Category Archives: Torah Portion

Torah Portion

Balak: The Good, The Bad, and The Gay

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In some years, Parshas Balak is read together with Parshas Chukas. For it is the selfless commitment implied by the name Chukas which makes possible the transformation of evil into good. When a person fans the spark of G-dliness in his soul and expresses it through unbounded devotion to the Torah, he influences his environment, negating undesirable influences and transforming them into good.

And as this pattern spreads throughout the world, we draw closer to the fulfillment of the prophecies mentioned in this week’s Torah reading: (Numbers 24:17, cited by Rashi, Rambam, and others as a reference to Mashiach.) “A star shall emerge from Yaakov, and a staff shall arise in Israel, crushing all of Moab’s princes, and dominating all of Seth’s descendants.”

-Rabbi Eli Touger
“Remembering What Should Be Forgotten”
In the Garden of the Torah series
Commentary on Torah Portion Balak
Chabad.org

Just to let you know, I’m probably going to break every rule that was ever made about writing a commentary on a Torah Portion. In fact, it will probably seem like I’m stretching credibility beyond all reasonable limits. So if you want to take exception for the content of today’s “morning meditation,” you’ll have to look elsewhere. Oh, and today’s “meditation” is really long. Sorry. Just worked out like that. Remember, you have been warned.

In reading Rabbi Touger’s statements which I quoted above, I was captured by phrase, “negating undesirable influences and transforming them into good.” On the surface, they sound a lot like something many Christians would be familiar with.

What Satan intended for evil, God intended for good.

This isn’t in the Bible exactly, and it’s actually adapted from something Joseph said to his brothers (the ones who tried to kill him) after Joseph revealed his true identity to them (along with the fact that he was still alive).

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. –Genesis 50:20 (ESV)

You can probably point to events in your life when something happened that looked like it was going to be trouble or something actually caused trouble, but it eventually worked out to be some sort of advantage or had a good outcome.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. I just wanted to get that particularly viewpoint out of the way.

The evil “wizard” Balaam was hired by Balak, a King, to use his abilities to curse the Children of Israel. If you have even a tenuous familiarity with this week’s Torah Portion, you know about this. You should also know that God told Balaam that he was forbidden to perform the curses and, as it turns out, every time Balaam tried to curse the Israelites at Balak’s behest, he uttered blessings instead.

What was intended to be evil actually turned out to be a good thing.

However, we could spin this idea in another direction. We could say that something that was once considered evil (or undesirable, or unacceptable, or intolerable) has turned out to be good.

Such as being gay and even gay sex.

I separate the two because being gay isn’t really an issue in the Bible since God doesn’t forbid a person from being attracted to the same-sex. He simply forbids the Israelite men from having sex with other men.

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. –Leviticus 18:22 (ESV)

In virtually the same breath, God also forbids an Israelite man from having sex with a woman during her menstrual period, having sex with his neighbor’s wife, and having sex with an animal. Most of these “thou shalt nots” make sense to Christians and they are all part of the list of unlawful sexual relations we find in Leviticus 18 (which a friend of mine calls, “the icky chapter” of Leviticus).

Progressive liberal thought has, for decades, supported the right of people to behave freely in accordance with their sexual orientation, be that straight, gay, bi, or transsexual, but in recent months, it’s almost become “popular” to be gay or to be straight and to support gay causes. We see this in everything from President Obama’s public statements supporting gay marriage to how gay relationships are being depicted in comic books.

Politics and children’s entertainment make strange bedfellows.

But it brings up the question that if mainstream politics, entertainment, social discourse, and even comic books are progressing beyond mere tolerance of the LGBT community into active support and promotion of what is being called “marriage equality,” then what impact will this have on the world of religion?

Greenberg-weddingAfter all, atheists and progressives have traditionally portrayed religious people in general and Christians in particular as being backward, superstitious, intolerant, and even bigoted. With the continued dynamic shift in attitudes toward supporting LGBT in the larger culture, what increased social pressure will be applied to people of faith who have long been considered (and in most cases, rightly so) anti-gay? Has acceptance or rejection of LGBT and specifically marriage equality become the litmus test of the progressive left as applied to religion?

It would seem so. But contrary to how Christianity has been painted with the same, broad brush by the media, how the church (I use that term in the most generic sense) responds to homosexuality including homosexual acts, is split along political lines (and Jesus is once again being dragged into the political arena, whether he wants to be or not).

It’s in these contentious times that I do what culturally-concerned Christians should do — turn to Will Ferrell for insight. And insight he brings us…

Yes, it’s the legendary “dear Lord Baby Jesus” scene (from the 2006 film Talladega Nights), where Ricky Bobby prays to the Jesus he likes best, which of course triggers an intensely thought-provoking discussion:

Kyle Naughton, Jr: “I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt because it says, like, I wanna be formal, but I’m here to party too. I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.”

Walker (or is it Texas Ranger?): “I like to picture Jesus as a ninja, fighting off evil samurai.”

The whole scene is basically a three minute summary of much of what passes for contemporary Christian theology. We invent the Jesus we like best, name that version the God we serve (or partner with), and then find the church (or friend group) that aligns with our vision and — voila! — we’ve got our faith. To be clear, our version of Jesus typically corresponds with some of his attributes, but the picture is always so woefully incomplete.

