The Messianic Synagogue - A Place for All Jews

On the afternoon of Yom Kippur, I and about 6 or 7 people were sitting in the synagogue talking about the role of Messianic synagogues. We discussed that the important role of the Messianic synagogue is to be a place for all Jews to come and worship, those with and without Yeshua faith.

One of the women commented "So what if you had half of the people in your synagogue who were not Yeshua believers?"

My first thought was "Amen, may it be so!", this would be what a Messianic synagogue should be a place for all Jews, those who have found Messiah and especially for those who are willing to look for him and are in process. She saw this as a negative, seeing that the Messianic synagogue was just a "believer" place. Another person commented about "lessening Yeshua" to make this a reality.

Both are wrong views, one that our synagogues should be just for Yeshua believers and two that to be a synagogue for all Jews we have to lessen or hide Yeshua.

One of the greatest gifts that we as a Messianic Judaism can give to the larger Jewish world is to build synagogues and a Judaism for all Jews (the descendants of Jacob and converts to Judaism).

As we just came to the conclusion of the High Holydays, wherein our doors were open to all Jews who wanted to hear the shofar blast, hear Kol Nidre, pray Yizkor and be in synagogue on the holidays without having to buy tickets or pay membership fees.

We can and must build a Judaism where all of the Jewish people will be at home and where Jewish life is lived and celebrated.

This contrasts to the closed nature of most churches as a place of belonging for Yeshua believers only. This openness to all Jews exceeds even outreach wings of Judaism like Chabad that are open to all Jews, except Messianic Jews (from experience I know of many people who have been excluded from local Chabad houses after their Yeshua faith being discovered). Both of these approaches are excluding forces, we must be different from these models.

This is right in line with the values of a post missionary Messianic Judaism, in that our focus would be to build Jewish faith communities for the sake of living Torah faithful lives wherein we acknowledge and honor Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah.

We need to make our Messianic synagogues a place for all in the Jewish community to come to worship the G-d of Israel, again stand at Mount Sinai and here the words of Torah and for those in mourning to stand within a Jewish community and recite the words of Kaddish.

This is a transformation of the usual view of a Messianic synagogue as a Jewish missions outreach and follow-up center to us becoming ongoing, living Jewish faith communities wherein Torah study, Torah living, Jewish prayer and Jewish life is at the core of our existence. As my beloved rabbi recently commented "a place where we are having a great time being Jews".

This is our task to open our doors to all Jews and be the new inclusive home for all the Jewish people and bring glory and honor to our G-d as we build communities wherein all of Jacob's seed are called to live Torah and live in the reality of Yeshua, our righteous Messiah who came and will return to take His place as King of All.

May we do the work to make this a reality!