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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Passing Judgment

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Said Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov:

When a person comes before the supernal court to account for sojourn on earth, he is first asked to voice his opinion on another life. “What do you think,” he is asked, “about one who has done so and so?” After he offers his verdict, it is demonstrated to him how these deeds and circumstances parallel those of his own life. Ultimately, it is the person himself who passes judgment on his own failings and achievements.

This explains the peculiar wording of the above passage of the Ethics, “before whom you are destined to give a judgment and accounting.” Is not the verdict handed down after the cross-examination of the defendant? So should not the “judgment” follow the “accounting”? And why are you destined to “give judgment” as opposed to being judged? But no judgment is ever passed on a person from above. Only after he has himself ruled on any given deed does the heavenly court make him account for a matching episode in his own life.

The same idea is also implicit in another passage in our chapter of the Ethics: “Retribution is extracted from a person, with his knowledge and without his knowledge.” As a person knowingly expresses his opinion on a certain matter, he is unwittingly passing judgment on himself.

Commentary on Ethics of Our Fathers
Chapter 3
“Subjective Judge”
Iyar 10, 5772 * May 2, 2012
Chabad.org

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.”

–Matthew 25:31-33 (ESV)

I don’t think many Christians believe they’ll be given the opportunity to judge themselves in Messianic days, but then most Christians think they won’t be judged at all. Only sinners (i.e. non-Christians) will be judged. Christians are saved and exempt from all this sort of stuff.

Whew! What a relief.

But wait a minute. What else did Jesus say?

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” –Matthew 25:34-46 (ESV)

Now that’s odd. It sounds like we aren’t judged based on what we believe in our hearts but on what we actually do with that belief. The Master’s own brother said, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” If faith without works is dead, then if we are without works, regardless of what we feel or believe inside, are we dead, too?

I’m not really going to try to evaluate the mechanics of how salvation works or who does or doesn’t merit a place in the world to come (i.e. “Heaven” as Christianity understands it). I do want to talk about the times when you judge other people.

C’mon. Admit it. You do judge other people, dear Christian friends. So do I, though I’m not saying that out of any sense of pride. Think of the guy or gal who cut you off in traffic yesterday when you were driving to work. Didn’t you, even in the privacy of your own thoughts and emotions, momentarily “judge” that person and their relative driving skills? Any time you become angry at another person, don’t you judge them in terms of their worthiness or some other attribute they possess or lack? If you’re a football fan, when your favorite quarterback fumbles what should have been your team’s winning play, don’t you judge that knucklehea…uh, player for his failure to lead his team to victory?

Do you want to be judged by the same standards you use to judge others?

and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors. –Matthew 6:12 (ESV)

I’ve mentioned this particularly telling part of the Lord’s Prayer before. It certainly seems like Jesus is saying that we will be forgiven in direct relation to how we forgive others.

Oh certainly, Jesus couldn’t have meant anything like that! Oh yeah?

“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” –Matthew 18:23-35 (ESV)

Oh wow! Apparently, he did.

Now look back at the commentary for chapter 3 of Ethics of the Fathers. Imagine that’s how you’ll actually be judged; by how you judge others. Now imagine that if you show mercy to others to such and thus degree, God will show you the same mercy. But if you show such and thus judgement toward others, God will judge you to the same degree. When you judge, you’re looking in a mirror.

Imagine you have control over how your life will be judged. Imagine you can determine how harsh or how merciful God will treat you at the end of your days. Imagine how you forgive or condemn one human being today will affect how God judges you tomorrow. Imagine.

A gentile once came to Shammai, and wanted to convert to Judaism. But he insisted on learning the whole Torah while standing on one foot. Shammai rejected him, so he went to Hillel, who taught him: “What you dislike, do not do to your friend. That is the basis of the Torah. The rest is commentary; go and learn!”

-Rabbi Hillel

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Acharei-Kedoshim: Impossible Love and Holiness

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Following the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, G‑d warns against unauthorized entry “into the holy.” Only one person, the kohen gadol (“high priest”), may, but once a year, on Yom Kippur, enter the innermost chamber in the Sanctuary to offer the sacred ketoret to G‑d.

Another feature of the Day of Atonement service is the casting of lots over two goats, to determine which should be offered to G‑d and which should be dispatched to carry off the sins of Israel to the wilderness.

The Parshah of Acharei also warns against bringing korbanot (animal or meal offerings) anywhere but in the Holy Temple, forbids the consumption of blood, and details the laws prohibiting incest and other deviant sexual relations.

The Parshah of Kedoshim begins with the statement: “You shall be holy, for I, the L‑rd your G‑d, am holy.” This is followed by dozens of mitzvot (divine commandments) through which the Jew sanctifies him- or herself and relates to the holiness of G‑d.

