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Why Am I Alone?

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embedded by Embedded Video

I can’t get this woman out of my head. I’ve seen this video embedded at a lot of different online venues yesterday, but I was busy and didn’t take the time to actually view it until this morning. As it turns out, my “lack of time” is part of what makes this Episcopal Priest’s plea so poignant.

To give credit where it’s due, I clicked a link at Derek Leman’s blog, which took me to the actual embedded video on Scot McKnight’s blog. If you frequent either of those places, you’ve probably already seen the video. If not, and if you haven’t already watched it here or someplace else on the web, please do so before continuing to read my blog post. The video is less than ten minutes long and it is so worth it.

Reading the various comments on Derek’s and McKnight’s blogs, I was taken aback at some of the criticism expressed by a number of the commentators. Granted, the Episcopal church isn’t my cup of tea either, but there’s a lot more going on here than just how we view one version of Christianity versus another. Also, as was pointed out repeatedly, most of the approaches this Priest felt had failed in bringing in and retaining people to a religious and spiritual experience have to do with “programs”. It’s as if, because her methods and her techniques weren’t successful, it meant that people didn’t care about the cause of Christ.

I mentioned on McKnight’s blog that…

I have sort of the opposite problem. I’m sure she and I would disagree about a good many things, but I would *love* to sit down with her (or someone) and talk about Jesus. I just can’t find a person or a place (face-to-face as opposed to online) where I’ll fit in. It’s not a matter of the details, but the honesty and passion this Priest has for what she’s doing and who she is as a person of faith is exactly what I’m looking for.

To me, her specific religious “bent” or her reliance on programs and methods are all secondary to what she’s really saying and particularly, what she’s really feeling. I’ve felt that way too, sort of. No, I’m not an ordained minister of any kind and I haven’t been “called to lead” (although I did a bit of teaching for several years at a small congregation), but I do feel frustrated and isolated, as if no one understands the drive I have to do what I’m doing. She has a drive and a need as well, and she keeps hitting a brick wall. You can only take a good run at a brick wall and smash into it so many times before the pain and lack of forward progress makes you do what she said: “So we cancelled it all…”

In a way, I “cancelled it all” too, but my reasons were very different. I “cancelled” my former way of leading a religious life, not because I wasn’t happy and not because I wasn’t making a kind of progress, but because of where my progress lead me. It’s really a lot more complicated than that, and to find out more, read Why I Don’t Go To Church. I left, not because I hit a wall exactly, but because I realized, in order to avoid hitting a wall, I had to change course.

And so I did.

And then I hit a wall anyway. I recognized the possibility that I might hit that wall, but I was banking on managing to avoid it. I didn’t. So I’m sitting at the base of the wall, as I imagine this Episcopal Priest is doing, taking stock of my options and looking for a way around, over, or under the wall. I’ll need to change my course again, but that’s what life is all about: change. Change is always painful, even when it’s beneficial.

I’m not sure what this Priest’s answer is. I’m not particularly sure of what my answer is. I do know that I’m not inclined to criticize her for her religion or her approach to her need to teach, even if I disagree with them. I do know she’s someone I would really love to talk to about Jesus, not because we would agree with each other, but because, in spite of our extremely different backgrounds, we are at the same place on the trail. We have the same experience. We’re asking the same questions. We’re looking for the same answers. And that tells me something I hadn’t let myself realize before.

It tells me that, in the mess of all of our different religious traditions, and all of the subsets of our religion, and all of the splinters and fragments and offshoots we inhabit because we are so unalike in how we conceptualize God and the Bible and faith, we are all the same. I spend a lot of time focused on how different I am from everybody else around me and what an oddball I must look like to all the other Christians, but today I found someone in a video who helped me realize that we are all the same, too. We travel different paths and occupy divergent trails, but all of those trails intersect between the question and the answer of “who is God” and “who am I”. When we take off our pretenses and our masks and our religious self-delusions and are brutally honest with ourselves and with everyone else, we are all alike when we ask, “why isn’t this working for me?” “Why isn’t this working for everyone else around me?” “What’s wrong and how can I fix it?” “Can I even fix it at all?”

We are all alike when, even in the presence of God, we cry out, “Why do I feel so alone?” That’s why I want to meet her. To tell her she’s not alone. And I want to meet her so I won’t feel alone, too.

