Tag Archives: Christianity

divinity, Uncategorized

Questions You Can Never Ask In Church

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There is a Yiddish saying that is familiar to many: “One doesn’t die from asking a question.” This expression is a pithy way to explain to someone who has questions that having a question — or many — is no big deal.

As one gets older and wiser, he has a broader perspective and realizes that questions are a part of life and that we make choices despite questions all the time.

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“The Missing Husband”
Kereisos 11-1

I had coffee after work with a couple of guys yesterday. That’s actually kind of unusual for me since I don’t socialize very often, but this was a somewhat unusual situation. Those of you who have been following my blog for awhile know that one of my “issues” is my lack of fellowship with like-minded believers. You have probably read my discussion about why I don’t go to church. These two fellows are more or less in the same boat as I am. We are all believers, but through one process or another, we find ourselves without a congregation to which we can belong. Maybe we’re too independent or idiosyncratic or something.

So over coffee at Moxie Java, we discussed why we were meeting in the first place. We hadn’t brought our Bibles and we didn’t have a specific plan or agenda for our meeting. The most we had settled on before getting together yesterday was that we wanted to have a meeting and talk. But what about?

We came up with a number of reasons why we were more alike than unalike, and why we don’t seem to fit into a traditional church setting. One of the reasons was that we ask a lot of questions.

You might not think this is a big deal, but I know from my own experience that it’s not a good idea to ask a lot of questions in church, or at least, you shouldn’t ask questions that don’t have canned, pre-programmed, Christian answers. But we were discussing things like the Deity (or lack thereof) of Jesus and whether or not there really is a Trinity, and whether the third Temple would be a real, physical structure built by men (I think so, but someone else didn’t) or something more “spiritual.” These are questions that would probably raise a few eyebrows if you discussed them in adult Sunday school after services. They might even get you quickly escorted to the door by a couple of ushers with a strong “suggestion” never to return.

That’s the difference between how I see Christianity and Judaism. Christianity is about always having the right answers and only asking questions that map to those answers. Judaism is about always asking all kinds of questions and then struggling with the answers, maybe coming up with half a dozen possible responses, and then arguing all of them around back and forth. There’s no sin in wondering exactly what makes Jesus divine and what his relationship is with “God the Father,” but you might not get that feeling if you asked those kind of questions in a church.

But if you don’t ask questions, then you don’t learn. And if you don’t learn, then your relationship with God drops into a deadend rut and never goes anywhere for years and years.

The rebellious child who questions everything sits in a place beyond the one who has nothing to ask.

If the rebellious child questions, it is because it touches him, it says something to him. Perhaps it even bothers him.

But a perfectly capable human being who has no questions about Torah and G-d — he is stuck in his place. Perhaps he is a good religious Jew who does good deeds and never sins. But there is no sense of the spirit, of the meaning of life, of transcendence.

He is stuck in Egypt and knows of nothing higher.

—at the second Seder, 1965

Chronicled by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Inquisitively Challenged”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

I was discussing this matter with a Pastor on his blog the other day, and his response was that the issue wasn’t Christianity vs. Judaism, but west vs. east. He said that the eastern churches tended to very much encourage question asking and wrestling over difficult issues. The western church tends to be more “goal-oriented” and likes conclusions rather than conundrums. That may well be true. I don’t know. I do know that the traditional Yeshiva model of learning is to argue opposing positions and “posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes.” (from the lyrics to If I Were a Rich Man)

broken-crossSo there we were, three guys sitting around drinking mediocre coffee and occasionally having our conversation being drowned out by the latte machine, asking questions, posing problems, and generally discussing matters that would “cross a Pastor’s eyes.”

But it felt good.

Part of getting close to God is meditating upon Him and His awesome, mighty works and wonders. Part of getting close to God is prayer. Part of getting close to God is reading the Bible and studying the Torah commentaries of the ancient Jewish sages.

And part of knowing God is getting together with a few other guys in a coffee shop in southwestern Idaho and talking about Him, asking all the questions we can’t ask other people, and hoping we get at a few answers, or better yet, a few more questions, that surprise and challenge us.

Because if we can’t find a way to get closer to Him, we’ll always be too far away.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works. –Psalm 73:25-28 (ESV)

We’ll get together again next Thursday after work and see how it goes. Maybe, I’ll have a good question to ask. I hope no one comes up with just one answer.