These include: the prohibition against idolatry, the mitzvah of charity, the principle of equality before the law, Shabbat, sexual morality, honesty in business, honor and awe of one’s parents, and the sacredness of life.

Also in Kedoshim is the dictum which the great sage Rabbi Akiva called a cardinal principle of Torah, and of which Hillel said, “This is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary”—“Love your fellow as yourself.”

Parshah in a Nutshell
Commentary on Acharei–Kedoshim
Leviticus 16:1–20:27
Chabad.org

Okay, here’s the problem: I’m supposed to love my fellow man. Which means that I should accept my fellow human beings as they are. (That’s what love means, right?) But can I—indeed, should I—accept my fellow human beings as they are?

Should I accept a malnourished child as she is? Should I accept a drug-addicted teenager, a suicidal spouse or a bigoted friend as he is? If a person I love suffers from a lack of something—whether that something is food, money, knowledge, health, moral integrity or peace of mind—and whether that person wants to be helped or not, should I not do everything in my power to fill that lack?

-Rabbi Yanki Tauber
“Love Yourself”
Commentary on Acharei–Kedoshim
Leviticus 16:1–20:27
Chabad.org

Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Lord.

–Leviticus 19:10 (JPS Tanakh)

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m beating a dead horse as far as this “love” stuff in the Bible is concerned. I’ve been writing about love, or our woeful lack of it, all this week now and I can’t even stop long enough to write a commentary on this week’s Torah Portion. And yet the Bible speaks to both the Jews and the Christians (and everyone else) about the need; the absolute requirement for love.

It also speaks about the absolute need for holiness and perfection, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Christians should be very familiar with the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.

And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. –Matthew 22:39 (ESV)

That’s the second of the two greatest commandments issued by the Master and as I’m sure you can tell, this week’s Torah Portion was Christ’s “source material.”

But what does it mean to love someone else as you love yourself? Rabbi Tauber’s commentary is very eye opening.

Love is an oxymoron. To truly love someone, I have to do two contradictory things: I have to respect him, and I have to care for him. If I do not accept him as he is, that means that I do not respect him. It means that I don’t really love him—I love only what I wish to make of him. But to love someone also means that I care for him and desire the best for him. And since very, very few people are the best that they can be, caring for someone means not accepting him as he is, but believing in his potential to be better, and doing everything I can to reveal that potential.

I can respect someone. I can care for someone. I can accept a person as she is. I can not accept a person as he is. But I can’t do both at the same time. Love sounds great in principle. In practice, it’s impossible.

But I love myself. I’m not unaware of my deficiencies; indeed, in a certain sense, I am more aware of them than anyone else. I want to improve myself, but I don’t think less of myself because I haven’t yet done so. I respect myself and I care for myself; I accept myself as I am, while incessantly striving to make myself better than I am. I love myself—truly, fully, in every sense of the word.

Two and OneOften, husbands complain that their wives are always trying to change them, and usually in ways the husband doesn’t want to change. Here we see a little bit about why wives are motivated in this direction. If a wife loves her husband “as herself,” then she sees the faults in him and wants to help him be a better person. But what about the part of love that requires respecting the other? Is it respectful to try and change a person when they don’t want to be changed? Is it possible for a wife to love her husband enough to help him realize his greater potential and still respect him for who he is today?

If a person were trying to kill himself and you could stop him, would you stop him or respect his wish to die?

That’s a tough one, since some people feel that they should, under certain circumstances, respect another individual’s “right to die.” But what about an alcoholic drinking herself to death? What about a drug addict shooting chemicals into her arm while ignoring her baby crying in his crib? If you love someone and they are on a path toward self-destruction in any way, shape or form, could you stand idly by and allow it to happen? Won’t that self-destruction hurt or even destroy others around the person you love? Is allowing a person to “crash and burn” loving and respectful?

I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that one, but I do think that’s why both the Torah of Moses and the commandment of Christ specifically teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Love isn’t easy.

But how does holiness figure into all of this?

Indeed, a Jew’s sanctity can be so lofty that it bears some comparison with G-d’s, as the verse states: “You shall… be holy, for I… am holy.”

But how is it possible for corporeal man to reach such heights? The verse addresses itself to this question when it states “for I, the L-rd your G-d, am holy.” Since G-d is holy, each and every Jew can and must be holy as well, for all Jews “are truly part of G-d above.”

The measure of sanctity which each and every Jew is capable of achieving may best be appreciated when one realizes that the sanctity we are told to aspire to in Kedoshim follows that previously achieved in Acharei. In that portion, the passing of Nadav and Avihu is described as the result of their souls’ extreme longing for G-d. So great was their love that their bodies could no longer contain their souls, which literally expired.

The portion of Kedoshim informs every Jew that he is capable of even greater heights. For the pursuit of holiness is never-ending, one level always following another, the reason being that holiness emanates from G-d, who is truly infinite — “for I am holy.”