But there is hope, even in emptiness, as Rabbi Tzvi Freeman cites from the teachings of the Rebbe:

The beginning of all paths and the starting point of every climb is to open yourself to receive from Above.

How do you receive from Above?
By being empty.
For a vessel that is full cannot receive anything.

A person that is full of self-concern, of “what will become of me?” of “where life is taking me?”—such a person leaves no room for life to enter.

But a simple, open spirit is filled with joy from Above.

Addendum, Friday afternoon: I realized I had no idea who the Priest in the video is and decided to try and find the original source or at least something a little closer to that source. I discovered that the Priest is Rev. LeeAnne Watkins of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. I traced the video as far back as February 16, 2012 as posted at the Episcopal Story Project. If I find out any more, I’ll update my information here.

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Shopping for a Christian Church

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Likewise, Gentile Christians are in brotherhood with Jewish Christians, reckoned as spiritually circumcised in heart (Rom 2:26) and thus joined to Abraham through faith (Gal 3:29). Here then is racial diversity within spiritual unity, in the same way as a Christian man and wife are diverse in their spiritual unity (Gal 3:28). This same diversity in unity is strongly intimated in Rom 15:8-9 since “Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God, to confirm the promises to the fathers, and so that Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy” because of their inclusion as Gentiles with the fathers.

-Pastor Barry E. Horner
“Chapter 10: Israel and a Romans 11 Synthesis” (pg 278)
Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged

Hoch also quoted A.T. Hanson on this issue. While explaining that the prevailing interpretation of Phil 3:3 identifies the “we” as all true Christians, Hanson nevertheless declared that this understanding…

…seems quite foreign to Paul’s thought and means actually reading into Philippians ideas which seem to have originated at the time of the Reformation…The Philippians, being Gentiles, would have no reason to boast in the flesh anyway. Paul goes on to describe what he means by this phrase in the ensuing verses: it is plain that he means boasting of the national and spiritual privileges peculiar to the Jews. This the Philippians could not do…It is simpler to take “we” here as “we believing Jews”, or even “we, Paul and Timothy”, in whose name the letter is written. We know that Timothy was circumcised. So there is no good reason for maintaining that the use of “the circumcision” here suggests that Paul could apply the name Israel to Gentiles.

-A.T. Hanson, The Pioneer Ministry (London: SCM, 1961), 35
as quoted in Horner, pg 277

There’s really a lot going on in this chapter of Horner’s book, but space won’t allow me to insert all of the relevant quotes. If I tried, I might as well just copy and paste the chapter in verbatim. Actually, I’m not just writing another anti-supersessionism rant. I have a different, but related purpose for this “extra meditation” today.

I don’t agree with everything each of these gentlemen says in their respective books, but they are still refreshing to me. I tend to read mostly Jewish commentaries, but I’ve been reading Horner as part of my research into superessionism relative to my ongoing series on that topic in FFOZ’s Messiah Journal. What’s really exciting is that I’m reading the works of Christian authors and Pastors who actually agree that the church has not replaced the Jews in the covenant promises. I know they’re out there somewhere. Now if only I could find them.

Let me explain.

Not long ago, I discovered that “plan A” wasn’t going to work. Plan A was my separating from active participation in Messianic Jewish worship (One Law, anyway) for the purpose (well, it’s one of the reasons) of joining my wife in classes and services at our local Reform and Chabad synagogues. It took awhile, but I eventually discovered that it wasn’t just my former association with Messianic Judaism that made my wife hesitant to include me in that part of her life. It is my active and continuing faith as a Christian.

That’s not something I’m going to walk away from, even for the slim chance that my wife would feel more comfortable including me in her Jewish communities (and I don’t think it would do any good anyway). So plan A is shot to heck. Now I can either exist in isolation as a person of faith, or I can attempt to find some sort of community in which to participate as a Christian. But that presents a problem.

I previously wrote at length regarding all the roadblocks that stand in the way of my attending a church. On the other hand, there must be some churches that aren’t dripping with supersessionist rhetoric, aren’t there? I decided to look for one by querying a Christian Discussion Group several days ago. As the saying goes, except for one person trying to convince me that the church has replaced the Jews, the silence has been deafening (a second, more helpful person, responded while I was composing this blog).

But then, you have these Christian authors that make such encouraging statements. I mean, do these guys worship in heavily anti-Jewish churches and just keep their mouths shut, or are there actual havens of sanity and brotherhood under the sign of the cross? You couldn’t prove the latter by me, but since I’m facing a move to “plan B” now, I need to start somewhere.

