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Expectant

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Rabbi Yisrael Reisman describes on a tape entitled “Great Expectations” his recollections of an incident that occurred when he was yet a young Yeshiva student. He had positioned himself in his dorm room so his bed would be adjacent to the sink for some strategic purpose. The sink, he soon discovered, had a constant drip which he promptly reported to the powers that be. Understanding that it was just a matter of a washer or some such nickel or dime item he assumed it would be taken care of pronto. The next few nights he lay awake tossing and turning to the dripping faucet becoming more upset, frustrated and resentful.

Finally after a couple of days, the janitor arrived. It was a loose washer. The whole thing took a few moments and cost next to nothing. The dripping was finally was over. That very evening there was huge rain storm and as he lay there in bed ready for a good night’s sleep he became aware of the dripping from the roof to the window sill below- the same constant drip- drip and it didn’t bother him a bit.

He wondered why one drip sound stirred him so and the other had zero effect. He concluded that the dripping sound was not what was actually annoying him. The proof is that the water from the rain didn’t wrinkle his psyche at all. What bothered him about the sink? The answer is that he assumed somebody would do something about it, it would be done right away, that his request would be fulfilled and honored swiftly etc. And it wasn’t…it wasn’t true!

I once heard from Rabbi Yitzchok Kirzner ztl two words that he called “the secret to happiness”. Admittedly, at the time I felt it sounded rather negative. Over many years, though, I have grown in appreciation for the wisdom of his insight. I share it often with my children and myself too. It’s a hard pill, “Expect Nothing!”

-Rabbi Label Lam
“Expect Nothing!”
Parashas Mishpatim
Torah.org

It is true that expectations can lead to unhappiness, especially if those expectations are unrealistic or simply mistaken. A few days ago, I commented on my own expectations in a blog post called Nothing’s Perfect. Over the past year or two, I set a series of actions into motion based, in part, on what I felt was the right thing to do and what I expected should happen as a result of those actions. What I did was rather dramatic in the sense that, after many years at one congregation, serving on the board of elders and doing some writing and teaching, I gave my resignation, not only from my formal leadership position, but from membership within the congregation.

This horrified just about everyone, including my wife (her response kind of surprised me), since I was generally well-regarded in the congregation and many in the community of faith felt that difficult things would happen to me if I had no fellowship among the body of believers.

Needless to say, I felt I had compelling reasons to make such a decision and still believe my reasoning was sound. I also had expectations about what was to happen next, maybe not in the immediate sense, but over a period of weeks and months.

Guess what?

My expectations did not pan out. Like young Yisrael Reisman enduring the dripping faucet, I had an expectation about what was supposed to happen after a while. He expected someone to come fairly quickly and to fix the leak. I expected a certain response from my spouse and from God. Both of us didn’t get what we wanted in the way or the time frame that we expected.

But Rabbi Lam’s story (actually, Rabbi Reisman’s) story missed something. Here’s a clue.

Understanding that it was just a matter of a washer or some such nickel or dime item he assumed it would be taken care of pronto.

Rabbi Reisman, as a young Yeshiva student, knew the problem with the faucet could probably be fixed by replacing a cheap washer. All he needed to do, if he was tired of waiting, was to purchase this inexpensive item and repair the faucet himself. Maybe he was concerned that he shouldn’t perform this task it was supposed to be done by the janitor, but it was within his abilities (apparently) to fix the drip if he really wanted to do so.

What about me?

Fulfilling my expectation isn’t that simple, but it isn’t that difficult either, at least in principle. It depends on how I choose to look at my situation. If I feel that I have the ability to fix my own “dripping faucet,” I can choose to seek fellowship within a community of faith. It would be a matter of generating the effort to seek one out (which might involve visiting a fair number of Christian communities) and begin attending. This isn’t without its problems, as I’ve already stated in another of my “meditations,” Why I Don’t Go to Church. Nevertheless, it’s not like I am without options.

On the other hand, I could choose to look at my situation as Rabbi Reisman did when the rain started falling and dripping noises came from the window sill of his room. I can decide that there is nothing to be done. The rain is the rain and it makes all sorts of sounds, some of which are quite soothing. I could simply follow Rabbi Reisman’s example, allow the situation to be what it is, and do nothing. Here though, Rabbi Reisman did not explain the whole story. It won’t rain forever. True, we never really know how long a rain storm will last, (barring a report from the weatherman) but we know it will end at some point. We also know that God knows when the rain will end.

When Rabbi Kirzner advises “expect nothing,” it is true that if you expect nothing, you will be disappointed by nothing that happens or doesn’t happen. On the other hand, it’s difficult for most people to plan out even a trip to the grocery store without some small set of expectations. If such is true for a small task like shopping, how much more so should we have expectations when we plan out our walk on a lifelong path of faith?

It is unreasonable expectations and inflexible expectations that often get us in trouble one way or another. We expect a raise so we can afford to go on vacation, and we don’t get it. We expect our spouse to cook dinner one night and she decides to go out to see a friend instead. The result of these inflexible expectations is usually feeling resentment toward the person who disappointed us. Rabbi Reisman felt resentful toward the janitor for taking so long to fix his faucet. There are people who are very resentful of God for also not meeting expectations.

But it’s not like we can’t expect to depend on God. If we could not rely on God for our daily food, our shelter, our livelihood, and our comfort in distress, we would truly feel lost in a chaotic and random world. Fortunately, such is not the case.

He is my God, my living Redeemer,
Rock of my pain in time of distress.
He is my banner, a refuge for me,
the portion in my cup on the day I call.
Into His hand I shall entrust my spirit
when I go to sleep — and I shall awaken!
With my spirit shall my body remain.
HASHEM is with me, I shall not fear.

-from Adon Olam

Adon Olam or “Master of the Universe” is a blessing sung in synagogues all over the world on every Shabbat. It is also the last blessing recited during the bedtime Shema by a Jew right before he retires. It is an expectation that when he goes to sleep and in some small sense, enters the realm of “death,” that he will awaken the next morning, with his spirit returned to him by God. It is true that some people go to sleep and do not awaken and ultimately, as mortal beings, that awaits us all. However, we rely on God and depend on Him to preserve us and to protect us. This is why, upon awakening, a Jew recites Modeh Ani.

I gratefully thank You,
living and existing King,
for returning my soul to me with compassion;
abundant is Your faithfulness.

