06/18/2026
Concerning the time of the redemption, Yeshua says, “No one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Yeshua says, “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). He says, “I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has Himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak” (John 12:49). He prayed to G-d, saying, “Not my will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Before His death, He cried out, “My G-d, my G-d, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
It wasn't a demonstration.
How is a Christian to make sense of this reality?
The teaching of the Jewish apostles was not that the Father became a man, nor that He died on a cross. To say so would be to confuse the Father with the Son, something orthodoxy explicitly rejects. The tradition received from the apostles and taught to the Nations is that there is no change in G-d.
"I, Hashem, do not change" (Malachi 3:6).
While the human—Christ (משיח)—is absolutely one with the Divine, He is one without "confusion," without mixture. This is to say that G-d never changes.
Below, we will explain in clear terms what was taught to the early disciples from the Nations and argued for by the earliest Fathers, although the message has become muddled in popular imagination and distorted through the parodies of debate.
Judaism possesses categories far richer than most pulpits are willing to admit.
The Torah is not merely a book. The sages taught:
"The Holy One, blessed be He, looked into the Torah and created the world" (Genesis Rabbah 1:1).
Torah, in this regard, is primordial. It precedes Sinai. It is the hidden pattern according to which creation itself was fashioned. Scripture says of Divine Wisdom:
"Hashem acquired me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old... I was beside Him as a master craftsman" (Proverbs 8:22, 30).
The Torah is not simply ink on parchment. It is the wisdom of G-d and the architecture of reality.
Our spiritual tradition goes further. The Zohar declares:
יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאוֹרַיְתָא וְקוּדְשָׁא בְּרִיךְ הוּא כֻּלָּא חַד
"Israel, the Torah, and the Holy One, blessed be He, are all one" (Zohar III:73a).
The Torah is not external to G-d. Torah is one with the Holy One, blessed be He. It is His wisdom, His will, His self-disclosure. The Greek Fathers called it Logos.
The Torah scroll itself is written on the skin of an animal fit for slaughter, taken from a cow, goat, or sheep. The parchment sheets are sewn together with thread made from the tendons of the animal. When we read from the Torah, we bind our thoughts directly to the will and wisdom of G-d—we bind ourselves to G-d Himself. But this Torah has two natures: the Divine Word and the scroll. The two are absolutely one, but not confused or mixed. You may shake the scroll, but the Torah will never fall out; they are absolutely one. The parchment might be destroyed, but no harm will be done to the will and wisdom of G-d.
The Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, teaches that the soul possesses three garments (Likutei Amarim, chapters 4–5). Imagine the soul as an invisible man known only by his garments. The soul is encountered through the garments of thought, speech, and action.
When thought is consumed with Torah, speech utters only Torah, and actions perform Torah, these faculties become levushim (garments) through which the Divine Will is expressed in the world. Through the commandments of Pesach, Torah is not only studied, spoken, and performed—it is ingested. What is consumed becomes "blood and flesh of his flesh" (Likutei Amarim, ch. 8). The mitzvah itself is even metabolized, so that the desire for redemption permeates the physical body as well (Sha'arei Mo'adim, Pesach). It is no wonder that the words matzot (מצות) and mitzvot (מצות) are identical.
The tzaddik (righteous one) does not simply obey. His thought is a garment for the Word of G-d. His speech is a garment. His action is a garment. The commandments become integrated with his physical form. Yeshua said, “I have food you know not of... My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and accomplish His work” (John 4:34). This is what He meant when He said, “My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink” (John 6:55). His flesh and blood are the flesh and blood of a man whose food is the will of the Father. His entire life is characterized by submission to Hashem's will (Luke 22:42; John 12:49).
Adam was created in the image and likeness of G-d. The rabbis saw something similar in the Patriarchs of Israel, "The Patriarchs themselves are the vehicle (Merkavah) [for the Divine Presence]" (Genesis Rabbah 47:6; 82:6).