I haven’t the faintest idea how to “shop” for a church.

I’ve occasionally talked to people who have been around churches for decades and can go into a church and assess its theology and how it operates almost immediately. They tell me what they see and hear that convinces them that the church is this and that, but I haven’t the faintest idea what they’re talking about. I went to a Lutheran church as a kid and then, decades later, I “came to the Lord” (I hate to say it, but “Christianese” still makes me crazy) in a Nazarene church (which ultimately turned out to be a bad experience, with a few bright spots mixed in), but that’s it. I don’t know from larger “organized Christianity”. The church, as in “all churches everywhere,” is a mystery to me. Actually, given my general outlook, the idea of “church shopping” makes me nervous.

But I’m getting a little tired of only being able to talk about what I think, feel, and believe in a virtual environment. It would be nice to occasionally address human beings face to face. However, I don’t want to get into a verbal “knock down-drag out” in a church because I don’t comfortably blend in to the homogenous Christian scenery, relative to Judaism. If I encounter a supersessionist attitude or worse, an anti-Semitic one, I’m liable to take it personally since my wife and kids are Jewish.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to proceed? I’m not necessarily in a rush, and in fact, I’d like to plot, plan, and scheme, so to speak, about my next move. I have to admit, the thought of walking into a church again is intimidating. I call myself a Christian but socially, (which is a lot of what going to church is about) I’m anything but.

If you aren’t a regular visitor on this blog, you’ll need to get some idea of who I am and where I’m coming from. Since I more or less wear my heart on my sleeve when I write, just read four or five of my blog posts (the most recent, or pick some at random), and you’ll get a pretty good idea about how I see things.

Oh, I live near Boise, Idaho if that helps any.

Thanks.

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The Man Without a Face

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The source of all illness is the lovesickness of the soul. She yearns to return to her Beloved Above, and so is repulsed by the human form, her prison of pain.

Two things, then, must be repaired, and body and soul will be healed:

The human body must open itself to become a holy temple for the Infinite G-d who desires it for His dwelling. The soul must learn to discover the Infinite G-d from within this human form, the place where He most desires to dwell.

-Maamar Ani Hashem Rof’echa
as referenced by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Love Sickness”
Chabad.org

That’s an interesting statement coming from an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, since the idea of the human body being a Temple for the Spirit of God is such a Christian concept, going all the way back to Acts 2. And yet, as I mentioned recently, the concept of each Jew being a container for the Divine Presence (which probably isn’t the same as the Holy Spirit, but what do I know) is also very Jewish.

This brings to mind what I’ve heard in some Christian “advertisements” recently: (the tale of “the church meets Madison Avenue” isn’t exactly new, more’s the pity) Christianity: it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship. This implies that only through Christianity can a person have a “personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ,” and thereby, God. Do I catch a hint of supersessionism in this assumption? Where in the New Testament does it say that through Jesus, we enter into a personal relationship of any kind, or that such a relationship is unique to the modern disciples of Christ?

But I get it. Christianity is continuing to correct what I have recognized as something of a flaw. It’s trying to build an identity.

I suppose I’m overstating my point. Christianity has a very recognizable identity in the world. If I were to walk up to just about anyone and say, “I’m a Christian,” no matter who they were, they’d immediately come up with some sort of idea as to what being a Christian means. Some of those ideas are pretty dismal, but it’s not like anyone would respond, “What does that mean?”

However, my problem with Christianity is my identity as a Christian. To me, the Christian identity seems incomplete and poorly defined. Maybe one of the reasons I’m somewhat attracted to Judaism is that, by comparison, the life of a religious Jew is very well-defined, depending on the branch of Judaism to which he subscribes. The Torah and Talmudic rulings contain a great deal of identifying information that defines the day-to-day role of a Jew among his people, within society, and in relation to God. For the Christian, who has grace in place of the Torah, the definition is rather anemic by comparison. The “freedom” a Christian has in Christ allows for a great deal of latitude, perhaps too much in some cases. Also, in order for that freedom to exist, Christianity must remove the definition the Torah provides for the Jewish people. For most Christians, in order for Christ to live, Judaism must die, and historically this has meant the Jewish people must die with it, either physically or through conversion and assimilation.

