The Pulling the Thread Podcast

Have you ever questioned the way your faith was presented to you? In this captivating episode of the Pulling the Threads Podcast, Ben Wagenmaker and Jeramiah tackle complex issues of faith, tradition, and personal transformation. Join them as they explore their journeys from the fervent intensity of Pentecostalism to the introspective world of Judaism.

In this episode of the Pulling The Threads Podcast Jeramiah Giehl interviewed Ben Wagenmaker about his religious journey, starting with his Christian background and transition to Pentecostalism. They also discussed biblical literacy, interpretation, and inconsistencies. They also shared their experiences with conversion to Judaism and the challenges of maintaining kosher practices in interfaith households. The conversation ended with a discussion about managing online groups related to leaving Christianity for Torah and the challenges they face in moderating discussions and handling objections.

Delve into a thought-provoking conversation that covers:

• Examining the Bible: Unpack diverse perspectives on scripture, from the Tanakh and the New Testament to the complexities of historical context and interpretation.
• The Persuasive Influence of Pentecostalism: Unveil the inner mechanisms of Pentecostal worship, including the use of music, preaching, and peer pressure to manipulate the crowd.
• Miracles and Healings: Considering the influence of the mind.
• Messianic Beliefs: Navigate the nuances of Messianic interpretations within Christianity and their relationship to traditional Jewish beliefs.
• From Fire to Stillness: Chart the emotional terrain of transitioning from the charged atmosphere of Pentecostal churches to the contemplative practice of Synagogue services.
• Emotional vs. Intellectual Engagement: Explore the delicate balance between emotional connection and intellectual stimulation in religious worship.

Embark on a riveting journey of faith and self-discovery with the latest episode of the Pulling the Threads Podcast. In this thought-provoking discussion, host Jeramiah leads a captivating exploration with guest Ben Wagenmaker, unraveling the tapestry of Ben’s Christian background and the profound influence of Christianity on his life.

Jeremiah and Ben had a detailed discussion about biblical literacy and interpretation. Ben shared his approach to studying the Bible, focusing on the New Testament and the importance of having at least two or three witnesses to establish a doctrine. They also discussed the interpretation of the Old Testament, with Jeremiah expressing concerns about inconsistencies and translations. Ben shared his shift towards studying Biblical Hebrew and the Tanak, leading him to question the discrepancies and eternal nature of the covenant in the Tanakh. The discussion concluded with Jeremiah questioning the authenticity and consistency of the New Testament and emphasizing the need for consistent themes and at least three clear witnesses in the Tanach for any additional revelation.

Ben and Jeremiah had a discussion about the inconsistencies in the New Testament and compared it to works of fiction, arguing that the New Testament should be held to a higher standard. They also explored the possibility that the grand narrative story might not be accurate. Ben concluded that the New Testament is classic literature, with Jeremiah agreeing.

Jeramiah and Ben had a detailed discussion about their religious experiences. They explored the similarities and differences in their respective experiences, including practices like speaking in tongues and laying of hands. They also discussed the role of music, emotionalism, and “power evangelism” in religious services and their impact on congregations. However, Jeramiah expressed skepticism about the authenticity of healing and miracle claims, citing possible psychosomatic effects and lack of witnessed true miracles.

Ben and Jeramiah discussed their experiences with Messianic groups, focusing on their perceived dishonesty and cultural appropriation. They criticized the Messianic movement’s attempt to mask its true identity as a form of deception. They also highlighted how Messianic believers, while claiming to respect Jewish traditions, often attempt to convert Jews to their faith. The conversation underscored their view that Messianic groups, rather than respecting Jewish traditions, were engaging in cultural appropriation and deception.

Jeramiah and Ben engaged in a conversation about their personal religious experiences and the role of music and emotionalism in Pentecostalism. Jeramiah shared his healing transition to Judaism, emphasizing the tranquility and authenticity of the services. That Ben Guy expressed his appreciation for the intellectual stimulation and authenticity of Judaism, but missed the music. He also shared his preference for a balance of Bible study and preaching over emotional manipulation. Both agreed on the significance of intellectual stimulation in their religious practices.

Jeramiah and Ben discussed their experiences with conversion to Judaism. Jeramiah shared his personal journey, while Ben shared that his conversion was overseen by his conservative rabbi. They also discussed the rules in Ben’ s synagogue, such as no cell phones or pictures during Shabbat and the requirement to keep kosher. Ben, who lives an hour’s drive away from his synagogue, was allowed to drive as part of the conservative movement’s allowance. Ben, who is part of an interfaith family, expressed his interest in converting despite his non-Jewish wife. He shared that his rabbi has encouraged him to do his best with keeping kosher, acknowledging the challenges due to his living conditions and his wife’s devotion to Christianity.

Ben discussed his approach to maintaining kosher practices in an interfaith household, taking into account his spouse’s faith biases. He explained his efforts to keep kosher, including avoiding pork and shellfish, but not buying kosher meat due to distance and his rabbi’s understanding of his situation. He also touched on the concept of Shabbat and its observance in his household. Jeramiah shared his experience of converting with his wife and son, which facilitated their transition to kosher practices. The conversation also covered the differences between kosher and halal meat, with Jeramiah clarifying that non-kosher meat can be made kosher even if drained and salted. The discussion ended with Jeremiah asking about Ben’s wife’s feelings regarding his conversion.

Then Ben and Jeramiah had a detailed discussion about interfaith dynamics and their impact on personal relationships. That Ben shared his experiences with his wife’s conversion to Judaism and his navigation of his new identity in their interfaith household. Jeramiah shared his own experiences with interfaith conversion and how his family’s Jewish background made the transition smoother. They also discussed the challenges of balancing religious traditions and customs, and the conflicts that can arise from differing beliefs. The conversation ended with a discussion on managing online groups related to leaving Christianity for Torah and the challenges they face in moderating discussions and handling objections.

Ben shared his experience as a moderator in online forums, emphasizing the importance of maintaining civility and avoiding personal attacks. He also discussed his religious journey from Baptist to Pentecostal theology, and eventually to Judaism, noting his desire to avoid fundamentalism and respect towards previous faiths. He explained his approach to interfaith dialogue, focusing on challenging beliefs and opinions while remaining civil and respectful. Jeramiah responded positively to Ben’s balanced attitude. They discussed Jeramiah’s journey from Christianity to Judaism and his approach to sharing his experiences and knowledge with others, emphasizing a non-confrontational and non-proselytizing approach. They also discussed their experiences with religious communities and the absence of pressure to convert others within Judaism. Towards the end, they talked about Jeramiah’s podcast and blog, and how people could connect with Jeramiah if they had any questions about Judaism.

Whether you’re firmly rooted in your beliefs or grappling with uncertainties, this episode offers valuable insights for anyone seeking deeper understanding and authenticity in their spiritual exploration.

