The Conundrum Religion

November 1, 2011 James Pyles 33 Comments

No matter how much you distrust your own sincerity or question your motives, there is no trace of doubt that at your core lives a G-dly soul, pure and sincere.

You provide the actions and the deed—just do what is good.

She needs no more than a pinhole through which to break out and fill those deeds with divine power.

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

Would that it was so simple. I guess it should be that simple to serve God. Really, I outlined the basic core of it a few days ago in my blog post Being Heaven on Earth. More than anything, if we want to serve God, we have a duty to serve other people in whatever way we can, great or small. It’s a very simple concept. No wonder people get it messed up all of the time.

I sometimes contribute to the confusion. In yesterday’s morning meditation I introduced a discussion of the relationship between the laws of Noah as chronicled in Genesis 9 and how they interact with the Mosaic and Messianic covenants (Sinai and the Cross respectively). While, as my friend Derek Leman pointed out to me, the concept of being a Noahide is post-New Testament, I still think the “theme” of a non-Jew, non-Israelite, non-Hebrew being able to have a covenant relationship with God in the post-diluvian world says much about God’s compassion for humanity.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Then again, there are still those in the Christian/Messianic world who insist that Christians are grafted into Israel to the degree that they become Israel. That is, they become Jewish in all but name only and are obligated to perform the identical 613 commandments as the Jewish people. This very much takes a long stick and stirs up the muddy, murky waters of “Judeo-Christian” (I use the term in quotes because it doesn’t exist in reality) religion.

It all seems so much easier when you look at it as just dedicating your life to performing 1000 mitzvot or feeding and caring for (video) people who can’t do these things for themselves.

We make religion out to be quite a mess when it doesn’t have to be.

I recently read a review of Talya Fishman’s book Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures which describes how the Talmud became a completely integrated element in the religious life of every observant Jew. It seems that integration wasn’t as seamless as I originally thought, nor is its acceptance completely uniform across all different populations of Jews (not to mention what non-Jews think of the Talmud). However, if you look at Judaism from a fundamentally Jewish perspective, you can’t really have Jewish religion without the Talmud.

But it contains all of these mind-bending puzzles, conundrums, and debates!

Christianity doesn’t have anything to compare to the Talmud so it would seem that Christianity, if you want a “simple” religion, would be the way to go, but that’s somewhat deceptive. At least in the west, Christianity is a religion of individuals. I’m oversimplifying here to make a point, but it’s as if becoming a Christian and developing your faith is as easy as declaring Christ as Lord and Savior, praying to God to give you discernment through the Holy Spirit, and then reading the NIV Bible while “allowing the Spirit” to tell you what it all means.

I was puzzling through something about the Seven Noahide Laws when I realized that Judaism conceptualizes these requirements for non-Jews in exactly the same way as it views the Torah for Jews. The view is that the requirements are imposed on a people rather than on individuals. To be sure, a Jew responds individually to commandments such as praying with tefillin and a tallit (although praying with a minyan requires 10 Jews), giving to charity, visiting the sick, and so forth, but it is obedience to the mitzvot that identifies the individual as belonging the the Jewish people (there’s debate here since there are a lot of secular Jews who feel no attachment to the Torah, but I digress).

Gentiles in the western nations don’t identify in the same way in terms of religion. We see religion as a personal responsibility only and we just happen to be loosely associated with a church where we agree on the theology being taught. This doesn’t make sense when a Jew looks at a Gentile. Here’s an example.

One of the Noahide commandments requires establishing courts of law. An individual doesn’t do this. I can’t personally obey this commandment. Only cities, counties, states, and nations establish courts. Political entities establish courts, not individual human beings. That means being a “righteous Gentile” to some degree, requires that you belong to a nation that establishes courts. That’s the personal part of the decision, but you still have to belong to “a people” or “nation” that obeys this directive to be said to have obeyed it yourself.

But it seems so involved and so much of the governmental establishment of justice is out of our control. This may be a fallacy in the Jewish application of the Noahide concept on Gentiles. We are not a people of God the way the Jews are a people of God. The Israelites (and an assorted group of non-Israelite freed slaves) stood at Sinai “as a single man” and accepted the Law of God He had designed and established for them. While the cross of Christ stands for anyone who accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior, there is no ” nation of Christians”. Thus, in respect to the concept of “peoplehood”, Jews and Christians are fundamentally different “things”.

I’m getting a headache.

What was I saying again? Oh yeah. Why is worshiping God so complicated. Why are there so many disagreements? What is the problem?

Theologians and philosophers have been debating those questions since man’s first awareness of God but the easiest answer I can come up with is that people are gumming up the works. Sure, God is hard to understand, the Bible isn’t exactly like a first grade reading text, and the Talmud doesn’t add up as easily as “two plus two”, at least not to me.

While I enjoy a good challenge and I delight in digging “deeper into the text” so to speak, it is too easy to lose myself in the complexities of religion while forgetting why I am here in the first place. It should be as simple as Adam and Eve standing in the Garden.

Anxieties, worries, feelings of inadequacy and failure — all these smother and cripple the soul from doing its job. You need to find the appropriate time to deal with them. But don’t carry them around the whole day.

During the day, you are Adam or Eve before they tasted the fruit of good and evil.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Out From Under the Blanket”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

We may argue and fuss with each other until the coming of the Moshiach and we may never see eye to eye on many issues but at the end of the day, if you managed to feed one hungry person, visit one sick person in the hospital, or even smile at a stranger you pass on the sidewalk, you’ve made the world a better place. God said it all here:

And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? –Micah 6:8

“The rest is just commentary, go and study.” -Hillel

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The Gift of the Postdiluvian King

October 31, 2011 James Pyles 4 Comments

This week’s reading tells the story of Noah, the father of all humanity. We learn that G-d spoke to him and his children, directing them to follow seven laws for just and moral lives. Most religions say that they offer an exclusive path, but our Talmud teaches that “the righteous of all nations have a share in the World to Come.” Maimonides says that this applies to anyone who accepts upon him or herself to observe the Seven Commandments given to Noah.