-from the Chassidic Dimension
“Holy and Holier”
Chabad.org

Now recall the first of the two greatest commandments given by Jesus as quoted from the Torah:

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” –Matthew 22:37-38 (ESV)

Marry all of that to what the Torah says about being holy and what the Master said about being perfect.

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. –Matthew 5:48 (ESV)

The idea mixed in all of that is we can somehow be holy and perfect as God is, or at least shoot for that as a life-long goal; a series of levels that we’re continually climbing toward. But if that also has to do with how we love, then we are being commanded to continually love just like God loves.

How does God love? Unconditionally?

I’m tempted to say He loves us as He loves Himself, but trying to understand how God conceptualizes His own Being is beyond my limited human ability to imagine. But I do know that He loves us enough to have our welfare and what’s best for us at heart.

OK, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking, “Good grief! How can you say that!” If God really loved us and had our best interests at heart, how come children are beaten, women are raped, people are maimed and killed in wars, car accidents, and plane crashes, and how come so many people suffer lingering and horrible deaths from cancer and other miserable diseases?

I don’t know.

I only know that, even in the midst of hideous, nightmarish suffering such as was found in the camps of Dachau, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, God was there. He’s there when your doctor diagnoses you with cancer. He’s there when you have been assaulted by thugs and left for dead. He’s there when your spouse tells you he want a divorce. He’s there when you feel you haven’t the strength to go on and suicide seems the only way out.

He’s there when someone else needs His love and you are the only conduit available to provide that love. That’s the connection between love, holiness, and perfection. God’s love isn’t just some supernatural event or experience. If you are a Jew or a Christian and someone around you is suffering, you are God’s opportunity to love that person. When you are suffering, God has made it possible for someone near you to love you and comfort you in a way that is only possible for God.

Loving someone enough to perceive their faults and loving them enough to respect their wishes seems like trying to travel both east and west at the same time. It’s impossible. But that’s what God asks of us: the impossible. It’s impossible for us to be perfect like God is perfect. It’s impossible for us to be holy like God is holy. It’s impossible for us to love people like God loves people; to love our neighbor just as we love ourselves.

And yet, that’s what God requires of you and me with each waking moment of each passing day of our lives.

To love someone just as they are and still want to help them be the best they can be is to be holy and perfect. Love, holiness, and perfection are not destinations, they’re part of the journey we travel as we walk with God. When Jesus said to the righteous, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me,’ as found in Matthew 25:40, he was talking about this kind of love.

When we feed a hungry person, visit someone in the hospital, or comfort a recent widow in her grief, we aren’t just giving them our love, we are giving them God’s love. It’s what makes it possible for us to be perfect and holy. It’s what makes it possible for a weak and frail human being mired in the abyss of despair to experience God’s infinite love and strength on earth. It’s what makes it possible for us to do the impossible; to rise above the pain and suffering of life and to experience the glorious, majestic holiness of God.

Be holy. Be perfect. Give love.

Good Shabbos.

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The Sign on the Bus

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“You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.”

–Leviticus 19:32 (ESV)

The Torah (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 244:1) tells us to rise before old people aged seventy or older, even if they are not Torah-scholars, out of respect “for the trials and tribulations they have undergone” ( Talmud Kiddushin 33a)

-quoted from sichosinenglish.org

On the bus you will find a sign saying, “Mipnei Sevah Takum” … The sign on the bus confronts the bus rider with the command, “Stand up for the elderly!”

-by Lawrence Grossman
“Jewish Ethics, from Ancient Bible to Modern Bus”
Jewish Ideas Daily

My wife read to me from one of the email newsletters she gets periodically, probably from Chabad, about the signs you see on Israeli buses to “stand for the elderly.” The signs are used to indicate certain seats that are set aside for older people or anyone else who would have trouble with mobility or standing for long periods of time. The irony, as pointed out in Grossman’s article, is the “collision” between the holy and the secular. Even though the majority of Israel’s Jewish population isn’t religious, the Torah and the intent of God cannot be so easily removed from being Jewish.

In quoting Leviticus 19:32, my wife made the same sort of remark as Grossman did in his news story. Then she said an interesting thing. She said that, for a Jew, it is impossible to separate loving and obeying God with being good to other human beings. She quoted from a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov (which I don’t have immediately available to me) to support this point.

I agreed with her and remarked that I often say the same thing, however I declined to mention that my source is from a different teacher:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” –Matthew 22:36-40 (ESV)

As far as I can tell, Jesus is saying the same thing: Loving God means loving human beings. You can’t separate the two. If you say you love God and you hate people, something is wrong with your love for God.

But it’s not easy to love other people, at least not all other people. After all, who gets along with everyone all of the time? I don’t. And yet Paul added some commentary (midrash on Torah, perhaps) that speaks to this very issue.

