-----Original Message-----
From: Shomeir ben Magen
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 8:32 AM
To:  House of Israel Newsgroup
Subject: Is Jesus really the Messiah?

Subject: Is Jesus really the Messiah?

Dear Shomeir ben Magen ~

     on your website, in the section titled "is Jesus really the Messiah?" you quote the book of Zachariah, chapter 12 verse 10. but i do not think that the translation that you use is an accurate one. how it is translated on your site is as follows: "They shall look unto Me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son." however, if you look at the original Hebrew of the entire verse (Vshafachtee al-bait David v'al yoshayve Yerushalayim ruach chayn v'tachanooneem v'heebeetoo alai ait asher-dakaroo v'safdoo alaiv k'meespaid al-hayacheed v'hamair alaiv k'hamair al-habchor) you see that a more accurate translation is "But I will fill the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with a spirit of pity and compassion, and they shall lament/cry to Me about those who are slain, wailing over them as over a favorite son and showing bitter grief as over a first born."
     someone of your obvious education can see where the discrepancies are in the translations, and can see why the translation used on your website could be missleading a casual reader from the truth concerning what it is the the prophet Zechariah was saying.
 
~ sincerely,
     Daniel

Shalom Daniel,
 
You are missing the point.  This quote is from the Talmud [as translated by Rabbi Abraham Cohen].  The Talmud says that this passage in Zechariah refers to Mashiach ben Joseph.  This explanation was also confirmed by the Torah commentator Rabbi Moshe Alschich (c. 1500).  Please get Rabbi Cohen's book and check it out for yourself. 
 
You are obviously taking your cues from the new JPS translation of the Tanakh which is an anti-missionary reactionary translation.  I, myself, am a self-confessed anti-missionary, but let's be honest with the word.  Yes, you are partially correct.  The word "et" (or as you have rendered it "ait") separates the one being look to from the one being pierce -- but the big problem is the pluralization of the object in this translation.  Please compare the new JPS translation with the 1917 JPS translation.  "...And they shall look unto Me because they have thrust him through; And shall mourn for him, as one that mourns for his only son,..." 
 
The sages said that the one who was thrust through (or pierced) is Mashiach ben Joseph.  This is the point of my quotation of Rabbi Cohen in this article.
 
Kol tov,
Shomeir

Feedback from original post:

Shomeir,

Metzuyan!! (EXCELLENT). You did well here in presenting the point and presenting the truth. 

Avi