But I don’t believe in that definition of Christianity. It would make absolutely no sense for Jesus, Peter, James, and later, Paul, Titus, and Timothy to promote and support a sect of Judaism that was self-annihilating. By “creating” a religious expression that was expressly anti-Jewish and then exporting it to the non-Jewish nations, the Jewish Apostles would be virtually guaranteeing the complete destruction of their way of life, the Jewish religious devotion to God, and every single lesson that was taught by the Jewish Messiah, their Master.

Why would they do that?

The answer is, they didn’t. They couldn’t have.

So where did he go? Where did the original Jesus disappear to? Why can’t we find him in the churches and in the Christian Bible studies?

I said before that Christianity has a very recognizable and robust identity. I didn’t say it was the same identity that the very first non-Jewish disciples had as they embraced the teachings of the Jewish Sage from Natzaret. If I could sit down with Cornelius (see Acts 10), even for one hour, and talk to him (assuming we had a language in common), what could he tell me about being a Gentile disciple of the Master? What world could he show me that has since been lost to antiquity? What portrait of discipleship could he paint? What tapestry of holiness could he weave?

Jesus once asked in lament, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8 ESV) I ask, when he returns, will he find a faith in God among the church that he even recognizes? Is what we teach in the church even remotely associated with what he taught in either content or intent? And will the Gentile Christian church even recognize a fully Jewish Rabbi and Messiah when he returns looking for some remnant of his people among Israel and even in the nations? I wonder if we’ll just miss each other in the crowd? Jesus will be too Jewish for the church and Christians will be too anti-Judaism to be recognized as disciples of the Jewish Messiah. “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:23 ESV)

I suppose my big problem is that I need to open myself up to the infinite God and become a living Temple for His Presence. Then I must learn to recognize that Presence within this marred and imperfect man of flesh and blood. It sounds simple, but it is enormously complex. I have to disagree with the Christian “marketing department” and say that Christianity is a religion, but it is one whose face is unrecognizable to me. The face of the church looks imperfect, or even sometimes absent altogether, as I search for the face of my Master on its walls and in its sanctuaries. Thus, as a self-professed Christian, I too am a man without a face, searching in the mirror for something I recognize as human and more than human.

Religion is the interface by which we encounter God. Put in terms that might be a little more “Christian-friendly,” it’s the interface by which we build our relationship with God. It’s the lessons and the conditions and rituals and theologies that create the structure in which we can live out a life of faith. Most people don’t climb a mountain through uncharted territory. Instead, we follow the trails that have been created by those who went before us. In some cases, we create our own trails, but we must be careful that they lead up into the light rather than down into the thousand, thousand pits of darkness that are waiting to accept the unwary and the foolish.

I am following what I believe is the right trail for me, but I am alone. Few, if any, have used this particular path. I suppose I could allow myself the small conceit of believing that I am progressing through the narrow gate. The wide gate is easy and many travel through it, but that’s not the course the Master has recommended. (Matthew 7:13-14)

But then, that could just be a conceit and an excuse as to why I find no companions with me on my journey. It is said that, in all of our roles as disciples, one happens to be as “living sacrifices.” (Romans 12:1) But aren’t sacrifices supposed to be without blemish? I feel anything but unblemished.

The Rav of Tchechnov taught a very practical lesson from a halachic principle brought on today’s daf. “Our sages explain from the verse that only a sacrifice which is unblemished may be offered on the altar.” The rebbe began to weep as he said, “It would appear that we do not fulfill the mitzvah of selfsacrifice while saying shema yisrael each day. Clearly if a person sins he is likened to a blemished sacrifice which is not accepted on high.”

But a moment later the rebbe strengthened himself and joyously exclaimed, “But a temporary blemish does not disqualify a sacrifice. Clearly, when it comes to a Jew, a sin is no more than a temporary blemish since he can do teshuvah. In Kiddushin we find that if a wicked person marries a woman on condition that he is righteous, there is a doubt whether the marriage takes effect. Perhaps he repented for a moment, in which case he was a tzaddik and they are married. We see that one who repents is immediately considered to be a tzaddik.”

The Meor Einayim, zt”l, writes similarly, that one who does not believe that he can become a baal teshuvah by doing teshuvah in an instant hasn’t yet done a true teshuvah!

