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Why Do We Fall Down?

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FallingFor after I fell, I have arisen… –Michah 7:8

The Midrash comments: “Had I not fallen, I would not have arisen,” and so indicates that some heights are not attainable without an antecedent fall.

Obviously, no one designs a fall in the hope that it may lead to a greater elevation. Michah’s message, however, is that if a person should suffer a reversal, he or she should not despair, because it may be a necessary prelude to achieving a higher level than would have been possible otherwise.

We can find many analogies to this concept. When we swing a pickaxe, we first lower it behind ourselves in order to deliver a blow with maximum force. Runners often back up behind the starting line to get a “running start.” In many things, starting from a “minus” position provides a momentum that would otherwise not be attainable.

When things are going well, most people let well enough alone. The result? Mediocrity has become acceptable. Changing might involve some risk, and even if we could achieve greater things, we might not wish to take a chance when things are proceeding quite satisfactorily. However, when we are in an intolerable situation, we are compelled to do something, and this impetus may bring about creativity and progress.

We even see this concept in the account of creation in Genesis. First there was darkness, then came light.

Today I shall…

realize that a reversal may be the seed of future growth, and I must never despair.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Av 24”
Aish.com

If you’re a movie goer, this piece of advice may sound very close to another slice of “conventional wisdom.” uttered by actor Michael Caine:

Why do we fall sir? So we might learn to pick ourselves up.

–Batman Begins (2005)

In yesterday’s meditation, I talked about the value of prayer as a conversation with a very special “traveling companion.” Our relationship with God, once we become aware that there is a God and that He wants us to relate to him, is no simple matter. But then, what do you expect from having daily interactions with the infinite, unknowable, radical One God?

But relationships with other people and even with ourselves aren’t particularly easy, either. A life of faith can be a struggle. We take on board beliefs and a trust in our Creator that not only does the world fail to comprehend, but that we ourselves often puzzle over.

It can be very disheartening, hence the need to continually relate to God.

But like I said, it’s not just about “me and Jesus.” It’s much more than that.

Spend time thinking about the virtues of other people. Not merely as a passing thought – but try to feel pleasure in thinking of their virtues.

-Rabbi Reuven Dov Dessler
Tnuas Hamussar, vol.5, p.180;
see Rabbi Pliskin’s “Gateway to Happiness,” p.103
Aish.com

What does considering and celebrating the virtues of others have to do with learning to get up again once we’ve fallen down?

Plenty.

A tradition handed down from Rebbe to Rebbe: During the well-known conflict (between chassidim and their opponents) the chassidim told the Alter Rebbe about the terrible abuse they suffered from the plain misnagdic folk. The Rebbe said: Grandfather (as he called the Baal Shem Tov) deeply loved simple folk. In my first days in Mezritch, the Rebbe, (the Maggid) said: “It was a frequent customary remark of the Rebbe (Baal Shem Tov) that love of Israel is love of G-d. “You are children of Hashem your G-d”; when one loves the father one loves the children.

“Today’s Day”
Wednesday, Menachem Av 24, 5703
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

I’ve said before that not only is it impossible to truly love God without loving people, but that loving God, loving others, and taking care of yourself are all wrapped up into one big package. It comes full circle in helping us to realize that God intensely, completely loves us…all of us. Our deep responsibility to help others is only a reflection of God’s desire to care for and to love us.

Whenever we fall, whether due to disease, injury, or most commonly, emotional and spiritual discouragement, we depend on God to help lift us up again. Often, that help comes in the form of another human being. So it stands to reason that when we see someone else who has fallen, we should unreservedly strive to help that person stand back up again.

You may believe that God doesn’t answer your prayers when you need Him to the most. On the other hand, maybe God’s “agent” for that answer simply hasn’t arrived yet. The other side of the coin is that when you have the opportunity to help someone out, please be timely, because God sent you to be the answer to their prayers.

Why do other people fall down? So that we can do God’s will in helping them back up.

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Conversations With My Companion

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Question: I spent quite a bit of time praying for someone who was very ill. Many people came together to pray for this person yet she unfortunately passed away. How can we say then that a prayer is never unanswered? Obviously in this case and in many others the prayers of so many people have not been answered. How can we have absolute faith in G-d if He doesn’t spare the life of someone who so many prayed for? I understand that belief in G-d is fundamental to our religion but I just wish to understand this. I have also heard many answers before. For example G-d does everything for a reason and one can’t see the whole picture. I was wondering if you had a different answer as this one doesn’t fully answer my question.

Answer: The first thing to understand is that prayer – no matter how sincere and intense – can never be guaranteed to produce results. Think about it: if all prayers were rewarded, wouldn’t that make us gods, and God nothing more than our slave? Think about this, too: are we really so sure that we know enough of the universe’s workings to be sure that what we’re asking for is really the very best thing for everyone? Isn’t it wiser to place ourselves in God’s gentle and powerful hands; to rely on His judgment?

