What is a Karaite Jew

In this video, I share with Bob O'Dell from Root Source, about my struggles with my Orthodox upbringing, the ironic way I was introduced to Karaism, and my father's reaction to me taking my faith in this direction. Please share your comments below.

Transcript

Hebrew Voices – What is a Karaite Jew

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Bob: Alright, we’re back, and the first thing I'd like to ask you is to tell us about what it means to be a Karaite Jew. Or let's start with you; how did you become what you now call a Karaite Jew?

Nehemia: I'm kind of an unusual person, because I've written this book called The Hebrew Yeshua vs the Greek Jesus, and a lot of Jews, especially, will hear that title and say, “Oh, you must be a Messianic Jew or a Christian.” And actually, I’m not. I’m not a Messianic or a Christian. I’m what’s called a Karaite Jew. Karaites are Jews who believe strictly in the Old Testament. Now, I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, my father was a rabbi - he was a lawyer by profession - but he was ordained as a rabbi in Chicago.

Bob: Wow, okay.

Nehemia: And sitting on his knee when I was three years old, he taught me that when Moses went up to Mount Sinai, he received two separate and distinct revelations - the written Torah and the oral Torah. Now, at a very young age I studied the written Torah, and then a few years later I started studying the oral Torah, and I asked what to me was an obvious question, which I think a lot of Orthodox Jews ask, which is, this oral Torah, which is supposed to have been written or revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, is a series of discussions and debates by these ancient rabbis. Sometimes they say the most beautiful, wonderful, glorious things, other times they said things that didn't make sense to me.

I went to my rabbis, my teachers, and I said, “Surely when this is not consistent with the written Torah, we should throw out the oral Torah and just follow the written Torah,” which to me is the word of God, “and the LORD spoke to Moses saying…” Whereas, the oral Torah is Rabbi Meir says this and Rabbi Akiva disagrees and says something else. And sometimes they say beautiful things - don't get me wrong - but then other times it seemed to me to be inconsistent with the written Torah.

So, my rabbis, when I told them I said, “Surely we should embrace the word of God, the written Torah only.” They said, “No, that's blasphemy, it's heresy, it's what those heretics the Karaites say.” And I said, “Tell me about these Karaites, they sound like they know what they're talking about.” To me it was obvious that we should follow the written Scripture, and not the oral Scripture, the teachings of the rabbis when they're inconsistent.

That's really what motivated me to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. One of the things my rabbi said to me was, “Well, Nehemia, you think you're so smart. You think you're smarter than 2,000 years or 3,000 years of rabbis? How can you come against the 3,000 years or really 2,000 years of rabbis when they disagree with what you're saying? You don't know Hebrew well enough, or you don't know the sources well enough.” This is one of the reasons I said, “Okay, if I'm going to study, I need to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the best university in the world for biblical studies.”

So, I know the Bible, at least the Old Testament at least as well as any rabbi, if not better, based on the ancient Hebrew sources. So now they can't come to me and say, “Well it's because you don't know Hebrew well enough.” I don't say that to brag; it was really just for me. I really just wanted this information for myself, so I could look myself in the mirror and say, “When I read this, and I say I know better than those rabbis…” Look, the thing they've said to me many times is, “You don't have the authority to interpret the Bible contrary to what our rabbis say. Who are you?” And I say, “I'm the one that will stand before God on the day of judgment, and all I can do is tell Him I did the best I could with the opportunities, information and the intelligence You gave me, as limited as that is, to understand Your word, guided by You, by the Creator of the universe.” And that's all I can do, and if I'm wrong, at least it's based on doing the best that I can and not blindly following what somebody else said. And that's what it means for me to be a Karaite Jew.

Bob: Now, the history… Karaite Jew… would you say Karaite Judaism?

Nehemia: Sure.

Bob: It has a history to it. What is the history of it?

Nehemia: So, we would say, Karaite Jews would say, the first Karaite Jew was Moses; that as soon as the Torah was written down… “Karaite” literally means scripturalist, meaning those who follow what's written, as opposed to the rabbis who follow what’s written and the oral law. So, since there was no oral law, we believe, Moses would have been the first Karaite Jew. Now the phrase Karaite, that only shows up in the Middle Ages, and really it came at a time when the Talmud began to be disseminated throughout the Middle East.

Bob: Right.

Nehemia: It starts out in Babylon, the Babylonian Talmud.

Bob: Right.