Don’t miss this powerful journey of faith and its transformative power. Listen to the Pulling the Threads Podcast episode now!

Chapters & Topics – Chapter descriptions

• 0:26 Introduction and Background
• 2:20 Background and Journey in Christianity
• 6:43 Examination of Biblical Literacy
• 21:08 Discussion on Inconsistencies in Religious Texts
• 25:19 Discussion on the Book of Acts and its literary nature
• 28:19 Discussion on Pentecostalism and Missionary Work
• 30:42 Discussion on Emotional Manipulation and Worship Techniques
• 34:31 Perspectives on Miracles and Healing
• 38:37 Discussion on Messianic Influence
• 44:52 Messianic Influence
• 45:30 Transitioning to Judaism and Reflecting on Emotional Manipulation
• 47:31 Transition to Judaism
• 48:26 Perspectives on Emotion and Intellect in Religious Worship
• 55:09 Perspectives on Jewish Conversion and Lifestyle
• 55:53 Experience with Conversion and Observance

More than just a podcast episode, this is an invitation to introspection.

As the episode draws to a close, action items and key questions emerge, prompting reflections on the transition from Pentecostalism to Judaism, maintaining the balance between emotional and intellectual engagement in religious practices, and the ongoing conversion process.

• Consider the “action items” outlined by Ben, prompting self-reflection on your own spiritual journey.
• Ponder the key questions posed throughout the discussion, sparking critical thought about faith and practice.

Action Items:

• 50:56 Reflect on transitioning from Pentecostalism to Judaism and appreciate the intellectual stimulation and authenticity of the Jewish lifestyle.
• 51:24 Maintain the balance between emotional and intellectual engagement in religious practices.
• 56:05 Work closely with a rabbi on the conversion process and observance of Jewish lifestyle.
• 1:00:04 Ben will continue to do the best he can with what he has in terms of keeping kosher and observing Shabbat, while considering Shalom Bayis (peace at home) in an interfaith household.

Key Questions:

• 11:49 How did your view of the Old Testament change as you started reading the Tanakh and looking at the whole chapter context?
• 45:37 How did the emotional manipulation in Pentecostalism compare to the tranquility and authenticity of being in a synagogue?
• 47:31 How has your transition from the excitement and emotionalism of Pentecostalism to Judaism been?
• 55:53 What has your experience been as you’re going through conversion, taking on kosher, Shabbat, and observance of the festivals?

Listeners are left with a profound understanding of the intricte layers of faith, Pentecostalism, and the transformative journey to Judaism. The episode serves as a beacon of enlightenment, encouraging contemplation on the emotive and cognitive aspects of religious worship and the pursuit of a higher spiritual standard.

Full Transcript – Interview Ben Wagenmaker Tue. Feb 6, 2024

5:41 – Jeramiah Giehl
All right, welcome to the Pulling the Threads podcast. Today, I will be interviewing Ben Wagonmaker, is that how you say your last name?

5:51 – That Ben Guy
Yeah, Wagonmaker. Wagonmaker.

5:54 – Jeramiah Giehl
Was your ancestor, did they make wagons?

5:57 – That Ben Guy
I’m sure they did, probably six or seven generations ago.

6:02 – Jeramiah Giehl
Um, yeah, so we connected on a couple of the forums, um, on Facebook, um, and you’re currently going through a process of conversion. Um, and so, yeah, we’re just going to kind of do an interview. Um, do you want to kind of give a little bit of a background on yourself? Um, first, just kind of like, um, what you do, where you’re at and kind of how you come to this.

6:29 – That Ben Guy
Sure, sure, of course. I’ll start by saying that, of course, they say there’s nothing new under the sun. So I’m sure that some of the things I’ll share, somebody else can relate to it, even if it’s just one person. If there’s something I say that you can’t relate to, that’s fine. But someone else will probably relate to it. So that being said, my background is I come from a very, very Christian background. My parents, going back several generations, came from the established church tradition, and my mom came from the Baptist church tradition.

7:08 – That Ben Guy
Her dad, my maternal grandfather, was actually a Baptist minister for a time. I grew up in the Baptist church, and I went to a Baptist school from K to That means we had compulsory chapel every week regularly, and we had compulsory Bible classes where we studied the Bible on an academic level for years. And so I was very biblically literate from an early age where we had to study the Bible, not just read it. And we actually were encouraged to memorize not just verses, but chapters, entire chapters.

7:52 – That Ben Guy
And that was part of the standard education of what we did in the Baptist Church. They were very heavy on the scriptures. And of course, I knew, at least in my mind, I knew the Bible as good or better than a lot of people who went to seminary or went to Bible school after they graduated high school. But of course, in a standard Christian mindset, knowing the Bible, as it were, in air quotes, means knowing the New Testament and knowing the parts of what we call, they call, the Old Testament as much as, only to the extent that it confirms what the New Testament says.

8:32 – That Ben Guy
So basically, like any good Christian, I knew about the Torah, but I only really only knew what the New Testament says about the Torah. I didn’t really know the Torah itself, even though it was in my Bible the whole time. Because as lots of people who grew up in a similar background know, the New Testament is considered the primary. It’s considered the primary revelation and the Old Testament was basically this mysterious thing that can only be interpreted with the light of the New Testament revelations.

9:08 – That Ben Guy
That’s kind of how I grew up in the Baptist church. And that was my background until I was an early, until I was an adult. And then I actually became a Pentecostal. And so that was actually a very dramatic change going from Baptist to Pentecostal in the sense that it was the same Bible, but it was a very different application of a lot of the same teachings. To make a very long story short, parents were very concerned for me. And of course, Pentecostals tend to be concerned about Baptists and vice versa.

9:47 – That Ben Guy
And of course, as you and I both know, there are over Christian denominations and they’re all concerned about each other’s soul. So anyway, I was caught up in that for a while. And in my Pentecostal part of my journey, I discovered really good church music. One thing, I mean, say what you will about Pentecostal churches, they have excellent music. A lot of them have rock bands. They have bands, they have good music mixes, they have light shows, especially the megachurches. And I’ve visited a couple megachurches in my time.

10:22 – That Ben Guy
And actually, I got caught up with that. Church musician for years before that, but in the Baptist Church it was not quite as exciting because it’s usually a piano or an organ, or at least it was at that time. And then when I became Pentecostal, I actually joined my first worship band as a keyboard player and really enjoyed it. I was a worship leader for over years. When my wife and I met, we were both worship leaders. And of course, she comes from the same background that I came from Her parents were both Christians going back a while.

10:56 – That Ben Guy
Her siblings are Christian. My siblings are Christian. Her cousins are Christian. My cousins are Christian. And so I was very deeply anchored in both my wife and I’s journeys. Now, that pretty much brings me up to date up until last year.