This, in effect, is what King David’s general, Yoav, was saying on the eve of a very dangerous battle (II Samuel, 10:12) with the words: “Be strong and sure for our people and for the cities of the Lord our God, and the Lord will do what is best in His eyes.” So what then is the purpose of prayer?

-Rabbi Boruch Clinton
from “Belief in G-d and Unanswered Prayers”
JewishAnswers.org

Good question and one that doesn’t offer an easy answer. Some people don’t find an answer at all, and the result is that they leave the faith.

You pray. You pray with all your heart, with all your devotion, with all your love of God, and yet it seems as if your prayers are not answered. The illness is not healed. The loved one is not spared a painful death. Grief and disappointment enter your heart, your soul, your very being. Where is God?

I can’t peer behind the veil of Heaven and give you the answer. This is a question both the faithful and the faithless have been asking ever since man first became aware of a Holy God. Where is God during a flood that leaves millions homeless? Where is God when cancer ravages a once vital and robust person, reducing her to a faded skeleton with skin of parchment? Where is God when I need Him the most? I prayed that she would be healed and recover completely, but instead, she died.

There are any number of books written by Pastors and Rabbis, who are far more learned and wiser than I am, who try to answer these questions. I suppose that’s why I quote from the ancient sages and the modern clergy when I write my “meditations.” I find them just as inspiring and illuminating as the others in their audience. I draw strength and courage from their insights into God, and through what they teach, I try to gain a better understanding of the scriptures, of God, and of myself.

But where is God when disaster strikes the world, strikes communities, families, and individuals, and grips the human heart with terror? And not understanding the answer, why then do we continue to pray to a God who does not seem to answer us when we beg and plead for mercy?

The Talmud says that a Jew is obligated to pray, based upon Deuteronomy 11:13: “serve Him with all your thoughts — Livavchem — and with all your soul.” Livavchem is a form of the Hebrew word Leiv, which is most often translated as the heart. In the Torah, however, we find that the first appearance of Leiv is Genesis 6:5 “Machshavos Libo” — thoughts of his Leiv (see also Proverbs 19:21). We do the same thing in English, referring to a person with a “warm heart,” while in reality we know thoughts are in the head. Be that as it may, the service of G-d in Deuteronomy 11, service “with all your heart,” is found in our thoughts. The Sages of the Talmud say that this is prayer, Tefilah.

The word Tefila deserves further examination as well, because although we commonly translate it as prayer, the origin of the word is the root Palel, meaning to judge or decide (see Ex. 21:22). Jewish prayer, in fact, is a form of reflection and self-judgment. In the reflexive form, the verb L’hispalel, “to pray,” actually means to judge one’s self.

Prayer is better understood as a service of the Al-mighty that takes place in our thoughts, which involves judging ourselves, making decisions, before G-d. We make judgments and decisions many times each day. The obligation to pray asks us to involve G-d in our thoughts and in the decisions we make. Formal prayer remains necessary, for it trains us to turn to Him periodically throughout the day — but the training should lead us to turn to Him whenever we need clarity and help, far beyond the synagogue. (Heard from Rabbi Jonathan Rietti)

G-d loves us, and He asks us to love Him back. Sometimes more precious than hearing “I love you” is hearing “I was thinking about you.” The more He’s on our mind, the closer we come to Him. Also, let’s not forget that He’s the ultimate source of all goodness. He pulls the strings infinitely more effectively than any other resource in our network of friends or associates. Shouldn’t such a personal contact take priority over all others?

-Rabbi Mordechai Dixler
“Your Best Contact”
Commentary on Torah Portion Ekev
ProjectGenesis.org

I don’t know if that’s a good enough answer for you. I don’t know that it’s a good enough answer for me. I do know, or at least believe, that prayer is not a simple ask and answer transaction. As Rabbi Clinton suggests, God is not the genie of the lamp and we are not Aladdin. It’s not a matter of rubbing an ancient illumination device, summoning the all-powerful being that resides within, and simply directing him to give us what we want, when we want it, in the way we want it. If this were so, then we all would be little “gods” running around commanding this all-powerful force to do our bidding, changing the world around us as our wants, needs, and desires saw fit.

Obviously, such is not the case. There is the will of God and as such, His will is not to be denied, even when we face our darkest hour. The Son of Man knew this most poignant and overarching lesson:

He parted from them a distance of slinging a stone and got down on his knees and prayed, saying, “My Father, if only you were willing to make this cup pass from me! Yet let it not be according to my will but according to your will.” An angel from Heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. Then the bonds of death came upon him and he continued to pray fervently. –Luke 22:41-44 (DHE Gospels)

Jesus prayed that God release him from the sentence of a painful, agonizing, humiliating, and ultimately unmerited death; a death in which the Son of Man would be separated from the Father in Heaven, perhaps for the first time since he was born to Miriam.

