold Jewish commandments, and dwells on the essence of the difference between Noahides and Jews. Jews, he says, possess an inner sanctity that draws them close to a divine level: “The Jew has five levels of soul while the Noahide only has three levels and remains on an animalistic level, and this is written in the Kabbalah.”
Noahides are incapable of reaching the level of the Jews, but they can learn how to improve themselves by way of the seven commandments. The questions-and-answers site asknoah.org also instructs the Children of Noah on how to cope with animal cravings. In the meantime, Chabad is making efforts to spread the word among non-Jews in Israel, too – a project that was introduced by the late Rabbi Boaz Kali, from Haifa.
Ethnic hierarchy
Liberal Jewish philosophers of the modern era, such as the German-Jewish thinker Hermann Cohen, viewed the Seven Laws of Noah as the universal basis of the Bible, which prove that Judaism contains a general moral outlook that transcends the question of the fate of the Jewish people. But the interpretation of Rabbi Cherki and the Chabad rabbis uses the Noahide precepts to lay down an ethnic hierarchy between Jews and gentiles. Feldman notes that the Noahide religion constitutes a new form of colonial relations and racial ideology in which the rabbis are shaping a new faith for the inhabitants of the “global south” as an instrument to advance religious and nationalist goals.
Feldman points out that the first Noahide gathering, which took place in Texas in 1990, was attended by Rabbi Meir Kahane. After Kahane’s assassination, that same year, the Temple Institute, which advocates the building of the Third Temple on Jerusalem, on the site of the first two, started to promote the Noahide project. In the view of the institute’s rabbis, the gentiles’ upholding of the Seven Laws is an important stage in the messianic process at the height of which the temple will be built and Israel will become a theocracy that will gain the gentiles’ support.
This is the world order being promoted by the Noahide Project, which has the support of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and of the Israeli government. The Noahide theological project is closely related to Netanyahu’s foreign policy approach, which is based on religious support for Israel. As he worded the theological message he offered on Humanity Day in 2015, “The Seven Mitzvot of the Children of Noah are matters of both faith and morality, which according to our sages obligate all of the non-Jewish peoples of the world. These commandments serve as a basis for establishing a civilized society.”
The final goal of Rabbi Cherki and the Noahide World Center, we are told, is a modest one: seven billion believers.
Israeli Government Provides Funding To The Institute
"The Israeli government provides some funding to the Temple Institute"
- (Jewish Telegraph Agency, "The third Jewish Temple is coming to your Facebook feed", The third Jewish Temple is coming to your Facebook feed, Retrieved From: https://www.jta.org/2016/08/12/israel/the-third-jewish-temple-is-coming-to-your-facebook-feed)
The Temple Institute Who Support Noahide Missions Believe In Building The Third Temple Now, Which Would Require The Removal Of The Muslim Dome Of The Rock And Lots Of Soldiers To Wage Holy War
The Temple Instiute
The Performance of the Torah's Commandments Does Not Depend Upon the Messiah
There are no Biblical verses that make a connection between the building of the Holy Temple and the arrival of the messiah. The building of the Holy Temple is a commandment that is binding upon all of Israel to fulfill, in every generation.
But it must be noted that there is a difference between the commandments that Israel are obliged to perform, and the prophecies referring to the appearance of the messiah. The prophecies are a Divine promise; a heavenly revelation concerning the appearance of the redeemer in the end of days.
Nothing can ever change that Divine promise. However it is important to understand that the arrival of the messiah is not dependent on anything other than the will of G-d alone. He shall fulfill His promise at the time that He deems fit.
In fact, if there really is a question as to "Which comes first, the messiah or the Temple," there seems to be ample indication that the building of the Holy Temple will precede the messiah's arrival. Various Biblical verses and statements made by the great sages prove this. This is actually the opinion of Maimonides, who quotes an astounding verse from the prophecy of Malachi (3:1) in his classic Letter to Yemen:
"For suddenly the master whom you are seeking will come to his sanctuary."
