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We're Back! A nation that vanished more than 2,700 years ago is coming back to life!
Ancient prophecies said we would return, and at last they are coming true.
Who are we? We are the people of Israel.
We are not Jews, though we are their long-lost relatives and are finding more and more in common with them as we appropriate the wealth of understanding that, until recently, they alone had preserved and safeguarded.
Nor are we a “spiritual Israel” who thinks we replaced the Jews as the “chosen people”.
Who are we, then? We are the House of Joseph, a large portion of the descendants of Jacob. We have also been known as the Northern Kingdom or Ephraim.
Once, under Moses, David, and Solomon, we were united with the tribe of Judah (now known as the Jews). But our ancestors started preferring the ways of other nations, and were allowed to have what they asked for. Because of this exile that they chose for themselves and us, we eventually forgot who we were. We became known as the “Lost Tribes”.
Then a wonderful rabbi acted as our kinsman redeemer and sent messengers around the world to find us. After we spent too long making him the focus (which he never intended), we are finally beginning to understand what he really had in mind for us.
We’ve realized that the history we read about in the Bible was not that of some other people whom the Creator abandoned when He came up with a better plan. No, it was the story of our own people who forsook our Creator and King. We were those “Lost Tribes” we had heard about!
Along with Judah, earlier ancestors had obligated us to a covenant at Mount Sinai, and we read about it, but for a long time we repudiated it, opting for something that appeared easier and more “up to date”.
Now at last we’ve been permitted to see the Scriptures through the lens by which they were meant to be read, and the things we misconstrued are being cleared up. All of Scripture finally fits together in a way that really makes sense without having to ignore some parts of it.
Having uncovered the remains of some ancient signposts that point the way “back to Zion”, we are restoring them and clearing away the obstructions so that others who are looking for them can find them too.
This web site is for any who are hearing the shepherd’s voice and realizing that they may, after all, be the “lost sheep of the House of Israel”. So come in from the cold and don’t stay lost!
Some of us are already "found sheep", and you can be too!
No one can fully walk out this covenant by himself. The call from the heavens today is to form communities where we can truly learn to love our neighbors as ourselves, because that is the context in which Israel and its charter, the Torah, were designed to function.
Congregation Beth Lechem aims to be one prototype of what such a community can look like.
Look inside to learn more about
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The Messiah came not so we could get away with sin, but so we can get away FROM it! His work was an example for us, not an excuse for us not to work. |
"The commandment is a lamp, and the Torah a light, and reproofs of correction are the way of life."