11:12 – Jeramiah Giehl
Okay, so I kind of want to ask some questions. You know, I don’t want to move too fast through everything. One, I’m going to ask some questions based on what you said. One, you said you were biblically literate. So you had studied, so the New Testament you’re reading, you know, the context, the whole chapter, not just the verse.

11:36 – That Ben Guy
Absolutely.

11:36 – Jeramiah Giehl
And yet your view of the Old Testament was more reading verses maybe that you saw in the New Testament, or where you felt like the verses confirmed the New Testament, but you had not yet started reading the Old Testament and looking at the whole chapter context yet.

11:54 – That Ben Guy
That is pretty much it, and that is how a lot of biblically literate Christians operate. They’re biblically literate to the point where they read the New Testament, and they require a lot of integrity when they read the New Testament. It has to be in a context, and I was actually taught to study theology from the standpoint of, and this is something that I’ve carried into Judaism with me, is there is a principle of let everything be established out of the mouths of two or three witnesses.

12:27 – That Ben Guy
And even the Jewish law, that’s when someone is punished or accused of breaking a famine under Jewish law, There needs to be witnesses. And so theologically speaking, I was taught that every doctrinal point should be established out of the models of two or three witnesses. And so what that means is that if you see one isolated verse that seems to confirm a weird theory, you can’t just make a doctrine, you can’t run and make a doctrine out of one possible interpretation of one verse.

12:55 – That Ben Guy
If it’s going to be authoritative as a doctrine, it has to be established out of at least two or three sources within the Bible. Of course, in the Christian context, it would be in the New Testament. Now, in Judaism, I’m looking at taking the same principle, taking the pashat, or the obvious interpretation of a meeting, and if it can be established out of two or three verses in the Tanakh, then I’m totally comfortable seeing it as a doctrine, something that’s very foundational, something that could be a rule, not the exception.

13:33 – That Ben Guy
And so that’s kind of how I was taught. And that was actually a very sound practice that I’ve actually carried over into Judaism with me.

13:43 – Jeramiah Giehl
now so I mean that’s very interesting because if you apply the three witness uh the uh method you’re talking about to the old testament now a lot of these passages that christians used to say jesus was a suffering servant or the various things in the tanakh they start to unravel because you don’t have a consistency of witnesses that say the same thing you have a verse that one, they’re relying on a Greek subdugent translation, not a Hebrew translation. So therefore, it’s already lost its meaning from the original, and then they’re stringing verses together.

14:24 – Multiple Speakers
But if you’re looking at the whole chapter, the context is different.

14:29 – Jeramiah Giehl
It’s maybe speaking about Israel, not an individual. So if you were to apply that three witness to… So kind of my question is, so how did Because in Bible college, I learned exegesis, hermeneutics, and we learned about the proper context of a passage and stuff.

14:48 – That Ben Guy
And of course, they applied it to the New Testament.

14:51 – Jeramiah Giehl
But as a child myself, I had read the Tanakh twice and the New Testament once. And I always had problems with the New Testament. And even though I was raised, you know, because my mom became a Jehovah’s Witness, I was raised in that. Like you, I went into a Pentecostal experience and then Messianic before converting to Judaism. But yes, there were things that stuck with me. The exegesis, the hermeneutics, trying to see what’s in the passage, understanding to whom is being spoken to, where, what, the why, the how, all this stuff.

15:27 – Jeramiah Giehl
Now, those methods helped me to look into the passage deeper. But again, Like even in Bible College, they briefly mentioned the document hypothesis regarding the Old Testament. I don’t know if they really got into, I don’t think they ever got into textual criticism when it came to the New Testament, maybe in passing. But the textual criticism, looking at how documents made, and looking into like The who, what, why, where, and how in the fullness of the passage is something that I always took when I was looking at passages.

16:04 – Jeramiah Giehl
How did, I guess, did this play into your starting to look at the New Testament use of the Tanakh?

16:15 – That Ben Guy
I prefer the term Tanakh over Old Testament.

16:18 – Jeramiah Giehl
How did it start changing your view of either the New Testament or Christian use of the Tanakh?

16:27 – That Ben Guy
Okay, well, I think there’s two different ways to look at this, and I’m going to start with going back to my Christian mindset. You know, I’m going to speak for the way I used to see, and I’m not going to suppose that Christians still see it this way or any other Christian views it this way. This is how I, when I was a Christian, viewed it. Using the three witness rule, the New Testament played very heavily, better if the Old Testament mentioned something once. Okay, in that context, if the Old Testament, which we now call the Tanakh, I now call the Tanakh, but I use the Old Testament talking of my old life.

17:04 – That Ben Guy
But what I used to call the Old Testament, if there’s just one verse that the New Testament repeated twice, to me, that was sufficient as the three witnesses. So if Isaiah was mentioned, you know, and they don’t even, it’s allegorical. And it’s the funny thing is allegory by definition is not clear, but people think it’s clear and it’s clearly X when it’s really not X at all. But that’s kind of the way they see it. If the New Testament interprets a Tanakh passage as X, then to a Christian, it’s X and nothing else because the New Testament says so, because that is their word of God.

17:46 – That Ben Guy
That plays heavily into their three witness rule, at least how I understood it back in the time. Now, fast forward to when the Tanakh started changing for me. Fast forward to last year, up until the point of the beginning of last year, I had been a lifelong Christian and I was still a worship leader at my church. But I had started reading biblical Hebrew and learning biblical Hebrew. And so my focus was Tanakh, Tanakh, less New Testament. And the more I read the Tanakh, the more I saw the discrepancies, the more I saw the eternal nature of God’s covenant with Israel and how it was irrevocable.

18:31 – That Ben Guy
And, you know, frankly, eternal means eternal. It’s not replaceable. And this might seem like a very small detail, even to you or to anyone else, but to me, it was a very large detail to me, just the idea that in the New Testament, when Jesus claims to be the way, the truth, the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me, that’s a claim of exclusive access to God, and that bothered me. It bothered me that he would say that he had exclusive access to God when God had an eternal covenant that existed previous to him.

19:16 – That Ben Guy
He was around before he was in the portrait. So, and that bothered me so much that, you know, I finally had to reconcile the idea that both cannot simultaneously be true. One has to be true and the other is untrue. So after probably several weeks of, I guess, painful introspection, I decided that the New Testament was not true. And I decided to just follow Torah after that and never looked back. Now, I don’t know if you want me to keep going or if you have any questions to clarify.

19:54 – Jeramiah Giehl
I mean, you know, if you, Try to keep track of where you’re going. Any thoughts? I do have some questions and stuff here and there that I may interject. But so for me, the three witness thing would require it to be consistent within the Tanakh.

20:09 – Multiple Speakers
You have to have three consistent witnesses in the Tanakh for that to be something you can consider if there was an additional revelation or whatever.