And yet he said, “let it not be according to my will but according to your will.” The result was that “the bonds of death came upon him.” I believe you know what series of events followed. Jesus prayed. He was comforted. He struggled with the “bonds of death.” He was unjustly tried. He was tortured. He was denied by one of his closest friends. He was humiliated. He was nailed to a tree. He suffered horribly. He was mocked while in agony. The Father (seemingly) abandoned him. And then finally, he died.

And not only he, but his disciples, his closest companions, were utterly disheartened and crushed.

Where was God?

The story has a “happy ending” which Christians celebrate every year at Easter but that “happy ending” is provisional, since we still live in a broken world where people pray, suffer, and die every day.

Where is God?

Why do we bother to pray?

Because, as Rabbi Dixler says, prayer is more about our relationship with God than what God will or won’t do for us. It’s about facing trials and suffering and knowing that the hurt may only end in death, but still knowing that God is our companion in all of that. Faith in God through Jesus Christ comes with a certain promise attached.

This is my mitzvah: that you love one another as I have loved you. There is no love greater than the love of one who gives his life on behalf of his companions. As for you, if you do what I command you, you are my companions. I will no longer call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master will do. But I said you are my companions because I have made it known to you all that I have heard from my Father. –John 15:12-15 (DHE Gospels)

In the past few weeks, I’ve written a great deal about love. Prayer is an act of self-sacrifice. In religious Judaism, prayer substitutes for the sacrifices Jews would make if the Holy Temple currently existed in Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul urged us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices (see Romans 12:1) though not in the literal sense. He referred to himself at the end of his life as being poured out like a drink offering (see Philippians 2:17 and 2 Timothy 4:6). And he urged the church at Philippi:

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 4:5-7 (ESV)

Prayer is the act of self-judgment, service to our Master, and turning ourselves inside out to God. It’s totally and willingly revealing of ourselves to Him (not that He doesn’t know us). It’s inviting God into our lives, our hearts, our joys, and our suffering. God isn’t obligated to answer our prayers in the manner we desire, but He has promised to always accompany us on a journey through whatever territory, light or darkness, that we may find ourselves. David’s most famous psalm to the King of Kings included this:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. –Psalm 23:4 (ESV)

David didn’t pray to be spared a journey through “the valley of the shadow of death” (sometimes translated as “the valley of deep darkness”), only that God be his shepherd and that He comfort David.

Jesus promised that we would be more than servants, we would be his companions. The word “companions,” as I previously presented when quoting from John 15:13, is often translated as “friends.” Though we are sometimes in pain and torment, we are never alone, for God is with us. He comforts us, if we will only reach out to Him. We will not always be absolved of pain, but we will never be abandoned.

Rabbi Clinton finishes his answer with this:

The prayer book (Siddur), Psalms and the words various traditional formulations are bursting with valuable lessons about our relationship with God, His compassion and generosity and our own fragile existence. By thinking about these precious words, we are deeply enriching our own faith and expressing our dependence on God – who does, after all – care for us.

Do our prayers have any effect on our suffering friends? Undoubtedly. Perhaps the very act of growing in faith and sensitivity as a result of the prayer process can be considered a significant accomplishment for ones loved one. After all, it was your relationship to him/her which inspired this growth.

There is much more to this subject, but I hope that these words will be of some help to you.

May the God of Abraham always answer your prayers and mine by drawing us close to Him, today and forever. And may we continue to walk and talk with our Master as our traveling companion…and our friend.

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Who Do We See In The Mirror?

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Whenever you notice a fault in another person, check where you have that fault yourself. We have a strong tendency to notice our own faults in others. This awareness gives us many opportunities to learn about our own shortcomings -since it is easier to recognize a fault in someone else than in ourselves.”

What fault do you commonly notice in other people? In what ways do you have that fault yourself?

Use this awareness as a tool to stop yourself from speaking against others. Who would want to speak against others knowing that you are merely drawing attention to that same fault in yourself?!

Today, catch yourself in the act of criticizing others. Then think about the implications for yourself.

-see Talmud Kiddushin 70b; Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin – Ruach Chaim 2:1
quoted from Aish.com

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves…”

-William Shakespeare’s
“Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)”

According to Attribution Theory in the field of Social Psychology, we tend to think that a person’s behavior is attributed to something we believe about them. For instance, let’s say you don’t like “Fred” for whatever reason. You think Fred is a blockhead and a pain-in-the-neck. You see Fred at your local fast food place and just after picking up his order, he trips and spills his tray all over the floor. This just “proves” what you’ve known all along. Fred is a klutz and a moron. See how he spilled his tray?

On the other hand, you may really like Sally and think she’s a great person. She’s kind, gives to charity, and is nice to children and small animals. You see Sally at the same fast food joint and she spills her tray in an identical fashion to Fred. However, you feel sorry for Sally. Someone (like Fred) must have tripped her. Instead of gloating, you rush over to help Sally clean up the mess.

Why we like or don’t like other people may be just what we believe about them. It may also be what we see in them. If Fred has characteristics that are like those in ourselves that we don’t like, we probably aren’t going to like Fred. If, on the other hand, we see things about Sally that are the same as some of the characteristics we like in ourselves, we’ll probably like Sally.

