Eikev: Bringing the Moshiach

August 19, 2011 James Pyles 10 Comments

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. –Genesis 3:15

Because (eikev) you listen to these laws and safeguard and keep them, G-d your L-rd will keep His covenant and kindness that He swore to your fathers. –Deuteronomy 7:12

The Hebrew word eikev not only means “because,” but also “heel.” Thus Midrash Tanchuma explains that “these laws” refers to mitzvos that seemingly lack significance, so that people tend to “ignore them and cast them under their heels.”

-from “The Chassidic Dimension” series
Commentary on Torah Portion Eikev
“The Healing Effect of Heeling”
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

This play on words would completely bypass anyone who doesn’t understand Biblical Hebrew or anyone who doesn’t read traditional or Chassidic Torah commentaries. But now that you know about it, what does it matter?

As it turns out, it matters a lot. Here’s more from the “Chassidic Dimension”:

Eikev alludes to the time just before the coming of Moshiach — “On the heels of Moshiach.” The verse is thus telling us that close to Mashiach’s coming Jews will surely obey G-d’s commands. This is in keeping with the Torah’s assurance that prior to Mashiach’s coming the Jews will return to G-d. (Or HaTorah beginning of Eikev ; ibid. p. 491; ibid. p. 504.)

Recall the quote from Genesis that starts this blog post. This is the first Messianic prophesy in the Bible, and here we see a clear association with the enmity between man and God that only the Messiah can heal, and the words of Moses as he is about to send the Children of Israel on their ordained mission to fulfill God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and take possession of the Land.

Somehow, Christianity imagines that Jesus will return and then everyone will repent and turn their hearts, minds, and hands back to God, but this is exactly the opposite of what Judaism expects. In the last days, we will all turn to God and obey His commands and His desires and only then the Messiah will come.

This rather flies in the face of traditional Christian doctrine that says we are saved by grace and not by works, as if God’s grace and our behavior were mutually exclusive concepts. While it is true that we can’t work or buy our way into heaven, it is also true that once saved, we aren’t to sit idly by, read a magazine and wait for the bus to the clouds of glory.

We were given life for a reason. We’re supposed to be doing something with it and what we do or fail to do, will make a difference in the eyes of God.

I know I’ve talked about all this before, but since Moses brought it up, I felt I should go follow his lead, so to speak.

In Deuteronomy 10:20, Moses says, “You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him…” Here, according to the First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) commentary for this Torah Portion. “to cling to”:

is actually the same Hebrew word which is used of Adam in the garden when it says, “a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

But how can we cling to God in the sense that one person can cling to another person with whom they have an intimate bond? In Judaism, the traditional way of interpreting the fulfillment of this command is for a person to cling to a tzadik (Holy person) or Torah teacher. It’s the act of a disciple learning from and following in the footsteps of their Master or Rebbe. The FFOZ commentary continues:

Chasidic Judaism believes that through clinging to one’s rebbe (spiritual leader), one is brought into union with his rebbe. Because the rebbe is in union with God, the disciple is also elevated into union with God by virtue of that connection. In the same way, our Rebbe, Yeshua, taught us that in order to cling to God we must cling to him (John 15:1-7) and by clinging to him, we cling to God. “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20)

Cleaving to a Rebbe, honoring him, and learning from him, and then passing what you’ve learned to others and particularly down to the next generation in response to the desire to cling to God. When we cling to our “Rebbe”, to Jesus, we are fulfilling God’s desire.

One of the most important parts of the Shema appears in this Torah Portion (Deut. 11:1): “Love, therefore, the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His laws, His rules, and His commandments. Moses continues to comment on this theme thus:

Therefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, and teach them to your children — reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates — to the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth. –Deuteronomy 11:18-21

For the Children of Israel, the concepts of God’s favor and the obedience of the nation are inexorably intertwined along with clinging to God and the promise of the Messiah’s coming. The fulfilling of the promise to give the Holy Land to the Children of Israel and the promise of the coming of the Messiah to bring universal peace to the world go hand-in-hand for the Jewish people, and obedience and living in Israel is a form of joining with the Creator for the Jewish people.

Why don’t we have such a clear picture in Christianity?

It’s as if we’ve been told that it doesn’t matter what we do. We’re covered by the grace of Jesus Christ. We’re already saved; we’re already “clinging” to Jesus, so now all we have to do is sit on our thumbs and wait for him to come back and everything will be hunky dory.

Where did we get such a disconnect between the Torah and the Gospels? Who says we just get to sit around? Who says that the minute we were saved that our obligations to God were completed? Certainly not James, the brother of the Master:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. –James 2:14-24

I know I quote a lot from this passage too, but it says something that we aren’t told very often. It says that Jesus agreed with Moses (and you don’t hear that said in church very much) that a passive faith means nothing. The Children of Israel would draw closer to God and cling to God and they would succeed on their mission to take the Holy Land as long as they obeyed God and taught their children to do the same. We Christians, you and I, have a mission, too. Not just to spread the good news of Jesus and to live lives conformed to our Master, but we have individual missions based on who we are, where we live, and the opportunities God provides for us.