20:22 – Jeramiah Giehl
I find it highly dubious to say there’s one verse in the Tanakh and there’s two to three confirmations in the New Testament, well honestly to me that would invalidate the New Testament by the simple fact that it’s not first confirmed in the text they use for support. So if the New Testament wants to you know, which I don’t subscribe to it as inspired or inerrant. It’s a human document that the full surviving copies we have are fourth century and beyond. Made me fragmentary before that.

20:57 – Jeramiah Giehl
We have no original attestation of first century whatever may have or did not exist, if it even existed. So I mean I don’t take it as a true infallible word of god right uh as it’s not it’s a human document that we know has had multiple layers of redaction um but all that aside if we’re going to discuss the merits of whether based on its own testimony One of the things that I did when I was converting, because my mom became a Jehovah’s Witness when I was like four, that’s how I was raised.

21:31 – Jeramiah Giehl
When I was deciding to leave, one of the first things I did was like, well, let me test the thing against itself to see if it holds to be true. Because I was hearing from a Christian apologist that it’s a cult and there’s this stuff. And so I started researching within its own movement, within itself, to see if it was true to itself. And so I started looking into their translation of the Bible, the Greek and English interlinear, trying to study the Greek words and what was actually in the Greek text they used for theirs.

22:08 – Jeramiah Giehl
And I found inconsistencies there, so kind of searching deeper. Something should hold true within itself. When you find inconsistencies within itself, then you start have to question it, and I think maybe that’s kind of a similar experience you had when you start to get into the Hebrew, and you’re starting to see some inconsistencies. I genuinely feel like if you want to start with, you say the Old Testament’s your foundation, then you need to find a consistent theme That can generally be recognized by You know the average unlearned mind.

22:46 – Jeramiah Giehl
It doesn’t have to be complicated or You know strange math, you know tinfoil hat conspiracy Well, you know, it says this vaguely says this vaguely this allegory and then it paints this picture No, there needs to be three clear witnesses at least for there to be a continuing and and if even you know, you know if you move into say Messianic or other Christians who kind of try to say I that it’s grafting in this kind of weird

23:19 – Unidentified Speaker
thing.

23:20 – Jeramiah Giehl
Well, you can’t graft into something if you disconnect and become something else. You’re not grafted in at all. If you don’t follow the existing revelation and have a consistency within that, then whatever you’re doing, you’re not even grafted in. So I feel like, just for me, definitely that consistent theme of minimum three, clearly, easily understandable, you would need. But yeah, you had made the comment the Old Testament confirms only in reading the verses, whereas the context might have a different meaning.

24:01 – Jeramiah Giehl
Were there any passages specifically, like in the Tanakh, you did mention the Eternal Covenant Were there any other passages when you were studying biblical Hebrew that started to stick out to you as maybe what the text is saying versus what the New Testament or Christianity is saying didn’t line up with what you had been led to believe in your Baptist or Pentecostal experience?

24:26 – That Ben Guy
Actually, nothing really particular, just the main passage that bothered me is the one that I mentioned earlier, John six. That’s the one that made me derail. That’s the one that derailed everything for me. Because if John six is untrue, then that is a central teaching of what they call the New Testament. And if the central teaching of the New Testament is untrue, then the New Testament itself is untrue. And really that is the one single passage that derailed my Christianity.

24:56 – That Ben Guy
That’s the single passage. And other than that, I mean, since then I’ve noticed other inconsistencies, of course, let’s say in the book of Acts. You see two very different, even in the same book, it’s funny how, you know, you look at this in retrospect and you see that in Acts, I think it was Acts Paul supposedly has his private vision that no one else witnesses. And there’s Acts and there’s Acts And don’t quote me on this because I don’t remember which is which, but in one of the chapters that the men who were with him saw nothing, but they heard a voice.

25:37 – That Ben Guy
But a few chapters later, they heard nothing, but they saw a light.

25:42 – Jeramiah Giehl
And it’s in the same book.

25:44 – That Ben Guy
And come on, I mean, fiction writers are held to a higher standard than that.

25:48 – Jeramiah Giehl
Right. The inconsistency is, yeah.

25:51 – That Ben Guy
It’s crazy because of a fiction writer. I mean, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, if she had something remotely that flagrant and an inconsistency in her writing, she would be roasted mercilessly online. And that’s, I mean, like, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that fiction writers are held to a higher standard. And, you know, if you want to accept something as the word of God, come on, have a higher standard, at least than that of a fiction writer. Right? I mean, it is fiction, but you know, that’s another story.

26:25 – That Ben Guy
Classic literature, classic literature.

26:27 – Jeramiah Giehl
But still, I mean, the editorial standards at the time may not have been the same. They didn’t have the same access to information that we do.

26:39 – Multiple Speakers
And so it was a lot easier to pass off a lie as a truth back then.

26:44 – Jeramiah Giehl
Yeah, there was no fact checkers or whatever back in the day.

26:47 – That Ben Guy
People couldn’t just Google whatever just to make sure it was true. But even then, I mean, there were so many inconsistencies. And even when I was a Christian, there were known inconsistencies between the… And again, it goes back to the classic Christian argument, which is what I find laughable these days, They say that, you know, in a court of law, if you have four different witnesses, it’s normal and expected for there to be certain inconsistencies between the stories. And if they are exactly the same, it’s evidence of collusion.

27:20 – That Ben Guy
And, you know, that’s fine in a court of law. But when you’re talking about people that are inspired by God, again, there should be a higher standard. There shouldn’t, I mean, I can understand, you know, some people remembering certain details that others didn’t remember. But when people remember the same details very differently within the word of God, it just seems like that’s not a high enough standard for the word of God. And especially when there’s inconsistencies in the same book, like I mentioned in the book of Acts.

27:51 – That Ben Guy
Well, but that’s a very problematic statement. Like, okay, let’s circle back.

27:56 – Jeramiah Giehl
And that’s, you know, there’s these claims that are made and it’s like, there’s cognitive dissonance going on. But for a judge to find somebody guilty, there’s got to be clear evidence that, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt. So if you have four testimonies that are not consistent, they rise reasonable doubt.

28:14 – Multiple Speakers
So you have in a court of law, we’re kind of going back to three, you know, if you have multiple witness, you need to have at least three to have the base, the same basic consistent theme that beyond a

28:23 – Jeramiah Giehl
reasonable doubt, we can say, okay. That’s most likely what happened. And maybe the fourth one has, you know, a different story and we can’t explain it, but you still have to have two to three people. I, you know, when I remember looking at law stuff a long time ago, but you have to have a consistency of testimony that will leave you without reasonable doubt. If you have four people who give you reasonable doubt, you can’t find somebody guilty. So even that analogy undermines, like, if you really look into it, it’s like, it’s like, we hear these things and it’s like, and, and I’ve, I fell for it back in the day, the apologist, like, you know, uh, Their arguments and you’re like, okay, you don’t really critically look at it and go away.

