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Another Chance

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The Ishbitzer Rebbe, zt”l, explains the deeper meaning of yovel and why houses within cities walled since the time of Yehoshua bin Nun do not return during yovel. “Yovel teaches that everything has a time. God doesn’t remain angry at anyone forever. Even if someone’s sins force him to sell his portion or to be sold as a slave, this cannot be forever. Eventually he will be redeemed and his inherited field will return to him. But batei arei chomah are an exception. This alludes to the two chomos, the two barriers—teeth of bone and lips of flesh—that God gave us to rein in what we say, as discussed on Arachin 15…Indulging one’s arrogance by failing to hold back one’s anger at his friend is no simple matter. If the victim remained silent in the face of his rage, the sinner’s merits are transferred to the recipient of his anger.

“Unlike sins between man and his Creator, sins between man and his fellow do not have an automatic limit. These misdemeanors remain until his friend forgives him. One has only limited time to beg his friend’s forgiveness. Failure to do so causes his merits to remain with his friend. His inability to accept his wrongdoing and make it up to his friend causes him losses he would never have imagined.”

But the rebbe concluded with words of chizzuk. “Nevertheless, we find that kohanim and leviim can always sell and always redeem. This teaches that even if one has sinned, if he begins to serve God in earnest, he can always redeem what he has lost. Through the dynamic change he gains through his avodah he always has another chance!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“The Walled Cities”
Arachin 31

What is being said here? We learn from the construction or organization of the Ten Commandments brought down from Sinai that there are two general classifications of sin: sin between man and God and sin between man and man. Of the first, God will forgive by His own grace and mercy and not necessarily because of the merit of the sinner. We rely on God to give us something we could not possibly earn. However of the second, we will not be forgiven until (or unless) we ask for forgiveness from our fellow. In this, we must take a much more active role, otherwise forgiveness will never occur. We also learn that if we stubbornly refuse to admit our wrongdoing against our fellow, this affects our relationship with God as well, so we have in some sense, doubly sinned.

The commentary concludes that, “even if one has sinned, if he begins to serve God in earnest, he can always redeem what he has lost.” But how can this be? If you sin against a person, ignore your responsibility for that sin, and go on to seemingly “serve God in earnest,” are you really serving God while remaining unrepentant? The answer is in the last sentence of the teaching: “the dynamic change he gains through his avodah he always has another chance!”

I suppose this could be read as saying that by serving God, even though you have not sought forgiveness of the person you sinned against, your service to the Almighty somehow compensates. I don’t think that’s what is being said here, though, since the sin against your friend remains. I think it is much more likely that, by honestly and truly serving God, it will become necessary for your soul to turn to Him and in order to do so, you will have to see the stains on your own character. Once you do, and with your desire to serve God earnestly still intact, as part of that service, you must go back to the one you offended and beg forgiveness. Only then, can you return to God and have your response to Him gain real meaning.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. –Matthew 5:23-24

We see that the Master is in agreement with the Ishbitzer Rebbe. Living a life in this world does not detract from living a life of holiness, as long as we keep our perspective.

It is not business, not money, nor career, nor human relationships that tears our souls from us and us from our G-d.

There is as much beauty in any of those as there is in any flower from the Garden of Eden. As much G-dliness as in any temple.

It is the way we lock ourselves inside each one, begging it to take us as its slave, refusing to watch from above, to preserve our dignity as human beings.

As you enter each thing, stay above it.

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

As much as we fail and allow ourselves to become slaves of the world around us or even our own emotions and pride, God provides every opportunity for us to make amends and to succeed in serving God and serving our fellow. If we do not surrender to anger, frustration, and despair, and continue to seek Him, we will always have another chance.

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The Return of the Jewish King

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PrayingAside from the vast numbers of Jews murdered during the Holocaust, the scars that the experience left on survivors was unimaginable. One of the champions of the survivors was the Beis Yisrael of Gur, zt”l. He himself had plenty to cry about—he could remember his one hundred thousand chassidim in Europe before the war, virtually all of them murdered, including many of his close relatives—yet he was a beacon of hope to survivors. He always found exactly the right approach to pull downtrodden survivors out of their despair and give them new hope.

“In Arachin 29 we find that a Jew may not be sold as a slave during times when there is no Yovel. This teaches a powerful concept. An eved ivri cannot be sold into slavery unless there is a clearly defined end to his indenture. We see that a Jew is not forced to endure a load of tests that are harder than he can bear. Even when his hardships are decreed, they must have a set end, a clear-cut time when he will be delivered from the adversity. This is the meaning of the principle that God creates the medicine before allowing the blow to fall. There is always a way for every Jew to emerge from despair and begin again, to learn how to live a positive life despite the horrors and trauma he may have experienced. Every exile must have an end!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Every Exile Must Have an End”
Arachin 29

The hardships and loss suffered by the Jewish people across the long span of history is just appalling. One can hardly think of this topic and not immediately have images of the horrors of the Holocaust spring forth in our memories. The past 2,000 years of the chronicles of Judaism particularly read like a tragedy worthy of the greatest classical poets and playwrights. And yet that suffering is real. The loss of life, property, and dignity are terribly real. But because of God’s promises to the Jewish people and His graciousness and mercy, the Jews yet survive, against all odds, as a people and a faith, and continue to honor the God who created both the tormented and the tormentors.

Christianity has been hard at work taking from the Jews what does not belong to us.

To be perfectly blunt, I must say the Christians have robbed the Jews! And perhaps what is worse is that this thievery has been encouraged by theologians, pastors, and even Sunday School teachers, where small children are taught to sing the song, “Every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line.”