Gay Rights Jesus is about sex, love, acceptance, and — above all — no judgment (except of course, you can judge someone else’s alleged intolerance). Gay Rights Jesus isn’t bound by your antiquated notions of sexual morality anymore than he’s bound by antiquated dietary rules that maybe involve shellfish . . . or something.

-from “Homosexuality, Morality, and Talladega Nights Theology”
Patheos.com

Irreverent though the quote may be, it tells a certain amount of truth about how we treat religion, adapting it (and Jesus) to fit the moral, ethical, and popular agendas of our society and ourselves.

But it prompts the nasty question of whether or not “commandments” can be adapted, or were intended to be adapted based on the needs of each generation? A blatant example from Judaism are things like cars and microwave ovens that didn’t exist when the Torah was given at Sinai, and they still didn’t exist during the time of Jesus or the later Talmudic period. Once they were invented, someone asked a Rabbi if they could be used on Shabbat, and Rabbinic authority had to consider the Torah and the relevant halakah and render a decision. The commandments regarding Shabbat had to be adapted to fit the needs of the current generation.

But homosexuality wasn’t “invented” recently since the Bible records the prohibition of an Israelite man having sex with another man back in the Torah.

If I were to stop with Judaism, I suppose I could say that the prohibition should remain intact unless some significant evidence is brought forth stating that the Leviticus 18 portion of the Torah was only intended for the ancient Israelites but not modern generations of Jews (but then you have to start asking questions about all of the other forbidden sexual relationships listed in Leviticus 18).

But how many of the Torah prohibitions regarding sex trickle down to Christianity?

In response, it is not enough to point out that Jesus never said anything explicitly about homosexuality or homosexuals. Since he was Jewish, silence cannot easily be filled with a viewpoint that was not common in Judaism in the first century – however much one might go on to insist that Jesus’ views did not always mirror what most people thought.

Jesus taught us to allow love for neighbor and concern for human beings to trump other concerns – even if it leads to healing on the Sabbath or eating sacred bread. Even if it means to breaking other laws, laws which according to the Bible were laid down by God himself.

–Dr. James F. McGrath, June 29, 2012
“The Well-Thought-Out Christian Rationale Behind Christian Acceptance of Gays and Lesbians”
Patheos.com

ShabbatDr. McGrath makes the classic Christian assumption that Jesus broke (and therefore invalidated) the commandments regarding the Sabbath (which is highly debatable) and thus, Jesus could have and probably did break other commandments in Judaism including, in this case, those prohibiting homosexual behavior among the Jews.

If we follow Dr. McGrath’s line of thinking and assume it is all correct (and since he’s the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, he’s got a lot of “cred” behind him), then we might make a “quick and dirty” conclusion that Jesus not only didn’t have a thing against homosexual behavior among the Jews (and by extension, the later Christians), but he was all for it (Keep in mind that Rabbi David Hartman says, “The Sabbath, therefore, does not force us to choose between a theocentric focus on the world and the dignity and significance of human existence,” so healing on the Shabbat does not particularly constitute breaking the Shabbat).

Actually, I’m not sure I can take Dr. McGrath’s commentary that far (since he doesn’t), but he does say this:

Ancient Israel’s marriage laws reflected those of the time, and the workings of the marriage institution as an element of patriarchal society allowing men to treat women as property so as to ensure that their other property passed to their legitimate heirs. Times have changed, marriage has changed, and none of the conservative Christians I know who are married are involved in anything that mirrors “Biblical marriage” in all its features.

And so of course our thinking about marriage reflects the wider perspective of our time and place. Thinking about marriage among the people of God always has. And as with so many issues, such as women’s equality and slavery, we sometimes advocating the setting aside of practices that can be justified by careful exegesis of certain Biblical passages, on the basis of more fundamental Biblical principles. We pick and choose from both the Bible and our culture based on overarching principles and convictions about the centrality of love, the importance of justice, concern for the poor, and so on.

I’m fully willing to admit that there are a lot of things in Paul’s letters that I can accept as situational and that were intended to apply only to the specific group Paul was addressing in a certain place at a certain time. But how far can we “relativize” the Bible and the teachings of Jesus before we become guilty of the following?

Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
and shrewd in their own sight! –Isaiah 5:20-21 (ESV)

How about this one?

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. –2 Timothy 4:3-4 (ESV)

Even if I were to take a conservative Christian approach regarding homosexuality and homosexual acts, I’d have to admit that the commandments can only apply to religious Jews and to Christians. You have to be a member of the covenant before you come under the commandments (OK, Christians believe in a final judgment of all humanity by God, but that’s up to Him, not us). A conservative Christian is able to apply the Bible commandment prohibiting homosexual acts to someone performing such acts as a practicing Christian. However, he couldn’t do so regarding two men who are atheists, gay, and having sex anymore than he could against a man and woman who are atheists, living together as an unmarried couple and having sex (you don’t see a lot of Christian groups protesting against the latter these days).

As far as I can tell, the church has every right to police itself (and given the abuses in the church that occasionally come to light in the public media, perhaps they should) but they cannot apply their (our) own commandments and prohibitions onto the larger culture and attempt (and this is an extreme example) to legislate the Bible into local, state, or national law (even though significant portions of our laws are based on the Bible).

I know that’s what some Christians don’t want to hear.