29:11 – Jeramiah Giehl
Well, what is needed to find somebody guilty or innocent, right? Oh, there’s multiple testimonies, but to find somebody guilty, there’s got to be consistency of testimony that’s beyond reasonable doubt. And so, I don’t know, I fell for these when I was in the Christian world. I didn’t critically examine them and go, oh, wait a minute. That’s actually kind of silly if you think about it. You hear what I’m saying? Yeah, exactly.

29:40 – Multiple Speakers
And you know something, going back to the court example, if you have the same witness contradict himself, that raises even more doubt.

29:49 – That Ben Guy
And so Book of Acts, they’re contradicting themselves in the same book with the same author.

29:54 – Multiple Speakers
And so again, fiction writers are held to a higher standard.

29:56 – That Ben Guy
And so with that, I, in my mind, the case is closed. It’s, it’s fiction. I mean, and now look at it, go ahead. It’s just classic literature.

30:07 – Jeramiah Giehl
That’s where I was going to go with this. As we look at it, it is literary fiction, Greek literature, and it follows the traditional Greek motifs, the epic story, and there are different elements pulled in it. It seems like it may be pulling from four different types of Greek literature. There may be, you know, if you get into historical Jesus scholarship and the Q hypothesis, there might be oral sayings of a guy who existed, nothing like what’s in the New Testament, but these oral sayings were there.

30:47 – Jeramiah Giehl
And on all you have for most people who look at the first century is there were probably maybe oral sayings of this guy and then you have you know in the second century the first written tradition we have is marcion finds uh paul’s letters and his proto-gospel he wrote and then you start having other gospels appear in written form of course christians say they existed in the first century there’s the oral the the wording it sounds like something that was written in, you know, the first century.

31:21 – Jeramiah Giehl
Yet, we have first texts, Marcy, and then we start having other gospels and epistles appearing, and then this textual tradition just becomes this huge thing by the fourth century. But it’s highly dubious that there was any of that grand story in the first century. Maybe sayings, okay, sure, maybe, but then the story has changes, and that’s where we have the layers of redaction in the New Testament. We have different communities with different views of what his life was and so it was kind of a process of grand narrative making around this guy who may have made some sayings until they have a kind of I say government conceived plot to make it into a cohesive theme by the fourth century but That’s not really where we’re going to go today on this.

32:14 – Jeramiah Giehl
But, you know, if there was a guy, I can’t say that the grand, you know, narrative story that comes out is what happened. You know, there’s no… Again, it’s written decades and centuries later, so it’s kind of written in a way that’s unfalsifiable. Because you can’t go back and you can’t go, well, what was said, what was done, you don’t have contemporary witnesses, and so it’s pretty dubious. Sorry to go on a tangent, I kind of want to circle back to a couple questions on your journey.

32:48 – Jeramiah Giehl
One, you said that you went into Pentecostalism for a while. What branch of Pentecostalism were you involved with?

32:58 – That Ben Guy
Most recently, it was what they call the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, because I moved to Canada as an adult. They’re kind of related to the Assemblies of God, right?

33:08 – Jeramiah Giehl
Yeah, they are related to the Assemblies of God in the US.

33:09 – Multiple Speakers
Because I stayed in a hotel in Lucerne, Switzerland that was owned by them when I did some missionary work when I was a Christian. Right.

33:21 – Jeramiah Giehl
They have a lot of mission organizations that go around the world.

33:25 – That Ben Guy
So I think Youth With A Mission, YWAM, is one of the organizations that goes all over the world, especially to Switzerland. Yeah, I did it. I did a traveling performing play, you know, through like Western Europe.

33:41 – Multiple Speakers
But it was, well, it was an Assemblies of God thing, but they they were kind of working with some of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.

33:50 – Jeramiah Giehl
Yeah, before I moved to Canada, I was affiliated with AOG, what they used to call AOG, the Assemblies of God.

33:57 – That Ben Guy
So it was the classic Pentecostal, you know, speaking in tongues, prophecy, that type of thing, lying on of hands. And, you know, there’s a lot of the mega churches you see, you know, on TV where people lay hands and they fall down and You know, been there, done that. Can’t say I’m proud of it, but I’ve been there. I know what it’s about. Um, so, I mean, yeah, I mean that kind of the, you know, to talk about, you know, similarities and journeys and questions about it.

34:29 – Jeramiah Giehl
Um, so the thing is in, well, I’ve got two questions, a statement and two questions, and I’ll kind of start with like the question, kind of get in a statement and then let you answer. But, um, One thing is a lot of the Pentecostal assemblies of God, of course they have miracles laying out on hands, speaking in tongues is big, but also I’ve always seen a familiarity with some of the teaching about festivals and the tabernacle and Hebraisms sprinkled in. So one of my questions is how much of that was sprinkled into your Pentecostal experience?

35:11 – Jeramiah Giehl
And then the other one is, the emotionalism and the use of rising and swelling music, you know, to make people excited. How much as a former worship leader were you aware of, you know, like John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard Church, talked about power evangelism. That you don’t preach until you get them into a certain state through worship, that they’re receptive to the word. Now that’s how he says it, but the rising swelling of music, the emotionalism, you know, passionate preaching, calling people forward to be touched, the social and peer pressure of, you gotta fall down to get touched from God almost kind of thing.

36:00 – Jeramiah Giehl
Like there’s an intense, it’s intentional, it’s, coerced and at times cooperative that you’re being worked up into this state that you’re more receptive to the word and the other one is more receptive to giving money.

36:18 – Unidentified Speaker
How much are you aware of that in your experience?

36:22 – Jeramiah Giehl
Totally, completely aware of that.

36:24 – That Ben Guy
As someone who was a worship leader, I actually knew of the power of emotional states. And emotional manipulation is a huge thing. They don’t call it emotional manipulation because it just sounds too carnal to them. They want it to make, they want to make it sound spiritual. But they would say they wouldn’t even call it spiritual manipulation and called spiritual movement.

36:51 – Unidentified Speaker
Yeah.

36:51 – That Ben Guy
And so the emotions help tap into, you know, your soul, you know, and of course now, In Judaism, the soul and the spirit are synonymous. It’s the same thing. Whereas as a Christian, I thought there were two separate things. It’s kind of an odd theological point that we don’t have time to get into. But when you are able to get people emotionally engaged, that’s when their soul opens up. Whatever you share in that state of emotional swelling, to use your words, whatever you say is going to be more quickly, much more readily, much more deeply without being questioned.

37:48 – That Ben Guy
So what we would do is the job of a worship team is to basically make sure that people are in an atmosphere where they’re emotionally open and ready to receive readily without question. And of course, no one will say that under oath. That’s essentially what they’re doing, is making sure that people are emotionally engaged so that whatever the preacher says is going to be received openly, readily, with very little question, because their emotions are open. And when your emotions are open, it’s amazing how deeply you can accept something as truth.