Because the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are absolutely one, the implications are extraordinary.
The Gospel of John opens:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with G-d, and the Word was G-d" (John 1:1).
The scandal of messianic faith is therefore not that G-d could dwell among men; this is a reality of the Torah, exemplified by the Mishkan (Tabernacle) filled with the Shekhinah. It is recognized by the sages in the Merkavah of the Patriarchs and in Chasidic thought as the human described as a garment for the Divine. For the Holy One desired a dwelling place below. The Torah descended into the world.
The scandal is specific: that in Yeshua there was never any separation from the Torah, the wisdom through which the worlds were made, a Torah that is absolutely one with G-d.
The sages taught regarding the spirit of G-d that hovered over the waters of creation, “This is the spirit of King Mashiach" (Genesis Rabbah 2:4).
The Talmud says that the name of Mashiach was one of seven things created before the world began (Pesachim 54a; Nedarim 39b). That the Fathers of the Church applied the name of Jesus (Isho/Yeshua) to the primordial Word of G-d is evidence that they received a similar tradition, perhaps from the same source, as the Psalm says: "May his name endure forever; before the sun, his name shall flourish" (Psalm 72:17).
Later Hasidic thought speaks of the collective soul of Israel and its highest dimension, the yechidah—the point of absolute union with G-d. Hasidic thought identifies the yechidah kelalit, the collective soul of Israel, with the soul of Mashiach.
“Therefore, the revelation of the yechidah within the soul is a revelation of divinity and union with Him, for the essence of the soul is bound and united in complete unity with the Essence of G-d forever... and it is this that gives a person the strength and fortitude even to the point of self-sacrifice" (Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shabbat Bamidbar, 5744).
Israel, Torah, and the Holy One, blessed be He, are one; the yechidah of Israel is revealed in Mashiach, and the Christian confession contains echoes of ancient Jewish voices, the apostles of Israel.
“Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Three were called by the name of the Holy One, Blessed be He: the tzaddikim, the Messiah, and Jerusalem..."
We are given three examples: the tzaddikim, the Mashiach, and Jerusalem—each bearing the Name of Hashem. And yet, consider Jerusalem. We turn toward Jerusalem in prayer not because we worship the soil, but because this is a matter of Jewish law, rooted in Scripture itself (see 1 Kings 8:44–45): when one turns toward the place of the Mikdash, Hashem hears.
No one is worshiping stone or earth. Our hearts are directed toward Hashem alone. So too with Mashiach. Turning toward Mashiach, serving him, even bowing to his kingship—this is the service of Hashem alone.
Yeshua is not merely a teacher, nor merely a wonder-worker, nor merely a righteous man. He is the True Tzaddik of Israel.
The primordial Wisdom revealed at Sinai was never to remain merely ink on goatskin parchment, but was to be learned, lived, and embodied in the flesh and blood of man.
The Infinite did not cease to be Infinite. The Father did not become the Son. Yeshua receives and reveals what the Father gives Him. And as He says Himself, “I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has Himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak” (John 12:49).
There is no change in G-d. The mechanism of what Christianity calls incarnation is the Divine Word, a "mystery" but not confusion.
And the apostles do not teach us merely to admire His example, but to participate in His death through a self-nullification like that found in the words, “Not my will, but Yours be done,” and "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). The Nations were told to be transformed "until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19).
Yeshua prayed for those who would come after Him, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in me and I am in You. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent me” (John 17:20–21). Until, as the prophet declared:
"The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).
At that time, Paul says:
“Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to G-d the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For "G-d has put all things in subjection under his feet." But when it says, "all things are put in subjection," it is plain that He (G-d) is excepted who put all things in subjection under him (Messiah). When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to Him who put all things in subjection under him, that G-d may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:24–28).
Yeshua is called “the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29). The people of G-d should become what they were always intended to be: a garment for the Divine Presence. Service to the Torah of Israel and faithful allegiance to the King of Israel are, in the end, service directed to Hashem alone.
