INTRODUCTION
Rabbi Tovia Singer is well known in religious and apologetic circles for debating Christians over whether Yeshua is the Messiah. He is particularly committed to persuading Jews who believe in Yeshua—or who may be considering that belief—to turn away from him.
Rabbi Singer takes a proverb that Peter applied to those who turn away from knowledge of Yeshua and reverses it against those who return to him. In Peter’s usage, the vomit represents the corruption from which knowledge of Yeshua provides escape. In Singer’s usage, faith in Yeshua becomes the corruption.
That reversal is more than an insult. It places Singer’s theology uncomfortably close to the religious premise underlying Yeshua’s condemnation: that loyalty to him leads Israel away from God rather than toward Israel’s Messiah.
MY OBSERVATION
I have listened to Rabbi Singer in several debates. He compares Christians—particularly Jewish believers who return to faith in Yeshua—to dogs returning to their vomit. He also tells them, “You’re not a dog. You can do better.”
He makes this comparison multiple times in the following video, including at approximately 18:25. The video was shared on Rabbi Singer’s own YouTube channel:
Rabbi Singer is making an obvious—but apparently overlooked—use of Proverbs 26:11:
“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”
—Proverbs 26:11, KJV
The proverb uses a deliberately shocking image. Just as a dog returns to what its body has rejected, a fool returns to the behavior that previously harmed him. Rabbi Singer applies that image to Jews who embrace, or return to, faith in Yeshua.
Given Rabbi Singer’s extensive knowledge of Christian arguments and the New Testament, it is difficult to imagine that he is unaware that 2 Peter quotes this same proverb:
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
—2 Peter 2:20–22, KJV
Peter is describing people who, after escaping the corruption of the world through knowledge of Yeshua, become entangled in their former condition again. In Peter’s application, knowledge of Yeshua is the way of righteousness; the vomit represents the corruption to which they return.
Singer reverses that application. In his usage, returning to faith in Yeshua becomes the return to vomit. The very one Peter presents as the means of escape is placed by Singer at the center of the supposed corruption.
Singer might respond that he is comparing a return to Christianity with a return to vomit—not describing Yeshua himself as vomit. Grammatically, the immediate object of the comparison may indeed be Christianity or faith in Yeshua. Nevertheless, because Yeshua is the object of that faith, the metaphor inevitably places him at the center of what Singer describes as spiritually filthy.
Within Singer’s larger theology, faith in Yeshua is treated not merely as a mistake but as spiritual corruption—presumably even idolatry. Yeshua’s divine identity and his place as Israel’s Messiah are both denied.
The irony is striking. Peter uses the proverb to warn those who turn away from knowledge of Yeshua. Singer uses Peter’s proverb against those who turn toward him.
From a New Testament perspective, this comes dangerously close to what Peter describes earlier in the same chapter:
“And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.”
—2 Peter 2:2, KJV
JUDGING YESHUA BEFORE HEARING HIM
Rabbi Singer’s rhetoric does more than reject Yeshua’s messianic identity. By presenting faith in Yeshua as spiritual corruption, he places a warning label over everything Yeshua taught before a Jewish listener has considered any of it.
Once Yeshua has been classified as a false Messiah, deceiver or object of idolatry, his teachings no longer need to be examined on their merits. The conclusion has been supplied in advance. A Jew may be discouraged from opening the New Testament, reading Yeshua’s words within their Jewish setting, meditating upon them and deciding for himself whether they reflect the God and Scriptures of Israel.
I cannot know whether Rabbi Singer consciously intends to prevent that examination. He may believe he is protecting Jews from serious theological error. Nevertheless, his method can have precisely that effect: discredit the teacher so completely that the teaching never receives a hearing.
Whether intentional or not, Singer’s method walks a very fine line: it says enough about Yeshua to encourage rejection while potentially discouraging the curiosity that might lead a Jewish listener to examine Yeshua’s teachings independently.
Heaven forbid that a Jew should open the most Jewish of the Gospels—Matthew—and read it for himself.
A Jewish listener who begins reading the New Testament might discover that Yeshua speaks continually of Torah, the prophets, repentance, mercy, righteousness and the kingdom of God. That listener might then begin asking questions that Singer’s introductory dismissal had seemed to settle.
This resembles a revealing scene in John 7. The religious authorities ask:
“Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?”
—John 7:48, KJV
The implied argument is not that Yeshua’s teaching has been carefully considered and disproved. It is that the recognized authorities have not accepted him. Their position is treated as sufficient reason for everyone else to reject him.