Nehemia: And there's also a Jerusalem Talmud, but it then disseminates from Babylonia throughout the Jewish world to Jews who had never had any contact with this. They were just doing what their ancestors had done - they would read the Torah in the synagogue every week, and they would read from the Prophets, and they would live according to that, in maybe a very innocent way… it wasn't in some ways it was very deliberate saying, “We're not going to hear what tradition has to say, we're just going to follow what’s written.” No! All they had was what was written.

Bob: Yeah.

Nehemia: And then the Talmud comes and says, “No, you can't follow what's written. You have to follow these traditions as they were worked out by these rabbis for the last 500 years.” And they said, “We never did that, we just followed the Bible,” which in Hebrew is called kara, and those people were labeled Karaim, or even labeled themselves Karaim.

Bob: So that where it comes from?

Nehemia: It comes from that. It comes from this clash with the Talmud, and sometimes it turned into violent clashes, unfortunately, and mostly with the Gentile authorities, not with the rabbis. I don't want to get into all the complicated history, but you had Jews who said, “We won't submit to this authority,” and the Gentiles said, “You have to. We put these guys in charge, you have to listen to what they have to say.” And we have these uprisings that took place particularly in Persia, in the 6th and 7th centuries AD, really the 7th century was the main era, and it's this clash really with the Islamic authorities, with the refusal to accept this thing that the Muslims were trying to impose upon the Jews. These Jews said, “No we're just going to follow the Bible. Nobody's going to tell us any different,” and a lot of people died. And then it calmed down and became more of a peaceful movement.

But if you went back 2,000 years ago and said, “Who were the Karaites of that period?” My perspective is that we had a group of people who are referred to in ancient Rabbinical sources as the “am ha’aretz,” “the people of the land”. And that's not considered a compliment. It's considered that these people don't accept the authority of the rabbis, they don't study under the rabbis specifically, they just naively follow what it says in the Bible. I'm one of those people. Maybe not so naively now, because I have a master’s in Biblical Studies, but I do believe they were on the right track, that we should just follow what's in the Bible. We should listen to what the rabbis have to say, they say wonderful, brilliant, beautiful things, and we can learn so much about history in particular from the rabbis, but I want to just obey what the Creator of the universe says in the Bible.

Bob: I took a course one time from Rabbi Berel Wein, a sort of 5,000-year survey, and one of the things he said is in the Karaite period, that at one point in time, I can't remember, it was at least 10% if not more.

Nehemia: It was 50%.

Bob: Maybe 20, or 30, and even he as a non-Karaite said 30%, they opted… 30% of Jews were sort of following the Karaite tradition.

Nehemia: Right. And that would have been the 9th and 10th century. That's what historians call the Geonic period, that’s the 9th, 10th, up until the Crusades. And the Karaite center was Jerusalem. In fact, it's interesting, the main area you'll hear about Karaite Jews in secular Israeli society is when they talk about the history of Zionism.

Bob: Yeah.

Nehemia: And they'll often mention that the first Zionist in history was a Karaite named Daniel al-Kumisi, who in the year 880 wrote an epistle, a letter, that was spread, sent out throughout the Diaspora, and in it he promulgated the first Zionist doctrine in history. And by Zionist doctrine I mean, for 2,000 years Jews have prayed "next year in Jerusalem." But it was more of this, it's a hope, what are we going to really do? Even my great-grandfather, what is he really going to do about it? He's getting on a boat to America hoping that the Messiah comes and brings him to Israel. And what Daniel al-Kumisi said was, “No, leave your communities now and come to Jerusalem,” and he actually had a very practical plan. He said, “Each community should send five families along with their sustenance,” meaning, we need some seed money here, and he was successful. And Jerusalem was the world center of the Karaite Jewish movement up until the Crusaders came and wiped out the intellectual center of the Karaite’s.

Bob: I see.

Nehemia: And we've never really recovered since the Crusades.

Bob: Now, in Israel today there is a Karaite movement.

Nehemia: Right, approximately 35,000 Karaites. Most Karaite Jews are descended from Karaite Jews who were refugees from Egypt.

Bob: Interesting.

Nehemia: In 1956, Egypt had a war with Israel, and as a consequence of that war the Egyptians expelled all the Jews from Cairo, from Egypt. And it's amazing, because some of my friends who are Karaite Jews, their ancestors had lived in Egypt longer than the Arabs; their ancestors arrived in Egypt at the time of Jeremiah, in the 6th century BC. I have one particular friend who lives in Jerusalem, he's kind of an older guy - older than me anyway – and he walks around with this slip of paper that he found in his mailbox when he was a young man in 1956. I don't read Arabic well enough to read it, but he translated it for me. It says, “You have one week to leave the country and you can take with you 20 kilograms”.

