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Modesty

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Ever wondered why the ark in your synagogue has two coverings – a door and a curtain?

The first mention of the concept of the curtain is found in the Talmud. Today this curtain is called the parochet (Heb. פרוכת).

The ark, known as the aron kodesh (Heb. ארון קודש), is considered one of the holiest components of the synagogue; the actual Torah scrolls which are kept inside the ark are the holiest.

In the Holy Temple in Jerusalem there was a curtain separating the “Holy” chamber and the “Holy of Holies” chamber. “And you shall place the table on the outer side of the dividing curtain…”

The curtain in the Temple was not used to separate the rooms; there was a stone wall for that. The curtain, explains Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known as Rashi, was a sign of modesty and respect for the Holy Ark which was kept in the Holy of Holies.

The same is true for the ark in the synagogue. The Torahs are wrapped in individual coverings, the ark has a door, and we add an extra curtain as a sign of modesty and respect for the holy scrolls.

-Rabbi Dovid Zaklikowski
“Why is There a Curtain Covering the Ark in my Synagogue?”
Chabad.org

What I quoted above might be just an interesting, educational tidbit except for the following:

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” –Matthew 27:51-54 (ESV)

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. –Ephesians 2:14-16 (ESV)

I’m really not bright enough or at least not sufficiently educated in theological issues to really address this issue, but it came up while I was reading so I thought I’d blog about it anyway.

In truth, I doubt there’s a way to connect the small article by Rabbi Zaklikowski to the New Testament verses I’ve referenced, but if nothing else, I guess I can illustrate how differently Judaism and Christianity view the parochet. It’s also important to remember, before I proceed, that Rabbi Zaklikowski’s commentary is midrash rather than established fact, relative to the “modesty” of the Torah scrolls. With all that said, let’s continue.

From Christianity’s point of view, the parochet represents something of a problem. It is both what separates man from God and what separates Jew from Gentile (specifically Gentile Christian). It is commonly believed that when Jesus died, the splitting of the parochet, which separated the Holy place from the Holy of Holies, indicated that through Christ’s blood, there was no longer any separation between man and God. To put it in Christian vernacular, “man could now boldly approach the Throne of God” without the intermediary of the Levitical Priesthood.

The second symbolic representation of the parochet was the separation of Judaism, which for thousands of years was the sole keeper of ethical monotheism, the Torah, the Shabbat, and access to the God of Abraham, from the rest of humanity who were not inheritors of the covenant of Sinai. Through Jesus, the separation was torn down and now all men, not just the Jews, could approach God. There was no need to access God through Judaism and the Jewish priests. The distinctions between Jew and Gentile were torn away and everyone became “one new man” before God.

Well, that’s how the Christians see it.

But looking at the parochet from Rabbi Zaklikowski’s perspective, it isn’t an undesirable barrier at all but rather, a protector and a sign of significance and special Holiness. Putting a veil between man and the most Holy place indicates that it is indeed the most Holy place; something not to be treated casually or as something common or ordinary.

This provides, or rather confirms something for me (and remember, this is all symbolism and parable, not concrete fact or Biblical truth). It has often bothered me how Christianity seems to treat Holy things as common. Jesus is a “good buddy.” God Almighty, Creator of the Universe, vast, infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent God, is actually a cute, cuddly cosmic teddy bear and anyone can just crawl up onto His lap and squeeze Him, and hold onto His furry, little tummy. I’ve even heard some women say that they occasionally imagine falling asleep in bed while being held in Christ’s arms.

Wow, really?

I can understand being hurt and sad and broken and needing access to a comforter beyond what we have access to within humanity; someone who knows us, understands us, sympathizes with us, and yet, has access to the Throne of God and can intercede for us with the Almighty, asking for mercy, comfort, and grace.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. –Hebrews 4:14-16 (ESV)

On the other hand, in order to serve our own wants and needs, we have reduced the Jewish Messiah King and the One God of eternity, the great and awesome Ein Sof, down to mere shadows and objects of personal convenience.

We don’t want Jesus to be separated from us by anything so we make him our neighbor, our buddy, our “lover” (I say that in a non-sexual way), and our BFF.

That isn’t normally how a disciple treats his Master or how a subject considers her King.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to put the parochet back up at some point so we can preserve our sense of respect and honor of God as is His due, and to show glory and majesty to the King who came once and who will come again in power.

But what about the separation between Christian and Jew? How will putting parochet back up affect the “one new man?”

I’ve discussed that subject, from one point of view or another, for the past several years. What is the Christian responsibility to the Jew in terms of encouraging Jewish Torah observance, supporting the restoration of national Israel and her redemption, and thus summoning the great and terrible day of the Lord’s return?

In order to have a role in that, there must be some sort of distinction between Christian and Jew, especially if Gentile Torah observance isn’t what’s required to initiate Israel’s national redemption and everything that will follow. To tear down the parochet, removes the mechanism by which the Messiah will return. How can we do that?

