Saturday, August 31, 2013

Brother Eri, Brother Ozni: Could Igbos and Germanic Scandinavians be Related?

“Brother Eri, Brother Ozni: Could Igbos and Germanic Scandinavians be Related?” By Rabbi Yehudah “Tochukwu” ben Shomeyr 
                                           
Is a thought provoking and fascinating book that explores the possibility that dark haired, brown eyed, dark skinned Igbos and blonde hair, blue eyed, pale skinned Germanic Scandinavians are related and through one of the Lost Tribes of Israel no less!

94 pgs.

 


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

New Website for Igbo's!



Announcing a new website: www.igbohebrew.com

Igbo Hebrew is a website in which one can research the Biblical, Historical, Archeological, Cultural, Scientific and Linguistic evidence connecting the Igbo People of Nigeria to the Lost Tribe of Gad as well as other Tribes of Israel. The site also contains valuable resources, videos , books and links regarding the Igbo’s connection to Israel.

Though the site is up and fully functional we will be fine tuning the site over the weeks to come to make it an optimal site for Igbo to explore its Hebraic roots.

Visit and bookmark us today!


Sunday, August 25, 2013

I was Happier...


I was Happier
Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr

Who’s been thinking the same thing but is afraid to admit it? What do I mean? What I means is; you are so thankful for being brought to the revelation of Truth of the Jewishness of Messiah and the Truth of being Torah Obedient within the footsteps of Messiah that you do not in any way question or plan to turn back on these things, but if you were brutally honest with yourself, your spirit was happier (despite the paganism and denominational politics) in Christianity. There, I said it! Stone me if you wish, at least I will die an honest man. I am secure in the Truth and Faith I have found in Torah to admit that. Are you?

People are afraid to voice this perhaps because it would be seen by others as a form of Messianic/Natsari Backsliding or getting soft in ones newfound faith and convictions regarding Torah.

So the million dollar question that stands as tall as a multi-story skyscraper, in bold, underlines letters of triple exclamation is:

WHY!!!???

We could blame the Natsari cults and red-flaggers trying to highjack our faith and harsh our buzz, but that would be a cop out. For we are responsible for our own spirituality and if we are not a part of, but rather exposing such groups it should have no pending upon our spiritual life except feeling the righteous indignation Yeshua felt toward the Temple moneychangers.

So why were so many of us happier in Christianity?

1.     Many of us have taken a black and white, all or nothing approach and attitude towards Christianity, because we feel betrayed by it and are disgusted with the paganism within it that we swallowed for so many years. Thus we throw the baby out with the bath water and anything labled “Christian” or “Jesus” we curl our lip in disgust and say, “Bah!” with a dismissive hand.
Christianity is not perfect, but neither is Natsari Judaism and the vast majority of Christianity is steeped paganism via ignorance and this ignorance God winks at (Acts 17:30) until our revelation of the Truth of Messiah and Torah is revealed personally to us. It’s true, else we would have never received the revelation and be Torah obedient believers as we are now!
Are you really going to try and tell me that that wasn’t the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) you felt all those years in Christianity!? You’d better not, you know better (Mark 3:29)!

2.     After jumping into the Hebraic-ness of the Faith with both feet, embracing the customs, tradition, dress and lingo and you have your honeymoon phase, you begin to grow stale and ridged and begin to get rabbinic, stoic and duty takes precedence over obedience through love. Slowly allowing yourself to believe like the Pharisees and Judaizers that the traditions linked with Torah are on par with the Torah Mitzvot themselves! Feeling for example that if you do not wear a kippah, you’re sinning, or that something is wrong with you if you admit you hate gefilte fish, or that you like coffee house praise and worship better than Messianic music or if you do not don tefillin for every prayer you are sinning. This signals the closing of the openness you have to the Ruach HaKodesh and the increasing gap between you and your personal relationship with God! You can’t hold hands with your lover while your hand is grasping a manmade book of rules. Even if we do not keep tradition but follow Torah we oft times forget that the Torah is a Ketuvah (Marital Contract of Love) and not necessarily a books of Laws and Rules. Our sincere but misplaced zealousness has become our shackles.

3.     Comparing your life, practice and spirituality to that of a non-believing orthodox Jew and trying to conform your life to that of which you see yet do not fully understand or comprehend.  Why would you want to model your life after a non-believer that hates the Messiah who you love and whose Halacha you choose to follow? Some of us foolishly think the Orthodox Jew is closer to God and has it all figured out because they never got rid of the Torah. But without Messiah, they are just as lost and flawed as any unbeliever and disgruntled, angry gullible believers are falling for it and end up denying Messiah. Issues such as these quench (I Thess. 5:19) the spontaneity and move of the Ruach HaKodesh in our life.