While I have no idea what will actually happen after I go to sleep or what each day will bring when I first wake up, I expect that God will be there during my sleeping and waking. Near the end of his life, David composed a final Psalm in which he expects that the work he has left unfinished as King will be continued by his son Solomon. It could also be read as a prophesy of the Messiah’s coming and how he will finish the work of tikkun olam; repairing our broken world.

My his name endure forever, may his name connote mastery as long as the sun endures; and all the nations will bless themselves by him; they will praise him. Blessed is Hashem, God, the God of Israel, Who alone does wondrous things. Blessed is His glorious Name forever; and may all the earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen.

–Psalm 72:17-19 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

I don’t know what is going to happen, today, tomorrow, or next week, but I do know that whatever happens, God will be present in my life. If I were to expect nothing, I would have no reason to be disappointed, but I would also have nothing to hope for, and without hope, what is life? The future is a great mystery to human beings but it is not an entirely dark unknown. I know that God is there, my rock and my redeemer and regardless of the direction my path of faith takes, around each bend, at the bottom of each ravine, and at the top of each height, I expect God.

Kosher Jesus

Kosher Jesus, A Book Review

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In my neighborhood, we did not even mention his name. We said “Yoshke,” a Hebrew play on his name, or some children learned to say “cheese and crust” in place of “Jesus Christ.” In a synagogue sermon, rabbis might refer to Jesus – exceedingly rarely – by saying “the founder of Christianity.”

Fundamentally, we understood Jesus as a foreign deity, a man worshipped by people. The Torah instructs us never to mention the names of other gods, as no other god exists except God. We also understood Jesus to be as anti-Jewish as his followers. Was he not the Jew who had rebelled against his people? Was he not the one who instructed his followers to hate the Jews as he did, instigating countless cruelties against those with whom God had established an everlasting covenant? Was he not also the man who had abrogated the Law and said that the Torah is now mostly abolished?

So begins Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s narrative in the Preface to his latest (and perhaps most controversial) book Kosher Jesus. Rabbi Boteach paints for us, a typical picture of how an Orthodox Jewish boy growing up in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood understands the Christian Jesus.

The picture isn’t very flattering to Christians.

You might be wondering why Rabbi Boteach would choose to write a book about Jesus. After all, most Jewish people are, at best, neutral about the existence of the itinerant Jewish rabbi who wandered the through the countryside and towns of Roman occupied Judea in the First Century of the Common Era. Why would an Orthodox Jewish rabbi draw attention to Jesus in anyway? If you’ve been reading the media stories about the sort of attention this book has been receiving, you already know it’s been less than complimentary, both from Christian sources and the Orthodox Jewish community. This book seems to please no one.

So why did Rabbi Boteach write it?

Kosher Jesus sets the stage for Jews and Christians to bridge their differences and come together for the first time through the personality of Jesus himself – the hero, martyr, and teacher that they both share.

This paragraph, taken from the cover flap of the book, provides an “in a nutshell” summary of Boteach’s reasons for creating this much-talked-about work, and it provides us with his goal: to create a connection between Judaism and Christianity across the back of the Jewish Jesus.

Was he successful in achieving his goal?

Not as far as I can tell today, at least on the surface. Of course, it may take months, or even years, to determine the larger impact on the Jewish and Christians communities. One immediate effect we can see is that just about every one with a vested interest in the “reputation” of Jesus is talking about this book. A number of Orthodox Rabbis have outright forbidden their communities to even read the Boteach book (and nothing makes a book more irresistible than when it has been censored) and I can only imagine what (if anything) Christian Pastors are telling their flocks about “Kosher Jesus” from the pulpit.

If Rabbi Boteach had the goal of drawing attention to his book and himself, he has certainly succeeded. He has been known as “the media Rabbi” and has attracted criticism more than once in the past for his statements and associations (particularly with the late Michael Jackson). If his goal was to start a great deal of dialog (polite and otherwise) around the subject of his book, the Jewish Jesus Christ, he has succeeded in this as well, at least in the short term. But is he going to be able to inspire Jewish and Christian audiences to find something in common by “sharing” Jesus?

As I’ve been reading this book, I’ve shared a few of my own insights in various blog posts. I focused on how the Christian community might see the book in my prior write up, Kosher Jesus: The Undivine Savior. In order to emphasize the “Jewishness” of Jesus and make him even somewhat attractive to other Jews, Boteach had to completely deconstruct traditional Christian theology about the “Lord and Savior,” transforming him from the Son of God and prophesied Messiah, to a man born of two Jewish parents, a carpenter turned Rabbi, who fancied himself a would-be Messiah (in Judaism, the Messiah is not expected to be supernatural and particularly not expected to be divine), and ultimately, a man who died as a noble but failed political dissident.

Not exactly the typical Christian view of Jesus.

Scholars who have reviewed this book (and I’m no scholar) have criticized Boteach for his heavy usage of material created by Hyam Maccoby regarding Jesus. In fact, Maccoby’s own views on Jesus have been characterized: Maccoby’s thesis as “perverse misreading” and concluded “Thus I must conclude that Maccoby’s book is not good history, not even history at all.” (Steven T. Katz The Holocaust in Historical Context: The holocaust and mass death before the modern age 1994 “Maccoby’s last work has been devastatingly reviewed, and quite properly so, by John Gager, “Maccoby’s The Mythmaker,” JQR 79.2-3 [October–January 1989], 248-250; to which Maccoby replied, “Paul and Circumcision: A Rejoinder,” JQR). So to use the vernacular, Boteach may have “shot himself in the foot” when he decided to base his depiction of Jesus almost completely on Maccoby’s work.

Since I can’t speak from a Jewish point of view, I must wonder from a Christian perspective, how Rabbi Boteach expects to unite Jews and Christians around their “commonality” in a Jesus Christ who is so unlike the Jesus most Christians find in church? Also, in answering the Christian question, “Why the Jews Cannot Accept Jesus” (Part IV of the book), Boteach creates a Jesus who absolutely must be rejected by Judaism as Messiah, and he describes any person or group who worships a man as if he is a god as idolatrous. Christianity’s insistence on a “three-in-one” God adds polytheism to the mix, and both idolatry and polytheism are anathema to the staunchly monotheistic Jewish people. Rabbi Boteach depicts a church that has to be hopelessly confused to believe Jesus is God, yet Boteach also says this:

I say this not to offend Christian believers, nor to dissuade adherents from living a Christian life. (pg 149)

But if, by definition, Christians are deluded by a terrible misunderstanding of the New Testament text, heavily biased editing of the original teachings of Jesus, and the traitorous actions of the Apostle Paul, to believe that a young Jewish rabbi and revolutionary is actually God incarnate, how can Rabbi Boteach not dissuade believers “from living a Christian life?” He’s just spent the first two-thirds of his book explaining why Christianity has everything completely wrong about who Jesus was, what he saw as his purpose in life, and especially the fact that he has no power to forgive sins and save souls. If anything, Boteach seems to have pounded home the final wedge that will forever separate Christians and Jews.

