The Greatest Jewish Contributions

by Rachmiel Frydland

This tract is available from Messianic Literature Outreach

Great indeed are Jewish contributions to humanity and its civilization. In literature, law, history, philosophy, art and science, Jewish people are always in the forefront. When we open a magazine or newspaper we find Jewish authors in the list of best-selling books. Jewish scientists and men of letters are prominent among the recipients of the much coveted Nobel prizes.

We could not apprehend atomic science or realize moon flights without the brilliant Jewish man, Albert Einstein. Medicine would be deprived of advancement with Dr. Jonas Salk, discoverer of the polio vaccine and Dr. Paul Ehrlich, discoverer of salvarsan. Great too were Jewish contributions in the field of physics by Chaim Weizmann and Fritz Haber. In history, we can boast of Josephs, Neander, and Graetz. Yet all these and many other vital achievements pale in significance before the three contributions of greatest import for all mankind and valid for all centuries.

Monotheism

The first of these is monotheism. The knowledge of one God was brought to mankind through the Jewish people. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's reply to Daniel O'Connel, the Irish nationalist, is classic:

C. H. Miller expressed it in a crude poetic way:

Who gave your very God to you?
Your Jew! Your Jew! Your hated Jew!

Do you believe in one God Who was worshiped through sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem? We believe in Him, and confess together with all of Israel saying: "Shema Israel, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord." A sincere Gentile believer in God will always be grateful to the Jewish people for being the first to reject the manmade gods and worship one God.

The Book of Books

The second greatest Jewish contribution is the Book of books. If you are an educated person, one of the books in your library no doubt is a Bible. The word "Bible" is derived from the Greek, Biblia, meaning "books," for it is not one single book but a collection of sixty-six books bound together into one volume. It contains law, history, poetry, and prophecy. It begins by telling us that God is in existence and acting in history preparing creation for man, the chief object and highest being of the physical universe. God in His greatness condescends and reveals Himself to man. He established a relation with man by means of a covenant (the berith). If a man is obedient to God, then God grants man life and prosperity. After this covenant was broken, a new covenant was made with Noah, then with the patriarchs, and later with Israel at their exodus from Egypt. At that time God gave to Moses and Israel the universal Ten Commandments.

About this Mosaic covenant we read:

These scriptures, read by millions and translated into every civilized language, were written by Jewish men inspired by the Ruakh HaKodesh (Holy Spirit).

The people whom God used to write the Bible lived and wrote their books in various periods of the Jewish era. The historical climate varied. The earliest books were written at a time while Israel was an aggregate of Hebrew tribes wandering in the wilderness of Sinai, keeping on the move constantly. Other parts were written when Israel had achieved her zenith of success in the times of David and Solomon. Large sections of it were written in anticipation and during the Babylonian captivity. Some of the Scriptures were written when the Jewish people lived under Roman rule and some parts after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. But in all generations, all the authors whom God inspired were Jewish people writing under the guidance of God and His Holy Spirit.

The writers belonged to different classes in Jewish society. There were kings, princes, and potentates, as well as simple fishermen and farmers. Both educated and ordinary people wrote this great book and they had this in common: They were all great Jews! [Luke was a proselyte Jew, i.e., a convert to Judaism] How ignorant indeed is the person who disregards our great treasure, our great contribution to mankind, the entire Bible of Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament.

The Hope of Mankind

The third contribution is the hope of mankind. Noble souls have always appreciated the Jewish people's contributions to mankind while ingrates have rejected or even persecuted them to their own detriment.

The great event which took place nineteen hundred years ago far exceeds all others. At that time Jesus (Yeshua) the Messiah (HaMashiach), was born of a young Jewish virgin in Bethlehem of Judea, just a few miles south of Jerusalem. He grew up in the town of Nazareth in the district of Galilee. When He went through the cities and villages dressed in Jewish garb with the talith, the people longed to touch the tzitzith, the hem of His garment, to be made whole from their physical and spiritual sickness. His words and conversations were in Aramaic. Today this is a dead language, yet the whole world at the present time is familiar with His words and teachings, for He became the hope of mankind. In our generation learned men and women go to savage tribes to study their primitive languages in order to be able to translate the words of this Man of Galilee to them. Individuals and nations who receive Him and follow His teachings rejoice in blessings and prosperity. WHerever He has been rejected there is darkness and death. Surely, our greatest contribution to mankind is the very Savior of mankind itself!

For generations most of our people ignored Him, but today this has greatly changed. Many of our Jewish leaders now write and speak words of praise for Him Who was, as the prophet Isaiah says, "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not" (53:3). The Jewish historian, Heinrich Graetz, writes of Jesus:

Dr. J.M. Jost, another Jewish historian, also wrote words of admiration of Yeshua:

Albert Einstein, world famous scientist, in an interview for the Saturday Evening Post said of Jesus:

Dr. Claude Montefiore, President of the Jewish Religious Union, says that He is "[t]he most religious Jew that has ever lived, to whom the sinner and the outcast, age after age, have owed a great debt of gratitude."

A Personal Word to You

What does this mean to you? Have you studied the life of Jesus? Are you also convinced that He was a divine person? If so, He invites you to receive Him as Messiah and your personal Redeemer from sin. One of His first Jewish followers records for us these words:

Saul, or as he was called, the apostle Paul, who was a disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, wrote about the Jewish people to the believers in Messiah at Rome:

Thousands of Jewish people have called upon the Name of the Lord and millions of Gentiles, also. Although the majority of our people are still standing aside merely admiring Jesus, the Messiah, we know that soon they will look to Him, for we read in the Bible:

We hope that you will deeply consider these matters. God has chosen our people for great things. However, true greatness comes through faith and by receiving into your life this greatest Jew and greatest man, the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah.

-- Shepherd of Israel