38:36 – That Ben Guy
And so, yeah, I definitely was aware. And, you know, there’s a very real truth to how emotions can affect you. When you have music that moves your emotions and it makes you open not only to the words of the pastor, but to divine intervention. And when I say that, I will say, and of course, there’ll be skeptics, I’ve seen the miraculous, I have witnessed people say that they got healed while I played piano or while my wife sang. And they’ll say, I was this way, no, I’m not this way, praise God.

39:20 – That Ben Guy
And, you know, I still to this day don’t doubt that that actually happened because I’ve realized with time that when God gives you a miracle, it’s not to pat you on the back and say, you believe the right thing, so I’m going to bless you. When God gives someone a miracle, it’s because he’s merciful. It’s not because you have the right faith statement. It’s not because you’re in the proper denomination out of the other denominations, so I’m gonna touch you. So you can believe something totally wrong about God, and God will still be merciful towards you, and he can still give you a miracle because he’s merciful, not because you deserve it.

40:02 – That Ben Guy
Well, I have a completely different perspective and I’d push back on that a little bit.

40:09 – Jeramiah Giehl
I don’t disagree. In psychosomatic healing. I don’t disagree. So there are Hindus like there was a Hindu guy doing kind of like this laughing revival thing. It’s kind of where the laughing revival got its roots in Christianity. Came from a Hindu thing and he would do similar things preaching and people were laughing and people experienced healing. Okay so People experiencing psychosomatic symptoms of healing is not exclusive to Christianity. No, it’s not. It’s not exclusive to a religion.

40:51 – Jeramiah Giehl
It would take a really long discussion, but there is a majority of the things that people are treated for by doctors are psychosomatic. They’re mentally caused illnesses. A majority of the things we go to doctors for is stress-related.

41:05 – That Ben Guy
Stress can increase anxiety, asthma, depression, you know, all this kind of stuff.

41:13 – Jeramiah Giehl
I think is close to of all the stuff that’s treated is mentally related stuff. And in psychology, you talk about a moment of catharsis. So whatever that point of catharsis is for you, whether it’s a Hindu doing their prayer, whether it’s Benny Hinn throwing a cloth at your face and you falling out, if in your mind you believe that that relieved what is a psychosomatic symptom of, you know, a trauma or a stress in your mind, you believe that relieves it, then your body, even sometimes when you don’t actually have a complete healing, because sometimes your body will tell you you’re okay, and you’ll start to feel better.

41:59 – Jeramiah Giehl
So I would disagree with the statement that it was God or divine intervention. While that is possible, I would say that a majority of, and because I’ve been part of a lot of healing revivals and missionary work, and I’ve never seen a true miracle. I’ve never seen a person in a wheelchair. Crippled and walk. I’ve never seen a blind man see. I’ve seen, I feel like a hundred percent were psychosomatic things, things that could have been treated with antibiotics, things that could have been treated with proper mental health and proper emotional stability.

42:40 – Jeramiah Giehl
I don’t, I’ve never seen a true miracle. Yeah, that’s and I don’t doubt that. I mean, with someone else, when someone else recounts what happened to them, there’s no way to know for sure.

42:50 – That Ben Guy
And of course, people are going to be skeptical. But I’ll say that there was one point where I had a lump somewhere and it went away. You know, so maybe it was God, maybe it wasn’t, but either way, if it was God, it’s not because I believed the right thing. God can show his mercy to anybody in any religion. Well, I don’t want to spend too much time on that, you know. Right.

43:14 – Multiple Speakers
Well, your other question about messianic influence.

43:18 – That Ben Guy
There was a little bit, honestly, and it was actually quite recent. Toward the beginning of my Pentecostal experience, there was no Hebrew roots influence at all until about maybe eight years ago. There was a French-speaking church that my wife and I helped to minister at sometimes, and they invited us to do music, ministry, and translation because we’re in a French-speaking environment. Our church was French-speaking, our community still is French-speaking, and so we were involved in a French-speaking church for years.

43:57 – That Ben Guy
My wife still is. In fact, And so one of the things about ministry in Quebec is you invite speakers that speak English and don’t speak French. You need a translator. So they requested music ministry and translation, which my wife is excellent at. So they invited this minister from New Zealand who was a messianic.

44:20 – Unidentified Speaker
And that was my first experience with a Messianic believer.

44:24 – That Ben Guy
And of course, I don’t want a Messianic Jew. I probably would have in the past, but as of course, I know that Halakhah does not call them Jews, they’re Christians. He’s a Messianic believer. So anyway, that was my first experience with a Messianic. And that was my first experience with hearing their message that supersessionism is wrong. And that’s highly ironic. Very, very ironic because in my road to Judaism, I’ve had several discussions with messianics in the meantime. And they all believe in supersessionism to a degree, even though they say they don’t.

45:02 – That Ben Guy
Well, they do, but… They do, but they don’t. They believe in it differently.

45:08 – Jeramiah Giehl
Well, let me get there first. But they do, but it’s highly convoluted because they don’t want to get into the antinomianism of Paul, where he does away with the law.

45:18 – That Ben Guy
So now we got to kind of keep some of the law.

45:21 – Multiple Speakers
And they want to get rid of the things that lead to anti-semitism, but the juxt of what they believe is that you have to become a completed Jew, and you’re not a completed Jew until you believe in their fictional

45:36 – Jeramiah Giehl
savior. But that means if I’m completed there, I wasn’t completed as a Torah observant Jew, therefore it’s still supersessionism, but they have couched it in a little nicer words.

45:51 – Multiple Speakers
And I was talking to Rabbi Tovia Singer, and he even points out that they they eschew supersessionism, but I’m like, they call themselves completed Jews.

45:59 – Jeramiah Giehl
It’s the same thing by a different name. Exactly. And it’s very, you know, it’s, it’s devious, the whole thing.

46:08 – That Ben Guy
I mean, they say, you know, you know, the whole thing, as of course, you know, it’s an offshoot of the Baptist church. And the guy that started Jews for Jesus, from which most messianic movements come, the guy that started Jews for Jesus was born into a Jewish family, a reformed Jewish family. He became a Christian. Decided to missionize Jews. That was his life mission. And so he changed his name to Moshe, changed his title to rabbi from pastor, and basically changed everything to make it look Jewish and sound Jewish, even though it wasn’t.

46:41 – That Ben Guy
So it’s the whole thing is just renaming everything so that it looks different, but it isn’t different. It’s basically, it’s masking everything. It’s disguising everything and not being forthright and not being honest. It’s all about dishonesty. It’s avoiding saying the Bible because we don’t want to freak out the Jews. We want to call it our holy text. We don’t want to call it a church because that’ll freak out the Jews. We want to call it a house of worship. And we don’t want to call it the New Testament.