Bob: Wow.

Nehemia: Image that. He’d lived in Israel, his ancestors had certainly been Karaite Jews for over 1,000 years - not in Israel, in Egypt - and the family had lived in Egypt in some form or another since the time of Jeremiah, and he gets a piece of paper that says, “You’ve one week to leave.” We don’t hear about that too much in the Western media. We hear about the Palestinian refugees.

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: But how often do we hear about the Jewish refugees? But I know people like this. Imagine your family has a business they've been developing for hundreds of years. The father would teach the son, and they say, “You have one week to leave, take 20 kilograms, don't take any money with you.” So, most Karaite Jews today are descendants of Karaites who came from Egypt. There are some who came from Iraq, others are like me.

Bob: And where are they located in Israel?

Nehemia: Most are, they're off the map! Most are in southern Israel.

Bob: Okay.

Nehemia: For example, there's a major center in Ofakim, which I don’t think is…

Bob: Oh, there it is.

Nehemia: One of the major centers is Ofakim, you have Karaite Jews who are in Ramle, which is often confused with Ramallah.

Bob: Yes, Ramallah is here.

Nehemia: You don't want to go to Ramallah, but Ramle is actually a nice bedroom community of Tel Aviv, Ramle, it’s somewhere around here. Most of them are in Ramle, Ofakim, Ashdod on the coast has a large community of Karaite Jews.

Bob: Do they do community things? I mean is it really a community?

Nehemia: Oh, absolutely.

Bob: One of the things I appreciate about the Jewish culture is the community aspect. So, do they walk to their synagogue? Do they do synagogue?

Nehemia: They have synagogues. So for example, Ashdod has two synagogues. Ramle, wherever that is, has two synagogues. There's about… I think the number is 13 synagogues in Israel, around the country. I'm a little bit of an unusual Karaite Jew because I don't come from a Karaite family.

Bob: Right.

Nehemia: So, the traditions associated with being a Karaite are kind of less important to me.

Bob: Right.

Nehemia: I've lately called myself a post-denominational Karaite Jew, and by that, I mean I just want to read the Bible and live by it. I love my Karaite brothers and sisters; I love my Rabbinical brother and sisters. I just want to live by the Hebrew Bible as it's written, and that kind of puts me in a different… I’m out of the box.

Bob: That's true. I mean, after all, you're talking with me in Austin, so I mean that's all… you're already out of the box.

Nehemia: There you go!

Bob: But I appreciate some of that perspective. Now, there's something that you've touched on that you talked about, “I love my Rabbinical brothers and sisters, I love my Karaite brothers and sisters.” One of the things that I have observed about Jewish life is after all these thousands of years, there's still only very few branches of Judaism - Reform, Conservative, Orthodox mainly, and then within Orthodox, what you're explaining is that there is a small segment of Karaite...

Nehemia: I wouldn’t say we’re within Orthodox.

Bob: Okay, not exactly.

Nehemia: We’re kind of another branch.

Bob: This is true. Orthodox is generally considered to be agreeing with the Halachic, sort of the working schema of what daily life as a Jew looks like, right?

Nehemia: I'm not sure a former conservative would agree with you, but Karaite Jews are definitely considered their own movement within Judaism, and a historical one.

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: And it's kind of ironic, because in Israeli law we have this issue that Reform Jews, if they want to perform a wedding ceremony, they have to go to an Orthodox rabbi. But Karaite Jews, because we've been around for so long and we're sort of grandfathered in in 1948, there were already a few Karaites in Israel, Karaite Jews can actually perform their own wedding ceremonies. So, it's the only non-Orthodox movement in Israel that has that.

Bob: Interesting, that is interesting. So, when I slipped, and said that Karaite is sort of a segment of Orthodox…

Nehemia: Yeah.

Bob: Really what I was thinking in my mind was, is this belief that the Torah is from God, that every part of it, every word, every sentence was divinely inspired. And that is held by Orthodox Jews.

Nehemia: Let me share a story. I once had with a Reform rabbi, and look, I have a lot of respect for Reform and Conservative Jews, but I once had this conversation with a Reform rabbi, and she said to me - it was in front of her congregation, she kind of put me on the spot - she says, “I want to explain to my congregation what a Karaite is.” She said, “Nehemia, what do you believe about the Torah?” I immediately responded my answer, that I believe deep in my heart the Torah is the perfect word of God revealed through Moses. She said, “And that's where we differ, because for me the jury is still out about whether Moses existed.”