We have a road to walk. God set us upon a path. He has provided us with a light (Psalm 119:105) so we can see the path. Many times He has admonished us to turn neither left nor right, but to keep our eyes on the goal, not only the ultimate goal of existence as believers, but the immediate goals of helping others, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and performing whatever special mission and purpose God assigned to us from before the Creation of the world.

We can choose to stand still. We can choose to take God’s words and His purpose for us, throw them under our heels and walk all over them. Or we can choose to start walking and then see where the path leads. Along the way, we’ll meet people and encounter circumstances. How we manage them matters to God and to the people we interact with.

In this week’s Torah portion, Moses is trying to prepare the Israelites for a journey of fresh challenges full of promise and perils. God is doing that with us every day starting when we wake up each morning. Because somewhere out there in what we do today, tomorrow, next week, and into the future, not only affects our lives and the lives of who knows how many others, but each step we take along the path brings the footsteps of the Messiah one step closer to us. To bring the Moshiach, we must cling to our Rebbe who is close to God.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. –John 14:15

“A Jew never gives up. We’re here to bring Mashiach, we will settle for nothing less.” -Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh

Later this afternoon, I’ll be posting another commentary on this week’s Torah Portion called “Eikev: Blessing God”, probably a few hours before Shabbat begins.

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The Prophet and the Shade Plant

August 19, 2011 James Pyles 1 Comment

Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Now the Lord G-d appointed a kikayon, and it grew up over Jonah to be shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. Jonah was overjoyed with the kikayon.

But G-d designated a worm when the morning rose the next day, and the worm attacked the kikayon, and it withered.

Now it came to pass when the sun shone, that G-d appointed a stifling east wind; the sun beat on Jonah’s head, and he felt faint. He begged to die, and he said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

And G-d said to Jonah: “Are you very grieved about the kikayon?” And he said, “I am very grieved even to the point of death.”

And the Lord said: “You took pity on the kikayon, for which you did not toil nor did you make it grow; it lived one night and the next night perished. Now should I not take pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are many more than one hundred twenty thousand people that cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and many animals as well?”–Jonah 4:5-11

Before continuing to read, if you haven’t done so already, go to yesterday’s meditation and review part 2 in this series: Mission Drift, then come back here.

The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute’s Rabbi Mordechai Dinerman wrote a commentary called “Jonah and the Big Shade” on which today’s morning meditation is based. You all probably know the basic story of Jonah. My inserting Jonah’s story here may seem a little mysterious in light of what I’m trying to study in this series of blog posts. Most people walk around the earth searching for purpose and meaning, but for Jonah, those things were abundantly clear. Right from the beginning, Jonah was a Prophet of God and his path was set before him:

The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” –Jonah 1:1-2

I would imagine that if God came out point blank and told me the specifics of my purpose in life, where I was to go to find it, and what I was to do to fulfill it, I’d be thrilled beyond comprehension. But then again, maybe not. Jonah wasn’t thrilled. In fact, he tried to run away from his purpose and from God. He didn’t get very far. He was meant to go to Ninevah one way or the other. Like the old joke says, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Jonah didn’t choose the easy way.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post as a commentary for Torah Portion Masei. One of the key features of this Torah Portion is Moses reciting all of the places the Children of Israel camped during the 40 years of wandering. Why do that? Wasn’t the journey more important than the rest stops?

Perhaps not.

Recall the quote from yesterday’s morning meditation that was taken from the course book for the “Toward a Meaningful Life” lesson:

I wake up in the morning with the knowledge that my unique opportunities will be used to convey my individual personality in the places I find myself, thus inspiring the people around me.

Pay attention to the phrases, “my unique opportunities” and “in the places I find myself”. For Jonah, he could go no place on earth besides Nineveh in order to fulfill his purpose. He tried to go just about anyplace else, but that didn’t work out. Once the Children of Israel were consigned to wander the Sinai for 40 years, were they just wandering, or was there a purpose to where they went and what they did while they were there? What would have happened if they hadn’t encountered the descendents of Lot or Esau? Was it important that Aaron die specifically on Mount Hor? What about the battles and victories over Og, King of the Bashan and Sihon, King of the Amorites?

If the wanderings were truly aimless and the people and events they encountered really just random, why did Moses recount them to all of Israel on the threshold of entering Canaan? Why did Moses even bother to remember? Why were his words recorded in the Torah for all time to come, and why do we have them today?

Jonah had a reason to be at Ninevah and there was even a special purpose in his encounter with the kikayon plant (no one know exactly what this plant was supposed to be…it’s just a plant, but it had a purpose, too). Now think about where you go every day. Think about all of the places you’ve lived. Where have you gone on vacation? Where have you been “randomly” sidetracked? What did you do there and did any of it matter?

