Tag Archives: identity

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How to Get to Where We Belong

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“You mean, Mr. Zacks, that there is this vast structure G-d has created of plants, animals, food chains, stars, and planets. And, that the only creature in all of creation that doesn’t understand how to fit in and live their life purposefully is the human?”

-Gordon Zacks quoting the Rebbe
“Where Change Begins”
Chabad.org

In reading Mr. Zacks’ article about his encounters with the Rebbe, I was captured by the statement I quoted above because I couldn’t agree more. Out of everything in God’s creation, only man has no idea where he fits into that creation. Even those of us who are “religious” struggle, and argue and, as we’ve seen in recent events, occasionally conduct world-wide riots, all for the sake of who we think God is and our belief about what He wants.

I recently had an email conversation with a gentleman about, among other things, the differences between Christianity and Judaism. One key difference we noticed is the need, or lack thereof depending on your religious tradition, for absolute certainty. In Christianity, all questions must be answered, all puzzles must be solved. Everything is either black or white. Doubt and uncertainty are not to be tolerated. A bad answer (or God forbid, a wrong answer) is better than no answer at all. When a Christian asks you to describe the details of Heaven and you answer, “I don’t know for sure,” it tends to frustrate the Christian.

By comparison, the name “Israel” is the very heart of struggling with God over every question, every puzzle, every elusive detail, with no guarantee at all that there even is an answer, or at least not one that we could understand. It’s not only tolerable to live at a particular level of uncertainly, it’s practically required in Judaism. Every question has a dozen potential answers, every person has an opinion, ideas and concepts critical to faith in God are bandied about, but no one truly get’s upset, dismayed, or hurt over agreements, disagreements, (although, I have written recently about how such debates typically go wrong in the “Hebrew Roots” arena) and the “I don’t know” statement of another human being.

When the Rebbe was addressing Mr. Zacks, (and I encourage you to read the entire article) it seemed as if the Rebbe knew where man fit and lived purposefully in God’s creation. Further, he expected others, including Mr. Zacks, to know as well. Such late night meetings with the Rebbe typically lasted between 30 seconds and one minute. In his initial meeting with the Rebbe, Mr. Zacks had a conversation with him for about an hour and a half. In that time, one of the things the Rebbe said was this:

He quoted Kazantzakis’ book Zorba the Greek to me during our conversation. “Do you remember the young man talking with Zorba on the beach, when Zorba asks what the purpose of life is? The young fellow admits he doesn’t know. And Zorba comments, ‘Well, all those damned books you read–what good are they? Why do you read them?’ Zorba’s friend says he doesn’t know. Zorba can see his friend doesn’t have an answer to the most fundamental question. That’s the trouble with you. ‘A man’s head is like a grocer,’ Zorba says, ‘it keeps accounts…. The head’s a careful little shopkeeper; it never risks all it has, always keeps something in reserve. It never breaks the string.’ Wise men and grocers weigh everything. They can never cut the cord and be free. Your problem, Mr. Zacks, is that you are trying to find G-d’s map through your head. You are unlikely to find it that way. You have to experience before you can truly feel and then be free to learn. Let me send a teacher to live with you for a year and teach you how to be Jewish. You will unleash a whole new dimension to your life. If you really want to change the world, change yourself! It’s like dropping a stone into a pool of water and watching the concentric circles radiate to the shore. You will influence all the people around you, and they will influence others in turn. That’s how you bring about improvement in the world.”

(Now I feel as if I should read Zorba the Greek)

The Rebbe’s solution to what he saw as Mr. Zacks’ “problem,” was to ask Mr. Zacks to accept a teacher, sent by the Rebbe, into the Zacks home for a year to teach him how to live as a Jew, how to be a Jew.

Understanding who you are, where you fit in, and how to live purposefully in God’s universe isn’t something you just study and understand. Unlike what we are often taught in the church, it’s not just something you cognitively believe or feel emotions about as you sit in a pew or pray in the night. It is something you do, it is a continual experience of life and living and being a child of God, made in His image.

At the Rebbe’s initial request to place a teacher in the Zacks home, Mr. Zacks said, “Rebbe, I’m not ready to do that.” Although through a series of letters, the Rebbe continued to make his request over the years, I don’t believe Mr. Zacks ever took him up on the offer.

