Asham taluy (Pending Guilt Offering)

Chapter 6

I am very much astonished at all the writers who have argued with the wise men of the Christians, and who have recorded their arguments in books. I have not found within them a decisive answer to the question that the believers in the Trinity have asked, and continue to ask us, concerning the meaning of the verse: The staff shall not depart from Judah, nor the scepter from between his feet (Genesis 49:10), as I will explain. Even from my teacher and my master, my honored teacher, R. Judah Bariel, from whom I have heard precious responses and valued interpretations against those who believe in the Trinity, I did not receive any compelling interpretation concerning this matter.

This concerns that which Christians have said, that Jacob our father foretold the destruction of the Temple, and that in the future the kingdom of the house of David would cease from Israel due to their future killing of an unidentified person and their denial of the principle of the Trinity, to explain how this is a vanity of vanities with no substance. And it is said in Genesis 49[:10], The staff shall not depart from Judah, nor the scepter from between his feet, until tribute comes, and the obedience of the people be his. And they say that even when Israel will increase their sins and their transgressions by acting against that which is written in the Torah, and they will stop performing His service—may He be blessed and exalted—the Lord will not abstain from having mercy upon them on account of their ancestors, and He will not destroy them, and not throw them into a different land, as it is today [see Deuteronomy 29:27], and the kingdom of David will not cease to rule over them. However, when they are impudent against the certain unidentified person and they kill him publicly, and they do not accept his rule over them and do not believe in the Trinity, then He will exile them to a different land and the Temple will be destroyed, and the kingdom of David will cease. Concerning this, Jacob said: The staff shall not depart from Judah. This means to say that the kingdom and the reign will not cease from Judah, and the Lord will not remove it from them. And the scepter, i.e., the kingdom and the ministers, will not be taken by God from between his feet and his reign will not cease until tribute comes; and this is Jesus. For numerologically, Jesus (Yeshu) and his 33 years add up to 349, and tribute with its four letters also add up to 349. And then, after Israel receives its punishment of exile because it has killed a certain unidentified individual, and the obedience of the people will be to Jesus, then many peoples will gather and congregate around him, in order to believe in him; and the belief in the Trinity will spread throughout the world.

The decisive answer to this is that their foundation is unstable and collapses, and with its collapse, the entire building collapses. For they maintain that the kingdom of the house of David did not cease until the death of the certain unidentified individual, and this is a lie, for the Davidic line ceased, passed, and was over and gone from the time of Jehoiakim the king of Judah, who was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, into the exile in Babylon, and also King Zedekiah. And after Zedekiah, nobody ruled over Israel from the house of David, and from Zedekiah began the exile of Babylon. And yet Jesus was born at the end of the Second Temple period. Thus, the kingdom of the house of David had finished and ceased more than 480 years prior to the birth of Jesus. With the removal of this cause, the effect is negated.

Moreover, regarding their claim that the Temple was destroyed because they killed a certain unidentified individual, this is not true. For the destruction of the Temple did not immediately follow the death of the certain unidentified individual, but rather it happened more than eighty years after his death. Our rabbis of blessed memory have already made this known, and have provided other reasons as to why the Temple was destroyed, as were learned in the order of Nezikin, and in tractate Gittin. And even though during the Second Temple period many kings ruled, none of them were from the house of David. Rather, they were priests from the line of Ezra the priest who strengthened their position over the people, and after them, their servants ruled, who had revolted against their masters. From all of this, you can conclude that their interpretation is not true, and it is infused with lies, since its foundational premise is not true, as we have proven.