If your life isn’t random and arbitrary but rather, has a purpose and meaning assigned by God, then so does where your feet have taken you, or your car, or a train, or a plane, or whatever transportation you have used.

But what about the kikayon? Why did Jonah care more about that plant than he did for over 120,000 people in one of the largest cities in the world (at that point in history)? For that matter, why did God care about Ninevah when they had sinned greatly, including against the Israelites? God has exterminated whole people groups for their sin. Why did he care enough to spare Ninevah?

The most common explanation is that He felt compassion for their lives. They didn’t know their left hand from their right. They were helpless and blind, as far as God was concerned. Did Jonah care about the kikayon in the same way that God cared for Ninevah?

Yes and no.

Rabbi Dinerman explains:

In fact, the final message of the Book of Jonah is much more than a message about compassion. It is a message about the utter indispensability of every creature. G-d allows Jonah to enjoy the shade of a simple plant that protects him from the blazing sun. And the relief that Jonah feels as a result is so great that he cannot imagine being deprived of it, and when it is taken away, he is so upset that he cannot imagine living without it.

Jonah wasn’t upset about the kikayon’s death because he had compassion for it. He was upset because the kikayon served the purpose of shading him from the elements, and its death ended that purpose in Jonah’s life. How does this apply to the people and animals of Ninevah? Did God spare them because they repented and He had pity on them, or did He spare them because they repented and they were ready to fulfill their purpose in life?

Wow!

Yesterday, I quoted Rabbi Simon Jacobson’s famous definition of purpose:

Birth is G-d’s way of saying “you matter.”

Perhaps life is G-d’s way of saying “you still matter.” As long as it lived, the kikayon had a purpose and when its purpose ended, God appointed the means of its death. Though Jonah fully expected to die when he was thrown into the sea, God appointed a sea creature to preserve his life and to deliver him to his destination. Although the Book of Jonah ends abruptly, as if stopping in the middle of the story, we know that God spared Ninevah for a reason, we just don’t know what happens next.

You and I are still alive today, but the rest of our story hasn’t been written yet. There are still places to go, people to meet, things to do, and somehow, that’s all part of the reason we are here, even if we don’t always understand it.

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? –Matthew 6:28-30

The kikayon was only a plant, and yet it had a purpose assigned by the Creator of the Universe. Even the cattle in Ninevah each had a purpose. Jesus talks about grass growing one day and being thrown into the fire the next, and yet it is clothed in more splendor than King Solomon in all his royal glory.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. –Matthew 10:29-31

Grass, kikayons, sparrows, and cattle. Are you not worth more than all of these? If these common things all have a purpose and significance in the eyes of the Creator, how much greater is your purpose and significance to God?

Don’t go away. I’ll publish my commentary for Torah Portion Eikev in a few hours.

This series will continue on Sunday’s “morning meditation” Shattered Fragments. How does man and woman becoming “one flesh” affect the reason God made us?

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Mission Drift

August 18, 2011 James Pyles 3 Comments

I wake up in the morning with the knowledge that my unique opportunities will be used to convey my individual personality in the places I find myself, thus inspiring the people around me.

-from the Jewish Learning Institute course
“Toward a Meaningful Life”

I gratefully thank You, living and existing King for returning my soul to me with compassion.
Abundant is your faithfulness. –Modeh Ani

Before continuing to read, if you haven’t done so, go to yesterday’s morning mediation Struggling in the Dark. The conversation about meaning and significance really starts there.

Do you have a purpose in life? Does your life matter to others or even to one single other human being? Would it make any difference if you had not been born? Why are you here?

I suppose everyone has asked those questions about themselves at one point or another. We can look around us and see a gifted teacher, a compassionate doctor, a brilliant scholar and know immediately why God created them and why they are here. For a lot of people though, it may not be immediately apparent. We live ordinary lives. We work ordinary jobs. We don’t seem to be special in any way whatsoever. Would the world turn any differently if we weren’t here on the planet?

That’s hard to say. It comes down to the fundamental question of whether or not each individual person matters in God’s plan, as opposed to only certain key individuals being part of God’s plan, and existing within the mass of the rest of humanity.

Simon Jacobson, author of the book Toward a Meaningful Life asks that question and answers it by saying, “Birth is G-d saying that you matter.”

“Birth is G-d saying that you matter.”

By Rabbi Jacobson’s definition (and hopefully God’s), if you were born, you matter. More than that, you matter specifically to God because He created you to have a special mission to accomplish with your life.

Surprised?

I’m sure a lot of people would be. For most of us, we can’t imagine what we can do that would be special to God. What’s more important is to realize that we have that importance in the eyes of God no matter what anyone else thinks or feels about us.

That part can be difficult. It’s easier to imagine we are important to God when we’re important to other people. It can be more difficult to imagine we are important if we feel as if we don’t really matter to other people, beyond their obligation to say that we matter. Do we feel valued for who we are intrinsically as a person, or only for the role we play (employee, parent, child, family wage earner, taxpayer, and so on)? If we stopped doing what others expected of us, would they still care about whether or not we even existed?