Every promise in Scripture in some way benefits Christians, but it is not all promised to Christians. Sometimes the thievery has been inadvertent and unintentional. It’s like thinking that the raincoat hanging in the office closet is yours for wearing home because of unexpected showers. Hopefully, you will discover the raincoat belongs to a fellow worker and you will restore it. It is not as if Christians do not have the greatest promise of God, which is I John 2:25: “And this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.”

-Moishe Rosen
from the Foreward to Pastor Barry Horner’s book
Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged

The irony is that we Christians have not only robbed the Jews, we have robbed ourselves. What was the Christianity taught by Paul, Peter, and the rest of the Jewish Apostles to the non-Jewish disciples of the Jewish Jesus? We don’t really know. We don’t have access to the unedited and unfiltered teachings that underlie the New Testament text we read in our Bibles today. It’s not just the words in the Bible, but what almost 2,000 years of Christian theology and doctrine has taught us what that text is supposed to mean. We take it as a foregone conclusion that “every promise in the book is mine” but we don’t really know. We are taught to believe, so that whenever our assumptions and our standard Christian traditions are challenged, we really think that what we believe is actually fact instead of interpretation.

If circumstances had been different and there hadn’t been a savage separation between Jewish Messianism and Gentile Christianity in the early, formative centuries of the church, what would things be like today? Would there be a thriving Messianic Judaism that stands alongside Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism? Would Gentile Christianity still seek to find its truth from within a Jewish interpretive context? Would we all still cease our toil on Shabbat, and would Christians along with religious Jews, pray at set times to the Maker of Heaven and Earth?

There’s no way to know, of course, and I’m forced to believe that the Christian/Jewish schism is all part of God’s plan and that the “time of the Gentiles” has to become “full” before the Jews are able to recognize the face and identity of the Moshiach. Paul lamented the suffering of his own people in Romans 11 and registered deep regret that some Jews would be temporarily separated from the Messiah for the sake of we Gentiles. I have to believe this “disconnect” was somehow necessary, and yet like so many other parts of God’s plan for humanity, I must confess a gross lack of understanding for almost everything that is going on around me in my world of faith.

And yet faith and trust are the only tools I have to sustain me and without them, I am lost, along with a disbelieving world. Where is God? Why is there such suffering? Why hasn’t Jesus returned yet? Where is the Moshiach? What is he waiting for? If not now, when?

Today is Sunday as I write these words and Christians in churches all over the world smile and sing and pat themselves on the back that they are saved by Grace and not from works. They congratulate each other over being inheritors of all of the promises in the Bible and it never occurs to them that they have missed so much.

At this point, I must stop in my “rant” and recognize the enormous good that has been done in the name of Christ throughout the world and across church history. Many have been fed and clothed. Many have heard the “good news” of salvation for the sake of Christ and the unsaved. Many churches have been built, many homes have been built, many children have received medical care, many grieving hearts have been comforted. There have always been those in the church who have learned the core lessons of the Master and performed them with unswerving love and devotion. There have always been those who have labored and suffered in anonymity, without titles, recognition, or receiving any honors, who give glory to God and not to themselves. For all of the faults in the church, there are many who, though they do not recognize the “Jewishness” of Jesus, carry on the mitzvot he commanded to always do good to others, to pick up their burdens, and to follow Christ where ever he leads them. Praise be to God for their faithfulness and trust.

And yet, the early “church fathers” took it upon themselves to reinvent history and the Bible in the image of the nations, removing any and every trace of Judaism. In spite of their efforts, the faithful in Christ have continued to work as the Master taught in the Gospels. But sadly, we have toiled under many a false teaching as we struggle to live a life, not by man’s doctrine, but in obedience to Jesus. By God’s miracles, many Christians were not blinded by the man-made theology of supersessionism. But we still see the Bible through “Christian-tinted glasses” and absolutely don’t realize that we’re wearing them, imagining instead that our vision is crystal clear and not “through a glass darkly.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) And yet, as long as a single Christian feeds even one hungry mother and heals the wounds of one injured child, there is hope.

The irony for many, is that when Jesus returns, he will not be here to inaugurate an age of Christian domination over the earth, but to restore Israel to her rightful place before the nations and before God. Only then will we all, Israel and the disciples of the nations alike, be able to have the peace that has been prophesied.

…but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken. –Micah 4:4

Only then will we all, Jew and Gentile alike, sit with each other in peace at the table of the patriarchs.

I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven… –Matthew 8:11

May Jesus the Messiah come soon and in our day, and may we truly be prepared to welcome him, not as we imagine him to be, but as he truly is: Yeshua HaMoshiach, the King of the Jews. Then the “exile” of both the Jew and the Gentile from the presence of our Master will come to an end.

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Slaves of Grace

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On today’s amud we find that one should enter and leave shul in a manner that demonstrates that he cherishes his time there.

Once there was an extremely wealthy man who lived quite close to his synagogue. Although he could have easily walked the short distance, he would choose to ride on his very expensive mount to the Beit Knesset, since he felt it befitted his distinguished stature. Someone pointed out to this man that it may be preferable to walk the distance. The wealthy man enjoyed riding to synagogue but he wanted to go the best way according to halachah, so he consulted with the Ben Ish Chai, zt”l.

“It is better to go on foot,” the Ben Ish Chai ruled. “We see this in Sotah 22. The gemara there recounts that a certain widow used to pray in Rav Yochanan’s beis medrash even though she lived closer to a different beis medrash. When Rav Yochanan asked her why she went out of her way to come to her shul, she replied, ‘I come here to receive reward for each step!’ This implies that the reward for going out of one’s way is only if one troubles himself to walk on his own two feet, not if one rides!