Getting back to earlier portions of this blog post, are liberal Christians guilty of choosing “baby Jesus” or “Ninja Jesus” or “Gay Rights Jesus” over the closest approximation of “real Jesus” we can gather from the actual New Testament texts to satisfy modern cultural imperatives, or are, as Dr. McGrath suggests, we allowed to adapt the teachings of Jesus to be more appropriate with the needs of the current generations and even to override certain commandments for the sake of loving our neighbor unconditionally and without reservation under all circumstances, no matter what?

There’s no denying that there is an enormously complex set of variables in operation here. For many Christians, just policing their own backyard relative to homosexuality isn’t enough and they want to make the larger culture more “comfortable” for them/us. However, for the past 2,000 years, Jews have constantly lived as a subset of a larger culture that absolutely wasn’t comfortable to them and that existed in complete opposition to all of the commandments held more dear in religious Judaism.

And they managed to get by.

Why does Christianity expect anything different to happen to them?

Last November, I blogged on similar issues in a missive called At the Intersection of Intolerance and Humanity. I don’t believe that the church as the right to commit wholesale condemnation of all LGBT people everywhere as people because of the moral and religious commitments we’ve made as Christians. Perhaps we have the right to do so in our own churches, but this becomes problematic if your church accepts heterosexual couples living together as “OK” but not gay couples living together.

Whether you approve or disapprove of homosexual behavior based on your personal feelings and/or your understanding of the Bible doesn’t mean you have the right to disregard someone as a human being. Jesus expected us to, among other things, visit people in prison, meaning he wanted us to extend compassion to people who are convicted of crimes (and probably guilty of sins) and to treat them with respect. Why is being gay so much worse than being a bank robber, or someone who beat his wife, or even a murderer?

I’m not a big fan of having the larger, popular culture shove their values and ideals down my throat just because there are more of them than there are of me and they have the support of MSNBC and CNN. On the other hand, they do force the body of faith to confront moral issues that we’d just as soon avoid or even condemn, without actually examining what the Bible seems to be telling us, and especially without examining our own thoughts and feelings.

In this week’s Torah portion, Balak offered Balaam a small fortune if Balaam would consent to curse the Children of Israel, and given the fact that the evil Balaam could even speak with God, we have every reason to believe such a curse would have worked to the detriment of the Israelites. But what Balak intended for evil, God chose to make good. Are we to go so far as to say that what God considered evil in Leviticus, He chose to make good in the 21st century?

I don’t know if I can go that far. The popular media outlets are choosing to depict the LGBT community as “especially good” these days. We believers aren’t supposed to decide which people we love and which we hate. (Matthew 5:46). Although we are held to a higher moral standard (atheists and progressives would debate this) than the world around us, that isn’t a mandate to circle our wagons and to restrict love only to our own groups. If God so loved the world, the entire world, and everyone in it (John 3:16) while we were all still enemies of Christ (Romans 5:10), who are we to do any less?

Don’t turn good into evil and evil into good, but do good in order to overcome evil (Romans 12:21). I think rewriting the Bible to fit a modern moral agenda is going too far. But instead of overcoming what we believe is evil by force, we can do what Paul suggested in Romans 12:20 whilst quoting Proverbs 25:21-22

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Doing good doesn’t mean surrendering to evil. It means surrendering to God.

Good Shabbos.

Addendum: For more on loving your enemies, you might want to consider New Testament Scholar Larry Hurtado’s recent (and short) essay, Hermeneutics of ‘Agape’. Also, Dr. Stuart Dauermann presents a somewhat related blog post (not incredibly related but when you read it, you’ll see why I’m including it here) called Re-masculinizing the Church and Synagogue – Toward Addressing the Problem. Food for thought.

Torah Portion

Chukat: The Chutzpah of Entering Fire

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This is the Torah (law): A man who dies in a tent…

–Numbers 19:14

The Torah is only acquired by those who kill themselves for it in the tents of study.

-The Zohar

It happened in the winter of 1798 or 1799, when Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch was a child of eight or nine. Every Friday night Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi would deliver a discourse of chassidic teaching to a select group of disciples. Little Mendel begged to be allowed in, but his grandfather refused.

The dwelling of Rabbi Schneur Zalman consisted of two two-room buildings, joined by a connecting passageway. In one of the wings, a large wood-burning stove, used for heating and occasionally to bake bread, was set in the wall between the two rooms. The stove opened into the outer room, and also protruded into the inner room which served as Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s study.

One Friday night, the Rebbe was delivering his weekly discourse in his study. It was an exceptionally cold night, so a gentile was summoned to heat the oven. For some reason, he found it difficult to push the logs all the way in to the oven, so he built the fire near the opening of the stove. As a result, the outer room soon began to fill with smoke. Once again, he tried to push the burning logs further in, but they wouldn’t budge. The poor man had to start all over again. He put out the fire, pulled out the logs, and peered into the stove to see what was preventing the logs from going in.

His shouts and shrieks summoned the entire household. The session in Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s room was disrupted; those in the second building also came running. Inside the stove lay a young boy.

-Rabbi Yanki Tauber
“The Path of Fire”
Commentary on Torah Portion Chukat
Once Upon a Chasid series
Chabad.org

Chassidic tales are very compelling but it’s impossible to know how much some of them represent actual events. I’ve come to look at these tales as stories that have been crafted to communicate important moral and religious thoughts to a specific audience. Since I’m obviously not part of that audience, it’s rather puzzling that I should be drawn to them at all. Certainly most of my fellow Christians are at best, indifferent to the stories of the Chassidim and prefer moral commentaries from the ancient or current Christian scholars and commentators.

