Calm Down and Sanctify the Name of God

December 22, 2015 James Pyles 4 Comments

I saw the B.C. comic strip and it reminded me of the angst that is often expressed by both secular and religious people this time of year. “Christmas is pagan!” “Christmas is offensive!” “I celebrate Kwanzaa and Christmas offends me!” “I celebrate Festivus and everything offends me!”

As my long-suffering wife might say, “Oy!”

This is more a blog post about memes than any extended narrative or profound commentary. A message to the easily offended in the secular and religious blogosphere…chill out.

I’ve been monitoring a couple of conversations on various blogs, basically debates between Jewish and non-Jewish disciples of Yeshua and a Jewish anti-missionary who is on a mission, so to speak.

Then there’s what the Vatican had to say about the Jews and Jesus and how that’s stirred up a virtual firestorm in the digital realm. Dr. Michael Brown finally composed his formal response, which of course is critical of the Pope. Numerous Orthodox Rabbi’s signed what amounts to a response statement issued by the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation, and others have commented as well.

In the midst of all this, I’m pondering the recent death of six U.S. troops in Afghanistan, killed by a suicide bomber. I’m pleasantly surprised that a McDonald’s restaurant in Nashville has received such a positive response to painting a nativity scene on its windows. No, I don’t eat fast food nor do I celebrate Christmas, but I believe others have the right to do so.

I also believe those six soldiers had the right to live, but that was taken from them because they are at war. If any of their families celebrate Christmas, then this year, there will be grief and mourning adorning their trees instead of lights and ornaments. Christmas dinner will be ashes rather than turkey or goose.

I hadn’t actually realized this, especially after Hamas took control, but there’s been a Christian community in Gaza for nearly 2,000 years which only now is disappearing, being driven extinct by relentless terrorism.

You may think your faith traditions are threatened by other religious holidays, by secularism, by the government, or whoever you want to blame. Try being a Christian in Gaza. I can only imagine it’s a bit more of a struggle than the “problems” we face as people of faith in the U.S.

Christmas, whatever you think of it, arrives on Friday this year. A little over a week later, most folks will start taking their festive lights down and they’ll deposit their evergreen trees by the curb for orderly disposal.

Christmas, along with every other December holiday, will fade along with 2015 and the buzz about the latest Star Wars movie, and we’ll move on to other topics that offend us.

Every year at about this time, the Aish website runs a story called The Christmas Tree. It’s relatively short and a wonderful illustration of how best to react when we confront a religious holiday that isn’t compatible with us for whatever reason. I’d like to think we are mature enough to respond to each other’s differences and distinctiveness the way the Rabbi in the story reacted to the loving but mistaken act of kindness bestowed upon the Rav’s family by their Irish maid.

When we can not only understand but practice sympathy instead of anger and offense, then we will truly have learned what it is to be a Kiddush Hashem, to sanctify the Name of the Almighty.

Yesterday when I was making a small purchase at a local store, the cashier wished me “Merry Christmas.” I returned the sentiment. How could I be offended at her sincere well wishes toward me? If “Merry Christmas” offends you, then I graciously invite you to deal with it.

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Talmidei Yeshua

December 21, 2015 James Pyles 5 Comments

Actually Questor made the suggestion for a proper term by which to call Judaicly-aware non-Jewish disciples of Rav Yeshua in coining the phrase תָלְמִדִם שׁל יֵשׁוּע – Talmidim shel Yeshua – Disciples of Yeshua, however ProclaimLiberty suggested:

Nice label suggestion, “Q”, but the phrase requires the possessive contraction as: “תָלְמִדִי יֵשׁוּע” (Talmidei Yeshua) rather than as merely a descriptive or explanatory phrase.

Of course, referring to people like me as “Talmidei Yeshua” is going to draw a lot of blank stares from Christians or just about anyone else.

Just the other day, I got a knock on my door, and when I answered, the fellow asked if I was a Christian. I said “yes,” but pointing at the mezuzah on the door frame, I said my wife was Jewish. If I had told him something “I’m Talmidei Yeshua,” he might have given me a much less predictable response.

For as many years as I’ve been involved in the Hebrew Roots and Messianic Jewish movements, there’s been a struggle as to what to call ourselves. OK, Jewish disciples of Messiah can call themselves Messianic Jews, but even early on, there was some resistance to applying the word “Messianic” to non-Jews, the idea being that “Messianic” belonged to the Jewish people.