Okay. So, in that respect… look, my father, the Orthodox rabbi, struggled with me being a Karaite Jew, because in Orthodox Law, Halacha, Karaites are heretics. And he asked his rabbi, he said, “Look, if my son had converted to Christianity, I would have to sit shivah, I would have to mourn for seven days,” this is what my father said to his rabbi.

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: And he said, “What about my son who now is a Karaite Jew? Do I have to sit shivah for him?” And his rabbi thought about it and came back to him with an answer that was binding. If the rabbi had said, “Sit shivah, mourn for seven days,” as if I had died. This was a binding answer, so while he was waiting for the answer he was on edge. The rabbi came back and said, “At least he's not Reform, because the Reform deny both the written and the oral Torah. At least the Karaites believe in the written Torah.” Now I don't agree exactly with his way of looking at it, but it does put things into perspective. In other words, as a Karaite Jew I believe the written Torah, the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, is the perfect word of God.

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: And that’s what I want to live my life by.

Bob: So, one of the things that’s impressed me about Jewish life over the years is the lack of major division. I mean there's really a few main divisions, and we talked about some of them. Even in the fact that you have some different beliefs, you have expressed love for those who don't share those beliefs. I'd like to ask you to talk a little bit about Rabbinical, or Orthodox Judaism. What do you appreciate about Orthodox Judaism?

Nehemia: What I do appreciate about Orthodox Jews, maybe first and foremost, is their dedication for the Torah. And even though we may interpret the Torah differently and understand the Torah differently and really come at it from different perspectives, I appreciate that they are doing the best they can to live according to the word of God, and I have a lot of respect for that. Let me share a great story that I love. In the year 1263 there was this debate.

Bob: I wasn’t quite there then, but I’m glad you were!

Nehemia: I wasn’t there either. It’s a famous incident in Jewish history. It's the debate between Nahmanides and this Christian named Pablo Cristiani. It was a public disputation. There’s a great movie called The Disputation, and in Jewish literature it’s an important event. It was a disputation between Nahmanides and this Christian, and Nahmanides was forced into it. He did not want to debate; this was in Spain, he couldn't win.

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: Because if he won, he would be exiled, maybe killed, and if he lost, he would be forced to convert to Catholicism. It was a no-win situation, but he wasn't given a choice, he was forced into it. So, as they were discussing this in front of the King of Spain - it might have been in Castille or someplace like that, but it was what we call today Spain - the issue came up of heresy in Judaism. They said to him, “What's heresy?” He said, “It's a matter of dispute in Judaism,” and the king said… well… Isn’t that great?

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: And he said, “Well surely there are some things that every Jew would accept as heresy.” And Nahmanides responded, he said, “Certainly there are some things we would all agree are heresy, but nothing we'd be willing to kill over.” Imagine this.

Bob: Wow!

Nehemia: He said this in 1263!

Bob: Wow!

Nehemia: And he was talking about the Karaites. Meaning, “Look, they’re heretics in our definition, but we wouldn't kill them for being heretics.”

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: We would disagree with them, and we would try to convince them, and we would pray for them. Think about the context here, 1263; they were hunting down Cathar's, which were the proto-Protestants.

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: They were hunting down all kinds of groups who were considered heretics in Christianity. They had a list of people who needed to be burned at the stake.

Bob: Yes.

Nehemia: But in Judaism back then, we wouldn't kill people over that. Now, to be fair there was a time when we would kill people over that, but you've got to go back to the time of the Bar Kokhba for that.

Bob: Okay.

Nehemia: You’ve got to go back to pre-135.

Bob: Yeah.

Nehemia: And through all the suffering we went through as a result of the Bar Kokhba Revolt and other things that happened around that time, we said, “Look, we're not going to do this. We're going to pray for the coming of the Messiah, and if there are heretics, if there are things like that, he'll work those things out. But we're not going to be knifing people in the fifth rib, like they were doing in the Second Temple period. We can't keep doing that.”

I believe Judaism reached a certain spiritual maturity in the 2nd century AD. I think Christianity reached that maturity by and large in the 17th century AD. I don't know if you know the history, the 30 Years’ War. Unfortunately, I think they're still religions in the world who haven't reached that yet. They're still living in what for Judaism is 2,000 years ago and in Christianity 400 years ago.

