The lost tribes have not been recovered, that is true.
The Torah predicts the Jews would be scattered into Diaspora and G-d will bring them back to the holy land when the time is right.
The deadline for this and the return of the Messiah is the year 6000 on the Jewish Calendar.
Right now we are in the year 5782.
Although the modern state of Israel exists, the Jews are still considered to be in Diaspora, and we will be until the Third Temple is built. This will be tricky, due to the presence of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount.
G-d does work through human agents, however.
Is the modern State of Israel the beginning of the age of the Messiah, where there is a template for him to work with to bring back the Exiles and rebuild the Temple?
Maybe.
Is the modern State of Israel an experiment that will fail and the Jews will suffer yet another crushing defeat and the Messiah will have to do his work without this existing template?
Maybe.
Could it be an either/or? That if the Israelis are righteous they earn the first scenario, and if they turn from G-d, it will be the second?
Maybe. I think this is the most likely. We're not out of the woods yet.
Not that familiar with the Japheth lineage theory, so I can't give a good answer on that one.
Technically modern Jews today are mostly descendants of the tribes of Judah, Levi, and Benjamin.
There are some converts however. This where the "Khazar" theory comes into play.
The story as I understand it is the Khazarian king was considering converting to one of the monotheistic religions. There are two stories of this I know.
One is that he asked a Priest, an Iman, and a Rabbi to explain their religion. Upon hearing their testimony, he said: "One says Mohammad is the prophet of G-d. Two say he is not. One says Jesus is the son of G-d. Two say he is not. But all three say that G-d revealed himself to the Israelites at Sinai, so I will go with Judaism."
The second theory is that since Christianity and Islam were at war, the conversion to Judaism was a way to remain neutral and be able to continue trade with both sides.
There may be other rationales.
There is a theory that a lot of Jews today are descendants of Khazarian converts. How many? I have absolutely no idea.
On the other hand, Judaism states that a convert to Judaism is just as Jewish as anyone who is directly descended from anyone who stood directly on the foothills of Sinai itself. Ruth was the first convert to Judaism. She was an ancestor of King David. And the Messiah will be of the house of King David. So the messiah himself will be the descendent of a convert.
But there's also the Eruv Rav, the Israelites who worshipped the golden calf at the foot of Sinai. So there is no shortage of examples of Jews shooting ourselves in the foot.
Yeah, I think the political explanation is more realistic.
There's a lot of mixing up over the generations. Someone today might be a descendant of Babylon, but how would we know, what with all the countries rising and falling.
There's a few exceptions. China has been around an awful long time. And though they went through many dynasties due to internal conflict, they haven't often been conquered by outside forces. So a Chinese person who traces their Chinese roots back 5000 years could be plausible.
There's some of that in Judaism as well, due to tribes and the Cohens. Tribal heritage is determined by your father. So if you're a convert, your tribe might just be a general "Israel" or maybe accepted into the tribe of Judah, but you wouldn't be considered a Cohen or a Levite. We still have people who identify as Levites today (including myself). As well as Cohen. A Cohen means they are a descendent of the priesthood, which ultimately means that their father-son line goes all the way back to Aaron. Levites and Cohens today have special ceremonies or rituals that they may conduct in synagogues.
For example, during the Yom Kippur ritual, a Rabbi may ask anyone who is a Cohen to step to the front of the Synagogue, face the congregation, and raise their hands during a certain prayer. (I can't remember which prayer it is. And since Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashonah services are many hours long... about half the day just for one of them... that's a lot of prayers).
There is a strong Jewish custom to marry within the faith. Of course, history is replete with Jews marrying gentiles due to proximity, love, and some intermixing will be due to rape. (One of the reasons a person is Jewish due to the identity of his mother. A raped woman who had to raise the offspring at least could count that her child would not be excluded from the community by being considered a gentile). At one point, all Jews were orthodox. Now, the orthodox seem like a minority of the Jewish community while most Jews you might know are Reform. But in the future, all Jews may be orthodox again. Why? Because the orthodox have children that they raise Jewish. Reform are more likely to marry non-Jews, and then the children will be half-Jewish, the grandchildren quarter-jewish, and by then the Jewish identity is so diluted as to not be worth mentioning about.
Which led to the joke about Trump.
What does Donald Trump have that most of his Reform Jewish critics do not have?
