Question: I want to know was Jesus a prophet? And could you give me some brief and concise information on him, and how he relates to Judaism in the Talmud, etc.. I don’t know anything about him, and I thought it would be a good idea to know a little from a Jewish perspective. Someone I know told me that he wrote G-d’s secret name on his palm, and that is not a good thing.

Answer: Prophecy ended with the destruction of the first Temple, several hundred years before Jesus evidently lived. There is a Medrashic story that he wrote down the name on Yom Kippur when the high priest spoke it and then used it to perform magical miracles, but I don’t know if that’s true. It may be that he didn’t do any of the things written about him, that these were invented by his followers years – sometimes decades – after he died to justify retroactively his “divinity.” However, if you look at the supposed miracles that are attributed to him, they are all things done in previous generations by card-carrying prophets such as Elijah and Elisha, so performing a miracle is not in any way evidence that a person is “divine”.

We know that G-d’s anointed has to prove himself to us by bringing the Jews back to Israel and rebuilding the Temple, and will be accepted by ALL JEWS as king. Since Jesus did not achieve these things, we are not allowed to accept him as the Messiah. We want to see the evidence, not to hear it second or third-hand. Paul says he had a dream that Jesus came and told him such-and-such – a Jew should answer, why should I believe Paul? If Jesus wants me to accept him, let him come to ME in a dream or vision. I don’t mean this literally but the point should be clear – we need evidence to believe, as opposed to a leap of faith.

Rabbi Seinfeld