The Ben Ish Chai continued, “We see this in Chagigah as well. A small child is not obligated to be olah l’regel because he can’t walk to the Beis Hamikdash himself. Beis Hillel rule that a child is not obligated until he is old enough to hold his father’s hand and walk on his own two feet from Yerushalayim to Har Habayis. Although those who were very distant from Yerushalayim would surely ride, clearly one should walk as much as possible, as implied on Chagigah 3… For the above reasons, you should walk to synagogue on your own two feet, regardless of your honor and status!”

Mishna Berura Yomi Digest
Stories to Share
“Reward for Every Step”
Shulcham Aruch Siman 151 Seif 5

Although the vast majority of Christians worship on Sunday, it isn’t really a “Sabbath” in the Jewish sense of the term. We don’t really rest because of the “freedom of Christ.” Grace not only allows us to mow the lawn, shop for groceries, pay the bills, and watch the news on Sunday, it fairly demands that we do, in order to “prove” that we’re not “under the Law.” Saturday, for most Christians, has nothing to do with God. Neither does Friday night. There is no candle lighting just before sundown. There are no hymns or prayers sung to welcome God into our homes on this special, holy day. We do not allow ourselves to rest from the mundane chores of life while partaking of an extra portion of the holiness in the Almighty. The church acts as one body for maybe a couple of hours on Sunday morning, but that’s about it for most of us. Then it’s business as usual.

But we’re free, unlike those poor Jewish people who can’t do hardly anything from Friday night until Saturday night. Poor people who are under the Law.

I say all of this with a sense of irony of course, because I believe it’s not the Jews who should be pitied in this instance, but the Christians. We have allowed ourselves to be robbed of one day of peace out of seven, where we can actually permit ourselves to stop in our wild pursuit of the “rat race,” crawl out of our mazes, and actually enjoy the freedom of worshiping God, not only in church, but in our homes, on our streets, in our parks, anywhere we are. But we don’t do that because we are “free.” We don’t do that because only those people who are “enslaved” to the Torah allow themselves to be confined with God within the walls of His holiness for a full 24+ hours.

Oh how awful for them.

I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. According to the sages, a non-Jew is forbidden from observing the Shabbat in the manner of the Jews. Part of this has to do with something I read just last Shabbat.

Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. –Exodus 20:8-11 (JPS Tanakh)

The Shabbat is considered a special commemoration of the deliverance of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt…something we non-Jews did not experience. It’s a special part of the Sinai covenant relationship between God and the Jews, even to this day. Yet, I “miss” it, not that I have ever fully been able to rest on the Shabbat. Even at my very best, there was always a number of ways I could have rested better. I rationalized my behavior saying that I had to drive to my place of worship, heat my coffee in the morning, edit the lesson I was going to teach, check my email in case someone needed some help with something right before services. It’s the diaspora, not Israel.

But then, I’m not Jewish, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

But I wonder. If resting and honoring God for a full day is good for Jews, why isn’t it good for Christians? If we are forbidden by the Rabbis from remembering and observing the Shabbat in a traditionally Jewish manner (not that most Christians acknowledge any authority of the Rabbinic sages over the life of a believer), can we not choose to still offer our rest and our worship in some manner or fashion? The Shabbat not only commemorates the freedom Jews enjoy from the bondage of Egypt, it acknowledges that God is Creator over all.

On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done. –Genesis 2:2-3 (JPS Tanakh)

It is said that a Jew who does not observe the Shabbat is denying God’s sovereign claim over Creation. But Creation exists for the Gentile and the Jew. The sun shines as much on us as it does them. The rain waters our fields as well as a Jew’s fields. The breeze cools both Jew and Gentile in the summer, and we both  experience heat, and cold, and wind, and all the manifestations of Creation. The stars look just as beautiful to us, and the moon rises and sets for us, too. Can the Gentile not acknowledge Creator and Creation along with the Jew? Should not the Gentile also acknowledge Creator and Creation along with the Jew?

Shabbat candlesI’m not suggesting that Christians everywhere should suddenly start donning kippot and singing in Hebrew every Friday night as they light Shabbos candles, but I am suggesting that some sort of observance wouldn’t be out of line, either. Why were we in the church taught that it’s a bad thing to give honor to God because He created the Universe? I know the answer, of course. But the answer isn’t a valid one. In separating ourselves from Judaism early in the history of the church, we didn’t just hurt our Jewish mentors, ignore the Jewish Apostles, and dishonor our Jewish Jesus, we hurt and dishonored ourselves. The Jews rest on Shabbat and are free to honor God. We work, both on the Christian “Shabbat” and on the Jewish Shabbos and we call ourselves free. Then we work Monday through Friday as well. So who’s free and who’s a slave?

We’ve come to expect instant results. Perhaps the speed of today’s latest “on demand” technology or the abundance of resources in our global community have trained us to feel this way, but it’s become natural to assume that most problems will be solved within 24 hours or less. This expectation obviously leads to disappointments, and we’re forced to learn the art of patience even when the answers seem but a click away.

One of the laws in the construction of the Holy Temple’s altar is that the ascent to the top must be upon a ramp and not a staircase “so that your nakedness will not be revealed on it” (Exodus 20:23). Unlike a staircase, a ramp’s incline is small and gradual, forcing a more gentle ascent for the Temple priest.

Personal growth follows the same pattern. When we’re inspired to change, we might expect a decision to change to be instantly transformational. Taking leaps and bounds towards the new behavior, we seem like new men. Then the “nakedness” is “revealed,” the surprising reality that change is not overnight, and we’re often discouraged and revert to the old habits. Often the result is that we become more deeply entrenched in our destructive patterns.

Inspiration to grow, to ascend the altar, is what starts the engine, but when going forward — beware of your speed limit!

Rabbi Mordechai Dixler
“Watch Your Speed Limit”
ProjectGenesis.org

Would it be such a bad thing for a Christian to slow down once a week and learn to really appreciate what God has done for us?