Uncategorized

Restructuring

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We’re talking about meditating – as per our last installment. About taking the reins of that gray matter and restructuring it for inspired living. Who’s going to take those reins? Who’s doing the restructuring? There must be some aspect of mind that transcends the gray meat and is able to look at it and say, “Naah—better off this way!” Otherwise, why would a brain care about restructuring itself – or even realize it requires restructuring?

We’ve known this for a long time. We’ve known that there is an aspect of the human being that comes wrapped with the meat and bones, while there’s another aspect that enters from beyond. That is why, writes the 14th-century commentator, Rabbeinu Bechayei, the book of Genesis tells the story of the creation of the first human being twice: once to describe the animal called homo sapiens, and then again to describe the injection of a G-dly soul into this creature — “And He blew into his nostrils the breath of life.”

So there are (at least) two persons in there: a basic human animal person, and a G-dly person. Two big roommates in a small human frame – with very different tastes in interior decorating. Which can get very ugly.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Chabad Meditation”
Last entry in the Multimedia Guide to Jewish Prayer series
Chabad.org

In yesterday’s morning meditation, I presented the concept of Jewish, or more specifically, Chasidic meditation as a means of preparing for entry into prayer. The idea is that, before climbing the ladder of Jacob, so to speak, in order to enter into the presence of the King, you prepare your mind and spirit through meditating on God, His wonders, His works, His meaning. You immerse yourself in God as one steps into a pool and submerges into the depths of His mystery and His identity. Then you emerge and are ready to stand before the Throne.

However, this last entry into Rabbi Freeman’s series on Jewish prayer expands and transforms the meaning of meditation to include the internal restructuring of the person. This is actually my primary goal at the moment; a personal restructuring of my understanding of myself and life and how I can choose to interpret events differently than I have in the past. From the Chasidic point of view, the restructuring involves the transaction between the purely human “meat animal” of a person, and that part of us God breathed into our bodies.

Here’s the really exciting part for me.

So, to put this all together, we are describing meditation as a form of negotiations between a non-meat-related soul that is basically G-d breathing inside, principally concerned with going back to where it came from, and a human brain that comes wrapped in gray and white meat and is principally concerned with, well, meat kinds of things – eating, sleeping, procreating, collecting toys, and getting lots of people to say what a wonderful human being he is.

A daunting task. What can the G-dly soul possibly say that might impress this human person?

Well, first off, you need some background data on your particular human animal. What impresses it? What fascinates it? What’s its language?

This is just amazing. Not only does Rabbi Freeman speak of restructuring, which is foremost on my mind and the thrust of my current desires, but he introduces “language” or metaphor as the means by which we learn how to restructure. There’s a reason why Rabbi Freeman is one of my favorite storytellers, particularly in the area of spirituality, God, and wonder.

The Rabbi goes on to explain that one of his favorite “languages” is technology and programming, so he tends to allow this theme to act as the conduit for communications between his “Godly soul” and his “Animal soul.” We all use different languages for this purpose. In a comment on yesterday’s morning meditation, my friend Joe said:

Practicing when hiking in the mountains, breathing God in and out with each step opens up an awareness of every example of Creation’s beauty I pass on the trail, because I am not off thinking about the future.

I thought of that this morning as I was working out on the Elliptical machine at the gym. I’m trying to improve my cardiac recovery after an aerobic workout and, during the five-minute cooldown, as I was slowing my pace and had the machine set to a lesser intensity, I closed my eyes and spent some time breathing God in and out as I allowed my breathing to slow and deepen. I pondered the wonders of God in ways you might not imagine. I found my thoughts centering around Joe’s recent cancer surgery and how well it went and then around his wife Heidi, who continues to undergo aggressive chemotherapy. I found myself asking where is the miracle of God in Heidi’s suffering? The answer is the wonder of God she has in Joe. Whatever Heidi faces in her battle with cancer, she is not alone. She has God and she has a husband with a Godly soul.

I opened my eyes and my heart rate was lower than I had previously achieved at the end of a workout…not by much, but it was something.

