Tag Archives: FFOZ

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Toby’s Story and Mine

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I promise. I’m running out of Shavuot conference stories. It won’t be long now until I’m tapped out. Be patient.

I mentioned in my recent review of Toby Janicki’s book God-Fearers: Gentiles and the God of Israel that I was just a tad disappointed that he didn’t describe anything about his personal journey in transitioning away from One Law. I kind of expected that he would have included some of those details, because he told a lot of his personal story at the conference last week.

I promised to share one of those stories with you (I have Toby’s permission to do so). I don’t think I’ll be able to tell it as well as Toby did. Certainly, I’ve forgotten a lot of the little details by now. In fact, since I’m telling all of this from memory, doubtless my story will contain just a ton of errors. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to get the main point across. Then I’ll tell you a story of my own.

But Toby’s story first.

Toby talked about visiting what sounds like some sort of upscale food store in the Denver area several years ago. He was wearing a talit katan under his shirt with the four tzitzit extending out into public view. He apparently was very satisfied with the tzitzit being the correct halakhic length and with the proper blue for the techelet threads. His observance of the mitzvot of the tzitzit was just flawless.

As Toby was approaching the check out line, he heard a man’s voice from behind him, “Excuse me.”

Toby paused and turned as the man continued to speak.

“Are you Jewish?”

At this point in Toby’s story, I can imagine him freezing momentarily in a sort of “deer in the headlights” pose.

Toby said, “No.” This prompted the other fellow, who was Jewish, to ask Toby a number of questions. Why would someone who wasn’t Jewish wear tzitzit, and particularly pay such fine attention to the relevant halachah? Toby most likely answered each of this Jewish person’s questions and I don’t doubt it would have been a fascinating conversation to watch and hear. I somehow believe that the Jewish gentleman never quite understood the whole concept of “One Law” and why anyone who wasn’t Jewish would desire such an experience. On the other hand, he may full well have understood the implications of people who were not Jewish entering into behaviors that, on the surface, made them seem as if they were.

It’s what I would call an epiphany event for Toby. The light bulb went off over his head. He realized something that had never occurred to him before on a very fundamental level.

That’s the best I can do about Toby’s story but before getting to my own, I want to share another one I heard at the conference.

A non-Jewish fellow at the conference described how he once went into a church, not his home church by any means, wearing a kippah and carrying a talit gadol over his arm. He elicited a lot of questions from the other Christians there, particularly, “Are you Jewish?” Of course, the answer had to be no, but the fellow in question felt that dressing as he did would be a witness to the Christians and allow him to speak about the Jewishness of Jesus. Perhaps in that one church it did, but what does it say when someone who is not Jewish dresses in a manner that seems to say he is a Jew? Toby’s encounter was accidental. This other gentlemen deliberately presented a confusing message about his identity.

What are we really saying to the Jews and Christians around us when we create the impression that we are someone we really aren’t?

Praying with tefillinNow to my story. It’s not a single event, but I’ll pretend it is so this blog post won’t go on too long.

Like most people who live in a suburban home, my house’s master bedroom has a walk-in closet. It used to be my habit to pray in that closet in the mornings. I would take my siddur with me and reciting the proper blessings, don my talit and lay tefillin (I want to thank my friend Baruch Hopkins for teaching me the proper manner of laying tefillin, particularly since being left handed, my technique must be different from most other people). My Hebrew is terrible (as many people at the conference I recently attended can attest), but I prayed from my heart and my humble devotion to God. I believed that, imperfect though my prayers were, imperfect though my Hebrew was, and imperfect as my performance of the relevant halachah was, I was doing my best. I hoped God would understand.

And I didn’t want my Jewish wife to walk in on me during my prayers. I tried to time everything so she’d either be asleep or already gone to work when I’d pray. I know it may sound silly to you, but I had a couple of important reasons.

The first was that I wanted to be able to completely focus on my prayers. I didn’t want to be interrupted or to have to worry about being interrupted during prayer. I wanted and needed to have a private time when I could connect to God.

The second reason was that I was embarrassed. It wasn’t just that I have no command of Hebrew and that I don’t really know how to don a talit, although that’s embarassing, too. It’s that she’s Jewish and I’m not. Although she wasn’t raised in a Jewish home and for many years, did not have a lived cultural and religious experience, she has overcome many barriers and worked extremely hard to connect and integrate with the Jewish community. She has finally become a member of our local Jewish community and her habits, viewpoint, and even thought processes have become increasingly Jewish.

I certainly can’t say the same thing for me, and yet there I was, wearing a kippah, wearing tzitzit, binding tefillin on my arm and on my forehead, and trying to pray in bad Hebrew from a siddur.

When Toby was telling his story and how he felt when he was speaking with a Jewish man about why a Gentile Christian should be dressing like a Jew, I wondered if he felt even half as uncomfortable as I did when I just imagined how my wife pictured me. Toby’s encounter was with a stranger he probably never saw again. I had the same encounter but with my wife who I see all the time.