God is the one great truth. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are paths that bring us to Him. One finds God through personal discovery usually directed by the faith in which one is reared, practiced by one’s ancestors. The merit of any religion is established not by a test of its theological claims but by the goodness of its followers. Therefore, any religion that leads to a good and Godly life has authenticity and truth, even if we cannot embrace all of its theological claims. (pp 149-50)

That probably seems like an insane statement to most Christians. We are taught that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6), so either you’re in or out. We are taught that the only way to God is to “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31). There are no other options, according to traditional Christianity. There is only one doorway to salvation and it’s not through anything we can do. Our only participation in our own salvation is belief and faith in Jesus Christ.

But in Judaism, it isn’t what you believe, it’s what you do that matters. If, in the name of your religion, you feed the hungry, visit the sick, build an orphanage for homeless and abandoned children, or act as a peacemaker between a feuding husband and wife, then that is how you will be judged. You could be a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim and it’s all the same. That seems to be what Rabbi Boteach is saying, and that is the basis on which he expects his readers to build the bridge between Judaism and Christianity, using the Jesus we see in his book.

In real life, it doesn’t work out that way. Judaism, unlike Christianity, doesn’t believe there is a single path to God, but it does believe there are specific paths. If you’re a Jew, your path is the Torah, living a life of righteous acts, prayer, and ritual worship. If you are any other people group or religion, your path is in obedience to the Seven Noahide Laws. If you are compliant to these seven basic requirements, (these laws are deceptively simple, since they can be subdivided into almost a hundred “sub-laws”) you merit a place in the world to come and are considered by the Jews as a righteous Gentile.

But by definition, a typical Christian cannot be considered a righteous Gentile because, in believing Jesus is God, the believer violates the prohibition against Idolatry. There have been exceptions, such as those Christians who, during the Holocaust, made great efforts to protect the Jews from the Nazis and who rescued Jewish people from being sent to the death camps, but those exceptions are few and far between. It is also true that the Talmud has much to say about Jews maintaining good relations with everyone, including idol worshipers, for the ways of peace:

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

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

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

Nevertheless, the Tanya, an early work of Hasidic philosophy used heavily in Kabbalah, has less complementary things to say about all non-Jews:

The souls of the nations of the world, however, emanate from the other, unclean kelipot which contain no good whatever, as is written in Etz Chayim, Portal 49, ch. 3, that all the good that the nations do, is done out of selfish motives. So the Gemara comments on the verse, “The kindness of the nations is sin” — that all the charity and kindness done by the nations of the world is only for their self-glorification…

as quoted from
“Lessons in Tanya”
Chabad.org

I know I’m throwing a huge monkey wrench into the machine, but it’s important to define the barriers to Rabbi Boteach’s stated goals, both from the Christian and Jewish perspectives. All I’m saying is that nearly 2,000 years of strife between Christians and Jews will not be repaired for the sake of a single book which depicts the historical Jesus in a manner that most Christians and Jews will not be able to accept.

So what’s good about this book? More than you might think, given everything I’ve just written. Actually, I think Christians can benefit from quite a few things Boteach has to say about Jesus, not in terms of historical accuracy, but in introducing the believer to the Jewish Jesus. There is no doubt that Jesus was (and is) a Jewish man and rabbi who taught lessons that were completely consistent with the Law of Moses, who did not break the Shabbat or any of the other mitzvot as Christianity imagines, and who did not expect even the tiniest portions of the Torah to be extinguished until Heaven and Earth themselves were extinguished (Matthew 5:18).

Christian supersessionism is responsible for the legacy of crimes against the Jewish people which the church suffers from even today. It is also the source of a terrible misconception about who Christ was and is, both in relation to the descendents of Jacob and to the non-Jewish disciples of Jesus. If we can absorb some sort of understanding of the Jewish identity of Jesus into the theology and doctrine of the modern church, perhaps we can be instrumental in building a better bridge between us and the Jewish people. We might also (and this is probably an unintended effect by Rabbi Boteach, but it fits so well) find a way, as Christians, to understand those Jews who have faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and who also continue to live a completely Jewish ethnic, cultural, and religious life.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s book Kosher Jesus is both deeply flawed and irresistibly compelling. For many, it will be “the book you love to hate” but it is also a window, albeit a shaded and distorted one, into the Jewish perspective on the Jewish Jesus. If you are a Christian who cannot tolerate any portrait of your Savior besides the one you encounter in the pew of your church on Sunday morning, then this book will seem horrifying. However, if you are a little adventurous and want to seek out the portions of wheat this book offers among the chaff, then Kosher Jesus may be worth your while. I don’t agree with a great deal that Rabbi Boteach had to say about Jesus, but I also learned a few things. I don’t regret reading his book.

Torah Portion

Mishpatim: The Boundaries of Knowing God

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At the conclusion of Mishpatim – after almost an entire Torah portion that addresses matters not directly related to Mattan Torah, the giving of the Torah – Moshe is told: “Go up to G-d.” (Shmos 24:1) Rashi explains (Commentary of Rashi ibid.) that this took place on the fourth of Sivan, prior to Mattan Torah.

The Midrash notes (Shmos Rabbah 12:3; Tanchuma, Va’eira 15) that at the time of Mattan Torah , two things were accomplished: “Those Above descended below” – “G-d descended on Mt. Sinai,” (Shmos 19:20) ; and “Those below ascended Above” – “And to Moshe He said: ‘Ascend to G-d.’ ” (Ibid. 24:1) Man ascended to G-dliness.

“A Tale of Two Portions”
Commentary on Torah Portion Mishpatim
The Chassidic Dimension
Chabad.org

The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and wait there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the teachings and commandments which I have inscribed to instruct them.” So Moses and his attendant Joshua arose, and Moses ascended the mountain of God. To the elders he had said, “Wait here for us until we return to you. You have Aaron and Hur with you; let anyone who has a legal matter approach them.”