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The Torah of Fellowship and Peace

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The Ten Commandments (Shemos 22:2-17, Devarim 5:6-21) as spoken by G-d to the Jewish nation at Sinai were engraved upon the Shnei Luchos Habris, Two Tablets of the Covenant. The first Five Commandments belong to the category of laws between “man and his Creator” while the remaining Five Commandments are precepts between “man and man”.

The Ten Commandments engraved upon the tablets of stone and brought down by Moshe from G-d to the Jewish people are accorded a special distinction over all the other 613 precepts.

The Ten Commandments written upon the Two Tablets are comparable to the Kesubah, “marriage contract” drawn up as the essential contractual terms under which a Jewish man and woman enter into Jewish matrimony. Herein the parties pledge their allegiance and the principle obligations to each other thereafter. (The Avos deRabbi Nosson 2:3 fascinatingly explains this is why Moshe smashed the Two Tablets, tearing up the marriage contract, when the Children of Israel were disloyal by worshipping the Golden Calf and had to provide a substitute upon their national repentance).

The Ten Commandments forge this eternal relationship.

The covenant struck between “two” parties, affirming the relationship between G-d as the “Source” and Israel as the “product”, is mirrored in the Ten Commandments inscribed upon the Shnei Luchos HaBris, “Two” Tablets of the “Covenant”. The emphasis is on how this relates to the eternal bris, “covenant” of Torah that unites man and his Creator.

How this bond is intrinsic to the national Jewish psyche is magnificently captured in the Ten Commandments engraved through the thickness of the Tablets – such that the letters and stone were inseparably one.

Herein is included the symmetrical record of the laws pertaining both to man’s relationship to “G-d” and to “man”. The first grouping, those of “man-G-d laws”, relate to G-d the “Source” while the second grouping, those of “interpersonal laws”, relates to man, the “product”.

Side-by-side, the Ten Commandments are the microcosm to all 613 Commandments (See Bamidbar Rabbah 13:15). They embrace the acceptance of G- d’s Sovereignty at Sinai as the essential platform for strict adherence to all the other 613 laws in the Torah, which serve to polish and perfect man to become more G-dly.

Through its symbolism of the “eternal covenant” between man and G-d, of two parties inextricably bound in their mutual relationship…

-Rabbi Osher Chaim Levene
from his commentary on Torah Portion Yitro
“Two Tablets: Prescription for Jewish Observance”
Torah.org

When the Prushim heard that he had shut the mouth of the Tzaddukim, they conferred together. A certain sage among them asked him a question to test him, saying, “Rabbi, which is the greatest mitzvah in the Torah?” Yeshua said to him,

“Love HaShem your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your knowledge.” This is the greatest and first mitzvah. But the second is similar to it: “Love your fellow as yourself.” The entire Torah and the Prophets hang on these two mitzvot. –Matthew 22:34-40 (DHE Gospels)

In one of my recent morning meditations, I commented how the Torah functioned as a ketubah or “wedding contract” between God, the groom, and national Israel, the bride. For Christianity, this is a puzzle (unless you wholly substitute “the Church” for “Israel” in this event), since how can God be eternally married to the Jewish people, the inheritors of the Mosaic covenant, and at the same time, have the Christian church be “the bride of Christ? I asked this question on the aforementioned “meditation,” but no one was willing or able to respond to my query.

In studying the Torah portion for last Shabbat, I noticed an interesting parallel between the Rabbinic commentary and the teachings of the Master:

Side-by-side, the Ten Commandments are the microcosm to all 613 Commandments… -Rabbi Levene

The entire Torah and the Prophets hang on these two mitzvot. –Matthew 22:40 (DHE Gospels)

Traditional Judaism, at least as Rabbi Levene describes it, compresses the entire 613 commandments into the ten mitzvot we see on the two tablets that Moses brought down from his personal encounter with God, while Jesus tells us that they are represented, along with all of the writings of the Prophets, by the two greatest commandments, which he cites from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Neither source is saying that all we need are only the ten commandments or the two greatest commandments, but they are the foundation and representation upon which we formally base our obedience to God, for Jew and Christian.

Am I saying that both Jews and Christians have identical responsibilities to God relative to the Torah? Absolutely not. There have been plenty of debates, both among scholars and on the various religious blogospheres on this topic, and my personal opinion is that we non-Jewish disciples of the Master are not obligated to take upon ourselves the full yoke of Sinai. The Master himself tells us that “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30) while we find Peter, who walked with the Master, saying, “why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? (Acts 15:10), referring to the non-Jewish disciples (and a comparison of these two verses is a study all its own).

So are we to say that God has two brides, that there are two paths to salvation, and that there are two laws? Is this the veil of separation that I’m rebuilding between Jew and Gentile that was supposedly torn down? (Ephesians 2:14)

Heaven forbid.

Yet, if I am not describing two brides separated by a veil, must I say that the only resolution to this conflict is to adopt a supersessionist viewpoint and to declare that the Church has replaced Judaism in all of the covenant promises, creating a new “spiritual Israel” out of the non-Jewish Christians? Must I say that the Jews become “one new man” with the Church only be renouncing their Judaism in totality and converting mind, body, and soul into Gentile Christians, trading in the Jewish Messiah for the “Greek” Jesus?

No, I’m not saying that, either.

According to Rabbi Dr. Stuart Dauermann in his blog post Inconvenient Truths: The One New Man:

Rather than superseding the Jewish people, the Church from among the nations joins with them as part of the Commonwealth of Israel. Only in this way can the “dividing wall of hostility” – which supersessionism maintains – be removed. Gentiles are no longer categorically outsiders to the community of God’s people, but neither do they supplant Israel. However if Gentiles were required to obey Torah and live as Jews, one would be perpetuating their categorical exclusion as Gentiles. And it is a major component of the good news as proclaimed by Paul that this former categorical exclusion is over and done with through the work of Messiah!