A lot of Gentiles in Messiah don’t like being referred to or like calling themselves “Christians” because of the implications of replacement theology, denial of the applicability of the Torah as a requirement of God’s for Jews in general and Messianic Jews in particular, and the whole church on Sunday, Christmas, Easter, eating ham at the drop of a hat deal that seems so anti-Jewish and thereby anti-Messiah.

Some folks hedge their bets and say they’re “believers” which is acceptable as an alternate “Christian-ese” word that still doesn’t peg the non-Jewish Messianic as “Christian” specifically.

However, in spite of all this, Messianic Gentiles as a proper term, has risen to the top of the list in being the most accurate representation of who we rather odd non-Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah King are in our theology, doctrine, and praxis.

That said, Q and PL may have a point in addressing us as “Talmidei Yeshua” since “Yeshua’s disciples” is both accurate and generic. I even mentioned to PL that we could refer to both Jews and Gentiles in Messiah by that title and still be correct.

Except that he reminded me of something:

Yes, it could refer to both, though Jewish disciples might prefer ‘Hasidei Yeshua. Or, as someone in my local ‘havurah suggested last week, Jewish disciples might do well to forego any distinctive label altogether, being satisfied to be simply Jews without any such label that could suggest separatist factionalism or “minut”. Just as Rav Shaul was content to identify himself simply as a Pharisee or a Binyamini (tribal designator), without any other qualifier specifically associated with Rav Yeshua, so could modern Jewish disciples do in modern terms. Distinctive terms such as “Nazarene” did not appear until later, and were used primarily to distinguish Jewish messianists as individuals to be avoided or forced out of the Jewish community. That sort of social dis-interaction needs to be countered as Jewish messianists re-integrate within the wider Jewish community, bringing what they’ve learned from Rav Yeshua with them.

For gentile disciples, on the other hand, a label could have a positive function to emphasize that such individuals have “drawn close” to the Jewish community and embraced the principles and values of the Torah covenant.

And that Reminded me of Rabbi Stuart Dauermann’s article “The Jewish People are Us — not Them,” published in Messiah Journal, which I reviewed a couple of years back.

Historically, converting to Christianity has been seen as drawing the convert out of his or her former life and associations and into the Church. This has been true whether the convert were a Jew or anyone else. Sometimes, the convert’s Jewish family and friends don’t even acknowledge this person as Jewish anymore.

However, as Dauermann correctly pointed out and as I interpret him, being Messianic is a very Jewish thing to do. All religious Jews eagerly await the coming of Messiah. The only difference between a Messianic Jew and any other religious Jew, is that the Messianic acknowledges the specific revelation of Messiah as Rav Yeshua (I’m sure there are Jews who would strongly debate this point).

Accepting the revelation of our Rav as Moshiach, if anything, should increase and enhance the observance of a Jew and ideally, draw the Jew nearer to his/her fellows and to Jewish devotion and praxis.

That’s why there probably isn’t any real need to call a Messianic Jew anything other than a Jew. PL rightly points out that Paul didn’t create a special designation for himself after the events of Acts 9. So why should any other Jewish disciple of the Rav do so?

However, it always seems to come back to “what do we do with the Gentiles?” If being “Messianic” is such a Jewish thing to do, then it must be a pretty strange thing for a non-Jew to do. Who are we? What do we call ourselves? How do we define our praxis? Once we enter this world, as distinguished from the more traditional Church, we find ourselves in an indistinct, foggy, no-man’s-land, being neither fish nor fowl, still Gentile but located, even tangentially, in Jewish space because we have declared ourselves as disciples of the Jewish Rav.

Calling ourselves Talmidei Yeshua may not change a great deal, but it does give us some small sense of identity, or at least what to call ourselves, that shouldn’t be objectionable in Jewish religious and social space. Of course, it’ll rather put off most Christians who consider the title “Christian” to be more than sufficient, but then again, anyone who’s been reading this blog for a while knows that people like me don’t think, speak, teach, write, or believe in precisely the same things you’ll find preached in the average Evangelical Church on Sunday morning.

Of course, those other pesky questions remain unanswered for the most part. Yet I think each person has created his or her own answers out of necessity. Some let themselves be defined by the standards of accepted praxis for Gentiles in their congregations. Some, like me who have no congregation or group, self-define. However, there remains no single standard to which the Talmidei Yeshua can consult and emulate.

This is probably why so many of the non-Jewish Talmidei Yeshua look to their Jewish counterparts with envy since Jewish halachah is well-defined.

My Jewish wife would be perplexed by all this. From her point of view, and from the point of view of the Jews attending the two synagogues in my community, I’m considered a Christian and that’s that. All the little spins and twists that I derive from Jewish literature in understanding my faith are moot to them.