Toby’s encounter was probably only one of the steps he took on his journey which resulted in him re-evaluating his One Law beliefs. My “quasi-Jewish prayer life” was only one of the steps in my journey. But they’re both examples of our realizing that there is some part of the One Law assumption that just doesn’t “feel” right. When we put it into practice outside of our cloistered little groups, we have experiences that help us realize, however unintentionally, that we are putting on a mask when we wear tzitzit in public. As Gentiles, we are telling the world that we are a person who we really aren’t. Regardless of our intent, we are saying we’re Jewish when we know we’re not.

One SoulAnd when we do that, what do we do to the Jewish people around us? That’s a question I had to ask myself. What was I telling my wife about her Jewishness when I behaved in a manner that is unmistakably Jewish? What was I saying about how I viewed her unique choseness by the God of her fathers? Was I cheapening that specialness by adopting Jewish prayer behaviors? My prayers were in private. No strangers could have been offended. But if I don’t choose to respect my own Jewish wife and instead, I insist I have a right to wear tzitzit and tefillin, what commandments am I “obeying”…and which ones have I just shattered?

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. –Genesis 2:24 (ESV)

I’ve probably made a mess of Toby’s story and want to apologize to him and to everyone else for getting most of it wrong. However, I can tell you that I got my own story “spot on.” I’m not telling anyone out there what to do. I can only tell you why I stopped doing many things I still cherish and put away my tallit and tefillin. The siddur still sits on my night stand, but often it is abandoned. I still talk to God, but I’ve removed the “Jewish” elements.

When I was at the Shavuot conference, I arrived early on Friday morning. As I sat in the sanctuary, I heard the faint sound of praying from the direction of the library. I followed the sound and discovered that a number of men had met in an upper room for shacharit prayers. The Hebrew was beautiful, but it wasn’t just the language. Although Hebrew will always be a challenge for me and most likely beyond my grasp, these prayers speak to my heart in a way no other type of prayer can. I really miss it. I can’t explain why, but I really do.

In fiction, a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In real life, the story continues as long as we can draw a breath. My heart is still beating and my lungs still take in air, so my story is still moving forward. I still have no idea how it will end.

The only thing I can do is keep writing my story one blog post at a time and see what happens next.

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God-Fearers: Gentiles and the God of Israel, A Book Review

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When I first started writing this review, I couldn’t find anything about Toby Janicki’s new book, God-Fearers: Gentiles and the God of Israel either on First Fruits of Zion’s (FFOZ’s) website or through a general Google search. The book hadn’t been released for public sale when I got my advance copy at FFOZ’s recent Shavuot conference, but I didn’t realize it was so new that there was no advance publicity available. I emailed Boaz Michael and he asked me to hold off publishing my review for a few days. As a consequence, this review is a bit different than the one I originally created. Not too different though, and my conclusions are the same.

The question of when the book would become available for purchase was kept as an unexpected announcement for the Shavuot conference. Boaz and Daniel Lancaster wanted to surprise Toby by presenting him with a copy during one of Toby’s presentations. No one, including me, expected to be able to actually get their hands on “God-Fearers” as early as last week. Boaz gave me my personal copy at the conference so I’d be able to write a review soon after I returned home. I had it completely read by the time I had to board my flight at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport to return to Boise last Monday night.

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when I read the book and discovered that it didn’t contain the one piece of content I had anticipated. I think both Toby and Boaz mentioned at the conference that this book would describe Toby’s personal journey from a One Law position to his current theological stance, which I guess we now call (more or less) “divine invitation” (I put that in quotes because when you’re invited but not commanded to take on additional Torah mitzvot beyond what a Christian would consider obligation, the results from one person to the next can be variable). I was really hoping Toby would write what it was like from inside FFOZ as their formal policy and faith structure transitioned into its current form. I was hoping to be able to actually see Toby’s personal journey against the backdrop of FFOZ’s ethical, moral, and spiritual development from what it was originally to what it has become today. At the conference, Toby even shared a story (which I’ll write about in a later “meditation”) about an “epiphany event” in his life that dramatically illustrated for him the dissonance between a Gentile publicly practicing Jewish identity behaviors and how it actually looks to Jewish people. None of that kind of content actually made it into the book.

What did make it into the book is a worthy read, however there is a fair amount of repurposed materials from articles Toby wrote for Messiah Journal (MJ). Since I read MJ regularly, the vast majority of what Toby’s book contained was familiar to me. Of course, if you don’t subscribe to MJ or you want all of this information collected in one place, God-Fearers is definitely for you. The material is also “fleshed out” somewhat so that articles that were only loosely related and published across the span of many months, are integrated into a fairly seemless set of topics focusing on the history and evolution of the presence of Gentiles in the worship of the God of Abraham.