The balance of unity and diversity in the One New Man is further highlighted in Ephesians 3:6, where Paul says “Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” The terms “fellow heirs, fellow members, and fellow partakers” require another communal reality with whom the Gentiles are joined, and that other partner is the community of Messianic Jews living in solidarity with wider Israel. It is only as Messianic Jews embrace this calling that their communities become the communal joining point whereby the Church from among the nations is joined to the Commonwealth of Israel.

Admittedly, this is a set of points that most traditional Christians and Jews will find difficult to absorb into their current understanding of how God relates to each of our religious groups. This also gives us something new to think about in terms of how Jews and Christians are supposed to relate to each other. But in giving the Torah at Sinai and the blood of the Son at Calvary, God provided the means by which the Jews could become a special, unique and “peculiar people” to God in a way no other people or nation had ever or has ever become to Him, and has also opened the door for the rest of the world, through the Messianic covenant, to allow the larger body of humanity to draw close to God, alongside the descendants of Jacob.

This isn’t a realization that all Jews and all non-Jews have, even though this open door is available to everyone. Secular Jews are just as much a part of Sinai as their religious brothers, whether they choose to acknowledge that fact or not. Every non-Jewish person on earth is equally invited to stand before the throne of the King by the mercy of God who sent the Messiah to both Jewish and Gentile humanity, if only we will accept that gracious offer. Jesus presents the Jews with the continual and perpetual fulfillment of the prophesy of the Messiah and a life lived in obedience to Torah as God intended from the beginning, and brings close a “grafted in” humanity together with the Jews in one Kingdom as we too respond to the Torah as proceeds from Jerusalem and as it is meant for us to comprehend and obey.

There is one Torah but two intents. Torah is the ketubah of Sinai for the Jews and at the same time, it is a light unto the nations. How Jews are forever “married” to God and we Christians are the “bride” of Messiah, I do not know, but of all the different mitzvot among the 613, many are selected to identify Jews as Jews forever, and other portions are indeed universal truths applied to all, for no man made in the image of the Creator should murder his fellow, or steal from him, or covet his property, or blaspheme the name of God or worship idols of stone or wood or paper.

Jew and Gentile, where do we start? Where do we start establishing a relationship with God and an understanding of each other? We start with studying the mitzvot of the tablets and the commandments of the Messiah. Most of all, we start with this one, new commandment that I believe Moshiach gave to each and every one of us, if only we have ears to hear.

I am giving you a new mitzvah: that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. –John 13:34 (DHE Gospels)

and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. –Isaiah 2:3

The Torah has gone forth from Zion, carried on the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, and we among the nations have heard the words of the Messiah and the “Word made flesh”. If we who are Christians can learn those lessons and the Jewish people can turn their hearts toward the Torah given by Moses and Jesus, then we will someday truly love one another in obedience to that Torah, and sit and eat together at the table of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 8:11) in fellowship and peace.

The Torah of Hashem is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of Hashem is trustworthy, making the simple one wise; the orders of Hashem are upright, gladdening the heart; the command of Hashem is clear, enlightening the eyes; the fear of Hashem is pure, enduring forever; the judgments of Hashem are true, altogether righteous. They are more desirable than gold, than even much fine gold; and sweeter than honey, and the drippings from its combs. –Psalm 19:8-11 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

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Understanding the Infinite Scroll

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One year there was a drought and the price for food rose exorbitantly. In Frankfurt, some Jews literally could not put bread on their table. Rav Avraham Avish, the Av Beis Din of Frankfurt, zt”l, literally gave every penny he owned to help the destitute during that year. One student wondered how this could be halachically permitted. “Didn’t we learn that it is forbidden to give over twenty percent of one’s property to charity?” he asked.

Rav Avraham Avish rejected this claim out of hand. “Although you have learned you still do not grasp how to understand a sugya in depth. It is true that in general one who gives over a fifth of his property to tzedakah violates a rabbinic prohibition, but that is irrelevant in a year where there is no food and people are endangered. To save a life, we even desecrate Shabbos which is much more stringent than any rabbinic decree!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Not more than a Fifth”
Arachin 28

For the Christians reading this, and perhaps for some Jews, the meaning of my quote “off the Daf” today may not seem very relevant, but I posted it above for a single, important reason. There’s a sentence that teaches us something we need to constantly keep in the forefront of our thoughts:

Although you have learned you still do not grasp how to understand a sugya in depth.

It means that you can be smart and even well educated, and still not be able to look at something in the way that’s necessary or in sufficient depth to be able to understand it. We see this all the time in the various sciences, especially as we examine the history of scientific discoveries and knowledge. First the Earth is flat and now it’s round. First the Earth is the center of the universe, and all heavenly bodies revolve around us, now Earth revolves around a mediocre star off to one side of our huge galaxy. First you cure a fever by applying leeches to drain bodily fluids, now you give the person antibiotics to cure their infection.

As we investigate our world, we learn, but at each point in our journey of discovery across the long stretch of history, we thought we knew exactly what we were doing and what was going on. We couldn’t have possibly imagined that the world wasn’t flat or that applying blood-sucking parasites to our bodies really wouldn’t cure a fever or other types of ailments.

And although a student of Rav Avraham Avish understood that the general principle is to give only up to one-fifth of your income to charity to avoid bankrupting yourself and failing to support the needs of your own family, he still didn’t understand the underlying foundation behind the principle that would allow the Rav to contribute his very last dime to starving people, and still not violate halacha.

But what’s all that got to do with us?

Has it ever occurred to you that you could be wrong?