While the “solution” to our fitting in and leading purposeful lives as Christians probably isn’t having a Chabad Rabbi live in our homes for a year (or for that matter, a Baptist Pastor), we do need to not just believe in God, but experience what it is to live out God’s purpose for the world and His purpose for our lives. What that is for me as an individual, alas, remains something of a mystery, in spite of everything I just wrote. On the other hand, and I’ve said this many times before, on a very basic level, it’s not that hard to understand and do, either.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? –Micah 6:8 (ESV)

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ –Matthew 25:34-40 (ESV)

As we begin a new year on the Jewish calendar with Yom Kippur still facing us, if you (or I) have no idea where God wants you to “fit in,” I suppose following the advice of the Master wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

“Don’t dream it, be it.”

-Richard O’Brien
from the song, “Don’t Dream It, Be It”
The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack

Out of respect for the Jewish people and to honor Rosh Hashanah, which is considered a Shabbat and celebrated for two days starting today at sundown, my next “meditation” will be posted on Wednesday morning.

May you have a good and sweet year

שנה טובה ומתוקה

Shana Tova u’metuka

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Struggling with the World, Part 2

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From the anthropological perspective on the problem of evil, therefore, the prime concern is not so much to defend the notions of divine justice and power. It is rather, as in other personal relationships, to determine what measure of continuity, stability, and predictability can enable the relationship with God to survive all shocks. It is to identify the cluster of beliefs that supports a person’s will to persist in the face of tragedy and suffering. If the world I live in requires that I become overly vigilant because of the threat of danger striking at any moment, then how can I sustain commitment to a way fo life predicated on God’s covenantal love and justice?

How do we respond to events that can call into question our whole identity as God’s relational partners?

-Rabbi David Hartman
Chapter 8: “Rabbinic Responses to Suffering”
A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism

Note: If you haven’t read Part 1 of this “meditation” already, please do so before proceeding here.

An atheist can dismiss such questions by dismissing God. The presence of tragedy, suffering, and evil can be accepted as conditions of a natural world filled with imperfect human beings. It can also be a world that, while imperfect, is struggling to develop toward a higher moral and ethical reality as indeed, progressivism strongly believes. Human beings then, establish and revise the foundations of our own morality, sometimes radically, as time advances and the concepts of rightness, mercy, and justice continue to evolve in societal consciousness.

The covenantal Jew on the other hand, perpetually wrestles with God as did Jacob (Genesis 32:22-32) before his confrontation with the (supposedly) murderous Esau. But it’s in that battle that a Jew struggles not only with God but with himself.

A covenantal religious consciousness is always vulnerable to self-doubt and to feelings of rejection and guilt. When suffering and tragedy have struck without any explanation once, twice, and repeatedly, individuals in the community no longer know what kind of world they are living in. Like Job, they may ask: “Why do You hide Your face and treat me like an enemy?” (Job 13:24)

-Hartman

But in Rabbi Hartman’s viewpoint, a Jew is not simply a conduit for the cosmic forces of an Almighty Being to use to manipulate the course of history or even personal events.

The acceptance of that responsibility therefore need not entail that paralyzing sense of guilt alleged in Paul’s criticism of the law. Nor does mitzvah demand unconditional obedience without rational discernment, since the halakhah expects from Jews not just a dedicated will to serve God but also a reflective, sensitive, and critical moral disposition.

This takes away the motivation for a covenantal Jew to say that “God told me to do it” when facing a moral decision or in responding to personal disaster. The Torah is not a static set of rules carved in stone but rather a moral imperative written on the living and beating heart of every Jew. Each situation must be examined and evaluated not only against the yardstick of tradition and the mitzvah, but as potentially a wholly new phenomenon that may require a completely unique and unanticipated response, framed within the organic, evolving Jewish moral and historical tapestry.

Returning to Rabbi Freeman’s commentary on Judaism and its response encountering the demands of a progressive culture, the Rebbe felt that modernity didn’t present a set of obstacles but only “challenges. Challenges chiding you to show your stuff. Show that stuff and do what a Jew has to do, and those challenges themselves lift you on their shoulders, carrying you high.”