That’s a gross oversimplification of a complex set of variables, but you get the idea.

But what does this have to do with the Internet?

Plenty.

I mentioned yesterday that we do a fair amount of complaining on the blogosphere about a lot of things and a lot of people. But is it really necessary?

I suppose wearing the “mask” of the web over our “faces,” and given the fact that you can create a functional blog in just a few minutes, we all suddenly have the ability to spew our thoughts and feelings out to whatever audience chooses to read them. Once we start interconnecting, we start seeing people we like and don’t like and naturally, since we don’t have to face any of these people in real life, we tell them what we think about them.

Or are we really revealing something about how we like or don’t like ourselves under the mask?

Interesting, isn’t it?

Of course, if all of our complaining is really telling the world how we see ourselves, maybe it would be a good idea to turn it down a notch before everyone notices that we’re airing out our dirty laundry on the most public clothes line in the universe.

Whenever you see that someone has made a mistake, view the situation as a learning experience to prevent yourself from making similar mistakes.

Moreover, utilize this experience to discover what knowledge you may be able to impart to others so they, too, can avoid making similar mistakes.

Today, think of three mistakes you have seen people make recently. In what way have you made similar mistakes?

-see Ralbag – Shaar hachochmah, no.11
quoted from Aish.com

Turning that piece of advice around, if we look at the “faults” of others as if they’re our own, maybe we are really just learning from our own mistakes as we project them outward.

That would make the blogosphere one really, really big mirror. That ugly, nasty troll or witch you see on someone else’s blog is actually just your own reflection.

Terrifying thought.

I’ve got a suggestion. Visit the blog or website of the one person who really gets under your skin and read through a significant portion of their content. Pay close attention to what it is about the stuff you’re reading that really sets you off. Make a list of suggestions you’d like to give the blog writer about how they could improve themselves as a writer and a person. Then stop and ask yourself if you tend to say things or hold attitudes that are equally irritating, annoying, and offensive.

If (being perfectly honest since this is all happening within the privacy of your own thoughts) you start seeing these rather ghastly connections between them and you, begin considering the advice you wanted to give to that other person. Would it be good advice for you to take as well?

For those of us who have faith, we’re supposed to live in a community of like-minded believers. Our ideal is to obey the “new commandment” of our Master and to love one another (John 13:34). It’s supposed to be the defining characteristic of disciples of Jesus. Yet, given the nature and tone of our conversations on the Internet, we do everything else except love.

One should daven together with the community – 8a

Someone asked R’ Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, would it be better if one davened without a minyan if he felt he could daven with more kavannah in a room by himself. Which was more important, davening with a tzibbur or increased kavannah?

R’ Moshe responded (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:7): If the person can concentrate even minimally while with a minyan, it is better to daven with the tzibbur, even at the expense of added kavannah. We find that a person must extend himself to daven with a minyan, and it is even an obligation to do so. In an earlier letter (O.C. 2:27) R’ Moshe contends that the obligation stems from the fact that the prayers of a person who is in a group are certain to be accepted, while the prayers of an individual are not necessarily accepted. A person has the responsibility to daven to the best of his abilities, so he must go to daven where his prayers are more readily desirable. Accordingly, the advantage of davening with a minyan is essential, for this can make the difference whether one’s prayers are accepted or not. Davening with a bit more kavannah is only a substantive advantage. Therefore, a person must daven with a minyan, even though his kavannah may be somewhat diminished.

Daf Yomi Digest
Distinctive Insight
“Davening with a minyan or davening with more kavannah?”
Berachos 8

As we can see here, the sense of community and davening with a minyan is considered more important than experiencing greater kavannah in prayer by davening alone. God never really designed us, Jew, Christian, or anyone else, to relate to Him by ourselves. We know that loving God and loving other people are incredibly intertwined so perhaps that’s part of where this principle comes in. But whether we always like each other (or ourselves) or not, we are still all his disciples (I’m speaking of the community of faith now). We don’t get to escape from one another just because we sometimes fuss and bicker.

I recently issued a sort of challenge to Judah Gabriel Himango on his blog suggesting, starting next Sunday (or Saturday night after Shabbat) that “we spend a week posting only uplifting material and not announcing to the world why we think we’re right and the other guy or gal (it doesn’t matter who they are) is wrong.” For me, that means writing a minimum of six blog posts that don’t mention supersessionism, replacement theology, and my opinions on some of the major theological expressions in the Messianic Jewish/One Law community. I suppose it also means I can’t take the church to task for any of its perceived failings or take shots at atheists either.

All Judah has to do is not blog for a week and he’s covered, so I’m biasing this challenge in his favor just because I post “morning meditations” six-days a week. If anyone wanted to take a cheap shot at me in the comments section of my blog and not receive a pithy rebuttal, this coming week is the time to do it (I’m saying all this somewhat tongue-in-cheek).