OK, what’s the book about? Toby researches and investigates the history and context of non-Jewish people who, across the long centuries from Sinai to the fall of the Second Temple, have attached themselves to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but without the benefit of a formal convenant relationship with that God being available (unless you count the Noahide covenant). Toby presents to his audience, a set of pictures of what Gentiles looked like as they became aware of the God of Israel, began to grasp the concept of ethical monotheism as opposed to pagan polytheism (which was universal among the non-Jewish nations throughout the vast majority of our history), and how we non-Jews began to enter, however hesitantly, into the presence of God through the “interface” of normative Judaism.

When Christians think about God-fearers, they tend to think of the Roman Centurion Cornelius in Acts 10, who Jews would tend to call “a righteous Gentile.”

Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood at the gate and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” –Acts 10:17-22 (ESV)

Most Christians are familiar with these verses and based on this text, we imagine that God-fearers sprang abruptly into history as fully realized as Cornelius sometime in the late Second Temple period. But Toby shows us that the concept of God-fearers goes way, way back, possibly as early as the time of Moses and the Sinai covenant. His book presents Biblical evidence of God-fearers in the psalms, such as Psalms 115, 118, and 135. He also cites Midrashic references, such as Numbers Rabbah 8:2 and Genesis Rabbah 28:5 to show us that normative Judaism acknowledged the presence of God-fearing Gentiles within their midst across the span of Jewish history.

Conceptualizing the relationship between Gentile God-fearers and the Torah is complex. It can even be complex (depending on your point of view) for the Gentiles who have become disciples of the Jewish Messiah (i.e. “Christians”). We see the bare bones of the expectations for the non-Jews who wanted to enter the Messianic covenant in Acts 15, and the book reveals itself to be a commentary not only of God-fearers the way the church traditionally thinks of Cornelius, but of the Gentile who is on a journey of discovery from first becoming aware of the God of Israel, to attaching to that God, perhaps as a Noahide or something similar, and then finally being adopted as sons and daughters of the Most High when we confess the Jewish Messiah as Lord and Master, formally becoming disciples of Jesus and members of the Messianic covenant.

Additionally, Toby describes many of the detailed questions a lot of us have in terms of Gentiles and Jewish identity markers such as Shabbat, tzitzit, tefillin, the Festivals, and other examples of the mitzvot. Please keep in mind that in writing this review, I’m shooting through material that covers over 150 pages in barely 1600 words so I’m just hitting the high points. There’s a lot more elucidating information contained in Toby’s “God-Fearers” book which of course, you’re going to have to read for yourself.

god-fearers mosaicI can see “God-Fearers” being a really great resource either for a non-Jew just entering into the Messianic movement, or for someone who has been active in the movement for awhile but who experiences significant gaps in understanding the role of a non-Jewish disciple in a Messianic Jewish context (I met many people in both of these groups last week at the conference). For those of you who fear that FFOZ is using this book to say, “Gentiles can’t study and take on anything in the Torah,” this book will reassure you that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the book represents a great deal more flexibility as far as what Gentiles are allowed and even obligated to do under Torah than I originally anticipated (I discovered this when I read part of this material in Messiah Journal some months ago). If you keep an open mind and let the book tell its own story, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed as a non-Jewish person who feels “called” to some form of Torah mitzvot observance.

As I mentioned before, I really was hoping that at least the last chapter would have told something of Toby’s personal journey. It’s one thing to provide scholarly information about “generic” non-Jews and how we relate to the Torah and the Messianic movement, but I think the book would have really come alive if Toby had shared his personal thoughts and emotions as FFOZ and he both moved away from the One Law perspective. I got a sense in having talked with Toby for a bit at the conference (he was really busy for those four or five days so I didn’t get to spend any significant time with him) that there is a lot more for him to tell than what finally made it into God-Fearers.

Do I recommend Toby’s book? Absolutely. I think it’s an extremely valuable asset for the audience I described above. I hope if this book goes to a second printing or, if it be God’s will, a second edition, that Toby will include some of his lived, personal experience into the text. The intellectual, emotional, and spiritual value of God-Fearers: Gentiles and the God of Israel would increase immeasurably if he did. That said, if you get your hands on a first edition now, consider it a terrific resource and possibly even a collector’s item.

As I mentioned before, I have a story to tell about Toby (he knows I’m going to share it on my blog) and how it is part of my own.

Blessings.

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Not Ashamed

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Gentiles in Messiah have been transformed by Yeshua’s redeeming work and, as we shall see, are more than just mere Noachides or first-century God-fearers. Those of us from the nations should be proud of who God created us to be. We have an important opportunity to be a light for HaShem and his kingdom that only we can be. Together with our Jewish brothers and sisters in Messiah, we must work towards establishing Messiah’s kingdom and the rule of Torah, while at the same time accepting our own unique roles. At the same time, some may wonder whether it matters if a person is called a Jew or a Gentile.