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. –Romans 12:17-18 (ESV)

Oh snap! Really?

Going to verses 20 and 21, Paul adds, “…if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. It almost sounds like Paul is connecting his message to the Romans back to what the Master said in Matthew 25:31-46. If so, then giving food and drink to our “enemies” and not just our friends, is the same as feeding a hungry and thirsty Jesus. Does that mean we will be rewarded for serving our enemies as if we were serving Christ?

That’s a startling thought.

So doing good to others, even if you don’t want to, and even if they’re your “enemy” (in this context, it means a person you don’t like, not someone who is trying to kill you in war) is a very Christian value. And yet we see it is also very Jewish.

But more importantly, it just isn’t Christians being good to Christians and Jews being good to Jews:

“They said of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai that no man ever greeted him first, even idol worshippers in the market” [i.e., Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai was the first to greet every person, even idol worshippers] (Berachot 17). At the same location the sage Abaye advocated soft speech and words of peace to everyone, especially including idol worshippers.

“[it is proper to] support the idol worshippers during the sabbatical year… and to inquire after their welfare [commentators: even on the days of the holidays of their idols, even if they do not keep the seven Noahide commandments] because of the ways of peace.” (Shevi’it 4,3)

The rabbis taught: ‘We support poor Gentiles with the poor people of Israel, and we visit sick Gentiles as well as the sick of Israel and we bury the dead of the Gentiles as well as the dead of Israel, because of the ways of peace.” (Gitin 61a)

I “borrowed” those quotes from an older blog post of mine called What the Talmud Says About Gentiles, Revisited as a reminder of who is the root and who is the branch.

Lately, I’ve been writing about why loving isn’t easy and why we should love even a person who leaves the faith and becomes an atheist. Quite the opposite of what you’d expect, religious people have the toughest time loving each other and especially loving people who are different in their religious orientation than they are. In spite of the supposed similarities between Christians and Jews (Judaism being the foundation of Christianity), we have a very hard time being civil with each other on certain occasions.

The conversation going on right now at Gene Shlomovich’s blog Daily Minyan is one minor example. Actually, the transactions are pretty civil for the most part, especially when I recall the verbal “blood bathes” I’ve witnessed in the past. However, even between Gentiles and Jews who are all disciples of the Jewish Messiah, we have a long way to go.

And yet God tells us that if we love Him, we must love other people, even if we don’t always like them. The next time you are tempted to think of yourself as especially holy and righteous, recall the last time when you had thoughts and feelings of disrespect and hostility for your fellow human being.

Maybe we can rescue some feelings of humility from this experience.

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How Have We Failed?

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Teresa MacBain has a secret, one she’s terrified to reveal.

“I’m currently an active pastor and I’m also an atheist,” she says. “I live a double life. I feel pretty good on Monday, but by Thursday — when Sunday’s right around the corner — I start having stomachaches, headaches, just knowing that I got to stand up and say things that I no longer believe in and portray myself in a way that’s totally false.”

“On my way to church again. Another Sunday. Man, this is getting worse,” she tells her phone in one recording. “How did I get myself in this mess? Sometimes, I think to myself, if I could just go back a few years and not ask the questions and just be one of those sheep and blindly follow and not know the truth, it would be so much easier. I’d just keep my job. But I can’t do that. I know it’s a lie. I know it’s false.”

-by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
“From Minister to Atheist: A Story of Losing Faith”
NPR.org

Our teacher the Baal Shem Tov said: Every single thing one sees or hears is an instruction for his conduct in the service of G-d. This is the idea of avoda, service, to comprehend and discern in all things a way in which to serve G-d.

Hayom Yom: Iyar 9, 24th day of the omer
Compiled and arranged by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, in 5703 (1943)
from the talks and letters of the sixth Chabad Rebbe
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory

Yesterday I wrote When We’re Left Behind to describe my initial reactions to reading the news story I quoted above. After some thoughts and reflection, it hasn’t gotten much better. I still don’t like being called a “sheep,” “blind,” and thought of as not knowing the “truth.” MacBain’s story is supposed to be the first in a series of news articles on losing faith. I wonder if NPR would consider writing a series on the other side of the coin about people who have struggled, endured, and persevered over their crisis of faith.

Call me cynical, but I seriously doubt it.

The Baal Shem Tov considers everything we see and hear and probably every experience we have as a lesson in how we are to behave in the service of God. I guess that’s what I was trying to convey yesterday when I said we should love and not condemn people like Teresa MacBain. I admire her husband, who has managed to retain his faith in the face of his wife’s atheism. The NPR article spent almost no time exploring how all of this affects him. And I kind of know how he feels.

No, my wife isn’t an atheist, but she isn’t a Christian either. She’s Jewish, and I very much support her in her pursuit of her faith and her identity. But as time has passed, I have come to realize that we represent two different worlds. I used to think there was significant overlap between those two realms, but now I’m not so sure.

