Mystery Story

September 8, 2011 James Pyles 1 Comment

Can you fathom the mysteries of God?
Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do?
They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know?
Their measure is longer than the earth
and wider than the sea. –Job 11:7-9

Whosoever gives his mind to four things, it were better for him if he had not come into the world: what is above? what is beneath? what was beforetime? and what will be hereafter? –Mishnah Hagigah 2:2

There are two kinds of ignorance. The one is “dull, unfeeling, barren,” the result of indolence; the other is keen, penetrating, resplendent; the one leads to conceit and complacency, the other humility. From the one we seek escape, in the other the mind finds repose.

-Abraham Joshua Heschel
God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism
pp 56-7

Can we know God? I know that I’ve spent a lot of time writing blog posts about whether or not God wants to know us. My general conclusion was an incredible “yes” but then in any relationship, the current is supposed to flow both ways. Knowing God is sort of like going on a blind date with someone who has talked to our best friend and who knows all about us but we don’t know anything about her (“him” if you’re reading this and you’re female). The date can feel really one-sided and uncomfortable.

God knows all about us and we don’t really know a thing about Him…no, not really.

Sure, we have the Bible. We can read about God’s involvement with people. We can contemplate the mighty works of the Creator and marvel at His power and greatness, but the human mind cannot imagine the unimaginable. God is far beyond our ability to comprehend.

And what if we’re not even supposed to try to know His mysteries? More from Rabbi Heschel:

To the Jewish mind the ultimate enigmas remain inscrutable. “It is the glory of God to conceal things” (Proverbs 25:2). Man’s royal privilege is to explore the world of time and space; but it is futile for him to try to explore what is beyond the world of time and space…We have said..that the root of worship lies in the sense of the “miracles that are daily with us.” There is neither worship nor ritual without a sense of mystery (Heschel pg 62).

That sounds a little like a religious setup. It sounds like the line given by some crafty “holy man” to his new converts telling them that they don’t need to know anything about God. Just let the priests interpret it all for you.

I don’t think that’s what Heschel is saying, though. He isn’t really saying “don’t look under the hood”, he’s saying that it will do us no good to try because we wouldn’t understand what we were looking at. It would be like a physicist trying to explain the inner workings of the CERN Large Hadron Collider to a three year old child. Even if he or she were the top genius of all three year old kids, the child still wouldn’t “get it”. How much less can any one of us “get” the inner workings of God?

Beyond that, the mystery of God is sort of the point. The gods of myth we studied in school were all rather “knowable” because they were pretty much like human beings are. For God to really be God, the God who created the Universe and everything in it, from the largest galaxy to the smallest sub-atomic particle (and whatever else is “out there” that we don’t even know about), then He absolutely has to be beyond our comprehension. That’s the paradox of our relationship with Him. Getting to know and unknowable God.

The awareness of mystery, not often expressed, is always implied. A classical example of that awareness is the attitude toward the Ineffable Name. The true name of God is a mystery. It is stated in the Talmud, “And God said unto Moses…This is My name for ever (Exodus 3:15). The Hebrew word ‘for ever’ (leolam) is written here in a way that it may be read ‘lealem’ which means ‘to conceal’. The name of God is to be concealed.” (Heschel, pp 63-4)

There are some religious circles that won’t want to accept this conclusion, since they put a great deal of value in “knowing” and using the Ineffable Name (which they usually pronounce as “Yahweh” or something similar). Having “secret knowledge” may give some people or groups a certain thrill, but it becomes arrogant presumption to use that which you do not know, and to attempt to possess that which you are not allowed to appropriate.

You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. –Exodus 20:7

The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice;
Let the many islands be glad.
Clouds and thick darkness surround Him;
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. –Psalm 97:1-2

This isn’t to say that people have not tried to pierce the veil between man and God. Both Christianity and Judaism enjoy a rich mystic tradition and in both the Tanakh and the Apostolic scriptures, we have examples of men going beyond the normal perceptions of the Creator and seeing much more than most of us were meant to experience. Consider the visions of the Prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. What of John’s revelation. Then there are these witnesses:

Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” –Exodus 33:18-23

I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. –2 Corinthians 12:1-4

But where does that leave us?