This isn’t a problem really if we don’t factor community into the equation. Besides my name, I have no idea how God refers to me, how He categorizes me (besides “human” or “Goy”), how He thinks of me, if He has to have categories at all. None of this probably matters to Him. He doesn’t see titles or labels, He sees the heart and the relationship.

In the end, that’s all there is. Maybe we live in community or at least family, but we die alone and only God receives us. He calls us by whatever name He wills.

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A Partnership of Christianity and Orthodox Judaism?

December 20, 2015 James Pyles 13 Comments

A group of prominent Orthodox rabbis in Israel, the United States and Europe have issued a historic public statement affirming that Christianity is “the willed divine outcome and gift to the nations” and urging Jews and Christians to “work together as partners to address the moral challenges of our era.”

-Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D
“Orthodox Rabbis Issue Groundbreaking Declaration of Affirming ‘Partnership’ with Christianity”
BreitBart.com

Actually, I heard about this a few days ago but according to one Jewish source, this is to be dismissed as a “bunch of interfaith liberal rabbis” attempting to mollify Christians (and Muslims) by (hopefully) having everyone “make nice” wi one another.

I didn’t think anymore about it until I saw the BreitBart.com article on Facebook, however, since BreitBart isn’t known to be unbiased, I thought I’d look for other news sources covering the story.

pope francis — 2014 Pastoral Visit of Pope Francis to Korea

Apparently, this is associated with something I wrote recently regarding how the Vatican has changed it’s stance on converting Jews. It’s not that the Roman Catholic church has ceased all efforts to share their version of Jesus Christ with Jewish people, it’s simply that they state they no longer have a specific mission to the Jews. They also (apparently) now believe that Jews have a covenant relationship with God without first having to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Messiah.

Anyway, I found a couple of other sources, one being The Times of Israel and the other being Christianity Today.

The Times of Israel story says in part:

In its statement, “To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians,” the rabbis who signed the statement “seek to do the will of our Father in Heaven by accepting the hand offered to us by our Christian brothers and sisters.”

“It is a groundbreaking statement,” Rabbi Dr. Eugene Korn said. “It’s the only statement I know of by an international Orthodox body that talks about the practical and theological relationship with the Roman Catholic church after Nostra Aetate.”

Rabbi Korn, who lives in Teaneck and Jerusalem, was one of the drafters of the statement, which was published by the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation, an interfaith center in Israel founded by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. Rabbi Korn is the center’s academic director.

Of course, an organization called The Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC) would have a vested interest in promoting good Jewish-Christian relations, so this statement can’t be a complete surprise.

epelman rosen — Image: Alessandra Tarantino / AP Images / Rabbi Claudio Epelman and Rabbi David Rosen

But just as the Catholic statement previously issued does not represent formal policy of the Vatican, the Christianity Today (CT) story made this observation:

While the Jewish statement is a signpost of improving Jewish-Christian relationships, it shouldn’t be interpreted as a consensus among Jewish rabbis, Orthodox rabbi Yehiel Poupko told CT.

“No major Jewish Halachic (Jewish legal) authority has signed the statement,” he said. “And Jewish thought has, for centuries, emerged not from individuals signing letters but from a long, slow process of scholarship that builds communal consensus. This statement did not do that. In addition, complex theological issues do not readily lend themselves to full expression in short sentences presented in brief public statements.”

In other words, steps are being taken in the right direction (seemingly), but nothing is official. This won’t change things as much as some folks wish it would. However, the CT story added:

But it isn’t meaningless.

“The statement is a very real indication that the Orthodox rabbinate is grappling with how to understand Christianity in an era when Christianity is reaching out to Judaism and has repented of its sins against us,” he said.

The warm relationship between Jews and evangelicals is still in its infancy, Poupko said. “We are feeling our way, and this statement should not be viewed as a consensus, let alone a final statement. Rather, it’s an indication of the theological and intellectual ferment in the Orthodox rabbinate about Christianity.”

Christianity—and Islam, for that matter—are actually Jewish success stories, he said, “because Christianity and Islam use the Torah, and as a consequence, people who would now be pagans have knowledge of and are in relationship with the one God.”

I suppose this goes along with something I quoted yesterday from this source:

By the way, Maimonides states that the popularity of Christianity and Islam is part of God’s plan to spread the ideals of Torah throughout the world. This moves society closer to a perfected state of morality and toward a greater understanding of God. All this is in preparation for the Messianic age.