No, I’m sure. There’s not much overlap at all.

That brings up an interesting question, both for the MacBains and for me. How do you live with someone who is utterly different from you at the very foundation of your being?

OK, men and women are different, I get that. Every person who’s been married for more than a week or so realizes that living together as a married couple is a challenge. Every couple who has been together for five, ten, twenty, thirty years or more (our 30th wedding anniversary was just last month) knows just how much of a struggle it is at times to make the sorts of adjustments required between two people as they develop and (hopefully) grow.

One of the things I’ve noticed about most of the people of faith I associate with is that, if they’re married, their spouses have the same fundamental understanding of God and religion as they do. That is, if the husband’s a Christian, chances are, so is the wife, and vice versa. Teresa and Ray MacBain have just entered the dubious club of intermarried couples.

Welcome.

So what does Ray MacBain do now? Does he go to church and leave his wife at home every Sunday? Does he go to the same church were his wife was a minister? If so, how does he deal with the inevitable gossip and tongue-wagging over his Teresa’s decision to leave the faith and her “coming out” as an atheist?

I haven’t listened to the audio interview (like most people, I can read a great deal faster than people can talk). I have briefly scanned some of the comments under the NPR story and saw the typical war of words between self-righteous atheists and self-righteous Christians. Does bashing each other really help? If an atheist wants the freedom of choice, why can’t I have that same right as a person of faith?

Here’s one of the more illuminating comments I read:

It bothers me to no end to see the intolerance and arrogance of my atheist friends who look down upon the faithful as if they’re second class muggles… just as it bothers me to watch the intolerance of the “faithful” Christian towards other beliefs or non-beliefs.

What I see are the human flaws of conceit and arrogance – people who think they know what’s “right” or what’s “best” for others, and have no room in their worldview for people with different viewpoints.

I sympathize with Teresa’s plight – I struggle with my faith. It saddens me that people seem more concerned with sticking it to their fellow human being than trying to find the best path to walk for themselves.

Alas, “intolerance and arrogance” are very human traits and not limited just to the religious or the irreligious.

As annoying as it is to be called a “sheep,” I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me. There’s nothing about being an atheist or an agnostic that should cause me to expect them to be good, bad, or indifferent. There’s not inherit moral code to not believing in God, so when someone says they’re an atheist, there’s no way I can know what exactly they’re going to say or do.

However,  I do have some sort of idea of what to expect from someone who says they are a disciple of Jesus. We are expected to take the higher moral road just because of who we are. That’s why it’s especially disappointing to see Christians making snarky comments to atheists (and I’m not immune) in an NPR online news story. If your life is supposed to be an example of how you have been changed by God, how is acting like a regular, “run-of-the-mill” human being accomplishing that?

Is that “God thing” working for you yet?

That’s what I see coming out of this news story, out of the comments, and out of the buzz about Christians vs. Atheists on the web. It’s not my faith in God I’m worried about, it’s my faith in people. On somewhat rare occasion, I meet a Christian who really deserves to be called by the name of the Master. I meet a person who is truly helpful, compassionate, charitable, kind, and loving to everyone they meet, not just the people they know and like. What really scares me is that the sort of person I’m describing is rare in religious circles. It’s even more scary that they might be more common among the atheists.

I know Christians reading what I just wrote are saying, “It doesn’t matter if an atheist is nicer than a Christian. The atheists are still going to hell.” Oh. It doesn’t matter?

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” –Matthew 25:31-46 (ESV)

Sure looks like it matters to me. More importantly, it sure looks like it matters to God.

I’m going to stop short of blaming “the church” for failing Teresa MacBain. We each negotiate our own relationship with God, so Teresa is just as responsible for her’s as I am for mine. However, if she had any lingering doubts about her decision, the various “bad attitude comments” from Christians in response to her “outing” herself probably sealed the deal.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, and most other religious people tend to be pretty judgmental, relative to the world around us. On the one hand, we do have a specific set or standards we feel we’re upholding, as opposed to an “anything goes” sort of world view. On the other hand, we tend to substitute judgment for compassion and “legalism” (yes, even Christians) for grace. Jesus was hammered verbally for hanging out with the low-lives of his day: prostitutes and tax-collectors (collaborators with the occupying Roman army). We’re kind of like the folks who judged Jesus. We judge and accuse and complain when a Christian hangs out with and is accepting of “low lives” such as gays, for example (a really big sin in the eyes of most Christians…much bigger than wife beating, bank robbery, and surfing porn on the web). We demand that Christians only hang out with other Christians and the split second someone tells us they have doubts about their faith, they are dead to us.

Man, do I make Christians sound bad. Almost like the way some atheists talk about us.