That may not be particularly impressive, but there is something important in what we talk to ourselves about before we actually talk to God. Often, I enter into the presence of God like a raw nerve with this need and that, yelling and screaming about the injustices of the world, and the worry, and the anxiety, and the tragedy of the world, including my world. I’ve heard Pastors and motivational speakers talk about “giving it all to Jesus” and “taking charge of your thoughts” and “letting go of your worries,” but no one ever says how this is to be done. Or if they describe a method, it doesn’t seem to be one that I find particularly workable.

But then, we all respond differently to different languages. I don’t “understand” a lot of the languages being spoken in the religious and spiritual worlds and thus, they mean little or nothing to me. And then there’s the language that’s required to conduct the internal dialog between that which is animal and that which is spiritual within me.

Everyone else’s “good advice” doesn’t work if they’re talking in the wrong language and if the metaphors don’t make a connection (which is why motivational football or fishing stories fall flat with me). Restructuring requires that you have active control over selecting your own language and metaphors, even if they don’t mean anything to anyone else. Find your own storytellers who speak that language and let them speak to you. Take all that and let it be your own voice as you speak to yourself. Then you will have a voice in which you can better speak to God. Not a voice of panic and desperation, but one that, after still and quiet contemplation upon God’s wonders, can speak in small stillness, in praise, in glory, in humility, in a thousand colors and shades that describe who you are, who you are becoming, and who you are perfectly within Him.

There are better days and there are worse days. But on the better days, I can reach that place in the antechamber that exists between the world and God’s Throne and still myself. Then, in a supernatural moment of peace, I reach out for the first rung of the ladder which sits at the bottom of the abyss, and the surroundings begin to brighten. I take the first step in my climb, breathing in God and breathing Him out. The door to the Heavenly court begins to open, I find my mouth, and I must speak.

“Our Father Who is in Heaven…”

“Faith believes that which it is told, because it wants to believe.

Intellect believes that which it understands, because it wants to attain understanding.

Wisdom believes that which is true, because it is true.

It doesn’t have to fit that which faith wishes to believe. It doesn’t await the approval of intellect to say, “This can be understood.”

Wisdom is clear vision, the power to see “that which is” without attempting to fit it into any mold. Wisdom, therefore, is the only channel by which an Infinite G-d may enter.”

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

This isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning.

“When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.”

-Anaïs Nin, French-Cuban author

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Pausing Before Engaging God

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So we’ve determined that meditation is not just a nice thing, but crucial for every human being with functional grey matter. It’s something that was always considered core to the tefillah experience, at least by those who were into that experience. For some, it meant the mind’s contemplation of the vast beauty of G-d’s creation that their eyes beheld, gazing upon the stars and the wonders of nature. For others, it was the reverie of the worlds of the angels, who stand in constant praise and song. Still others focused upon G-d’s compassion and love for His creatures, and all His kindnesses to us.

So was the practice of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as they sat in perfect awe beneath the star-speckled sky of the still desert night; so too, the ancient prophets in the Judean hills, strumming musical instruments as they gazed upon the mysteries of heaven and earth, awaiting the vision of prophecy as the morning’s horizon awaits the rising sun; so did the sages of the Talmud, the Bahir and the Zohar lift their souls on mystic journeys through orchards and palaces, chambers and pathways of the spiritual realms, never sure that they could return to their earthly bounds; so too the chassidim were lost in contemplation and the ecstasy of their prayer from early morning until the hours of night.

So now you’re asking: If meditation is so vital to Jewish observance, and if it is such an embedded tradition, why don’t I see it happening anywhere?

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Meditation’s Hallway”
from the Multimedia Guide to Jewish Prayer series
Chabad.org

Good question, and one that can probably be applied to Christians as well. The answer is that some do meditate before prayer but most don’t. I think I know why.

When I got up this morning at around 4 a.m., I was pretty tired, but I knew I needed to get out of bed if I intended to make it to the gym when it opened at 5. My brain is never really “on” when I first wake up, so I had a cup of coffee, a glass of water, and read the “funny papers” online as a slow and casual method of getting my thoughts to engage. I was still telling myself to “wake up” as I drove to the gym.

