The Witnesses

Before coming to view the world through the eyes of the Jewish scriptures alone, I wondered why the Jews didn’t aggressively seek out new converts into their religion like the majority of Christian organizations do. It would seem that if the Jews had the true religion, they would (like the Christians) should be wanting to share their true faith with all the world, and evangelism seems to be the best way to do that. My questioning like so many other Gentiles, was due to my lack of knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures.
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To answer this question in a nutshell: even though Israel is to be a light beacon to the nations (Isaiah 60:3) they were never commanded in the Torah or through the prophets to seek out Gentile converts. The Jewish people were never given a great commission like the Christians were given in Mark 16:15-20 even though Jewish righteousness was to be the set standard for the salvation of the earth:
And He said, It is but a little thing that You should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You for a light to the nations, to be My salvation to the end of the earth. Isaiah 49:6
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Therefore you will never see Jews knocking on your door, trying to convert you and get you to come and join their synagogue. The Hebrew scriptures leaves it up the individual to seek out their relationship with the one true God of Israel.
Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. - Isaiah 56:6,7
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The way the Jews were to be a witness to the Gentile world was by keeping the commandments: Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? - Deuteronomy 4:5-8
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Let all the nations be brought together, and let the people be gathered; who among them can declare this and make us hear former things? Let them bring out their witnesses, that they may be justified; or let them hear, and say, It is true. You are My witnesses, says the LORD, and My servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He. - Isaiah 43:9,10
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The Jews have been a "witness people" centuries before the Christians and Muslims got into the act using their own methods. The Jews are the original "witnesses" for God and their method of witnessing is original. Just keeping the commandments doesn’t seem like much of a witness through the eyes of Christianity, but consider the fact that throughout most of Christendom the Jews have been especially targeted for persecution. In other words, The Jewish witness of keeping the commandments was so strong among Christendom (especially during the Middle Ages) that it caused the Gentile Christians to not only reject the covenant God had with Israel, but to persecute this “witness people” more than any other people in history! They had to have known what the Jews were about (witnessing to them) in order to persecute them. One might say that the Jews are the greatest witnesses in mankind's history via persecution! I can only imagine that the Jews wished that they weren’t so religiously noticed among the Gentiles nations! Adolph Eichmann who was responsible for the expulsion of Jews from Austria over to the ovens at Auschwitz was a student of Judaism and even studied Hebrew! As Judaism’s witness brought out the evil that was lying dormant in Eichmann’s soul, it can also bring out the righteousness of a righteous soul (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
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Every time a Gentile reads any portion of the Hebrew scriptures, they are in fact reading part of the testimony of the everlasting covenant God has with Israel. Every time you see a plaque of the Ten Commandments in a home or hear a referral to them in a Christian sermon or book, not to mention the highly debated Alabama Court's decision over such a monument in November 2003, these things are witnesses to the people that God has a divine covenant with the nation of Israel whether one chooses to believe that or not. The 1956 classic movie with Charlton Heston is one of the most recognized movies of all time, and every time it is played it is in fact testifying of God's covenant that He has with the nation of Israel. But what is interesting about the Ten Commandments is that the first two commandments of the Christian version are really a combination of the second statement. The first statement is totally ignored by the Christian world which shows the Churches' desire (at lest for most of them) not to recognize the everlasting covenant God has with Israel. The beginning of the Ten Commandments is specifically directed to the nation of Israel alone. It begins with what the God of Israel has done for Israel and based upon that, what He now expects of Israel to follow in the form of the law, which starts with what is now known in the Gentile World as the Ten Commandments: And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt…. - Exodus 20:1-3
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Therefore, to the Jews, the Christian Ten Commandments are not “ten commandments” but “Aseret ha-Dibrot” meaning: "The Ten Sayings" - the ten saying of the Law of Moses that are solely directed to the nation of Israel, that Israel may be a "witness" of these commandments to the world (Deut. 4:5-8 / Isaish 43: 9,10). Personally, I think they have done a fair job.