But if all of us were really practicing grace, and I think we can do this without compromising our principles and blending in to the moral structure of the secular world around us, I doubt if too many people would have a lot to complain about when Christianity was mentioned.

The church hasn’t failed Teresa MacBain, but a Christian fails every time he or she doesn’t show compassion for someone in pain, including someone who has struggled and even lost their faith. It is said the church is the only army that shoots its own wounded. I believe that. Teresa MacBain may never come back to faith in God and discipleship in Jesus, but if she wants to, and if she came to you about it, would you extend your hand in welcome or show her back out the door, not wanting to be tainted by a “low life?”

What are you supposed to learn from this experience about your conduct in the service of God today?

 

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When We’re Left Behind

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Teresa MacBain has a secret, one she’s terrified to reveal.

“I’m currently an active pastor and I’m also an atheist,” she says. “I live a double life. I feel pretty good on Monday, but by Thursday — when Sunday’s right around the corner — I start having stomachaches, headaches, just knowing that I got to stand up and say things that I no longer believe in and portray myself in a way that’s totally false.”

MacBain glances nervously around the room. It’s a Sunday, and normally she would be preaching at her church in Tallahassee, Fla. But here she is, sneaking away to the American Atheists’ convention in Bethesda, Md.

-by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
“From Minister to Atheist: A Story of Losing Faith”
NPR.org

When I read the NPR story, my immediate reaction was one of anger. I took the actions of ordained ministers who have become atheists and yet continue to serve in the pulpit as personally insulting and hypocritical. I also felt that NPR’s publishing of this story was an attack on Christians.

Of course, I shot my big mouth off on twitter and received replies asking why I felt that the telling of one person’s story on their journey of faith (even if it’s away from faith) was an attack on Christianity.

Good question. Why do I feel this way? If someone loses faith and a news agency decides to write a story about it, why do I care? For that matter, if some people choose to walk away from the church, why should I feel that they’re invalidating everything I believe in?

I don’t mind when people disagree with me. I don’t expect everyone in the world to have the same, thoughts, ideas, and opinions as I do. In fact, the world would be a pretty boring place if everyone were just like me. I actually enjoy a frank debate on interesting topics now and then. I guess it’s just the sense of being completely devalued, considered unintelligent, superstitious, and finally, irrelevant that bothers me. It’s one thing for a person to have never had faith and to refuse the option to consider God. It’s another thing entirely to be a person who was once devout and who helped others come to faith, do a complete u-turn and say God doesn’t matter anymore.

It’s like saying I don’t matter anymore, either. Faith isn’t something that I put on like a raincoat when the forecast is for thunder showers. Faith and trust in God is the fabric of my personality and the substance of my being. If we were once alike in our faith and you walk away, it’s like you’re saying who I am is no good anymore.

Two days later, MacBain returned to Tallahassee — and to reality.

“I didn’t know how far or how explosive her coming out would be, but, then again, nobody did,” says MacBain’s husband, Ray MacBain. “The next morning, we got up, I went to work and my son Alex texted me and said it went viral.”

The local TV station, WCTV, ran a series of stories about MacBain, interviewing her boss but never MacBain herself. Hundreds of people wrote comments on the site, and MacBain says they were painful to read.

“The majority of them, to begin with, were pretty hateful,” she says, although some nonbelievers soon came to her defense. “For somebody who’s been a good guy their whole life and been a people pleaser, it’s really hard to imagine that overnight you’re the bad guy.”

This is a very tragic consequence for a person, a member of the clergy, to experience when she “comes out of the closet” and admits to losing her faith. While the NPR story is very sympathetic to MacBain and others like her, I can see why people in the church would be angry.

broken-crossThere’s a sense of being betrayed. Imagine going through your own spiritual and emotional crisis. Who do you turn to for help? Often secular counselors, though well-meaning, just don’t understand the dynamics of a crisis of faith. For many people, the first person you turn to is your Minister or Pastor. You go to them, pour out your heart, fearing some “fire and brimstone” lecture, but hoping and praying he or she will understand. Then they do, they help you, they pray with you, and they gently guide you to a place where you feel like you can trust God again.

And then you find out they were lying between their teeth.

OK, it’s probably a lot more complex than that, and I certainly don’t want to be unfair to the practicing clergy who are atheists and enduring their own spiritual conflicts and crises in the pulpit, but yes, I do understand how the people around them could get very angry, could feel ripped off, and could feel discounted and even attacked.

It’s as if the one person in this world who you depend upon to be your spiritual anchor turns out to be made out of paper mache. I guess this is why we’re supposed to have faith in God and not in people, but for most human beings, it really helps to have someone spiritually stronger than you to rely upon when times get tough.

But people lose their faith. Really good and kind and wonderful people lose their faith. They go through hard times. They watch other people who they love go through hard times. Little children die of horrible diseases. Relationships are shattered. Where is a loving and compassionate God? I can see how faith could take quite a beating. Then your Minister announces to the world that she is an atheist.