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“A Temporary Blemish”
Temurah 7

I’ve had it pointed out to me before, that it is uncertain at best, just how far a Christian can apply the teachings of the Jewish sages to a life of faith in Christ, but I have to try, even if I fail completely. There’s just too much “overlap” between Jewish and Christian concepts, in spite of what I said earlier, to ignore the possibility that we who are Gentile disciples can learn from a Jewish template. After all, it is from an ancient version of that template that men such as the Roman Cornelius first learned to love the God of Israel. If he could find a place for himself in that world, then why can’t I? Because the church forbids it? Because the synagogue won’t accept it? If the original Messianic faith of those like Cornelius is lost, then so am I. But I can’t give up trying to become, even momentarily, unblemished. For only in that state, may I be allowed to seek to touch, however briefly, the hem of the garment of the lover of my soul. Without that hope, I have nothing and I am nothing. And when I look in the mirror, the man I see has no face and he, and I, am no one.

For my world is hollow, but I must touch the sky.

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Losing My Faith in Religious People

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Normally, I build my blog posts around one or two interesting or inspiring quotes I’ve found during my studies, but today there’s nothing that applies, or at least nothing that applies to how I feel. “Christian marketing” is fond of advertising “Christianity: It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.” That’s bunk. It’s a religion. That’s not a bad thing, but as I read recently (albeit from a non-Christian source), “…This phrase sets up a classical logical fallacy, called a false dichotomy (more specifically, it’s black-and-white thinking, a sub-class of the false dichotomy)…The phrase implies that there are two choices. It’s either religion, or a relationship.”

There’s nothing wrong with a religion. I’ve said many times before (and I will again in tomorrow’s morning meditation) that religion is the interface by which we learn to understand God. Religion is the structure in which we comprehend the specifics of our faith, including how to interpret the Bible, the nature of prayer, and any traditions (yes, Christianity has traditions) and rituals that help us to operationalize and express our faithfulness behaviorally. The problem is, I’m losing my faith in religion.

Actually, I’m losing my faith in the human beings who are involved in religion. Well, no, not all of them. I have very high regard for most of the people I communicate with (primarily over the Internet) in the world of faith, but others can be a royal pain. Maybe it’s not their fault. I mean, we all have our moods, and our needs, and our insecurities. Whenever you add religion or “righteousness” to that mix though, you usually get something that’s bent and twisted just a little bit (and occasionally by quite a bit).

What started this rant? I was “rebuked” on an online social venue earlier today. You see, I have this thing about “experts” or maybe I have “authority issues.” It’s not that I don’t recognize and submit to authority. I have a job and I have a boss and what he says goes. There are religious authorities I respect and consider very knowledgable and wise, and I defer to their judgment. I know they know a whole lot more than I do, and more than I will probably ever know.

My problem is with the sort of person who really wants and needs to be called by a title, and who is continually telling everyone, “I’m an authority!” The interesting thing is, the person really is an authority and I can certainly recognize that, but by always saying “call me by such-and-thus title,” and “I’m an expert,” and “don’t question my judgment,” I keep getting the impression that they’ve got something to prove beyond their education and experience (I wouldn’t really care except I really do respect and like this person…otherwise, I’d just ignore him). I know that some people are insecure but not always for personality reasons. Sometimes, the person’s field of study, or where they got their education isn’t considered “mainstream,” and they aren’t always given the respect that is their due. In such cases, I suppose they need to compel the world around them to give them what they deserve.

But it still rubs me the wrong way. I’ve known too many people, particularly in the world of religion, who adopted roles, and titles, and authority that they certainly did not earn by education, experience, or temperament. They just “needed” to be a big shot and by inference, they needed everyone around them to be “little shots,” if that makes any sort of sense. So when someone who is genuine comes along and really has earned what they have, and they aren’t given respect by everyone around them, they have two choices: blow it off, or push back.

It’s the pushing back that bothers me. It’s the pushing back that seems to say, “I need to be big, and to meet my needs, you need to be little.” It’s the pushing back in a religious world where even the Master we all follow valued humility above blatant honors. It’s not like Jesus doesn’t deserve honors and it’s not like he doesn’t receive them. Yet the first time he was here, he set them aside, even to the degree that he washed the feet of his disciples. Even to the degree that he died for an unworthy humanity, including me.

The authorities who I have respected the most didn’t need to tell me they were in charge. They didn’t need to tell me to respect their knowledge. Just by being who they were, I learned to respect them. They didn’t have to make it a command. It’s ironic that people who God has given great gifts and who use those gifts in His Name, can still push back and push away those of us who are just trying to keep our heads above water. If the pushing keeps up, I’m going to be pushed out, and down, and I’ll drown in a sea of someone else’s religious authority and personal requirements.