What would be so bad about letting the mystery be the mystery? This isn’t to say we should avoid drawing closer to God and that study is futile, but the Psalmist said, “The awe (Yirah) of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” (Psalm 111:10). The word “Yirah” in Hebrew can mean either “fear” or “awe”. Fear usually implies a reaction to potential punishment, either in this life or in the life beyond, while awe is our reaction to God in His infinite glory, and not based on whatever consequences we might end up facing:

Though He may slay me, yet I will trust Him. –Job 13:15

Jesus admonished his disciples (including us) not to worry because we have no control over the things God provides (Matthew 6:25-34). Expand his “sage advice” to include not worrying about God, who He is, what He does, how He works. If we trust Him then we do know Him, or at least we know as much as we need to know. It is said that awe (or fear) of the Lord is “the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10), but that doesn’t have to include infinite knowledge or understanding beyond where God has placed His boundary markers. What we need to know, He’s already told us. The rest can remain a mystery, and we can be in awe.

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The King is in the Field

September 7, 2011 James Pyles Leave a comment

As the month of “Divine Mercy and Forgiveness,” Elul is a most opportune time for teshuvah (“return” to G-d), prayer, charity, and increased Ahavat Yisrael (love for a fellow Jew) in the quest for self-improvement and coming closer to G-d. Chassidic master Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi likens the month of Elul to a time when “the king is in the field” and, in contrast to when he is in the royal palace, “everyone who so desires is permitted to meet him, and he receives them all with a cheerful countenance and shows a smiling face to them all.”

Elul Observances in a Nutshell
Chabad.org

Antignos of Socho received the tradition from Shimon the Righteous. He would say: Do not be as slaves, who serve their master for the sake of reward. Rather, be as slaves who serve their master not for the sake of reward. And the fear of Heaven should be upon you. –Pirkei Avot 1:3

My wife refers to the month of Elul and the High Holidays as an opportunity to “hit the reset button”. So many undesirable things seem to pile up in our lives over a twelve month period that Elul is a good opportunity to make a serious evaluation of who we are, what we’ve been doing, and if we have been behaving as the sort of person we are, or want to be.

I find it interesting that during Elul, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi considers the King to be walking among His subjects. It reminds me of another King under somewhat similar circumstances:

“I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here
alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men’s
minds: methinks I could not die any where so
contented as in the king’s company; his cause being
just and his quarrel honourable.”

-Henry V – Act 4, Scene 1
by William Shakespeare

While our King is readily apparent to us, like the case of King Henry, this was not always so. Shakespeare’s Henry disguised himself as a commoner and walked among this troops on the eve of battle, encouraging them. For many people today, our own King is among us but walks “anonymously”. He is not recognized in his “disguise” and he is seen instead to be a false Messiah, a false Prophet, and even a fictional character in a book of myths. Among the Jews, even today, we can think of him like Joseph, who in the guise of the Egyptian viceroy Zaphenath-Paneah was not recognized by his own brothers until such a time as when Joseph chose to reveal himself:

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence. –Genesis 45:1-3

Yet there will be a time when the King will return in power and all will know his name:

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of King and Lord of Lords. –Revelation 19:11-16

I said previously that the vast majority of Christians see no particular significance in Elul or the approach of Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur, since as we are taught, Christ paid the price for our sins once and for all. Still, if you’re human, you know there’s a difference between the price being paid and our living perfectly sinless lives in the wake of being “saved”. There is no one who is above bowing to the King and begging His forgiveness for the wrongs we have done and continue to do.

It is true that our King is “closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24) and He is always accessible through prayer, but there will be a time when we are judged for what we have done and what we have failed to do in His Name. Elul is an annual opportunity to review who we are and what we need to do to be better servants of our Master and better sons and daughters of our Father. “Rabban Gamliel would say: Assume for yourself a master” (Pirkei Avot 1:16) and we have done so. Now it is time to heed our Master’s wishes.

Although it would be easy to misunderstand the events commemorated in Elul and the High Holidays themselves as terribly grim and fearful, it is actually a time of great joy and wonder. The King is among us. He desires that we draw near to Him. He wants none to perish (2 Peter 3:9) and to that end, he calls to each of us, especially now. Though, as Peter says, the Lord is not slow “but is patient toward you”, he is also merciful enough to build “reminders” into his calendar for us. Elul is one of the markers along the road cautioning us and encouraging us.

During Elul, observant Jews add Psalm 27 to their daily prayers and the first verse should tell us why:

The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid? –Psalm 27:1

Indeed, with the King walking among us, who should make us afraid?

During Elul, Jews often greet each other and bless each other by saying “Ketivah vachatimah tovah” which basically means “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.”

May it ever be so for this year and always.

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Love and Be Perfect

September 7, 2011 James Pyles 7 Comments

The Baal Shem Tov taught that a sin in itself is only the bite of the snake. The real damage comes from the poison that spreads afterwards, saying, “What a worthless thing you are. Look what you’ve done! Now you’re really lost.”

With those few words, all the gates of hell are opened.

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

I spend a fair amount of time on this blog talking about tikkun olam, repairing the world. That’s probably because the world seems so “broken” and in need of repair. In fact, the world seems to be getting more broken all the time.