Forty-five minutes of sweating later, my mind and body were definitely awake. I was conscious enough to “engage” God in prayer, but time is limited. I also had to publish the day’s “morning meditation”, post it on twitter, Facebook, and Google+, eat breakfast, say “hello” to my wife who was also in a state of not really being awake as she got ready for work, shower, get dressed, make lunch, and various other routine morning tasks. Somewhere before 7 a.m., I have time to read from the Bible and to pray, but meditation, as you can see from Rabbi Freeman’s description, is time consuming.

More accurately, it’s time consuming because you have to take your recently reawakened brain and put it in a calm and contemplative place. That’s a little dangerous for me, since I’m libel to start feeling sleepy again.

Don’t worry. I get Rabbi Freeman’s point.

If you ever hire an architect to design a synagogue, you will need to inform him of the two-door rule: The worshipper must first enter into a vestibule that precedes the sanctuary before walking through the doors of the sanctuary itself, as verse in Proverbs goes, “Fortunate is the man who listens to me to watch by my doors day by day, to watch the doorposts of my entrances.” (Talmud Berachot 8a. Tur, Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim, Levush 90:2. Magen Avraham ibid. Shulchan Aruch Harav 90:19.)

The first door, explains Rabbi Sholom Ber of Lubavitch in his “Booklet on Tefillah,” (Kuntres Hatefillah, siman 11) is the door in from the street. You first need to leave the confusion of the world outside and empty your mind of all worldly concerns, power down your cellphone, spend a few moments to gain calm and focus. As Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel would say (Avot 1:17), “All my life, I grew up among the sages and I did not find anything better for a person than quietness.”

Not, however, to get stuck in the hallway. Despite the common misconception, that’s not the goal of meditation. It’s not a path to placid bliss, transcendentally oblivious to the temporal world. Serenity is not a goal in itself. Calmness and stillness provide a healthy frame of mind from which to begin meditating, praying, struggling to grow and change—to enter door #2. But not to simply bathe and soak in. As Adin Steinsaltz once put it bluntly: serenity is death, life is struggle.

You prepare yourself in the hallway, then you enter the Sanctuary of God. Life is struggle. Apparently, so is prayer. Maybe that means, that prayer is also life. It makes sense, since I struggle with both.

But life is busy. I’ve mentioned before that all of the details Rabbi Freeman presents as relevant to preparing to enter your day are numerous, and most folks who have a regular job and who live with a family might not be able to incorporate everything he suggests.

Getting back to my original metaphor, here I sit at the bottom of the abyss, attempting to practice being still, (I’m not doing a very good job) and contemplating that ladder God has put down in the hole with me. The problem is, getting my mind to be still enough to do a good job at contemplation. Whenever I try to shut out the bedlam of life around me, the bedlam of life inside me takes over. Where do I go from here?

When the soul awakens, it descends like a fire from heaven.

In a moment of surprise, we discover something so powerful, so beyond our persona, we cannot believe it is a part of us.

In truth, we are a part of it.

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

There’s only one more part of Rabbi Freeman’s series on Jewish prayer, which I’ll present tomorrow. But what then…what then?

Uncategorized

Seeking Wonder in the Hole of a Bagel

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Consider the common association between Jews and bagels for breakfast.

Myself, I’m a quinoa-and-avocado man. Nevertheless, mentally constructing a scene in which I invite my Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Daoist friends to drop by for breakfast, my paranoid Jewish soul hears them translating, “That means bagels and cream cheese.” What does chewy bread with a hole in the middle have to do with being Jewish? And with Jewish breakfast in particular?

It took me years, but I think I have the answer:

A Jew is meant to start the day with a hole in the middle.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Gratefulness and the Holey Bagel”
from the Multimedia Guide to Jewish Prayer series
Chabad.org

What does a hole in the middle of the bagel teach us about starting out our day? Actually, quite a bit when you examine the metaphor. Recall that when we wake up each morning (at least according to Rabbi Freeman), we first bless God for our very existence. But then what? What do we have once we know we’re alive.

At first, nothing.

…Now, the channel for receiving joy from above is a sense of nothingness [original: bitul—trans.] before your Creator. Wherever there is that nothingness, joy shines from above. And wherever there is a keen feeling of self, there is no joy.

As the verse says, “The humble will increase joy in G-d.” (Avot 4:1) So it seems that humility and joy are related. It’s the humble in particular that can bring joy to G-d.

Superficially, this is difficult to understand. Humility is a sense of lowliness and lack of self worth, while joy implies an uplifted spirit and a sense of self-esteem. If so, how could humility be a receiving channel for joy?