But as the CT article points out:

Experts told CT that neither statement wipes out the significant theological differences between Christians and Jews.

brickner — David Brickner – Jews for Jesus

Not only that, but as you might imagine, a number of Christian evangelical organizations are rather put out by both the Vatican’s statement and that of (possibly) CJCUC:

Jews for Jesus executive director David Brickner was more forceful, calling the Vatican’s position “egregious.”

And…

Jim Melnick, international coordinator of the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism (LCJE), agreed.

However, the CT article ended with a quote from Jason Poling, a “co-convener of the national Evangelical-Jewish Conversation:”

But the theological divide shouldn’t stop the Jewish-Christian conversation, he said. “Jewish-Christian relations can only be enriched by the participation of colleagues like these Orthodox rabbis who recognize theological pluralism as a phenomenon without embracing it as doctrine.”

Curious, I went to the CJCUC site to read the actual statement. The statement includes seven somewhat lengthy points so I won’t quote them here. You can click the link and read them for yourself, along with a list of the Orthodox Rabbis who signed it (electronically).

The bottom line? I’m not sure there is one, at least nothing particularly dramatic. At best, I’d have to say this is part of the slow evolution the Christian and Jewish worlds are experiencing as we enter into the “birthpangs of the Messiah,” anticipating the events that will lead to war and destruction which will bring Israel to the brink of non-existence before the Messiah returns to bring victory, redemption, restoration, and justice.

Repentance

Tipping Point to the End of Days

December 19, 2015 James Pyles 7 Comments

Question:

With the world appearing more and more a dangerous place, I’m wondering what Judaism has to say about the possibility of an apocalyptic final event. Does such a concept exist, and how will that play out?

The Aish Rabbi Answers in Part:

The other path is described as Messiah coming “humble and riding upon a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). In this scenario, nature will take its course, and society will undergo a slow painful deterioration, with much suffering. God’s presence will be hidden, and his guidance will not be perceivable.

According to this second path, there will be a valueless society in which religion will not only be chided, it will be used to promote immorality. Young people will not respect the old, and governments will become godless. This is why the Midrash says, “One third of the world’s woes will come in the generation preceding the Messiah.” (Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, “Handbook of Jewish Thought”)

“End of Days”
from the Ask the Rabbi column
Aish.com

I know a lot of religious pundits, both online and in various congregations and study groups, have tackled the question of the “end times,” so I’m probably being ridiculously redundant. On the other hand (and I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for this), as I was reading this column, I was thinking about how I, from my own (somewhat) unique point of view, see the matter.

According to the Jewish sages, the coming of Messiah can occur in one of two ways (the Aish Rabbi outlines both). The first is that the world becomes filled with love and kindness and all people everywhere bow down to and swears obedience to King Messiah. All the world has to do is engage in teshuvah (repentance) en masse and perform Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).

I don’t see that scenario taking place any time soon.

The other path is as you see quoted above. Instead of Messiah entering this world and establishing his Kingdom in honor and glory, he humbly emerges on the scene riding upon a donkey. This event happens if the people of the world never get their act together, and we allow society to “undergo a slow painful deterioration, with much suffering.”

So there has to be a “tipping point,” so to speak, where the decision is made, when the fate of the planet is determined by worldwide human behavior and intent.

According to the sages, this tipping point occurs in the future.

But what if it has already happened?

In addition to Zechariah 9:9, consider the following:

When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

“Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold your King is coming to you,
Gentle, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David;
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;
Hosanna in the highest!”

When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

–Matthew 21:1-11 (NASB)

The crowds seeing “the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee” couldn’t possibly have missed the symbolism. No wonder they were filled with joy. The Messiah had arrived.

But here’s what was also necessary, at least as I interpret the sages:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

–Matthew 23:37-39

If the Talmudic sages are right (and I’m taking a big leap here), then when Rav Yeshua (Jesus) entered Jerusalem on a donkey, the tipping point had already arrived and the decision had been made that the world would slowly degenerate and degrade into moral chaos.

I think Yeshua’s lament over Jerusalem was his expression of sorrow of what the Jewish people would have to suffer in a world that has always hated them. No matter what they had suffered up to this point, the world was going to become so evil, that it would become progressively worse for all Jews everywhere.

Maybe this is why we don’t have prophets and miracles anymore, at least not like we saw them in the Bible including as illustrated in the Apostolic Scriptures. Because “God’s presence” is “hidden, and His guidance” is “not…perceivable.” This differs from why the “age of miracles” is believed by many Christians to have ended.