Bob: Right. I mean, in a way, this comparison does not apply directly to Karaite/Orthodox, but when the Protestant Reformation took place and there was a breaking away from the Catholic Church, the main point of disagreement was, who gets to make the rules? Is it the church itself? Or is it the word of God? In 1517… Martin Luther and all of that. Within 100 years there was war between Protestants and Catholics, killing each other over the fight for supremacy.

Nehemia: Oh, absolutely.

Bob: So, I mean, it is to our shame, and we need to learn. Maybe this is part of the reason why Judaism has five branches, and last time I counted, there's 50,000 denominations.

Nehemia: I have another theory of why that is, but it was something called the 30 Years’ War, people can look it up, it ended in 1648, and about a third of the Christians in central Europe died fighting the Protestants and the Catholics. And yeah, there was politics involved and different houses of succession, but it was ultimately a war about Protestants versus Catholics. Judaism never really had anything like that, and yeah, there was violence that went on in the year 66 to 70 AD during the first revolt against the Romans. There were Jews fighting amongst themselves and it led to destruction but look how far back we have to go.

Bob: Yeah, I mean we would say that Christianity started out as a Jewish sect.

Nehemia: Okay. And there you go.

Bob: A bit of conflict there, so it isn't that it isn't without, but I love that the Jewish unity, I mean Gadon has said to me, “There's so few of us in the world, there's so few Jews in the world, really, that all we have is each other.” Well, it’s not… we have more than each other, but there’s this desire not to separate. No one would call you not a Jew, that if you believe these things, you're no longer a Jew. No one would say that.

Nehemia: This is the point. I think if you asked any Karaite Jew, even any Orthodox Jew, “Are you Orthodox first or are you a Jew first?” And we would say, “Absolutely we’re a Jew first.”

Bob: Yes. There you go.

Nehemia: Jew is… we have this covenant relationship with the Creator of the universe, and every other Jew is part of my family in that covenant relationship. And the fact that I am part of this expression of that covenant relationship is less important than first, I’m in the family, and that is key. That in Hebrew we speak about Am Israel, the people of Israel. We translate it as, “the Jewish people,” but growing up in Chicago we never talked about the Jewish people as Am Israel, the people of Israel. And first and foremost, I'm part of the people of Israel, and then, after that, I'm a Karaite Jew, meaning I'm a people of Israel who follows only the written scriptures. That's what it means to be a Karaite Jew.

Bob: That's wonderful. When we come back, I want to talk to you first about the future of Israel. I have a question about that.

Nehemia: All right, sounds good.

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Show Notes:
The Karaite Korner

  • Linda Joubert says:

    I think Karaite Jews are 100% correct and the Torah and Tanakh is all that I too believe in and study. I would love to follow a Karaite Shabbat gathering online from my country South Africa.

  • Israel says:

    I’d like to understand the Karaite relationship to tefillin and, by extension, similar practices that they interpret differently. We know based on archeology that tefillin were worn during the Second Temple and they seemed to be worn by all streams of Judaism that existed at the time – the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes – though each did so with their own variations. So here you have a practice that based on archeology is at least 2,000 to 2,500 years old. Even the Sadducees who denied aspects of Pharisaic practice wore tefillin. So why does this historical reality not count for much among the Karaites? I understand denying aspects of rabbinic Judaism that either appear to have cropped up later or that were disputed during the Second Temple, but didn’t everyone wear tefillin at the time? Does historical precedent play a role in Karaite exegesis? I’m asking this respectfully, out of genuine curiosity.

  • Sven Brown says:

    Perhaps anyone can answer this, but if not I hope Nehemia will: Do modern Karaites in their synagogues use Y’hovah when reading or in daily life speak the name or do they typically use a title instead? I mean this in an organized, official sense, not those who act and live as a Karaite apart from those official congregations. I act and live as a Karaite for all intents and purposes myself, so this is not disparagement but a question regarding more official and traditional Karaism. Same question in ancient Karaism, did they use the name or not? Thanks for appeasing my curiosity.

    • Mona Stardragon says:

      Having found Michael Rood… then Nehemia and Keith Johnson… and Tom Bradford… I follow what is written in John 14:15. “If you love me keep my commandments.”

  • Robert Mandel says:

    As a student of Hashem’s written Torah for many years, I have come to the conclusion that the answer to each human being is responsible for their actions. When the time comes to answer our Creator, we can say we followed the sages of the Rabbinates and the Karaites, or we can reply that we respond from a statement in Job 32:7-9.

