All posts by James Pyles

James Pyles is a published Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror author as well as the Technical Writer for a large, diversified business in the Northwest. He currently has over 30 short stories published in various anthologies and periodicals and has just sold his first novella. He won the 2021 Helicon Short Story Award for his science fiction tale "The Three Billion Year Love" which appears in the Tuscany Bay Press Planetary Anthology "Mars."

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Schreiner’s Law of Torah and Sin

August 19, 2013 James Pyles 16 Comments

Look up Deuteronomy 30, Psalm 19, and Psalm 119 as just a few of the many examples of how the Torah was upheld, esteemed, thought beautiful, a source of wisdom, on, and on, and on, how wonderful the Law of Moses was.

How did it get morphed in the late Second Temple period to be such a pain in the neck for the Jewish people?

-from my previous blog post
Blessings, Curses, and Works of the Law

When I wrote those words, I was unaware that Question 13 of Schreiner’s book was titled “How Do Paul’s Negative Comments About the Law Fit with the Positive Statements About the Law in Psalm 19 and Psalm 119”. Before going on to that part of the book, let’s take a look at some revealing portions of the two Psalms in question.

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.
They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them Your servant is warned;
In keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.
Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins;
Let them not rule over me;
Then I will be blameless,
And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

–Psalm 19:7-14 (NASB)

I included the part where the Psalmist prays that God keep him from his presumptuous sins and so forth, since that plays into Schreiner’s answer.

My soul cleaves to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word.
I have told of my ways, and You have answered me;
Teach me Your statutes.
Make me understand the way of Your precepts,
So I will meditate on Your wonders.

–Psalm 119:25-27 (NASB)

This is a very long Psalm, so I’ll only include this short sample here, but you should really read it, if you haven’t already. It’s a virtual monument to the wonders of the Torah. I find it very refreshing.

So how does Schreiner respond to his own question?

Despite the initial appearance to the contrary, the psalmist does not contradict what we find in Paul. The writer of Psalm 119 recognizes that the power to keep God’s precepts comes from God. Autonomous human beings are unable to please God or keep his law (cf. Rom. 8:7). For instance, we read in Psalm 119:159, “Give me according to your steadfast love.” Life comes from God’s steadfast love, that is, from his grace and mercy. Human beings do not merit or gain life by observing the law.

Schreiner, pp 85-6

I don’t know why Schreiner continues to beat a dead horse except that it sounds good, but who said that just keeping the commandments apart from God’s mercy and grace grants life? I don’t see a lack of faith in either Psalm and frankly, I see these Psalms heaping gratitude and thanks upon God for all his gifts including His written word. Even John MacArthur, as I previously noted, cites Psalm 19 as an example and an inspiration for Christians to love and revere the Bible. Schreiner seems to need to denigrate and discount any positive depiction of Torah in the Bible in order to support his belief of Jesus totally killing the Torah at the cross and then appointing Paul as his head henchman, making him responsible for burying it.

Schreiner’s answer to his question is never convincing, but his summary puts the icing on the cake:

Paul’s negative statements on the law do not contradict Psalm 19 and Psalm 119. Paul emphasizes that the law puts human beings to death and never grants life to those who are unregenerate. Psalms 19 and 119 consider the situation of those who are regenerate. In that case, God’s commands by the work of his Spirit cast believers onto the grace of God, and God uses the commandments in conjunction with his Spirit to strengthen believer so that they rely upon God’s grace to please him.

ibid, pp 86-7

Schreiner just shot himself in the foot, maybe more than once.

First off, he’s making an assumption that the Psalmist(s) is/are regenerate. Here, we could accuse Schreiner of eisegesis, that is, he’s reading his theology into the text in order to support his conclusions about Paul. Also, in constructing a rather convoluted explanation for how Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 don’t contradict Schreiner’s version of Paul, he seems to have forgotten about Occam’s Razor (not that this principle must always be applied to Biblical hermeneutics, but you can get just about any collection of contradictory data to “fit” if you weave a complicated enough tale).

However, Schreiner has a much bigger problem. He contradicted himself. He said that it was possible for Old Testament Jewish people to be regenerate, to receive the Holy Spirit, and through faith and God’s mercy and grace, perform the commandments of the law in such a way that it is pleasing to God.

But what about this?

The purpose of the law is to reveal human sin so that it will be clear that there is no hope in human beings. The law puts us to death so that life is sought only in Christ and him crucified.

Schreiner, pg 84
Question 12: According to Paul, What Was the Purpose of the Law?

I find Schreiner’s summary statement of his short chapter offensive because it discounts the lives and experiences of countless generations of Israelites, whose only purpose in life were to be human failures so that, once Jesus was born, aged a little past thirty, died, was resurrected, and ascended, that subsequent Jews and non-Jews could realize the futility of trying to please God by “works” and turn to Jesus and his grace.

Poor Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, Solomon, and so on. They didn’t know their existence was meaningless and that they were just fodder to prove what worthless lives they led without Jesus, having to rely on a law that only increases sin and brings death.

As my Jewish wife might say, “Oy!”

That’s right, according to Schreiner, citing Romans 5:20, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass.” (pg 81) He further states, “Nevertheless, the law has been co-opted by sin, so that sin has increased with the addition of law.” (pp 81-2)

I wonder when that happened?

If one looks at God’s transcendent purpose, then, the law was given to increase sin and reveal sin…Even though the Jews enjoyed the privilege of knowing God’s law, the privilege brought no saving advantage since Israel transgressed the law. The law did not secure Israel’s salvation, but revealed her transgression and her hard and unrepentant heart. The law has disclosed that none is righteous…

-ibid

Really, Dr. Schreiner. You can’t have it both ways and you can’t dance on the edge of a razor hoping that your readers won’t notice. Also, and I’ve said this several times before, it was never a function of the law to secure salvation, so this is a straw man argument.