So what’s wrong with me?

I don’t know.

According to Rabbi Eli Touger’s commentary on this Torah Portion:

The term Chukim refers to those mitzvos whose rationale cannot be grasped by human intellect.

I find my own “rationale” for pursuing the writing of a blog focused on not only Jewish, but specifically Chassidic teachings, to be just as difficult to grasp by my intellect. As I’ve said in the past, the content that I discover in Chabad sources talks to me with my metaphors, but it doesn’t make sense that it should. This is not only because I’m not Jewish (and certainly not Orthodox), but that I am not particularly learned either. I should be just as put off by what I’m reading as most people in the church. I have no explanation for why I return to this particular pool daily to drink and seek refreshment.

But then not all of my meditations are particularly refreshing.

I mentioned just the other day that we are all seeking out a greater imagination, particularly when our own well becomes dry. I’ve also said that there are times when I feel as if I’m in a wilderness waiting for God to do something, but in truth, it is God who waits in the desert for me. Like a dunce in the corner of the classroom, I may have asked God too many stupid questions but I just can’t figure out how else to talk to Him.

But it’s not just me and God. If it were, I suppose life wouldn’t seem so complicated. Being married to the girl with the Jewish soul has taught me that Judaism isn’t really accessible to me, but then Christianity isn’t exactly an open door, either. I call myself a Christian as a matter of intellectual honesty, but I’m the weirdest Christian I know. If I ever entered a church and actually said what I really think, feel, and believe in a completely unfiltered manner, I’d most likely get thrown out on my ear.

I’ve talked about “not fitting in” before and I suppose this missive is just the latest incarnation of that personal state. Judaism is, by definition, community and in theory, so is Christianity (though “salvation” is personal and not corporate) but I’ve gotten just too “strange” to fit into anybody’s community, at least for more than a tiny march of days. Not only that, but I have to consider how my joining any particular community would affect my family. My being married to a Jewish woman, and being dedicated to ensuring the safety of her being a Jew takes an obvious toll on my being a Christian. She can tolerate my meeting with a couple of guys once a week, but church would be pushing the envelope a little too hard…for the both of us.

So I have a mystery and no answers. While I share my perspectives with the Internet, it’s a wholly impersonal environment. People respond to me, but it’s “virtual” and only on rare and brief occasions does the virtual transcend into reality.

I know what I’m writing has virtually no connection to Chukat, but this is who I am and where I am right now. How about we finish the story as told by Rabbi Tauber and see what turns up.

A small lamp was the only source of light in the smoke-filled room, so it took some time until the child was identified as the Rebbe’s grandson, little Menachem Mendel.

For some weeks now, the child had discovered that he could hear his grandfather’s words through the thin wall of the stove. Every Friday night he would clamber deep into the large stove, and listen to the profound and lofty words of the Rebbe’s teachings. And now, because of the bitter cold, his listening post had been discovered.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s daughter-in-law, Rebbetzin Sheina, who was present at the time, related:

“When they pulled the child out of the stove, he was paralyzed with fright. My mother-in-law, Rebbetzin Sterna, cried to my father-in-law, the Rebbe: ‘See what could of happened! A tragedy! Strangers you allow to enter, but when your own child begged you, you wouldn’t let him in!’ Father-in-law replied: ‘Sha, sha. Moses reached Mount Sinai only by beholding fire – only then did he merit that the Torah be given through him. Torah is acquired only through self-sacrifice.’ “

One way to deal with not fitting in is to have the chutzpah to fit in anyway. In little Menachem Mendel’s case, he fit himself into a stove, but unfortunately, he didn’t anticipate that on a cold night, he could end up being part of the fuel used to warm the room. Rabbi Tauber relates a childish error in judgment to the willingness to die for the sake of Torah learning, but clearly in the real world, the little boy wasn’t willing to burn nor were his elders willing to incinerate him for the Torah’s sake. The real lesson (at least according to the Rebbetzin, since the Rebbe disagreed) is that if someone wants in badly enough and they show a willingness to make sacrifices, you should let them in.

That doesn’t really work in my case since I’ll never be Jewish enough (or rather, I’ll never be a Jew at all) to learn as a Jew and I’ll never be Christian enough to fit into the church culture. I don’t know what I’d have to be to fit in with my wife religiously. I don’t think there is an answer to that one except, as I said before, to be a “low profile Christian at home.”

But what about God? I guess I can be a Christian at home in terms of behaviorally displaying my morals and ethics without being overtly “Christian” (openly praying or invoking Christ’s name, for example). In this case, chutzpah won’t get me anywhere except in hot water, so I’ve nowhere else to go except into the privacy of my own thoughts, which gets turned into very public blog posts…and to turn to God.

I’m seeking out a greater imagination, but I’m putting some pretty harsh limits on it.

Solomon couldn’t comprehend the mitzvah of the Red Heifer and I can’t comprehend my own existence. If God didn’t require that Solomon understand, I guess I don’t have to, either. I can only continue living and to see what happens next.

The irony is that I don’t know what to do, and yet I feel as if God is waiting for me to make the next move. I guess that’s what faith is…acknowledging God and proceeding forward, even when it doesn’t make sense, for what alternative do we have?

Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.” –Psalm 95:7-11 (ESV)

Good Shabbos.