When Moses had ascended the mountain, the cloud covered the mountain. The Presence of the Lord abode on Mount Sinai, and the cloud hid it for six days. On the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. Now the Presence of the Lord appeared in the sight of the Israelites as a consuming fire on the top of the mountain. Moses went inside the cloud and ascended the mountain; and Moses remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. –Exodus 24:12-18 (JPS Tanakh)

Regardless of the differences between the world’s wide spectrum of religious disciplines, they share one, basic, common goal: to understand God. How we conceive of God and the mechanics and meaning behind the process of finding Him (or her, depending on your tradition) varies tremendously across different cultures and across the panorama of history, but in the end, we want and even need to connect to something that is larger than us, and to find out why we are here and where our place is in a universe.

In Judaism, this process has two parts: God descending to man and man ascending to God. Both of these parts happen at the end of Mishpatim, and the climactic moment of this week’s parashah, in some sense, mirrors the desires of every person of faith. This is why we study the actions of the Creator: to learn the nature of God. It is also why we study people who have had personal encounters with the Creator…because those people have learned something of the nature of God. I like how Rabbi Tzvi Freeman expresses the thoughts of the Rebbe in this matter:

Science is the study of those things G-d thinks about,
by one of His thoughts.

Torah is the study of G-d thinking.

We do not have the privilege of ascending Sinai as God has descended upon it, and the ability to encounter God within the smoke and the flames, but like my previous description of how Moses encountered God, we also have two parts to our own process of approaching an understanding of Him: we can study the universe and we can study the Torah. As Rabbi Freeman points out, the first is studying what God thinks about and the second is studying God as He thinks.

I’m not discounting prayer at all and prayer is a vital component in establishing and developing our relationship with the Creator, but we are not only called to experience God in a spiritual and emotional sense, we are also called to experience Him in thinking. We need to understand, at least to the limits God built into the human mind.

This is why the Torah has manifested as a document or series of documents that is tangible and lends itself to study and multiple layers of interpretation. It’s why humanity has spent countless centuries pouring over every tiny bit of text and arguing with ourselves and each other over meanings both obvious and arcane. This is why the Bible can be read in your native language, pointing the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, and still allow God to be a complete mystery in every single aspect.

God seeks to dwell among mankind, but our ability to “know God” is something we struggle with all our lives. As human beings, we often make the mistake of thinking that God is knowable in the same way his creations are knowable. We mistake how we can learn what God’s thinking about by studying His universe (which we don’t understand all that well, either) with understanding the process of God thinking by studying the Bible. And even in studying God’s “thought process,” our ability to truly comprehend more than a tiny fraction of anything at all regarding God, is extremely limited. The world is filled with commentaries (including this one), in bookstores, in libraries, in seminaries, and particularly on the Internet, with a stream of endless text purporting to explain the nature and character of God, including that which is secret and that which may only be known to a favored few “prophets”.

But what do we know?

One who is unqualified can never assume that he understands the depths of halachah like a genuine posek. It is astounding how even the most apparently obvious halachos can sometimes be much more complex than they appear on the surface.

Mishna Berura Yomi Digest
Stories to Share
“The Transfer of Holiness”
Siman 153 Seif 1

A certain man was assumed to be a kohen for many years and redeemed many bechoros. One day he was confronted with an unexpected visitor to town who claimed upon his arrival that this kohen was really no kohen at all! To the surprise of everyone in the town, the man who had been assumed to be a kohen for so many years admitted that he was not a kohen. People wondered what the halachah was in such a case. Was this man still considered a kohen? Did all the many bechoros that he had redeemed need a new pidyon? Although they figured he was now like a yisrael in every regard since presumably he had nothing to gain by accepting this man’s testimony — and this is the halachah whenever
someone believes one witness—they decided to consult with a competent posek.

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“The False Kohen”
Arachim 34

Studying TorahHere we see two things. We see that not everyone is qualified to interpret the Bible and, even more so, to plum the depths of halacha related to Jewish understanding and ritual observance, and we also learn that one may successfully misrepresent himself as a person who has a special religious or teaching authority when in fact, he does not. Beyond the fact that there are false prophets, charlatans, and religious hucksters in the world who have some sort of religious ax to grind, there are also people who are seemingly well-meaning and sincere, but who are also naive or just plain ignorant about how complicated it is to study the text and arrive at meaningful conclusions. There are people who feel they have a special calling to arrive at these “meaningful conclusions” and to teach them to others, perhaps because of some emotional need, when that special calling is only an illusion. Anyone can create a web site or a blog (even me).

I’m not trying to discourage anyone from honest study and exploration on the path that leads to holiness, (which is, after all, what I’m trying to do) but there’s a difference between being one pilgrim on the road who asks questions and reaches for the Heavens, and someone who is a true posek and tzaddik who has spent all of his or her life and resources in acquiring the knowledge to fulfill a position that only God can assign.

I am the former and not the latter, but I still need to ask the questions, record my observations and, if necessary, accept (hopefully) gentle rebukes from those who are authentically learned (as opposed to the scores of folks out there who only think they are) as to where I’ve made my mistakes.

And I’ve made mistakes.

And I will no doubt continue to make mistakes as I attempt to learn, throughout the rest of my life.

But it’s worth it if, in the end, I am allowed to even approach the tiniest thread trailing from the hem of the garment of God.

But, as I said, there are limits.

The above allows for an extended interpretation of a famous statement of our Rabbis: (Bechinos Olam, sec. 8, ch. 2; Ikarim, Discourse II, ch. 30; Shaloh 191b.) “The ultimate of knowledge is not to know You.” The simple meaning of this statement is that a person should realize the limits of his intellect, and therefore understand that knowing G-d is impossible, for He transcends all limits. There is, however, an allusion to the concept that when a person has fully developed his mind, he appreciates that even the concepts which he knows possess an inner dimension which transcends intellect. And going further, one can infer dimensions of G-d that are infinite, internalizing this knowledge to the point that it shapes our personalities.

-Rabbi Eli Touger
After Sinai; Making the Torah a Part of Ourselves
Commentary on Mishpatim
“Knowing, and Not Knowing”
Adapted from
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. III, p. 896ff; Vol. XVI, p. 242ff;
Sefer HaSichos 5749, p. 243ff.
Chabad.org

As I’ve already mentioned, our limits are built in, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a great deal we can learn, as long as we are mindful that we do have limits and know where those limits are set. Some men are great scholars, while others will only rise to the level of a humble and seeking student. Some women have been appointed by God to be learned sages, while others may only reach the most elementary levels of Torah comprehension. This does not make one of us better than another in God’s eyes, or make the learned more loved and cherished by the Creator than the struggling disciple. It only means that we have our roles and our boundaries which have been set for us as God has set the limits to the sea and the sky.