The answer is that humility is not the kind of lowliness that comes out of low self worth, in which a person finds nothing good about himself or that he is, G-d forbid, on a path that isn’t good. Rather the lowliness of humility is simply because he doesn’t feel himself so much. He doesn’t consider himself to be such a “somebody,” despite all the good that he has. Even though he is good and upright in Torah and mitzvahs and in his service of G-d with self-sacrifice, he is not so important in his eyes that he should be considered to have attained some certain spiritual level because of all this.

-Translation by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Humility and Happiness”
From the teachings of Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch
Chabad.org

In his bagel article, Rabbi Freeman says, “when you start with nothing, anything is fantastic.” It’s pretty difficult to be disappointed with how your day has started if it started out with nothing. After nothing, whatever God provides is something fantastic, even if it’s just the hole in the middle of your bagel.

But since you can’t have the hole without the bagel, and (at least in my opinion) you can’t have the bagel without some cream cheese (lox would be nice, too), not only do you wake up and discover you are alive, but you find that God has provided breakfast, too!

The Lord upholds all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food in due season.
You open your hand;
you satisfy the desire of every living thing. Psalm 145:14-16 (ESV)

I know someone reading this will say that there are so many who are alive and who wake up, but they have no food. Their children cry themselves to sleep at night because their bellies are empty. Am I being insensitive to the hungry and the starving? What should they be grateful for?

I’m not going to deliver some hollow religious platitude for a suffering people while I have just finished my own breakfast, but I will say that there’s a reason we have been commanded to feed the hungry. (Proverbs 28:27, Isaiah 58:10, Matthew 25:35, Romans 12:20, James 2:14-18) A man to blesses God for his “daily bread” but who does not obey the same God’s command to feed others has a full stomach, but an empty soul.

But even in blessing God for turning our “nothing” into “something,” and even in feeding the hungry and visiting the sick, we should be mindful of who we are…and who we aren’t.

You see, someone who has that essential sense of nothingness doesn’t make a big deal out of any of his accomplishments. He simply doesn’t notice himself so much, so therefore he doesn’t think about his importance in any matter.

Especially when he contemplates that everything good he has—his faith, his love for G-d—none of it is his own achievement, through his own cognizance. Rather it is an inheritance from Abraham our father who was the first believer and the head of all those who believe.

-from Humility and Happiness

Praying with tefillinIt is said that King David was divinely inspired to institute the saying of 100 blessings (at a minimum) to God each day by every Jew. To a Christian, this may seem excessive or even kind of crazy. Who has time to drop everything they’re doing in the middle of each busy day to say a blessing to God? How can you stop what you’re doing 100 times or more each day to bless God for what He has done for you and the world? Was King David crazy to even suggest it? Am I crazy to suggest it to you…or to me?

Christians tend to think of these sorts of “suggestions” as “being under the Law,” as a burden, as opposing the grace of Jesus Christ who gives us boundless freedom from religious obligation and servitude. Why should a believer have to bless God for each and every thing He has done? Isn’t that slavery?

But what am I saying?

Does being a Christian mean we shouldn’t be thankful to God for all He has given us? Does it mean we shouldn’t take notice in the middle of our busy day, that God has given us food to eat, gainful employment, a loving family, solid ground to walk upon, clothes to wear, strength when we’re weary, a soul placed within us, freedom from captivity…?

In fact, those are just some of the blessings that Jews typically recite from their prayer books each morning. There are many commandments a Jew has to say a short blessing, when witnessing a miracle, when seeing a rainbow, when receiving new clothes, many, many things. In this, a Jew is always aware that in every single event and detail of every single hour of every single day, God is there. There is nothing in the life of a Jew where God is not present and active.

So why would it be so bad if a Christian were to acknowledge God in the same way? Is He not also actively present in our lives as well?

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. –Matthew 6:25-33 (ESV)

According to Jesus, God is indeed present in the life of the Christian as well as the Jew, at least if we can apply his teaching to his Jewish disciples to the rest of us (and I think we can).

If we can look at each event in our day and capture it with a sense of wonder, how much easier it would be to appreciate each day we are given, rather than seeing only the burdens it may contain.