Schreiner, like many Christians, seems to be so focused on salvation, he believes that everything must be directly related to salvation or it has no purpose in God’s plan at all. He says that no one can keep the law perfectly or even adequately. He says that the sole reason for the law’s existence is to reveal man’s sinfulness in general and Israel’s sinfulness in specific. Further, he says that the purpose of the law was to actually increase sin in anyone attempting to keep it.

And yet, the writer(s) of Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 was/were apparently completely fooled.

And what about this?

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.

–Luke 1:5-6 (NASB)

How can this even be possible, especially from Schreiner’s perspective? And yet it’s right there in scripture. Zacharias was obviously not a perfect person. In verse 20, the angel Gabriel causes Zacharias to become mute because he doubted the angel’s prophesy that he and his wife would have a son in their extreme old age. So Zacharias wasn’t perfect and yet he and his wife “were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.”

Schreiner is good about citing his sources and drawing from many different slices of the Bible to support his arguments, but he can’t fix the glaring inconsistencies that he chooses to ignore.

How can the law be good but Paul still seemingly denigrates it? How can a Psalmist love the Torah if it only increases sin and produces death? How can the keeping of the law be pleasing to God by a “regenerate” Psalmist, but impossible for anyone to keep, even the Jewish disciples of the Messiah, in the late Second Temple period?

I know Schreiner is attempting to craft a completely seamless and cohesive explanation that supports his view of the elimination of any value to the law, both in the Old Testament times and especially after the death of Jesus on the cross. This is classic Christian doctrine and has been used for countless centuries to support a supersessionist and anti-Jewish theology in the church.

However, the theological hoops this author and scholar has to jump through to prove his case are so vastly complex that it stretches credibility to the breaking point and beyond.

I’ll certainly continue to read this book to its conclusion, but I can’t imagine how Schreiner will pull the proverbial rabbit out of his hat in order to repair the damage he’s already done to his argument and his book.

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The Fundamental Platform

August 18, 2013 James Pyles 4 Comments

We talked denominations last Wednesday night.

Pastor Randy has a wonderful grasp of the historical development of Fundamentalism (which in its original incarnation, isn’t as scary as it seems today). Wikipedia provides this handy summary:

Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamentalist Christianity, or simply fundamentalism, refers to a movement begun in the late 19th and early 20th century British and American Protestant denominations among evangelicals who reacted energetically against theological and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th century modernist theologians had misinterpreted or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which evangelicals viewed as the fundamentals of Christian faith. A few scholars regard Catholics who reject modern theology in favor of more traditional doctrines as fundamentalists. Scholars debate how much the terms “evangelical” and “fundamentalist” are synonymous.

Fundamentalism is a movement manifested in various denominations with various theologies, rather than a single denomination or systematic theology. It became active in the 1910s after the release of the Fundamentals, a ten-volume set of essays, apologetic and polemic written by conservative Protestant theologians to defend what they saw as Protestant orthodoxy. The movement became more organized in the 1920s within U.S. Protestant churches, especially Baptist and Presbyterian. Many such churches adopted a “fighting style” and combined Princeton theology with Dispensationalism. Since 1930, many fundamentalist churches in North America and around the world have been represented by the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (renamed IFCA International in 1996), which holds to biblical inerrancy, the Virgin birth of Jesus, substitutionary atonement, the literal resurrection of Christ, and the Second Coming of Christ, among other doctrines.

Really, all a fundamentalist was in its original meaning, was a person who adhered to the core fundamentals of their faith. The fundamentalist movement was born out of a desire to establish or re-establish just what was and is fundamental about being a Christian. We have all kinds of denominations and theologies and doctrines. What is the bare minimum core set of beliefs that are necessary for a person to authentically be a Christian?

The paragraph above lists all but one of them. I’ll put the complete list in bullet point form to make the information easier to read.

Biblical inerrancy
Deity of Jesus
Virgin birth of Jesus
Substitutionary atonement
The literal resurrection of Christ
The Second Coming of Christ

Believe it or not, in the late 19th century in America and Canada (and probably Europe), These core beliefs weren’t automatically adopted and shared between Christians. I had thought the Deity of Christ had been settled by the third or fourth century, but apparently a great deal came into question in about the mid-19th century, and a series of conferences were held to settle the issue (though in the realm of human beliefs, nothing is ever finally settled).

This is all going to seem pretty dry compared to what I usually write, but I know so little about how denominations formed and what makes them different from one another, that I need to put it down in some semi-stable place as a reference. I didn’t take notes during our conversation, so I’ll have to work from memory and the charts Pastor gave me, one of which I’m including here (click to enlarge).

As Pastor was talking, I recalled my blog post What Good is There in the Hebrew Roots Movement, where I attempted to illustrate what Christianity, Messianic Judaism, and Hebrew Roots have certain things in common. I think we need to expand that idea a bit to include what we all agree upon as disciples of the Jewish Messiah. I know, for instance, that there are a few Messianic Jewish individuals and groups who claim Yeshua as Messiah but deny his Deity. They may be “Messianic,” but if we’re operating from the diagram inserted above, they can’t be included in the list of people/groups who share a fundamental set of core beliefs about Jesus.

I think such a discussion is important if, for no other reason, than to manage the “dizzyingly” confusing collection of different denominations, movements, and groups in our world. Pastor was able to place himself on the different charts he gave me, but I was just baffled where I would fit in. Where does Messianic Judaism find itself in these spectrums or is it such a diverse movement that different Messianic groups would land on different points along the scale?

I found out that Pastor has started reading Rudolph’s and Willitts’s book Introduction to Messianic Judaism. He seems to have thrown himself into the content, but where he finds himself cheering in some chapters, he disagrees strongly with others. I can’t wait to get a more detailed report from him.