Then what am I saying? Am I dismissing scripture? Am I discounting the Gospel of Matthew and the letter of Paul to the Ephesians? Not at all. I am saying that these events may not mean what we’ve been taught they mean. They are two, isolated text strings that have been used as part of a long pattern of the church’s supersessionist theology but which, on an actual lived and spiritual level, may represent something other than what we imagine.

After all, when the parochet in the Temple was torn, do we think that it was never repaired, and remained rent until the final destruction of the Temple and the razing of Jerusalem decades later? And was Paul’s metaphorical language meant to literally mean the Temple’s parochet, or was something else removed, the hostility, which may simply have been the attitudes between Jew and non-Jew which we see Peter overcoming in Acts 10?

I can’t say for sure. Perhaps New Testament scholars have their own theories. All I’m suggesting is that we might want to treat God with a tad bit more awe and reverence than what we are accustomed to, and we might want to consider that the Christian role in redeeming Israel may require removing the barriers of ethnic and religious “hostility,” without removing ethnic and religious distinctions, so that we can work in complementary fashion to perform Tikkun Olam, to repair our broken world, and to make it ready for what God has planned to happen next.

Just a few thoughts to ponder on today’s “morning meditation.”

 

 

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Pondering the Puzzle

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“I have to confess, I don’t really get it. If you believe in Jesus, you believe he is the King. The Lord. The Boss. Your Boss. There is no other option. It’s an integral part of his identity. The fact that some people have lost sight of that fact is evidence, to me, of how far we have come from a really Biblical idea of who Jesus is. We have forgotten that there is no such thing as a Jesus who is not our King, a Jesus we don’t have to obey.”

-Boaz Michael
President and Founder of
First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)

I’ve mentioned most of this recently, but this is what’s available in my mind and in my blog for today’s “morning meditation.”

I keep trying to turn my rather unusual conceptualization of my Christian faith over and over in my mind, as if examining a rare piece of pottery crafted in ancient times. I’m pondering the runes and arcane markings on this archaeological object trying to tease one more clue to its nature and origin out of it; trying to discover one more secret. No, I’m not a latter-day Indiana Jones, but I am curious.

I’m curious about things I really don’t have the educational background to explore. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to explore them, but it’s like wanting to explore the deepest parts of an ocean but not knowing how to swim. The best I can do is rely on people who are expert oceanographers (who know so much more than just how to swim), their books, their findings, and the occasional special on PBS, to provide glimpses of what I want to know.

I’ll never be able to do the exploring first hand, anymore than I’ll ever be able to read and understand the runes and markings of the “faith object” I’m holding in my hands. I have to depend on someone else’s translation and hope they aren’t selling me a bill of goods, so to speak.

Now that I’ve tossed out sufficient qualifiers, here’s a few of the things I’m curious about. As I said, I may have mentioned them before.

Is the New Testament as “authoritative” as the Old Testament? That is, can we rely on the New Testament writings, including the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Apocalyptic writings to have the same authority of law as do the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings in the Tanakh?

That’s a tough one, but here’s my opinion, for what it’s worth (and not being a theologian, I guess it’s not worth all that much).

I would say that since the Gospels relate the direct teachings of the Jewish Messiah, then they would have an impact equal to and perhaps greater than the Torah. No, they don’t particularly override Torah (although traditional Christianity will disagree with me here) but they represent the correct presentation and interpretation of God’s intent and will for the Jewish people and ultimately, for the world. If a Christian wants to take something as “law” in the New Testament, it should be teachings of the Messiah in the Gospels.

But what about the Epistles? Is literally every word of every letter Paul, Peter, and James wrote to be considered undying and unchangeable law, applicable in exactly the same manner now as they were in the lives of the different churches they were addressed to in the first century diaspora?

Another tough one. Shooting from the hip, I’d tend to say, “no.” This is where a degree in New Testament scholarship would be handy because I suspect that digging into the different layers of these letters and asking questions like, which ones are considered authentic, who actually wrote them, to whom, under what conditions, and so forth, would yield fascinating results.

What if, for instance, the majority of the material in these letters are meant not to establish new laws and traditions for the church, but to interpret and apply pre-existing Bible law to people and situations for which the law of God was not originally intended? After all, Paul only had a Jewish template by which he could comprehend service to his Creator as a Jew. How does all that work when you’re trying to build a practical worship community for a bunch of non-Jews that is centered around the Jewish Messiah?

No wonder Paul’s letters are so difficult to understand, even today, and why there is so much debate around them among New Testament scholars.

And the Apocalyptic writings? What about John’s Revelation or for that matter, portions of the Gospel of John? Mystic visions are a vast mystery that I’m not even sure how to classify. It’s not a direct teaching of the Master and it isn’t a commentary by the Apostle to the Gentiles. It’s a look behind the veil between Heaven and Earth but I’m uncertain what to make of it all.

What else do I ponder?