To continue:

Every talk, every letter, every teaching of the Rebbe must be understood in that context: We are not prisoners within an ominous world; we are the agents of its Master. We are not here to placate the world, but to repair it; not to reform ourselves to its tastes, but to reform it to the tastes of its Creator; not to conserve Judaism, but to be an organic part of its flourishing growth; not to reconstruct it, but to use it to reconstruct our world. Because ours is not a Torah of the past, but one that beckons to us from a magnificent future.

The Rebbe’s response to the challenges of a world and its developing, progressive morality is to move one giant step backward and to take a “metaview” of that world. Human advancement and even human history is transitory. Modern liberal progressive thought acknowledges that morality is not a fixed entity and adapts across time and the needs of the human spirit. While the Rebbe no doubt had a more established sense of moral and ethical standards, he also understood that the world is not ownerless or that, human beings are not the only “landlords” of reality. The world has a Master and we are His agents.

The world of human events wasn’t something to be avoided, but to be encountered and wrestled with. Rabbi Freeman characterises the Rebbe’s response by saying that “he grabbed it by its horns and harnessed it to plow his field.” For the Rebbe, each Jew stands in this place:

When you stand in a place of enlightenment, the Rebbe so often taught, you may have boundless, infinite light—but you do not have G‑d Himself. In the void of light where this world was made; in the darkness of Jewish exile, where we must choose life from the depths and create our own light to find it; in a society that forces us to wake up, take the reins of our own lives and challenge everything—there we touch G‑d at the very core.

A Jew may be surrounded by darkness but he stands in a place of light and it is from that light, regardless of how hopeless the circumstance, he must proceed, carrying with him not only the strength of the traditions of the past, but the infinite hope of a future from which the Moshiach will emerge and where God will rescue His people. Atheism, progressivism, secular humanism are conditions to be wrestled with, to be “grabbed by its horns and harnessed,” but they are not defining, either of a Jew nor the world that is ultimately owned by God.

My understanding of all of this is that Judaism may wrestle with itself, with the demands of society, and ultimately with God, but it is the Jewish identity that remains the one constant that enables them as a people, to move forward, to survive not only challenges, but horrors, and that will see them finally standing at the foot of the throne of God, receiving His promises of life and peace.

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been seeing a few elements that can be adapted to Christianity and those promises we expect to be fulfilled by our Master at the end of this age. But we must also learn to establish an identity that can engage our environment without fear or despair. Our “liability” as such, is that we Christians are commanded to not only encounter our neighbor and love him, but to attempt to convince him to adopt our faith and our worldview (which is something no Jew must face). In that, we present ourselves as agents of the world’s greatest benefactor while being perceived by many in the secular world as humanity’s greatest enemy.

We are ridiculed and reviled by atheists and humanists and in response, we struggle with our own doubts, retreat into concrete bunkers of inflexible dogma, or attack the inhabitants of an unbelieving world, thereby abandoning our evangelical imperative. But we can neither ignore the world nor hate it. We are commanded to live in it and to live with faith in God. Like the covenantal Jew, we must be anchored to our legacy who, for us, are the Apostles and disciples of ancient times, and also look to the hope of the future when Jesus returns.

In the meantime, like the Rebbe, we need to seize the world around us and live in it, though we are not of it. We must treat each person we encounter with love, respect, and dignity. Our values do not require that they respond in kind, only that we are consistent in imitating the example of our teacher and Master by being involved and by being a light.

We are not trapped between a hostile and violent army and a vast and unconquerable sea. We can move forward. The sea will part. But first, we have to get our feet wet.

Don’t be afraid.

Addendum: Just found an article at Commentary Magazine on liberal intolerance of religious folks (in this case, Jews) called Liberal Prejudice Against the Orthodox Crosses a Line. I can see we have a long way to go.

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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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A Christian at Shauvot

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the-joy-of-torahLast week, I had the opportunity to speak with a visitor to our website, a woman in her mid-50s. Sarah* was baptized as a child and grew up “in the church,” but always felt an affinity to the Jewish People. She even recalls mentioning to her parents that she wished she were Jewish, which they dismissed despite her maternal grandparents’ very Jewish-sounding last name.