    “I thought, “Let age speak; Let advanced years declare wise things.”

    But truly, it is the spirit in men, The breath of Shaddai, that gives them understanding.

    It is not the aged who are wise, The elders, who understand how to judge.”

    If each of us honestly attempts to understand and follow G-d’s eternal Torah, we cannot be excused for acting according to the sages of rabbis’ or Karaite’s beliefs.

    Isaiah 29:13-15
    “My Lord said: Because that people have approached [Me] with its mouth And honored Me with its lips, But has kept its heart far from Me, And its worship of Me has been A commandment of men, learned by rote— Truly, I shall further baffle that people With bafflement upon bafflement; And the wisdom of its wise shall fail, And the prudence of its prudent shall vanish. Ha! Those who would hide their plans Deep from the LORD!

  • Jeff says:

    Converted in my heart 18 years ago to karaite israelism. I’m the only one around Rocky Mount, N.C. that I know of. Everybody’s comments encourage me. Thanks.

    • jerry rachels says:

      then what will you do with christ ,or salvation,..he that beleaves on the son of god “yeshua”,..will have eternal life,..where do you stand?,..in hope thru jesus or without hope,faith or help,..trying to keep the torah law,..which no one can do!

      • Sven Brown says:

        And someone came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” Then he said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mat 19:16-19). Jesus disagrees with you and your opinion, Jerry. He obviously encourages the commandments and believed them “keepable” by all for eternal life or he would not have said so. And although the book of John is interpreted to support your ideas apart from the rest of the gospels you have to temper such again with Jesus’s words, “ And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me. I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”” John 12:44-50. Jesus only echoed his god’s and our god’s (John 20:17) will and commandments. We will all be judged by god himself as to whether we keep his commandments or not. For us to do so, just as Jesus did, requires they are keepable by all.

        • Cathie Rodriguez says:

          ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Jesus was pointing out to this man that he his real god was his wealth. He was not willing to give up his money to follow Jesus.

      • Mona Stardragon says:

        In the renewed covenant scriptures in the book of 2nd James.. Verses 17&18.

      • The Jesus story is fiction. The religion made up about Jesus after his death, “Christianity,” is purely pagan and cannot be reconciled to the Covenant which an eternal God ever stands by.

    • Otto says:

      I’m from Rocky Mount. I live in Greenville. I just started researching and doing my research on Karaite Judaism.

      • Kitty says:

        It’s simple! Ecc. 12:13. The sum of the matter…Revere God and keep His commandments.

  • Doug says:

    I belong to a reform shule but strongly disagree with my fellow members over the validity or the tanakh, or whether Moshe existed among other ideas. In fact there are many aspects that make me cringe and at times I feel offended. The struggle is real. The more I hear Nehemiah speak the more identify with karaism.

  • Beverley says:

    I have BA in Biblical study, what best karaite Biblical study books or YouTube or classes

  • Liz says:

    My parents only celebrate holidays they we t me to a chabad wcboolmand I .myself had questions oral law andpryed For an answer and that is when I found Karite . I live in northwest .NebRaska .I am the only Jew left in this part of the state. I follow Karite .Jewdi sd m

  • Kitty Corbett says:

    Many have written of their mental torment and social isolation as they seek true worship of the one true God, YHVH. Who are they trying to please, God or man? They might spare themselves much pain by reference to Ecclesiastes 12:13 The sum of the matter…Revere God and keep His commandments.

  • Shalom.

    I am Chandrababukale living in India state of andhrapradesh. I am fallowing judasim.

    Please send details. Chuftkale.details

  • trish392016 says:

    Is the term karaite jew is biblically correct ‘ and if so where this derive from?

  • Pete says:

    Hi Nehemia, long story but in short:
    We are busy converting to Orthodox Judaism at this moment.
    We did try to convert to Karait but it doesn’t seem possible outside the US or perhaps Israel. We are in South Africa. Some advice or input on conversion to Karait please? Also – is it acceptable. Eg: Can you make aliyah?

    • Dalton Pryon says:

      Pete, you don’t need to go through some man-made organisation in order to “convert” to Judaism. The Scripture says that all we need is so join ourselves to Yehovah, not to have someone else join us to Him (Isaiah 56:1-5). Hope this helps. Shalom.