Nicodemus, himself a Pharisee, then asks the question that exposes the problem:
“Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?”
—John 7:51, KJV
That question belongs at the center of this discussion.
Does Torah permit a man to be judged before he is heard? Should any rabbi decide in advance that Jews must not seriously consider Yeshua’s words? Or should the Jewish reader be trusted to open the text, examine the evidence and judge for himself?
The response to Nicodemus is also revealing:
“Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look…”
—John 7:52, KJV
Instead of answering his legal and moral question, they turn suspicion upon the person who asked it. Nicodemus has not even declared belief in Yeshua. He has merely insisted that Yeshua should be heard before being judged. Yet even that modest request places him under suspicion.
I am not suggesting that every Pharisee responded in the same way. Nicodemus and Gamaliel prove otherwise. The problem is not the name “Pharisee.” It is the assumption of religious superiority displayed by particular leaders who believed that their rejection of Yeshua should settle the matter for everyone beneath them.
Singer’s approach risks repeating that assumption. The rabbi has examined Yeshua, the rabbi has reached his verdict and the ordinary Jewish listener is expected to accept it. Faith in Yeshua is then portrayed as foolishness or spiritual contamination before the listener has seriously encountered Yeshua’s teachings.
But the New Testament itself repeatedly invites examination. Philip did not demand that Nathanael accept a conclusion without evidence. He simply said:
“Come and see.”
—John 1:46, KJV
That remains the better invitation.
Do not accept Yeshua merely because a Christian tells you to. But neither should you reject him merely because a rabbi tells you to. Read his words. Examine the Scriptures he invokes. Consider the Torah and prophetic passages surrounding his claims.
Hear him before judging him.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A PRIESTLY LINE
There is another dimension to Rabbi Singer’s assumption of religious authority. On his own website, Singer says that his family possesses a Sefer Yuchsin tracing every male in his ancestry back to Aaron the High Priest. He signs the response, “Rabbi Tovia Singer, HaKohen.” “Outreach Judaism”
That is a remarkable inheritance. But priestly lineage does not place a man’s conclusions beyond examination. If anything, it places an even greater responsibility upon him.
Malachi describes the responsibility of a priest:
“For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.”
—Malachi 2:7, KJV
The priest is expected to preserve knowledge and teach Torah faithfully. He is not authorized to decide that a matter must be rejected before others have been permitted to hear and examine it. Descent from Aaron carries responsibility—not infallibility.
Singer’s claimed lineage therefore makes the question raised by Nicodemus even more appropriate:
“Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?”
—John 7:51, KJV
If Singer invokes his descent from Aaron as part of his religious identity and authority, then he should also accept the priestly obligation to guard knowledge carefully. That should include presenting Yeshua’s words accurately and trusting Jewish readers to examine those words before deciding what they believe.
The authority of a priestly name should encourage the honest examination of truth—not substitute for it.
AN ECHO OF CAIAPHAS
I hear another New Testament echo in Rabbi Singer’s appeal to priestly identity: Caiaphas, the high priest who participated in Yeshua’s condemnation.
This is not to say that Rabbi Singer is Caiaphas or that the circumstances are identical. It is a thematic echo involving priestly authority, fear of Yeshua’s influence and a conclusion reached before Yeshua receives an open hearing.
In John 11, the council does not begin by asking whether Yeshua’s claims might be true. Its members begin with the danger of allowing people to believe in him:
“If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him…”
—John 11:48, KJV
Caiaphas then speaks with the authority of his office:
“Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people…”
—John 11:49–50, KJV
The verdict is driven by the perceived consequences of allowing Yeshua’s influence to continue. The possibility that “all men will believe on him” is treated as a danger to be contained rather than a reason to examine him more carefully.
That is the echo I hear.
Rabbi Singer presents faith in Yeshua as a spiritual danger from which Jews must be rescued. His claimed descent from Aaron adds the weight of priestly identity to that warning. But Caiaphas reminds us that priestly authority does not guarantee that Yeshua has been judged correctly.
John then adds one of the most remarkable ironies in the New Testament:
“And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.”
—John 11:51, KJV
Caiaphas spoke more truth than he understood. He intended his words as an argument for removing Yeshua, but John understood them as an unwitting prophecy about Yeshua giving his life for the people.
That should humble anyone who invokes priestly authority while dismissing Yeshua. A descendant of Aaron may speak with confidence about why Yeshua must be rejected and still fail to understand the truth his own Scriptures are revealing.