When the Messiah returns, what will he teach? I’ll narrow this down a bit. There’s some debate about what sort of “Judaism” Jesus will practice and promote upon his return and as he establishes his reign in Jerusalem. Most Christians probably don’t consider that he’ll practice a Judaism at all but rather a perfect form of Christianity. At best, Gentile believers would probably accept that he’d reset the Jewish calendar back to what was being practiced during his first incarnation among humanity, that is, what many folks out there would call “Biblical Judaism.”

This is opposed to what we refer to as “Rabbinic Judaism” which is generally frowned upon my most Christians as being full of man-made rules and exists as the modern inheritors of the “leaven of the Pharisees,” which is not a complement.

But wait a minute.

A careful examination of the teachings of Jesus and his interactions with the Jewish authorities and common people of his day seems to reveal that, for the most part, he was “OK” with first century normative Judaism, including all of its Halacha and traditions. While the church tends to view first century Jewish tradition as wholly inconsistent with the Bible and a harsh punishment the corrupt Jewish religious authorities set upon the shoulders of the ordinary Jewish population, it was neither invented by those authorities, nor considered bizarre or unusual by Jews.

The topic of rabbinic authority, opinions, and rulings in the time of Jesus and before is enormously complicated and beyond my meager skills to investigate, but I highly recommend Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s book Hillel: If Not Now, When? which provides an insight into Hillel, a great Jewish teacher and leader who lived a generation before Jesus.

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was perfectly fine with normative Judaism of the late second temple period, which would have differed from the Judaism of previous eras. What if…just what if when Jesus returns, he’ll be OK with normative Judaism as it exists on that day?

I have no way to back any of this up, but the assumption in Christianity and in some parts of Messianic Judaism is that Jesus will make radical changes to Jewish practice, probably tossing out most or all of what has been established in the past 2,000 years in favor of a more Bible-based model. All of the rulings, opinions, discussions and arguments of the sages would have been in vain. The scholarly teachings of the Rambam and Rashi would be dust. The Baal Shem Tov, the Chassidim, and the modern Chabad would be swept out of existence. Something more acceptable to the members of your local church would be installed in their place.

But is that necessarily true? If indeed, Jesus returns as the Jewish King, establishes his rule in Jerusalem, raises Israel as the head of all the nations of the earth, is it not also conceivable that his practice as a religious Jew might be accepting of at least some, if not most of Rabbinic Judaism?

Something to consider.

Last point. Re-read my quote of Boaz Michael from above before continuing.

One of the criticisms of Messianic Judaism is that it tends to focus more on the Torah and on Judaism than anything Messianic. That is, Jesus seems to take a backseat to Moses. Judaism is more important than Messianic.

Ironically, there are many non-Jewish practitioners in Messianic Judaism who are guilty of this, people who all but turn their back on Jesus but who will focus with great intent on how to tie their tzitzit and the correct pronunciation of their Hebrew prayers.

But what about the Messiah? Where does he fit in? Why have his teachings been subordinated to the Torah of Moses? Isn’t the Jewish King even greater than Moshe?

I think this has been a real problem in Messianic Judaism traditionally and it’s about time to start correcting it. I don’t doubt it will cause a great shake up in many congregations and reintegrating the Jewish Messiah as the center of Messianic Judaism will be quite a chore.

I have no idea how to make it work.

But figuring all this stuff out isn’t the point of today’s “meditation.” The point is just to open the box all this stuff has been stored in for so long, brush off the dust, and give them some air.

Fair wiser heads than mine are going to have to find a way to answer these questions. All I know how to do is ask them.

“If both Judaism and Christianity are correct in their definitions of redemption, then Jesus must do both what Judaism is expecting the Messiah to do, and what Christians expect him to do. This means that Jesus will do more than come back and save those who believe in him from sin and death. He will also re-gather his people Israel from exile and restore them to their land in a state of blessing and peace (Isaiah 35, 48:12-22, 52:1-12; Jeremiah 31).”

-Boaz Michael

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Take a Deep Breath

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I am grateful that the secular spirit of the modern world has made the medieval option of fear of God’s punishment spiritually irrelevant. I felt dignified and challenged as a teacher of Torah in not having the support of God’s punitive powers as a fallback for awakening interest in Torah. In my experiences as a teacher, I never saw Judaism as necessarily weakened by the modern emphasis on the significance to or distaste for the terrifying descriptions of divine retribution awaiting the sinner found in the liturgy and rabbinic midrashim.

-Rabbi David Hartman
from the Postscript of his book
A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism

That isn’t exactly a statement that would be palatable to many traditional Jews and particularly fundamentalist Christians, who adhere to the words “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Nevertheless, I don’t think Rabbi Hartman absolutely has to be discussing the absence of divine judgment of humanity, but rather, our human response to God. One of the criticisms leveled against Christianity is our punitive nature, both toward the secular world and within our own. I’ve heard it said more than once that “the church is the only army that shoots its own wounded.” No wonder we don’t have a stellar reputation for love, compassion, and peace within the societies where we live.