-Rabbi Yaakov Menken
Director, Project Genesis – Torah.org

“But flesh, when its soul is with its blood, you shall not eat it… He who spills the blood of man, by man shall his blood be spilled, for in the Image of G-d did He create man.” –Genesis 8:4,6

Where was God when the descendants of Noah needed salvation? Christians believe we are saved through the blood of Jesus Christ and Jews believe they merit a place in the world to come by obeying the 613 mitzvot (OK, it’s more complicated than that, but that’s “salvation” in a nutshell). But what about the time before the birth of Christ and before Moses at Sinai? We know that people were aware of God. Certainly Noah was a “righteous man; he was blameless in his age” and he “walked with God” (Genesis 6:9) and certainly God spoke to Abraham when He said, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1), but what allowed a person to have a relationship with God, particularly in Postdiluvial times?

We see hints that the people in those days were aware of “Torah” requirements. Even Noah was commanded of “every clean animal you shall take seven pairs, males and their mates, and of every animal that is not clean, two, a male and its mate”, telling us that well before Sinai, clean and unclean animals were an understood concept. We don’t see God going through an extensive set of explanations telling Noah the difference between these two general types of creatures, so he must have already known about this. We even know that when Abel offered his sacrifice to God (Genesis 4:3-4), it was a clean animal appropriate for sacrifice.

The commentaries in the Stone Edition of the Chumash make significant reference to the kosher vs. non-kosher animals such as in this example:

Genesis 6:19 “Two of each.” As the following verse explains, these animals were to be one male and one female, so that the species could be replenished after the Flood. In the case of the kosher species that could be used for offerings, Noah was later commanded to bring seven pairs (7:2), so that he could bring offerings of gratitude and commitment after returning to dry land.

The Chumash commentary for Genesis 8:20-21 even refers the reader to Leviticus for details on the sacrificial offerings, their names, and terminology, again suggesting that Noah would have had to possess some of this information in order to give a proper sacrifice to God after the Flood. Yet man, at that time, was not to divide animals into kosher and non-kosher for eating, as illustrated in Genesis 9:3:

Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these.

We see that certain parts of the “Torah knowledge” available to both the antediluvian and postdiluvian peoples was later applied specifically to the Children of Israel as part of the Torah, but what about the rest of humanity? Ten generations followed Noah before the birth of Abram (Abraham). The Bible glosses over the details of the lives of these people, but we presume at least some of them continued their worship of and devotion to Hashem. Also, during the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there were members of their households who were not Hebrews yet who learned of the God of Noah and turned their hearts to Him. What about the Egyptian members of Joseph’s house when he was a viceroy of Pharaoh, King of Egypt (see Torah Portions Miketz and Vayiggash)? Perhaps Joseph taught some of them about the God of his father Jacob. Most assuredly, he taught his Egyptian wife and sons.

Unlike most other religions, Judaism does not declare that they are the only path to righteousness, well not exactly anyway. Rabbi Yaakov Menken has this to say.

Unlike the other religions of the world, Judaism does not believe that everyone must become a Jew in order to approach G-d or earn a place in the World to Come. When King Solomon built the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, he asked of G-d that He hear the prayers of all who pray towards that Temple: “Also a gentile who is not of your people Israel, but will come from a distant land for Your Name’s sake… and will come and pray toward this Temple, may You hear in Heaven Your dwelling-place, and do according to all that gentile calls out to You…” [I Kings 8:41-43]

It is the subject of much debate as to whether or not there were “Noahides” or Ger Toshav among the Hebrew people between the days of Noah and Moses, but it is more than possible that they existed. Abraham sent his most trusted (non-Hebrew) servant to find a wife for his son Isaac (Genesis 24:1-9) and Rabbinic commentary identifies this man as a Noahide. If this servant had not been righteous before God, how could he have risen to such a high position in Abraham’s household and why would Abraham have trusted him to find a suitable wife for Isaac? We even see the Bible’s first recorded personal prayer uttered by this man.

He made the camels kneel down by the well outside the city, at evening time, the time when women come out to draw water. And he said, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, grant me good fortune this day, and deal graciously with my master Abraham: Here I stand by the spring as the daughters of the townsmen come out to draw water; let the maiden to whom I say, ‘Please, lower your jar that I may drink,’ and who replies, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels’-let her be the one whom You have decreed for Your servant Isaac. Thereby shall I know that You have dealt graciously with my master.” –Genesis 24:11-14

From a Christian point of view, there are apparent “gaps” in God’s plan of salvation for mankind. Discussions of hypothetical situations occasionally occur in Bible studies, such as what would have happened to a person before the birth of Christ who otherwise was “good” but had no way to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior? Perhaps God answered that question when He spoke to Moses in Genesis 9:1-17, which is the basis for today’s Noahide Laws.

I recently investigated the concept of the Ger Toshav as a possible “interface” between Christians and Jews but only hit a brick wall. Observant Jews do not consider Christians to be “righteous Gentiles” if, for no other reason, than they believe we worship a man as a God and indeed, worship three Gods rather than the One. However, the Ger Toshav may have enjoyed a life of righteousness that included a relationship with the God of Adam and Noah, perhaps into the time of Jesus, Peter, and Paul.