Later in life, she developed an interest in genealogy, and began to research her family tree. Slowly but surely, the evidence became incontrovertible: she was, in fact, a Jew all along. It turned out that her grandparents had barely escaped the Holocaust, and with her parents had conspired to hide their Jewish identity from her siblings and cousins.

What is most remarkable about this story is not merely her discovery, but that her desire to learn more about Judaism had in fact preceded it. Now it is truly a journey of self-discovery as well. Her Jewish soul was calling to her, and over time it became impossible to ignore.

In just a week’s time, we will celebrate the holiday of Shavuos, which commemorates the giving of the Torah. But because Judaism teaches that the spiritual energies of each holiday return to the world each year at that time, it is by no means merely a commemoration, but a time uniquely appropriate for receiving the Torah, for increasing our knowledge and understanding.

-Rabbi Yaakov Menken
“Is it Time for More?”
ProjectGenesis.org

In less than a week, I’ll be attending the First Fruits of Zion 2012 Shavuot Conference in Hudson, WI. In my case, it will be an interesting experience but not one like the situation described by Rabbi Menken. It is true that I am “attracted” to Judaism, its customs and traditions, its teachings and philosophy, but at the same time, I’m very conscious of how “alien” an environment it is. While I “borrow” a great deal of my source material from Chabad.org, I am aware, primarily through my wife, of how much of a “goy” I am, particularly in relation with my brief, periodic contacts with our local Chabad community.

So what am I doing here?

Believe it or not, I ask myself that question a lot. The simple and straightforward answer is that I have no where else to go. When I stop for a moment on my particular journey, and take stock of how far I’ve come and where I am now, I find that I’m swimming in some strange lagoon or tide pool off to the side of traditional Christianity and Judaism. Though you may not believe it, in many ways that body of water is fed more by Christianity, at least culturally, than by Judaism.

I was made particularly aware of that this morning when I read the part of Rabbi Menken’s missive that said:

So please take this as an invitation. The reason why we have these chat and e-mail services are so that people in distant locations, and people who are not ready to walk into a class, can make contact and get some guidance as to the next steps they might take. Rather than replying to this email, the best ways to reach us are via chat on Torah.org, or a question on JewishAnswers.org… or perhaps a comment, which you can tell us is not to be published!

I’ve met more than a few non-Jewish people in the Hebrew Roots movement who felt that their story was, or should be like, the one described by Rabbi Menken and, the fact that they were attracted to Judaism meant that they were some sort of “crypto-Jew” with hidden Jewish relatives lurking somewhere in their distant history. For the woman Rabbi Menken describes, this was actually true, but for most of us who lean more toward Jewish educational resources than the latest devotionals found in the local Christian bookstore, it is not.

So what’s the story for the rest of us?

I have no idea.

Oh, I can weave theories and engage in guesswork, but that’s all it is…theories and guesswork.

As I was reading this morning, I imagined that at the upcoming Shavuot conference, I would be doing this with the others in attendance:

Give thanks to Hashem, declare His Name, make His acts known among the peoples. Sing to Him, make music to Him, speak of all His wonders. Glory in His Holy Name, may the heart of those who seek Hashem be glad. Search out Hashem and His might, seek His Presence always. –Psalm 105:1-4 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

And yet given the mixed crowd of Jews and non-Jews present to give honor and glory to the Jewish Messiah, I wondered if the following was also part of the reason for me being there:

Thus said Hashem, Master of Legions; In those days, it will happen that ten men, of all the [different] languages of the nations, will take hold, they will take hold of the corner of the garment of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” –Zechariah 8:23 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

I’ve recently written on more than one occasion that “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22), which are the Master’s own words. Given the amount of “push back” that I’ve received from the traditional Christian perspective, it’s hard to imagine a time when the prophesy of Zechariah 8:23 will come to pass, unless none of those ten men are Christian.

On the other hand, the prophet may have been speaking of a time when we will all realize that Christianity can no longer afford to be divorced from Judaism, and that Jews and Gentiles who are devoted to God and particularly those who are disciples of the Master, must find times to join together and “give thanks to Hashem, declare His Name, (and) make His acts known among the peoples.”