Very recently, I’ve been expressing my recurring feelings of diminishment as a believer and frankly, as a human being. It seems that once you become a Christian, as far as other religions and the secular world are concerned, you surrender your passport to travel among your fellow human beings and within your society, and are relegated to a cage assigned to bigots, superstitious louts, and Bible-thumping thugs. If you actually express your faith in terms of compassion, charity, and love toward other people (and not just those who agree with you socially and politically), then repeatedly hearing what a fascist you are can be hard to take.

Time to take a deep breath.

I am deeply frightened by the growth of religious dogmatism and intolerance in many parts of the world, including Israel. I believe that a relationship to God based on fear of punishment, excessive repression, and fear of natural joy and spontaneity contributes to the growth of religious dogmatism and fanaticism.

-Rabbi Hartman

I’m frightened, too.

I’m frightened because one of the results of dogmatism is the destruction of the message of the Bible which promotes love of your fellow human being as the primary expression of love of God. How can the name of God be sanctified if hostility and extremism is overwhelming the voice of Jesus Christ? It’s not like the Messianic lesson doesn’t include moral and ethical components. Far from it. At the heart of the ancient Judaism in which Jesus taught, is the emphasis on the laws of ethical monotheism and the universal benefits that they yield when applied to human society. But as Paul famously said:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. –1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (ESV)

I get tired of fighting but what I’m trying to fight isn’t really all of the times atheists say, “I hate Christians” or all of the times Jewish people say, “Christianity is a pagan religion.” I get tired of fighting how badly Christianity has carried the message of Christ forward into the 21st century. I get tired of supersessionism in the church. I get tired of extremist exclusivism in Christianity which goes to the point of defining itself by what it’s against rather than by the nature and character of God’s grace and love.

I’m not suggesting that Christianity “liberalize” to the point of blending into secular culture, but there’s a difference between standing on a firm moral center and using it as a blunt instrument to commit violence against anyone who steps outside of your interpretation of “Biblical truth.”

I’m tired of being blamed for a system and a history I have no control of and do not participate in. I think it’s possible to do good and be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, an atheist, and just about anyone else. My understanding of good is the teachings of the Jewish Jesus. Your mileage may vary.

For myself, belief in the unity of God requires that one learn to appreciate the way every human being reflects the divine image. The unity of God is a challenge to find a shared moral and spiritual language between different faith communities. The declaration of Judaic faith, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One,” must lead a Jew to relate the profound sense of the particular and intimate relationship of Israel to God (“The Lord is our God”) to an appreciation of the way God is manifested in the variety of spiritual cultures existing throughout the world (“The Lord is One”). Whereas for Maimonides, correct reasoning provides the healing powers that make belief in the unity of God possible, from my perspective the power to appreciate the other, the overcoming of individual or communal narcissism, is essential if we are to act in a way that reflects belief in the unity of God.

-Rabbi Hartman

Obviously, Rabbi Hartman’s views do not represent all of religious Judaism and they certainly don’t represent most of Christianity, since exclusivism is a requirement for access to God on a covenantal level. For Jews, the covenant is Mosaic, although Gentiles may access through the Noahide laws. For Christianity, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) is an absolutism that locks out anyone who is not a Christian and, in many cases, not a member of a specific congregation or denomination. Even in Judaism, the debate rages on “who is a Jew” which, in its extreme form, is expressed in the contrast between the Haredi Jews and secular Jewish Israel.

Time to take another deep breath.

Let’s try to set all that aside just for a few minutes. I know that most religious people fear the term “unity” because they feel it must also mean “homogeneous,” the idea that in order to have unity, you must surrender all distinctions from the other groups around you, and particularly the dominant group (which, in most cases today, is atheist secular humanism). In other words, the fear is that to have unity, you must either stop being religious, or be religious in name only while really embracing and practicing the entire package of liberal progressive modernism.

But that’s not what I mean.

In Christianity, I understand two things. I understand that God is the God of the universe and not just the God of Christians, Jews, or Muslims. I also understand that every human individual, no matter who you are (yes, even atheists) was made in the image of God. Besides being generically human, we all have those two things in common (whether you choose to recognize that or not). If God is a complete unity of One, then according to Rabbi Hartman, He created humanity to reflect that “oneness,” that particular sort of “unity” whereby we share a common drive to serve Him.

If you’re an atheist, a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or anyone else, and you have a need for justice and mercy in the world, we all have that in common because God desires justice and mercy. I don’t care if you recognize God as the source of those two qualities or not, the fact remains, in spite of our differences, that we have a common need to create justice and mercy.

We aren’t going to agree on a good many things. That much is certain. But if we find something we can agree upon, let’s say it’s feeding hungry people, is it only good if you do it but not if I do it? Really, do you have to be an atheist to do good? Do you have to be a Christian to do good? Do you have to be a ...fill in the blank here... to do good?

That’s the sort of crap that’s wearing me down. Well, it’s not all of it, but if I could crawl out from underneath societal condemnation long enough to share something good with you, and affirming that we have that much in common, I’d feel a lot more lively and optimistic.