It probably has, especially on those occasions when you were sure you were correct in some matter of judgment, or thought you could spell the word “Mediterranean” without looking it up. OK, we’re human and we can make mistakes. It happens to the best of us and most people have learned to admit it.

Almost.

The conversation in my extra meditation from yesterday turned into a mini-debate on the letter to the Hebrews found in the New Testament. Since this letter has always been a bit of a puzzle to me, I’ve found that I’ve been at sort of a loss as to how to respond to the traditional supersessionist interpretation of it. Fortunately, many people have responded to me, both in blog comments and via email, to suggest different references, and even have sent me information to help illuminate my path in this particular direction. One such piece of illumination is as follows:

Unique among all the scholars I consulted, Charles P. Anderson sees Hebrews in a Jewish communal context. It is as if all the other commentators have been wearing sunglasses, and only he is wearing clear lenses. All the others see the recipients of Hebrews as Christian individuals of Jewish background rather than as a group of Jews who see themselves in the context of their community with each other, with the wider Jewish world, and with their people throughout time. His perspective is in my view the right one, his argument convincing and illuminating. Throughout my research on Hebrews I was longing to find someone who saw things this way. Finally, toward the end of my research, I found Anderson’s brief chapter.

Charles P. Anderson is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I am reproducing here a large body of quotations from his article ” Who are the Heirs of the New Age in the Epistle to the Hebrews?” Especially when read against the background of common assumptions concerning the Letter to the Hebrews, his perspective stands out as something fresh, and to me, thrilling. I would hope that all who read his article and these quotations from it would be moved to say, “Why didn’t I see this before?” The answer to that question is “Because of the Christian exegetical tradition.”

-from a paper presented by Stuart Dauermann
commenting on Charles P. Anderson’s article
“Who are the Heirs of the New Age in the Epistle to the Hebrews?”

Carl Kinbar was kind enough to send me a PDF of the appendix to Dauerman’s paper which includes the above-quoted statement. This is the point I’m trying to drive home, both about understanding Hebrews and understanding the broader Biblical context.

It’s not that easy.

We may think it is easy because we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of years of traditional Christian interpretations to fall back on, and we’ve concluded that the correct way of understanding Hebrews is to say (gasp) that the Law of Moses was replaced by the Grace of Christ.

Period.

But like anyone who gets into a particular habit that may once have been helpful, we have to ask ourselves if the “habit” of our traditional way of understanding Hebrews (or any part of the Bible) really the best way we’ve got right now?

That’s a tough one. It’s difficult for me to say there is one and only one correct way for to understand the Biblical text. True, from God’s point of view, there probably is one correct, objective understanding, but we are mere humans and don’t enjoy God’s infinite wisdom and vision. It’s also possible that at least some parts of the Bible were never intended to mean the same things to all populations across all generations. After all, the Jews don’t keep slaves any more, so are the laws in the Torah about slavery still “eternal truths?”

This is what bothers me a little about blog posts that are titled Reading Acts 15:21 Correctly. While Derek Leman no doubt believes how he interprets this passage in the New Testament is the correct interpretation (and I don’t necessarily disagree with him), it’s obvious from reading the different comments in response to his blog post, that not everyone sees the same thing in that single verse of the Bible. If we can disagree about a the meaning of a single sentence in the Bible, how much more do we all disagree on the letters of Paul and the product of our dear letter writer to the Hebrews? How can any one person say, “this is what such-and-thus means in the Bible, forever and ever?”

Adding to this puzzle is the concept in Judaism that the Bible can only be interpreted correctly using accepted tradition. Sure, as the Daf above explains, there are endless ways to “dig deeper” into the text, but you don’t just “shoot from the hip” as far as understanding Biblical or Rabbinic halacha is concerned. I suppose Christians could say the same thing about their (our) standard interpretive traditions, but we have a problem (technically, so does traditional Judaism, but I’ll set that part aside for another time). Our problem is that our entire perspective on interpreting the Bible completely ignores the viewpoint and mindset of the original writers, who were first century Jews, steeped in “the hashkafah of the Tanakh.” Without said-viewpoint based on a first century Jewish worldview, it is likely we may have missed a step or two over the past 2,000 years in terms of New Testament scholarship.

The deal is, we who call ourselves Christians might need to stop and consider for a moment what we believe about the Jews and why. If our perspective on Jews and Judaism includes the necessity to declare Jews, Judaism, and the Torah of Sinai obsolete, and results in us believing that Jews who continue to worship and live within a classical Jewish framework are being rebellious and sinful, we should think about the possibility of a reasonable alternate explanation. The explanation should be one that would make sense to our first century writers and scholars and should not require that God abrogate His promise that the Hebrews would be a “peculiar people” before Him forever.

I say “reasonable” because there are just billions of “pop” theologies out there on the web that “tickle the ears” but have little substance or validity (although they can weave a multi-layered tapestry of mashed up Biblical cross-connections confused enough to “cross a Rabbi’s eyes”). They’re like cotton candy for the brain; tastes really sweet and initially invigorating, but containing zero nutritional value. However, as my little snippet from the paper written by Stuart Dauermann shows, solid Biblical research, although unconventional from a traditional Christian viewpoint, exists and provides a valid and compelling alternate interpretation to understanding the New Testament text, including the Book of Hebrews.

Obviously, I’m in no position to present that alternate interpretation of Hebrews in any detail at the moment, but I just wanted to show that it exists and should be seriously considered by any Christian who has an honest desire to place truth and a correct understanding of the intent of God and the Apostolic writers ahead of our old, comfortable, Gentile-friendly theologies. I’ll be writing on this topic again in the months that follow.

Oh, in case you were curious how our “Story Off the Daf” ends up, here’s the rest. It’s also an interesting “test” in terms of determining the identity of the Messiah.