 

Torah Portion

Shlach: The Miraculous Messenger

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The Torah portion of Shlach relates how the men sent to spy out Eretz Yisrael returned and reported that the country was unconquerable. The Jewish people, they said, would be unable to enter the land, since “The inhabitants of the land are mighty.” (Bamidbar 13:28.)

Furthermore, say our Sages, (Sotah 35a.) the spies went so far as to say that even G-d would not be able to wrest the land from its inhabitants. Their words caused great consternation among the Jews, who feared that they would be unable to enter Eretz Yisrael.

How was it possible for the spies to mislead the Jewish people and convince them that even G-d could not help them, when the Jews themselves had constantly witnessed the miracles performed on their behalf, e.g., G-d provided their daily food and drink in a miraculous manner — manna from heaven and water from Miriam’s well.

Commentary on Torah Portion Shlach
from “The Chassidic Dimension” series
Based on Likkutei Sichos Vol. XVIII, pp. 171-174
and the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Like the logic applied in our initial conundrum, the spies argued that after God created the laws of nature, He ruled that even He Himself would not be able to change those laws. God bound His own hands, as it were, by means of the laws that He Himself instituted. Until now, God’s leadership in the wilderness had been one of supernatural miracles that defied the laws of nature again and again. It was clear though that entering thelandofIsrael, for all its holiness, meant entering the confines of nature and living by its laws. This was why the ten spies thought that the Jewish people could not overcome the giants who lived in the land. They believed that God had indeed created a rock that could not be lifted. Moses himself used this argument in his prayer asking for God’s forgiveness, saying that destroying the Jewish people, God forbid, for their sin, would be proof for the surrounding nations of the erroneous claim that “God lacked the ability to bring this nation to the land which He swore to them…” (Numbers 16:14-15).

Joshua and Caleb, the remaining two spies, also saw that conquering the land was a supernatural task, but they said, “Yes, God can create such a rock that He cannot lift, but He can still decide to pick it up if He wants to.” They realized that on entering theHoly Land, God could paradoxically empower the Jewish people themselves with supernatural powers and this would become their very nature.

-Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh
“The Rock that God Can Carry”
Commentary on Torah Portion Shlach
Wonders from Your Torah

I hadn’t heard this particular perspective on the “sin of the ten spies” before and that they believed that there was “a rock that God Himself couldn’t lift,” so to speak. I did however, realize that anyone who is “sent out” for a particular purpose is called “shlach,” including us.

I know it doesn’t sound like these two things are connected, but I can explain.

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. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” –Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)

WalkingThat command was originally given by the Master to the “eleven disciples (who) went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.” (v16) However, it has been inherited by every disciple who is called by his name, Jew and Gentile alike, and we have carried that mission upon us for nearly 2,000 years.

How are we doing so far?

Actually, not that bad. But we could be better, especially in the present age. It’s not so much that the Good News of Jesus Christ isn’t being spread to the four corners of the earth and that the vast, vast majority of the human race hasn’t heard of God, the Bible, and Jesus. They certainly have heard the Good News, however many of those people; perhaps most of those people, don’t see it as “good news” at all. Many people experience Christianity as “bad news.” They see us as superstitious, as old fashioned, as out of touch, as bigots, sexist, racist, anti-gay, anti-political correctness, anti-progressive.

Some of that is true, whether we intend it to be or not. Where have we gone wrong?

In the days of Moses, the ten spies gave an “evil report,” not because they were dumb or evil or cowards, but because they believed that the supernatural power of God would not go with them when they entered the land of Canaan. They believed that without the power of God, in terms of mere human strength, they would have no chance at defeating the mighty giants of the land. They felt abandoned and afraid.

Every time I read the words of “the great commission” as recorded in Matthew 28:19-20, I always puzzled over Christ’s final statement:

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Now I realize what he was trying to say. He was trying to say that his disciples would not be alone in the enormous mission of taking the word of the Jewish Messiah to the nations of the world. Remember, nothing like that had even been dreamed of before let alone attempted. In a world full of false gods and polytheistic idol worshipers, how would the Word of the One God of Israel and the Messiah King of the Jews be received by the Gentiles? Would they listen to the Gospel message at all, or listen and then merely incorporate God into their panthenon of other gods, worshiping the God of Heaven as if he were just another idol of stone, wood, or bronze?

The Bible didn’t record the reaction of Christ’s “great commission” but it would be another fifteen years or so before any one of them would attempt to respond. Even then, Peter needed the prompting of not only a vision on a rooftop (Acts 10:9-16), but that of a messengers sent by the God-fearing Roman Cornelius with an unusual request. (Acts 10:17-23). The rest of this chapter in Acts tells the tale of God showing just how possible it was to carry the message of the Messiah to the Gentiles and how indeed, many Gentiles were eager to hear it.

Receiving the SpiritAnd in seeing that the Gentiles could receive the Holy Spirit, even as the Jews had already done (Acts 10:44-48), it was confirmed that the supernatural power of the Spirit of Messiah was with them “always, to the end of the age.”

That age hasn’t expired yet and neither has our calling. Not all of us enter what the church calls “the mission field” in a formal sense, but in truth, we are all “missionaries” or “sent ones.” We are shlach in the way we live our lives. Every word we speak and every action we take tells the tale of our Lord and Master, for good or for ill. Every deed of honor and praise glorifies the Name of God, and every mistake and mean-spirited act we commit drags that Name through the mud.