  • cecille12 says:

    I absolutely loved this video! I always learn something new from Nehemia and his interviews. Now we can watch him and soak in his whole being when he shares. Thank You Heavenly Father, YHWH Elohim for Nehemia proclaiming on the wall! I hope to always support him in different ways! Prayer is my most precious drink offering to our God of Israel! Precious beyond words!

  • Robert Barko says:

    Greetings Nehemiah, we have a new Rabbi coming to our town and this information will be a good basis for understanding and insight into origins and the Karaite movement. I had another question, do Karaite’s have wedding ceremonies on Sabbath?

  • David says:

    I left Christianity about 8 years ago, my wife didn’t, and that initially that put a huge strain on our relationship. My brother once confronted me and asked “are saying that all those great christian theologians are wrong?”. I just looked at him and said: “there was no way I can answer for them, all I can tell you is that I think I was wrong.”.

    When the days of remembrence come around. There are no family gatherings, now elaborate celebrations, or big meals. Nope, its just me, sometimes I make a sandwich and spend the day reading about and remembering those things God has done.

    There was a time too when the pastor of my wifes church would try to convince me to come back to the flock. But I am better armed with biblical knowledge to defend my position now. Unfortunately because of that, even he gave up and honestly I do miss our conversations.

  • Mike L says:

    Sola scriptura (Latin: by Scripture alone) is a Christian theological doctrine which holds that the Christian Scriptures are the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice.

    The Most famous paradigm of this in Christianity is Martin Luther, who as a Catholic monk reading the scriptures was enlightened by the Holy Spirit that men’s salvation is by faith in YHWH alone and no other teachings in the churches.

  • Chris says:

    My story is different too from most I’ve heard. I wanted to just follow the Old Testament. I realized this when I was age 10 and the Gideons handed me a little New Testament with psalms and proverbs. If it was okay for some Christians to just read and follow the New Testament, I reasoned it was okay for me to just follow the Old Testament. A few years later I discovered Judaism and by age fourteen I was practicing it on my own. But I did have some disappointments from the reality that so many Jews seemed not care what the Bible said including the Orthodox or more traditional Jews, who were never able to separate themselves from the oral tradition. I identified early on with secular agnostic Zionist pioneers who knew and revered the Tanakh (think Paul Newman in Exodus) sometimes more than their kippah covered co-religionists. Since there are not many Jews where I live, I have often formed connections with messianic type people, which eventually led my parents to find themselves as messianic and we still get along wonderfully.

    I have known of Nehemia since 2004/2005 when I saw him on Zola Levitt. That interview changed my life. When he spoke against the traditions not in the Bible it was a hard thing for me. I had wanted to be that very kind of person when I was growing up, a follower of Tanakh, but I didn’t know those people existed. I originally thought following the Tanakh was what Judaism was all about, or that it was the closest thing to it. By the time I saw the interview on Zola, I had been living a ‘normal’ Jewish life for several years but had not yet been able to convert and I honestly didn’t want to feel more different and isolated as I had all my life. I was a senior in high school the first time it aired and then it aired again the week before I went to college. While my struggle would continue for the next ten years, my not diving in fully into Orthodox Judaism was the result of that interview. For the first time in my life I knew that there was someone out there who was Jewish and who loved the G-d of Israel and who was guided not by halacha but by the words of the Scriptures.

    I kept living a Jewish life mostly among Christians and Messianics and kept those thoughts I had all those years ago in my heart for some years now. I was finally able to convert which I did really so I would feel like I generally belonged somewhere and because I feel like the Jewish people are my people. About a year ago I was offered the opportunity to leave my area of 99.99% non-Jews and go and live in an area of Hasidism and join them. I almost did this just so I could be surrounded by Jewish people living according to their beliefs and I knew I could assimilate among them. But I know that I believe in the Tanakh above all else, so I have remained where I am. I am still pretty traditional. I do light Shabbat candles but I know that I eventually won’t be able to utter the traditional blessing. I wear a kippah when I pray and I have mezuzot on the doors in my home. I participate with my very small, very diverse local Jewish congregation (where our Torah study group is made up almost entirely of converts not one of which is similar to the other-Kabbalistic loving Orthodox converts next to Reform converts next to my messianic parents next to me). I know that the easy way is not for me. The L-rd gave me faith in the Tanakh at an early age and so I have tried to find in traditional Judaism a way to express that faith. Yet I cannot suppress what I know to be true. There is a beautiful torah written by men, wise men in fact. There is a beautiful Torah written by G-d ( I still cannot write the full name). I must follow His Torah above all else. I am not a Karaite. I was one once long ago when I was a child before I even knew the word ‘Judaism.’ But I’ve learned how to fit in with the Jewish world and learned certain customs and interpretations and it will take some time to work out this personal salvation. It is only in the last year I’ve begun to ask myself how I got to this place. Why did I become Jewish in the first place? Was it the holidays and customs and rituals (all of which I still love)? No, I became Jewish because I believed in G-d and His Holy Text. I am one of the am haaretz, and a Zionist through and through. I love the mesorah as non-binding tradition but not as divinely inspired. I appreciate the way the rabbis interpreted the texts over the last 2,000 years of exile, and yet part of me wonders if they hadn’t reinterpreted things, then maybe the Jewish people would have felt obliged to restore their sovereignty in the Land much sooner.