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. –Matthew 8:8-11

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. –Acts 10:1-2

As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. –Acts 17:10-12

The covenant of Christ allows we who are not Jewish to enter into a deep and abiding relationship with the God of all Creation that, in its holiness, is on par with the people of the Mosaic covenant (Galatians 3:26-29) so we non-Jews can go beyond the boundaries of the Noahide. Yet, the Acts 15 letter issued by the Jerusalem council, in some ways, mirrors the laws of Noah. Becoming disciples of the Master does not remove the obligation of a Christian to shun worship of idols, murder, theft, blasphemy, and sexual immorality. The Noahide prohibition to not eat the limb of a living animal may seem strange, but we also would find such as act abhorrent. Creating a court system is an act of establishing justice and as Christians, being just and merciful should not seem odd.

If the Messianic covenant has not removed or replaced the Noahide covenant but instead, has enhanced it and greatly expanded our access to God, how can we say that the covenant of the Messiah has replaced the Mosaic covenant for the Jews? The Noahide covenant paints a rainbow-colored portrait of God’s love of and provision for all of humanity from the days of the Flood up until the current age. He never abandoned the vast throng of mankind from Noah to Jesus but gave them a gift of Himself, even into the times of Abraham, Moses, and David. For the past 2,000 years, we have had Jesus to turn to for an even greater relationship with God.

But as I just said, if we can learn one lesson for the Gentiles in the story of Noah, including that there is no conflict between Noahide and Messianic covenants, then perhaps we can also learn that no conflict exists between the Mosaic laws and the teachings of the Messiah. Moses and Jesus are not enemies and in fact, for a Jew, what they illuminate goes hand in hand, just as the teachings of Noah and Jesus do for the Gentile.

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In Search of the Jewish Voice of Jesus

October 30, 2011 James Pyles 9 Comments

The Maharal, zt”l, explains the mechanics of idolatry. “Our sages teach that a Jew who gives charity on condition that his son recover from illness is a complete tzaddik. Conversely, charity given by a non-Jew on condition is meaningless. The gemara explains that even if the child does not recover, the Jew will not want his money back, but the non-Jew will want a refund. To understand why, we must delve into the reason why people worshiped idolatry. They desired to excel in something, be it war, love, or the like. Idolatry meant only acting in a way that they held strengthened their goal. It is no wonder that an average idolater who gave money on this condition would demand a refund if the child did not recover. He only gave charity as a fee in the hopes that his son will heal. If this didn’t provide excellent results, it was a waste of money from his perspective.”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“The Dust of the Remains”
Chullin 125

By God’s divine providence, I “accidentally” took in my hand a New Testament, which for many long years I had left unnoticed in a hidden corner – a book which I had, in vexation, taken from a Jewish teacher thirty-three years before, in order that he might not read it.

I began to turn over its leaves and to read.

-Rabbi Ignatz (Isaac) Lichtenstein (1824-1909)
District Rabbi of Tapioszele, Hungry
As quoted in Messiah Journal, Issue 108/Fall 2011
“A Christian’s Guide to the DHE”

Let’s say you are a Christian who has an interest in Judaism, as it is the source of your faith. Strange, I know, but let’s pretend. Let’s say that, out of your interest and curiosity, you have taken to reading the traditional weekly Torah Portions which are recited each Shabbat in every Jewish synagogue in the world. You may even read some of the Jewish commentaries on these readings and, as time passes, you may discover yourself picking up on the rhythm of Jewish thinking and start seeing the “Old Testament” through new and illuminated eyes.

Then you return to reading the New Testament. By now, you are very familiar with the teachings of Jesus and the letters of Paul. Strangely, they seem a little stale to you. This is not because Christ is stale and not even because your faith is beginning to become a little tired, but because you cannot detect what most assuredly was a Jewish voice coming from the “Son of Man”, the offspring of Miriam (Mary), a late Second Temple period Jewish virgin who had an extraordinary encounter with an angel one day (Luke 1:26-38). When you read the Gospels and the Epistles, you hear the voice of your Gentile Christian Sunday school teacher and your Gentile Christian church Pastor. These are very good and kind men and you value their service to the faith very much.

But something is missing.

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gavri’el to the Galil, to a certain town named Netzeret, to a virgin who was betrothed to a man named Yosef from the house of David. The virgin’s name was Miryam. The angel entered the room and said to her, ‘Shalom to you, gracious woman! HaShem is with you! {You are blessed among women.}” {When she saw him,} she was alarmed by his statement and said in her heart, “What is this brachah?” The angel said,

Do not fear, Miryam, because you have found favor before God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you shall name him Yeshua. He will be great, and he will be called the son of the Highest. HaShem, God, will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Ya’akov forever. There will be no end to his kingdom.

Miryam said to the angel, “How can this be? I have not known a man.” The angel answered and said to her,

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. Therefore, the one that is born will be called holy – the son of God. Look! Your relative Elisheva, whom people have called barren, is also pregnant and will bear a son in her old age. This is her sixth month. For nothing is perplexing to God.

Miryam said, “I am the maidservant of HaShem. Let it be for me according to your word.” And the angel left her. –Luke 1:26-38 (DHE Gospels)

Is that more like it? No, it’s not an English Bible with a couple of “Hebrewisms” thrown in to make it sound “Jewish”. It’s much more than that.

In 1873 the British and Foreign Bible Society commissioned Franz Delitzsch to prepare a translation of the New Testament into Hebrew. Delitzsch agreed and set to work utilizing his extensive knowledge of mishnaic Hebrew and first century Judaism to create a translation and reconstruction of the Greek text back into an original Hebrew voice. His reconstructing translation was completed in 1877. After the first edition, it went through extensive review and revision for the next 13 years. The final edition was published in 1890 under the care and supervision of Gustav Dalman. Sixty thousand copies were distributed for free throughout Europe resulting in tens of thousands of Jewish people coming to know Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel.

Those Jewish believers and their influences are the very embers that have ignited this modern day hope and revival.

Since that time the Delitzsch NT has continued its good work through a series of reprints by various missions to the Jews. It is our honor to work alongside this great man of God and bring all of his wisdom, scholarship and vision to today’s people of God in a fresh and relevant way. We pray that it will allow even more Jewish people to engage in the life giving words of Yeshua.