The title HaKohen carries history and honor. It does not settle the identity of the Messiah.
MERCY REMAINS POSSIBLE
Yeshua makes a crucial distinction:
“Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him…”
—Matthew 12:32, KJV
We should not, therefore, declare Rabbi Singer beyond mercy. Saul opposed Yeshua and persecuted his followers, yet mercy reached him. His story warns us against assuming that any opponent of Yeshua is beyond God’s reach.
Yeshua also did not instruct his disciples to punish those who rejected or insulted him. When a Samaritan village refused to receive him, James and John wanted judgment called down upon it. Yeshua rebuked them and continued on to another village (Luke 9:52–56). His response was mercy and warning, not physical punishment.
THE RELIGIOUS PREMISE BEHIND CONDEMNATION
The Torah prescribed death for someone formally convicted of blaspheming the divine Name:
“He that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death…”
—Leviticus 24:16, KJV
Rabbi Singer is not formally presenting a legal case under Leviticus 24:16. Indeed, because he denies Yeshua’s divine identity, he would presumably reject the suggestion that speaking against Yeshua could constitute speaking against God.
Yet that is precisely where the two understandings collide.
If Yeshua is who the New Testament says he is, then Singer is not merely defending God against a false object of worship. He is speaking contemptuously about the one through whom God has revealed himself.
Singer’s rhetoric nevertheless supplies a religious premise resembling the one behind Yeshua’s condemnation: Yeshua is a false object of worship whose influence draws Jews away from God and Torah.
That raises a disturbing hypothetical question:
Had Rabbi Singer sat on the council considering the accusations against Yeshua, would his understanding of Yeshua as a source of idolatry have led him to vote for condemnation? Or would he, like Gamaliel, have warned the council to leave the matter in God’s hands?
We cannot know how Singer would have voted. Nevertheless, the religious premise underlying his rhetoric appears disturbingly close to the premise that produced Yeshua’s condemnation: that his claims threatened Israel’s faithfulness to God and Torah.
The accusation before the council and the sentence imposed by Rome must also be distinguished. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment. According to the Gospel accounts, Yeshua was condemned by the religious council on an accusation of blasphemy and then delivered to Pontius Pilate under accusations framed as a political threat to Roman authority.
Singer does not explicitly defend Yeshua’s crucifixion, and his words should not be represented as though he does. Yet his argument appears to supply essentially the same underlying religious premise: Yeshua is a false object of worship, his followers are being led into corruption, and Jews who return to him are returning to something filthy.
A DISTURBING PERSONAL ADMISSION
In the same public discussion, at approximately 14:20, Rabbi Singer makes a shocking admission. He acknowledges that, when he was younger, he wanted to kill Christians. His purpose in recounting this may have been to demonstrate that his attitude has changed. Nothing in this observation should be read as alleging that he advocates violence today.
Nevertheless, the admission provides disturbing context for his repeated comparison of believers in Yeshua to dogs returning to their vomit. His youthful hostility and his present degrading metaphor appear to arise from a similar underlying judgment: that faith in Yeshua is not merely mistaken but spiritually contaminating and dangerous to Israel.
That places Singer’s rhetoric uncomfortably close to the reasoning attributed to those who condemned Yeshua. They did not consider themselves enemies of God. They believed they were defending God, Torah and Israel from a dangerous deceiver.
The historical irony is difficult to miss. Singer’s youthful attitude resembles Saul’s attitude before the Damascus road. Saul also believed that suppressing Yeshua’s followers was service to God.
Yeshua warned his disciples that a time would come when those who killed them would believe they were serving God:
“The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”
—John 16:2, KJV
The danger is not merely hatred. It is hatred sanctified by the conviction that one is defending heaven.
MERCY FOR THE FOLLOWERS—BUT WHAT OF YESHUA?
There is one final distinction that may reveal the deepest implication of Rabbi Singer’s argument: he speaks differently about believers in Yeshua than his metaphor speaks about Yeshua himself.
When Singer tells a Jewish believer, “You’re not a dog. You can do better,” he leaves that person an avenue of repentance. The believer is portrayed as foolish or deceived, but not beyond recovery. He can renounce his faith in Yeshua, return to Singer’s understanding of Judaism and be welcomed back.
Singer therefore appears to reserve mercy for the follower—but only on the condition that the follower rejects Yeshua.
What mercy, however, does this reasoning leave for Yeshua himself?