Remember, I’m not talking about people who expect you to show up at work every day or to pay the bills on time. While those activities are certainly important, do you think God created you just to pay bills? Isn’t there something more to your life in the plan of the Creator of the Universe? I’m not particularly talking about something “flashy” or “fantastic”, but I am talking about something meaningful beyond the mechanics of everyday existence and particularly in terms of what God considers valuable, rather than the values of the world around us.

Through all that and more, as human beings, we struggle to find significance in the eyes of God, whether we really believe in that significance or not.

When Jesus (famously) said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) was “so loved the world” a generic reference to people in general, or did he mean “so loved each and every individual in the world across all human history”? If birth is the criteria, then the latter must be true.

That means when you get up in the morning, you have a particular mission to accomplish. This first chapter in the JLI lesson I’m reading (no, I’m not taking the course, my wife “gifted” me with the lesson book from the class she previously attended) guides the student into creating a mission statement: a one to two sentence statement of goals and purpose, usually for an organization. According to the class material, people need mission statements as well. Without one, a person will be about as successful in discovering their purpose in life as a company without a well-stated and defined reason for existence.

Here are a few examples of the original mission statements from now successful companies:

“To produce high-quality, low-cost, easy to use products that incorporate high technology for the individual. We are proving that high technology does not have to be intimidating for noncomputer experts.” –Apple

“We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages, everywhere.” –Disney

“To make the world’s information universally accessible and useful” –Google

I think you get the idea.

But what is your mission? For that matter, what is mine?

Maybe you know exactly what yours is or perhaps, staring at a blank piece of paper and expecting to write it down, you have come to the abrupt realization that it will take you a lifetime to figure out.

One of the main reasons I created this blog is to provide a platform for me and others to start the day exploring something about ourselves and the world around us that gives meaning and purpose to our lives. There are days when, looking at the web traffic to my blog, I feel as if I’m talking only to myself. If just one other person reads my blog and benefits from it, is that a sufficient fulfilling of my existence in the eyes of God? Am I fulfilling my purpose, or have I lost my way? Do I have a path or am I wandering aimlessly.

I found something said by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks that addresses this query and that has provided the main theme for today’s morning mediation:

One of my favorite contemporary phrases is “mission drift”. First used by the military, it’s what happens when in pursuit of an objective people forget what objective they were pursuing. You get sidetracked. The territory turns out to be not like the map. The going is harder than you thought it would be. You lose your way. The car breaks down. On the brink of departure, it looked so simple. But then, as someone (no one’s quite sure who) once said, “In theory there’s no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.”

In a single chapter in one lesson book, there’s probably material for half a dozen blog posts or more, maybe because the lesson is that good or, more likely, because the questions of purpose and “mission drift” are just that fundamental to humanity.

If we are only human and God is a God who needs nothing, what can we do on Earth that He needs from us?

There’s more to discover in subsequent morning meditations. Like the topic of depression brought up in yesterday’s missive, exploring your meaning and purpose may not be a comfortable journey, but I invite you to join me on the trail. Let’s see what we can find together, starting in tomorrow’s morning meditation, “The Prophet and the Shade Plant”.

As you keep reading through this series we will continue to ask one challenging and terrifying question: “Who am I and why am I here?”

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Struggling in the Dark

August 17, 2011 James Pyles 2 Comments

Depression is not a sin, but it can take you to places lower than any sin.
-Chassidic saying

That is why, every mitzvah must be done with joy, every prayer with song and every word of Torah studied with enthusiasm – not just because without that joyful enthusiasm, you are simply not there within that mitzvah, but because without joy, the Jew lives in a precarious state. “Because you didn’t serve G-d your G-d with joy and a good heart…and so you will serve your enemies.” Meaning: When a Jew acts as a Jew but with a heavy heart, he is fair game for the enemy within – the urges and passions of his animal soul.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Why Did G-d Give Me Depression?”
Chabad.org

And the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you distressed, And why is your face fallen? Surely, if you do right, there is uplift. But if you do not do right Sin couches at the door; Its urge is toward you, Yet you can be its master.” –Genesis 4:6-7

Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve, each brought offerings to God. God “paid heed” to Abel’s offering but not to Cain’s. Cain’s “face fell” (he became discouraged or depressed) and subsequent to God’s “pep talk”, in a fit of rage and jealousy, Cain murdered his brother. Yet had Cain already “killed” Abel while God was still talking to him?

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. –Matthew 5:21-22

Ironically, Jesus says something immediately after these verses that directly applies to Cain and Abel, and perhaps to us as well.

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. –Matthew 5:23-24

Depression, discouragement, and anger get in the way of drawing close to God. Certainly Cain’s feelings for Abel and his disappointment at Abel’s gift being accepted while Cain’s was not, inhibited Cain’s relationship with God, yet God cared enough about Cain, not to chastise him for his feelings, but to try and encourage him. God didn’t berate Cain for bringing an inferior gift but supported his efforts to do better in the future.