Yesterday, I discussed how Christianity could be breaking the world in how we treat the Jewish people. Even if we take no overt actions against Jews, what we harbor in our minds and hearts about them is just as much of a sin (see Genesis 12:3, Matthew 5:21-22, Romans 11:17-21, and 2 Corinthians 10:5).

But a broken world sometimes starts with a broken self.

In quoting Rabbi Freeman, I’m illustrating the sort of person who knows that they’re broken and who is caught in a loop of sin, discouragement, hopelessness, and sin some more. Disobedience to God is only the first step and in most cases, it’s a recoverable state. However, once you’ve convinced yourself that your sin makes you truly irredeemable, then why do you have to care whether you sin again or not? You already believe it’s too late for you so you’ve given up.

But what about the person who sins and justifies their behavior? Some people simply lie and say they didn’t sin when they know they did, but others really don’t believe that their sin is a sin or their mistake is a mistake. They have created a set of explanations for themselves, usually based on scripture, that either excuses their poor behavior or completely redefines it as good behavior.

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone. –2 Timothy 3:1-9

This is terrifying because Paul isn’t describing the dangers of the secular world. He’s describing the church. Welcome to “terrible times”. It’s become all too easy to teach poor doctrine and be wholly convinced that you are completely correct and in line with the Bible, yet be supporting the most vile of positions and even opposing God.

In the case of a person who knows they have sinned and who seeks forgiveness, once they have been forgiven by God, they must learn to forgive themselves:

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” –Luke 18:13-14

But what do you do about a person, a group of people, or an entire church who sins and yet refuses to admit it, even to themselves?

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. –Matthew 18:15-17

When Jesus taught that, he may not have had the Internet in mind. It seems that so much of the bad teachings of Christianity happen online these days. If you attend a church with a Pastor or a Bible teacher who seems to have gone off the tracks, so to speak, you have the difficult choice of either confronting the problem or finding another church. That said, people usually select and attend a church based on agreeing with their doctrinal position in the first place.

On the Internet, opinions fly fast and furious and just about any viewpoint you could imagine, no matter how outrageous, is represented on someone’s blog somewhere. It’s easy to drop reading a blog or at least to not comment on it (depending on how much you need to fix it when someone’s wrong on the Internet) but what do you do about the people?

It would be easy just to give them up too, but do we have a responsibility to help a person to make amends with others and with God?

Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt. –Leviticus 19:17

This verse is the basis in Judaism for the commandment that one Jew should attempt to correct another Jew when the second Jew sins or is about to sin. Admittedly, we can’t say this necessarily applies to Christians as well, but can we say categorically that it doesn’t? Look at the example from Matthew 18:15-17 again. There is a certain amount of effort that goes into approaching someone who has sinned against you. You don’t get to brush them off at the initial affront. You are obligated to first approach them privately and, if they don’t listen, to take a couple of witnesses with you and try again. If the person still doesn’t respond, then you bring the matter to the entire congregation.

How do you do that on the Internet…or do you?

The Internet is a funny place. It fosters a false sense of intimacy based on our perceived anonymity. Because we think people don’t know who we are and can’t find out, we believe we can be more free with disclosing information about ourselves, including our opinions, than we would in a face-to-face encounter. On the other hand, because Internet relationships don’t have the “anchor” of a “real” relationship (the aforementioned “face-to-face”), we can feel very comfortable about cutting people off without even a glance backward to say “good-bye”.

There have been some folks on the web I’ve said good-bye to in one way or another and some I’ve been tempted to drop like an angry rattlesnake. But is that the right thing to do?

Very rarely is the person you disagree with “evil” or “irredeemable”. Most of the time, they’re probably not that much different from you. They are certainly just as loved by God as you are. They are often your brother and sister in Christ and even if they’re not, they have been created in the image of God, just as you have been. How can we walk away from people so casually, abandoning them to what is a problematic but correctable situation?

The oft-quoted “am I my brother’s keeper” (Genesis 4:9) comes to mind.

I don’t want to take endless amounts of abuse or rebuff in a hopeless attempt to get someone to change their minds on a matter of which they are fully convinced, but on the other hand, there’s this:

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. –Matthew 18:21-22

Forgiveness is one thing, reconciliation is something else. The web is full of concrete people with concrete opinions, based on what they think is a rock-solid interpretation of the Bible but interpretations can be and often are built on sand. A person may say that they are willing to listen to your side so you can “prove them wrong”, but how often do you really encounter someone who is willing to surrender their viewpoint because you devastated them with your overpowering logic?