Christians are accused, and sometimes rightly so (but only sometimes) of being bigots and exclusivists. But many other human groups are guilty of the same thing including (believe it or not) political and social progressives. Inclusiveness is supposed to “include” but it often excludes people like me for no other reason than the label “Christian” I have stamped on my forehead. If you want me to listen to you, get to know you, and not judge you on shallow and superficial appearances, then shouldn’t you practice what you “preach?”

I should, too.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9). Making peace doesn’t require compromising morals or ethics, but it does require doing good and putting aside prejudice and bigotry. If Christians and Jews weren’t capable of doing that, there would have been no civil rights movement in the 1960s. We can do it, we can all do it if we choose to. Or we can choose to continue to wage this senseless social battle of defining ourselves by who we’re against rather than what we can do for good.

That’s your choice and it’s mine.

No, I don’t think this is going to work. I don’t think one small human being writing on one small blog is going to change the world. Heck, I won’t even be able to change predominant social opinion on the Internet. But I can take the moral high road just to see what happens. I can promote good just because it’s the right thing to do. I can love God by loving my fellow human being.

And I can continue to remind myself that even if no one else gives a rip, that each and every step I take, every piece of trash I pick up, every person I smile at today just because I can, is noticed by God. Hopefully, some of it will do other people some good as well.

We live in a broken world. Many of us are broken people. Only by realizing that we are all broken together can we begin to heal. One day we will all realize that our healing comes from Heaven. I know many of you don’t believe me. Let’s try out a little cooperation and see how it works. For the rest of it, just wait and see.

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Diminishing

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Man alone in a caveThe one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

–John 3:29-30 (ESV)

Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope; yet I will argue my ways to his face.

–Job 13:15 (ESV)

I suppose this is a continuation of my previous meditation which, as I write this, hasn’t gotten a lot of attention (but it’s not exactly uplifting, so I imagine most people don’t know what to say about it).

I’m not experiencing a crisis of faith so much as a crisis of environment (if there is such a thing). I suppose I should consider this “normal” since it was predicted by the Master.

Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. –Matthew 10:21-23 (ESV)

“I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” –Luke 12:49-53 (ESV)

But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. –Luke 21:12 (ESV)

In other words, I should expect to be a minority in society and even in my own family. Well, that’s pretty much true. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t take a shot at my faith on the world wide web and while my home life isn’t actively hostile, as I’ve mentioned before, there are certain conversations that just never take place for the sake of peace.

It’s interesting because I obviously can’t discuss Christianity in my home, but even bringing up conversations about Judaism can get a tad dicey. No, I never comment negatively about Jews and Judaism, but even being too “enthusiastic” about Jewish learning and concepts can elicit a “you’re a Jewish wannabe” comment or (at its worst) “you’re just a Goy, Daddy.” (that last comment admittedly was just a joke my daughter was making, but I have to admit, it did stab at me for a second or two).

But like the Master said, I should expect all this. Not sure about the following, though.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. –James 1:2-4 (ESV)

broken-crossI’m not sure because these tests are getting kind of old but beyond that, James, the brother of the Master, addressed his letter to “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion.” Last time I looked, as a “Goy,” I’m not a member of any of those tribes, so is the audience of this message confined to the Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah? Hopefully not.

Someone recently suggested on Facebook that I should “renounce idolatry” and convert to Judaism. I know the Jewish gentleman in question was very sincere and I don’t doubt that he meant to be helpful, but it’s not an option. Not that I haven’t toyed with the idea from time to time, but that door is ultimately closed to me. It would mean renouncing my faith in my Lord, which I cannot do. But while millions experience “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” (Philippians 4:7) I continually face the daily wrestling match of faith (Genesis 32:22-32).

It’s easy to get one of two messages from Christianity. The first message seems to be the most prevalent in the modern church and it goes something like, “You’re saved, Jesus is great, no worries from here on in, the heck with the rest of the world as long as you have Jesus.” That’s pretty simplified and perhaps a tad cynical, but just listen to some of the stuff coming out of those megachurches and you’ll understand what I mean.

The second message is one that I think is more historical and perhaps some older Christians still relate to it. That message is sort of like, “You’re a sinner, you’re scum, if it wasn’t for Jesus, you’d be sliding down the gutter on your way to eternal damnation, the world isn’t worth anything, it’s just a slime pit, anyone not saved will fry in their own fat and grease.” OK, that one seems “over the top” as well, but sometimes Christianity is a study in extremes.

Returning to the source, the Bible says, “Hey, I never said it was a picnic. Quit whining and get back to work.”

There’s got to be a better way than this.

The weak link in any system, organization, philosophy, or religion is the people involved. Humanity is the weakest link because no matter how beautiful the system is, human frailty will inevitably screw up its implementation. This is why atheists and secular humanists have plenty of ammunition with which to shoot down people of faith. Of course, it doesn’t help that we Christians are supposed to have a higher standard than generic society, so any time we mess up in public, it gets the maximum amount of press coverage. It also doesn’t help that in its evangelical zeal, some churches use a big, nasty hammer to deliver the message of Christ’s love and salvation. The hammer has bruised and bloodied a lot of folks. Now they want to hit back.