Aren’t we all one new man in Messiah? Doesn’t the Torah say that there shall be one law for both the stranger and the native-born alike? In the next chapter, we will consider the context of those passages that seem to apply the same standard and obligation of Torah law to both Jews and Gentile believers.

-Toby Janicki
from his soon to be released book:
God-Fearers: Gentiles and the God of Israel
Chapter 1, pp 24-25

This book just became available from First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) but I managed to get my hands on an advance copy last week at the FFOZ Shavuot conference, so I was able to read it several days ago. The first thing I thought of when I finished chapter one was the 1992 Newsboys pop song I’m Not Ashamed (boy, it was good to hear that song again). Of course the song focuses on Christians who are hesitant to share their faith in a world dominated by secular values, but I applied it to how a lot of non-Jews in the Messianic movement seem “ashamed” or “embarrassed” just to be Gentiles in a Jewish religious context. I’ve met more than a few non-Jews in the movement who somehow feel that being a Gentile just isn’t good enough. They seem to think that being Jewish is where the “action” is.

I’ve already written about the absolutely fabulous role that Gentiles play in God’s plan in the redemption of national Israel and the return of the Messiah (see Redeeming the Heart of Israel, Part 1 and Part 2). That means I certainly believe we have no reason whatsoever to be ashamed, embarrassed, or put off about not being Jewish and still worship and honor God in Messianic Judaism. Nevertheless, these emotions are ubiquitous among Gentiles in the various flavors of Messianic Judaism. I suspect this is the motivation, conscious or otherwise, for some Gentiles to be attracted to either the One Law or Two-House theologies (although I know this isn’t true of everyone in those two traditions), each of which require some “equalization” of Jews and Gentiles within Messianic Judaism though a process of homogenization of Jewish and Gentile distinction.

About the only other “cure” (besides just getting past this insecurity and being delighted in who God made you to be) for this condition among some (but far from all) Messianic Gentiles, is to leave the Messianic movement entirely, abandoning faith in the Jewish Messiah King and converting to some other form (usually Orthodox) of Judaism. This is pretty much “throwing out the baby with the bath water” and our movement has been torpedoed (yes, I said “our” since even though I’m a Christian, I can still embrace Jesus as the Jewish Messiah within his correct context) on multiple occasions by people who are struggling with personal faith and identity issues.

I must admit, I can hardly be critical of these folks since more than once I’ve been severely tempted to “throw in the towel” myself, not only in terms of the Messianic perspective, but as far as any faith tradition at all. This life can be miserably hard and lonely and it would be easier to follow the path of least resistance and to either join and blend into a traditional church or just forsake Jesus altogether and enter into the masses of the secular herd.

But I just can’t make myself do it. I can’t make myself walk away. Some incredible drive keeps pulling me back, like an enormous elastic band holding me to the center of God so that I can only run so far away from Him before being snapped back.

The marketing material for Toby’s book wasn’t available from FFOZ when I originally wrote this “meditation,” so my full review won’t appear for the next day or so. I will tell you though, that the direction this book takes dovetails quite nicely with FFOZ’s current and future vision and frankly, it works very well with my vision, too.

Like many Christians who have been involved in the Messianic movement for a while, I’ve gone through the “developmental phase” of almost hating being a Gentile and longing to discover some hidden “crypto-Jewishness” in my genealogy. I never found any, which is fortunate, because if I did, it would have robbed me of the opportunity to discover that God loves Gentile Christians, too and that He has a very specific and incredibly vital role in His plan just for us.

But the most important gift I received over the past week that I want to share with you, is that we don’t have to be ashamed or embarrassed because we’re not Jewish. We don’t have to be jealous of envious of Jews and their unique covenant relationship with God. We have something that is better even than sons and daughters. We have the right to be called God’s sons and daughters. We have the right to be the precious crown jewels among the nations.

I’m not ashamed. You don’t have to be either.

Addendum: I’ve been reminded recently that there are many congregations of non-Jews in Hebrew Roots who are not looking to create their own “Judaism.” Instead, they seek to express their worship and devotion to God in a manner that acknowledges the Jewishness of Jesus. If that’s you and you are perfectly fine being a Gentile Christian in a Messianic Jewish or Hebrew Roots congregation, then this blog post may not be speaking to you. That’s OK, too.

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Redeeming the Heart of Israel, Part 1

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So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

–Acts 1:6-8 (ESV)

At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

–Romans 15:25-29 (ESV)

It is believed by the sages that if all of Israel would observe a single Shabbat properly, the Messiah would immediately come, since obeying the Shabbat is equivalent to obeying the entire Torah. We could extend this idea to say that if all Jews were to perfectly observe all of the Torah mitzvot, the redemption of Israel would be at hand. Interestingly enough, the two portions of scripture I quoted above directly apply to this concept. Let me explain.

There is just so much I could say about the First Fruits of Zion Shavuot conference I attended a few days ago. In fact, over the next several days, I will blog almost exclusively on my different experiences at Beth Immanuel, however one particular presentation stands out. When I heard it on the evening of the last full day of the conference, I knew it would be the keystone to everything I took away from my trip and the centerpiece to everything I intend to write.