Gee. What’s the point?

I’ve mentioned Joe and Heidi Hendricks before. I’ve mentioned they both have cancer. I’ve talked about the emotional roller coaster ride they’ve gone through on a daily basis for years and years. They are the two most remarkable people I know. I don’t know what holds them together…except their faith in God and their love for each other.

Put two Christians through identical horrible circumstances and then never let up on them. Hurt, terrify, and disappoint them over and over again until they both feel like they’re going to explode. Offer them comfort and hope, and then rip it away at the last possible second. What enables one Christian to endure with their faith intact or even strengthened, while the other’s faith is torn to shreds and they crawl away defeated, abandoning God as they feel they have been abandoned by God?

I don’t know. I’m not so cruel as to say one person’s faith was stronger or that the ‘weaker’ person didn’t have a ‘real’ faith at all. I can’t judge another person’s faith. I have no idea what they’re experiencing.

So if someone loses faith and walks away, what does that do to the rest of us? Why do we let it affect us at all? After all, it’s the other person’s decision. They’re making it for themselves. Pastors and Ministers and Rabbis are human beings after all. In fact, the demands of being a religious leader can make things harder rather than easier, and who knows how many of them silently suffer week after week, pretending to their congregations that they have a faith that has long since evaporated like an ice-cube in an Arizona heat wave.

We know we’re supposed to love one another. We know it isn’t easy. But that’s the point. Love isn’t easy. We have to love when it’s hard, too. If someone like Teresa MacBain in the NPR story is our Minister and she tells us she’s lost her faith, how should we respond?

“I believe in God,” says her husband, Ray. “And to be honest, I pray for her every night, I got friends praying for her.”

But he says he adores his wife and defends her right to disbelieve. “That’s why I spent 23 years in the Army. That’s why I’m still a police officer. We have freedom of speech and freedom of thought. And God never forced anybody to believe, so who am I to step up?”

This could have torn the MacBain family apart. For all I know, someday it might do just that. But we’re supposed to love and to try to understand, even when it’s not easy, and even when we feel attacked, and even when we feel insulted and take what the other person says and does really personally.

Love isn’t a warm and fuzzy feeling or lots of hugs and kisses. Love is setting aside your (my) personal reactions and trying to understand what the other person is going through. And then, you try to offer them what they need, even when it’s not what you want to give (and sadly, a recent study indicates that very religious people aren’t particularly motivated by compassion).

Is God that hard to find? When someone walks away and leaves us behind, God says we’re supposed to love them. Sometimes, with so many atheists telling us how bad we are and how evil Christianity is in the world, it’s hard to believe in love at all. It’s not rational, but if we acted like the rest of the world around us (and some religious people do), then we’d be as bad as they say we are. Jesus said to love. It hurts when someone who used to be a believer tells us they’re and atheist and that they’re “better” or they’ve “grown up” now. If we want them to respect our choice to be a person of faith, we have to allow them the same right and not take it as a slap in the face.

divinity

Emissaries

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It is not uncommon for a first-time visitor to fall in love with Yerushalayim. And the place most people feel most attracted to in Yerushalayim is the Kosel itself. When someone told Rav Yosef Shalom Eliyashiv, shlit”a, that many people who live in Yerushalayim do not visit the Kosel at least once in every thirty days, he was astounded. “That is like a man whose ailing mother lives in the same city as he does, who doesn’t visit even once a month! Just as being in such a position is obviously morally untenable, the same should be true about one who is able to visit the Kosel once a month but fails to do so.”

Yet many visitors—perhaps because they come from so far—understand that the Kosel should be visited as often as possible and envy those who live so close, who sadly often visit much less than they would like.

One man on a short trip to Yerushalayim was all broken up about having to go back home to America. “If only I could bring the Kosel with me, it wouldn’t be so bad. Why can’t they instantaneously transport me there every day for shacharis? I would have so much more composure and could much more easily cope with the pressures of the day.”

But of course this was impossible.

When a friend heard about his trouble he made a novel suggestion. “Why not take a small piece of the Kosel back with you? That way you will feel connected and just looking at it will bring you back to the good times when you were here.”

He was very impressed with this idea, but as a religious Jew he was afraid to take such a step without consulting with a posek.

When this question reached Rav Moshe Feinstein, he ruled that this is forbidden. “It is clear that even one who uses the stones of har habayis transgresses me’ilah; how much more so regarding a fragment of a stone from the Kosel itself!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“A Memento?”
Me’ila 15

They say that “familiarity breeds contempt,” so I suppose it’s not surprising that when you have a fabulous resource or experience just minutes from your front door, you might not take every opportunity to visit it. That’s why people who live in cities with wonderful museums containing priceless treasures don’t visit them on a regular basis (usually it’s only when out-of-town guests come to visit).