It appears that this prophecy, referring to the arrival of the messiah, specifies that he will indeed arrive at the already built Temple.
One of the most important foundations of Jewish faith is the belief that the commandments of the Torah are applicable, and indeed must be fulfilled, at all times and under all circumstances. They are to be performed without engaging in speculation as to when the messiah will arrive. An entire verse in the book of Deuteronomy is dedicated to this: "The secret things are for the L-rd our G-d, and that which has been revealed - they are for us and for our children, forever, to perform all of the words of this Torah" (29:28).
Maimonides expresses scorn for those individuals who would nullify certain commandments of the Torah and not fulfill them, saying that they will wait for the messiah to arrive first:
"Those people who convince themselves that they will remain [in exile where they cannot perform the commandments] until the king, the messiah arrives, and then they will all go to Jerusalem... they are not only fooling themselves, but they are causing others to sin as well... because there is no fixed set time for the messiah to arrive... but the obligation of our religion and the commandments is not dependant on the arrival of the king, the messiah. Rather, it is our duty to be occupied with the Torah and commandments, doing our best to fulfill them. After we have seen to our obligations, if G-d finds us worthy... to see the messiah, then good. But if not - we have lost nothing, and we have fulfilled our obligation."
(Maimonides, Letter on Religious Persecution)
Thus, it certainly stands to reason that the Third Temple could be rebuilt today in Jerusalem even before the messiah arrives. This would concur precisely with the opinion of the sages of Israel recorded in the Jerusalem Talmud:
"The Holy Temple will in the future be re-established before the establishment of the kingdom of David." (Ma'aser Sheni 29)
In the same way, the builders of the Second Temple did not wait for the messiah to arrive. They simply began the construction, regardless of their destitution and foreign domination.
Similarly, several attempts were made to rebuild the Temple, throughout history. These attempts were based on Maimonides' important principle, "the obligation of the commandments is not dependent upon the arrival of the messiah."
We can also find other indications throughout rabbinic literature that the messiah will appear to a generation that has already built the Temple. For example, in the Midrash Yalkut Shimoni (Isaiah 499) it is stated: "Our rabbis taught: when the messiah arrives, he will stand on the roof of the Holy Temple, and shout out to Israel: 'Humble ones! The time of your redemption is at hand!'"
In this scene, the messiah arrives to declare to his people Israel that the promised and long-awaited redemption has arrived... and Israel meets him in the Holy Temple.
At the same time, we also understand that in the event Israel has not yet built the Temple by the time the messiah arrives, one of his duties will be to instruct them to do so. It is to this scenario that Maimonides refers when he states in his "Laws of Kings:"
"In the future the messiah king will arrive... and build the Temple... and all the laws will be reinstituted as in former days; sacrifices will be brought, and the sabbatical and jubilee year records will be adhered to as specified in the Torah... and he will see to it that all of Israel follow these laws."
If Israel does not fulfill the commandment to build the Holy Temple as the returning Babylonian exiles did, then it will be done under the directive of the messiah, who will instruct the entire nation to rise up and rebuild it as in the past. But nowhere is Israel instructed to wait for him for the rebuilding! Thus Maimonides begins his "Laws of the Temple" with these words:
"It is a positive commandment to erect a Temple for the L-rd, ready for the performance of the sacrificial offerings, to where the festive pilgrimage is directed three times a year... "
In summary: it is much easier to wait for the messiah, and thus, "put the blame on him," then to take the responsibility for ourselves, for our lives, for our actions. But a careful Biblical analysis and study will reveal that waiting for the messiah's arrival to begin rebuilding the Temple is just a convenient excuse.
There is no question about the fact that at the time G-d wills it, the messiah will arrive. This a great promise that He made, and nothing can happen that will change that. But this has nothing to do with our obligations to G-d! Those also do not change! The messiah's job is not to come and tell us, "Now, it is time for you to fulfill this or that particular commandment." For the commandments are always to be fulfilled by Israel, at all times, to the best of our ability.
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