Joshua and Caleb understood that God would enable the Israelites to take the land, not by a series of supernatural miracles, but by making the people of Israel the miracle. We see in the book of Joshua and beyond how true this was. They didn’t have to believe in the miracles. They just needed faith in God. That first generation out of Egypt couldn’t overcome their “slave mentality” and when faced with such challenges, they balked. They didn’t have faith in themselves, let alone a God they felt would cease to provide protection from Heaven (I know, I’m applying midrash here, but I think it fits).

As believers and disciples of the Jewish Messiah, our teacher, our Master, and our King, what have we learned, not only from his lessons but from the lesson of the Shlach among the Israelites? Jesus already said that he would continue to be with us for the amount of time it takes to fulfill the directive to spread the Word of hope. He asks us to have faith. Faith in our Master, faith in the One Holy God of Israel…and faith in ourselves.

We see from the Biblical record that the taking of Canaan and the forging of Israel was no easy task, even though God was with the Children of Jacob. We see from the record of Paul’s letters that even though he was personally comissioned by the Messiah to be the “shlach to the Gentiles,” his task was at times brutally difficult. Our tasks are not easy, either. Living a life of faith and swimming against the tide or a world determined to deny God never is. We are reviled, called foul names, laughed at, ridiculed, and that’s only in the western nations. In other parts of the world, Christians are raped, beaten, tortured, and murdered for the sake of Jesus Christ. Under such terrific pressure, our sin is never in doing our best and failing, but only in failing to try.

“In fact, the spies’ sin, in fact any sin, can be understood using the same principles just applied. Sin is like a rock that by nature cannot be “lifted,” that is forgiven…But we know that even after sin, God remains open to teshuvah (repentance and return to God).”

-Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh

“You do not always succeed, but you always have to try.”

-Gutman Locks
“Tefillin After 72 Years”
Stories of the Holocaust series
Chabad.org

A life of faith and miracles isn’t begun by waiting for God to make the first move. He’s waiting for us. So is everyone else. You can be the answer to someone’s prayer. All you have to do is try.

Good Shabbos.

Torah Portion

Behaalotecha: The Presence of Light and Compassion

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lightThe Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and say to him, “When you mount the lamps, let the seven lamps give light at the front of the lampstand.” Aaron did so; he mounted the lamps at the front of the lampstand, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

–Numbers 8:1-3 (JPS Tanakh)

The Almighty is not in need of our light. On the contrary, we are in need of His. For this reason the Torah guides us in the proper way of taking full spiritual advantage of the light of the Menorah: The lamps must radiate toward themselves, meaning that the light they give should not only illuminate others, but it must come back and shine on the Menorah itself.

This returning light is at once a fact and a commandment. It applies especially in our day and age when the Temple and the Menorah are no longer standing, and when we must fill the void of the reflecting light that the Menorah once provided.

When the light we radiate around us by leading Torah lives returns to us, enhancing our spirituality and improving our behavior to one another, we will have fulfilled both the fact and the commandment of “When you light the lamps opposite the front of the candlestick the seven lamps shall give light.”

-from “Light That Returns”
A commentary on Torah Portion Behaalotecha
VirtualJerusalem.com

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

–Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)

I suppose this week’s commentary on the Torah Portion is only loosely based on the Parashah, but I must admit that I need a little extra “light” in my world. With that in mind, I’m “tweaking” my “meditation” to favor “light.”

The Virtual Jerusalem commentary compares the commandment of lighting the Menorah in the Tabernacle to the “light” of spirituality, goodness, Torah study, and scholarship. To a Christian, praying, singing hymns, and preaching the Word might all seem like more worthwhile activities than studying the Bible, but for some Jews, studying Torah is directly associated with obeying its commands to do good and to show kindness to others. When you take in the light of the Torah, it shines in the world around you as well.

That very well could be related to what the Master was thinking when he said the words we have recorded in Matthew 5:14-16. We shine our light because we have received that light from our Master and teacher. It extends out into the world but it also is reflected back toward us as those we have touched in a meaningful way received our light (which comes from our Master) and it returns to us as a blessing.

Yes, we need blessings and renewal because even among the body of believers, it can be a trying world. If you’ve been reading the comments made on my blog over the past week or so, you know that tempers became heated, nerves became frayed, and some among the body of Christ seemingly forgot that our Master taught us a new commandment to love one another (John 13:34). Of course, there is the concept of “tough love” or “I’m only telling the truth,” but the Bible is replete with teachings about how to approach a brother privately to solve a dispute (Matthew 18:15-18).

Of course, Jesus goes on to say:

Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” –Matthew 18:19-20 (ESV)

Naturally, the two have to actually agree on something, which seems easier said and done, and perhaps that “two or three..gathered in my name” means gathering face-to-face and not virtually in the blogosphere.

Yes, the “magic” of brotherhood I experienced at the Shavuot conference I recently attended has dissipated and once again, I encounter the actuality of “religious conversations,” where one can be accused of various misdeeds when the only “crime” that occurred was saying to the other person, “I don’t agree with you.” Failing to unreservedly honor another’s sacred cow can be a terrible thing (and I know a little something about pursuing sacred cows).

Tsvi Sadan calls the Messiah the concealed light, in part because the light of the Jewish King has been temporarily concealed from his Jewish brethern for the sake of the nations (see Romans 11). Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, in presenting the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, says:

It all began with an infinite light that filled all and left no room for a world to be. Then that light was withheld so the world might be created in the resulting void.