From the introduction to the Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels
by Vine of David

This Bible, which has been faithfully reproduced by Vine of David and enhanced with many new features isn’t meant to be the perfect English translation of the Gospels. Originally, it was the testamony of the writers of the Gospels, reconstructed back into its original Hebrew “voice” so that the words of Jesus (Yeshua) could be more clearly perceived by 19th (and now 21st) century Jews. This isn’t an easy task because, as you read in the prior quote from Daf Yomi Digest, matters related to non-Jewish worship are not considered to operate on the same level as observant Jewish piety. On the other hand, you also read words from the heart of a 19th century Rabbi who, accessing no special edition of the New Testament, nevertheless found the Jewish Messiah. To continue reading from Rabbi Lichtenstein:

An accomplished lady who was conversing with me exclaimed, when her arguments had all been met, “He is everything great, everything noble, if only he were not called Jesus Christ.”

Ironically, the name revered by Christians across 2,000 years is, for good reason, feared and reviled throughout Judaism and it is that name, not who he is or what he teaches, that separates the great “Maggid of Netzeret” from the vast majority of his people, the Jews, in today’s modern world. Rabbi Lichtenstein describes his own perceptions in this area:

As impressions of early life take a deep hold, and as in my riper years I still had no cause to modify these impressions, it is no wonder that I came to think that Christ himself was the plague and curse of the Jews, the origin and promoter of our sorrows and persecutions. In this conviction, I grew to years of manhood, and still cherishing it, I became old. I knew no difference between true and merely nominal Christianity. Of the fountainhead of Christianity itself, I knew nothing.

Most Jews come to know Christianity not from Christ but from his followers, both those in the here and now, and those who have cursed, harrassed, persecuted, and killed the Jewish people for hundreds upon hundreds of years. It is a miracle of God that even a single Jew in all that time, and to this very day, has ever come to faith in Jesus and called himself a disciple of the Master. Certainly Rabbi Ignatz Lichtenstein was the beneficiary of one such miracle in 1884 when he become enthralled with the New Testament and devoted his life to being a disciple of Yeshua.

But what about you, “hypothetical” Christian, who longs to also hear the Jewish voice of Jesus? If now there exists an edition of the Gospels that will allow you to hear Jesus as less evangelical Christian and more Jewish Rabbi, why should you desire to hear words that were written for a Jew? The article “A Christian’s Guide to the DHE” in Messiah Journal addresses your concerns.

Reading the DHE is important for Christians because it places the Gospels back in their proper context. The Messiah came as a Jewish man to the Jewish people in the land of Israel. This was no accident. Rather, this was the setting that the Father specifically chose to reveal his truth and his plan of salvation.

The implication is rather startling. If God chose to provide His plan for the salvation of the non-Jewish people of the earth in the form of a First Century itinerent Jewish Rabbi, born of working-class parents in a small rural town in a Roman occupied nation, are you going to be able to completely understand the message of that plan and hear the entire intent of God by reading a traditional English translation of the Bible? Yes, you can buy a Chumash and a Tanakh to immerse yourself in the pool of Jewish learning in the Torah, Prophets, and the Writings, but you are missing an important, some might even say “crucial” element in reconstructing the ancient Jewish presence of the Word of God.

Jewish men like Rabbi Lichtenstein and Paul Philip Levertoff encountered Jesus at great risk and yet accepted that risk, which included being rejected by family, friends, and the entire Jewish community, in order to connect to the tzadik God made most great in all the world, who is revealed not only a Rabbi and Prophet, but as “the Prophet” and the Moshiach. You, as a Christian, may end up taking a bit of criticism from your Sunday school teacher, your Pastor, even your parents and spouse, because you are called to hear a voice few of them will ever perceive. But having once heard that voice, how can you ignore it? No, you can’t. He’s calling to you.

You are not alone. You are not without directions in which to turn. There are others who walk the same path as you. The DHE Gospels can let you hear the Jewish voice of Jesus. Messiah Journal is a publication written for the Christian and the Jew who desires to meet the Jewish Messiah. You can go beyond where you are now in understanding the author of the faith in your heart. The subtle nuances and the “hidden” message in the words of Jesus and the Gospel writers do not have to go unnoticed. You can find them. Hopefully this review has helped you know where to look.

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Leaving the House of God

October 28, 2011 James Pyles 6 Comments

So what is it like to leave? Some quietly slip out of their religious beliefs without much fuss. There are many though, who were previously strongly convinced that their religion is utter reality. It is highly revealing to listen to those who have had experience into and out of Christianity and are in a position to know and authoritatively evaluate and relate their actual experiences. Deconversion for such people, although sometimes initially very emotional or traumatic, comes as a revelation far more spiritually enriching than conversions into religion. In the stories scattered over the Internet and in books ex-Christians have repeatedly said this enrichment of life is the case.

–Leaving Christianity

One of Israel’s most celebrated writers, Yoram Kaniuk, has resigned from the Jewish religion. He won his case in court to have the word “Jewish” removed from his identity at the Population Registry, and from now on he will be listed as “without religion”.

He is not alone. Apparently, hundreds of Israelis are lining up to follow his example.

-Rabbi Gideon Sylvester
“Resigning from Judaism”
Haaretz.com

I’ve said before that one of the fundamental differences between Judaism and Christianity is that although you can stop being Christian, you can never stop being a Jew. I guess I was wrong. Israeli Yoram Kaniuk has legally stopped being a Jew and apparently, he has good reasons for doing so.

As an Orthodox Rabbi, I am troubled by their actions, however, I understand the frustration that drives them.

Many Jewish traditions such as the Passover seder, the lighting of Chanukah candles and our lifecycle events are popular, beautiful, and inspiring to religious and secular Jews alike.