I mention this because I think his mixed reaction indeed describes the larger experience within the overall Messianic Jewish movement. The movement is still in a formation stage and is trying to define itself. Contrary to what many people may believe, Messianic Judaism isn’t a single, unified entity. In many ways, it is going through the evolutionary process that mainstream Christianity has experienced and continues to go through. That’s why discovering a fundamental set of core beliefs that can be shared by all disciples of Messiah/Christ is really important. Whatever differences exist that may separate us, at least we’ll know what we all have in common.

How will that work in terms of bilateral ecclesiology as defined in Mark Kinzer’s book Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism? I don’t know. As I recall from reading the book several years ago, Rabbi Dr. Kinzer draws a pretty hard and firm line in the sand between Messianic Jewish practice and identity and any non-Jewish worship and following of the Jewish Messiah. Separate but equal silos.

But as I’ve said, Messianic Judaism itself exists on a spectrum and the portion of the movement that expresses bilateral ecclesiology in its purest form (if it exists in actual practice) represents one line along the graph.

Well over two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote a blog post called Gears, Wires, and Batteries where I proposed to take all of the assumptions I’d made during my time in the Hebrew Roots movement and strip them down to nothing, then rebuild my theology from scratch.

I didn’t get it all down quite to zero, but the result is a movement away from Hebrew Roots and more toward Christianity with a “Messianic” twist. Pastor described the life of a gentleman whose name I can’t remember, a person who was instrumental in defining and then fulfilling the evangelical needs of a post-World War II Europe. This amazing person, at one point, experienced a severe crisis of faith and had to stop all external activities in order to re-discover exactly what he believed.

I suppose I’ve been “leaking” similar thoughts on my blog lately. I’m trying to discover and re-discover where I fit in. My position continues to waver a bit, especially since I’ve been attending church and Sunday school for the better part of a year.

Pastor said he wasn’t trying to convince me to become a Baptist and that although he agrees with much or all of the doctrines of the Standard Baptist Church, he’s not married to the name. I don’t know if I’ll ever become a Baptist. I suspect not, since I feel more like the wildcard in the deck. On the other hand, when God sent Pastor to live in Israel for fifteen years and then brought him back and made him a Pastor, I think God added a bit of a wildcard to Pastor’s deck, too. Although he’s more “standard” than I am as a Christian, we each have our “peculiarities”.

There’s a reason our conversations are just between the two of us. Most believers can’t tolerate the dynamic tension involved in being suspended between categories, labels, and pigeon-holes.

I don’t know where this is all going to lead for me personally, but I suspect it’s another step along the path that God has set before me. As far as all of the groups, movements, organizations, and individuals who, on some level, acknowledge that Jesus or Yeshua is the Christ or Messiah, there must be some ground-level, foundational set of beliefs that we all have in common. I know that especially in Messianic Judaism, it’s important to draw identity distinctions in order to avoid the pitfalls of assimilation into Christian culture and identity, but below that layer should exist a platform where we can all stand together and say, “this is what we believe, no matter how different we are otherwise.”

Where do all Christians, all Messianic Jewish people and affiliated Gentiles, and all Hebrew Roots Gentiles and affiliated Jews stand and make that statement? Have we ever tried to do that?

Torah Portion

Ki Teitzei: Fulfilling Gratitude

August 16, 2013 James Pyles 2 Comments

There is an old joke illustrating the difference between a believer and an atheist:

The believer wakes up, looks up to heaven, and with heartfelt devotion and true gratitude exclaims, “Good morning, G‑d!”

The atheist, by contrast, rolls over one last time, yawns and stretches, strolls over to the window, looks outside and declares, “My G‑d, what a morning!”

-Rabbi Elisha Greenbaum
“Keep the Faith”
Commentary on Torah Portion Ki Teitzei
Chabad.org

The very first blog I posted here is called Abundant is Your Faithfulness. When I originally created my “meditations” blog, I based it on something written by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman:

When you get up in the morning, let the world wait. Defy it a little. First learn something to inspire you. Take a few moments to meditate upon it. And then you may plunge ahead into the darkness, full of light with which to illuminate it.

I wanted my writing to be something people could read in the morning shortly after waking up and then ponder on throughout the day. I’ll admit to a little “mission drift” in the over two-and-a-half years this blog has been in existence, but this has always been my intent.

But you don’t have to wait until you get out of bed and make it to your computer to find something inspiring. As Rabbi Greenbaum says in his commentary, observant Jews start meditating on God even before they get up by reciting the Modeh Ani:

“I gratefully thank You, living and existing King for restoring my soul to me with compassion. Abundant is your faithfulness.”

I mentioned to a friend just recently that the wedding vow is the only vow Christians take before God anymore. Most people, including most Christians, probably don’t realize it, but when you say “for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, til death do us part,” we are actually taking a solemn vow in the presence of God that these words we will keep with our actions.

And yet the divorce rate in the church is virtually the same as in the secular world. As human beings, we do a lousy job of keeping our vows to God…we can’t even keep the one left that we’re supposed to take seriously. I guess that’s why Jesus said this:

“Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.”

–Matthew 5:33-37 (NASB)

But apart from vows, just how seriously do we take what we say to God? Are we too casual in our “conversations” with Him? Does it matter that we’re addressing not only a King, but literally the Creator of everything?

Referring to the Modeh Ani, Rabbi Greenbaum says:

We acknowledge our Creator and thank Him for the gift of a new day. By starting off the day full of humility and gratitude, we pledge to live up to G‑d’s vision for the world.

But, I ask you: once you’ve rolled off the bed and rubbed the sleep from your eyes, how much of the Modeh Ani do you take with you? So you spent eight seconds admitting that you owe your life to G‑d. Does that really affect the rest of the day?

I recite the Modeh Ani when I wake up each morning, but I must admit, Rabbi Greenbaum gave me something new to think about. Just how much of my “thankfulness” do I carry forward into each day? How many Monday’s have I complained about when my alarm goes off, rousing me out of that last moment of “the weekend?” I can hardly add to what Rabbi Greenbaum reveals to his audience, including me, so I’ll let him finish his commentary:

The Torah advises us to “fulfill the utterances of our lips.” (Deuteronomy 23:24) Ostensibly an injunction to pay up our pledges to charity and to live up to our vows, the verse can be homiletically rendered as a directive to listen and learn from the words said while praying. It is too easy to just go through the motions, letting the familiar words roll off the tongue and into oblivion; however, G‑d wants prayer to be more than mere lip service.