WonderEver watch an infant play with his toes? A toddler delighting in his newfound ability to walk? A youngster who has just discovered the butterfly? That’s the sense of perpetual wonder we’re trying to achieve every morning.

“We have found the elixir of eternal youth,” a wise man once said, “and it is immaturity.”

All day long, strive to be an adult. At the time of prayer, return to that essential child within. Start with the empty hole of the bagel and work outwards.

-from Gratefulness and the Holey Bagel

Does God peek at us through the hole in the middle of our breakfast bagel, considering us with as much wonder as we consider Him?

Once in a while, He seems to be peeking through the latticework of our world, filling the day with light.

But then there are times He hides His face behind a thick wall, and we are confused.

We cry out to Him, loudly, for He must be far away.

He is not far away. For the latticework is His holy hand, and the walls themselves are sustained by His word.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Hiding Behind His Hand”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Once we awake and realize we have our life but nothing else, we start being aware of what God has also provided; our breakfast, our clothes, and whatever else we discover in our day. Then we begin finding the wonder of God everywhere.

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Anointing the Hidden King

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The author of Siddur Otzar HatTefillos  explains why we do tashlich on Rosh  HaShanah from a statement on today’s daf. “Rav Saadiya Gaon explains that we blow the shofar on Rosh HaShanah because on that day we declare Him as king of the world. We blow shofar to accept His kingship over us. This is also why we go to the river or another water source to do tashlich on Rosh HaShanah. As we find in Kareisos 5, we only anoint a king near a body of water. Similarly, on Rosh HaShanah, the day we renew our acceptance of God’s kingship, we re-anoint Him as it were by a river.

The Magid Devarav L’Yaakov, zt”l, explains in a similar vein why we don’t do tashlich on Rosh Hashanah which falls on Shabbos. “Tashlich is a kind of anointment of God as king. We find in Kareisos 5 that we only anoint a king when there are enemies to his becoming king. But if no one objects to his becoming king, there is no need to anoint. When Rosh Hashanah falls out during the week, one must contend with many enemies which try to trip him up, making it very difficult to declare God’s kingship with a full heart. We therefore must go to a water source and anoint Him there. In this manner we silence all accusers. On Shabbos, however, the Zohar tells us that there are no accusers—at least compared with during the week. It follows that there is no need to anoint God king.”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Anointing Our King”
Kereisos 5

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” –Matthew 3:13-17 (ESV)

I couldn’t help but make this comparison because it seemed to fit so well. It also makes me wonder when John performed the ceremony of immersion with the Master as recorded by Matthew and, in future days, when Jesus will be anointed as King over all the earth? I’m not making any sort of declarative statements. Just wondering.

If indeed, according to Jewish custom, the shofar is blown as an announcement of accepting the Messiah’s Kingship over us, I also wonder why we Christians, who claim Jesus as Messiah and King, never took the practice of the shofar upon ourselves. I guess it would have been “too Jewish.” But, since Jesus came first for his “lost sheep of Israel” and then only for the nations of the world, on the day when Jesus returns to claim his Kingship, won’t we all, Jew and Gentile alike, hear the sound of the shofar when he is anointed? Maybe the church should start getting used to the idea that we have a truly Jewish King.

I suppose I’m guilty of some degree of presumptuous arrogance in comparing the Jewish Messiah and the Christian Jesus, since most Jews do not see these two as being the same man. Also, many in the church do not recognize even the possibility that, when Jesus returns, he will be a Jewish King and will preside over Israel and the world in the legacy of David rather than as a “Gentile Gee-sus.”

In many ways the true face of the King of Kings has been concealed from both the Christian and the Jew, as have been his names.

Of the many names for the Messiah found in Tsvi Sadan’s book The Concealed Light, none of them, in English, translate to “King” or “Anointed” or even “Shofar”. However, the Hebrew word “Stam” is thought to be one of the names for our hidden King. Also remember that, for many Jews, the name of the Messiah remains hidden…for now.

In some places, when no name is attached to the word “king,” the identity of the king is said to be stam, meaning the king’s identity is unclear and open for interpretation.

Messiah as Stam King flows from understanding the words of Hannah, “He will give strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed.” (I Samuel 2:10). Since there was no king in Israel when these words were spoken, some could assume that Hannah was prophesying about Messiah. So, says Radak, “The king is Messiah, and Hannah said it by way of prophecy or by way of tradition that in the future Isarel will have a king” (Radak to I Samuel 2:10).