I’m losing my faith in religion. I’m losing my faith in some of the people in religion. God is good, and great, and pure, but what human emotion does to faith and religion is anything but. It takes a great deal of energy to be patient sometimes and you know how lousy I am at keeping my (virtual) mouth shut. So I need to be able to push back as well, or let myself be pushed out of the body of faith altogether. I’m already isolated enough without someone, even a well-deserving someone, saying, “you’re not good enough.” I guess that’s what I hear when someone says, “I’m an authority,” or “you should respect me,” or “call me such-and-thus and not my first name.”

But as annoying as people like this are at times, they aren’t the real problem. I am (I suppose it always comes back to that). People like this are everywhere and sometimes they just can’t be avoided. They are in the world of religion and if I want to learn from them, I can’t avoid them…or I avoid them and avoid learning the lessons they are very good at teaching (the intentional lessons…not the unintentional one I’m talking about). Here’s what I need to learn:

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

-Robert Frost, American poet

I suppose if I had learned that lesson well, I wouldn’t be writing this “extra meditation.” I suppose if the “authority” had learned that lesson well, the event that triggered my unfortunate little missive would never have occurred. It’s not the first time I’ve wanted to push back and it won’t be the last. Maybe someday, I’ll start listening to Mr. Frost (who has my respect and my attention) and learn the lesson he teaches so well. Then I will be able to listen to almost anything…and I’ll still be fine.

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Love and Divorce, Part 2

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Although the Sichos HaRan, zt”l, writes that, in general, one should not divorce his wife unless compelled to by the halachah, there are certainly exceptions to this rule. Some people—even those with experience working with couples—believe that every rift in a marriage can be healed. According to that view, if a couple did not make their marriage work it must have been that one or both were unwilling to work hard enough to build their relationship. Although this is true in the vast majority of cases, there are times when the best option does seem to be divorce.

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“The Parshah of Gittin”
Temurah 5-1

But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” –Malachi 2:14-16 (ESV)

So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” –Matthew 19:6 (ESV)

In yesterday’s morning meditation, I asked “is it ever acceptable to get a divorce?” According to a strict New Testament interpretation, there is only one acceptable reason:

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” –Matthew 19:9 (ESV)

That seems pretty plain. Unless sexual immorality is involved, there is no Biblical grounds for divorce. That tends to be translated as one spouse “cheating” on another. So does that mean a man can beat his wife and children, abuse drugs and alcohol, refuse to work and support his family, or emotionally terrorize his family, all for the purpose of supporting his own emotional desires? Common sense would say “no”, but what about the Bible?

Actually, read Matthew 19:9 again. It doesn’t say you can’t divorce for other reasons, it just says that you can’t remarry. The footnotes for this verse state “some manuscripts add and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery; other manuscripts except for sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

That still seems a little harsh. If a woman divorces a man who is physically abusive to her and the children but where no sexual immorality is involved, she is right to divorce him but can never be remarried?

Let’s take a wider view of the issue of divorce:

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. –Deuteronomy 24:1-4 (ESV)

In Matthew 19, Jesus was talking about how Moses permitted divorce but it was not God’s intention to permit it for reasons of hard heartedness. In Malachi 2, the prophet says that God hates divorce, but seems to lay the responsibility for the matter at the feet of the faithless husband. Neither of these verses seem to forbid divorce out of hand or specify only the issue of sexual immorality, but rather, they state that God seems to hate divorces that are seemingly frivolous or merely for the purpose of finding “greener pastures”. Maybe I’m reading more into the scriptures than is really there, but I don’t think I can accept that God would force a person to remain in a marriage that was completely intolerable due to emotional and/or physical abuse by the other party. In the above-referenced section of Deuteronomy, the matter of sin seems to come up when you divorce a woman, she remarries another man, divorces him, and then remarries her original husband. I see this as being tied to sending her away. Once done, it cannot be undone if she subsequently “becomes one flesh” with another man.