Of course, we must make certain that the limits we acknowledge are those set by God and not by us. Just as an overly ambitious or arrogant person can elevate himself to a station higher than God intended (and eventually fall an equally great distance into a spectacular abyss of defeat), so can a person fail to rise to the level God has apportioned for them, not recognizing that they can seek and learn and understand more than they have imagined (or more than someone else told them they were allowed). Seek the level that God has set; learn to see when you still have miles to go on the trail and when you have reached the point where God has said, “no further”.

But even when you have reached that limit, realize that it’s not truly the end.

Knowledge of G-d in this manner anticipates and precipitates the coming of the Redemption, the era when “A man will no longer teach his friend…, for all will know Me, from the small to the great.” (Jeremiah 31:33)

“Knowing, and Not Knowing”
-Rabbi Touger

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

-John Muir, Scottish-American environmentalist and writer

Good Shabbos.

Uncategorized

Rebuilding the Broken Wall

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Rema rules that it is prohibited to destroy part of a Bais HaKnesses unless the intent is to build in that spot. The Mishnah Berurah explains that in such an instance it is not considered destroying; rather it is considered building. He then mentions that many authorities permit drilling a hole in the wall of a Bais HaKnesses in order to attach a shtender even though Taz is stringent about this matter.

Mishna Berura Yomi Digest
Halacha Highlight
“Breaking part of the wall of a Bais HaKnesses”
Rema Siman 152 Seif 1 (b)

So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. –John 2:18-22 (ESV)

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. –John 19:34 (ESV)

I suppose you could say that today’s “meditation” is an extension of what I wrote yesterday. But when studying this topic, I can’t avoid the connection between the tearing down and building up of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the “tearing down and building up” of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. We see that, as Rema rules, you are not to destroy any part of the Temple or a synagogue unless you intend to also build on that very spot. How much more do we understand that the Master was “destroyed” with the intention of building up.

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. –Matthew 16:21

On yesterday’s blog, Rabbi Carl Kinbar stated:

Therefore, we must consider the possibility that God permitted the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash (and the death of many) is order to establish Torah.

The Master also said that difficult things had to occur so that all righteousness may be established. This included his own, shameful, agonizing death and surrendering to a sentence he did not deserve. And yet, if he didn’t submit to the will of the Father, even in this, what hope would there have been for the world? We have a parable that, on the surface, seems mysterious, but that I believe can be applied to this point.

Today’s amud discusses when a shul must be torn down. A certain community shul was slated to be destroyed and then rebuilt. As the repairs were in the final stages, the members wondered whether they needed to make a blessing of hatov v’hameitiv. It was really a compound question though: is one required to make such a blessing on the construction of a new shul, and if so, does a rebuilt shul have the same status as one that is new outright?

They posed these questions to the Halachos Ketanos who replied, “A community that has built a new shul definitely needs to make such a blessing on it. The shaliach tzibur should stand up in front of everyone and make the blessing out loud. The same certainly holds true regarding a shul that was destroyed or demolished and then rebuilt from scratch. The proof is from the Ran in Nedarim who writes that if one vowed never to enter a certain house and it subsequently collapsed and was rebuilt he may enter the rebuilt house. This is because it is considered like an entirely new structure.

He continued, “The source for this is the midrash in Koheles Rabbah: This could be compared…to a king whose son had angered him. The king was so infuriated that he drove the boy out and swore that he would never again be allowed entry into the royal palace. What did the king do when he finally calmed down? He ordered the palace demolished and rebuilt. In this manner he was able to have his son rejoin him in the palace without violating his oath!”

Mishna Berura Yomi Digest
Stories to Share
“A Rebuilt Palace”
Rema Siman 152 Seif 1 (b)

Like a King who swore he would never see his son again in the palace, something had to be torn down and rebuilt so that we among the nations could enter into the presence of our Sovereign. In some way, what had to be destroyed and rebuilt was the Son of the King, through whom the veil between a non-covenant people and God could be torn away, so that we could relate to God through the covenant of the Messiah. This also reminds me of the mikvah, where a person and his sins enter into the water and the realm of “death” and when the man emerges, he is clean and his sins are no more. Perhaps this is how we may think of ourselves as having shared in the death and new life of Jesus.

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. –Romans 8:16-17 (ESV)

…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. –Philippians 3:10-11 (ESV)

We only understand all this and have hope due to our faith in the promises. Even when it seems like everything holy is being torn down in the world, and nothing that is righteous is being built up, we must continue to realize that he is coming and we have not been abandoned in a battered and broken world.

On Erev Tisha B’av, the rebbe approached him and asked if he had a siyum prepared for a seudas mitzvah after the fast. This is customary among many chassidim; it is meant to demonstrate a belief that Moshiach will certainly come and redeem us soon despite our lengthy exile.

Mishna Berura Yomi Digest
Stories to Share
“He Has Stretched out a Line”
Shulchan Aruch Siman 152 Seif 1 (a)

PrayingAs I review the state of the world of faith, including some of its representatives who comment in the religious blogosphere, I often despair and think that nothing I say or do really matters. I often wonder if anyone really seeks the Holiness of God or if they instead, choose to worship at the altar of their own self-righteous opinions. I know I have “worshiped” there on occasion, which makes me feel all the more disgusted. But when I read and study and pray and reflect within myself and between me and the heart of God, I am momentarily encouraged. Man is flawed and the world is splintered, but that’s what tikkun olam is all about. Like the Chassidim, we must have “a siyum prepared for a seudas mitzvah”, so to speak, because we too, among the non-Jewish disciples of the Master, also believe the Moshiach will most certainly come, no matter how long we may have to wait.

If only God will strengthen us against the times of doubt, and sorrow, and grief.

You have to begin with the knowledge
that there is nothing perfect in this world.

Our job is not to hunt down perfection and live within it.
It is to take whatever broken pieces we have found
and sew them together as best we can.

—the Rebbe’s response to a girl who wanted to leave her school for what she thought to be a better one.
as related by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Chabad.org

Perhaps we can do better than just putting together broken pieces of the fallen wall. Perhaps we will see something new and wonderful being raised up.