The words we say must mean something. Prayer is not just dead time spent mindlessly repeating a monotonous mantra, but a unique opportunity to communicate with the divine. When we train our children to say the Modeh Ani first thing after rising, it is in the hope that the feelings and emotions encapsulated in the prayer will permeate the days of their life.

G‑d demands that we fulfill our pledges and live up to our promises. Each morning we acknowledge our Creator as King, and thank Him for gifting us with our soul again. We approach the rest of the day with the enthusiasm and knowledge that we are following the route suggested in G‑d’s guidebook. We will fulfill the oaths we made to Him, and live by our promises, for now and forever.

As Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski might say in one of his Growing Each Day commentaries…

Today I shall…

…seek to fill full all of the words I speak to God with sincerity and to carry them forward with me in each day, from morning until evening, with thanksgiving and gratitude.

Good Shabbos.

40 days.

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Blessings, Curses, and Works of the Law

August 15, 2013 James Pyles 5 Comments

…those who support the New Perspective on Paul, such as J.D.G. Dunn…and N.T. Wright…maintain that “works of the law” focuses on the boundary markers that separate Jews and Gentiles. The boundary markers, or identity badges, of Judaism were circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath. The problem with the Judaism in Paul’s day, then, was not legalism but exclusivism. “Works of law” highlights the nationalistic spirit of the Jews by which they excluded Gentiles from the promises of God. According to his interpretation, Paul does not indict the Jews for their failure to obey the law. Their fault was not inability but separatism.

-Thomas Schreiner from his book
40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law
Question 5: What Does the Expression “Works of Law” Mean in Paul? pg 42

My previous review on earlier chapters of Schreiner’s book can be found in this morning’s “meditation,” Captured in the Glass. Please read that article before proceeding here.

It took me until this fifth chapter, uh…question to realize that Schreiner was writing this book primarily, or at least significantly, in order to refute the “New Perspective on Paul.” The New Perspective on Paul is actually a formal, academic interpretation of the writings of Paul, supported by a number of New Testament scholars. It also seems to dovetail nicely into the viewpoints of some commentators on Messianic Judaism, particularly those to support the distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah relative to covenant signs (circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath).

But according to Schreiner, these scholars are dead wrong. I suspect that’s why my Pastor gave me this book. It really is a compelling book, but not in the way Pastor may have intended it.

Here’s Schreiner’s point of view on “works of the law.”

…”works of law” refers to the entire law and the actions that are required by the law. This is the most likely reading of Romans 3:20 (“For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin”) and Gal. 3:10 (“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them'”).

-ibid

As noted above, I wrote about earlier “questions” in Schreiner’s book in my previous blog post and apparently the subsequent questions form the foundation for later parts of the text. Unfortunately so do the errors that were previously established as well. As I mentioned before, Schreiner himself states that observing the Torah mitzvot was a perfectly acceptable response to obeying God after He redeemed the Israelites from Egypt and apparently it was OK until the coming of Jesus.

Look up Deuteronomy 30, Psalm 19, and Psalm 119 as just a few of the many examples of how the Torah was upheld, esteemed, thought beautiful, a source of wisdom, on, and on, and on, how wonderful the Law of Moses was.

How did it get morphed in the late Second Temple period to be such a pain in the neck for the Jewish people?

Even Schreiner acknowledges that Paul sincerely believed that the Torah was the authoritative word of God for the Jewish people. So what’s Schreiner’s beef with “works of the law?”

A number of arguments support the idea that “works of law” refers to the entire law and the deeds commanded by it…”Works of law” most naturally refers to all deeds commanded by the law. There is no reason to think that it is limited to or focuses on only part of the law, or that it refers to “evil works,” or that it refers to legalism.

-ibid, pg 43

So what? So what if “works of the law” refers to the Torah as a whole? I still maintain that Paul was talking about Jewish and Gentile people who believed that one needed to keep the whole of Torah without error in order to be saved. If you believe keeping the mitzvot will save you instead of faith in God, then you’ve got a problem. I agree. No matter how many of the mitzvot you perform and no matter how well you perform them, those acts are not what saves you from sin and death. Abraham had faith and it was counted to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3).

If the mitzvot was a perfectly good response of obedience to God after Israel’s redemption in the days of Moses, why is it a problem in the days of Paul?

I know what you’re thinking. Schreiner thinks the same way.

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

–James 2:10 (NASB)

Schreiner’s argument from Question 7: Is Perfect Obedience to the Law Mandatory for Salvation? states that the law is impossible to keep perfectly and therefore no one can be saved by keeping the law. He’s rocketing toward the supersessionistic conclusion that in order to be saved, Jews must abandon the Torah (which he erroneously believes Paul did) and cling to Jesus and grace in order to be saved. He is correct in that God expected Israel to observe the mitzvot, but he forgets that God established provisions for the Israelites when they sinned. He uses examples such as Proverbs 20:9 and Ecclesiastes 7:20 to demonstrate how the “Old Testament” Jews couldn’t keep the law and of course, he uses Romans 3:10 to indicate how the “New Testament” Jews couldn’t keep the law either.

But he is building his argument on sand or rather, on a false premise.

Those who do not do everything the law commands are cursed.

–Galatians 3:10b

Schreiner’s problem is that he assumes it was God’s intention that Israel keep the law perfectly in order to be saved…salvation by works. Would God really expect that? He didn’t seem to in Genesis 15. He redeemed Israel before He gave the Torah at Sinai (see my review of the FFOZ TV episode Exile and Redemption for the actual, Biblical definition of “redemption,” which is much more than how Schreiner understands the term), so obviously that redemption or salvation was not based on the Israelites keeping the Torah, being obedient, or any other form of “works-based salvation.”