Within Singer’s metaphor, the believer is the dog who can be persuaded to stop returning. Faith in Yeshua is the act of returning. Yeshua, as the object of that faith, remains at the center of what Singer portrays as rejected spiritual corruption.
The follower may be forgiven for having been deceived, but the one Singer regards as the source of that deception receives no comparable defense. There is no suggestion that Yeshua was misunderstood, sincerely mistaken or worthy of reconsideration. Singer’s appeal to the follower depends upon Yeshua remaining someone—or something—from which the follower must be rescued.
This creates a significant asymmetry:
– The follower is redeemable.
– The alleged deceiver remains condemned.
Singer may not explicitly call Yeshua a blasphemer in this particular metaphor, and the metaphor alone does not establish that he is formally arguing for a death sentence. Nevertheless, its religious logic points toward a much more serious accusation against Yeshua than against those who follow him.
The followers are treated as people who can repent of spiritual error. Yeshua is treated as the source of that error—a false object of worship whose influence leads Jews away from God and Torah. Under that reasoning, the followers require correction, but Yeshua bears responsibility for the alleged deception.
This is where Singer’s invitation to repentance takes on a darker implication. He offers the believer mercy by demanding the rejection of Yeshua, while offering no corresponding mercy, reconsideration or vindication to Yeshua.
The door is open for the follower only after Yeshua has been left outside.
From a New Testament perspective, the reversal is profound. Yeshua is the one who extends repentance and mercy to the sinner. In Singer’s argument, the sinner is offered religious restoration only by repudiating the one whom the New Testament identifies as the source of mercy.
This brings us back to the religious reasoning behind Yeshua’s condemnation. If Yeshua knowingly claimed an authority and identity that belonged to God alone, then those who rejected him could regard him not merely as mistaken but as a blasphemer and deceiver of Israel. In that framework, his followers might be reclaimed, but the alleged deceiver himself would remain under condemnation.
Singer does not explicitly pronounce that legal verdict here. We should not put words into his mouth. But his metaphor raises an unavoidable question:
If Yeshua is the source of the spiritual corruption from which Singer seeks to rescue Jews, what judgment does Singer’s reasoning ultimately place upon Yeshua himself?
A WARNING TO RABBI SINGER
There is another danger in Rabbi Singer’s argument—one that he, as a Jew, should understand better than most.
For nearly two thousand years, Jews have suffered under the accusation that “the Jews killed Christ.” The deicide charge turned the actions attributed to particular authorities in first-century Jerusalem into an indictment of the entire Jewish people—for every generation.
That accusation helped incite anti-Jewish hatred, expulsions, forced conversions, pogroms and killings. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum explains that the belief that all Jews were responsible for Yeshua’s crucifixion became deeply embedded in European Christian antisemitism. Nazi antisemitism was primarily racial and conspiratorial, but Nazi propagandists drew upon and exploited centuries of existing anti-Jewish prejudice. The Holocaust Museum observes that the Holocaust began with words and ideas, including inherited religious stereotypes about Jews. “United States Holocaust Memorial Museum”
The Roman Catholic Church eventually addressed this destructive collective accusation directly in Nostra Aetate. It acknowledged that particular Jewish authorities and their followers pressed for Yeshua’s death, but declared that what happened during his Passion cannot be charged against all Jews then living—and certainly not against Jews today. “Nostra Aetate”
That distinction matters enormously.
Yeshua was Jewish. His disciples were Jewish. His earliest followers were Jewish. The dispute surrounding him began as a dispute among Jews under Roman occupation. Yeshua was executed by crucifixion under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. Transforming those events into the sweeping accusation that “the Jews killed Christ” is historically irresponsible and morally dangerous.
Singer is not himself repeating the accusation that “the Jews killed Christ.” My concern is that his rhetoric risks supplying antisemites with what they may portray as Jewish confirmation of the religious verdict against Yeshua.
By presenting Yeshua as a corrupting influence, treating faith in him as spiritual filth and apparently defending the logic by which he could be regarded as a blasphemer or deceiver of Israel, Singer risks giving renewed credibility to the argument that Jewish religious opposition properly placed Yeshua under condemnation.
Singer may believe that he is defending Judaism. But he should consider how his reasoning will sound in the hands of people already inclined to blame Jews collectively for Yeshua’s death. If a prominent rabbi appears to say, in effect, that Yeshua deserved religious condemnation and that Jews who follow him must repent, antisemites may seize upon his words as Jewish confirmation of their ancient accusation.