ShavuotAs for now, there are still many barriers between human beings and this kind of unity and peace. We should take advantage or those rare times when we, who have different backgrounds and traditions, can join together “in spirit and in truth” and give thanks to the glory of God together. I join my Jewish brothers and sisters, along with many other believing Gentiles on Shavuot, not to seek my Jewish soul or to imagine I’m someone that I’m not, but to summon some slender thread at the corner of the garment of Zechariah’s prophesy, take hold of it, and to allow the barriers that separate us to become the walls of the corridors that lead us all to Messianic peace and fellowship.

Nothing limits you, no force that holds you captive—other than a fiction of your imagination.

So you will say, “What, then, of the forces of nature? Of the constraints of a human body? Of the hard reality that slams against me when I attempt to stride through the barriers of life?”

Yes, they are there. But they are not what they seem to be.

They are not there to oppose you, but to carry you. As your soul pulls forward, those barriers force her inward, towards her deepest, strongest self.

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

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Who Are We in Christ, Part 3

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Dear Rabbi,

If G-d is a mystery to us, beyond human reason and logic, then how can we relate to Him?

Answer:

You’re right, G-d is essentially unknowable. Yes, He makes Himself known to us through His miracles, His prophets, His Torah, and by the very act of creating and sustaining our world and our very existence. But none of that can really provide information that defines who He is. Because He cannot be defined. In the language of the Kabbalists, He is infinite, even beyond “the beginning that cannot be known.”

So how can we pray or have any relationship with a being so unknowable, so undefinable, He can hardly be called a being?

The answer is because our relationship with G-d is not measured by our capacity to understand Him, nor by heightened consciousness or any sublime ecstasy we claim to have from the experience of His presence. Our relationship to G-d is measured by what we do, by our firm adherence to the morals that He has established for us and by our integrity in our dealings with others.

One who claims he has one G-d, but cheats his fellow, has in fact two gods. One who claims he is godless, but believes in a fixed and immutable moral law is in fact a believer. Ultimately, G-d is in your life when you act G-dly—consistently following His ways in all you do. That is why He has given us His Torah, so that by following these instructions, we can bond with Him in our daily lives.

G-d is not an idea that can be grasped with the mind. G-d is real, and reality is grasped by real deeds.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“How Can I Relate to an Unknowable G-d?”
Learning and Values
Chabad.org

I know it seems strange to begin a blog post about “who we are in Christ” by quoting a question to and answer from a Chabad Rabbi, but bear with me. It’s relevant.

I wasn’t going to write a part 3 to this series (if you haven’t done so already, see part 1 and part 2 before continuing here), but I received a rather tongue-in-cheek request to do so:

Your gonna have to write a part 3 cause all the Christians are gonna be wondering what the hell your talking about Jew and gentile identity and why you aren’t talking about the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies and the freedom from condemnation and having the miraculous signs and authority to cast out demons and living forever etc. how does all the chiristian good stuff fit in here?

I’m only kinda joking. When I hear “in Christ” it makes me think of the time I spent in church!

OK, not much to build on from those statements, but it did make me realize that I didn’t provide much of a resolution to the question. On the other hand, there may not be much of a resolution to the question. That’s disappointing to hear, but that’s the nature of a relationship with God. We don’t get all the answers, at least in an intellectual fashion. To paraphrase Rabbi Freeman (and quote James T. Kirk), “We learn by doing.”

But what do we do?

For some Christians, the answer is, “we don’t have to do anything. We’re saved by grace.”

That’s true, but it’s hardly the end of the story…well, it is for some.

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” –Luke 23:39-43 (ESV)

For some Christians, this is the quintessential picture of salvation by grace. The thief on the cross, dying by inches with Jesus, had no time or ability to do anything except believe and confess his faith…and then expire by slow torture. He couldn’t sing praises (he would have been lucky to even catch his breath enough to make a whisper) to God, give to the poor, visit the sick, or anything else in response to his faith. He came to faith, confessed, and shortly thereafter, died.

And I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, even if you come to faith at age 20 and then wait with your faith until age 80 or so to die.

But is who we are in the Messiah just realization of his reality, coming to faith, confessing, and then patiently waiting for the bus to Heaven?