So what was Paul complaining about, then? What was his problem with the law? His problem was with people, both Jews and Gentiles, who erroneously thought just keeping the law would save them. That’s why he was against Gentiles converting to Judaism (see the Book of Galatians), since they were laboring under the false teaching that they had to keep the law in order to be saved.

That wasn’t Paul’s understanding of the law and it certainly wasn’t God’s.

But if Paul is saying that those who convert to Judaism and thus who are bound to the Sinai covenant and its conditions, the mitzvot of Torah, don’t keep the law perfectly, and not keeping the law perfectly doesn’t cause them to lose their salvation, what is this curse Paul’s talking about?

You’ll find the blessings the Israelite were to receive for observing the mitzvot and the curses they were to suffer from for disobedience in next week’s Torah Portion Ki Tavo: Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8. The actual actions that must be committed in order to be cursed are listed in verses Deuteronomy 27:15-26 and 28:15-19. So what are the consequences of being cursed?

The Lord will let loose against you calamity, panic, and frustration in all the enterprises you undertake, so that you shall soon be utterly wiped out because of your evildoing in forsaking Me. The Lord will make pestilence cling to you, until He has put an end to you in the land that you are entering to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew; they shall hound you until you perish. The skies above your head shall be copper and the earth under you iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land dust, and sand shall drop on you from the sky, until you are wiped out.

The Lord will put you to rout before your enemies; you shall march out against them by a single road, but flee from them by many roads; and you shall become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your carcasses shall become food for all the birds of the sky and all the beasts of the earth, with none to frighten them off.

The Lord will strike you with the Egyptian inflammation, with hemorrhoids, boil-scars, and itch, from which you shall never recover.

The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and dismay. You shall grope at noon as a blind man gropes in the dark; you shall not prosper in your ventures, but shall be constantly abused and robbed, with none to give help.

–Deuteronomy 28:20-29 (JPS Tanakh)

That’s not the entire list, of course. You’ll have to read the rest of that chapter to find all of the curses. None of them says that the Children of Israel will lose their salvation and go to Hell when they die if they don’t keep the law perfectly.

Whenever Israel has been unfaithful to God and to their sincere, faithful obedience to the mitzvot, what consequence has God delivered to Israel? What consequence do we always see in the Tanakh (Old Testament)? What effects of these consequences do we see to this very day?

The Lord will scatter you among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, whom neither you nor your ancestors have experienced. Yet even among those nations you shall find no peace, nor shall your foot find a place to rest. The Lord will give you there an anguished heart and eyes that pine and a despondent spirit. The life you face shall be precarious; you shall be in terror, night and day, with no assurance of survival. In the morning you shall say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening you shall say, “If only it were morning!” — because of what your heart shall dread and your eyes shall see. The Lord will send you back to Egypt in galleys, by a route which I told you you should not see again. There you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but none will buy.

–Deuteronomy 28:64-68 (JPS Tanakh)

War, famine, destruction of the cities of Israel, and exile to the diaspora.

What was Paul’s problem? Did he know what was coming? Israel was occupied by the Roman Empire. At a thought, the Romans could swoop down on Israel, destroy the Temple, raze Jerusalem, and remove the Jewish people from their Land. If you were born Jewish in the late Second Temple period, there must have been an exceptional sense of being responsible for performing the mitzvot, since they knew the consequences of failure. But how could Gentile believers and God-fearers who were only somewhat familiar with the Torah, truly understand he horrendous consequences of converting to Judaism, being bound by the Torah, and what would happen if they weren’t obedient? The lived memory of all of the previous disasters that had befallen Israel, including the destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the Babylonian exile, were imprinted on every single Jew. But how could the Goyim who had recently come to faith in Messiah even begin to understand?

Was this Paul’s motivation? Probably not entirely, but it must have factored in. The other motivation is that it simply wasn’t necessary for Gentiles to convert, since, as I’ve been trying to hammer home, keeping the law does not save you!!! Any Christian who states this as the reason Paul “rejected” the law is barking up the wrong tree. Not only does a Gentile converting to Judaism and taking up the mitzvot not save that Gentile (and it doesn’t save Jewish people, either), but it makes that Gentile and lots of others like him/her a loaded gun pointed at the head of Israel. A bunch of Gentiles who don’t know squat about a experiential Torah lifestyle abruptly converting to Judaism on the mistaken notion that it will save them (and that Jesus isn’t enough) means a whole pool of “newbies” have just been primed to lead Israel into the next disaster because they don’t realize the tremendous responsibility they possess.

As it turns out, that disaster happened anyway, but I can see Paul’s point in saying that anyone who doesn’t keep the law perfectly brings a curse upon themselves and Israel. No, one little screw up wouldn’t do it, but lots and lots of Jews (including converts) over a sustained period of time who were being disobedient always resulted in exactly those curses being delivered by God upon Israel (and please understand that after each exile, God always redeemed and restored the Jews to their Land).

When Paul said that anyone who does not keep the law is under a curse, it has nothing to do with salvation and going to Hell. It does not mean the Torah is bad. It does not mean Jews in Messiah should give up the mitzvot. It does not mean Jewish faith in God and performance of the commandments are mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite. Jesus gives the mitzvot their full meaning. He was the only Jewish person to ever keep the mitzvot perfectly. He’s the poster child for Torah obedience. He also takes away the curses of failing to be perfect and remember, even Jesus said, Be perfect for your Father in Heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

Did Jesus expect his Jewish disciples to keep the law perfectly? How could he? We have a Biblical record that no one ever kept the law perfectly. What is being perfect? Works? Heaven forbid! What justifies us before God? Works? Not a chance. It’s faith. It’s always been faith. If a Jew keeps the law, no matter how imperfectly, are they instantly sent to Hell, are they sent to Hell when they die, or are they even instantly exiled from their Land? No. The consequences are for a faithlessness, corporate Israel, and faithlessness leads to lack of obedience. Lack of obedience is the symptom, the indicator of lack of faith. That’s the trigger for the consequences, the curses.