Let’s see if I and anyone else, can choose to consistently take the moral high road and only offer uplifting, supportive, and encouraging words on the “intertubes.” I predict that the number of hits on my blog will plummet like a stone dropped in Lake Mead (I hope I’m wrong).

But I also hope that maybe the online community of faith will get something positive out of it, too.

We’ll see how it goes. Anyone else out there game?

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If God Loves You, Why Are You Complaining?

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The angels glare in envy as the breath of G‑d descends below to become a human soul. Ripped out of the Infinite Light, it squeezes itself within meat and bones to experience that passion which belongs uniquely to earth below—and channel it towards its Beloved above. A new sort of love is born, a novelty to the cosmos and to its Creator: a fire within the human heart upon which the animal roasts, transformed to the divine.

“And G‑d saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” The sages tell us that “good” refers to the urge to do good, “very good” to the passion to do no good. The evil is not good, but the passion—if only it will find its true purpose—is very good.

For all that He made, He made for His glory.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Human Passion and the Envy of Angels”
From the “Freeman Files” series
Chabad.org

I sometimes wonder what we complain about. No, I don’t mean “complain” in terms of being afraid, being sick, or some other such human problem. I mean “complain” like what happens in the blogosphere and in social networking venues. I mean “complain” like always needing to be “right” and being upset when someone else thinks we’re “wrong” and won’t just agree with us that we have all the answers. I mean complain like “I’m the good guy” and everyone who doesn’t agree with me are “the bad guys.”

That kind of complaining.

As we see from Rabbi Freeman’s midrash and metaphor, even the angels envy our special relationship with God. Not the Jewish relationship with God, and not the Christian relationship with God. The human relationship with God.

Even if you temporarily put aside any distinctions between Jews and Christians, between the various other religious groups, and between the many other differing bodies of humanity, we all have one thing in common that is very important.

We were all created in the image of God.

Even the angels can’t say that. No other living being that exists today or that has ever existed can say that. Just we poor, pathetic, mortal human beings can say that.

I’m tempted to quote the mostly over-quoted John 3:16 since it emphasizes God so loving the world and not some subsection of its population. I want to sometimes scream at some people to please get over themselves because things are the way things are, not the way you want them to be.

Tomorrow’s “morning meditation” and my commentary on this week’s Torah Portion talks again about the “choseness” of the Jewish people and why that’s not a threat to the rest of us (though you’d suspect otherwise by reading other religious blogs). Once you let yourself get past the unique relationship God has with the Jewish people through the giving of the Torah at Sinai, you can understand that none of that means God loves you or me any less or that somehow Jewish distinctiveness makes Christians second-class citizens in the Kingdom of God.

And yet, this week in the “Messianic blogosphere” I’ve noticed some authors sparing no effort in maligning individuals and reputations, even to the point of calling some Jewish Messianics “racist” in order to justify their positions and jockey for a superior spot in the race to significance.

But wait a minute.

Take one giant step backward and look at Creation and then picture yourself in the midst of it. That’s where you are. That’s where I am. That’s where we all are. God so loved you and me and all of us, that he sent His only begotten son so that if anyone, anyone at all, believes in him, he/she/they will have eternal life in covenant relationship with our Creator, with God.

Anyone at all.

Isn’t that good enough for you?

You have a life given to you by God. So do I. What are we supposed to do with it? B*tch about other religious people all the time because they don’t support our own special viewpoint about how we’re supposed to be more special than they are? Really?

Our Sages gathered these sections in an order … according to the requisite steps (Introduction to Path of the Just).

While character refinement is an important and desirable goal, we must be careful to stride toward it in a reasonable and orderly manner. Overreaching ourselves may be counterproductive.

Physical growth is a gradual process. In fact, it is not even uniform; the first two decades are a sequence of growth spurts and latency periods. Generally, the body does not adjust well to sudden changes, even when they are favorable. For instance, obese people who lose weight too rapidly may experience a variety of unpleasant symptoms. Although the weight loss is certainly in the interest of health, the body needs time to adjust to the change.

If we are convinced, as we should be, that spirituality is desirable, we might be tempted to make radical changes in our lives. We may drop everything and set out on a crash course that we think will lead to rapid attainment of the goal. This plan is most unwise, because psychologically as well as physically, our systems need time to consume new information, digest it, and prepare ourselves for the next level.

Luzzato’s monumental work on ethics, The Path of the Just, is based on a Talmudic passage which lists ten consecutive steps toward spirituality. Luzzato cautions: “A person should not desire to leap to the opposite extreme in one moment, because this will simply not succeed, but should continue bit by bit” (Chapter 15).