People can be very afraid of even questioning their assumptions let alone giving them up. We pin a lot of our security on believing that, once we’ve made our mind up about something, the “something” will not change from being right to being wrong. We can justify hurting anyone in any way as long as we believe what we’re doing puts us on the side of right, virtue, and God. That’s how the various inquisitions and pogroms operated. That’s how the Nazis operated when they murdered six-million Jews. That’s how a lot of people operate, including a lot of religious people.

I can try to convince others that they are opposing God (and that is not their intent) but in the end, most will not be convinced. I can walk away from them, but it feels like abandoning a severely injured person trapped in a mass of twisted steel in the aftermath of a twelve-car pile up. In the end, it all belongs to God and not to me, but then what sin do I become guilty of by leaving them?

If we are our brother’s (or sister’s) keeper, then how heavy is the burden supposed to be and how long must we carry it? Seven times seventy? Seventy-seven times? What does that mean? What did the Rebbe say?

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.

I had meant to write about learning to forgive yourself after sin, but a great deal of the time, these blogs end up having a will of their own and I’m only the fingers on the keyboard recording them. I don’t know what to do about repairing the world or even “repairing” other people. It seems like I spend a lot of time learning how to repair myself. Yet I know that my responsibilities to God extend outside of myself and into the world around me.

But then, there’s always this teaching from the Master:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. –Matthew 5:43-48

Even on the Internet, I am required to love and to be perfect. Is this where I get to ask God for help in doing that?

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Breaking the World

September 6, 2011 James Pyles 3 Comments

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

-William Shakespeare
Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82

Just as it is a mitzvah to direct someone onto the path where he belongs, so too it is a crime to direct someone onto a path that does not belong to him.

Each person is born with a path particular to his or her soul, generally according to the culture into which he or she was born.

There are universal truths, the inheritance of all of us since Adam and Noah. In them we are all united. But we are not meant to all be the same.

Our differences are as valuable to our Creator as our similarities.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“To Each His Path”
Based on the letters and talks of the Rebbe,
Rabbi M.M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Both the Bard and the Rebbe, as interpreted by Rabbi Freeman, say something very similar. Not only are we not all the same but we must all “be true” to who we are, differences and all. It’s not a crime to be different from others, even in the worship of God, but there are plenty in the church that would have you believe otherwise. If you don’t go along with “the herd”, if you don’t fit in with “the group”, if you see life, scripture, and God from a different angle based on who God created you to be, not only are you likely not to be understood, but it is very possible you will be actively criticized. In the world of believers, you are even likely to be considered un-Christian, heretical, or apostate.

I’m not saying that there are people who aren’t apostate or heretical, but we must be careful how we toss about our accusations. Are we reacting honestly to the statements and practices of those who profess Christ but who practice a lifestyle opposed to his, or are we allowing our visceral responses to lifestyles consistent with Christ’s but inconsistent with the lifestyle we choose for ourselves to affect us and mistakenly labeling another’s lifestyle apostasy?

I used to consider myself a “Messianic”, that is, a person (in my case, a Gentile) who attached himself to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and who believed that I was required to conform to a completely Jewish religious practice because I was “grafted in”. This actually describes only one subset of the Messianic movement, called “One Law”, which believes that Jewish and non-Jewish believers in Jesus (Yeshua) are all the same in terms of covenant obligation to God. It’s as if becoming “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15) for One Law (OL) means that Christians turn into Jews without having to undergo circumcision. There are tons and tons of problems with this interpretation but one of my problems with OL is that it tends to actually discourage believing people who were born and raised in ethnic, cultural, and religious Jewish families from acting like ethnic, cultural, and religious Jews.

I mentioned in a previous “meditation” that I’ve been following a couple of blog conversations lately. One is A Response to Rabbi Dauermann’s Messianic Substitution and the other is Karaite leader Nehemiah Gordon responds to anti-missionary charges. Not leaving well enough alone, not only did I read these posts at Judah Gabriel Himango’s blog Kineti L’Tziyon, but I replyed. I should have known better. These conversations almost never end well.

If you visit the two blog posts and review the comments, you’ll see various snide remarks and unkind words (I’m not criticizing Judah’s blog, but some of the people who comment occasionally express “interesting” opinions). Granted, there is room for “spirited debate” on the religious blogosphere, but often, the religious blogs follow the same standard as the secular ones, especially in responding to the cry, “someone is wrong on the Internet.” We can’t seem to get it through our thick skulls that sometimes, someone isn’t “wrong”, they are just following a different path to the same destination.

I’m not going to balance the relative differences between Christianity (including the OL/MJ world which views religion from a largely Christian viewpoint) and Judaism, but I do want to caution folks not to point to Jews, including those who believe that the Jewish Messiah is realized in the person of Jesus Christ, and say that they’re “wrong” for wanting to live a Jewish lifestyle, worship in a traditionally Jewish manner, pray from a Jewish siddur, and to actually continue to be Jewish.