In Messiah, the curses are redeemed, removed, done with.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

–Galatians 3:13-14

Yes, if Jesus removed the curse of the Law, then why would believing Gentiles converting to Judaism be a threat? Because, as we see from Paul’s argument in Galatians, the Gentiles were under the mistaken impression that keeping the Law justified them. In the end, if Israel believed observance of the mitzvot also justified them apart from faith, then that’s the recipe for exile.

Jesus died to redeem us from sin. He paid the price. He died for us. As Paul told the churches in Galatia, Jesus opened the door so both Jews and Gentiles could come to faith and thus be justified before God. In his death and resurrection, he fulfilled that part of the Abrahamic covenant that says he is the “seed” that blesses all the nations.

But also, in Messiah, Jewish believers are free from the curses and the obligation to be perfect, for only in Messiah is anyone considered justified before God. In Acts 15:10 Peter called the law a “burden.” Why would he say that? On some level, maybe it was. Maybe part of what Messiah brings to the table for the Jewish people is the freedom from the curses of the Law so that they are free to observe the mitzvot without a “burden.” This sets the stage so the Jewish people can ultimately be returned to their Land, to Israel, by Messiah.

For the Jewish people, faith and observance go hand in hand, Jewish observance of the mitzvot is the outward response and indicator of faith.

I have to thank Schreiner and my Pastor for this book. My brain is still percolating, I’m shooting from the hip, and half-rambling in this blog post, but I think I’m coming to a better understanding of Paul, the law, and maybe even Galatians. I think I’m getting closer to the Christian puzzle of “the law is bad.” I hope as I continue reading Schreiner’s book that my brain will be opened up and God will provide more illumination. I feel like He’s flipped the switch. Maybe it’s just a night-light so far. But the dawn is coming.

For more on this, see the commentary “Blessings Over Curses” at JewishJournal.com.

The next review in this series is Schreiner’s Law of Torah and Sin.

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Captured in the Glass

August 15, 2013 James Pyles 6 Comments

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground…

–Genesis 2:7 (NASB)

…we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make his face to shine upon him and be gracious unto him and give him peace. Amen.

-from the funeral service in the Book of Common Prayer

That’s how I feel sometimes. Like ashes. Like dust.

I’m no theologian. I just finished reading Jobes’s and Silva’s book Invitation to the Septuagint. The title is rather deceptive, since after the first few chapters, the book is anything but introductory. I came away from the text realizing that it’s amazing how Bible scholars act like they are sure of so much. I’m stunned at how we can be certain of anything at all about the Bible. I knew this already, but the book reminded me that translating ancient texts is an almost impossible task, especially if you’re going to do something crazy with the translations like establish binding theology and doctrine for large groups of human beings, telling them the intent of God for their lives.

How can we be so sure of every, single, tiny, detail that we say we’re certain about? Can we say what God and Moses talked about on Sinai for every minute of those forty days and forty nights? Do we know what it actually felt like to stand in the presence of Jesus, to have watched him right before he began to teach on any given morning? Do we fully, completely understand the lived experience of what it was like to be a human being listening to the prophesies of Elijah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, at the places and times where and when they lived and breathed?

We have words on a page, but that must pale in comparison to the original intent and action of the spoken words of Moses as he addressed all of Israel on the banks of the Jordan only hours and minutes before his death.

Who am I to tell anyone what I think as if I have any better thoughts than anyone else?

Sometimes I feel like I’m ready to give up spewing my thoughts and feelings into the blogosphere on a daily basis. Then I read something like this:

Another scholar who concurred with Sanders’s reading of Judaism was Heikki Räisänen, who retired from the University of Helsinki in 2006. Räisänen adopted a more radical solution than Sanders. If Sanders’s portrait of Second Temple Judaism is correct, then how do we explain Paul? Räisänen argued that the idea that Paul is a coherent and logical thinker is flawed. In other words, Paul’s theology of law is shot through with contradictions and is fundamentally incoherent. Scholars have labored to articulate Paul’s theology of the law as if it represented a consistent system of thought. They have generally failed to realize, according to Räisänen, that Paul operated with two fundamentally contradictory presuppositions. On the one hand, he posited that the Old Testament law was God’s authoritative word. On the other hand, he insisted that Gentiles were not required to observe the Old Testament law. Naturally, says Räisänen, Paul could not reconcile these two ideas since they are mutually exclusive.

-Thomas Schreiner from his book
40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law
Question 4: What Is the New Perspective on Paul, and How Should It Be Assessed? pp 36-7

So close and yet so far. I believe Räisänen and ultimately Schreiner are missing the point. Räisänen lays it all out like a dream but still doesn’t grasp what Paul was doing. There was (and is) no contradiction between Paul’s view of the Torah and not requiring Gentile believers to keep it. Paul simply understood that Jewish believers continued to be bound to the Sinai covenant and the Gentiles were not.

Pastor Randy gifted me with this book a few weeks ago and I just started reading it yesterday (as I write this). There are significant parts I agree with and then there are parts that I believe miss the point. Yeah. Here’s me putting my thoughts and feelings out on the Internet again, non-theologian than I am. Go figure.

On the other hand, I thought Schreiner was more or less spot on in Question 2: Was the Mosaic Covenant Legalistic? when he said:

The giving of the law followed the salvation of Israel, and hence such obedience signified Israel’s grateful response to the redemption accomplished by the Lord. There is no basis in the text for the idea that Israel’s obedience established a relationship with the Lord. The Lord took the initiative in rescuing his people, and they were called upon to respond with faithful obedience.