The rest of us get painted (or tainted) by the same brush, whether we had anything to do with swinging the hammer or not. Worse, the author of our faith gets painted with that brush, and he had absolutely nothing to do with what we’ve done with his teachings over the past 2,000 years.

But all that is irrelevant, too. That is, it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t change anything. The teachings about division in families, division in society, and generally being the tail and not the head apply as much today as they did the instant Jesus uttered them back in the late second Temple period in Roman-occupied Judea.

Oh, and about Christianity being a sect of Judaism, you might want to pay attention to how non-Messianic Jews hear this message:

One conclusion I would come to after understanding these issues is that the claim that Christianity has Jewish roots is false. Christianity has Jewish characters involved in the foundation of it, but aside from that it has virtually nothing in common with Judaism.

Messianic Judaism has been useful in pointing out the value of Torah and establishing it as a high priority item within Christianity, however the logical conclusion of seeing Torah for what it is, is to realize that it does not work within Christianity. Torah stands in direct contrast to Christianity on many levels, some of which are mentioned above. Therefore one is forced to decide between Torah and Christianity.

Torah has obvious legitimacy, and is undeniably G-d’s revelation to man as witnessed by millions of people at mount Sinai, whereas Christianity must be an invention of man. It can be a convincing invention, but an invention nonetheless.

Anything which stands in such stark contrast to the Torah, and which teaches that the Torah is something to be set free from, rather than obeyed, is certainly not of G-d. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not issue laws, commandments, judgments, and teachings, only to nullify everything He has taught us at another point in history, especially when He declares that it is for us and our decendents forever.

“How Judaism and Christianity Compare on Fundamental Issues”
from the blog: Kibbitzing Corner

As I mentioned above, Job said, “Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope.” We are in the hands of God. I am in the hands of God. It seems, as John suggested, that for God to be magnified, people need to get really small. At least that’s how I’m seeing it. I know that Christianity’s many critics, including Judaism, would like to see Christians get smaller and smaller and eventually vanish from existence. Christ said that when such events occur, we should persevere, but he didn’t say we had to survive. Plenty of Christians (and Jews as well) have suffered and even died to preserve who they were as people of faith and to not abandon God.

According to the Rebbe, God never intended humans (or at least Jews) to cease to exist or to be rendered insignificant because of their faith:

The ego is not to be destroyed. It, too, is a creation of G-d,
and all that He made, He made for His glory.

Only this: that the ego must know that it is a creation, and that all He made, He made for His glory.

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

Dylan Thomas once wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” and while he was talking about old age and inevitable death, catastrophic failure isn’t limited to biological systems. The human spirit can be oppressed from without and within until it finally extinguishes, its light goes out, and all that is left is a human being living in darkness, ironically unaware of its fate.

In writing this meditation and searching for some spark or glimmer of hope in the endless abyss, I came upon an unusual source, the 1957 science fiction film The Incredible Shrinking Man (adapted from the novel by Richard Matheson). At the end of the film, the character Scott Carey, (played by Grant Williams) having defeated a gigantic (to him) spider in order to obtain food, and now despairingly lost; trapped in the basement of his own home, continues to shrink in size, approaching the threshold of the microscopic. In his final moments, alone and without hope of ever regaining his former life, he comes to a realization about who he is ultimately.

I was continuing to shrink, to become… what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close – the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet – like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God’s silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man’s own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends in man’s conception, not nature’s. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!

Jesus spoke of the humble, the meek, the persecuted. While I can hardly claim to have greatly suffered, should I allow myself to simply shrink below the world of significance, worth, and ultimately humanity because, like Carey, I am alone and outside the realm of “normal” society? Should I, as a person of faith, vanish from the landscape of my family because that faith is perceived as alien, prejudiced, and even idolatrous?

Mathematically, the concept of zero exists but can a human being become zero and yet be alive? Borrowing inspiration from the fictional Scott Carey, if I still mean something to God, then I am not zero. Though devalued by secular humanity, I am not wholly without worth. If God notices even the smallest sparrow as it falls from an infinite sky, won’t he notice me too as I shrink into shadows and dust?

In the darkness of my abyss, is the tiny light I see in the distance a dying spark, or a foretaste of the universe exploding with light?

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And Don’t Forget To Dance

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Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky

-John Lennon
Imagine (1971)

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

–Revelation 21:3-4 (ESV)

I hate to keep picking on Joe and Heidi, but their continual battle with cancer is a continual inspiration to me. More than that, it’s their courage, faith, and humor in the face of living a nearly impossible life that is the real inspiration. It puts to shame most of us who complain about our rather modest discomforts.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the photo of Joe and Heidi dancing, and knowing something about the hardships they face was, “this is what it must be like to watch people dancing in Heaven.” Then I thought about the “no more tears” portion from John’s Revelation. Then I thought about writing.

And here I am.

But what if, as John Lennon suggested, that there is no Heaven. What if we face insurmountable hardships, heartbreak, tragedy, and sorrow with no hope and no end except a black and empty death? How would that change us? What would it make human behavior like?