One of my favorite Jewish (not Messianic) blogs is Lev Echad. Blogger Asher is focused on the different “threads” of Judaism that tend to get uncomfortably tied up with each other, and his desire is to support Jewish unity among dissimilar perspectives and practices, forming “one heart” (hence, “lev echad”) among Jews. Much of what he says can be adapted and applied to Christianity and indeed, to humanity. Relative to those in Messianism/Christianity who criticize and virtually “demonize” those Jews who have faith in Jesus and who also live and worship like Jews, there is something that Asher wrote in one of his blog posts, although not intended to be applied to my context, that I believe should be read by Christians:

Similarly, there are some Orthodox Jews who too easily brand their less observant coreligionists as “heretics” or “non-believers.” Yet, prominent sages such as Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and the Chazon Ish have ruled that we live in a time of God’s concealment and therefore cannot apply the religious laws concerning heresy to modern-day Jews who question their faith. Furthermore, it is wrong to harm those who deny even Judaism’s most basic beliefs. Not only should we not hurt such people, we should help them if the situation ever presents itself.

Now marry Asher’s words with Paul’s:

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. –Romans 11:26

This isn’t the first time I’ve addressed anti-semitism among Christians. About six weeks ago, I wrote The Irrelevant Drunkard, which I wish all Christians/Messianics would read and try to comprehend. I realize the tone of that blog post (and this one) could put off a Christian/Messianic from reading beyond the first few paragraphs. It’s tough to take a good, hard look at what you’re saying and doing, especially basing it on scripture (and just because scripture can be bent and twisted to say many different things doesn’t mean all those different things are actually correct), and then to humble yourself before God and realize that you’re using the Bible to trash God’s Chosen People (see Genesis 12:3).

Going back to Asher’s blog, why can’t we do this instead?

One of the unique aspects of Judaism is learning about all the different roads people take that lead them to God and a life of goodness. While this is certainly a fascinating phenomenon, it can also be a great impediment to how we treat one another. Therefore, our goal in life should not be to turn all our fellow Jews into ideological and/or religious replicas of ourselves. Rather, it should be to guide – not force – others into a life of serving God and His children in a way that best matches their individual personality.

While the above-quote is addressed to Jews about Jews, certainly Christians can extend the sentiment to other Christians and to Jews who have accepted the Jewish Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

Or, we can lock ourselves in a tiny, unidimensional box with God and the Bible, telling ourselves that we’re right and all other churches, synagogues, and everybody else are wrong. We get to be a big deal and everybody else…not so much.

I mentioned before that one of the reasons I do not consider myself a “Messianic” any longer is that I do not believe the Bible supports a Gentile living an ersatz-Jewish lifestyle. Another reason is that calling myself “Messianic” limits what I can say and who I can say it to. As a “Messianic”, even one who supports the message that Jews and Gentiles have overlapping but distinct covenant relationships with God which do not involve identical obligations, if I say I’m “Messianic”, then only “Messianics” will want to hear what I have to say. Christians won’t listen because they consider Messianics to be Judaizers who want to bring believers “under the law”. Jews won’t want to hear what I have to say because many of them consider Messianics as a combination of “Christians in kippot” and “wolves in tallitot”, particularly the Gentiles who dress and behave as if they’re Jews but who don’t do “Jewish” very well. The value of the message becomes diluted or even discounted because of the label associated with the message and because of the audience it is presumed to be attached.

(I should say at this point that there are many people in Messianic Judaism who I consider friends and who do have a very powerful and meaningful message. It is a message that I pray daily will be heard by all Christians and Jews, not because of its “label” but because of the truth it communicates. I try to communicate a similar meaningful message but I do so from my own perspective and personal identity).

For me, it’s much more straightforward to say that I am a Christian, a Gentile who is a disciple of Jesus Christ, and someone who sees a great deal of added dimension to the teachings and life of the Master through the lens of ancient and modern Judaism. I’m not claiming there are one-to-one parallels between the Gospels and the Talmud, Chassidism, and Jewish mysticism, but there are certainly thematic similarities that can be considered. If I proceed from the basic platform that Jesus was a Jewish man, living in the Second Temple period in what was then Roman Judea, who lived as a Jewish man, taught as a Jewish Rabbi, and who did not abandon what it was and is to be a Jew, then the only logical place for me to go in understanding Jesus is to try (in my admittedly limited fashion) to comprehend Jesus as a Jew.