But was Cain’s gift inferior? All we know is “Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the soil; and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the firstlings of his flock” (Genesis 4:3-4). We assume that Cain’s offering was not the “choicest” of his “fruit of the soil” but what if it was? What if Cain had problems before even bringing his offering? After all, it’s hard to believe that a single incident was enough to drive Cain to murder, something that had never happened before in the history of humanity. Maybe Cain already had “something against” his brother, whatever that might have been. Maybe Cain believed that Abel was generally better or was seemingly more accepted as a son by their parents and as a person by God.

If Cain had been nursing a grudge for sometime against Abel and was nurturing a slow-burning depression and resentment, his “rejected” offering may have simply been the final catalyst that fanned these smoldering embers into a blazing conflagration resulting in a passionate, violent murder.

In Rabbi Freeman’s commentary, he says:

When a person is happy, he’s healthy. True happiness is when every faculty, every sense, every neuron and every muscle is in tune and functioning harmoniously. When happy, a person can fulfill his purpose in life, all of him, all of his purpose. Which is why depression is so despicable. Because depression is a surrender of purpose, of meaning.

Thus being depressed draws us away from the very reason God created us in the first place. A depressed person cannot fulfill the purpose for which God created him or her. The person becomes like Rabbi Yehuda Loewe’s Golum, “an unfinished person – one with all the right aptitudes not yet in the right places…a hunk of clay or otherwise shapeless substance”. We’ve already learned that “every mitzvah must be done with joy, every prayer with song and every word of Torah studied with enthusiasm” and maybe that was Cain’s big mistake. Maybe his offering was indeed the very best his garden had to offer, but he didn’t bring it with the boundless joy that Abel brought his offering.

Maybe that’s the mistake you make sometimes. Maybe that’s the mistake I make sometimes…trying to serve God without joy, song, and enthusiasm. Without joy, even the holiest of actions is performed by an empty heart.

But what is there to do? Rabbi Freeman responds:

Depression argues that you’re a worthless, hopeless scum in whom nobody would ever take interest. So agree with it. Tell it back, “You’re absolutely right. I’m even less than that. I was created with a purpose that I have not lived up to. I’ve messed up again and again. And yet, nevertheless, I have a G-d who has put up with me despite all my failures, who continues to ask me to be His agent in His world, eagerly awaiting my mitzvahs, looking forward to me sharing my concerns with Him three times a day. My purpose still lies before me, and whatever of it I can fulfill, even for a moment, is worth more than all the pleasures of the Garden of Eden.”

The Rabbi admits that he “ripped off” his answer from Chapter 31 of The Tanya (an early work of Chasidic philosophy), but is that really sound advice? The Tanya (and Rabbi Freeman) suggests “reasoning” with depression, but depression is hardly a rational state of mind. It’s a heaviness of spirit that seems to weigh down every human thought and action that tries to oppose it. Is the secret to overcoming depression just admitting that God still waits for you, even when you feel like doing nothing?

There must be something to it. Before psychiatrists and anti-depressant medications, some of the greatest men known to us and to God suffered similar feelings, as Rabbi Freeman recounts:

Looking at it that way, it makes sense that the greatest men and women of history, including our own giants, were people who suffered dark moods to the extreme. Moses cries out to G-d, “I can’t deal with these people any longer! If this is the way You treat me, if I have found favor in Your eyes, please kill me so that I don’t have to see my own tragedy.” King David cries, “I am a worm and not a man; a reproach of man, despised by peoples. All who see me will mock me; they will open their lips, they will shake their head.” The question arises: Without that capacity for inner suffering, would these men have been as great as they were?

And yet it was not their suffering that made them great, but the vital energy that burst out of that darkness.

Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, has a name based on the Hebrew root word “merirut” meaning “bitterness”. “She was bitter about exile, slavery, oppression and she refused to surrender to it. She fought it, defying Pharaohs decrees and encouraging others to do the same.” Midrash considers Miriam’s Song to be one of the “ten preeminent songs in the history of Israel — ten occasions on which our experience of redemption found expression in melody and verse” (Exodus 15:1-21).

Is there a beautiful song in this world with not a tinge of bitterness? Is there a story that uplifts the soul without first striking its darker chords? Is there an act of love that does not contain sorrow, a magnificent scene that does not harbor strokes of blackness?

The Tanya, that classic work of Chassidic thought that I’m always encouraging people to study, describes the joy of breaking out of that tunnel as the joy of returning home. You were lost, forsaken, alienated from your true self, and now rediscover that place where you belong. The child who never leaves home can hardly celebrate being where you’ve always been. You, who have tasted the other side of life, you now know the true meaning of the word “home.”

Cain had a choice. If Cain had listened to God and relied upon God to lift up his downcast spirit, he could have risen above his depression and experienced the joy of conquering what separated him from his brother and from God. Jesus tells a parable about two brothers who also chose different paths, but this tale has a different outcome.