-Sadan, pg 172

We think we know him. We think we know our Lord and Savior in the church. Judaism looks for the Messiah to come to redeem Israel and bring righteousness to the nations under his scepter. We both have it right and we both have it wrong. We both need to have his face revealed and his name to be made clear to all.

And we are all waiting for the King to arrive and be anointed…and to reign over his Kingdom, which is centered in Jerusalem and extends to the ends of the earth. May he come soon and in our days. Amen.

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I Will Awake the Dawn!

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My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth! That your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand and answer me!

–Psalm 108:1-6 (ESV)

Wake up by your own body clock, before the alarm. King David said, “I will wake the morning”—not that the morning woke him. You see, if you are only awake because it is morning, you are not really awake—you are sleepwalking. If it is morning because you are awake, however, then you are truly awake and in control.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“How to Get Out of Bed…and really mean it”
from the Multimedia Guide to Jewish Prayer series
Chabad.org

I hadn’t noticed that David said, “I will awake the dawn” before. I think most of us, when we first get up, are “sleepwalking” for some period of time, as Rabbi Freeman describes. We are waiting for morning, or our first cup of coffee, to wake us up. In his article on getting out of bed from which I’m quoting, Rabbi Freeman provides rather detailed instructions on what to do, from the first moment you realize you’re awake, through the process of entering into morning prayer. These steps are traditional for a religious Jew and so may not be particularly adaptable for the Christian.

On the other hand, there may be a thing or two we can take into our own morning routine as we prepare to greet our Creator.

As I previously mentioned, the first thing a Jew does after waking up is to recite the Modeh Ani blessing, thanking God for returning his soul to him and restoring his life. Immediately afterwards comes the Netilat Yadayim or the traditional handwashing, followed by other specific routines to prepare for prayer.

You can read Rabbi Freeman’s article in full at the links I’ve already provided, so I won’t go into a step-by-step description of the awakening process of a Jew preparing for prayer. Frankly, I don’t believe most of it specifically applies to the Christian and that these are rituals uniquely Jewish in nature.

However, there are a few things we might want to pay attention to, especially activities that a Jew should avoid prior to tefillah (prayer):

  • Don’t eat a meal.
    Eat what you need to focus your mind in tefillah. Maybe that’s just a hot drink. Maybe a light snack. But stop there. First connect your soul, then feed the body.
  • Don’t check the news.
    Sure it’s important to know what’s going on in the world. Starting from the event of the greatest, earth-shaking import. And that is that you are about to talk to the Creator of the Universe. Keep your head clear. You’ll need it.
  • Don’t visit a friend.
    This is a classic, mentioned in Talmud. You’re about to greet your Maker, so it’s not good protocol to visit someone else first. If you do see someone you haven’t seen for a while, the custom is to not say, “Shalom Aleichem” or even “Shalom”. Shalom (peace) is a name of G-d, so we don’t use it for anyone else until we’ve spoken with Him personally. “Good morning, how are you?” is fine.
  • Don’t check your email or otherwise take care of business.
    Getting tough? Consider each day to be like a mini-week, and the late night and early morning comprise the mini-Shabbat.
  • Don’t get into distracting conversations.
    You don’t have to be rude. But once those conversations start, there’s no end. When you try to put your head into meditation before tefillah, everything you heard and said that morning keeps rattling around in your head. Why add noise, when it’s already so hard to quiet down the mind?

Do you pray in the morning before launching into your day? I must admit that I don’t do so very often. I have a morning routine, but while it contains time to read from the Psalms and the Gospels, it doesn’t accommodate itself to a specific and formal prayer time. I’m not saying that I’m right in this, only that I don’t feel really good about formal prayer while I’m still in my PJs or unshowered, and by the time I take a shower, it’s time to zoom out the door to work.

Would my day go better if I read from the Bible and regularly prayed in a formal manner to God? I can only assume it would. So why don’t I?

Habit, I suppose. Here’s what a typical (actually ideal) morning looks like for me during the week.