This is also true of the relationship between Jews in Jerusalem and the Kotel or what some Christians call “the Wailing Wall.” This is also true of the relationship between some Christians and God.

Think about it.

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands — remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. –Ephesians 2:11-13 (ESV)

Examine the experience of someone who has just converted to Christianity, someone who was far off from God who has now been brought near by the blood and grace of Jesus Christ. That person is typically very excited and absolutely thrilled. He takes every opportunity to pray, to go to church, to go to a Bible study, to fellowship with other believers. He is a sponge, taking in every detail, every experience, every subtle nuance of being a Christian.

But sooner or later, the fire cools off. Since God is always near, how often do we visit Him? For some Christians, beyond going through the motions, not very often.

I suppose I should say at this point that this experience is common among people of all faiths, not just the church, but after all, the community of believers in the Jewish Messiah, is my primary audience.

But what about the rest of the story off the Daf? For those who truly appreciate what they can touch, how do you carry away a piece of holiness with you? In terms of the Kotel, you don’t. It’s an unspeakable crime to chip off a little bit of the wall and to carry it around with you as if it were a lucky charm. It’s not the stones themselves that impart holiness, it’s where they are built, why there were built, and what they represent. This doesn’t require that we literally carry a pebble or stone with us. But the man in the story was right in one important way. We do need to constantly carry holiness with us, no matter where we go. We need an anchor to hold us in place and to link us to God, as we are swept this way and that by the storms of everyday life.

We do not keep our traditions for the sake of the past but for their power to create a future, a power that will never end.

For the Torah was not given to this world so that it should return to its former glory, but so that it will transcend itself.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Traditions of the Future”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

One of the ways Judaism has carried holiness and a connection to God with them across history and no matter where they were living (having been driven out of one place and then another, and so on), was and is their traditions. Traditions themselves are not physical objects, though they can employ such objects, but they are concepts and ideas that represent love, faith, and devotion to God. You cannot carry a piece of the Kotel with you, but you can carry the desire to see Jerusalem in your heart. You can pray for the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the Holy Temple. You can enter into prayer with a minyan and summon the presence of God within your midst.

What do we Christians carry around with us to transmit the sense of holiness?

Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. –John 13:16 (ESV)

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. –Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)

We are not greater than the one who sent us, but we have been sent. We carry that Spirit and that mission within us and that sacred duty must never leave us. Many Christians think that only “official” missionaries take the Good News of Christ to the unbelievers, but even if we never overtly speak of our faith, if our behavior is consistent with the one who sent us, then we always declare our love of God and humanity by the one we carry around inside of us.

What is holiness? It’s not a thing you can hold and touch and feel. It’s not a candlestick or a kippah or even a Bible, although in their proper contexts, these objects are important or represent something important. Holiness is a spirit and an inspiration. It is God, not only among His people, but within His people. He is represented by our words and our actions, not just during worship and prayer, but as we go about our business in every hour of every day. That is what we carry and what anchors us to Him.

We are holy and sacred as emissaries (and we are all emissaries) and it’s not just what we have, but what we do that matters.

An emissary is one with his sender. This concept is similar to that of an angel acting as a Divine emissary, when he is actually called by G-d’s name. If this is so with an angel it is certainly true of the soul; in fact with the soul the quality of this oneness is of a higher order, as explained elsewhere.

From “Today’s Day”
for Iyar 8 23rd day of the omer
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan

ShekhinahWe, as mere servants, are not greater than the One who sent us, but we are one in goal and purpose. We must not exalt ourselves beyond our station as believers and disciples, but we must take who and what we are very seriously, because not only God, but a desperate and suffering world is watching us at every moment, looking with diminishing hope for evidence that there is a loving God and that He can save.

Yet there is another message we can take away with us from the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe; a lesson that may explain much, but cause some concern as well. The quote from the Rebbe recalls this event:

“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. –Exodus 23:20-21 (ESV)

It may amaze you that God told Moses that a mere angel could forgive sins, but then, if the Name of God is upon the angel, then the angelic being wears God’s Divinity like a shroud, acting for Him in all things, as if it were God Himself.

But we all know an angel is not literally God.

Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” (John 10:30 [ESV]) and depending on how you interpret his words (and I’ve talked about this before), you may believe he was saying that he, Jesus, is literally and physically the same as God. This is a common belief and most people in the church, though they don’t understand it, do not doubt it for a second.

But just as an angel can carry the Name of God with him such that he can forgive sins and thus literally be called by God’s Name, how much more can the Son of God, the Creator’s personal and most trusted emissary, be also called by God’s Name, forgive sins in God’s Name, not be greater than the One who sent him, and still sit at the right hand of the Father.

I don’t understand it either, but it’s something to ponder as we live out the will of the one who sent us.