In Yemen nine centuries ago, life was especially hard due to harsh decrees. In the middle of these challenges to the community one man secretly claimed to be Moshiach, soon to bring the longawaited redemption. Although many Jews were convinced, others were unsure and put the matter to the Rambam, zt”l. The Rambam sent students to test this man and discern if he could possibly be Moshiach. When they returned they began to tell the Rambam everything that they had observed. “This man disburses every cent he has on charity.”

The moment the Rambam heard this he immediately interjected that this man cannot be Moshiach. “It is clear that a person who violates our sages’ command not to give more than a fifth to charity is not our redeemer. Although it is permitted to give more to redeem one’s sins, Moshiach should not have any sins to redeem!”

I’ll wrap this up by quoting from Rabbi Tzvi Freeman’s interpretation of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, which illustrates an additional challenge we encounter in understanding the Word of God.

This Torah we were given is not of the world, nor is it something extraneous to it. Rather, it is the hidden essence, the primal thought from which all the cosmos and each thing within it extends. It is not about the world, it is the world—the world as its Creator sees it and knows it to be.

The sages of the Talmud told us that the Torah is the blueprint G-d used to design His creation. There is not a thing that cannot be found there. Even more, they told us, G-d and His Torah are one, for His thoughts are not outside of Him as our thoughts are.

But He took that infinite wisdom and condensed it a thousandfold, a billionfold, and more, into finite, earthly terms that we could grasp—yet without losing a drop of its purity, its intimate bond with Him. Then He put it into our hands to learn, to explore and to extend.

So now, when our mind grasps a thought of Torah, thoroughly, with utter clarity, we grasp that inner wisdom. And at the time we are completely absorbed in the process of thought, comprehension and application, our self and being is absorbed in that infinite wisdom which is the essence of all things. We have grasped it, and it grasps us. In truth, we become that essence.

studying-talmudThis is a very mystical understanding of the “life” of the Torah and how in Chasidic Judaism, it transcends the physical scroll and exists as both the blueprint of the Universe and the means of its creation. Since we in Christianity understand that “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14) and that through the living Word, “things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made,” (John 1:3) we also have a mystical understanding of the Bible, the Messiah, and creation, so perhaps the simple text on paper we see when we read our Bible and try to interpret it is not so simple after all. More than that, perhaps we cannot allow ourselves to limit that Word or that Messiah to what our Christian tradition says it all means, even if it makes us uncomfortable and stretches our understanding.

To drink “new wine,” we must prepare “new wine skins.”

Good Shabbos.

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Yitro: Servants of the Lessons of Peace

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And so the explanation of why the Exodus is given as the reason for G-d becoming the G-d of the Jewish people is obvious – G-d’s liberation of the Jews from slavery is what made it possible for Him to give us His Torah and mitzvos on Sinai.

Moreover, the fact that G-d took the Jews out of Egypt in order for them to serve Him was already mentioned several times in the Torah; in none of those places did Rashi find it necessary to explain that this “is sufficient reason for you to be subservient to Me.” What difficulty is there in this particular verse?

The difficulty which Rashi addresses is related to this very issue: Since the Jews were already well aware that the ultimate goal of the Exodus was the receipt of the Torah and submission to G-d, what was the need to mention yet again that G-d’s declaration: “I am G-d your L-rd” is the consequence of His being the One “who brought you out of the land of Egypt”?

Rashi therefore explains that “who brought you out of the land of Egypt” is neither a reason nor an explanation for “I am G-d your L-rd.,” Rather, it is a wholly distinct matter – “Taking you out of Egypt is sufficient reason for you to be subservient to Me.”

“I am G-d your L-rd” implies the acceptance of G-d’s reign. The Jews accepted G-d as their king and ruler, and thereby obligated themselves to obey all His commands. G-d then added an additional matter – merely accepting G-d as king does not suffice; Jews must be wholly subservient to Him.

Accepting a king’s dominion does not preclude the possibility of a private life; it only means doing what the king commands and avoiding those things which the king prohibits. However, being “subservient to Me” means a Jew has no personal freedom; all his actions and possessions are subservient to G-d.

Performing Torah and mitzvos is unlike heeding the commands of a flesh-and-blood king, since it is done in a state of complete subservience. Every moment of a Jew’s life involves some aspect of Torah and mitzvos.

Commentary on Torah Portion Yitro
Based on Likkutei Sichos Vol. XXVI pp. 124-128
and the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

On the third day, as morning dawned, there was thunder, and lightning, and a dense cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud blast of the horn; and all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp toward God, and they took their places at the foot of the mountain.

Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for the Lord had come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently. The blare of the horn grew louder and louder. As Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up. The Lord said to Moses, “Go down, warn the people not to break through to the Lord to gaze, lest many of them perish. The priests also, who come near the Lord, must stay pure, lest the Lord break out against them.” But Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us saying, ‘Set bounds about the mountain and sanctify it.'” So the Lord said to him, “Go down, and come back together with Aaron; but let not the priests or the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest He break out against them.” And Moses went down to the people and spoke to them.

God spoke all these words, saying… –Exodus 19:16-20:1 (JPS Tanakh)

I cannot even imagine what it must have been like to stand at the foot of Mount Sinai and to be a part of this amazing, awesome, terrifying, wonderful experience of standing in the physical presence of the manifestation of God. Just to glimpse it from afar would have been an honor beyond imagination. This was and is truly the pivotal moment in all of Jewish history: the giving of the Torah. Nothing else would so uniquely define the Jews as a people and as the chosen nation of God. No other people have any experience that could compare to this pinnacle moment in the history of Israel. Or do we? I’ll get to that.