This doesn’t require that I become Jewish or to pretend to behave as if I were a “pseudo-Jew”. It does require that I make a paradigm shift and to study materials, concepts, and ideas that aren’t considered particularly “Christian” (and in fact, there are Messianic Jews who read many more Christian historic and modern texts than I do).

As a Christian married to a Jewish wife, I can’t simply take the Christian “party line” and judge my wife as condemned because she doesn’t throw her Judaism into the trash heap and turn into a “good Christian woman”. While there’s nothing wrong with being a “good Christian woman”, that’s not who she is or who God made her to be.

God didn’t create Jews and preserve them against all kinds of hideous persecution including the Holocaust, just to have them finally deleted from existence by converting them into Christians. Those Christians who suggest that Jews stop being Jews are considered to be finishing the job that Hitler started (and while that may sound very harsh, I can see why Jews view conversion to traditional, Jewish-rejecting Christianity that way). Those Christians who want to erase Jews from existence by turning them into clones of themselves are saying they want to destroy my Jewish wife (and as you can imagine, that’s not something I’m going to accept with any amount of graciousness or patience).

Like it or not, it takes more than evangelical Christianity or charismatic Christianity or “Messianic Christianity” (OL) to repair the world and make it whole, as Rabbi Freeman suggests:

To create is to reveal the parts from the whole.

To repair takes a greater wisdom. It is to discover the whole from the shattered parts.

He creates a world, knowing it will be broken, so He may empower us with the wisdom to repair it.

While Rabbi Freeman’s intent wasn’t to address the topic of today’s “morning meditation”, I believe his words can be re-shaped to do so. Repairing the world requires that we have all the pieces. If we throw out some of the pieces as irrelevant, apostate, evil, or just “too Jewish”, we are dooming the world to never becoming whole again. It would be as if God tried to make a person but tossed out the heart as unnecessary or the liver as “too different”. By Christianity condemning the Jews as a whole and particularly those Jews who have come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, we are literally frustrating the work of Jesus and what he will complete on his return; the final restoration of everything that was lost because of the fall of man at Eden.

It would be ironic and indeed tragic, if Christianity in dismissing Judaism, desiring the eradication of all Jews everywhere through conversion, and in failing to embrace the picture of Jesus as a Jew, were putting the entire Christian church in opposition to everything that Jesus did and does stand for, both as a man on earth and as our high priest in the Court of Heaven. The church then would be opposed to the will of God. Like I said, “ironic”.

Are some Christians helping to repair the world or to break it?

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Shoftim: A Sanctuary in Time and Space

September 1, 2011 James Pyles 5 Comments

You shall set up judges and law enforcement officials for yourself at all your city gates that the Lord, your God, is giving you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people [with] righteous judgment. –Deuteronomy 16:18

On the personal level, “your gates” refers to the seven sensory gates of the small city that is the human body, its seven points of contact with the outside world. A person should appoint mental “judges and law-enforcers” over his eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth, to judge, weigh and filter the desirable and constructive stimuli from the negative and destructive ones.

-Rabbi Shabtai Hakohen (the “Shach”)

In the Torah section of Shoftim (Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9) we read of the cities of refuge, to which a man who had killed accidentally could flee, finding sanctuary and atonement. The chassidic masters note that Shoftim is always read in the month of Elul—for Elul is, in time, what the cities of refuge were in space. It is a month of sanctuary and repentance, a protected time in which a person can turn from the shortcomings of his past and dedicate himself to a new and sanctified future.

-by Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Sacks
From Torah Studies (Kehot 1986), an adaptation of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s talks
“The Judge and the Refugee”
Chabad.org

What do the cities of refuge, described in this week’s Torah Portion and the month of Elul have in common? In a sense, as Rabbi Sacks describes, they are both sanctuaries. They provide us with a place to be safe from the consequences of our sins and an opportunity to reflect, experience true regret over our failures to obey God, and to repent by returning to Him and making amends.

Rabbi Sacks points out that although Judges and Officers were appointed to any place where Jews might live, only is the Land of Israel were there cities of refuge. If you inadvertently caused someone’s death in the diaspora, you would have a long trip to find refuge while avoiding the “avenger of the blood”.

Sifri interprets the opening verse of our Parshah, “You shall set judges and officers in all your gates,” to apply to “all your dwelling places,” even those outside Israel. It then continues: One might think that cities of refuge were also to exist outside the land of Israel. Therefore the Torah uses the restrictive expression “these are the cities of refuge” to indicate that they were to be provided only within Israel.

Nonetheless, Sifri says that someone who committed accidental homicide outside the land of Israel and fled to one of the cities of refuge would be granted sanctuary there. It was the cities themselves, not the people they protected, that were confined to the land of Israel.