The Aish Rabbi continues (I’m repeating some of what I quoted above for emphasis):

According to this second path, there will be a valueless society in which religion will not only be chided, it will be used to promote immorality. Young people will not respect the old, and governments will become godless. This is why the Midrash says, “One third of the world’s woes will come in the generation preceding the Messiah.” (Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, “Handbook of Jewish Thought”)

According to the Talmud, as the Messianic era approaches, the world will experience greater and greater turmoil: Vast economic fluctuations, social rebellion, and widespread despair.

Isn’t that much of what we see happening around us today? Isn’t our society “valueless” (though it doesn’t refer to itself as such) in which the faithful are not only chided, but we also see religious groups, including churches and synagogues as well as our own government, promoting godlessness?

Of course the world of the past nearly two-thousand years has been filled to abundance with chaos, lack of ethics, cruelty, moral abandon, and our religions, including Christianity, have stood many times against the will of God rather than for it, especially in the historic treatment of the Jewish people.

But then again, if the tipping point regarding how Messiah would come was made in the early years of the First Century C.E., then from that moment on, we should have known that collective humanity wasn’t going to spontaneously repent and join together under the one Jewish King.

Of course, this only makes sense if my creative blending of scripture and Talmud actually works. I know many Jews chafe whenever a non-Jew such as myself appropriates Jewish literature and adapts it to “point” to the revelation of Rav Yeshua as the coming Moshiach.

They state that the Messiah is understood to come only once and not twice, but even though we consider him our High Priest in the Heavenly Court, in some metaphysical way, perhaps he is also still with us, humbly riding that donkey in the degenerate alleys and byways of our many cities in the world, suffering along with his people, waiting for the proper moment when the world finally collapses under the weight of its own iniquity, and then a world war of “immense proportion led by King Gog from the land of Magog” will trigger the final battle between good and evil (Ezekiel ch. 38, 39; Zechariah 21:2, 14:23; Talmud – Sukkah 52, Sanhedrin 97, Sotah 49).

The Aish Rabbi states:

What is the nature of this cataclysmic war? Traditional Jewish sources state that the nations of the world will descend against the Jews and Jerusalem. The Crusades, Pogroms and Arab Terrorism will pale in comparison. Eventually, when all the dust settles, the Jews will be defeated and led out in chains. The Torah will be proclaimed a falsehood.

Then, just when we think the story is over, the Messiah will come and lead the Jewish redemption. He will inspire all peoples to follow God, rebuild the Temple, gather in any remaining Jewish exiles to Israel, and re-establish the Sanhedrin. (Maimonides – Melachim ch. 11-12)

It’s telling that one of the predictions, according to the sages, is that the nation of Israel will ultimately be defeated, the Jewish people will once again be in chains, and the “Torah will be proclaimed a falsehood.”

I can imagine that a good many Christians and Jews will have their faith crushed when Israel is vanquished in the final war and yet the Messiah does not come (or Jesus doesn’t come back). However, the Church has already declared the Torah as a falsehood, at least the way Jews understand it, as has Islam, so it’s not hard to imagine that Israel’s enemies won’t just be the secular governments, but Muslim nations and Christians as well.

That’s a rather sobering thought. That means any of us who continue to support Israel through these times will be enemies of many nations, probably including our own.

It means that even those Jews who make aliyah and those Gentile believers who are family members accompanying them or who otherwise manage to reside in the Land, are voluntarily painting a huge target on their backs, one that will bring the wrath of the entire planet down upon them and their loved ones.

“But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. The one who is on the housetop must not go down, or go in to get anything out of his house; and the one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! But pray that it may not happen in the winter. For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will. Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days. And then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ’; or, ‘Behold, He is there’; do not believe him; for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But take heed; behold, I have told you everything in advance.”

–Mark 13:14-23

I know there are some who believe Rav Yeshua was predicting the downfall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., and perhaps he was, but then again, it’s possible to use a good prophesy twice. This could as well be applied to the coming destruction of Jerusalem in the final war. To my few readers in Israel, depending on when this war comes, this prophesy could well apply to you.

I encourage you to click the link I provided above and read what else the Aish Rabbi has to say about Messianic redemption. As I read him, it seems clear that he still believes things could go either way. Either the world still has time to come together and summon the Messiah in peace, or we could still plunge into darkness, war, and chaos.

Assuming the Jewish sages are correct, I believe the decision was made long ago, and that for the past twenty centuries, the world has been slowly eroding, like the banks of a river being gradually washed away, or a collection of tools abandoned in some workshop and crumbling into rust as the years pass.