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. –Luke 15:13-20

The full narrative is found in Luke 15:11-32, but you’re probably already aware how the story turns out. Instead of completely surrendering to his depression, the son who had fallen away, humbles himself, for after all, he has nothing left to lose, and returns to his father and his brother. While his brother ironically objects, the son’s father rejoices that his son, once dead, is now alive again, and celebrates with great feasting and merriment.

Sometimes, the greatest height of joy cannot be reached without descending onto an equal depth of sorrow and darkness. Every descent is for the sake of an ascent and the purpose of every darkness is so we can fill it with light. While we might not be able to reason our way out of depression in the short run, God, like the prodigal son’s father, is always waiting for us. Even in our depths He is encouraging us, even as he encouraged Cain. Like Cain and like Miriam, we have a choice to either surrender completely to our darkness, or to rise above it in joyous song. In following Miriam’s path “one day you will turn to look back, and discover depression itself has been transformed and all you are left with is a celebration of life.”

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

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Divergent Branches

August 16, 2011 James Pyles 9 Comments

The Jewish people have no monopoly on G-d and spirituality. In fact, Judaism’s core desire is that the world perceive G-d’s presence in their lives, and grow spiritually. What’s curious then is the wording of what is arguably Judaism’s most famous expression: “Shema Yisrael… Listen Israel, G-d is our Master, G-d is One (Deut 6:4).” If this eternal message relates to all mankind, why is it addressed only to Israel? Would not the One who created and sustains all mankind, by definition, be the Master of all?

-Rabbi Mordechai Dixler
“Note from the Director”
Torah Portion Vaeschanan
Director, Project Genesis
Torah.org

This is part of a brief commentary that Rabbi Dixler wrote for a newsletter to which I subscribe. Previously, I wrote a blog post called The Sons of Noah which asked how non-Jews can develop a relationship with God from a Jewish point of view. A day later, I answered that question from a Christian perspective with the blog article Children of God. Still, there’s more to the issue than I’ve chronicled so far. Although Judaism and Christianity have a common root, we have developed into religions that are light years apart.

For instance, when the Rebbe, Rabbi M.M. Schneerson characterizes the Noahide laws for the Gentiles, (as recorded in Rabbi Tzvi Freeman’s book, Bringing Heaven Down to Earth), he expresses the first Noahide commandment this way:

Acknowledge that there is only One G-d who is Infinite and Supreme above all things. Do not replace that Supreme Being with finite idols, be it yourself, or other beings. In this command is included such acts as prayer, study and meditation.

Look at the Rebbe’s wording. He warns not to replace the One Supreme God with “other beings” and applies it to acts of “prayer”. But in traditional Christianity, Jesus is God as much as God the Father is, and God the Holy Spirit. Also, how many Christians pray directly to Jesus as opposed to God the Father? It’s actually confusing who we should pray to:

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. –John 14:13-14

The Rebbe (and Judaism in general) characterizes God as One, the Unique and completely self-contained One that cannot be subdivided into any smaller parts or units. God isn’t a molecule that is one thing made up of many smaller components, He is an indivisible, irreducible, complete wholeness. There’s no way to turn that into the concept of the Trinity from a Jew’s point of view.

I’m bringing all this up because there may be an assumption running around out there that Jews can accept Christians as “righteous Gentiles”; as Noahides…but the Christian imperative to view God as both one and as three makes that impossible. Rabbi Dixler ended his letter last week emphasizing this very point:

Rashi’s classic commentary solves the puzzle: G-d might appear to be the Master of only the Jewish people, those who received and accepted the Torah at Mt. Sinai. The nation of Israel got direct instructions on how to live from the Master Himself — “Israel, G-d is our Master.” However, “G-d is One” — we wish and hope for the day when every soul universally recognizes the Al-mighty’s intimate involvement with all, when the spirituality hidden beneath every surface becomes abundantly clear.

I didn’t feel like Rabbi Dixler or Rashi, as his commentary was presented here, really answered the question, so, since there was the option to ask the Rabbi questions on the Project Genesis site, I posed this one:

Thank you for your insightful message, but I must admit to not quite seeing how Rashi’s commentary, as presented in your letter, solves the puzzle. G-d did indeed give direct instructions to the nation of Israel on how to live, but I don’t see where the rest of humanity receives the information that G-d is One.

I’m aware of the Noahide Laws as recorded in Genesis 9, but they don’t resonate from Noah to the rest of the nations in the same sense as the unbroken chain of Torah does from Moses and Sinai to the Jews of today. There’s a unified link between G-d, Moses, and the Israelites who stood at Sinai that can be traced from 3500 years in the past all the way to the present-day Jewish people. When you say that “we wish and hope for the day when every soul universally recognizes the Al-mighty’s intimate involvement with all”, how do you believe this will happen? Will we only become aware of the “spirituality hidden beneath every surface” when the Messiah comes?