I’m no wannabe who will eventually succumb to “Stockholm Syndrome.”  I am a Proud Torah Obedient Believer in Messiah Yeshua!

4.     Criticizing and making fun of Christians and Messianics for their ignorance  which God winks at (Acts 17:30) is like asking Yeshua and His Disciples why they don’t wash their hands or fast and it gives us a spirit of Scrooge instead of the Spirit of Messiah. Criticizing other Natsarim because they do not practice or believe exactly the way you do also makes our Christian days happier than our Torah obedient ones. Why? Because this is not humility but killer pride in its most self-righteous smug form.

Walking in the Torah Obedient Halacha of Messiah Yeshua and having structure that submits to the leading of the Holy Spirit that turns a blind eye to religious critics and taskmasters is the only way we can regain freedom and our happiness we had before we threw it out in a garbage bag at the curb along with everything else we labelled as “Not Jewish”.

If you’re not and I’m not happy; we have no one to blame but ourselves. I for one refuse to wallow any longer in the muck and mire of the religio-politico pigpen. I am going to be a Torah Obedient Believer in Messiah Yeshua according to His Word on my own terms in an intimate and personal relationship with Him and forget those who will dog me because I have made and use my own tefillin or if I like Keith Green and Jeremy Camp better than Paul Wilbur. I follow Messiah’s Halacha, not that of the Breslov or Lubavitchers!

I guarantee you; with this new Hebraic Year I will be happier as a Natsarim than I ever was as a Christian. I am making it a personal mission. I am going to live my life with abandonment for Him and not care who stands by to wag their fingers and tongues and cast stones at me. After all, I’m in a relationship, not a religion.

You have the chutzpah (guts) to be in?

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

November European Mission Trip Update

Wonderful news, I was successfully able to book my ticket for my mission trip in November through a travel agent at less cost than booking on my own. All I need now is to raise the remaining $1500 for travel insurance and an emergency financial cushion while overseas.  Again, thanks for all who have already donated.  Please continue to save and redeem recyclables for me to help raise the remaining funds for the trip or simply donate a gift of any amount through my paypal button on the homepage of my website: www.abrahamsdescendants.com . Shalom and blessings in Messiah Yeshua!
-R. Yehudah



The Month of Elul



There is No Lull in Elul
By Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr

Lev. 23:24-32 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first [day] of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work [therein]: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Also on the tenth [day] of this seventh month [there shall be] a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it [is] a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God. For whatsoever soul [it be] that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people. And whatsoever soul [it be] that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no manner of work: [it shall be] a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It [shall be] unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth [day] of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.

Once summer hits its peak and the roller coaster begins its decent from the crest of the big hill, the summer solstice has passed and the days get noticeable shorter, there is a slight hint of a change in the weather. You know the solar year is beginning to wind down.

When Tish B’Av comes to the Lunar Calendar; the time when us Jews mourn the loss of both the first and second Temple, there is a noticeable change in the spiritual weather. The Hebraic year starts to wind to a close as well and everything seems to shift in the soul. You begin to stop and realize that it was because of Selfishness and Idolatry that the first Temple was destroyed, and it was because of the Cooling and Callusing of the heart that the second Temple was destroyed and in both cases there was a failure to keep the marriage contract of Torah that sent us into exile. Even to this day one really begins to feel the impact of what it is to be a Jew.

Just as at Pesach (Passover) we are commanded to retell the story of the exodus in the first person as if it happened to us personally. And just as when the Torah was given to at Mount Sinai, we are taught that we were there to hear and receive the Torah through the DNA of our ancestors. The same holds true with Tish’BAv onward. You think, “I am in exile because of my sins.” And as a Netzari Jew, the line of Thinking progresses to say, “And it was my sins that nailed Yeshua to that execution stake!”

Once Tish B’Av has passed and the month of Elul is inaugurated a Jew can’t help but feel the weighty awe and solemness of the season. To remember that Elul leads to the New Year (Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets) and that leads us to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the single most solemn day of the entire year; a day when even non-practicing Jews get Jewish. A day when the Levitical Priests of days gone by would enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple and sprinkle the blood on the Ark of the Covenant, G-d’s Throne on Earth, to confess and make atonement for sin on behalf of all Israel. The time of the season when it is said that the Books in Heaven are open and G-d balances the Books and sets all the accounts and seals the events for the New Year, one can’t help but be in silent awe. One can’t help recoiling into oneself to take spiritual inventory of the year that has just gone by.

