By Walt Garlington, an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland. His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.
Rabbi Tovia Singer, described as ‘one of the best-known Bible teachers in the Jewish world’, nevertheless gives a false interpretation of the 1,290/1,335 days that the Holy Prophet Daniel writes about in chapter 12, verses 11-12, of his book. Rabbi Singer gave them the following meaning:
‘The remarks came in a recent episode of Parsha Inspired, the YouTube podcast hosted by Rabbi Aron Sokol. Rabbi Singer, the founder of Outreach Judaism and one of the best-known Bible teachers in the Jewish world, laid out a reading of the final chapter of the Book of Daniel that ties the prophet’s numbers directly to the Dome of the Rock, the reunification of Jerusalem, and the building of the Third Temple. . . .
‘The question at the heart of the interview is one that has occupied Jewish scholars for more than two thousand years: what did the angel mean when he gave Daniel two numbers, and from what point does the count begin?
‘ . . . The Book of Daniel closes with a cryptic exchange. Daniel is told to seal his prophecy “even to the time of the end,” and is then given two figures:
‘“And from the time that the continual burnt-offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Happy is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” (Daniel 12:11-12)
‘Rabbi Singer read the “days” as years. “I just want to be very clear so everyone understands that when the word day is used in Daniel, it always means a year,” he said.
‘The starting point, he argued, is the moment the “abomination that maketh desolate” was erected on the site of the Temple. For Rabbi Singer, that structure is the Dome of the Rock, completed in 691 CE.
‘ . . . Counting 1,290 years from that point, Rabbi Singer arrived at the year Israel declared a united Jerusalem its capitol. The Knesset passed the Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capitol of Israel in July 1980. “And then it says happy is the one that waits 1,335 years for the redemption,” he said. “And it’s happening now.”’
As with many Protestant pastors, Rabbi Singer doesn’t elaborate on the sources or authorities that brought about his epiphany concerning the meaning of Daniel’s prophecy. It would seem that we are simply to trust that his view is correct.
As Orthodox Christians, we have a better methodology. We have the interpretation of the Fathers of the Church to guide us, men truly enlightened by God the Holy Ghost. And they disagree quite strongly with Rabbi Singer. They deny that the days written about in Dan. 12:11-12 are to be interpreted as years. Rather, they are to be understood precisely as days; and not just any days – the final days of Antichrist’s persecution of the Orthodox Church, that will last 42 months/1,260 days/time, and half a time/three and one-half years (Revelation 11:2-3, 12:6; Daniel 7:25, 12:7, 11 – via the notes on those verses in The Orthodox Study Bible).
But this is what Rabbi Singer very much wishes people would not do is listen to the Church Fathers. He admits explicitly that he wants them to be proven wrong (bolding added):
‘The Mount itself, he said, had been deliberately turned into a garbage heap under Byzantine Christian rule. “The Christians used it as a garbage place deliberately because they wanted to say that the destruction of the Temple Mount was a sign that God was done with the Jews,” he said. “And this is what happened to Judaism. It’s over.”
‘ . . . Rabbi Singer framed the Dome as a theological statement. “Both Christianity and Islam believe they’ve replaced us. And that’s very critical,” he said. “The church believed that the Jews were once chosen, but now the church is the new Israel, and therefore the Jews cannot return back and have sovereignty over the Temple Mount. That can’t be.”
‘The rebuilding of the Temple, in his view, overturns that claim at its foundation. “When the Beit HaMikdash is built on exactly Mount Moriah, on the holy place where the holy of holies is, what happens is it destroys what Islamic thinking spread and what the church thought,” he said. “It will tell the world that the church fathers were wrong.”’
“Every prophet of Israel, without exception, prophesied that the Temple would be rebuilt, ushering in a new era of universal harmony and peace unparalleled in the history of man. For when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, it was the soul of Jewish people… and the entire world… as we believe it will be once again.” – Statement of Principles, https://templeinstitute.org/
Given the Rabbi’s words, now is a good time to remind readers what the Orthodox Church Fathers have said about the Church as the New Israel, starting with the Holy Apostles themselves. The folks with The Uncreated Light Substack page give a good overview:
‘The same thing is for Isaac, are Esau and the Edomites then Israel if it’s by birthright/nation alone? Both Jacob and Esau were born of Isaac, yet only Jacob is considered Israel, the seed of Abraham. We don’t say the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau, we say the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The point being, a human lineage does not make you Israel.
‘Galatians 3:28-29, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (8).
‘Luke 2:32, “A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.” (9).
‘For these two verses we must point out that Christ is the light and the glory of Israel, which naturally begs the question, how can the nation state today of Israel who denies Christ actually be Israel? St. Paul is also clear in the previous verse that if you are Christ’s you are of Abraham. There is no separate covenant for Jewish people alone, there is one covenant that is promised to all who accept Christ.
‘Ephesians 2:12, “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” (10).
