Beginnings

For many Messianic Jews life is best described using the colloquialism “between a rock and a hard place.” For me this has been specially true as I have journeyed first from darkness to the light of Messiah Yeshua and then from Baptist Church to Messianic Synagogue and finally to this small emergent—in the emerging sense rather than the theologically liberal sense—congregation which my wife Julia, my daughters Azariah and Bethany and I have recently planted together in our home. Our strong desire, a calling birthed deep within, is to return to our family the Russian Jewish Heritage of our forebears and to pass on to the next generation a relevant Messianic tradition of Jewish observance that accentuates positive tradition and the rhythms of God’s grace in Messiah Yeshua.
 
In defining tradition I will simply say this; that I believe positive tradition directs our gaze toward Messiah and so, to HaShem—G-d—while negative tradition draws our eyes away from Messiah and thus away from HaShem—G-d.
Beth Melek seeks to walk with Messiah in G-d in the positive traditions of our people and to teach in a holistic way the paths of righteousness. We do not discriminate between Jew and Gentile, nor do we consider ourselves isolated from the wider Church body of faith. We are unashamedly Jewish and passionately Messianic—followers of Mishiach Yeshua/Jesus the Christ.

It is unfortunate that over the last several decade’s traditions and tactile learning have been assimilated into the modern/postmodern hangover of western existence. I believe we are a part of a generation of truth seekers who are looking back, far back, beyond the revisionist near sightedness of our postmodern scholars to a tradition that is firmly planted in the soil of Israel, in the G-d of Israel, in the Messiah of Israel. We eagerly await a genuine and meaningful tradition that is filled with good religion and unified practice. We want to touch Yeshua, not just imagine Him. We want to take back what belongs to us, that which the adversary of G-d’s people has blinded us to. We want to return—tishuva—to the very real, tactile, gritty and yes, spiritual religion of our ancestors. In Judaism the number 40 is significant as both a number of completion and at the same time a number of new beginning. I have completed my wandering, I am ready to enter into the land and begin anew leaning on my hope in the resurrection of the body and the Olam haba—world to come—in Messiah Yeshua.

© 2013 Yaakov Brown