I’ll just tell you in advance that this is going to be challenging. Some people don’t like being challenged.

Boaz Michael, Founder and President of First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) gave a presentation about, among other things, the redemption of Israel. But it’s not the sort of redemption that you are probably imagining. According to dictionary.reference.com, redemption, in a theological sense, can mean:

  1. deliverance from sin; salvation.
  2. atonement for guilt.

This falls in line with the traditional Christian understanding of the term “redemption” and often equates to “when I die, I’m going to heaven.” Being “saved” or “redeemed” is typically the single most important part of what happens to a Christian. Nothing else matters until you “confess Christ” and are “saved.” After that, you can live a life consistent with the teachings of Jesus knowing your eternal future in Heaven is secure.

But Jews think about meriting a place in the world to come quite a bit differently. The chief difference is that Jews aren’t really obsessed about being “saved” and “going to heaven.” While meriting a place in the world to come is certainly important, Religious Jews are far more concerned with obeying God in the here and now, and some even look for opportunities to perform a mitzvah that cannot often be accomplished. There is even a saying that the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah. This is actually a concept Christians should recognize:

For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. –Matthew 25:29 (ESV)

Jewish in JerusalemThis is the point of the “parable of the talents” as told by the Master. As in the wisdom from the Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers), “the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah and the ‘reward’ of a sin is a sin,” we are “rewarded” for what we do, whether it is for the good or the bad. That reward can come either in this world or the next, according to Jewish thinking, but it’s directly tied to the sort of life a Jew lives right now. Jews have been commanded to obey all of the 613 commandments in the Torah but as you might imagine, being just as human as Christians or anyone else, they don’t do a perfect job. Unfortunately, God was very specific about the consequences to the Jewish people if, as a nation, they did not obey the commandments of Sinai.

The second Temple – when the Jews were involved in Torah, mitzvahs and acts of kindness – why was it destroyed? Because the Jews were guilty of harboring baseless hatred towards each other!”

-Rabbi Naftali Silberberg
-as quoted from askmoses.com

Most Christians believe that Herod’s Temple was destroyed in 70 CE and the Jews subsequently exiled from Israel because they did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. As you’ve just seen, this isn’t how Jews understand the cause for their exile and in fact, during the days of the Second Temple and when Jesus walked among his people, proper Jewish religious observance was rather high; much more so than in the days of the destruction of the First Temple.

However, the sin of baseless hatred of one Jew for another was very severe. Jesus especially pleaded with his people to repent of this sin.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. –Matthew 18:15-17 (ESV)

As recorded in Matthew 18:21-35, the Master illustrates how serious this sin is in the “parable of the unforgiving servant.” But sadly, tragically, Israel didn’t listen, resulting in dire consequences.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” –Matthew 23:37-39 (ESV)

Simchat TorahIt’s not as if every single Jew in Israel was guilty of this sin, but Israel is judged by God as a nation, not a collection of individuals. If the nation is in sin, every Jew suffers whether they commmitted the offense or not. To this day, the Jewish people are in exile, not because they failed to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, but because they refused to listen and obey his teaching to turn away from the sin of baseless hatred toward their brothers and to instead seek peace.

This has nothing to do with whether or not Jews merit a place in the world to come. God didn’t take away Jewish “salvation” as a result of this sin, He took away the posession of the Land of Israel from the Nation of Israel, and scattered them across the face of the earth. Redemption, for Israel, isn’t being saved so they can go to Heaven, it’s the restoration of the Jews to their Land and the ascension of Israel above all the peoples of the earth.

It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and it shall be lifted up above the hills;
and peoples shall flow to it,
and many nations shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem –Micah 4:1-2 (ESV)

Connect that back to Acts 1:6-8 and you’ll see that Israel, as a nation, awaits final redemption so it can be restored to the place at the head of the nations as God has always intended.

But what does that have to do with you and me? Even if we accept that this is true for the Jewish people, what sort of role would Christians have in Israel’s redemption?

I’ll give you the answer to that in Part 2.

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Disconnect Reconnect Disconnect

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Normally, I start out a “meditation” with some sort of meaningful or inspirational quote, usually from Chabad.org, but I’ve got other things on my mind. Most of you know that I recently attended the First Fruits of Zion 2012 Shavuot Conference, hosted by Beth Immanuel Sabbath Fellowship in Hudson, Wisconsin. After five wonderful, exhausting days, I’m back home in Idaho. I’m really tired, even after sleeping all night, but I need to start writing about all this.