‘Here St. Paul equates being without Christ as being alien to Israel. How much more clear does that get? This is probably the most emphatic Scripture that serves to show the Church is the New Israel.
‘Galatians 6:16, “And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” (11).
‘ . . . “As, therefore, Christ is the Israel and the Jacob, even so we, who have been quarried out from the bowels of Christ, are the true Israelitic race.” + St. Justin Martyr (16).
‘ . . . “Those who pursue this new creation will enjoy peace and goodness, and truly deserve to be called by the name of the true Israel. But those who oppose it, even if they have been born of Israel and carried Israel’s name with them, have fallen away from Israel and from that name and family. For those who can truly be Israelites are those who keep this rule, abstain from the old ways and pursue what belongs to grace.” + St. John Chrysostom (19).
‘ . . . “He hath taken hold of Israel,—not of the Israel according to the flesh, and who prides himself on the bare name, but of him who is so after the Spirit, and according to the true meaning of the appellation;—even such as look unto God, and believe in Him, and obtain through the Son the adoption of sons, according to the Word that was spoken, and the promise made to the prophets and patriarchs of old.”+ St. Cyril of Alexandria (21).’
Rabbi Singer would seem to have a daunting task ahead of him to disprove such a consistent teaching in Church history. But this is what spiritual delusion brings about – hubris, pride, and such like.
And yet, for all his errors, he may have revealed an important truth: that the year 2026 holds special meaning for the forces opposed to Christ and His Orthodox Church. Via Free West Media:
‘Kabbalistic schemes divide human history into three 2,000-year ages totalling 6,000 years: Tohu (Emptiness), Torah (Law) and the present Messianic Age. Many civilisations speak of cyclical cataclysms every 6,000 years, the last being Noah’s Flood. Groups influenced by both Christianity and occultism take Jesus’ death and resurrection in the year 33 as the pivotal point.
‘Thus 2033 marks 2,000 years. Despite calendar complexities, occult actors navigate by this official timeline.
‘The prophecy places the start of the seven-year tribulation in 2026, when the Antichrist appears as a false peacemaker. His mask falls in 2029 and true misery begins; that autumn he enters a completed Third Temple after the required sacrifices.
‘When the beast is crushed, imbalance and the split “between the Father on high and the Mother on earth” cease.
‘According to Golden Dawn teaching the flaming sword is withdrawn and Leviathan’s grip is released. Humanity’s heart is liberated; the four guardians—bull, man, eagle and lion—are reunited. Original harmony returns to the Tree of Life. That restoration does not, however, mean that our present civilisation and world survive.’
Zionists like Rabbi Singer are, knowingly or unknowingly, cooperating with such demonic groups with their Third Temple enthusiasm –
‘He cited Maimonides, the Rambam, to explain why wars end in that era. “When all the nations worship one true God, the result is that war will come to an end, because wars are really there because of a difference of ideology,” he said.
‘ . . . Rabbi Singer said the vision he is describing comes from the Rambam, who taught that the spread of Christianity and Islam across the globe prepares the world for the Messiah. Billions of people, he explained, already hold “a concept of God, a basic outline, a concept of commandments, a concept that there’s a Torah.”
‘“That’s why we don’t want to say anything anti-Muslim or Christian. That’s not the point of this conversation,” he said. “When the true Messiah comes, and the Jews are there, and the Beit HaMikdash is built on that spot, then they’ll grab the tzitzit and say, you were always the one who was committed to it.”’
The religion of Zionist Judaism will unite the presently divided peoples of Christianity, Islam, etc., says Rabbi Singer via the ‘true Messiah’. But this religion of his is the religion of Antichrist, as the Church Fathers that Rabbi Singer dislikes proclaim:
‘“Everyone – young and old and nations are striving to ensure the creation of one religion. And it will be accomplished in such a way – by claiming that “all religions are the same”; that “we shall form a new religion”… This is being done by something they call Zionism. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term, eh?
‘Visitor: No, I haven’t heard of it.
‘“Yes… and they are working hard towards that purpose. That people ought to leave them (the old religions) and replace them with a good, new religion.” + St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia (3).’
‘From Elder Ephraim of Arizona & Philotheou, who is certainly expected to be canonized as a saint in the Orthodox Church, he says: “It is well known that the devil-instigated Zionism is coordinating two insidious operations both within and without the Church aspiring to one and the same end; to destroy the fortress known as Orthodoxy.” (1).’
Many in these stormy times, in the United States and in a multitude of other places in the world, are thankfully running to ‘the fortress known as Orthodoxy’ rather than to Rabbi Singer’s satanic alternative. If they will continue to do so, then the world will be spared, for the moment, those final evil days he misinterpreted from Daniel’s prophecy.
Sources
https://theuncreatedlight.substack.com/p/orthodox-wisdom-for-the-modern-world
https://freewestmedia.com/2026/09/24/globalist-agenda-coincide-with-occult-timelines/