In the Chabad commentary I quoted from above, we see that there is an interesting comparison between serving a human King and serving the King of the Universe. As the Rabbis point out, serving an earthly King entails only obeying the specific orders of your monarch. Except for rare individuals, a subject of a King would still have a private life and individual pursuits that were apart from the King’s commands and laws.

This is not so when serving the King of Kings.

The Torah defines every single aspect of a Jew’s life, how he prays, how he works, how he eats, how he is to treat his wife, his neighbors, his animals, everything…every little detail. When the Children of Israel said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do,” (Exodus 19:8), they were pledging their very lives to God down to the tiniest action and thought. Yes, I know someone out there is going to tell me that according to the record in the Tanakh, the Hebrews were not always very successful in obeying God, but what’s important is the amazing scope of the promise, of the commandments, of having a God who so cared for you and your people that we was involved in every aspect of your existence, not just what you did in synagogue on Shabbat (or church on Sunday). You gave everything you were, are, and ever will be to God.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” –Matthew 22:34-40 (ESV)

We see here that the Son of God, Jesus, the Messiah, God’s Lamb, demanded nothing less of his disciples as well, but that’s to be expected.

But that brings me to an interesting question. Every Jew who has ever lived can point to Sinai and say, “that’s where we began…that’s who we are as a people forever.” In fact, each Jew is to behave not just as an inheritor of the Sinai covenant, but as if he or she had personally stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and accepted the Torah!

Where do we Christians find such a moment in our lives? Do we have a “Sinai?”

When the day of the festival of Shavuot arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. –Acts 2:1-4 (ESV)

Note: I substituted “day of the festival of Shavuot” for the actual text which reads “day of Pentecost” to preserve the perspective of the Jewish Apostles.

Since Pentecost and Shavuot are essentially parallel occurrences, it’s not surprising that the empowering of the Holy Spirit came upon the Jewish Apostles on the same day as the anniversary of the Sinai event.

I have to admit to being somewhat let down. Christians are not encouraged to consider the Pentecost experience as literally their own (I suppose because Christians see salvation as an individual “accomplishment” rather than becoming part of the “body of Christ” and the “commonwealth of Israel”), as if they (we) were “all together in one place” with the Apostles as the “mighty rushing wind…filled the entire house where they were sitting.” We are to consider (sort of) the moment when we accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives as the moment when we have out Acts 2 experience, although no Christian I have ever met has described that moment in terms of “tongues of fire” appearing from heaven and resting upon them. Some people have described being able to suddenly “speak in tongues”, but I do know a person who, at an altar call at a local church some years ago, was encouraged by the Elder with him to “make something up” if the ability to speak in an “angelic language” didn’t manifest itself in him.

So much for majesty and awe.

For that matter, we don’t really know how Peter could tell that “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word” while he was visiting the Roman God-fearer Cornelius in the Centurion’s home? (Acts 10:44)

However, this is as close to a “Sinai event” as we who are the non-Jewish disciples of the Master can achieve in the modern era. I don’t know what it means or doesn’t mean and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I don’t think things have been explained to us very well. I don’t think we’ve been told that one of the responsibilities we have in common with our Jewish brothers and sisters is the command to surrender our entire lives, every action, every word, every thought, to God, our King.

It’s not like we should be ignorant of this responsibility, since it’s all over the New Testament.

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ… –2 Corinthians 10:5 (ESV)

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. –James 3:1-5 (ESV)

If we look at the words of the Master as recorded by Matthew and add the letters from Paul and James, we see that we too must surrender all that we are to God in everything, including our words and our very thoughts. How like the covenant at Sinai in this one very important dimension in the lives of we Christians.

Christianity prizes Grace over the commandments of the Law, but we tend to miss the fact that we have serious responsibilities and that freedom from sin doesn’t mean we can literally do whatever we want with our lives, pursuing the same matters in practically the same way as the secular people around us. We must be more in our actions, which we aren’t always taught matter as much as faith and having a “warm and fuzzy” feeling inside for Jesus. We are servants. With almost no exceptions, the original Jewish Apostles suffered for a long time and eventually died terrible deaths as the commitment to the Messiah required. This is the lesson they learned, not just as disciples of the Master, but as Jews who, like all of their people, personally stood at the foot of Sinai as the fire and the thunder and the sound of the great shofar sounded, and before their King declared, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!”

Can there be peace between the people who stood at Sinai and we who inherit the Spirit of Pentecost? We are disciples of the Master, but where is the unity? Where is peace?

Peace refers to harmony between opposites. In an ultimate sense, it refers to a resolution of the dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual, the forward movement enabling a world in which G-d’s presence is not outwardly evident to recognize and be permeated by the truth of His Being.

Moreover, true peace involves more than the mere negation of opposition. The intent is that forces which were previously at odds should recognize a common ground and join together in positive activity. Similarly, the peace which the Torah fosters does not merely involve a revelation of G-dliness so great that the material world is forced to acknowledge it. Instead, the Torah’s intent is to bring about an awareness of G-d within the context of the world itself.

There is G-dliness in every element of existence. At every moment Creation is being renewed; were G-d’s creative energy to be lacking, the world would return to absolute nothingness. The Torah allows us to appreciate this inner G-dliness, and enables us to live in harmony with it.

-Rabbi Eli Touger
In the Garden of the Torah
“Ripples of Inner Movement”
Adapted from
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. XI, p. 74ff; Vol. XV, p. 379ff;
Vol. XVI, p. 198; Sichos Shabbos Pashas Yisro, 5751
Chabad.org

The portion of the Torah event we who are grafted in may take away with us, is that there is a path to peace, not only between Christian and Jew, but for all of mankind. We aren’t there yet. There is not even peace between all Christians or between all Jews. But someday, “they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.” (Micah 4:4 [ESV]).

Good Shabbos.