Today I shall …
… resolve to work on my spirituality gradually and be patient in its attainment.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Av 21”
Aish.com

Imagine if we all blogged the way Rabbi Twerski does. Imagine instead of sowing contention and discord between our own little religious factions, we resolved each day to be just a little bit better as a person than we were yesterday. There’s nothing in that sort of lesson that has any room for tearing other people down. Even if someone were to tear down Rabbi Twerski, I doubt if he’d spend any time (I don’t know this of course, I’m just supposing) using his space at “Growing Each Day” to post a rebuttal and complain about opposing opinions and oppositional people.

(I know I’m complaining right now too, but hopefully I’ll end on an up-note).

What is your purpose in life? Why did God put you here? Why are you still breathing, walking around, talking, and (possibly) blogging?

We were put here to love God and to love other people. Easier said than done to be sure, but hardly impossible. If you can do that through blogging, that’s terrific. Rabbi Twerski’s “Growing Each Day” series proves (to me, anyway) that you can do good through blogging. If writing isn’t your thing or you can’t do it without having to always comment that someone is wrong on the Internet, then close your web browser, log off your computer, step away from the keyboard, and find something to do that actually does serve the purposes of God. You don’t have to slay dragons or tilt at windmills.

Just do something that in some small way, is helpful to another person in the world, preferably without making a big deal about it or about you.

Ben Zoma says:
Who is wise?
The one who learns from every person…
Who is brave?
The one who subdues his negative inclination…
Who is rich?
The one who is appreciates what he has…
Who is honored?
The one who gives honor to others…

–Talmud – Avot 4:1

Tomorrow, I’ll probably continue to complain, though it’s not why God put me here. Today, I just want to thank God I’m living and breathing and that I have a tomorrow in which I will wake up alive.

 

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Wisdom and Doubt

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When someone is angry at you, organize wisely what you wish to say. Begin speaking in a manner that is likely to have a calming effect. For example, begin by admitting your own mistakes. When you start off in an appeasing manner, the person will pay more attention to your words, and this will prevent him from causing you harm or loss.

We find an example when Abigail successfully calmed down King David, who was furious at her husband (see Shmuel 1, 25:25). She began by admitting that she herself had made an error. Only then did she present her arguments to King David. When you concede that you are wrong, others calm down.

When someone is angry at you, and you start out by either blaming him or denying it, you will usually increase the person’s anger. If you want someone’s anger to escalate, the best way to do this is to either say: “It’s your fault, not mine.”

It takes courage to admit your own mistakes. Even if you are only responsible in a small way, it is still best to start off by saying something like, “Yes, I could (or should) have done differently. I’m sorry for any pain or inconvenience I have caused you.”

This will put the other person in a calmer state, and he will then be much more likely to listen to what you have to say in your own defense.

-see Ralbag – Shaar hapiyus, no.1;
Rabbi Pliskin – Consulting the Wise, pp.58-9
quoted from Aish.com

Just a few days ago I quoted from another Aish.com missive that said:

Only when a person has peace of mind can he really feel love for humanity. Lack of peace of mind leads to animosity towards others. Peace of mind leads to love.

The reality of the situation is that if we wait until we’ve achieved perfect peace of mind before we start interacting with other people, we’ll never interact with other people. Since that’s impossible for most of us, we’ll need another strategy.

What if you’re wrong? Ever thought about that? I think about it all the time, but then again, that’s just me. Maybe I’m insecure or something.

Or something.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

–Bertrand Russell
British philosopher, logician, and mathematician

I hope that means that I’m on the path to wisdom, but I’d hate to delude myself or elevate myself beyond my true position. But I think it was Socrates who said, “the beginning of wisdom is the discovery of one’s own ignorance,” so I suppose I’m in good company whenever I answer a question with the statement, “I don’t know.”

That’s not the same as giving an answer and then discovering that you’re wrong, but it’s related. In the world of the Internet, everybody seems to feel like they must have the “right” answer to all questions and debates all of the time. In that sense, I must be some sort of anomaly for having more questions than answers.

But back to the topic at hand. What if you’re wrong?

I’ve already been wrong in public including in the blogosphere, so it doesn’t bother me so much anymore, but I get the impression that it just terrifies others who blog, comment, or otherwise express their opinion online. Some people can’t admit it. Some people would feel like a failure to admit they made a mistake.

I suspect that it’s closer to the truth to say that people already feel like failures or carry around a great burden of hurt and pain when they find themselves in a position where they can’t back down, they won’t recant, and they refuse to admit that they could have made a mistake and overstated their position.

That’s horrible.

That means you are totally locked out of being able to enter into a conversation with someone you’ve hurt or offended and to, as Abigail did, calm down that person and then try to make amends. It also means that even if the other person were wrong as well in some way, you’ll never get to the point in the discussion where they’ll feel free to hear your gentle criticisms. That’s because you’ll still be too busy defending your own “rightness” and challenging the other person’s opinion.

More’s the pity.

You don’t have to possess peace of mind, and you don’t have to even feel compassionate love for humanity to begin to fix this. You do however, need to be able to make claim to just a small bit of wisdom and humility. The Proverbs we find in the Bible are replete with examples of those who disdained wisdom in favor of their own self-directed council.