For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

–Matthew 24:37-39

Just as it was in the days of Noah as the flood approached, so it is today, and so has it been for almost two-thousand years. Life has seemed “ordinary,” but there are days ahead when we will dispair.

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski wrote a commentary on Psalm 51:5 about King David and making teshuvah, even for sins which may be the result of some in-born character trait. If David was born with the biological nature to have great passion, and that passion led him to sin with Batsheva, it was still his responsibility.

In making teshuvah before Hashem, David takes personal responsibility for his sins rather than blaming other people or circumstances. Granted, he goes through many things, including the death of his first child by Batsheva, before arriving at this point, but he did arrive.

The same can be said for you and me. Moshiach is not here yet. We still have time. However, time may be very short. We don’t know, of course, but why wait? Make teshuvah now and serve God as if the war will begin tomorrow and you will lose time and your life.

The Aish Rabbi finishes his essay this way:

Despite the gloom, the world does seem headed toward redemption. One apparent sign is that the Jewish people have returned to the Land of Israel and made it bloom again. Additionally, a major movement is afoot of young Jews returning to Torah tradition.

By the way, Maimonides states that the popularity of Christianity and Islam is part of God’s plan to spread the ideals of Torah throughout the world. This moves society closer to a perfected state of morality and toward a greater understanding of God. All this is in preparation for the Messianic age.

The Messiah can come at any moment, and it all depends on our actions. God is ready when we are. For as King David says: “Redemption will come today – if you hearken to His voice.”

While we may not be able to avert the disaster of a morally decaying world and an impending and catastrophic world war which will destroy Jerusalem, we can prepare ourselves for those times by learning the Torah as it applies to each of us, whether as a Jew or a non-Jewish disciple of the Rav. When the horrors have finally passed, as the Rabbi states quoting King David, then there will be redemption for us, if we have hearkened to His voice.

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Not a Noahide

December 18, 2015 James Pyles 23 Comments

I periodically “lurk” in a private Facebook group for “Messianic Gentiles.” I was actually surprised to have access to this group, but discovered that a friend of mine, who was already a member, added me as a member as well (I guess ordinary group members can add anyone they want without having to go through a moderator).

Anyway, I peek in every now and then to see what people are talking about. As it turns out, there are a lot of comparisons being made there between these Messianic Gentiles and Noahides. Some of the recent references have been posts originating at the Noahide World Center, specifically a free e-book download of a Siddur for Noachides as well as the same siddur as an app for Android.

I too have wondered in the past if there’s a favorable connection between being a non-Jewish disciple of the Jewish Messiah King and being a Noahide, at least relative to a non-Jews’s status and role in Jewish religious and communal space.

To that end, I began to peruse the AskNoah.org forums and even, at one point, exchanged messages with a Rabbi.

That didn’t end well and I concluded that my journey into considering myself a “Ger Toshav” with an unusual Messianic twist had hit a brick wall.

I took another look at their forums just now but can’t quote anything because each one displays the disclaimer:

All material posted to this forum becomes the exclusive copyright property of Ask Noah International Inc., and may not be published or re-used elsewhere without the express permission of Ask Noah International Inc.

OK. I’ll respect that.

So let’s go to the source:

Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

–Genesis 9:8-17 (NASB)

According to numerous sources including Jewish Virtual Library, the seven general laws for all of humanity derived from this portion of Genesis 9 are:

Do Not Deny God

Do Not Blaspheme God

Do Not Murder

Do Not Engage in Incestuous, Adulterous or Homosexual Relationships.

Do Not Steal

Do Not Eat of a Live Animal

Establish Courts/Legal System to Ensure Law Obedience

Whether or not God holds the entire human race to these standards in the final judgment we’ll just have to wait and see. However, is this applicable to the non-Jewish disciple of Rav Yeshua (Jesus)? Does our devotion to our Rav not distinguish us at all from a non-believing world of secular atheists?

Granted, a non-Jew who becomes a self-declared Noahide is not an atheist, since he or she is professing faith in the God of Israel, but then again, the seven basic standards a Noahide adopts are also the standards that the rest of humanity will be judged by. No difference in expectation, except the Noahide voluntarily acknowledges those expectations while the non-Noahide either couldn’t care less or has some other moral/ethical/religious orientation that may or may not embrace some or all of the Noahide laws.

To be fair, I don’t think the private Facebook group I mentioned above sees non-Jewish Messianic disciples as wholly equivalent to Noahides in all respects. I think it’s a model for attempting to construct a relationship between (Messianic) Gentiles and Jews in (Messianic) Jewish religious and communal space.

