Paul wrote this note to a Hebrew student he met online:
Shalom Pietro!
Yes, I would be interested in hearing more about your 20 years of work on the Shoah [Holocaust], and what, if anything, that has to do with Genesis 50:19. I am all ears. I may have things to share as a result of what you tell me.
Pietro’s reply:
Dear Paul,
The reason why I’m so interested in bereshit [Genesis] 50:19, is that I would like to finish my paper with the sentence of Joseph. I’m writing in Italian, but I try to see if it is possible to make some conferences in English be-internet 🙂 !
So for now I’ll tell you my intention, when I started my research. ca.20 years ago (1989)the soviet socialism melt down as snow in the sun, and I was concerned about the cultural stream which, taken the communistic totalitarism into consideration, seemed to consider the two totalitarisms (nazism and communism) as equal (ie. that is banalizing the Shoah [Holocaust]).
What is that make the shoah unique?
now I make some answers.
Consider beside that I was a ex catholic ex communist agnostic, while now I meamen (believe) be-Torah (mostly Maimonides), with all the problems which such a turn make in the life of a young 50 years old man with wife and teen children.
that’s it for now
boker tov [good morning] pietro
Paul’s reply:
Hi Pietro,
How do you relate Bereshit [Genesis] 50:19 to the Shoah [Holocaust]?
About 30 years ago, the King of the Jews, Jesus Christ, called me, and I have been on a tremendous journey ever since. My background is Jewish, as you have probably guessed. A brother in the Lord, Victor Hafichuk, with whom I write for our website came out of the Catholic Church, then all churches of men.
You should read Our Testimonies and many other things on our site, such as the articles found in our Israel and the Jew section, Are Any Laws of God Outdated or Outmoded Today?, and much more.
We have not translated anything into Italian yet, but you seem to do well in English. Are you living in Denmark? You must speak several languages.
We are the same age.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Shalom.
Pietro’s reply:
“Hi Pietro,
How do you relate Bereshit [Genesis] 50:19 to the Shoah [Holocaust]?”
Well, the long answer is all in the paper, but I give a short answer.
If you take the 12 sons of Jakob/Israel as the whole humanity, Josef represents the Jewish people, who, being loved by G-d, always does well, making however the brothers envy him. They put him in the hole of haeretz [the earth] (note: it is almost as they kill him, metaphorically).
The antisemitism in a nutshell. Eventually he show himself to the brothers when they put themselves in question (in order to get BenJAmin from Jakob one the brother put his sons in jeopardy).
There is the christian interpretation of course; Josef as a symbol for Christ, but here “ ‘tis the rub” as Hamlet would have said.
Josef, according to this interpretation, is not a man anymore, is a semi-god, and the holy people (the Jews holy ‘cause they follow the Torah) has been replaced by the One Jew (josef/jesus) that rescue the humanity with his sacrifice. (no more Kippur [atonement])
I hope You got my point, even if You’ll not agree…
Shabbat Shalom [Sabbath Peace] pietro
Paul’s reply:
Yom tov [Good day], Pietro,
The story of what happened with Joseph and his brothers has always been an especially moving one to me. I think, above all, the message of men doing evil, but God doing the same thing for good, is the reason why. No matter what happens, in the end all will see that everything has been meant for good by God, and has indeed been working to His glory, to the benefit of all.
Jesus Christ was fully a man. He called Himself the “Son of Man.” He came to His own (the Jews), but His own did not receive Him. Not only Joseph, but everything in the Torah points to Him. He is our reason for being, and our great Goal. It is written that He is the Firstborn of all creation. He is our Beginning and our End.
While on earth, in His incarnation, Jesus was also called the Son of God. This is because He was conceived by the Spirit of God, making Him different than other men, because God is without sin. The power of God overshadowing a woman was greater than the sin of man. In other words, God inhabiting flesh overcomes sin. That has profound implications for us all.
The Law cannot accomplish this. You cannot achieve salvation by keeping the Law, simply because you are not able to keep the Law as God can, as it truly must be kept. That is why He said He would make a new covenant with Israel, wherein they could fulfill the Law:
“Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Yisra’el, and with the house of Yehudah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they broke, although I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Yisra’el after those days, says the LORD: I will put My Law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write It; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people: and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34 HNV).
When I was a Jew in the flesh without Christ, I had no hope of ever fulfilling the Law. But after I was conceived by the Spirit of God through Christ, and then crucified to the world and raised from the dead, I fulfilled the Law, Jeremiah’s prophecy fulfilled.
I have the power, along with all others who are truly in Christ, the Messiah of God, to rescue humanity.
Just Who could the Messiah be, other than God? Moses, for all the great power and majesty God gave him in the sight of Israel and Egypt, with no other prophet like him, could not even enter the Promised Land. Those who did enter after Moses could not keep the Law he delivered to them.
No, the Messiah is no mere man, but by becoming mere man, He made the way for us to be made like God, and to enter the Promised Land, which is not a physical land, but the Kingdom of Heaven, wherein all of God’s Laws are honored because His Spirit, which He has given us, rules in our hearts.
That is where I am. Not to put down your life’s work, but doesn’t that sound better than a thousand interesting ideas, interpretations, and many other things besides?
Pietro’s reply:
well Paul,
I admit it would sound simpler, and I’m tempted to answer as hamlet to his mother: “nay madam, i know not ‘seems’”
aval,
ata meamin li? [You understand me?]
30 years ago I met someone who said he was that man, but he was just a great borderLine, so I think about the mesiach [Messiah] of the last prophets more like Maimonides,(the 8 chapters introducing pirche Avot [Ethics of the Fathers])
Paul’s reply:
Hi Pietro,
Ani maveen. [I understand.]
This I can say: You are selling God way short. He is far more able than you think to supply precisely what He has promised. That is my testimony, as an unworthy but grateful recipient of His provision for those same promises made by the prophets of old to Israel.
Otherwise, the Tenach is not credible, God is a liar, and what is the point of following any of it? What you are saying really is that there is no God; it’s all empty talk.
Within a generation after Christ was crucified, resurrected and ascended, the temple and the priesthood ceased, the religious institutions of Israel became a dried up, hollow thing, and there was not heard the Word of God in them ever since. That is the environment that nurtures your unbelief. But because the religion is dead does not mean God died, or that He has forgotten Israel. He is alive and very well; He has much to say, and His Word brings life.
Read the articles I sent you, and see for yourself.