Singer cannot be held responsible for every malicious distortion of his arguments. He can, however, be held responsible for recognizing the historic danger of the ideas he chooses to reinforce.
This is not merely an argument about whether Yeshua fulfilled messianic prophecy. It touches one of the most destructive accusations ever directed against the Jewish people. The charge that Jews rejected and killed Christ contributed to centuries of persecution, and older Christian anti-Jewish prejudices became part of the combustible inheritance exploited by Nazi propaganda.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes that Nazi ideology drew upon centuries of established antisemitic hatred, even as it transformed that hatred into a racial program of genocide. The Nazis incited genocide by drawing upon prejudices and hatreds that were already widespread in European society. “Holocaust Encyclopedia”
Rabbi Singer should therefore be exceedingly careful before rhetorically placing himself alongside the religious case against Yeshua. He may intend only to persuade Jews to reject Christianity, but in doing so he risks breathing life into a charge whose consequences Jews have suffered for centuries.
A rabbi should be extinguishing those flames, not fanning them.
For that, I say: shame on him.
CONCLUSION
The strongest conclusion is not that Rabbi Singer wants Christians killed today. The evidence presented does not establish that, and it would be wrong to accuse him of it.
The more defensible conclusion is that Singer’s own admission demonstrates how easily a theological judgment against Yeshua can develop into hostility toward those who believe in him—the very progression Yeshua warned about.
But Singer’s words reveal something more.
He offers mercy to the follower who abandons Yeshua, while his reasoning appears to leave Yeshua himself standing under condemnation. The follower can be restored by rejecting the alleged deceiver. The alleged deceiver receives no restoration.
At the center of my observation remains one remarkable reversal.
Peter says that knowledge of Yeshua delivers a person from the corruption of the world. He uses the image of a dog returning to its vomit to describe someone who has known the way of righteousness and then turned away from it.
Singer takes that same proverb and applies it to Jews who return to Yeshua.
In Peter’s usage, Yeshua is the way out.
In Singer’s usage, Yeshua becomes the way back in.
Singer opens a door of repentance for the believer, but only if the believer closes the door on Yeshua.
That is more than a disagreement over the identity of the Messiah. It is a complete reversal of Peter’s warning. It risks reinforcing the religious logic behind an accusation that has brought centuries of suffering upon the Jewish people.
Rabbi Singer may believe he is defending Judaism from Yeshua. He should consider whether, in the process, he is reviving an argument that has repeatedly been used against the Jews.
That is a dangerous flame for any rabbi to fan.
EPILOGUE: WATCH AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF
I recognize that this essay presents my own observation and judgment. Readers should not be asked merely to accept my characterization of Rabbi Tovia Singer—or anyone else—without examining the arguments and available evidence themselves.
For readers interested in the larger debate over Yeshua and the Hebrew Scriptures, I recommend an excellent exchange between Dr. Michael Brown and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach concerning Isaiah 53:
“Dr. Michael Brown Debates Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Isaiah 53”
This is not a debate with Rabbi Singer, but it directly addresses the larger theological dispute considered in this essay: whether the Hebrew Scriptures point toward Yeshua as Israel’s Messiah. Both participants are able to present their arguments at length. The debate speaks for itself, and readers can listen carefully and decide which interpretation is more faithful to the text.
I also want to make a personal observation about Rabbi Singer’s manner of argument.
I find Rabbi Singer’s manner of argument arrogant, manipulative and, at times, disingenuous.
Those are my judgments, not neutral statements of fact, and readers are entitled to disagree with me. I do not base that reaction merely upon the fact that Singer rejects Yeshua. Honest people can disagree strongly about Scripture without being dishonest or manipulative.
My concern is with the way Singer sometimes represents his opponents, characterizes earlier exchanges and uses ridicule in place of respectful engagement. Comparing believers to dogs returning to vomit is one example. Dr. Brown raises additional concerns in the following response:
“Dr. Brown Responds to Rabbi Tovia Singer”
In this video, Dr. Brown responds to claims Singer reportedly made about their 1992 debate and presents his account of what occurred. It is important to acknowledge that this is Dr. Brown’s side of the dispute. Singer is entitled to offer his own account, and readers should evaluate both men by the same standard.
I have offered my observation. Dr. Brown offers his evidence and response.
Watch the debates. Watch the response. Listen to the arguments rather than merely reacting to the personalities.
Then you be the judge.