After the last apple is dipped in honey to symbolize a sweet start to the New Year is eaten and once everyone has been greeted with, “La Shannah Tova!”, and once the last blast of the Shofar has sounded one is left hearing the reverberating echo in the soul that acts as a supernatural alarm clock that shakes and wakes the soul from its summer slumber.

One begins to see the leaves on the trees begin to drain of color from a hearty, thick, rich, lush, green, to a pail sickly yellow, as if the trees are even in awe of the impending Judgment of Yom Kippur. One begins to truly understand the phrase, “turning over a new leaf”.

You see, during the month of Elul, we have 30 days to take an account of the entire year. To replay those security tapes in our brains, to try and recall if we have wronged anyone in anyway. To make a list of things we need to make right. To make a list of people we need to seek forgiveness from and make amends with. It is such a humbling and beautiful thing. 30 days to make sure everything is right between me and my fellow man. Then comes Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, the Feast of Trumpets, which on the one hand anticipates a great and fresh New Year, and on the other hand is a shaking to the core. For the shofar blast has announced the 10 Days of Awe; a time of getting nitty gritty, a time of getting down to business with the All Mighty G-d. Once you’re cleaned the slate with your fellow man one can channel every ounce of energy, focusing on their personal relationship with G-d and making things right between you and Him.

Once Yom Kippur arrives the Books in Heaven are closed and the unrepentant are blotted out and the repentant are sealed for a sweet new year, and those that straddle the fence has one last change to repent.

Yom Kippur has been marked by a day of mourning, chest beating, fasting and confessing ones sins. It’s the saddest, most somber day on the Hebrew Calendar. But have you noticed that in the English language the word Atonement symbolizes the potential of that day? At-One-ment.  For this reason I have come to make it one of the most festive days of the year. For if I’ve truly spent Elul making things right between me and my neighbor, and if I’ve truly spent the 10 days of Awe making sure things are right between me and G-d, then even though I’m denying myself of food and other luxuries as the Scripture commands (Lev.23:27) I can be so busy thanking and praising G-d for His mercy, grace and forgiveness, that I won’t have to time to think of food, sex or other things I have been commanded to abstain from for that day. I won’t have to mope around mournfully because my business has already been taken care of. HalleluYah! Glory be to HaShem! I can look forward to a clean slate and a fresh start to the New Year. Now I can focus on the plans and dreams G-d has for me for Him!

This Elul, this Rosh Hashanah take care of business. Don’t treat Yom Kippur like April 15th and wait till the last minute and rush to get the paperwork done. This year don’t beat your chest and hang your head low on Yom Kippur. Instead, be ready ahead of time to wave your hands in the air and hold your head toward heaven in praise and thanks to G-d for His Goodness, His Loving-Kindness, His mercy that endures forever and are new every morning.

Shalom and LaShanah Tova!

-- Rabbi Yehudah

Monday, August 19, 2013

The Dirty Little Secret of Gadites



The Dirty Little Secret of Gadites
Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr

The Shoemaker’s are known for their temper. Don’t get me wrong, we are great and likeable guys, most everyone will say so, just don’t tick us off. And God forbid an inanimate object makes us look the fool; windows, doors, walls, cars, computers and dresser draws have all paid the ultimate price.  

Most of my relatives on my father’s side are Christians and have anger issues. But there are a few who are non-believers and are famously known as brawlers in the bars. One of my cousins who everyone in the bar scene knew as “Goat” because his signature move in a bar fight is to ram the other guy.

On the first Avengers movie, when Ironman led Loki’s unleashed monster to the Avengers waiting on the city street below, Captain America said to Bruce Banner, “Doctor Banner, now might be really a good time for you to get angry.” Implying, it is time for him to turn into the Hulk. Banner replied, “That’s my secret Cap… I’m always angry.”

The Shoemaker’s are always angry and this past year I finally figured out why.

Without boring you with all the details and to make a long story short, in tracing my genealogy I discovered that my father’s paternal ancestors were German Mennonites, also known as Anabaptists, who ended up coming to Pennsylvania and settling Germantown. I have been able to trace many of the Mennonites back to the tribe of Gad and likely to his son Ozni also known as Ezbon. For in Germany there is a town that bears his name, Osnabruk which if in Hebrew would mean, “Blessed be Ozni.”