I’ve been participating in a discussion related to this topic in a private forum. One of the members, who is well educated in Torah and the Apostolic Scriptures said this:

It depends upon what you call “Grounds.” If “grounds” requires a proof text, then perhaps not. But when you are in real ministry, with real people, things get interesting. When a woman is married to a man who beats her, or a man who pulled a gun on her during sex, is that still a marriage? Are there not behaviors that are so out of bounds that they void the marriage? And is it “Righteous” to tell such a woman, “Look Norma dear (not a real name), you married him in the sight of God, and you must remain in the marriage to please the Lord.” That kind of stuff doesn’t work for me, proof text or no proof text. In other words, when does a marriage stop being a marriage, and when it has stopped being a marriage and cannot or will not be reversed, is there virtue in keeping up appearances, and evil in naming the marriage a dead?

I don’t know if there’s a direct proof text about not being able to leave an abusive or toxic marriage, but then again, there’s no proof text that directly says you must stay, either. Perhaps the “clue” is in the a scripture I quoted yesterday:

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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. –Ephesians 5:25-30(ESV)

I also said this:

Husbands, if you are supposed to be loving your wife like Christ loves the church, consider for a minute just what the love of Jesus Christ means. The number one way we know that Jesus loves us is because he voluntarily surrendered his life for the sake of our eternal relationship with God. Not only that, but it was completely unfair in that he did not deserve to die at all. Add to that the fact that it was a long, lingering, painful, and shameful death. If you Christian husbands love your wives in the same way, I suppose you should be putting up with a lot from her, even the stuff you don’t deserve.

If a husband’s love for his wife is supposed to closely mirror the love of the Master for the community of faith, then perhaps we can infer a few things. Was the Master abusive or toxic toward the church? Did he put his needs or wants ahead of others? Did he physically, emotionally, or spiritually harm those who followed him? I don’t believe so. The only thing you could say is that he put his foot down, on occasion, to demand moral and right behavior from his followers, but he never, ever hurt them and he was never ever selfish. In fact, he was obedient, “even unto death” for the sake of those who professed him as Lord then and everyone who has done so since.

I suppose that may not be satisfying for some people reading this blog post, especially if you are a very literal person (I tend to be, at times), but in this matter, if I’m going to make a mistake, I’d prefer to err on the side of compassion. I don’t think divorce is justified because you want a younger, prettier wife, or because your husband never ended up making a million dollars a year, but there are times, beyond sexual misconduct, when it is justified to leave your spouse and end your marital relationship. If marriage is sanctified by God, how holy is a union where the man beats his wife and puts his children in the hospital because he can’t control his temper? How holy is a marriage where the wife habitually abuses drugs and leaves her young children alone when her husband is working, so she can get loaded or sleep off her high?

I’m probably not going to hear any complements about this particular “morning meditation”, but my conscious won’t let me write anything else. Like the Chofetz Chaim, I believe there are times when the only way to bring peace to a couple “is to allow them to divorce and go their separate ways!”

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The Long Flight Home

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There are two places to find the divine presence in all Her glory.

One: In the most holy of chambers, beyond the place of light and heavenly incense. There She is found by the most perfect of beings at the most sublime apexes of time.

The other: Beyond catacombs and convoluted mazes deep within the earth’s bowels. There She is found by those whose faces are charred with the ashes of failure, their hands bloody from scraping through dirt and stone, their garments torn from falling again and again and their hearts ripped by bitter tears.

There, in that subterranean darkness, they are blinded by the light of the hidden things of G-d, until that Presence will shine for all of us, forever.

So it is for the human spirit, and so it was in Solomon’s temple. There are two places for the Holy Ark: One in the chamber of the Holy of Holies; and one deep beneath that chamber, for us to find now.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“The Lost Ark”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

We should expect holiness in the most holy of places, in the midst of the Heavenly Temple of God. But how can we expect to find holiness in the darkest and most dismal abyss under the earth or in the darkest heart of man? Of course, if holiness is present there, then the darkness can no longer be dark.

Or can it?

In Judaism and particularly through the philosophy of the Chabad, each of us contains a spark of the divine; of heaven come down to earth, which gives us our own unique identity and purpose. This spark is forever seeking its heavenly source, which is probably why, often against our human will, we find ourselves inexorably searching for God, so that our spark may return to Him.

I’ve recently been exploring the humanity of Jesus and have encountered some occasional resistance to my considering the “flesh” along with the spirit, but if God is One and we are, in some sense, part of God, even as Jesus was and is, then can we always separate the physical and the ethereal? Rabbi Freeman comments:

Yes, G-d is one. But, to share an analogy from the Maharal of Prague, from a simple point an infinite number of lines may be drawn through infinite dimensions.