Unfortunately, this beauty has been overshadowed by the religious leadership’s coercive tactics. Our religion demands precision, but when the legalistic minutiae of ritual become the raison d’etre of Judaism drowning out the beautiful ethical messages of our tradition, people feel cheated out of the outstanding beauty of their heritage.

Of course, everything Rabbi Sylvester says to describe why Kaniuk and many others have decided to abandon their peoplehood and their faith can be distilled down to a single sentence:

Religious coercion is the enemy of true religion.

What does this bode for Christianity? No one is born a Christian. Even if you are born to Christian parents and are raised in the church, you still must make an independent decision to the cause of Christ and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior over your life and over the world. Plenty of kids have been raised in warm, loving, Christian homes only to leave the church when they were old enough to make their decision stick (i.e. refuse to go to church with the family and/or leave home).

A new survey by LifeWay Christian Resources indicates that most Millenials are not religious and are leaving churches, although many consider themselves to be spiritual.

Youth are walking away from Christianity and the Christian church, opting instead for spirituality.

Millenials are defined as those born from 1980 to 1991. They are aged between 18-29 years old.

Of the total surveyed, 65 percent said they are Christian; 14 percent atheist or agnostic; 14 percent do not favor any religion; and 8 percent mentioned affiliations with other religions. Seventy-two percent said they are more spiritual than religious, the Christian Post reported.

“Survey shows trend of young people leaving Christianity, church”
Posted 30 April 2010
The Underground

Why do Christians leave the church? One answer is that they were never really “Christians” to begin with, that is, they never fully gave their hearts and lives to Jesus and were never completely dedicated to the faith. On the other hand, perhaps many have left for the same reason that Yoram Kaniuk left Judaism.

Unfortunately, if ones closest friends and relatives are very religious then not being a Christian can cause problems in the family and amongst peers. We often hear how Christians claim high standards for “family values” and yet, especially amongst more fundamentalist Christians, ex-Christian family members who “come out” are not only shunned but are even told that they will go to hell. Belief in the justice of unrelenting torture for your family is not a way to bring family unity. Also Christians seldom do justice to the possibility of what we have read, thought and discovered, merely claiming we can’t have been “true Christians” or asking “where did you go wrong?”

It is a common misapprehension to claim that those who leave Christianity never understood what Christianity was “really about.” The full range of Christian types leave Christianity, from all denominations, doctrines, and persuasions. From the most liberal to the most fundamentalist. The philosophical liberal, the conservative orthodox, the born-again and the hyper-charismatic fundie.

Despite the fact that there are plenty of “liberal” churches to go around, Christianity can seem very heavy-handed, judgmental, and cruel at times. I know the church doesn’t see itself that way, but the worst examples seem not to try to reach out and help Jesus save the world, but to condemn it and want to watch everyone, including every single Jew on the planet, burn. This seems “OK” to the church as long as the “true believers” are “raptured” safely to Heaven and the elect get to sit at the right hand of God. Judah Gabriel Himango has recently posted yet another example of how Christianity seems to want to delete Judaism from the face of the earth by letting Jesus replace Israel. There’s a spirited debate going on in the comments section of the blog over the intent of Pastors John Piper and Jonathan Parnell, and wondering if perhaps their recent messages were not ones of supersessionism. However, replacement theology, as I commented on Judah’s blog, is a:

…deeply woven thread in the tapestry of the church. Most Christians don’t consider themselves doing wrong by adopting a supersessionist viewpoint, they just think that’s what the Bible says. Unfortunately a subtle kind of arrogance has crept into the church.

Many years ago, admittedly after only a few years as a Christian, I left the traditional church (in my case, a large Nazerine church in Southwest Idaho) to join what I thought of as the “Messianic movement”, a religious tradition that attempts to preserve the Jewish foundation of the Christian faith (the actual definition of “Messianic” is much more involved than I’m stating here). While I have met and maintain friendships with many Messianics, I realize that a “grafted in” non-Jew is not meant to imitate Judaism for the sake of the Jewish Jesus and that Jews have always been and remain God’s chosen “treasured splendorous people”. We, who have been granted a covenant closeness with God by Jesus cling to the robes of the Master and worship alongside the Jew…but we don’t become Jewish nor do we replace them.

It’s the “religious coercion” of Christianity, the “arrogance” of believing that only the Gentile church has a direct pipeline to God and the undercurrent of disdain for Jews, and even antisemitism that keeps me from entering the sanctuary on any Sunday. If Yoram Kaniuk can remove himself from the Jewish life stream because of rigidly frozen Rabbinic religious dictates, then by comparison, leaving the church should be a walk in the park.

Of course, by choice, I still self-identify as Christian and I do not abandon my faith. I simply await what I pray will be God’s instructions for how best to express my worship while remaining unified with my Jewish wife. For Kaniuk’s part, though he voluntarily walks away from Judaism, it is still impossible for Judaism to walk away from him.

Rabbis have not taken him seriously either, because Jewish law makes it clear that however much a Jew tries to escape their origins, they remain Jewish (Sanhedrin 44a).

But even if the act has no halachic significance, it should still concern all who care about Judaism in Israel.

If the Nazis were to return tomorrow, they would still come for Kaniuk and herd him with the rest of the Jews into cattle cars across the long, slow miles to the camps and the march of death into the ovens. Still, the fact that he can take such a bold step is a little terrifying. It takes another Jew out of the world, though Kaniuk still lives. It is also a Jew’s personal indictment of the present state of religious Judaism in the land of Israel. Have the extremely Orthodox elements of the Israeli Rabbinic system, the stated guardians of all that it means to be a Jew, committed a “Chillul Hashem” – a desecration of God’s name?