I believe with a complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may delay, nevertheless, every day I will wait for him to come.

-from the Rambam’s thirteen principles of faith

May he come soon and in our days, and may we see the fallen booth of David being rebuilt with our own eyes.

Kosher Jesus, Uncategorized

Nothing’s Perfect

18 Comments

You have to begin with the knowledge that there is nothing perfect in this world.

Our job is not to hunt down perfection and live within it. It is to take whatever broken pieces we have found and sew them together as best we can.

—the Rebbe’s response to a girl who wanted to leave her school for what she thought to be a better one.
as related by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Chabad.org

Oh, duh! No, that’s not my Homer Simpson imitation, it’s my “light dawns on marble head” moment and the reason I’m writing this “extra meditation.” I’m going to use the above quoted phrase for tomorrow’s “morning meditation,” but as I was doing one of my obsessive reviews of tomorrow’s blog, trying to find all the typos I will invariably miss, it hit me.

Life isn’t perfect.

I suppose that’s obvious to you and really, it’s obvious to me too, but I spontaneously applied it to something specific in my own context and everything suddenly made sense. Let me explain.

I periodically kvetch about how hard it is to find other people who see things in the world of faith that are even remotely similar to how I see them (although my “morning meditation” for today has attracted some very nice comments). I also complain about my desire for a sense of community, particularly with my wife, and how frustrated I am that what I planned (boy, God must be having a good chuckle right now) doesn’t seem to be working out.

But what did I expect?

It’s not so much the statement that the Rebbe made above (as related by Rabbi Freeman), it’s the circumstances around the statement that made something “click” inside of me.

…the Rebbe’s response to a girl who wanted to leave her school for what she thought to be a better one.

I’ve probably said some variation of this a thousand times to relatives and friends when they’ve told me how life isn’t perfect for them, either. I just find it funny that God chose here and now to give me my “light bulb moment.”

It should have come sooner but I wasn’t paying attention.

I was having a conversation with the Missus the other day, again talking about the possibility of taking a class or two with her at one of the synagogues here in town. Somehow, we got on the topic of intermarried couples and, since she knows I’m reading Rabbi Boteach’s book Kosher Jesus, we talked about the very distinct differences in how Christians and Jews see the world, the Bible, the Messiah, and God. As we were talking, I was reflecting to myself on how one of the reasons I left the “Messianic” movement, at least in terms of physical worship and self-identification, was because I perceived it as a barrier to my joining her in a Jewish worship and study context.

I mentioned to her in our conversation, that I know there are plenty of intermarried couples in both the Reform shul and Chabad communities, and then she said something that stopped me cold. She said those couples were all comprised of one Jewish spouse and one non-religious (specifically non-Christian) spouse. They’re all Jew/Gentile intermarried, but not “mixed-religious couples”.

I see.

I suddenly realized where the barrier is located in my wife getting comfortable including me in her Jewish community. It’s located squarely at the intersection of “Jesus Street” and “Christian Avenue”. In other words (taking my tongue out of my cheek), she really doesn’t want to take her Christian husband into a Jewish synagogue to interact with her Jewish community. The real problem wasn’t just the negative perception many Jews have about Messianics. That’s why my leaving the Messianic community didn’t produce the desired result. My being a Christian is the real problem.

Oh.

Did you ever play “Battleship” when you were a kid? Ever have your fleet sunk? Mine ended up soundly torpedoed and sent swiftly to the bottom of the cold, cold Atlantic.

I was pretty grumpy about it initially. In fact, I’ve been pretty grumpy about it until about thirty minutes ago (as I write this). Then I re-read the Rebbe’s words and the context in which he said them, and realized that if I thought I was going to get my way, I was sadly mistaken. I won’t even say that “life’s not fair,” because I don’t think fairness has anything to do with it. It’s not like I have some sort of “right” here. It was more of a desire to join with my wife at the level of worship and perhaps to take my meager level of Jewish learning up a notch.

That’s not going to happen now. Of course, it’s not like it was owed to me or something. Sure, it would have been nice, but it’s not my right to enter into someone else’s world if I don’t belong there. It’s not so much that I wanted in the Jewish world. I wanted in the Jewish world so I could share my wife’s world with her.

But life’s not perfect. In fact, life has never been perfect, even among those who have served God with outstanding faithfulness, which doesn’t exactly describe me. No perfect life. No perfect people.

The king’s primary function is to dispense justice and righteousness in Israel. Second Samuel 8:15 tells us, “David reigned over all Israel; and David administered justice and righteousness for all his people.” The Psalmist says, “The strength of the King loves justice; You have established equity; You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.” (Psalm 99:4) When Israel practiced justice and righteousness, she was blessed, but when she strayed from justice and righteousness under the influence of wicked kings, the prophets rebuked her. “I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the level,” (Isaiah 28:17) the LORD declares through the prophet Isaiah. The Psalmist prays for the Davidic King, saying, “Give the king Your judgments (mishpatim), O God, and Your righteousness to the king’s son. May he judge Your people with righteousness and Your afflicted with justice.” (Psalm 72:1-2)

“Righteousness and Justice”
Weekly eDrash
Commentary on Torah Portion Mishpatim
First Fruits of Zion

Israel was the only nation specifically established by God, and given a personal and corporate set of laws and ordinances by which the Hebrews were supposed to obey their Creator as a people. If any country was to have operated with flawless perfection, it should have been Israel, and yet even a casual reading of the Tanakh (Old Testament) tells us that they experienced dramatic swings, from amazing prosperity to bitter and total defeat…and back again. Life wasn’t perfect for the Children of Israel and it isn’t perfect for the Jewish people today. Life isn’t perfect for the church, and certainly it hasn’t been perfect over the past 2,000 years of Christian history.

Why should even this one thing that I ask for be perfect for me? There’s no reason it should be.

Oh, I know the Christian platitudes: “Go bathe it in prayer” and such, but frankly, I’ve seen some of the most faithful people I know end up disappointed in so many ways and still maintain their faith and trust.

I’m not going to “win” this one, but I guess I can’t say that I mind all that much (well, I mind a little). There’s so much else that is going right. My wife and I are together after almost 29 years of marriage. We both are reasonably healthy, we have three children and one grandson. We are fed, and clothed, and housed. We are gainfully employed and are able to meet our needs and a number of our wants. Life isn’t perfect, but it isn’t horrible, either.