Or is this why the world is in the shape it’s in today? Because the majority of the world, as Lennon suggested, believes there is no Heaven…no accountability…no God?

I know I’m going to experience some serious “blowback” about that comment from secular humanists and atheists who see themselves as the greater moral force in the world and I can’t say they’re not. It doesn’t take a belief in God in order to do good. However, I think it takes such a belief to give it all a greater meaning beyond our temporal context. But some atheists cast themselves in the superior role because they don’t do good just to satisfy some abstract and alien being sitting in judgment on a throne. They do so because…um, why? Because it’s the right thing to do? But how do they know? How does anyone know?

Where do we get the idea that something is good and some other thing isn’t? What is “good” and what is “evil?” How do you know? If you’re an atheist, there is no moral structure attached to your belief since not believing in God isn’t value laden. It simply means you don’t believe a supernatural being created the universe and is involved in our lives.

What if there is no Heaven for Joe and Heidi? What would it mean in terms of the overwhelming fight they’ve been waging against cancer? Have they been praying to empty air? Has the courage they’ve gotten from faith been in vain?

Based on Lennon’s lyrics, he seemed to believe that if we deconstructed all human (and supernatural) infrastructures, organizations, groupings, and distinctions, the world of human beings would be a better place. Maybe it would be, I don’t know. It won’t happen because human beings absolutely need to identify, label, and organize their environment in order to make any sort of sense of it. All people groups use two basic names. One for themselves and the other for everyone else. Those names mean something to them and to us. Of course, they might not mean the same things.

When I say I’m a Christian, I mean a particular thing. Other people hear that label and perhaps comprehend it in a different way than I do. Some people hear that label and comprehend it in the most negative possible light. In their world, they have one name for themselves, which means they’re “good”, but the name “Christian” or “Jew” means something that bad, wrong, immoral, or evil (and where did the concepts of good and evil come from, anyway?)

But from inside my point of view and from inside my faith, I don’t perceive my faith to be evil. I know I am not a perfect person and I have made mistakes. I’ll make mistakes again. I don’t brag about it or enjoy it, but that’s part of what it is to be a flawed human being living in an broken world. And after all, human beings broke it.

I’m accountable not just to other human beings (my wife, my family, my employer, the government), but I’m accountable to a force that is larger than human institutions and an intelligence that comprehends the infinite mysteries of the universe. For me, there is a greater sense of morality and ethics that exists and One who is the origin of what it is to be good or to be evil.

What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” –Romans 7:7 (ESV)

Sometimes it helps to have an external standard to help us define our role in life. For those of us who have faith, God is that standard. For those without faith, I suppose our government, or the news media, or a social organization will have to do. I can’t tell anyone else how to live their lives, but it would be wonderful if others would stop insisting they have the right to tell me to abandon my faith. But that’s the way of the world. If faith isn’t strong enough to withstand the winds of criticism from society, it will never stand up against the brutal storms of some disaster like cancer.

So Joe and Heidi showed me what it’s like to dance in Heaven this morning. As I looked at their photo, all of the sorrow and grief and hostility of the world surrounding me momentarily faded away. Imagine there is no Heaven if you want. But grasping hold of my faith not only gives me peace about the future, but the strength to carry on in the harsh and uncertain present and to try to do a little good in the world I live in every day. I pray, whoever you are reading this, that you can find the same.

In your worldly business, just do what needs to be done and trust in G-d to fill in the rest.

In your spiritual business, however, you’ll have to take the whole thing on your own shoulders. Don’t rely on G-d to heal the sick, help the poor, educate the ignorant and teach you Torah.

He’s relying on you.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Make it Your Business”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

And don’t forget to dance.

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Randomly Covering Territory

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Do you only believe when you can see with your eyes? When your prayers are answered and miracles carry you on their wings? Or do you also believe when circumstances fly in your face?

If it touches you to the core, if it is a belief you truly own, if it is as real to you as life itself, then it does not change.

And if it does not change, then you are bound up with the true essence of the One who does not change.

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

I’ve said before that I don’t consider myself the “sharpest knife in the drawer.” In the world of faith, I think I have plenty of company, though. For instance, I don’t think most Christians consider the idea that there are two basic levels of knowledge in our religion (or probably most religions): the common worshiper’s view and the scholar’s view. For instance, New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado recently posted on his blog an article called An “Early High Christology”. I mean really. What in the world is high Christology and what’s the difference between high vs. low Christology?

I’ll let you click the links I provided since my discussion today isn’t focused on those topics. I’m just including them to illustrate that most people in the church don’t have the same view of God, Jesus, and the Bible as do theologians and Bible scholars. These people talk a different language than we do and conceptualize the Word of God in ways most of us can’t even imagine. I’m not even sure most of them could communicate their ideas and perspectives to a crowd of “regular Christians” at their local neighborhood church in any successful way.

Which is kind of a shame, because the information these people work with would almost assuredly challenge and perhaps even change the viewpoint and direction of most believers in most churches if we had access to it in a comprehensible way.