The villains represent only a tiny minority of observant Jews, most of whom are good, law abiding citizens, but their actions tarnish all of us. Seeing their behavior, we can understand why many of the most idealistic people feel alienated from their religion.

Even a minority, whether they be ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel or extreme fundamentalist churches in the United States, can take a tremendous toll on the larger people of faith, by driving them completely out of that faith.

If any Rabbis and Pastors are reading this (probably not, but I can never tell), please consider the following story Rabbi Sylvester relates.

Many years ago, when zealots in Petah Tikva tried to prevent Sabbath desecration by calling for the closure of cinemas on Shabbat, my teacher Rabbi Riskin rejected their coercive techniques. “Let every cinema remain open”, he told us, “but let them be empty, because every Jew has been invited to a traditional Shabbat meal with their friends, neighbors and family”.

When I challenged him on the need to protest religious transgression, his answer was straightforward and wise; “No one appointed you God’s policeman!” he said.

Even when we commit heinous acts “for the sake of Heaven”, they are still heinous acts. I’m sure, at this point, some critic of religion could chime in and say the Bible is full of heinous acts of genocide that were commanded by God, but I’m speaking of those commanded by well-meaning but misguided men. There will be another time to discuss and debate those acts of God with which we struggle with as Jacob wrestled the angel. The blog Failed Messiah reports that:

Nehorai is Mea Shearim’s mob lawyer, defending haredi gangsters and thugs. His favorite tactic is to claim that his clients should get preferential treatment from the court because his clients’ intent in beating, attacking, robbing, destroying and vandalizing the bodies and property of other Jews, often haredim, is for the sake of heaven.

While this blog consistently presents a critical picture of Haredi Jews (as you can tell by the language used), it also paints a portrait of how religion can go out of control and any act can be justified if it is committed in God’s name; “for the sake of heaven”. Christianity has its extremes as well, the most blatant and outrageous being the Westboro Baptist Church, a group made up mostly of the members of a single family, who are devoted to performing any act that will fail to promote the love of Christ and who tout their hateful self-righteous causes above all others.

The extremists are easy to see and dodge and we do not have to let them drive us out of our churches and out of our synagogues simply because they’ve got a loose wire burning in their brain pans. However, it’s the subtle acts of arrogance and self-servitude that are much harder to avoid. Those are the congregations and the people that compel men like Yoram Kaniuk to have their Jewish identity legally erased and who are emptying the church of almost anyone under the age of 30.

It doesn’t have to be this way. This isn’t faith. This isn’t service to God. That we believe only a remnant will remain in the end doesn’t mean we must ensure this by deliberately chasing away the majority from the houses of worship. Small wonder the Master lamented, “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Our faith is not based on how others define it. The “ark” that lifts us above the waters was not made by men. Our words and prayers come not from hate, but from the heart and God in His Heavens.

There is a raging storm at sea. There are hellish waves that crash and pound at the shore, carrying all away, leaving desolation behind.

The sea is the world of making a living. The waves are the stress and anxiety of indecision, not knowing which way to turn, on what to rely. Up and down, hot and cold—constantly churning back and forth.

Do as Noah did, and build an ark. “An ark” in Hebrew is teivah—which means also “a word.” Your ark shall be the words of meditation and of prayer. Enter into your ark, and let the waters lift you up, rather than drown you with everything else.

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

Uncategorized

Noach: What We Allow in Heaven

October 28, 2011 James Pyles 1 Comment

The Maggid of Mezritch interpreted our Sages’ statement: “Know what is above you,” as: “Know that everything ‘above’ all that transpires in the spiritual realms is ‘from you,’ dependent on your conduct. Each of us has the potential to influence even the most elevated spiritual realms.”

The Torah alludes to this potential in the opening verse of our reading: “These are the chronicles of Noach. Noach was a righteous man.” The word noach refers to satisfaction and repose. By repeating the word, the Torah implies that Noach and by extension, every one of his descendants can sow these qualities in two different fields, both among his fellow men, and in the spiritual worlds above.

Every person affects his environment. Our thoughts, words and deeds can inspire peace and tranquility in our fellow men, helping create meaningful pleasure. And by establishing such conditions in our world, we accentuate similar qualities in the worlds above. To highlight our obligation to spread these virtues, this week’s Torah portion is called Noach.

-Rabbi Yanki Tauber
“Genuine Satisfaction: Noach’s Legacy”
Adapted from
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. XX, p. 285ff;
Vol. XXV, p. 23ff
Chabad.org

This is the line of Noah. — Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God. –Genesis 6:9 (JPS Tanakh)

It’s difficult and sometimes even a little dangerous to go beyond the plain meaning of what we read in the Bible and enter hidden or even mystic interpretations. First off, even though Christianity also has its mystic tradition, looking at the Bible through a Chassidic lens can tend to be disorienting, and most people will immediately reject the view rather than attempt to explore the value that might be gained from a radical change in perspective. And yet, this is what “jumped out at me” when studying the Torah Portion Noah (some Jewish sources spell the name “Noach”) this week.

Yesterday, I posted two “meditations” on this blog about how we can have an influence on others. Both messages were, for the most part, grounded in traditional methods of doing good and improving the world, but a Chasid believes that anything that is done on earth is reflected in Heaven. To punctuate this, I previously quoted Rabbi Tzvi Freeman as saying:

For all that is, physical or spiritual or Divine, was only created to be part of the repair of this world of action. And once that repair is done, all that will be true are those things that made it happen.

Even the Master said:

“I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. –Matthew 18:18

But what does this mean and what does it have to do, not only with Noah, but with us?

One rather awesome conclusion, as stated above, is that what we do here doesn’t just matter here or to the people around us, but it actually has effects beyond the physical realm.