47:08 – That Ben Guy
That’ll freak out the Jews. We want to call it the Brit Hadashah. And so everything and it’s everything about it is just dishonest. We don’t want to call it what it really is. We want to hide its true identity under a Jewish piece of clothing. And so they don’t use the word supersessionism. Yeah. They don’t want to call it supersessionism because that freaks out the Jews. They call it something else, even though An astute Jew or third-party observer will see it as, for what it is, it is supersessionism, as you’ve described, because they see our faith as, you know, they see Torah observance as inadequate, incomplete, without belief in their Messiah, their divine Messiah, without whom we cannot be right with God, which is totally antithetical to Torah.

47:59 – That Ben Guy
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, you know, it comes across as wolves in sheep’s clothing.

48:05 – Jeramiah Giehl
It’s definitely cultural appropriation, but Christians do it in every country that they try to do missions, and they go into Africa or China, they try to adopt the dress and the culture and the lingua. Uh missionaries when they go to aboriginal villages you know they uh I I remember hearing stories reading about various missionaries flying into the jungles of the amazon uh starting out when they learned the language and they would associate whatever the the late natives called their god they would call their God, but then they’d start to add in and explain Jesus.

48:39 – Jeramiah Giehl
But it’s very much what Catholicism did at the beginning. It’s a very syncretic religion where it would blend these things together. And I feel like since the roots of Christianity back to Catholicism, they would always blend things together into something, but it’s a very deceptive practice. The thing that always stuck into my mind and was kind of a juxtamite transition, I was involved with Dr. Raymond Gannon, he was part of Jewish Voice in the King Seminary. He was one of the ones who had founded a…

49:11 – Jeramiah Giehl
So he came out of the Seminary of God. He founded a messianic congregation in the 70s or something like that in LA. Because there’s the Baptist ones, and then there’s the ones that kind of come from the Pentecostal background, and come to the Messianic Jewish background. Anyways, he had talked about dressing up, and he’s a Gentile who has not converted, but he talks about dressing up as more Orthodox than the Orthodox to convert him. I was reading the book by the Reformed rabbi, Carol Harris Shapiro, who she was trying to study Messianic Judaism, and she called it cross-dressing, dressing up in the name of the cross to convert people.

49:56 – Jeramiah Giehl
And that always just sticks to my mind, but it’s cultural appropriation. You’re trying to take on the customs of a different people to pretend to be the people to get them to do what you do. And it’s so disingenuous. You know, kind of to circle back a little bit, when we’re talking about the emotionalism of Pentecostalism, the music and all that kind of stuff, for me, What was very healing when I came to conversion in the synagogue, was going to a synagogue service without instrumentation, without rising and swelling music, without this compelling oratory, and to come forward to have hands laid onto you.

50:38 – Jeramiah Giehl
And in that moment where you feel good and you feel like things are happening, now give me a bunch of money. You know, God wants you to tithe, and if you give, you’ll be blessed. It felt so great to be in a place that, one, I’m doing something where I’m offering it to God and it’s a service. I’m giving him something where I’m not trying to get something back. And for me, what was healing and brought unity to my soul was the quietness of, you know, and part of being part of that tradition where we’re praying the same prayers around the world for the past, you know, a few thousand years.

51:13 – Jeramiah Giehl
You know, I’m doing something that to repair my soul versus I’m here like Heavenly Daddy, give me stuff. You know, so that was very healing for my soul. I mean, what has been your transition?

51:27 – Multiple Speakers
How have you grappled with.

51:29 – Jeramiah Giehl
The, you know, the emotionalism, the music, the excitement of the concert, the performance to now you’re transitioning to You’re going through a conservative conversion, right? Right. Now, do they still have, because there are there are variances, you know, I go to one that has, you know, more traditional service. Sometimes you have ones that maybe Friday night they’ll play guitars or something like that. But for the most part, you know, it’s just people in a room, a minion doing prayers and offering them up to God.

52:00 – Jeramiah Giehl
Like, how is your transition from the excitement, the emotionalism, the concert to You know, Judaism, how has that been? Well, it’s actually, I’m glad you brought that up just because I do miss the music.

52:15 – That Ben Guy
You know, the Pentecostal churches have great music. I kind of miss that, but I also appreciate the tranquility and the authenticity of being there and not being emotionally manipulated.

52:28 – Jeramiah Giehl
But you know something?

52:30 – That Ben Guy
The whole emotional manipulation didn’t really exist until I was a young adult and went into Pentecostalism. In the Baptist church, it was all about Bible, Bible, and less about emotional manipulation and less about music. There was some music, but not as, or some passionate preaching, but not as much of it. It was a lot of Bible study, Bible, Bible, Bible. And so I had that balance that a lot of Pentecostals didn’t have. And a lot of Pentecostals, I’m just going to throw in a tangent for just a moment.

53:02 – That Ben Guy
I’m not going to name who she is, but there was a woman that I know very well. And she would frequently say, God doesn’t want your mind. He wants your heart. And that’s very common in Pentecostal churches to believe that. But in my Baptist rooted mind, I would say, well, God gave me both a mind and a heart. Why would he not want both? And, of course, in Judaism, it’s the same thing. God gave you both a heart and a mind. He wants both. But, you know, when you offer your heart, make sure it’s sincere and not, you know, the product of emotional manipulation from, I don’t know, a preacher that is preaching after some really beautiful music.

53:44 – That Ben Guy
Or whatever. So I offer God my heart, but it’s not after a period of great rock music that has lifted my soul to the point where, you know, I’m ready to, you know, I’m ready to be excited and receive whatever God has for me. It’s going to be something that, you know, it’s going to be consensual, if we want to put it that way, on a mental level. And to me, I prefer that just because To me, the mental level, the intelligence level is the bed from which my emotions are based. If I have an emotion, it’s ultimately based on something that I believe to be true.

54:27 – That Ben Guy
So there is a foundation of intellect somewhere within that emotion. So to me, the intellectual level is even more important than the emotional level. So I don’t mind not having that emotional manipulation because when God feeds me through the Torah with my intellect, that intellect is going to be the basis from which my emotions are going to come in the future. And so whether or not I make a decision based on emotions or logic, to me, logic is a more, I guess, I hate to say it this way, but it’s more logical because that’s the basis for all my emotions.

55:07 – That Ben Guy
So I’ve learned to appreciate that over the last year or so of going to synagogue. You know, even though I’m tempted to miss the show, the music, the lights, I miss it on a level where, you know, I miss the fun aspect of that. At the same time, I do appreciate, I have a very deep appreciation for the intellectual stimulation that I get from reading the Parsha or having it read or chanted, really, in Hebrew, followed by the Haftarah in Hebrew. And following along, I can, when I can’t catch up with the Hebrew because I’m reading so fast, I can still feed my intellect by following along in English.