It may also be an attempt to equip said-Gentiles with a set of tools and resources that are at once consistent with (Messianic) Judaism and also specifically crafted for the Judaicly-oriented non-Jew (hence the siddur for Noahides).

However, I think we need to be exceptionally clear that we take on board more as disciples of Yeshua than what the Noahide receives. While we non-Jews are not named participants in the New Covenant (see Jeremiah 31:27), through Hashem’s great grace and mercy, we non-Jewish devotees of our Rav are granted access to many of the blessings of the New Covenant, which includes the indwelling of the Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection into the world to come.

These are blessings identical to what the named participants of the New Covenant, that is, the Jewish people…Israel, will receive in Messianic Days. God made the covenant with them, but He also is “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

The plain text of Genesis 9 really only promises that God won’t destroy all life by flooding again. It’s not even made exclusively with human beings, but with every living species. There’s no mention of attaining a spiritual knowledge of Hashem through His Spirit dwelling within us. Nor does this covenant speak of forgiveness of sins, and certainly not of everlasting life in the Kingdom of Messiah.

However, these blessings are all well documented in the New Covenant language we find in Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36 and elsewhere in the Tanakh (what Christians call the “Old Testament”).

I prefer to think that being a disciple of our Rav gives us a different role and status than the Noahide, although there certainly can be some overlap.

I’ve been approached online, both in the comments section of this blog and privately by email, to “come over to the Noahide side, we have cookies.” Both Jews and Noahides have attempted to induce me to abandon Rav Yeshua, and while I don’t doubt their motives are sincere, I have asked them to respect my wishes and my faith and desist.

I know there are non-Jews who consider themselves Noahides in the two synagogues in my local community. More power to them. We don’t interact, mainly because I don’t have a connection to local (or remote for that matter) Jewish community.

But even in isolation, once we have declared our devotion as disciples of our Rav, we have an obligation to stay the course, regardless of the personal difficulties involved. Who said a life of faith was easy? Who said you’d be accepted by everyone or anyone?

If I were a “standard” Christian, going to church each week and being in Christian community would serve my needs (but not my family’s needs), however those of us who view God, Messiah, and the Bible through a more “Jewish-focused lens,” are really neither fish nor fowl. We don’t fit in the Church and it would be disingenuous of us to attempt to enter Jewish community in the guise of a Noahide.

The aforementioned Facebook group is an attempt to offer the “Messianic Gentile” some sort of interface into Jewish community on their own grounds and using their own resources to define their roles, both among Jews and among themselves. That’s probably a good thing, though no one group can meet the needs of everyone who may identify as one of them (or something similar).

However, at the end of the day, you need to know who you are in relation to God and what that means (and doesn’t mean) for your life. Assimilating into a church as a Christian might be the easy way out, but it’s not who we are. Assimilating into a synagogue (Messianic or otherwise) as a Noahide might be the easy way out, but it’s not who we are (and forget about converting to Judaism, Orthodox or otherwise…the people of the nations are to have a role in the Kingdom).

Whether the rest of the Christian and Jewish world likes it or not, we were granted a unique place and role in relation to God and his plan of redemption, first for Israel, and then for the rest of us. Our particular perspective takes into account the primacy of Israel, the Jewish people and nation, in God’s plans, but it also acknowledges the special and specific place Rav Yeshua has as the mediator of the New Covenant and what that means to both Israel and the nations.

Traditional Christianity does (somewhat) the latter but not the former, while Noahides in Jewish community do the former but not the latter.

We do both…even if we have to do it alone.

Uncategorized

The Day a Christian Wore a Hijab

December 16, 2015 James Pyles 9 Comments

A tenured Wheaton College professor who, as part of her Christian Advent devotion, donned a traditional headscarf to show solidarity with Muslims has been placed on administrative leave.

-Manya Brachear Pashman, December 16, 2015
“Wheaton College suspends Christian professor who wore a hijab”
Chicago Tribune

Actually, she never wore a hijab, just a scarf, but her actions probably won’t endear her to a lot of Christians and Jews. However, it’s important to take a moment to understand why she did what she did.

Larycia Hawkins, a political science professor at the private evangelical Christian college in Chicago’s west suburbs, announced last week that she would wear the veil to show support for Muslims who have been under greater scrutiny since mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.

“I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book,” she posted on Facebook.

Hawkins, 43, planned to wear the hijab everywhere she went until Christmas, including on her flight home to Oklahoma, where voters in 2010 overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment banning Islamic Sharia law.