-Schreiner, pg 26

Schreiner almost has it right (IMHO) but he seems to believe that the Israelites observed the mitzvot out of emotional gratitude for being saved. This is a very Christian way of thinking. I agree that observing the Torah in a mechanical fashion does not make anyone right with God. It never did. However, once the Israelites were redeemed by God and agreed that He would be their God and they would be His people, He gave the Torah to the Israelites and they were expected to observe it.

When they didn’t, as the Tanakh (Old Testament) tells us, they didn’t lose their “salvation” (keeping in mind that Jewish people don’t think of salvation the same way we Christians do), but rather, they tended to lose their right to live in the Land of Israel and to enjoy personal and national freedom. They faced war, captivity, exile, and the destruction of Jerusalem.

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

–Exodus 20:12 (NASB)

This is just one of the Torah mitzvot, contained in what we refer to as “the Ten Commandments,” that directly ties obedience to the mitzvot with continued residency in the Land of Israel.

I say all this because, in spite of the fact that Schreiner clearly states that Torah obedience is not and never has been tied to personal salvation and redemption by God, he subsequently becomes “confused.”

Consequently, Sanders’s claim that Second Temple Judaism did not emphasize the role of works in obtaining salvation is overstated. The Jewish sources do not so neatly support his contention that Second Temple Judaism was a religion of grace. At the very least some segments of Judaism focused on human obedience and had fallen prey to a kind of legalism.

We have significant evidence that Paul rejects the law because of human inability and that some of his opponents had fallen prey to legalism…

-Schreiner, pp 38-9

OK, Schreiner is talking about the practices of Judaism (Judaisms, really) during the Second Temple period and saying that some of the streams of Judaism believed that it was the scrupulous observance of the mitzvot that “saved” someone rather than faith in Hashem.

…and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

–Matthew 3:9

Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

–Acts 15:1

I tend to agree that the connection between faith and obedience became lost by many Jewish people in those days. Given that Israel was an occupied nation and that the Jewish people had no reason at all to love or regard the Gentiles, a form of ethnic and national “pride,” and in some cases, “egotism” was to be expected. You see that in any oppressed population. But if, as we have seen Schreiner state in earlier portions of his book, the Torah was considered a valid and indeed commanded form of response to God by the Israelites in ancient times, why was it suddenly so hard to obey in the late Second Temple era? Furthermore, why, given that we already know from Schreiner’s book, not to mention the Biblical record, would Paul, who esteemed the Torah as God’s Holy Word, ever reject it?

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that a lot of what Paul wrote really does seem contradictory. We have an extraordinarily difficult time in the 21st century trying to figure Paul out. In fact, Christians have been trying to understand Paul for who knows how long? My opinion is that he is woefully misunderstood and miscast in the role of the villain who took the teachings of Jesus and made them anti-Law and anti-Jewish. I’m not alone in this opinion.

…and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

–2 Peter 3:15-16

Peter admitted that Paul’s writings were hard to understand and that even during the time in which Peter was writing, “untaught and unstable” people were distorting Paul’s words. How much more do we experience this distortion as we work from copies of copies of copies of his original writings, translated again and again, and on top of all that, rigidly filtered through the smoky lens of thousands of years of Christian theology and doctrine?

The reason that Schreiner can’t figure out the contradiction between Paul’s reverence for the Torah of Moses and Paul’s specifically not requiring the Gentile believers to keep the Torah in the manner of the Jews, as well as forbidding them to circumcise and thus convert to Judaism, is that the Christian lens of theology and doctrine is not designed to “see” the obvious resolution.

I know I’ve said this before, but when we understand how the Abrahamic covenant ties all nations to the Messianic promise by faith but links only the descendants of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob to the Sinai covenant, then we realize on what basis Paul, and the Council of the Apostles in their binding ruling of halachah for the Gentiles, established that the Gentile believers had a different legal status; one that didn’t require conversion to Judaism and being yoked to the entire mitzvot of Torah.

I’ll say it again for any Christians reading this. Keeping Torah or not keeping Torah is not an issue of personal salvation. The fact that Jewish people, including those who have faith in Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah, observe the Torah mitzvot doesn’t save them, but that doesn’t mean the Sinai covenant no longer applies to them. Paul, James, and the Council absolved the Gentile believers from having to take on board the same yoke. Once saved, we were given a status somewhat like non-Jewish people living among Israel (but not identical to the ancient Gerim) and obligated to a modified set of the mitzvot that, on the surface, seem deceptively simple.

But there’s nothing I can see in the writings of Paul, especially the record of his life we read about in Luke’s Book of Acts, that tells us Paul dispensed with Torah observance in his own life, taught other Jews to do such a thing, or ever, ever disconnected Torah observance from the proper Jewish response to God.

I know this book is going to cause me more than a few headaches. It already has, and I’ve only read four of the questions. I’ve got thirty-six more to go. I suspect that my conversations with Pastor will be very dynamic. Hopefully, my conversations on this blog will be dynamic as well.

Our view of Paul is like he described our understanding of the Bible and God, as seen “through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Our beliefs, theology, doctrines, and dogma are captured in that glass, trapped in crystal, frozen in amber. It’s time to take a big brick and start pounding on that glass, which was heated, blown, and cast by men who have long since died, and take a fresh look at Paul, Moses, Jesus, Torah, the Bible, and God.

Religious Judaism is accused of taking the Bible and weaving tons and tons of interpretations and traditions around it so that the original intent of the text is barely recognizable. What Protestant Christianity doesn’t realize is that we’ve done exactly the same thing with our post-Reformation, post-modern theologies and doctrines. That we are told we must see Paul’s love of Torah as God’s authoritative word, and his command to the Gentiles that they (we) are not required to observe Torah as mutually exclusive, is a perfect example of our own tradition-induced blindness in the church.

The next part of my review of Schreiner’s book can be found in Blessings, Curses, and Works of the Law.

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The Worlds Within Ourselves

August 14, 2013 James Pyles 2 Comments

That’s when I noticed the rosary beads.