Gad was a troop, a warrior tribe of lion faced men (I Chron. 12:8) and those Gadites who eventually became known as the Mennonites denied themselves that prophetic destiny, that call to be a warrior. Much like the Vulcans on Star Trek who supressed emotion for sheer logic. Look, you cannot stop a lion from hunting, even the most docile and domestic of housecats hunt. You simply cannot take the warrior out of Gad. It is in our spiritual DNA.  Vulcans had their pon farr to release pent up aggression. Mennonites had no such outlet.

The Gadite Mennonites decided to become pacifists, denying the outlet for the warrior inside them. They did not fight, they did not kill, and they did not join the military. The pogroms; when they were persecuted and harassed they bit their lip and took it and or picked up and moved elsewhere until someone else made them move again. Talk about anger suppression, it is like shaking a pop-bottle and waiting for it to explode!

When you supress a warrior spirit and do not fulfill your spiritual genetic destiny what happens when there are no healthy outlets. Abuse; verbal, mental, physical, sexual. This is the dirty little secret of Mennonites and Amish. The public sees them and peace loving, genteel pacifists, but behind closed doors and out of public view they are miserable and angry people. By the time I came along my family was no longer Mennonite but just simple Baptists and though some of my family did join and participate in the military they were passive non-violent men. The warrior had to come out somehow, and as they say, you end up hurting the ones you love. My father verbally abused me and if were not for my mother playing referee and mediator I would have been physically abused as well. I have spoken with many Mennonite and Amish people and the vast majority of them were abused in one or more of the ways mentioned above. One Amish man said it was nothing for his father to throw him up against the wall.

I was taught never to fight; to, “turn the other cheek.” I was taught to be afraid of and run away from bullies. I grew up being picked on, teased, and made fun of. I was an easy target and as a result I was always looking behind my back in fear.

Today’s Christian and or Messianic men are groomed by religion (for Yeshua has been greatly misunderstood) and cultured, refined, civilized society to be passive, in touch with their feminine side wusses. The warrior is suppressed and usually channeled in inappropriate ways such as the ruthless, cutthroat business man.  The book, “Wild at Heart” by John Eldridge fleshes this out very well. I believe it is a must read for every Christian/Messianic man. If a man, especially a Gadite has the proper outlet to be a warrior he will be a loving husband and gentle father.

I used to hate it when my Dad would yell at me and then I grew up and found I had turned into my Dad, snapping at my daughter for stupid things. Like watching a movie I would be yelling, knowing even as the words were coming out of my mouth that I should stop, but feeling powerless to do so and even wondering why I was yelling in the first place! Afterwards I would beat myself up for being such a jerk and wonder why I was the way I was.

For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. – Rom. 7:15

I am like Bruce Banner. I am always angry. Even when I am smiling, laughing and having a good time there is still and underlying current of brooding anger. I have always wondered why and if I would ever be happy. I have discovered that I am the culmination of Gadite warrior suppression and thus generations of no healthy outlet I am like the angsty, angry and brooding Dark Knight of Gotham. But what do you do when there are no Moabites or Philistines to slay? What is a Gadite Warrior supposed to do?

As the old G.I. Joe cartoon says, that “knowing is half the battle.” Now that I discovered the root of the constant anger, which is the suppression of the Gadite destiny of being a warrior, I am finding healthy outlets to allow the Gadite warrior to emerge such as a reading Norse tales or the John Carter series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, watching Braveheart or superhero movies, going camping, MMA (Mixed Martial Art) workout regimen, watching Bull Riding, MMA, and Boxing on TV. Punching the heavy bag or taking and axe and attacking a tree when I get angry. When I do this, when I let the Gadite warrior out in appropriate and healthy ways I am doing it for and repenting on behalf of all the Shoemaker men who suppressed that warrior spirit and ended up abusing their families and loved ones. When the Gadite warrior is unleashed in a healthy way I am repenting of the generational sin and breaking the generational curse upon my line and sending healing and restoration throughout the generational line as a whole.

I am learning that when I appropriately feed the warrior God has created and destined me to be, the “Hulk” which lurks just below the surface can sleep and the loving, happy-go-lucky, attentive husband and father can emerge. I find now that because I allow the Gadite warrior to come out and play, I do not get angry or frustrated as often or fly off the handle over stupid things like I used to. The bonds with my wife and daughter are being restored and becoming stronger.  

Praised be His Name!