    I am thankful to be Jewish and thankful for Nehemia who all those years ago showed me there were people out there like myself.

  • Mona says:

    Most definitely I have taken a different path in faith from what I was raised as. To this day, my family is still unsure of what I’m following, even sitting with them and explaining it to them. I think that they still seem to think that I’ve rejected Jesus, and put myself under the law.

    • Gail says:

      Mona,
      Karaites do not accept the NT and do not believe that Jesus/Yeshua is the Messiah. A Karaite Jew only accepts the Hebrew Tanakh as it’s only source of scripture. True Karaites like Nehemia, reject Jesus and believe we are all under the Law. As it is written-the Commandments are forever, despite what Paul says.

      • Mona says:

        I know what the Karaites believe, but the point I was trying to make initially, and perhaps didn’t explain fully, was that the commandment of Yeshua in John 14:15

  • Nehemia ,Ik kom uit het traditie Christendom , maar op mijn 35ste jaar begon ik een onderzoek naar wat is waarheid , zo ben ik voor 30 jaar lang alle sabbatten gaan houden zowel alle jaarlijkse feesten en de voedselwetten , maar bleef een Christen , tot dat mijn ogen werden geopend dat er maar EEN GOD IS DIE GEEN ZOON HEEFT IN DE ZIN VAN HET CHRISTENDOM,Dat de God van Israel God is in niemand anders , gevolg alleen komen te staan maar dat is te begrijpen ook , ik werd dus een afvallige,en besmet , maar zou nooit meer terug willen naar mijn ouder staat,
    Vr Groet ,
    Grietje Middelkamp

  • Erin says:

    I was raised to hold on to my ‘Lutheran’ faith and in adult life, after many ill experiences I came out of it and sought to see what others taught. When this was exhausted I still had no clarity so I began on my own, believe to be lead by The Spirit to do this’ I began seeing the Bible in a different understanding and felt so hungry to be taught by One True Master, YHWH. At that time I did not realize He had a name, this happened by trying the language and understand the letter[s] meaning. I found in Jeremiah/YirmeYahu “our [then, the people were told] fathers had inherited lies [one place] and “our hearts [humans, like Adam and Eve] are desperately wicked who can know it”. Confirming I also was being deceived in following any religion…
    Long story, journey, in this study and learning from a 1395 Bible of Wycliffe, link http://www.sbible.ru/wyc/wycle.htm. The belief shown was due to letter changes through human thinking while evolving in time, There was no letter j and if YHWH never changes, nor repents, it has to be we are dangerously headed for disaster UNLESS we seek to know Him daily and repent from our own ways…
    I join with you on the wall [in prayer by support] eager to grow into the branch of the 2 sticks HE/YHWH joins by power though the Ruach haQodesh.

    Many have told me it sounds like I am a Messianic follower. The stand I take is I am only seeking Truth and conviction to be changed by my ABBA, join with others to fellowship and study to learn, as a child would do to please her Father.

    Thank you ABBA for laying on Nehemiah’s heart the plan which NEVER changes and I ask you to train us all up in the way to go from toady and forward, eternal timing, My ahavah is totally coming to you to always keep a watchful eye over us all in these days to come.
    Amen

    May YHWH Elohim bless you, keep you and grant all Hi Peace/Shalom!

  • It not only amazes me on the knowledge and wisdom that Nehemia has been blessed with but how he fills in the details to back up and explains in a simple way for people who don’t know.

    • Anne Gauchet says:

      Up to a point. As with all of us, it takes a lifetime to be transformed by our Father Yahuah, if we let Him…
      He guides us, answers our questions, puts people across our path.
      He will let Himself be found by those who seek Him.
      We cannot fault His faithfulness.