This seems more than a little unfair for, according to Rabbi Sacks, a Jew living outside of the holiness of Israel was more prone to sin and therefore, in much greater need of access to a refuge. Nevertheless, this was the command of God. What meaning can we take from such an arrangement?

This is the deeper significance of the law that the city of refuge is found only in the land of Israel. For a man could not atone while clinging to the environment which led him to sin. He might feel remorse, but he would not have taken the decisive step away from his past. For this, he had to escape to the “land of Israel,” i.e., to holiness. There, on its sanctified earth, his commitment to a better future could have substance.

Setting aside the literal meaning of this Torah for a moment, we find that when we fall into sin, we cannot seek a solution in the environment that lead to and nurtured sin. It would be like an alcoholic seeking sobriety in a bar or a thief trying to repent while left alone in a bank vault full of loose cash. To truly make teshuvah, one must enter into a state of holiness; a personal “Land of Israel”.

Elul is called the month of preparation. To quote Rabbi Joshua Brumbach:

Elul…is the month preceding Tishrei – the month the High Holidays fall in. Traditionally it is known as a month of preparation. This preparation, called Cheshbon HaNefesh, is a time we begin to take an accounting of our soul. We recall our thoughts and actions over the past year and begin to seek t’shuvah (repentance) for those things, and with those we may have wronged.

One does not face the Throne of God lightly, particularly when He opens His books and dispenses judgments for your deeds. When preparing for an audience with the King, it is best to take as much time as you need to become ready to enter into His majestic and fearful presence. But how can any man become worthy to enter into the Courts of God?

…as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one”. –Romans 3:10

How dare we even hope to enter into a state where we could possibly be forgiven by God? And yet we know that God does not desire that any should perish, “but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Elul is a refuge provided by God whereby we can have the opportunity to prepare, to reflect, to make amends for our wrongdoing, and to cleanse ourselves.

For Christians, all of these preparations and the events of the High Holidays themselves aren’t thought to be particularly significant. After all, through the blood of Jesus, we have been cleansed of our sins once and for all. Why do we need to go through an annual cycle of repentance such as the Jews do? Our salvation is assured.

But wait!

Does that mean, once forgiven and saved, a Christian never, ever sins? Well…no. Oh. Then what do we do about it? The answer is probably to keep our “list of sins short”, and to approach God in trembling prayer and beg for His forgiveness through Jesus. I hope we all do that. But aren’t there those lingering sins, those habitual faults we tend to brush aside and (deliberately) overlook? Aren’t we all human? Don’t we sometimes leave things in our lives undone for months or even years at a time?

There’s no reason why we too can’t take advantage of an opportunity God offered to the Children of Israel thousands of years ago. We can enter into a sanctuary of the spirit, we can take the time to seriously explore our unrepented sins, our hidden and shameful faults, and prepare our souls for the act of total rejection of our errors and completely return to Him.

In Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 2:4, it states, “Do not judge your fellow until you have stood in his place. Fortunately, we have an intecessor and a High Priest who has stood in our place.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. –Hebrews 4:15

That should wipe away all of our excuses. Like the previous example of the Jewish man in the diaspora, sin has called and we have answered. Now we are desperate to return to holiness and to God, but like the Jewish traveler, we must journey long, we must escape the place of our sin. We must strive to return to where we can be safe and secure in time and space to delve into the depths of who we are and explore the wine-dark abyss. It is only there that we can see the repulsiveness of our sins, be repelled by our acts of rebellion, cry out in mercy to God, and as a prodigal son, return to him expecting nothing, and yet receiving everything from our Father.

A refuge is a place to which one flees—that is, where one lays aside one’s past and makes a new home. Elul is the sublimation of the past for the sake of a better future. And it is the necessary preparation for the blessings of Rosh Hashanah, the promise of plenty and fulfillment in the year to come.

I’m taking a small break from writing “morning meditations” to do some traveling. I’m not sure what sort of Internet access I’ll have, but definitely I’ll be back online and writing sometime early next week (sooner if I can manage it).

Blessings.

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Wonder

September 1, 2011 James Pyles 3 Comments

Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man’s attitude toward history and nature. One attitude is alien to his spirit: taking things for granted, regarding events as a natural course of things. To find an approximate cause of a phenomenon is no answer to his ultimate wonder. He knows that there are laws that regulate the course of natural processes; he is aware of the regularity and pattern of things. However, such knowledge fails to mitigate his sense of perpetual surprise at the fact that there are facts at all. Looking at the world he would say, “This is the Lord’s doing, it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalms 118:23).