55:53 – That Ben Guy
And then that intellectual foundation, you know, is going to carry me not only intellectually, but emotionally. And so I’ve learned to appreciate that. And I hope that explains, you know, I hope that adequately explains to you at least, I guess the transition from less emotion and more intellect and my appreciation of that change.

56:20 – Jeramiah Giehl
I mean, I mean, you’re essentially going to a rock concert, and who doesn’t like to go to a rock concert with their favorite artist? I mean, one, you are encouraged to put your hands up, put your all into it, to dance, to in a way express yourself. I do martial arts, so Bruce Lee, you know, He said art of expressing yourself, expressing yourself honestly. So you try to get people opened up, hands up, giving all themselves.

56:52 – Multiple Speakers
So there’s a part of you, even if you’re giving yourself up to some imaginary, that it feels good.

56:57 – Jeramiah Giehl
If I’m just like letting myself be, right? Everybody wants acceptance, whether or not, and you know, so it’s a, It’s offer of acceptance, but it’s got, now when we get into, and we’re not gonna do that today, but you get into the theology and the foundation, it’s not there. But it feels good to open yourself up, to be free, to, you know, those experiences feel good. But it feels good when somebody does the same thing at a Beyonce concert or a Jay-Z concert. So it’s not, the experience itself is not religious, though it’s in a religious setting.

57:37 – Jeramiah Giehl
But you’re convinced by the people telling you from the stage it’s religious though I know personally that the the churches I went to were concerned about air conditioning because certain levels facilitated the holy spirit better than others which was comedic to me just the thought of it put me on the floor like, God needs an air conditioning unit? Are you kidding me? You’ve got to be kidding me. Now, you know, it was enjoyable, but I enjoy a good concert too. I mean, you know, so it’s not that it’s not, and yes, part of me is like, it’d be nice if maybe there was a truly Jewish movement where maybe they had elements of that.

58:16 – Jeramiah Giehl
It would be kind of nice, but you know, Halakha when it comes to playing instrument on Shabbat, you know, You know, the Reform and Conservative, they’ll make room for it. Reform more than Conservative on that, but they still tend to be a little traditional on their usage of music. Part of me is like, if we could blend a little bit of the venue music with, you know, conservative movement, it’d be a fun service. But that’s not traditionally the Jewish way. So I but it is it is enjoyable.

58:51 – Jeramiah Giehl
But, you know, I want to touch on something you said, though. Cognitive emotive or cognitive behavior theory deals with like cognitive Emotive theory it’s your thoughts lead to your emotions lead to actions right now when people get you to buy Bypass your thought get into emotionalism. They can control your action whereas if it’s a thought that leads to emotion and you’re more in control your action, so Personally, I prefer to my emotions line up with my thought then be led into an emotional state to be led by another person I don’t want to dwell too much on that because I kind of want to transition into what’s your experience been as you’re, you know, going through conversion.

59:38 – Jeramiah Giehl
When I was going through, I was doing various experiments on, you know, keeping kosher, working on being Shomer Shabbat, observance of the festivals. My rabbi, you know, he was a conservative rabbi. He had come to Part of his Jewish experience was through the reconstruction movement, but the shul itself was an independent minion, but my conversion was conservative. But because it came from reconstruction, it was more of a make Judaism your own and personalize it for yourself.

1:00:13 – Jeramiah Giehl
And so we did all these experiments, kind of, it was kind of cool, kind of, plus we did Moose arts, kind of as a spiritual tradition I really enjoyed. What has your experience been as you’re, you know, you know, taking on kosher, Shabbat, like what, what has your experience been as you’ve been going through conversion? Got it.

1:00:34 – That Ben Guy
I’m going to, qualify what I’m about to say by saying I’m working closely with my rabbi on this, and so people are going to probably disagree with a lot of how I see things or how I’ve been going about my conversion, but my Yiddishkeit my conversion to a Jewish lifestyle is basically under supervision between myself and my rabbi, and he and I are comfortable with the process that we have undertaken. Now, with that in mind, And I say that because there will be some critics of my journey, but I’m at peace with my journey and they have no bearing on my relationship, my covenant with God.

1:01:24 – That Ben Guy
So they can think whatever they want to. That being said, my rabbi was raised Orthodox. He was raised in an Orthodox home, but he is conservative. And I believe he has been conservative for several years, at least years. And of course, our shul is conservative egalitarian. But of course we are a little bit stricter in some areas like the fact that we don’t have instrumentation on Shabbat services. And since he was raised Orthodox, he’s very strict about, at least in shul, no cell phones on Shabbat, don’t take pictures on Shabbat in the shul, you know, very strict.

1:02:07 – That Ben Guy
When we have a meal after the service, it’s always kosher. And of course, he will encourage all of his members to keep kosher until their Shabbat to the best of their ability. Now, what that means for me is I live an hour away from my shul. The first questions I asked him when I approached him for conversion is, is it a problem if I live an hour’s drive away from Shul? And he immediately told me that, well, the conservative movement since the 60s has allowed driving to and from Shul on Shabbat and Yom Tov only.

1:02:41 – That Ben Guy
You know, you don’t drive everywhere. You can drive to Shul and back. And so I live an hour’s drive away. I drive to and from Shul. So he is okay with that. I’m okay with that. The other thing is with keeping kosher. I told him that I live over an hour away from the nearest kosher butcher. And I am part of an interfaith family at this point. My second question to him when I started talking to him about conversion was, is it a problem that I have a non-Jewish wife? I’ve been married to my wife.

1:03:15 – That Ben Guy
At the time, it was a little more than years. Now it’s over years. And he said, no, in his shul, that’s fine. With halacha, there is room for a single Jew to convert with no family who may or may not ever have Jewish kids. And so why should not there be room for a member of a couple to convert by themselves who may or may not have Jewish kids? So in his opinion, it’s the same thing. He’s had experience with converting one member of a couple with a non-Jewish spouse in the past. He won’t marry an interfaith couple, but he will allow one member of a couple to convert.

1:03:55 – That Ben Guy
So there’s a difference there. So that’s the case with me. And since my wife is still a devout Christian, I am officially in an interfaith household, so that affects my Shabbat, it affects my keshavot, keeping kosher. And so my kashrut journey, my journey to keeping kosher with my rabbi is basically do the best you can with what you have. And of course, do the best you can doesn’t mean don’t worry about it at all. No, it means that, you know, within the bounds of Shalom Bayis, since in any interfaith couple, Shalom Bayis takes precedence.

1:04:33 – That Ben Guy
Shalom Bayis is peace at home. And so if I try to impose kosher dishes, kosher cookware, kosher silverware in an interfaith household and it affects Shalom Bayis, then I can’t do it. I have to keep in mind Shalom Bayis. So with respect to Shalom Bayis in that environment, I keep kashrut to the