So, too, with that divine spark within: On the one hand it is the same simple point within each one of us. Yet how that point expresses itself within you—another facet of the diamond, another ray of the light—that is unique. Both aspects, the point and its expression, are equally divine.

There’s no way to resolve this in some sort of mechanical sense or by use of a formula or diagram. This relationship within our human existence that connects to God exists, otherwise I would hardly be so obsessed with discussing it, yet I have no ability to explain the connection. The light is there in my inner darkness and it’s doing something, but I don’t know what it is, because I can’t clearly see it.

As I review my recent “meditations,” I find I’ve been writing about this a lot in one way or another. I have written of our human limits in exploring knowledge of God and how, though we are holy, can desecrate not only God, but ourselves.

Recently, I discovered that my original purpose and goal in creating this specific blog was completely in vain, and now I turn to God not knowing what to expect, and wondering if I should expect anything at all. I’ve even gone so far as to ask, in a completely Christian venue, if it’s possible for someone like me to find a church in which I, with all of my theological idiosyncrasies, could ever be at home (so far, it hasn’t worked out very well).

For many years, I called myself “Messianic,” but found that many Jews in the Messianic Jewish movement, to which I had once thought myself attached, objected to a non-Jew identifying himself as such. The Jews in Messianic Judaism saw me as a Christian, and my Jewish wife and children see me as Christian, in spite of my atypical beliefs. When I created this blog, I was determined to honor how they see me and to distance myself from anything that might cause them discomfort, and I agreed to call myself a Christian. I also felt that, if I wanted to reach a wider audience, which is part of the goal of this blog, I should attempt to reconnect with the larger body of Gentiles who call upon the name of Jesus.

So I’m a Christian.

But I wonder now if any of that matters. No, I’m not going back to calling myself “Messianic” or any variation on that theme. If indeed, it is a designation that is uniquely Jewish, I am content to leave it in that place and for those people who were called to the Creator and chosen at Sinai. But in leaving that behind, (if it was ever truly mine in the first place) I find, like fictional author George Webber (in Thomas Wolfe’s novel), you can’t go home again. I have no choice but to proceed forward into the dark unknown and seek a future to which I am blind.

And yet, if I dare the conceit of believing that the divine spark exists in me too, then the light must be there illuminating my darkness, though I can see nary a glimmer. If the spark exists, then does it conclude within me as Rabbi Freeman describes?

These two facets of the divine spark are expressed in every mitzvah: On the one hand, the act of the mitzvah is the same for each person–corresponding to the simple, essence-point of the soul. But the mental focus and passion you invest into the mitzvah, that is uniquely yours, expressing the unique mission of your soul.

Spiritual or “fleshly” (the latter being considered with disdain by many disciples of Christ) seem to be interchangeable in Jewish thought, like matter and energy in the realm of physics. In Judaism, you connect to the holy by performing “worldly” charity. I suppose it’s not as noble as prayer, laying tefillin (though this is a physical act), or singing the ancient Hebrew prayers, but it is something that is as accessible to me as to any of you reading this, or to any person who really can see only their holy light and nothing of their darkness.

Part of this blog, and my previous writing attempt, was to reinvent myself to be more consistent with how my understanding in God was being reinvented. Now I find that there is no rest for the “legless bird” and I must still continue to soar and search and continue to reinvent and reconfigure who I am and who I am in Him.

But to reverse causality, I’m going to ask the question that Rabbi Freeman already (supposedly) answered:

If the core of my being is a “spark of G-d,” then where is the me in me?

Is there a “me” in my or, as Rabbi Freeman also has said, there is only a “me” in the doing of mitzvot?

What is divine wisdom?
Divine wisdom is the inner delight of the Infinite, condensed and crystallized until fit for human consumption.

What is a mitzvah?
A mitzvah is divine wisdom condensed and crystallized until it can be performed as a physical action.

That is why in the study of Torah there is infinite delight.
That is why in the act of a mitzvah there is unlimited joy.

—Maamar Arbaah Rashei Shanim Heim, 5731

Somewhere in each of us, there is a spark of holiness. Somewhere in the holiness, is a lost human being, struggling in the glare and the abyss, trying to find his way, his face, and his name.

Somewhere in the sky, there is a bird, like the dove of Noah, soaring over an endless sea searching for a place to land and rest. Does the bird search in vain, as do I?