Then the world was created, with the purpose of returning to that original state of light — yet to remain a world.

All the world’s problems stem from light being withheld.

Our job then, is to correct this. Wherever we find light, we must rip away its casings, exposing it to all, letting it shine forth to the darkest ends of the earth.

Especially the light you yourself hold.

The Light was concealed. But its Source was not. The Source of Light is everywhere.

For those of you with little tolerance for Chassidic mysticism, I prefer to think of these writings as metaphorical. If indeed we shine some of the “concealed light” of our Master, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, as he taught us, we must not let the light be concealed. We must “rip away its casings” and expose that light to others. But what light are we talking about and what happens when it shines?

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. –Matthew 5:3-12 (ESV)

I suppose I could have quoted from any number of the Master’s teachings, but this one seemed particularly appropriate. Who is blessed? The poor in spirit, mourners, the meek, people who are passionate for righteousness, the merciful, the pure of heart, peacemakers, those persecuted for the sake of righteousness, the reviled, those falsely accused on account of the Master.

If you toss the Beatitudes into a big bowl, take a large wooden spoon and stir vigorously, you can come out with the idea that if you are persecuted, reviled, falsely accused, or just plain “bad mouthed,” you should still respond with meekness, act mercifully, be peacemakers, and mourn for the souls of those who need to personalize conflict in the name of Christ. What an odd way to react to a verbal slap in the face, but then the Master also said something about turning the other cheek (though probably not literal in meaning).

Sorry, I just needed to ponder those thoughts and to consider that even the world of religious discourse (some would say especially the world of religious discourse) is no less filled with landmines and tripwires than any secular conversation.

He could have placed streetlamps along all the pathways of wisdom, but then there would be no journey.

Who would discover the secret passages, the hidden treasures, if all of us took the king’s highway?

Toward the light Rabbi Freeman uses light and darkness to describe the presence or absence of wisdom and knowledge of God, but I choose to see this as a metaphor illustrating peace, mercy, and righteousness, or their absense. A movie I’ve seen a few times starring Harrison Ford as (of all people) the President of the United States, contains one of my favorite lines of dialog:

Peace isn’t merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.

In my case, I’d settle for only the occasional absence of conflict (since, after all, this is the Internet and human beings are involved), the presence of compassion, and the soft glow of a bit of kindness, like candlelight, holding the darkness at bay.

Good Shabbos.

Torah Portion

Naso: Bridegroom of the Sabbath

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The Torah portion of Naso discusses the law of Sotah: (Bamidbar 5:11-31) When a husband warns his wife not to be alone with a certain man and she disobeys him, then even if she did not sin with that man, the very fact that she was alone with him causes her to become a sotah — a woman “straying from the path of modesty.” (Rashi, ibid., verse 12.)

The relationship between husband and wife in this world is analogous to the relationship between the A-lmighty and the Jewish people, who are deemed “husband and wife.” (See Likkutei Sichos , Vol. III, p. 984.) Thus all the laws of sotah apply to the relationship between G-d and the Jews.

The “warning” that G-d issues to the Jewish people is the command: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Shmos 20:3.) This is similar to the warning: “do not conceal yourself with a certain man.”

The Chassidic Dimension
Commentary on Torah Portion Naso
Based on Likkutei Sichos, Vol. IV, pp. 1032-1034
and the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

The Bible is replete with marriage metaphors, usually contrasting God and Israel as husband and wife. We also have a great deal of similar imagery in the Apostolic Scriptures depicting Jesus as husband and the church as his bride.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. –Ephesians 5:22-27 (ESV)

Many Christian women take great comfort in these metaphors but more than a few men struggle with the role of “bride” relative to the Messiah. But let’s not be incredibly literal, since the Bible writers are using metaphors to describe a level of close intimacy between the Messiah and his disciples that can only be likened with the closeness and love experienced by two people who are intertwined by devotion. But Israel and the church aren’t the only “bride” metaphors we know of.

The chorus of the classic Sabbath hymn Lekhah Dodi states in part:

Let’s go, my beloved, to meet the bride,
and let us welcome the presence of Shabbat.

But in this instance, if the Shabbat is the bride, who is the bridegroom? The traditional Jewish tradition casts God in that role, but we also have this:

Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” –Matthew 12:5-8 (ESV)

The oldest text we have for this passage is in Greek, but if we try to “retrofit” these verses back into the Hebrew thoughts of the Jewish writer of Matthew, when he says “the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath,” what word did he use for “lord?”

“Adon” seems to be fitting under the circumstances, but a week ago, I heard a different interpretation by a young Jewish scholar (yes, I’m “borrowing” this from you, Nick) who offered a sort of midrash on this topic.

The word Baal is derived from the common Hebrew verb (ba’al), own, rule, possess. The verb is even used to indicate the husband’s relationship to his wife (Deuteronomy 24:1) and is applied to the relationship between God and man, “For your husband (ba’al) is your Maker…” (Isaiah 54:5).

-quoted from the
abarim-publications.com website

ShabbatBaal can mean both “lord” and “husband” but by deliberately applying the latter meaning, we can discover something about the relationship between Messiah and the Shabbat as well as something about the Messiah and us.

When we read the passage as “‘lord’ of the Shabbat”, we think of someone in charge or in command or with authority. These are very powerful images, but they don’t fit very well with how a loving groom should be approaching his bride. However, if we say, “‘husband’ of the Shabbat,” we completely change the meaning. Suddenly, we have an intimate, warm, caring interaction between the Messiah and the Shabbat.