Abraham Joshua Heschel
God in Search of Man : A Philosophy of Judaism
pg 45

Astronomers have combined two decades of Hubble observations to make unprecedented movies revealing never-before-seen details of the birth pangs of new stars. This sheds new light on how stars like the Sun form…The movies reveal the motion of the speedy outflows as they tear through the interstellar environments. Never-before-seen details in the jets’ structure include knots of gas brightening and dimming and collisions between fast-moving and slow-moving material, creating glowing arrowhead features. These phenomena are providing clues about the final stages of a star’s birth, offering a peek at how the Sun behaved 4.5 billion years ago.

“Hubble movies provide unprecedented view of supersonic jets from young stars”
Physorg.com

How do you combine these two quotes together? Can you see the hand of God in “energetic jets of glowing gas traveling at supersonic speeds in opposite directions through space?” I can. It’s not always easy, though. Building somewhat on yesterday’s morning meditation, we live in a world that strives to explain everything in terms of naturally occurring events. Nothing is amazing or astounding anymore, it’s just stuff that can be explained by science. But according to Heschel, just because you can explain something takes nothing away from the wonder of it being a creation of God.

Religious people and particularly “fundamentalist” Christians tend to take the opposite approach. They find wonder in all of God’s creation but see science as the enemy of God. Any scientific analysis of observable phenomenon is considered a denial of God’s existence. It’s only a miracle if it remains unexplained in terms of it’s physical, chemical, or electrical properties. Of course, by that thinking, we wouldn’t have the study of medicine which saves so many lives. We wouldn’t have the existence of the Internet which gives us virtually instantaneous access to information that would otherwise take weeks or months for us to locate. We would probably still think the Sun circled the earth and that God made the world as flat as a pizza.

Science is a tool and like any tool, it can be used and misused. In the post-modern era, scientific inquiry is often used as a tool to “prove” that everything in existence has a “natural” origin and that the universe doesn’t require a supernatural agent to explain its formation (and never mind that no scientific inquiry can adequately explain how the universe came into being in the first place). Yet science as a method of investigation, is amoral. It’s neither good nor bad. It simply is (at its most basic level) a set of steps that tells us how to look at something with as much objectivity as possible so we can learn what it is without tainting the conclusions with our own intervention and personality.

That’s of course, if it’s used correctly and with its original intent. Human beings have a tendency to abuse tools in order to acquire the results they believe fits their best interests, the truth not withstanding.

Even if used correctly though, scientific inquiry can have an unintended side effect. It can dull wonder, as Heschel states (pg 46):

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation. The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.

What a hideous way to exist. Nothing is amazing. Nothing is fantastic. No event leads us into the presence of sheer awe at the glory of God’s works. That is such a sad and sorry way to live.

There are atheists who are proud to call themselves by that name and who marvel at mankind’s genius as it progresses toward a higher and enlightened scientific and social order. As the last gene becomes identified and mapped and the last star in the galaxy becomes classified and planets made of diamonds are cataloged, it all is taken in stride and in self-satisfaction. But it’s all so empty without God, for whose glory creation exists.

Heschel wonders why a “scientific theory, once it is announced and accepted, does not have to be repeated” but observant Jews continue to pray the Shema twice daily saying “He is One”. The reason this is done is because the “insights of wonder must be constantly kept alive. Since there is a need for daily wonder, there is a need for daily worship.”

Heschel continues (page 49):

The sense for the “miracles that are daily with us,” the sense for the “continual marvels,” is the source of prayer. There is no worship, no music, no love, if we take for granted the blessings or defeats of living…Even on performing a physiological function we say “Blessed be Thou…who healest all flesh and doest wonders.”

Where is your sense of wonder? Perhaps it is doing well each day but if not, there is a way to inspire yourself. You don’t have to wait. Just start “doing” wonder. It’s like praying twice daily. Even if you don’t “feel” like it, the feeling doesn’t have to come before the doing:

People are not changed by arguments, nor by philosophy. People change by doing.

Introduce a new habit into your life, and your entire perspective of the world changes.

First do, then learn about what you are already doing.

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

Do you need help? It’s available, in fact, no one can develop a true sense of God alone because God didn’t create us to be in the world alone. As Rabbi Freeman writes:

Each of us has deficiencies, but as a whole we are complete. Each one is perfected by his fellow, until we make a perfect whole.

What we have, we were given by God. The environment around us, our intelligence, our sense of wonder, others among us to complete us and encourage us. We need only take advantage of God’s gifts including the gift of prayer. We need never lose our sense of wonder in the universe or our awe in God. I suppose it’s why Jesus said this, for who but a child has the greatest sense of wonder at the world and beyond?

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. –Matthew 18:3 (ESV)

Later today, I’ll post my commentary on this week’s Torah Portion Shoftim. Stay tuned.

"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