Most of all, both my wife and I are relating to God, each in our own way and in our own manner, as Jew and Christian. I’m a really unconventional Christian and she’s not always the typical Jew, but we get by.

Now that this realization has happened, I don’t know what comes next. I don’t have “a plan” anymore. Maybe I’ll finish out my year long experiment here and then “sink” this blog along with my hopes or maybe I won’t. I’ll have to wait and see if God decides to fill in the blanks in my life with something I haven’t anticipated, or if He’ll just let me have blanks in my life for a day, or a week, or a month, or a year or ten.

Right now, I guess I’ll take the Rebbe’s advice, try to find whatever broken pieces of my aspirations that God has left lying around and see if I can patch them together into something that makes some sort of sense.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Uncategorized

Rambling on the Trail of the Temple of God

15 Comments

Shulchan Aruch rules that it is prohibited to tear down a Bais HaKnesses in order to build a new Bais HaKnesses. The reason is out of concern that they will tear down the old Bais HaKnesses and then something will happen that will prevent them from constructing the new Bais HaKnesses. Rather, they must first construct the new Bais HaKnesses and only then may they tear down the old Bais HaKnesses. Mishnah Berurah…presents a disagreement between Magen Avrohom and Taz whether it is permitted to tear down an old Bais HaKnesses if there is a Bais HaKnesses in town that is large enough for everyone to daven so that even if the new Bais HaKnesses is not built they will not be left without a Bais HaKnesses for davening. Taz permits tearing down the old Bais HaKnesses in these circumstances whereas Magen Avrohom prohibits the practice. Biur Halacha…notes that many later authorities cite Taz’s position as halacha and he adds that since tearing down a Bais HaKnesses to build another one is only Rabbinically prohibited one may follow Taz’s lenient position.

Rema rules that it is even prohibited to tear down a single wall in order to make the Bais HaKnesses larger; rather they must first build the new wall and then it is permitted to tear down the old wall. Sefer Tzedaka U’Mishpat…contends that Rema’s ruling is limited to where the construction would make it impossible to daven in the Bais HaKnesses. If, however, they would be able to continue to daven there while the construction
is going on it is permitted to tear down a wall to expand the Bais HaKnesses even before building the new wall. The rationale is that this is no different than having another Bais HaKnesses where they can daven.

Mishna Berura Yomi Digest
Halacha Highlight
“Tearing down a Bais HaKnesses”
Siman 152 Seif 1 (a)

Disclaimer: Everything you’re about to read is provocative and possibly won’t make a lot of sense. I’m engaging in more than a bit of “stream of consciousness” for this morning meditation. Try not to get too offended if I stumble across one of your theologies and describe it differently than you understand it. I’m just chronicling my spiritual journey for today, not telling you what to think or feel. End of disclaimer. Carry on.

I know what I quoted above is applied to the tearing down and building synagogues and not the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, but the “Stories to Share” for the Siman 152 indicates that the ruling for one can be applied to the other.

Shortly after they washed, the rebbe asked, “Chazal tells us that it is forbidden for one to tear down a shul until the replacement has been built. Now, how could Hashem have destroyed the beis hamikdash without building a replacement? This seems to contradict this gemara, which is the basis of the halachah in Shulchan Aruch siman 152!”

I suppose that’s why, when studying this commentary this morning, I was reminded of the following prophecy by the Master:

So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. –John 2:18-22 (ESV)

In spite of the rather detailed prophesy we find in Book of Ezekiel, starting at Chapter 40, describing the Third Temple that is to be built by God and descend to Earth from Heaven, most Christians (OK, probably all Christians) don’t believe another physical Temple will ever be built. They believe that any mention of a Temple in the New Testament is strictly a spiritual reference, rather than describing an actual structure. One of the proof texts they cite for this belief is John 2 while another is this:

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. –1 Corinthians 3:16-17 (ESV)

The logic is that God caused Herod’s Temple to be destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. never to be rebuilt as a physical structure, both because Jesus declared his body to be raised as a Temple three days after his death, and because the bodies of all Christians are to be considered “Holy Temples”. There’s no need for a Third Temple, because the Temple has been shifted from a physical to a spiritual structure. It’s a simple matter of substitution: the physical for the spiritual; the flesh vs. the spirit.

But if you have been following my blog for any amount of time, you know that it’s not all that simple to me.

On the other hand, if Jesus was to be the substitution for Herod’s Temple, then he was “built” (that is, resurrected) prior to the destruction of that Temple, as required by halacha, so that requirement would seem have been satisfied. In fact, if there is supposed to be a physical Third Temple, according to halacha, the construction should have been started before Herod’s Temple was destroyed. Of course, it’s not like the Jews had a lot of choice in the matter, but if you consider that it was God who allowed the Second Temple’s destruction, then He had all of the choice in the matter. We saw that this question had already been asked in a previous quote. Here’s the answer, according to the Gerrer Rebbe:

The rebbe then answered his own rhetorical question. “This is the meaning of the verse, ‘Hashem has planned to destroy the wall of the daughter of Tzion; He has stretched out a line.’ (Eichah 2:8) This means that from the moment that Hashem decided to destroy the beis hamikdash, He had already laid down the infrastructure of the new beis hamikdash. The beis hamikdash is only waiting for the correct time to descend—it is already built!”

Keeping that in mind, I’ve often interpreted the following as God delivering the Third Temple from Heaven to a mankind desperate to dwell again with their Creator:

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. –Revelation 21:2

I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of arguments (and maybe some hate mail) about my interpretations here, since I’m stringing together Rabbinic commentary and Christian theology with not much more than imagination and tiny strands of sewing thread, but I’m not trying to create a proof. I’m only trying to start people thinking and asking questions. Could this all be possible? Is Ezekiel’s Temple seen descending from Heaven in Revelation 21 “as a bride adorned for her husband?” Did God “build” it for humanity before Herod’s Temple was destroyed? What’s the relationship between the “temple” of Christ’s body and the Temple from Heaven? For that matter, what is the relationship between all of that and the “temples” of our Christian bodies?

I don’t know.

I realize that’s probably disappointing, but I don’t have some secret, mystical, spiritual connection or explanation to give you. All I have are the little bits and pieces of my understanding of the Bible and this “stream of consciousness” I call a blog to try and express my feelings and experiences. I have Ezekiel telling me there will be a Third Temple, I have Jewish commentary telling me God will build it and deliver it to humanity, and I have Revelation saying (possibly) that John saw the actual “delivery” in his vision. Maybe all that hangs together and maybe not, but it is certainly compelling.