Some Jewish sages state that the Shabbat is actually a small taste of the life in the world to come; Paradise, if you will. Creating the picture of a husband, the Messiah, welcoming his beloved bride, the Shabbat, into his arms, we can see something of the peace we will experience when he finally returns and fixes our broken world and our broken hearts.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. –Revelation 21:4 (ESV)

This also fits very well back into what we saw in Ephesians 5 in comparing Jesus and the church with a husband and wife.

I know I’m being more than a little poetic here, but I take a certain amount of comfort in applying the lessons of both this week’s Torah Portion and the Shabbat to my walk of faith, and realize that Shabbat is not only a way for God to comfort us in the midst of our weekly trials, but His promise that He will always love us and, through the Messiah, grant us eternal peace.

Why should we stray after others to be alone with them when we can be the bride of the Moshiach and receive boundless intimacy with our bridegroom.

Good Shabbos.

 

Torah Portion

Bamidbar and Shavuot: Souls in the Desert

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“Numbers” may be the name by which the fourth of the Five Books of Moses is commonly called, but in the Hebrew original it is known as Bamidbar, or “In the Wilderness.” It is interesting to note that this parsha is always read immediately before the festival of Shavuot, “the season of the giving of the Torah.” What is the connection?

The Sages teach that it is not enough for G-d to give us the Torah, we have to be ready to receive the Torah. What makes us worthy recipients of this most precious and infinite gift from G-d? This is where the “wilderness” idea comes in. A wilderness is a no-man’s land. It is ownerless and barren. Just as a desert is empty and desolate, so does a student of Torah need to know that he is but an “empty vessel.” Humility is a vital prerequisite if we are to successfully absorb divine wisdom.

-Rabbi Yossy Goldman
“Wisdom from the Wilderness”
Commentary on Torah Portion Bamidbar (Numbers)
Chabad.org

When the day of Pentecost (that is, Shavuot) arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?”

–Acts 2:1-8 (ESV)

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to write about. On my “morning meditation” for Fridays, I usually create a commentary on the weekly Torah Portion, which this week is the beginning of Numbers. However, we are also on the cusp of Shavuot and the two cannot be neatly divided and separated. In my quote from Rabbi Goldman, he even asks about the connection between the two. Fortunately, he also gives us an answer.

However, for those of us who are disciples of the Jewish Messiah and devoted to Jesus Christ, there is an added dimension to offering the Torah to the wilderness within all our souls. There is the giving of the Spirit and God. This isn’t to say that Jews do not have access to the Spirit of God. Far from it. But in accepting the Messiah into our hearts and recognizing that it is Jesus who is Lord of life and firstborn from the dead, we enter into a covenant that not only preserves us in the present world, but one that will endure beyond the next and into all eternity, even as Heaven and Earth pass away (Matthew 5:18).

But we are still here and we exist in what we call “now,” which is approaching Shabbat and a day later, Shavuot. We look to the past, to Mount Sinai and the Torah and to that room in Jerusalem and the Apostles being filled with the Spirit, and we rejoice. But it’s not all about the past.

Unlike Passover or Sukkos, or even the minor Rabbinic holiday of Purim, Shavuos comes with no special observances, no unique Mitzvos to be performed on that day. The “only” thing that sets Shavuos apart is that it is the day when G-d gave the Torah, His most precious gift, to the Jewish people.

Each year, we don’t merely revisit or even relive that experience. Kabbalistic sources teach that the unique spiritual powers of each holiday return to this world every year on that same day. On Shavuos, we have a special power to take our portion in Torah, each and every year.

Every year, many of us skip out on this unique opportunity. We deny ourselves the closeness to G-d which is within our grasp. And there is a fascinating Medrash concerning the giving of the Torah, which hints that this isn’t an entirely new phenomenon.

-Rabbi Yaakov Menken
“Shavuos”
Torah.org

Rabbi Menken doesn’t say this explicitly, but the reason we study Torah, observe the festivals, and remember the holy acts in the lives of the Apostles is to not just relive them today, but to experience them as new, fresh, living events that are happening to us for the very first time. Many Christians speak of a need for renewal in the church and yet Judaism has built into its calendar multiple times of renewing each and every year. Jews and Christians are at such a time now. Before our awareness of God, we existed as a wilderness, empty and barren in our soul. This is especially tragic for Jews since they are members of the Covenant and a chosen people, even if they acknowledge God not at all. We who are Gentiles, if we are without God, we are as Paul described us; far off and without hope (Ephesians 2:12).

The Jews were joined with God at the foot of Sinai in the desert, where the Torah was given to them. We who were once far off were offered the opportunity to also draw close to God at the foot of the cross and in that room in Jerusalem, when we were washed by blood and filled with Spirit. We were made alive and spiritually aware of God through Christ.

Rabbi Goldman concludes his commentary on Numbers and Shavuot by saying:

May we receive the Torah with joy and earnestness so that this important festival will be both memorable and meaningful.

Paul says in Ephesians 12:22 (ESV):

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Open your minds, your hearts, and your spirits to God. Today we become new again.

A Happy Shavuos and Good Shabbos.

(Shavuot begins Saturday evening right when Shabbat ends, so my next “morning meditation” will be posted online Monday morning. Blessings).