Those people, no matter how certain of themselves they may seem, are very often completely insecure and uncertain and indeed, not asserting knowledge and facts, but desperately defending an increasingly disintegrating ego. The other day, I called such a person a nudnik. Today, I’m saying that like any hurt and injured human being, they should be pitied and if possible, they should be helped.

Was it something I said or something I did
Did my words not come out right
Though I tried not to hurt you
Though I tried
But I guess that’s why they say

Every rose has it’s thorn
Just like every night has it’s dawn
Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song
Every rose has it’s thorn

-lyrics by Bret Michaels
from the ballad Every Rose Has It’s Thorn (1988)
Recorded by Poison

But even if we are injured, hurting, humiliated, and emotionally bleeding, we can’t always wait for all that to stop before trying to right what is wrong. If we still possess a modicum of mercy, grace, and justice within us and we don’t want to live long enough to see ourselves become the villain, then we have to take who we are and do the best we can with ourselves. No one enters life a perfect person and no one leaves life perfect either. Sure, during whatever lifetime we are granted, we are given many opportunities to learn, to become wise, and to elevate ourselves spiritually, but in the end, we are who we are. We take all of that and do our best with it and with us.

If it is permissible, we must use it for good. If it can be elevated, we cannot leave it behind.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Leave Nothing Behind”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

If you can be a better person today than you were yesterday, then you must make every effort to be that better person. Better to admit that you can be wrong and risk looking foolish than to always demand that you’re right and prove you really are unwise.

Just ask yourself, “what does God want me to do in order to honor Him and to avoid disgracing myself?”

Through love, all pain will turn to medicine. –Rumi

Please don’t destroy yourself. Please don’t try to destroy others because you feel they hurt or maligned you. God is the author of love and life, not hate and destruction.

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Jesus the Traditionalist Jew

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However, the Jewish background of the ideas of the Jesus movement is only one piece of the new picture I’m sketching here. Much of the most compelling evidence for the Jewishness of the early Jesus communities comes from the Gospels themselves. The Gospels, of course, are almost always understood as a marker for a very great break from Judaism. Over and over, we find within the interpretations of them (whether pious or scholarly) statements of what a radical break is constituted by Jesus’ teaching with respect to the “Judaism” of his day.

Even among those who recognize that Jesus himself may very well have been a pious Jew – a special teacher, to be sure, but not one instituting a consequential break with Judaism – the Gospels, and especially Mark, are taken as the sign of the rupture of Christianity, of its near-total overturn, of the forms of traditional (Jewish) piety.

-Daniel Boyarin
Chapter 3: “Jesus Kept Kosher”
The Jewish Gospels

I’ve been slowly, very slowly reading Daniel Boyarin’s excellent book The Jewish Gospels and have written regarding my responses to his text in two previous blog posts: The Unmixing Bowl and The Son of Man – The Son of God. Daniel Boyarin is a noteworthy Talmudic scholar and Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, so I’d have to say that, at least from my point of view, he knows his stuff. The book I’m reading contains an examination of the “stuff” about the ancient perceptions of Jesus and how it may not have been unusual at all for many Jews in the late Second Temple period to see Jesus as Rabbi, Messiah, Prophet, and indeed, Divine Son of God.

In the third chapter of his book, Boyarin examines the “Jewishness of Jesus”.

For anyone involved in the Messianic or Hebrew Roots movements, the fact that Jesus was (and is) Jewish and that he led a completely normative Jewish lifestyle as recorded in the Gospels is no surprise, but it may have been to Boyarin when he first encountered the “good news” of the Master. I still think that Boyarin isn’t personally convinced that Jesus is Messiah King or Son of God, but he does seem to be strongly suggesting that it is no mystery why Jews in the Holy Land 2,000 years ago (and even more recently in many parts of the world?) would believe that he was.

The portion of Boyarin I quoted above aptly defines how most modern Jews and Christians see the role of the Gospels: as defining a sharp break from Jews and Judaism in the teachings of Jesus and the establishment of the very “unJewish” Christian religion. But as we already know, this was hardly the case.

Counter to most views of the matter, according to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus kept kosher, which is to say that he saw himself not as abrogating the Torah but as defining it. There was controversy with some other Jewish leaders as to how best to observe the Law, but none, I will argue, about whether to observe it. According to Mark (and Matthew even more so), far from abandoning the laws and practices of the Torah, Jesus was a staunch defender of the Torah against what he perceived to be threats to it from the Pharisees.

Boyarin characterises the Pharisees as “a kind of reform movement…that was centered on Jerusalem and Judaea (and who) sought to convert other Jews to their way of thinking about God and the Torah.” It’s interesting (since I’ve never heard this interpretation before) that Boyarin characterizes the tension between Jesus and the Pharisees as one of interpretation of halakah. According to Boyarin, the Pharisees may have represented the establishment of religious practices that were formed during the Babylonian exile “while the Jews who remained in the land continued their ancient practices.” Jesus, Boyarin asserts, supported the more ancient Jewish practices and was actually a Torah conservative and traditionalist compared to the “radical innovations in the Law stemming from the Pharisees and Scribes of Jerusalem.”