I received Rabbi Dixler’s prompt reply thus:

James, You make a great point. He did give instructions to the rest of the world, but not to the level He gave to the Jewish people. It would seem that the discrepancy would give the appearance of Him acting as Master over the Jews, while exhibiting less mastery over the non-Jews. The point of the message was to say that He has as much a desire to have that relationship with the non-Jews, if they reach the required level of recognition of Him. While Jews may not always act at that level of recognition, they are the descendants of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs which gives them an advantage.

The recognition of the non-Jews has been happening throughout history and it will certainly reach it’s zenith at the time of the Messiah. The spread of the belief in monotheism to most of the civilized world was likely the greatest manifestation of this that we’ve seen so far.

Rabbi Dixler stopped just short of referencing Christianity and Islam when he mentioned the “spread of the belief in monotheism”, but without those two non-Jewish religious traditions, there would be no awareness of ethical monotheism, as Jews understand the concept, among any non-Jewish people.

This leads me to my next question. If in the first century, non-Jews were brought to an awareness of Jewish monotheism through the life, death, and resurrection of the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth (and certainly most Jews would take exception to my wording here) and that word of this “Good News” was spread in the diaspora to the Greek and Roman speaking peoples of that time by the disciples of the Jewish Jesus, why didn’t the “Universal Message”, as Rabbi Dixler calls it in the title of his missive, start and continue right then and there? Why didn’t the Jewish and non-Jewish worshipers of the Jewish God (and remember that the original worshipers of Jesus were almost all Jews) remain united? Why did a journey that started out with so much promise and light enter into such darkness?

OK, I know what you’re thinking. Most people are aware of the history of the first three centuries of the church and how a variety of events resulted in an ever-widening gulf between the Jewish and Gentile worshipers of Jesus, until what was once a Jewish sect with Gentile members became two separate and fully independent religions. On his blog yesterday, Derek Leman commented about the change in perception of Christianity from the martyr Stephen in Acts 6, to the Justin Martyr, who actively rejected the law of Moses for anyone, Jew or Gentile, who was a disciple of Jesus (Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho the Jew, ch. 11).

It has occurred to me more than once that for Gentiles to be able to experience a fully-realized relationship with God, we couldn’t do it as a part of Judaism. It’s probably the same reason why the landscape isn’t flooded with “synagogues” of mostly Gentile Noahides who fully embrace the Seven Laws as their core “Torah” and worship the God of Israel on that basis. Rabbi Dixler’s commentary seems to suggest that it should work this way, but he doesn’t operationalize it; that is, he doesn’t say how to make it work this way, particularly since Judaism has no mandate to “evangelize” to Gentiles. The only such mandate that I’m aware of was issued in Matthew 28:19-20 and the program it instituted, as least as administered by Jews, lived and died at the end of the first century. Gentile worshipers of the Jewish Jesus were only able to carve out their own identity as worshipers of the God of Abraham by separating themselves from Judaism altogether.

Today, Christians bristle at the thought that they could learn anything from the Jewish people (especially since Jews reject Jesus) and many still hold fast to supercessionism or the theological belief that the church has completely replaced the Jews in the covenant promises of God. The idea of Jews and Christians co-existing as God’s people, albeit at different levels of responsibility, is abhorrent to many Christians and Jews. Judaism has Moses as the lawgiver and Christianity has Jesus as the “law-taker-away”. As they exist in the minds of their followers, trying to make these two religions work and play well together is like trying to get the National Organization of Women to endorse Sarah Palin for President.

It’s not going to happen. In fact, here are three of the comments people made in response to Rabbi Dixler’s letter that punctuate my point:

I’m a Chab Jew and I have experienced the disdain of other Orthodox jews, some Chassidim. If we cannot be one how can we expect to have the goyim in the boat?

For your remarks. Perhaps no issue is so easily misunderstood as that of particularity or election. As a stranger come into the faith, I still, occasionally, wonder if I have crashed the party. during my morning prayers, for the longest time I changed one to “Thank you for making me a goi.” Even now, every time I recite the prayer, I think that God has remade me. This, however, does not stop the occasional flinch that perhaps I was dissatisfied with the state of my original creation and that I did God a disservice by converting to Judaism.

There is no way to get around the particularism of Judaism. We are “Am Segulah” the special precious possession of Hashem. We are meant to be a light unto the nations, but the nations themselves have no part in the Torah. Non-Jews who feel that they are spiritually close to the Jewish people must go the way of Yitro and Ruth and become part of Am Yisrael.

Without Christianity (and short of having all the Goyim convert to Judaism), there would have been no mechanism for non-Jews to come to faith and trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And yet, as a result of Christianity, an enormous wedge has been hammered between Jews and Christians.

Another thing. The Rebbe, when responding to a question about secular and religious Jews, said…

You categorize them as religious Jews and secular Jews! How dare you make such a distinction! There is no such thing as a secular Jew. All Jews are holy.

