What planet are you from ?
Go check out the video on this website to see how close the coming of the Madi is
This article is nothing but an account of fanatical jihadist elements in Iranian government. That doesn't even have anything to do with sanity, let alone the coming of the messiah.
I still have yet to understand why its a heresy when examined in its original Nazarene lens apart from the post-Paul gentile Schism lens. As for "Apostates", apostate to Rabbinicists? I also still don't quite understand why pork-eating reform or Atheist Jews aren't considered apostate. But maybe that's for another thread.
There are no extant original documents recording what Jesus actually taught to his students. My guess, reading between the lines of the Christian scriptures, is that if they did exist, they might indeed describe a kind of sectarian Judaism that would be comparatively mild in its heresy (presuming that he did not, in fact, reject the yoke of Oral Torah altogether, but only disagreed with the Rabbis as to its interpretation, and presumed too great an interpretive authority derived from his pretensions to be the moshiach). But no such documents exist, and even if they did, it would likely be too late to try and reclaim anything from them. Jesus has been a figure of non-Jewish religion for 1800+ years. And the only documents we have describing his teachings describe not merely a rogue Rabbi who falsely claimed to be the moshaich, but a man who at worst tried to deify himself or at best did not reject it when others called him a god, and (as Paul and his followers depict him) clearly fits the quintessential definition of a false prophet. And that's not even getting into the Pauline rejection of Torah and the "supercession" of the covenant of Sinai with a supposed "new covenant."
Reform Jews are not apostates. Most are in error, and at worst, some may be heretics. But they do not reject the Torah. They do not reject the covenant of Sinai. They do not deny or infringe upon the unity of God. They do not worship human beings. They do not even, technically, claim to reject Rabbinic Judaism or the Oral Torah, and the right wing of their movement are often surprisingly observant of mitzvot-- though in the end, I admit that I personally see no rational defense for "non-halachic" Rabbinic Judaism.
Where heresy is beginning is in the assimilation and intermarriage problems. If they cannot stem that and turn away from their current disastrous practices in this area, they really will become lost to us in a few more generations.
But Reform heresy, where such heresy even exists, is a heresy of apathy, a passive heresy. Their problem is what they do not do, not what they do. Christian syncretism and "messianic Judaism" and other sorts of apostatic practices are active and aggressive heresy. Not only are they insufficiently observant of mitzvot, but the more serious compounding of the issue is that in place of observance (rather than simple apathetic secularism) are theologies and practices forbidden to us.
And apparently the grisly events of Zechariah 14 have to pass first.
Some say those events are not inevitable, but only depend on how we act as a people. Others say they may happen metaphorically. Many don't believe they must literally happen as Zechariah describes.
So if a person is born from a Jewish mother (and/or Father), and they don't believe in G-d and eat pork, they're still "Jewish", but if a person takes on a reactionary Retro-Nazarene position, they lose their Jew card? Says who? You? Rabbinicists? Atheist = Jew, Nazarene = non-Jew? If that's the case I'll take the term "Israelite" instead.
If a person is born to a Jewish mother or was properly converted according to halachah, it doesn't matter what they do or don't do, or profess to believe: they are Jewish, permanently and irreversibly. They may be sinners and/or heretics, or even apostates, but they are always Jewish.
What I am talking about is non-Jews who dress up Christianity in borrowed Jewish clothing, and think that just because they feel some sort of kinship with ancient Judaism, that makes them authentic Jews and inheritors of the covenant.
So if a person is born to a Jewish mother or properly converted and then goes and calls themselves a Nazarene, they are Jewish, certainly. They're simply heretics or apostates. But they are certainly Jewish.
But if a person is not born to a Jewish mother, or never had a halachic conversion, then they are not Jewish. And no amount of using Hebrew terminology for Christian scriptures or holy figures, and no amount of baseless claims of descent from the Lost Tribes is going to change their non-Jewishness, or make what they profess anything but non-Jewish religion, forbidden practices to Jews.
...at what point in history did the word "Judaism" equate to "Rabbinicism"?
Since the Tzedokim and Isim and other sectarian groups of the Second Temple Period opposed the Perushim with customs and practices not grounded in Oral Torah. Once the Temple fell, and these groups became extinct, it became clear that normative Judaism is the Judaism of the Perushim, which is the Judaism of the Rabbis of the Talmud. Anything else is heresy.
Most Reform have absolutely no regard for the Rabbinicists or the Talmud, but hey no problem. I don't think the Qarites would agree either, but they're too small to matter? So it's appeal to majority? An entire definition based on a big logical fallacy?
Like I said, Reform Judaism is in error. But they are, for the most part, not trying to cut themselves off from Rabbinic Judaism, or from the halachic movements. I am inclined to withhold labeling them as heretics because I think their movement will eventually fracture, and part will rejoin the halachic mainstream (albeit at the far left), and part will eventually truly become heretical-- if only by virtue of apathy and assimilation-- and will eventually become lost to us.
Most Reform Jews I know are doing the best they can, and are not actually eaters of pork or atheists (I do think atheism walks the line of heresy, although I have met Jews who observed the mitzvot but were deeply agnostic, and I am not inclined to label them as heretics, since they are clearly struggling to remain part of Jewish society and observance). And I know many who study Talmud, and consider the words of the Rabbis carefully. I don't agree with how they use those words, but they do care about them, and they do acknowledge the power of the Rabbis in the core and root of the tradition.
Are the Hasidim apostate too? Wasn't the Baal Shem Tov totally excommunicated? So why aren't they apostate then?
There is nothing in Hasidism that is heretical (with the sole exception of those modern-day Lubavitchers who claim that the Rebbe will return from the dead to be the moshiach. Those guys are heretics, no question). The original Hasidic masters were excommunicated by the Vilna Gaon and his followers (the differences were well within the bounds of traditional tolerance of varying opinions, and the considerable acrimony mostly resulted from social politics of Eastern European Judaism), but that schism was repaired in the face of the Enlightenment, and easily, too, since nothing in Hasidism is actually particularly heretical.