Blogging is inherently lonely. I know it might not seem that way, since in theory, I’m talking to anyone who has Internet access, but the reality of blogging is that I’m sitting at a computer keyboard alone and writing to myself. Ultimately, when I post this online, it’s available to anyone and everyone, but from my point of view, it’s like being a man who is stranded on a small, desert island, writing a note, putting it in a bottle, and then throwing it into the ocean. The tide takes it out and I’ll probably never see it again or know what happens to it. Will the cork work loose and pop out, letting water in and sinking my bottle? Will just enough water get in and ruin the message so that even if someone finds the bottle, they’ll never be able to read the note inside? Or will the bottle just float and float, carried here and there by nameless, unknown currents, bobbing around the seas, lost to time and man forever and ever?

Who knows, but that’s how I feel. Even if someone responds to a blog post, they are far away and faceless, an identity I can communicate with but never really know. An almost anonymous cardboard cut out, but never a living, breathing flesh-and-blood human being.

Until now.

There’s a long story about everything that happened up to the point when I entered Beth Immanuel for the first time last Thursday afternoon, but I won’t tell that tale right now. Jeremiah, my ride from the motel to the conference on the first day, dropped me off and then was called away. I walked into the congregation building (which is a very beautiful and richly textured synagogue) and didn’t get two steps inside before someone said (I can’t remember the exact wording), “You’re Jim Pyles. I love your blog.” (Hi, Michele)

Needless to say, I was stunned.

I really didn’t expect to get any attention relative to this blog. I figured that I’d meet one or two people I know through Facebook but otherwise I’d be pretty much anonymous. That never happened.

Please don’t think I’m saying this to blow my own horn, but probably fifteen people or so came up to me during the conference, recognizing me on sight, and saying something complementary about my blog. Daniel Lancaster publicly introduced all of the staff of FFOZ the first evening of the conference, asking each person to stand up when their name was called. I didn’t think much of it until he called my name.

What?

It probably didn’t help that I agreed be a presenter at Tikkun Leil Shavuos Saturday night (Sunday morning at about 2, actually).

Why am I telling you all this? It’s what happens when someone finds the bottle, reads the message, and comes to rescue you with a boat. It’s what happens when you get on the boat and you realize that a lot of people read the message and because of that, they feel like they know you and they want to get to know you better. It’s when you feel disconnected and alone on a desert island and then the island fills up with people who all know your name and story and all of them want you to know them, too. They tell you their stories and somehow your story and their stories interact, weave, and blend into each other to create a different, larger story about people who come from radically different places and yet all have something in common. To use a “star trek-ism”, it’s infinite diversity coming together to form an infinite combination.

Disconnection becomes connection.

And then it’s over.

Anyone who’s been to a conference like this knows that you are put through a whirlwind of events, worship services, presentations, meals, discussions, and fellowship. Suddenly, you’re back in your motel room asleep and then the next thing you know, it’s another morning and you’re praying shacharit with the congregation again. What seems like a days long stream of activities compresses into a few minutes, and once they blur by, you’re on a plane in the middle of the night, fighting the urge to try to sleep in an extremely uncomfortable seat while wedged between two people, flying back home.

I actually started to feel this loneliness the evening of the first full day of the conference. Some “vision” of the end presented itself to me during one of the presentations and I felt compelled to write notes for this particular blog post. I can’t find the notes but I still feel the separation and disconnection. I suppose that’s to be expected. After one of these events when you make or re-make so many connections so quickly, you almost always feel a sense of profound loss when it’s over. I remember thinking at one point that I could happily settle down into the community at Beth Immanuel and spend the rest of my life in worship there.

Of course, that will never happen for more reasons than I have time to recount in this missive.

Since I didn’t have a car, Jeremiah Detwiler picked me up from the airport (thanks for all your help, Jeremiah), and during the first night, I met a fellow named Dave who was staying at the same motel, so he agreed to ferry me back and forth (thanks, Dave). Dave and I met in the motel lobby on Friday morning after breakfast and drove back to Beth Immanuel. We got there a little early and sat in the sanctuary. After a few minutes, I heard the faint sound of Hebrew prayers and followed it into the library (the library by the way, is to die for). In a small room above the library, a group of men had gathered together for shacharit before the public ceremonies began.

I remember standing directly under the room and being filled with…something, an emotion, just listening to the prayers, and I found myself floating on the surface of the rhythm of the words, letting myself be carried off to sea. I’m terrible at languages and on my best day in life, I’ll never be able to learn Hebrew, but for some reason I can’t explain, Hebrew prayer just calls to me. However, it would have been too embarrassing to actually try to participate in the prayers with them, and since I’m not Jewish, I’ve promised myself I won’t put on a tallit again for that, and more reasons than I have time to recount here. But I couldn’t help myself when I followed the sound of the prayers from the sanctuary to the library and then I just stood in awe and wonder and longing, and I listened.

The prayers ended and I quickly returned to my seat in the sanctuary, but those precious moments when I was listening to the men praying are one of the highlights of my entire experience at the conference. I really do miss the prayers and while they resonate in some mysterious way with my soul, they also remind me that I can only be who I am and that there is a world I will always orbit but never truly arrive upon. My bird has no legs, so I must forever be suspended alone in flight.