It has been noted by our Sages that “Torah preceded the world,” i.e., although Torah as studied in this physical world is to be understood in its plain context, it preceded the world. For every letter of Torah also possesses inner and esoteric meaning. Such meaning emanates from the study of Torah in the higher spiritual realms – worlds that transcend physicality.

Understandably, this applies not only to the Torah’s commandments, but to its stories; although all the stories recounted actually transpired in all their detail, still, since Torah preceded the world, we must perforce say that these tales also contain meanings found in the higher, spiritual worlds.

This gives rise to the following inescapable conclusion: Since “No evil sojourns with You,” we must say that even though the Torah contains things that in their simple context seem undesirable – such as misdeeds, punishments, and the like – in the world above, where it is impossible for evil to reside, these selfsame events are understood as being entirely desirable, holy and good.

The Chassidic Dimension: Noach
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson and
Likkutei Sichos , Noach 5747
Chabad.org

That probably doesn’t clear things up much, but consider this. For any event that you read about in the Torah, there is a corresponding event or meaning that has occurred in Heaven. There’s a mysterious, mystic, connection between the ordinary document that we study and what God used to create the universe. Extending the metaphor, we might be able to say that whenever we obey one of the Torah mitzvah, there is an impact, not only on earth, but in Heaven. Jesus said as much in Matthew 18.

Going back to this week’s Torah portion, we can apply this metaphor to say that the names, words, and events depicted in this reading is not just a report of what happened to Noah and his family and to the earth during and after the flood, but that there are much larger ramifications. Those ramifications are particularly meaningful to those people who aren’t Jewish. Remember, Rabbi Tauber said that all of Noah’s descendents can affect both the world of men and the spiritual realms. We are all Noah’s descendents.

God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fertile and increase, and fill the earth. The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky — everything with which the earth is astir — and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand. Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these. You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it. But for your own life-blood I will require a reckoning: I will require it of every beast; of man, too, will I require a reckoning for human life, of every man for that of his fellow man!

Whoever sheds the blood of man,
By man shall his blood be shed;
For in His image
Did God make man.

Be fertile, then, and increase; abound on the earth and increase on it.”

And God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, and with every living thing that is with you — birds, cattle, and every wild beast as well — all that have come out of the ark, every living thing on earth. I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” –Genesis 9:1-11

The covenant God made with Noah and his sons is the basis for what Judaism calls The Seven Noahide Laws. While Judaism doesn’t consider the full 613 Commandments of the Torah to be binding on a non-Jew, the Noahide Laws are applicable to everyone. In Judaism, any non-Jew who lives a life as a Noahide merits a place in the world to come (in “Christianese” that would mean he’s “saved”).

This doesn’t make much sense to a Christian because we believe that there is only one way to the Father and that’s through the Son (John 14:6). In traditional Christianity, it doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish or not Jewish, you must come to faith in the Messiah to be fully reconciled with God. How the Messianic covenant addresses the Mosaic I’ll address another time, but did the Messianic covenant wipe out the Noahide covenant completely?

In the days of Noah and for ten generations afterward, there was only one people, one language, and one standard by which a man could have a covenant with God. It was the standard God gave to Noah. At the tenth generation, this people united to build an affront to God at Babel and we are told that God “confused their languages” and made the seventy nations (Genesis 11:1-9). At the end of this reading, we see Abram enter the narrative for the first time, but even after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, what was the standard of righteous living for all of mankind until the coming of Jesus?

We can look at the story of Noah and see the story of mankind’s influence, not only upon the world around us but, according to mystic interpretation, the world above. When man defied God and built a tower, God could have ignored them. After all, it wasn’t as if building a structure, no matter how high, really could have reached Heaven, could it? But if not, then why did God react and do what He did?

No, I don’t believe you can make a tower to reach up to Heaven, but I do believe that somehow, what we do on earth, for good or for bad, does affect Heaven and it does affect God. Certainly we can’t do anything to adversely affect God but we also have a unique relationship with our Creator that no other creature has, not even the angelic beings. We are special. We matter personally to God. Our actions are not our own and they are not limited to the “nuts and bolts” of life in our own little world.

If even the name “Noach” has meaning, if the stories in the Torah somehow reach beyond the words on a page and resonate in Heaven itself, if what we loose on earth is loosed in God’s realm, then the story of Noah teaches us that we dare not be careless with what we say and do. Noah’s planting a vineyard, making wine, and becoming intoxicated resulted in a permanent curse on Ham, but we don’t know why. The descendents of Noah built a great tower to symbolize their invincibility over God, defying God as man did in Eden, and defying God as the generation before the flood, and God reacted by confusing their language and splitting the one people into the seventy nations of the earth, and we don’t really know why. We say and do things in our lives, sometimes in the service of God and sometimes in the service of ourselves, and yet they have an impact in the Heavenly courts, and we don’t know how or why.

But if what we do matters that much, or even if it just might be possible that it matters that much, do we dare say a careless word or perform a careless act? Are not only our lives, but each thing we say or do that important to God? What are we loosing on earth…and in heaven?

Good Shabbos.

Uncategorized

Being Heaven on Earth

October 27, 2011 James Pyles 7 Comments

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ –Matthew 25:34-40

Question:

Each year, we Jews spend so many millions of dollars, and devote so much time and energy, to building synagogues, Jewish schools, and a slew of other religious and academic institutions. Wouldn’t it be better if we applied all those resources to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and working to alleviate all the horrendous suffering that goes on in so many places in the world?

Answer:

Jewish education is the impetus for charity. Any charity. People with a proper Jewish education are most likely to give more charity to the hungry, to the sick, and to the helpless. And to future Jewish education.

Because when you invest in Jewish education and Jewish institutions you are investing in every form of charity.