But if all that is true, what about us being Temples with the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, much like the Divine Presence dwelt within the Mishkan in the desert and within Solomon’s Temple? Christianity assumes that, except for specific prophets of old, the Holy Spirit dwelt in no one until Pentecost in Acts 2. Now we believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in every Christian starting at the moment when we declare Jesus as Christ and Lord. But is that really true?

Admittedly, you don’t see a mass indwelling event with the Spirit entering each and every Hebrew at the foot of Mount Sinai the moment the Torah is given, but the idea isn’t unheard of in Judaism:

In 1759, about a year before the Baal Shem Tov passed away, there was an incident that illustrated his immense love for his fellow Jew. At that time there was a heretical sect led by a man named Jacob Frank. These Frankists had begun agitating amongst the Christian authorities against the Jews with specific emphasis against the Talmud. (In a previous “debate” in 1757, the Frankists had succeeded in causing the Talmud to be burnt in Lvov.) The bishop of Lemberg decreed that a debate should be held between the Jews and the Frankists. The Baal Shem Tov was a member of the three man delegation that represented the Jews. They were successful in averting this evil decree, and the Talmud was not burnt. At the same time however, the defeated Frankists were then forced to convert to Christianity. While most of the Jewish leaders were happy at the downfall of these evil men, the Baal Shem Tov was not. He said. “The Divine Presence wails and says, ‘So long as a limb is attached to the body there is still a hope that there can be a cure, but once the limb is cut off there is no cure forever.’ And every Jew is a limb of the Divine Presence.”

-from the Biography of
Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov (1698 – 1760)
Jewish Virtual Library

Philip Bimbaun in A Book of Jewish Concepts says, “Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidim, is reported to have said: Every Jew is an organ of the Shekkinah [the Divine Presence]. As long as the organ is joined to the body, however tenuously, there is hope; once it is cut off, all hope is long” (609, 610).

-quoted from
Romans (Randall House Bible Commentary) (pg 47)
Randall House Publications (December 19, 1987)
by F. Leroy Forlines

The use of the term ‘them’ rather than ‘it’ has been interpreted as a message that the purpose of the Mishkan sanctuary was to facilitate the dwelling of the Divine Presence within the heart of every Jew. The role of the Mishkan in the wilderness and during the first four centuries of a Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael was perpetuated by the first and second Beit Hamikdash Temples which spanned a period of nine centuries. All of this is today but a memory to which a visit to the Kotel (Western Wall) gives a special dimension. This does not mean, however, that a Jew cannot build a mini-sanctuary in his heart even today. The Divine Presence is waiting to dwell within the hearts of all Jews if only they will let it enter!

-Rabbi Mendel Weinbach
‘The “Holy Sites”‘
For the week ending 8 February 2003 / 6 Adar I 5763
Ohr Somayach

The obvious objection that a Christian could bring up here, is that these commentaries and interpretations were constructed well after the beginning of the Christian church and could have been “borrowed” from Christianity by the Jews. I can’t say that you’re wrong, if this is your assumption, since I have no way of knowing. I really don’t know if the concept of every Jew being a limb or organ of the Divine Presence predated the birth of Jesus. It would be exciting if it did, and that each Jew at Sinai were a human receptacle for the Divine Presence, but I don’t know.

What I do know is that it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the images of His Spirit, the Divine Presence (which probably isn’t an equivalent concept to the Holy Spirit), the Mishkan, the physical Temples, the Temple of the body of Christ, and the temples of our own bodies as disciples of the Master, are all somehow interwoven in a mysterious and mystical message that has been in the process of being created and developed and expanded for thousands and thousands of years.

I’ve said before that I don’t think of the Bible as this static document containing unchanging, eternal truths. Of course, there are eternal truths to be found between its covers, but it is so much more. There’s a living, breathing experience to be had in the Bible and it changes for each age and each people. Some words, phrases, and books may be more relevant and meaningful now than they were before, while others may not apply in the same way, if at all, as in the time when they were written. Human beings have a tendency to read the Bible, apply a theological meaning to its various parts, and disregard (or completely “spiritualize”) the other bits and pieces that don’t seem to fit. We impose our personalities onto the Word of God and call it the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Far be it from me to deny the Holy Spirit, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that whatever occurs to us in our imagination must be from God. It could be our imagination trying to make the Bible fit the theology we’ve heard from the pulpit, just as a person tries to create a coherent story from the disjointed, hallucinogenic images they experienced in last night’s dreams.

This is very much putting the cart before the horse. We need to try and allow the Bible to tell us its story in its own words and using its own context. This is an enormously difficult task and in fact, it may well be impossible, even with the guidance of the Spirit, if for no other reason, than because of the limitations of the human mind. Add to that our own prejudices and biases, and we even further inhibit the Spirit and our own understanding. I’m just as guilty of this as the next person and I’m just as likely to turn to various commentaries and studies to try and receive an insight into the words God gave to humanity, along with “the Word who became flesh” that God gave to humanity.

By these ramblings, I’m sure you’ve concluded that I’ve been far from successful in acquiring a meaningful insight into the Bible, and you’re probably right. But it’s not the destination that I’m focused upon but rather, it’s the journey. God has scattered these tantalizing little jewels along the path. What do they mean? How can we apply them to our travels? How did those who came before us on the trail understand these shards of treasure? All these questions are like splinters in my mind and if I don’t ask them out loud, they will surely drive me mad. Like Icarus, I must risk destruction by flying too near the Sun in order to find illumination. Like Peter, who utterly failed the Master by denying him on the eve of his execution, I cannot simply tuck my tail between my legs and scurry off into oblivion when confronted with a Holy mystery. I must drag myself back into his presence, humbled and humiliated, begging his forgiveness, seeking his love, and asking to him to appeal to God to give me the strength to do the impossible.

And what seems so impossible? To live in a world with so many questions and so few answers. But God knows what He’s doing. It’s the questions that drive me. If I only had answers, my journey would be done, I would be at peace, and I would “know God” (Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 8:11). We are not to “know God” until the Messianic age and beyond. Until then, we are the Temple, and we are disciples of the Temple, and indeed, we also long for the days when the Temple built by God alone, will descend from Heaven to Earth. How is this all possible? The questions are the journey. Someday, God will be the answer, as surely He already is.

"When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness." -Rabbi Tzvi Freeman