And so I’m disconnected again, but it’s even worse than that.

It’s not simply that I’m restored to my previous state. If that’s all it was, I would eventually return to my “normal life” and that would be the end of it. After all, there’s always next year and I can attend the 2013 conference if I want to.

But it’s not just that.

I brought something back with me from the conference. Yes, I brought books back, and materials back, and memories back, but that’s not what changed things for me, not really. I also brought back questions about purpose, identity, and mission. I’m wondering about goals, and process, and destination. In the days ahead, I’m going to write about what I brought back, some of which is vast in scope and some that touches on just a few tiny details.

In many ways, blogging is futile. While I know now that I’ve touched a lot of people just by writing, I also realize that in a much grander scope, it doesn’t really matter. I can only touch people who choose to read this blog and even then, only those people who choose to be touched. And as a said before, there are severe limitations to the (dis)connections I can make in a virtual universe when, after all, both God and man exist and talk in the real one.

It’s like something really strange happened to the man rescued from the desert island and to all the people who welcomed him on their boat. Instead of going away from the island and letting himself go back to their land with them, the man ate with those people, and talked with those people, and shared experiences with those people for four or five days, and at the end of that time, he got off the boat and went back to the island. The people turned their boat around and went back where they came from. And again, they are isolated from him and he is isolated from them. From disconnection to connection to disconnection.

But he carried away their notes with him and he’s reading them. And he can’t just send out messages in a bottle anymore. And he doesn’t know what to do instead. So he reads. And he thinks. And he prays. And he waits.

And he still writes messages and sends them off upon the currents of the sea every morning as the sun rises because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Maybe one day, God will reach onto the surface of the deep and find one of those messages and read it.

And maybe one day, God will be the one to come to the island and talk to the man.

And then, He’ll tell the man how to leave the island without a boat, even if he has to walk.

And he’ll go to a place where he’ll find someone new to talk to.

I want to thank Dave, and Jeremiah, and Michele, and Karen, and Jim, and Mel, and Jacob, and Jacob, and Michael, and Bill, and Cliff, and lots and lots and lots of other people for talking to me and spending time with me and sharing your lives with me. If I didn’t mention your name, it’s because my memory leaks and sometimes certain details go away. It’s nothing personal, my brain is just getting older.

I also want to thank the leaders and congregation at Beth Immanuel Sabbath Fellowship for hosting the conference and for allowing me to participate in your community. I also want to thank everyone at First Fruits of Zion for creating and producing an absolutely amazing conference that not only informed but illuminated human beings. I now have a lot of new mysteries to experience and anguish over (but in a good way). I want to thank Aaron who I’ve never met before and Daniel who I have, as well as Toby, even though he thought I was a different person at first, and Shayna who kept the entire event under control. I want to thank Nick and Jordan who I never met before and who are two of the most amazing young people it has ever been my privilege to encounter, and Jacob who is an amazing young person who I have (virtually) encountered before.

Most of all, I want to thank Boaz Michael who I have met before but who I never got to know so well as I did over the past five days or so. It’s fairly common to encounter Boaz’s thoughts but I am blessed to have experienced his heart, and his passion, and his desire to please God and to serve not only the Jewish community, but the body of all believers in the Jewish Messiah, no matter who they are or where they may be found.

I’m sitting in a chair in front of a computer on a desert island on a Tuesday afternoon as I write this. I have no idea what’s going to happen next as I listen to the waves softly washing up to the sandy shore and hear the wind rustle the palm fronds above my head. But as I experience the loss of connection and settle back into my solitary niche, I proceed hopefully.

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Twelve Gates: Where Do the Nations Enter, A Book Review

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The book of Revelation describes New Jerusalem as having twelve gates named after the twelve tribes of Israel. Through which gate will you enter?

The Two-House movement teaches that many modern Christians are in reality descendants of the ten lost tribes. Its followers consider themselves ethnic Israelites. The idea that anyone might be the biological descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and therefore entitled to the promises of God, is inherently attractive. The emotional and apocalyptic appeal of Two-House theology is obvious.

Boaz Michael, a leading voice in Messianic Judaism, looks at the history of the movement and examines the key biblical texts under dispute. Using the most recent scholarship about Gentile identity in apostolic theology, his book introduces a balanced alternative to Two-House theology. Twelve Gates welcomes Gentiles into the commonwealth of Israel, the New Jerusalem, and the Messianic Jewish movement.

from the promotional page for the book
Twelve Gates: Where Do the Nations Enter?
First Fruits of Zion

This is one of the “secret, unpublished books” I quoted from but couldn’t talk about before. Now I can, so I’m publishing my review. This book is really interesting, but probably not for the reason you think it is.