She said it’s “a time of real vitriolic rhetoric by fellow Christians sometimes and people who aren’t Christian who conflate all Muslims with terrorist — and that saddens me — so this is a way of saying if all women wear the hijab we cannot discriminate. If all women were in solidarity, who is the real Muslim? How is TSA going to decide who they really suspect?”

I’m probably going to take a lot of heat for even writing this blog post, but I think Hawkins may have a point. My wife periodically shops at a Muslim owned food store here in Boise. As a Jew, she says she has no reason to fear or be suspicious of the owner, who seems like a really nice guy, but there’s some part of her that’s wary anyway.

Before it burned down, my family and I used to frequent the Boise International Market, a collection of businesses maintained by various refuge families.

I particularly enjoyed having coffee with a friend periodically at Kahve Coffee, which if I’m correct, was owned and operated by two brothers who, in all likelihood, are Muslims.

Granted, I can’t read minds and automatically know the motivations of everyone I encounter, but as far as I could tell from casual conversation, Kahve Coffee and the other family owned businesses in the Market, represented people who came to this country to build a better life and become part of our community.

Of course, these refuges were from all over the Middle East, Africa, and Central America, so probably they weren’t all Muslims, but I’m not sure it really mattered one way or the other. What mattered, is that the Market wasn’t just a place to eat, drink coffee, and buy various other goods and services, it was a gathering place for all of these families and probably their second home.

There were always children playing between the shops, the kids of the business owners. Everyone watched out for everyone else’s kids. It wasn’t always a venue conducive to quiet conversation. It was more like having coffee or a meal in someone’s living room while their children were playing.

I’m writing all this to say that, religious and political differences aside, at the end of the day, the people who ran the Market were people, parents, uncles and aunts, grandparents, children. They were people just like we’re people.

I hear they’re rebuilding (website under construction). I hope so. Not just for the sake of some of the best coffee I’ve ever consumed, or the ability to have a meal that isn’t mass-produced American pap, but for the sake of people who, like all of our ancestors who came to this country at some point in the past, just want to make a living, support their families, and be friends and neighbors who happen to live in my little corner of Idaho.

As far as Professor Hawkins is concerned, Wheaton College chose to look at things differently:

“While Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic, we believe there are fundamental differences between the two faiths, including what they teach about God’s revelation to humanity, the nature of God, the path to salvation and the life of prayer,” Wheaton College said in a statement.

Makes me wonder what Wheaton College would have done if Hawkins decided to dress frum to support Israel and the Jewish people.

Granted, Wheaton is a private Evangelical Protestant Christian liberal arts college, and they can make decisions based on their understanding of being Christian vs. being Muslim, but they might have handled this differently. Was what Hawkins did so radical and her reasoning so out-of-balance?

Wheaton administrators did not denounce Hawkins’ gesture but said more conversation should have taken place before it was announced.

“Wheaton College faculty and staff make a commitment to accept and model our institution’s faith foundations with integrity, compassion and theological clarity,” the college said in a statement. “As they participate in various causes, it is essential that faculty and staff engage in and speak about public issues in ways that faithfully represent the college’s evangelical Statement of Faith.”

The Wheaton College administrators are within their rights to take such an action, and after all, as faculty, Hawkins does represent the college, but not everyone agrees with Wheaton’s decision.

Last week, a coalition of student leaders at Wheaton drafted an open letter calling on evangelical Christian leaders to condemn recent remarks by Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. that students armed with guns can “end those Muslims.”

Gene Green, a professor of the New Testament, said what motivated Hawkins is the same concern many faculty at Wheaton share about the unfair scrutiny facing the Muslim community.

(Renner) Larson (communications director for CAIR’s Chicago chapter), who attends a Unitarian Universalist church, said he was dismayed to hear that some view Hawkins’ gesture as compromising Christianity.

“It’s disappointing that showing solidarity means that you are somehow sacrificing your own identity,” he said. “I do what I do not to be closer to Islam but because it makes me closer to my identity as an American who believes in American ideals.”

I can only imagine that what I’m expressing may seem radical to some of my readers, but as Larson pointed out, it’s an American ideal to accept people who are different from you into our local communities. The vast majority of American citizens have ancestors who came here from other parts of the world. That some Muslims have committed terrible crimes here and elsewhere on our planet doesn’t make your Muslim neighbor a terrorist.

In fact, having just read a story from Arutz Sheva, I discovered the most unlikely people (at least from my uninformed point of view) can be heroes or criminals.

You can’t tell by looking.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-attributed to Martin Niemöller

"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