The Rebbe’s words seem almost an echo of Paul when he said “and so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:16). You may still choose to debate this conclusion, but there’s no way around the inexorable unity that joins all Jews, even those who passionately disagree with each other, together at an extremely fundamental, “DNA” level. The Rebbe put it this way:

The Jewish people are one. A Jew putting on tefillin in America affects the safety of a Jewish soldier in Israel.

I haven’t experienced this kind of unity within the church and doubt that even the most devout Christians can claim a bond with each other that is so complete as one Jew has for another. Is this what Sinai did? No one chooses to be a Jew unless you convert, but the vast majority of the world’s Jewish population were “born that way” (to quote a popular entertainer). No Christian is “born that way”, we all make the choice independently, even if we are born into Christian families.

Where did we go wrong? Why do we struggle between our two faiths when God is One? Rabbi Dixler tries to answer those commenting in his newsletter, and maybe even my own question, with these words:

An issue that has been raised by a few is that this message somehow dilutes the idea of the Chosen Nation and that the commandment to love is only towards others Jews. To be clear, the Jews were chosen by G-d to be the recipients of His Torah since they are the children of the the Patriarchs and Matriarchs – those who discovered G-d’s presence for themselves, devoted every ounce of their being to Him, and introduced the pagan world to what it means to have one G-d. At the same time, the mission of Jews that they’ve been chosen for is to spread the knowledge of G-d’s presence to all of humanity, by acting as a light to the nations. Built into this mission is the concern that all of humanity appreciate G-d and the spiritual relationship we have with Him.

Unfortunately, “all of humanity” appreciating God and the spiritual relationship the Jews have with Him has necessitated the separation of the Jews from those of us who were “first called Christians at Antioch” (Acts 11:26).

I had asked Rabbi Dixler if, in his opinion, the unity between the Jews and Gentiles under the One God would only happen when the Messiah comes (a second time, from the Christian viewpoint). He replied that while God has as much desire to have a relationship with non-Jews as he has with Jews, the recognition of God by non-Jews “will certainly reach it’s zenith at the time of the Messiah”. From Christianity’s vantage point, we already have that recognition through Jesus Christ. But it’s the Christian theology and dogma of 20 centuries that has been wrapped around the teachings of Christ and his early Jewish followers like a thick blanket that has both kept us warm in the love of God and isolated from the Jewishness of our Master.

Paul said in Romans 11 that Jewish branches were temporarily broken off the root to make room for Gentile branches but how long will it be until we can both be part of the root again? How long until the Jews and the Christians can share an awareness and a love for our common God and put aside 2,000 years of enmity?

How long?

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The Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels: A Review

August 15, 2011 James Pyles Leave a comment

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.

This is the introduction on the Vine of David website to the Levy Hirsch Memorial Edition of the Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels. Over a century has passed since the last edition of this critical and faithful publication has been produced and Vine of David, the ministry arm of First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) that specializes in early Messianic Judaism and the development of Messianic liturgical resources, has taken up the mission of publishing this Gospel and distributing it for free to any Jewish person, allowing Jews to explore the teachings of the Master, both in Hebrew and in English.

The Delitzsch Gospels is an elegant Bible and holding it, is like holding a bridge between Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus) from the 19th century to those carrying the Messianic banner today. While there are other New Testaments written in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, Delitzsch’s translation uses sources and interpretations that are the most well-known.

Although the Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels are specifically reaching out to the Jewish people, as a non-Jewish Christian, I find the resources this publication offers to be compelling. From the Translator’s Preface and Introduction to the abundance of reference materials, including maps and charts, this version of the Gospels provides history and context, not only of the Franz Delitzsch and the 19th century believing Jews, but a hint of the true Jewish origins of the Gospels and of the 1st century Gospel writers.

The heart of the Delitzsch Gospels are the Gospels themselves. Reading them reminds me of the experience of reading the Chumash or the Tanach. Opening the Gospel to Mattei (Matthew) 1:1, the genealogy of Jesus is presented in English on the left page and in Hebrew on the right. Even with Hebrew skills far less than fluent, I can still imagine going through the opening words of the first Gospel alongside both Christian and Jewish believers, and perhaps get a small sense of what the author was thinking in his own language as he began recording his understanding of the life of the Master.

Beyond the value the Delitzsch Gospels present to Jewish believers, this modern edition also offers a unique gift to Gentile Christians who have little or no understanding of the “Jewish Jesus”. It presents those in the church with a taste of “original” Jesus, the Jewish Rabbi who walked the streets of 1st century Jerusalem and who taught his disciples in the hills of Galilee. In reading and studying from the Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels, we all can attain a clearer vision of who Jesus was and is among his people, the Jews, and his mission to save the lost sheep of Israel.

Who is Jesus of Nazareth, Son of the living God, called the Christ and the Moshiach? You may think you know. But the images invoked by reading his words and his life from the pages of Vine of David’s Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels may well introduce you to the Jewish Messiah and the Israelite Carpenter, Teacher, and King of Kings for the very first time.

To learn more, please visit the Vine of David. The blessings will be yours.

"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