From a Jew's perspective:
The lost tribes have not been recovered, that is true.
The Torah predicts the Jews would be scattered into Diaspora and G-d will bring them back to the holy land when the time is right.
The deadline for this and the return of the Messiah is the year 6000 on the Jewish Calendar.
Right now we are in the year 5782.
Although the modern state of Israel exists, the Jews are still considered to be in Diaspora, and we will be until the Third Temple is built. This will be tricky, due to the presence of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount.
G-d does work through human agents, however.
Is the modern State of Israel the beginning of the age of the Messiah, where there is a template for him to work with to bring back the Exiles and rebuild the Temple?
Maybe.
Is the modern State of Israel an experiment that will fail and the Jews will suffer yet another crushing defeat and the Messiah will have to do his work without this existing template?
Maybe.
Could it be an either/or? That if the Israelis are righteous they earn the first scenario, and if they turn from G-d, it will be the second?
Maybe. I think this is the most likely. We're not out of the woods yet.
Not that familiar with the Japheth lineage theory, so I can't give a good answer on that one.
Technically modern Jews today are mostly descendants of the tribes of Judah, Levi, and Benjamin.
There are some converts however. This where the "Khazar" theory comes into play.
The story as I understand it is the Khazarian king was considering converting to one of the monotheistic religions. There are two stories of this I know.
One is that he asked a Priest, an Iman, and a Rabbi to explain their religion. Upon hearing their testimony, he said: "One says Mohammad is the prophet of G-d. Two say he is not. One says Jesus is the son of G-d. Two say he is not. But all three say that G-d revealed himself to the Israelites at Sinai, so I will go with Judaism."
The second theory is that since Christianity and Islam were at war, the conversion to Judaism was a way to remain neutral and be able to continue trade with both sides.
There may be other rationales.
There is a theory that a lot of Jews today are descendants of Khazarian converts. How many? I have absolutely no idea.
On the other hand, Judaism states that a convert to Judaism is just as Jewish as anyone who is directly descended from anyone who stood directly on the foothills of Sinai itself. Ruth was the first convert to Judaism. She was an ancestor of King David. And the Messiah will be of the house of King David. So the messiah himself will be the descendent of a convert.
But there's also the Eruv Rav, the Israelites who worshipped the golden calf at the foot of Sinai. So there is no shortage of examples of Jews shooting ourselves in the foot.
Yeah, I think the political explanation is more realistic.
There's a lot of mixing up over the generations. Someone today might be a descendant of Babylon, but how would we know, what with all the countries rising and falling.
There's a few exceptions. China has been around an awful long time. And though they went through many dynasties due to internal conflict, they haven't often been conquered by outside forces. So a Chinese person who traces their Chinese roots back 5000 years could be plausible.
There's some of that in Judaism as well, due to tribes and the Cohens. Tribal heritage is determined by your father. So if you're a convert, your tribe might just be a general "Israel" or maybe accepted into the tribe of Judah, but you wouldn't be considered a Cohen or a Levite. We still have people who identify as Levites today (including myself). As well as Cohen. A Cohen means they are a descendent of the priesthood, which ultimately means that their father-son line goes all the way back to Aaron. Levites and Cohens today have special ceremonies or rituals that they may conduct in synagogues.
For example, during the Yom Kippur ritual, a Rabbi may ask anyone who is a Cohen to step to the front of the Synagogue, face the congregation, and raise their hands during a certain prayer. (I can't remember which prayer it is. And since Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashonah services are many hours long... about half the day just for one of them... that's a lot of prayers).
There is a strong Jewish custom to marry within the faith. Of course, history is replete with Jews marrying gentiles due to proximity, love, and some intermixing will be due to rape. (One of the reasons a person is Jewish due to the identity of his mother. A raped woman who had to raise the offspring at least could count that her child would not be excluded from the community by being considered a gentile). At one point, all Jews were orthodox. Now, the orthodox seem like a minority of the Jewish community while most Jews you might know are Reform. But in the future, all Jews may be orthodox again. Why? Because the orthodox have children that they raise Jewish. Reform are more likely to marry non-Jews, and then the children will be half-Jewish, the grandchildren quarter-jewish, and by then the Jewish identity is so diluted as to not be worth mentioning about.
Which led to the joke about Trump.
What does Donald Trump have that most of his Reform Jewish critics do not have?
Answer: Jewish grandchildren.