Well, they do publish popular books, some of them anyway, but most Christians don’t take advantage of that material (let alone anything more scholarly, such as a Ph.D Thesis). Most people who sit in the pew on Sunday are content to believe that they are being adequately “fed” by their local Pastor, who no doubt is doing a good job, but may feel constrained to offer only the “food” he or she believes the audience will comfortably tolerate.

I occasionally get “dinged” for including non-Biblical sources in my writings since they are, after all, non-Biblical and thus cannot carry the same weight of authority as the scriptures in the Bible. But I’m no Bible scholar and I do love a good metaphor, so I include things like Rabbinic midrash, Chassidic tales, and commentary about Kabbalah, largely for their cultural, metaphorical and symbolic meaning. I certainly can’t discuss them from the perspective of a Pastor, Rabbi, or someone else with an advanced education in Theology or Divinity.

That doesn’t keep me from being curious though, and curiosity often leads me down interesting if troublesome paths.

Here’s one such path:

Numbers 22-24: While the Numbers text itself is inconclusive, both rabbinic legend and the Apostolic Scriptures clearly paint Balaam as wicked through and through.

“The Error of Balaam”
Commentary on Torah Portion Balak
First Fruits of Zion

Um, what was that? The Torah was inconclusive about the nature and character of the “wizard” Balaam, but both the New Testament and midrashim agreed that he was evil? That seems like an odd combination. Of course, it’s not that the New Testament writers and the authors of midrash expected to agree with each other, but in this case, strangely enough, they did. Here’s the New Testament commentary on Balaam.

Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. –2 Peter 2:15-16 (ESV)

But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. –Jude 1:10-11 (ESV)

Admittedly, the opinions being rendered about Balaam in the New Testament text are rather brief. But what about the midrash?

Some say Balaam of Pethor (פתור) was called a money-changer (petor, פתור) because the kings of the nations rushed to him for counsel in the same way that people rush to a money-changer to change their currency. –Numbers Rabbah 20:7

This may not be the only Rabbinic commentary on Balaam, but it’s the only one I have access to due to my limited knowledge in this area.

Am I saying that we can compare the New Testament and Talmud, for example? Probably not, or at least, only very, very carefully, with lots of caveats attached (as a side note, can the New Testament and the later Rabbinic commentaries both be considered midrash?). On the other hand, there is just so much we don’t truly understand about the Bible, and there are so many other sources of information that we have access to that may provide additional perspective. We just need to be able to clearly delineate between the Bible and other information sources. We also need to remember that we don’t have to be so binary in our thinking that we always have to say, “Bible good! Everything else, bad!”

After pursuing my personal faith issues for the past few years, I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that the Bible doesn’t always tell us the “whole story.” Both Christian and Jewish scholars and sages have spent the past several thousand years trying to understand the mind of God by delving into the Word of God. They’ve produced an untold amount of commentary that their audiences judge to be of greater or lesser value in defining the faith. The fact that gentlemen like Larry Hurtado even exist as New Testament scholars tells us there is more to be learned about the New Testament than we already know or think we know. I’m sure the same is true for the rest of the Bible.

I’ve previously mentioned last Thursday’s conversation between me, my son, and two other believers that lead to quite an interesting theological discussion. One of the things I didn’t mention was that David asked me what the minimum amount of knowledge was that would still qualify a person as a believer in God and a disciple of the Master. I don’t recall the details of my answer, but I don’t doubt it’s a good deal less than what the scholars, sages, and experts possess.

I suppose we could limit ourselves to knowing just the basics.

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” –Mark 12:28-31 (ESV)

But people are curious creatures. We very rarely hold ourselves back to the basics, well, some of us, anyway. We want to know more and we push our limits. We push the limits of religious propriety, asking questions the church doesn’t want to answer. We push our intellectual limits, asking questions that have answers we may not have the ability to understand. We push the limits of what are considered viable information sources and methods of study and what are not, at least by those folks who are “in the know,” such as Hurtado or Timothy George.

But the alternative is to shut up, don’t ask questions, and do as we’re told. For some people, that’s the entire scope of their faith. For others, for people like me, that would be the end of my faith. It would die for lack of nourishment.

So I’ll probably keep asking questions, being rebuffed, offending people, entering areas that are “off limits” to mere mortals and those of us with a limited religious education (and IQ), and generally stubbing my toe every other step.

I feel like a person who is trapped in an endless, man-sized maze looking for the cheese. Problem is, the maze is completely blacked out. I can’t see a thing. So the only way to discover my path is to bump into a lot of walls as if I were a human Roomba. My path seems completely random. Hopefully, I’ll cover the necessary territory.

What else can I do?

You don’t need to move mountains.
You just need to know where to aim.
You can transform an entire family forever with one flickering Shabbat candle of one little girl.

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

I recently read a very interesting blog post written by Jacob Fronczak called Every man is not a theologian which seems to give me a sort of “permission” not to pretend I know what a theologian knows. You might want to have a look and see what you think.