  • Wake up and recite Modeh Ani.
  • Use the bathroom.
  • Make coffee and drink a glass of water while I’m waiting.
  • Read various comic strips on the computer which helps my brain wake up.
  • Finish one cup of coffee and one glass of water and then (if I’m very good) head off to they gym.
  • Return home after the gym, drink more water, and publish the day’s “morning mediation” blog.
  • Eat breakfast.
  • Shower, brush my teeth, and shave.
  • Read from the Bible, usually a page of Psalms and a chapter from the Gospels.
  • Pack my lunch for the day and head out the door.

Believe it or not, including the workout at the gym, that covers from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. and I make it to work by around 7:30 a.m. depending on traffic.

Pouring waterDoesn’t sound much like how Rabbi Freeman describes a morning for a traditional religious Jew.

I hate to make this sound dry, but in many ways, holiness is a habit. Like many people, I tend to do the same things each morning when I get up as a matter of routine, not because it’s better or worse than any other way of waking up. I suppose there are some very diligent Christians and Jews who have extremely disciplined morning routines that are infused with the presence of God. There may also be a large number of Christians and Jews who have a routine that is more or less like mine.

A Christian tends to think of prayer life, like most other aspects of the Christian lifestyle, as “free,” that is, you can pray pretty much any time you’d like. This is true and it’s true in Judaism as well. However, there is also a formal aspect to Jewish prayer that dictates specific times when one is to pray (ideally with a minyan) in a ritual manner. The morning prayer service is called Shacharit and is one of the three times a day a Jew is commanded to enter into prayer.

I mentioned in my last morning meditation that God desires we voluntarily enter into a relationship with Him, and this is true. However, I also mentioned that for the Jew, there is a certain set of connections, rituals, and traditions that are part and parcel of being a Jew. There is a “belonging” and a “commandedness” to being a Jew that few Christians truly understand. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, only that it is a Jewish thing.

A few months ago, I wrote that the Roman Centurion Cornelius (see Acts 10) seemed to have adopted the Jewish tradition of fixed prayers, probably because having come to faith in the God of Israel, it was the only available model for his prayers. This suggests that fixed times of prayer are not forbidden to the Christian, even though they are not formally commanded of us by God.

I can find all kinds of reasons why I should pray in the morning, but it is entirely up to me to choose to initiate such prayer or to disregard it. To incorporate morning prayer as a daily routine, I will need to change my habits which, as I’m sure you’re aware (assuming you have habits, too) is easier said than done.

But having admitted a need to improve certain areas of my life, which includes a more intimate relationship with God, what else can I do but either take God seriously or discard His presence?

When I imagine other Christians or anyone who shares a faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I imagine them in the morning, entering into deep and meditative periods of prayer with God. But that’s my imagination and it can be used to fuel a sense of guilt, because I don’t have such a time in my morning, admittedly by choice. On the other hand, I’ve heard numerous Christians say they “share” their first cup of coffee with Jesus, praying to him in the morning (but even Jesus said we are only to pray to God the Father) as if they were talking to a neighbor or acquaintance sitting around the kitchen table.

I apologize if this sounds offensive, but I’ve always been put off by that image. One does not approach the throne of the King with a cup of coffee in one hand and a folding chair in another, sit down next to His Throne, and then address the King of the Universe in the same way as you’d chit chat with a casual acquaintance.

I think that’s one of the reasons I hesitate to pray in the morning. When am I really prepared to enter into the presence of the King? When am I clean enough? How should my hair be combed? Should I be hungry or full? Should I be sleepy or well “caffeinated?”

Is it just my own “hang up” that I think morning prayer or any formal, regular prayer should contain a sense of formality, respect, and awe of God? Is this something that only the Jews have retained and that the church has tossed in the gutter, in favor of a casual dip into the shallow pools of grace and freedom?

But I’ll never be “good enough” to actually enter into the august and majestic Throne room of the Almighty and All-encompassing King of Everything. How do you even do that? Is that why Christians “dumb down” prayer for the most part? Should I emulate the Jewish “style” even though I’m not a Jew, for lack of any better model?

I’m tossing this question out to you readers. What do you think?

You might think that the more lowly the created being, the lower the divine spark it contains.

Just the opposite: Only the highest of sparks could descend to the lowest of places and retain their power to sustain such an existence.

That is why the deepest truths are so often found in the darkest of places.

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

How can I wake up the dawn?