First off, the book was written by Boaz Michael, the Founder and President of First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ). I’m only drawing attention to this fact to say that I will not accept any comments made on this blog post that are for the specific purpose of “Boaz bashing.” If you want to comment about my review and the potential implications of this book, please be thoughtful and respectful. As the blog owner, I will remove any comment I deem offensive. Thank you.

On the surface, this is a book providing a critical analysis of the foundations of the two-house movement. For those of you unfamiliar with this perspective, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Two House Theology comes from the idea that the “House of Judah” in scripture refers to Jews, and the “House of Israel” refers to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, or Ephraim. Where scripture states the House of Israel and Judah will again be “one stick” (Ezekiel 37:15–23), it is believed to be referring to the End Times, right before Jesus returns, that many of those descended from Israel will come back to Israel. This theology postulates that the reason why so many so-called gentiles are coming into Messianic Judaism is that the vast majority of them are really Israelites and just don’t know it yet. They believe a majority of the people who considered themselves as gentiles coming into Messianic Judaism are those of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. Like One Law groups, the Two House movement appears at first glance to have much in common with Messianic Judaism because of their belief in the ongoing validity of the Mosaic Covenant. While much of the Two House teaching is based on interpretations of Biblical prophecy, the biggest disagreements are due to inability to identify the genealogy of the ten lost tribes.

What I really love about this book though, isn’t its coverage of the two-house movement, but its treatment of a topic near and dear to my heart: the identity of non-Jews in discipleship to the Jewish Messiah. In other words, “me,” or to be more complete, everyone out there who is like me, Non-Jewish people who are drawn not only toward the God of Israel, but the perspective of Israel on God. This is crystallized in the conclusion of Boaz’s book:

The prophets of Israel recognized that when the Gentiles began to attach themselves to Israel and to Israel’s God, not as members of Israel or usurpers of Israel’s destiny but as sympathetic worshippers of the God of Abraham, it was a sign of the coming redemption (Zechariah 8). It was a boon for the Jewish people. Paul understood that if he was successful in his ministry to the Gentiles, it would cause the Jews to see his ministry in this light, and they would, as a result, accept Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and initiate the resurrection from the dead (Romans 11:12, 15). Paul could taste the closeness, the imminence of this event even in his day; how much more should it ignite our hearts with passion today!

Messianic Jews and Christians who are sensitive to their Jewish roots stand at two ends of a great bridge across which Christians receive the greatness of the Torah and the centrality of the Jewish people in God’s redemptive plan, and across which the Jewish people can see, for the first time in untold centuries, Jesus as a legitimate Messianic candidate. When everyone on both sides of the bridge understands their role and the eschatological significance of their very existence, this interchange can benefit everyone.

The majority of Twelve Gates is devoted, not to the two-house perspective a such, but to the matter of Gentile identity. To the casual reader, it may seem as if the book is unbalanced and loses its focus halfway through its own narrative, but I know from talking to Boaz that the emphasis on Gentile identity is deliberate. It’s impossible to talk about two-house without addressing the Gentile identity issues because, if we non-Jews who are drawn to the Torah and Judaism are not “the lost ten tribes,” then who are we and why are we swimming against the current of traditional Christianity?

Boaz’s answer is simple, elegant, and thoroughly satisfying, at least to me. No, I won’t reveal it here, but instead, I encourage you to purchase this book and discover it for yourself. It surprised me that Boaz took this particular direction in his writing and addressing two-house, and I’m very glad he did, because it quiets some of the disturbing voices I’ve been hearing about who I can and can’t be in relation to the King of the Jews and to God.

For those of you who support or are sympathetic to the two-house movement, rest assured that this isn’t a “two-house bashing” book. Knowing Boaz as I do, I didn’t think he would write it that way, but I’m sure there are a few folks who are thinking that Twelve Gates is just a way for FFOZ to discount and disrespect the sincere beliefs of those Gentiles out there who claim the spiritual and ethnic inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh.

That’s not to say what Boaz writes will be popular among two-house proponents. Certainly, there will be those who will deny Boaz’s assertions and people who will feel wounded by this book, even though its approach is quite gentle.

But if you’re looking for a straightforward and honest treatment of two-house from a “Messianic Jewish” perspective, I really think you should read Twelve Gates. As I said before though, for me, the two-house content is secondary to what the book really says to me.

The Bible teaches that in Jesus, “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body” with the Jewish people (Ephesians 3:6), and “fellow heirs with Christ” Himself (Romans 8:17). The point of the vision of the New Jerusalem is not to exclude the non-Jews from the city; rather the gates of Israel stand open to the Gentiles, beckoning them to enter into the eternal reward that God has prepared for His people. The vision of New Jerusalem is not one of exclusion but inclusion, as it says, “the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day…They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the Gentiles.”

It says that though we are not all the same in function and purpose, we will all walk into New Jerusalem together as fellow disciples of the Master and fellow heirs of the Kingdom of God. It’s a book carrying the message, not of division, but of unity and the love of God. I said before that Boaz’s book pleasantly surprised me. Maybe it will surprise you, too.