-Rabbi Tzvi Shapiro
AskMoses.com

What separates Jews and Christians? It shouldn’t be the desire, the will, and the action of helping others, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the unclothed, and visiting the sick. This is a value that is inexorably woven into the fabric of both faiths and has been since the beginning. Tzedakah or “charity” is at the very heart of the Jewish service to God. It is considered more than just a good thing to do and is an actual obligation to Heaven, as described at the Judaism 101 website.

Giving to the poor is an obligation in Judaism, a duty that cannot be forsaken even by those who are themselves in need. Some sages have said that tzedakah is the highest of all commandments, equal to all of them combined, and that a person who does not perform tzedakah is equivalent to an idol worshipper. This is probably hyperbole, but it illustrates the importance of tzedakah in Jewish thought. Tzedakah is one of the three acts that gain us forgiveness from our sins. The High Holiday liturgy repeatedly states that G-d has inscribed a judgment against all who have sinned, but teshuvah (repentance), tefilah (prayer) and tzedakah can alleviate the decree.

Numerous positive and negative commandments are devoted to the needs of the poor and unfortunate based on verses from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. When Jesus commands his disciples to “Love your neighbor as yourself”, he is quoting Leviticus 19:18, so the core of both Judaism and Christianity is charity and love. Nevertheless, as I pointed out in yesterday’s morning meditation, there is a startling degree of separation between Judaism and Christianity. Although much in our culture, worship, and identity keeps us apart, we also find there should be much that makes us alike.

A few events inspired me to write today’s “extra meditation”. The first was a story I read yesterday at jweekly.com about a woman named Linda Cohen.

When Linda Cohen’s father died in 2007, the mother of two was reeling. Grief-stricken, she decided to take time off from her active life and health consulting job in Oregon for a “spiritual sabbatical.”

“I just wanted to be quiet. I wanted the time to be with that loss,” recalls Cohen, a Boston native.

But within a month, she had a new sense of direction. Inspired by her father’s wishes to have friends and relatives make donations to charities in lieu of sending flowers after his death, she decided to honor his memory by performing 1,000 mitzvahs.

The story goes on to say that Linda’s husband encouraged her to chronicle her progress on a blog which became 1000mitzvahs.org. Four years later, Linda’s compassion and her story has become a book: 1,000 Mitzvahs: How Small Acts of Kindness Can Heal, Inspire and Change Your Life.

Linda Cohen is just one person who lost her father. A lot of people have lost a loved one and we all know that sooner or later, our parents are going to die. We all go through that grief at some point in our lives, but most of us don’t recognize it as anything except another stage in our existence. Linda turned her grief into not only a way to honor her father, but a way to help many others and to inspire the rest of us.

The second inspiration came in the form of a video I watched on Facebook earlier this morning about a fellow in India who was so moved by compassion for the people starving in his own village, that he quit his job just to feed them, to clothe them, to bathe them, and to remind them that we are all human beings.

The original story is from CNN. Here’s the link to the Facebook page for Achyut Sharma’s Video on this story. It’s less than three minutes long. Please watch it before continuing to read here.

It’s not like any of this is revolutionary news, or at least it shouldn’t be. I’ve talked about being the answer to someone’s prayer before. You don’t have to quit your job and make it your full time mission to help the starving in your community. You don’t have to abandon you life, goals, and dreams, but you can make doing even one small mitzvah a day part of those goals and dreams.

Debate about what counted as a mitzvah – Replacing a roll of toilet paper? Smiling at a stranger? – became the stuff of Cohen family’s dinner-table discussion. (Cohen’s children were 6 and 9 when the project started, and grew to see the recurring topic as perfectly normal, she says.) These questions also served as conversation-starters on Cohen’s blog, which steadily gained followers over the course of the 2 1/2-year mission.

“There’s nothing really too small,” she says. “The idea is that bringing even a bit of kindness into the world is a holy connection.”

Just imagine if you did one thing today as a good deed that you didn’t have to do. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Maybe it’s just picking up one piece of trash off the ground and putting it in a garbage can. Maybe it’s smiling at someone you pass on the street. Maybe it’s buying one extra can of food at the store and then stopping by the local food bank and donating it. Nothing big.

Now imagine doing that one thing every day. That’s 365 mitzvot in a year. Now imagine inspiring one other person to do the same thing. Imagine that other person inspires one other person, and so on, and so on, and so on, and…

Tikkun Olam doesn’t begin with huge, heroic, “Superman-like” acts of courage and strength. It begins with one person who cares enough to pass along some small blessing to the next person. It can be one person feeding the poor, the starving, the old, and the mentally ill in his village, or it can be a person taking five minutes out of their day to help their next door neighbor move a sofa. It can be anything, but it must be something.

You don’t have to be religious to do something like this and, to the shame of people who profess faith and yet do nothing for others, many secular people perform frequent acts of kindness for the sake of doing good. If you are a person of faith, it is a duty to God to serve other human beings, not as a burden and a chore, but because it is passing along the grace we received from God to the next person, regardless of who they are, or regardless if your acts ever become known to others.

You may never put your deeds on a blog, write a book, or be filmed by CNN, but as the Master taught, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

You can change the world. You can inspire others to change the world. You don’t need to make some herculean effort to accomplish this. You only have to do one extra deed a day and then do it every day. Anyone can complain about the terrible condition of our world. Anyone can carry signs, protest, and cry out for justice. But very few actually do something about it, even though anyone can. If you seek justice, act justly toward others. If you seek mercy, then be merciful. If you want to be forgiven, then forgive. If you value kindness, then be kind.

I learned so much throughout this process,” she says. “I moved out of a place of grief, into a place of feeling very inspired. If there’s something negative that happens, I feel like there’s a lesson I can glean from that. I really learned how to see the good in the world.” –Linda Cohen

your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors. –Matthew 6:10-12

Don’t wait for goodness to come into the world. It’s here now because you’re here now. All you have to do is perform it. Your faith means nothing until you do. Then your faith means everything.

"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