We usually see Jesus (at least those of us to perceive him as a wholly Jewish man and teacher living a life consistent with the covenant of Sinai) as interpreting the “true” Torah in opposition to the “leaven of the Pharisees” who made up all kinds of stuff and were totally hypocritical. Boyarin suggests that the struggle between the two “Judaisms” may have been one of traditional halakah (Jesus) vs. reform interpretation (Pharisees and Scribes).

Far from being a marginal Jew, Jesus was a leader of one type of Judaism that was being marginalized by another group, the Pharisees, and he was fighting against them as dangerous innovators. This view of Christianity as but a variation within Judaism, and even a highly conservative and traditionalist one, goes to the heart of our description of the relations in the second, third, and fourth centuries between so-called Jewish Christianity and its early rival, the so-called Gentile Christianity that was eventually (after some centuries) to win the day.

I realize that Boyarin’s opinion is a minority view among both Jews and Christians, but it is compelling to consider that the “original” Jesus Christ was not only a Jew who never broke the Laws of Moses or taught others to break them, but was a teacher who was strongly advocating for a return to a very conservative and traditionalist interpretation of Torah relative to the normative Judaism of those times.

Wow.

Imagine what that might mean to 21st century Christianity and Judaism. Imagine what that might mean to the movement we call “Messianic Judaism,” which is struggling tremendously to establish its own Jewish identity and connection to the other Judaisms of our modern era. Jesus the Jewish traditionalist. Jesus the teacher of conservative halakah.

Like I said. Wow.

Apparently, Boyarin isn’t the only Talmud scholar who holds this opinion of the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees.

Yair Furstenberg, a young Talmud scholar at the Hebrew University, has recently provided a convincing explanation of the basic controversy between Jesus and those Pharisees. Furstenberg writes that Jesus’ statement (see Mark 7:14-23) needs to be read literally that the body is made impure not through ingesting impure foods but only through various substances that come out of the body…

…This is a debate between Jews about the correct way to keep Torah, not an attack on the Torah. Furstenberg has brilliantly argued that in its original sense, Jesus’ attack on the Pharisees here is literal; they have changed the rules of the Torah…

Really. Consider this. The argument that most Christians interpret about whether or not Jesus made all foods clean had nothing to do with abrogating the kosher laws. It was an argument between different factions of Jews on what made a person impure, which was not eating food but coming into contact with certain objects and substances such as a dead body or certain bodily fluids (you’ll have to read the whole chapter to get the details since Boyarin’s analysis is lengthy). He even presents a different view of Pharisees as “hypocrites” which doesn’t quite fit with what most Christians believe:

We should remember, however, that “in general, in ancient Jewish and Christian contexts a ‘hypocrite’ is a person whose interpretation of the Law differs from one’s own,” as Joel Marcus has so sharply put it.

That statement recasts the Pharisees in the role, not as liars and frauds, but as Jews who had a (sometimes) radically different perspective on halakah from the more conservative interpretation of Jesus.

Of course, the vast, vast majority of people in the church and probably in the Christian colleges and seminaries won’t agree with this. Boyarin suggests a corrective solution, but I don’t know how many believers, scholarly or otherwise, would be willing to try it out:

When put into its historic context, the chapter is perfectly clear. Mark was a Jew and his Jesus kept kosher. At least in its attitude toward the embodied practices of the Torah, Mark’s Gospel does not in any way constitute even a baby step in the direction of the invention of Christianity as a new religion or as a departure from Judaism at all.

Mark is best read as a Jewish text, even in its most radical Christological moments. Nothing that Mark’s Jesus proposes or argues for or enacts would have been inappropriate for a thoroughly Jewish Messiah, the Son of Man, and what would later be called Christianity is a brilliantly successful – the most brilliantly successful – Jewish apocalyptic and messianic movement.

Those of you who have read more than a few of my blog posts know I’m no Biblical scholar. I don’t have the “chops” to adequately evaluate Boyarin’s perspectives relative to other learned texts and teachers and to determine how much evidence there is to support his assertions. However, in general, what he presents to his readers is quite consistent with what is believed by modern “Messianic Jews” and those Gentiles who are called to follow that path of faith.

Jesus was and is a Jew. This “Jewishness” is written all over the Gospels. Jesus never attempted to depart from normative Jewish practice in even the slightest manner and as we see, he may very well have been advocating for a return to the more conservative and traditional understanding and practice of ancient halakah.

Imagine what this will mean for Christians and Jews everywhere when the Son of Man returns in glory. Imagine what it will mean, and what it should mean, to all of us right now.

Worshiping the God of Israel and giving great and very high honor to the Jewish Messiah King within a completely normative Jewish context is not dead. In fact, when he comes back to us and establishes his throne, it’ll all just be getting started.