I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but I have to come out with it. 

I'm a former Christian who came to the conclusion that Jesus isn't the Jewish Messiah. From what I could see Jesus hasn't fulfilled many of the prophecies from Tanakh and I couldn't find anything in Tanakh that supports the idea of a second coming. And most importantly most Christians worship Jesus as God, which is idolatry.

Because of this I wanted to be a Noahide. I wanted to be completely sure that I made the right decision, so I posted my thoughts about Jesus not being the Messiah in a Christian forum, to see if I had overlooked anything, and to see if anyone could answer my objections.

After that a Pentecostal Christian contacted me and wanted to speak with me. So we did. I went into the call thinking that he was going to argue that Jesus was the Messiah.

Then he began talking about Jesus being the only true God. I thought that he was completely wrong, and that the conversation was a waste of time. Pentecostals are unitarian and I never heard anyone talk about Jesus as he did. He said that Jesus was the God from the beginning, and that YHWH was a name he gave himself to not reveal his real name yet.

Everytime I hear about different church denominations, I can always come up with arguments that prove that they are not right, but this time was different. It felt so obvious that the Messiah isn't God, but the way he explained everything made sense. I felt like he knew everything, and that he had an answer to everything I said. In a way it didn't feel like it was himself speaking. 

His name was Noah just like myself, and he began telling me that he was sent to me. He also said that he has seen people being cured from cancer and being raised from the death with the power of Jesus. Everybody can say that, and just because we have the same name doesn't mean that he's sent for me. But there was still something I felt I couldn't explain.

It suddenly made sense to me, when I asked him this: "There are over 30.000 Christian denominations in the world. They all claim to be guided by God, and that they are the true church. Why are you more correct than everybody else?" He answered: "You have to look at what the church can achieve in the name of Jesus Christ." Have you ever heard about people waking up from death, being cured from cancer or getting back their sight in any other church than the Pentecostal? I haven't. It's also almost always the Pentecostal church where people cast out demons. 

He was right. What could I answer him? 

After the conversation that lasted a little under 2 hours I fell down on my knees and cried. It's only about a year ago I began to believe in God. And since then I have been bombarded with different people claiming to have the truth. All of them have arguments both for and against them. 

I have felt that God has guided me towards Messianic Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, Noahidism and now Pentecostal Christianity.

I don't know what to believe, and it bothers me. If I die tomorrow what will happen on the day of judgement? I want to serve God with my whole heart, but I don't know how.

What should I do? What do you think? I guess that you believe that the right for me is Noahidism. I was also sure about that until that call. Do you have any arguments for Noahidism against Pentecostal Christianity and Christianity in general that I don't know?

May God be with you all!

News has it Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has been diagnosed with an unspecified cancer.

For those who wish to include the rabbi in their prayers, his Hebrew name is Harav Ya’akov Zvi ben Liba.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/former-uk-...or-cancer/

Is there a source cataloging the differences between how various Jewish traditions refer to the letters and vowels (e.g. Sephardi yod vs. Ashkenazi yud)? I have numerous questions about these differences. For example: https://digitalcollections.lib.washingto...ifest.json Is e.g. לַמֵד instead of לָמֶד because Sephardim consider קמץ and פתח, and צירי and סגול interchangeable (because they make the same sound), or is that a part of the tradition? Most sources for how the letter and vowel names are spelled in Hebrew characters are either Christian or Modern Hebrew, and so don't reveal anything about these traditions.

Hello,

would anyone of you be so kind to translate the text on the cup that I found on a flea market?

Thanks in advance.

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Hello, everyone I am new. I trying to find out what the Genius of Vilna meant for Jewish people. I heard he practiced a system called Kabbalah and wondered has he left any journals of books on Kabbalah. i also wanted to know if Kabbalah was a system of working with the angels.

Any people here that are regular users of Apple / iOS products?

iOS 14 won me back after being a loyal Android user for many years. The widgets are amazing, an very unique take on what Android has had for years.

Shalom,

I am currently undergoing a local reform/conservative class and conversion. The local Orthodox community told us we were not welcome in their classes or communities so it was the only option left. We actually went through an Orthodox conversion class for almost a year but couldn't graduate because we did not live within an Eruv of an Orthodox community.

So my main question is to source the best material to help us go through conversion as best as we can during this time without being around other people. I have an Artscroll Tanach, To be a Jew, and The Mitzvot. Learning Hebrew is extremely important and we have learned the alphabet as well as some words prayers and songs but still have a lot of trouble there. So any well accepted books, movies, websites, programs would be very welcome.

I imagine someone is a Shul with a very well organized program for converts to help with all this, the classes we are taking here are very very basic, and come from a viewpoint that the Torah is not divine but widely open to interpretation, which personally i do not agree with. We definitely lean Orthodox at a minimum and definitely do not in general agree with a Reform perspective but all i know is Torah i do not understand the community and sects and things like that very much at all.

Please if you have any first hand experience or suggestions we would greatly appreciate it.  This is the most important process i feel like my family can go through and i do not want it to be handled so lightly i hope this makes sense to others out there and peaks your interest to help guide us.

Also if anyone can shed light on the differences between Ultra-Orthodox and Mainstream Orthodox, to be able to tell the differences and understand it more that would help. We have several communities that claim Orthodoxy but seem nothing at all alike, and even a friend that is from New York and has parents from Israel said the Jewish community here is unrecognizable to them. 

Thank you all once again.

Shalom

מִֽן־הַ֭מֵּצַ֥ר קָרָ֣אתִי יָּ֑הּ עָנָ֖נִי בַמֶּרְחָ֣ב יָֽהּ׃ יְהוָ֣ה לִ֭י לֹ֣א אִירָ֑א מַה־יַּעֲשֶׂ֖ה לִ֣י אָדָֽם׃

Hi!

In a memorial service for wonderful Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the US Capital yesterday, Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt did a beautiful chant of Psalm 118,5. After chanting this verse, she continued to chant something that is not from the psalm that I could not recognize (beginning at 1:12 in the video below). It sounded something like this: tida hiayai (3x) yedai dedai dedai

Here's the video of Rabbi Holtzblatt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs7GwNfX-9U

I tried to figure out the Hebrew for a while yesterday, but after listening to other versions of this today, I'm beginning to realize that this may just be musical melody chanting not intended as intelligible Hebrew words. Is that correct? If so, is there a word for this kind of nonverbal chanting?

With a little bit of research, I've found that this comes from an arrangement of Psalm 118,5-6 by Joey Weisenberg. 

Here's a really beautiful full version of "Min Hameitzar" sung by Deborah Sacks Mintz with the Hadar Ensemble:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMe4-ggSkdY

Hi everybody Im a 19 year old Architecture student I joined here to interract with Jewish people and learn more bout their culture which I sincerly love and greeetings againnn

This author variously writes Sephardi ת (without דגש) as either "t" or "th." He also writes Sephardi צירי as "ai" except in the names of the letters ב, ח, ט, מ. Likewise, for Ashkenazi pronunciation he always writes "ie" for צירי except in the name of the letter ב. Would I be using his transliteration scheme correctly if I wrote "bhait" for בֵית? What about "bhaith"?