The woman next to me had them on her lap, running them through her fingers. Was she a nun? I didn’t want to violate the Code, so I couldn’t just turn and look. I also didn’t want to distract myself from my davening for too long. (How long is too long? I think it’s similar to the five-second rule for eating food you dropped on the floor – a moment is okay, after that you’re asking for trouble.)

Then I noticed the plastic divider in front of me, which separated us from the driver (affording him protection from spitballs, if nothing else). It was reflective, and I could see my seatmate perfectly well in it without having to turn.

She was middle-aged, dressed conservatively, her nondescript features notable only for the intensity of her expression, her lips moving in fervent prayer. Was she a nun on holiday, and thus out of her habit and habitat, or just a holy roller on her way to work? Was she even now praying for the return of Jerusalem to the Church’s hands? Had she noticed me with my siddur and added in a few prayers for the salvation of my soul? Or maybe its damnation! After all, she’d no doubt been taught that someone in my family had killed her Lord. Even though her Lord was actually someone in my family

-Eric Brand
“Peace on Earth in 30 Min., 45 with Traffic: Rosary beads, a yarmulke, and a lot of overthinking”
Aish.com

Eric Brand will never know how glad I am that he wrote this missive. Lately, I’ve been going through one or two challenges as far as how Jewish people see Christians. I haven’t experienced it as very complementary, to say the least.

On top of that, I’ve been musing about how my wife and children see my Christian faith. I’ve been taking a few conversations and a few cues and clues, and winding myself up quite a bit about what they mean. Maybe I’m right, but then again, like Mr. Brand, maybe I’m overthinking things.

A chance encounter on a public bus in New Jersey results in a Jewish man and a Catholic woman sitting next to each other. Both of them are praying, him with a siddur and her with rosary beads. Their religious orientations are unmistakable. While the “code” of riding public transportation from Jersey to New York forbids each of them from talking with or even looking at each other, what could they have been praying about?

That ticked me off. Was it right to stereotype and scapegoat me? Hadn’t my people suffered enough? Did I have to be subjected to this? I was just a guy on a bus!

I tried to go back to my siddur, but I could see those hands working the rosary beads out of the corner of my eye, and I could sense those lips going a mile a minute, spewing who knows what. Well, okay, lady, I thought, maybe this is a test from God to see if I have the right reaction! How about I throw in some prayers for your soul? How about we have a nice debate and pick apart your faulty theology?

I was mulling this over, thinking about a good opening crack, when I was struck by another thought. If I can see her, she can see me. And she can see me looking at her – and not davening. Better get those lips moving, buddy, you don’t want to give this religious nut a leg up on feeling superior.

I admire Brand’s transparency in describing his thoughts and feelings. I try to show that side of myself as well. What “teachable moment” might we inspire or intersect if we just write down what we think and feel about each other and let those words be accessible via the Internet? More than that, what can the writer learn in the writing?

I was still mouthing some words from the siddur when my brain re-engaged momentarily and focused on what I was reading. “God is close to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him sincerely.”

Oh, while there were two people in that seat, there were actually three “personalities” present. God had something to say to Brand and maybe to his Catholic traveling companion as well (we’ll never know what she was thinking during all this, alas).

“God is close to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him sincerely.”

I know the assumption in the text from the siddur is that “all who call upon Him” means “all Jewish people who call upon Him,” but if God’s House is really to be a house of prayer for all people, then all people aren’t just Jewish people. It’s everyone who “calls upon Him with sincerity.” What if the Catholic woman was calling upon God sincerely? Was God as close to her as He was to Brand? Is God close to all of us when we sincerely call upon Him? Is He as close to me, a Christian, when I pray as He is to a davening Jew?

We religious people make a lot of assumptions about God and we make a lot of assumptions about each other. It would have been a complete breach of public transportation etiquette for Brand to have introduced himself to his seat-mate and struck up a conversation with her about their faiths. But if that could have been accomplished, maybe his fears would have been allayed somewhat (or maybe not). One Catholic person commented on Brand’s column and this might help figure out what the woman on the bus could have been thinking:

As a Catholic, who reads aish.com, I can almost guarantee that very few of us are condemning anyone to hell. We are all G_d’s children.

While Brand never talked with the Catholic person next to him on the bus, God managed to get his attention in the pages of his siddur.

I know I’ve wondered if my Jewish wife feels at all threatened about me going to church and what that means about my attitude towards Jews, but I wish she’d believe that we’re all God’s children.

But more than my concerns about my wife’s fears about me, Brand taught me that my own imagination could well be creating a situation that isn’t real.

But I left the bus undaunted – even after Comb-Over stepped on my foot as he rushed to get to the escalator – with a smile on my face. Jewish tradition tells us we should consider the world as though it was created for each of us. Because each of us has a unique touch of godliness that gives the universe purpose.

But there’s another way to look at it. We each create the world for ourselves. Our perceptions, our attitudes, our thoughts produce the world around us every moment of our waking days. We see, hear, experience what we want, what we will. And in doing so, we affect all the other people busily creating their worlds.

That’s a big responsibility. I’m glad I was able to figure this out before the journey ended. Fortunately, there was traffic.

The world is still a big, bad, ugly place in many ways. There’s all kinds of trouble and troublesome people around. But we also create the world we live in. We can choose to be upset, anxious, or angry because we are choosing to imagine what people think and feel about us. We can choose to communicate or choose to be silent. And even if silent, we can choose how we consider the people in our lives, for good or for ill.

I’ve heard it said that an anxiety attack is a person’s response to an emergency that does not exist. It still feels real, but the only danger is the choice we’ve somehow (it’s not volitional) made inside. Perhaps my being a Christian isn’t the danger I’ve imagined it is to my wife and children. And if some Jewish people, including my friends, believe my faith is a problem, please talk to Eric Brand. Maybe my faith isn’t automatically against you. Maybe I love you.

"When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness." -Rabbi Tzvi Freeman