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Judaism’s history however, has had its share of Gentile proselytes. At one point before Constantine made Christianity a state religion, the entire Roman empire was made up of more than ten percent of Gentile converts to Judaism. They were known as God-fearers in the Gentile world. If Judaism would have kept that percentage of the world’s population there would be hundreds of millions of Judaism believers, along with multiple Jewish nations, perhaps even Rome itself would have eventually become a Jewish-ruled empire had it not been for the rise of Christianity. Since the Jewish nation was be a special singled-out nation and not a world religion for the masses, the events of history shook off Judaism’s excess as God did with the Israelites during the time of Gideon when 32,000 men was way too many, but 300 (less than 1% of the 32,000 which types the less than 1% of the Jewish population in the world) was just right. It is prophesied that ten Gentiles will grab the garment of one Jew for instructions to known their God, and not ten Jews grabbing the garments of one Gentile for a better understanding of their own scripture (Zech. 8:3)! After the rise of Christianity it became a death sentence in many parts of Christian Europe for a Jew to take part in converting a Christian to Judaism, and Christians were forbidden to attend Jewish services and ceremonies. Jewish communities were forcibly separated form the Christian communities, and Christian society degraded and branded the Jews as social outcast. There wasn’t much opportunity for any Jew seeking Gentile proselytes to work under those type of conditions.
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Because Christianity didn’t require its converts to keep the commandments (the Jewish way of witnessing) which included circumcision, it was easier in the minds of the Gentile to pick Christianity over Judaism when trying to connect with the God of Israel, even though it went outside the scope of the Torah of Moses. Therefore Christianity flourished while Judaism took a backseat to Gentile conversions. This way, through the biblical requirement of keeping the Law of Moses itself, the Jewish people remained unique as a special nation chosen of God, instead of becoming like all the other nations. Meanwhile, the Gentile world connected with God in their own way by being influenced by (but not devoted in keeping) the Torah of Moses.
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In today’s Western free societies where religious persecution is no longer the norm, the Jews still maintains the practice of not seeking new converts to Judaism. Why should they when they believe that a Gentile can be righteous without converting to Judaism based upon the seven Noachide laws depicted in the Talmud - the ancient Jewish body of literature that has been burned, put on trail, forbidden to read, and falsely accused by the Gentile nations> http://www.talmud.faithweb.com/. In fact, most orthodox Jewish rabbis will even discourage the Gentile who comes to them contemplating converting to Judaism. Can you imagine an evangelical missionary or a Islamic Imam doing that in their religion? Usually it is after a year of deep studying that a full conversion is granted and recognized by Judaism authorities. Part of the reason for this is that once a Gentile has fully converted, he receives a Hebrew name and is no longer considered a Gentile like the coming out of Abraham (Genesis 14:13). If he decides to go back into the Gentile way of life, he doesn’t become a Gentile again, he becomes a Jewish apostate. So conversion into the Jewish faith is something the Jewish authorities have take very serious.
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Judaism’s strength lies in the power of originality and context of the Hebrew scriptures. One cannot truly understand Judaism’s pull-towards-truth unless they engage in a word-for-word study in the original Hebrew and be willing to accept the meaning and context of what all the Hebrew scriptures clearly state without first running it through a Christian or Islamic perspective. Organizations such as Outreach Judaism, Jews for Judaism, and Messiah Truth, have caused many Gentile Christians, including many Christian pastors to convert to Judaism, not to mention the many Christian Jews that have returned back to their faith of Judaism. Because of their efforts in presenting the context of the Hebrew Bible, more and more Gentiles are coming to embrace Judaism or the Noachide laws more than at anytime before in recent history. The strange thing is these organizations were not designed to seek out Gentile converts. Their mission was to only to prepare other Jews for the missionary onslaught that awaits them in the Gentile world as they try to convert the Jewish people away from their covenant. Once the Hebrew scriptures are laid out in the eyes of a Hebrew (by which it was originally meant) even some Gentiles like myself, seem to take notice.