OK, OK. You go to church on Sunday, listen to a sermon, sing hymns, give money when they pass around the plate, go to a Bible class, have coffee and donuts, and then go home. Maybe you go to a dinner and Bible study at your church on Wednesday nights, too. You celebrate Christmas. You get really worked up for Easter.

But is that it?

An observant Jew, who lives out religious details in a day-to-day manner, performing the mitzvot and following halachah might commit more “acts of righteousness” in a week than you will in an entire year.

Yes, I’m being unfair, but how many Christians out there believe that all there is to their faith is being saved by grace, going to church, and getting by until they finally die and go to Heaven to be with Jesus?

broken-crossProbably quite a few. More’s the pity.

That’s why it’s important to ask questions like, “who are we in Christ” and then start pursuing the answer with all available energy and concern. Some Christians won’t get this only because it doesn’t affect their salvation. But what if it’s not just all about salvation? What if “being saved” is only the beginning of the journey, not the conclusion?

Jonathan Stone recently wrote a blog post called Pilgrim’s Progress in which he discussed the matter of spiritual growth (or lack thereof, in my opinion). Stone says in part:

All around us the world is falling apart. We are overwhelmed with constant news of economic collapse, natural disasters, genocides, political wars, all sorts of crimes, starvation, extreme poverty and the sort. All of which reminds me of this, but you get the point. It is NOT the call of the pilgrim to stand idly by while people’s lives are shattered. However, it is the pilgrim’s call to continue on the path. And that path is a path that gets brighter and brighter as one progresses along.

This is a call to actually do something with your life of faith!

Wow! Really? What? What makes the path “get brighter?”

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ –Matthew 25:31-40 (ESV)

You know, if you continue reading verses 41-46, you sort of get the idea that what you actually do for other people does affect your salvation. If you don’t feed the hungry, visit the sick and people in prison, and so on, you can expect an answer from Jesus like,“Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

If you claim to love God and still cheat someone or steal from someone, you have two gods.

Oh wow!

So, let’s go over this again. You get saved and then what are you supposed to do (assuming you aren’t nailed to a cross by big, metal spikes and getting ready to die)?

Feed the hungry.

Give water to the thirsty.

Welcome the stranger.

Clothe the unclothed.

Visit the sick and those in prison.

Don’t take that as a hard and fast “religious formula” whereby you perform exactly those deeds and because of that are promised a life in the world to come. Consider those behaviors as fitting into this general category:

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. –Matthew 22:39 (ESV)

ReflectionA day or so ago, I was talking about love; how we are to love each other and how Jesus loves all of us. Paul described this kind of love in Ephesians 5:25-32 when he compared a husband’s love for his wife to Christ’s love for the church. Paul called it “a profound mystery.”

Here’s another one:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” –John 13:34-35 (ESV)

Add to the list, someone who makes peace with fellow Christians and who loves them.

So who are we in Christ?

We are people who love those who are like us and those who are unlike us. We treat everyone the way we want to be treated as human beings. If someone has needs like food, water, or companionship, we do our best to provide for those needs, not just because the other person needs them, but for the sake of our love for God and His love for us. When we show this kind of love, we’re telling people this is how God loves all human beings. Our actions are our witness and speak much, much louder than all the sermons ever spoken and all the religious tracts and pamphlets ever shoved into undesiring hands.

Now compare what the Bible says you’re supposed to be to that person you see in the bathroom mirror every morning. We know what Jesus says about who you’re supposed to be in Christ. Are you that person?

You should be able to answer that question now.

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Who Are We in Christ?

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Being caught up in the fresh wind of God’s activity among the Gentiles, none of the apostles or the other Jewish believers immediately attempted to formulate a theology of Gentile identity. They just rejoiced. As we seek to formulate—or perhaps more accurately, to rediscover—that same theology today, we must remember to keep our priorities straight. We must praise God that his activity is universal and that he gives the same Holy Spirit to all who believe. But our questions still haven’t been answered, and neither had the questions of the believing Jews in Jerusalem. Before too long, two elements emerged. One group, mostly Pharisees who had accepted Christ, did not recognize the eschatological significance of the miraculous conversion of Cornelius. They argued that these Gentile believers must proselytize; they must convert to Judaism. Others, though, dissented. One of them was Sha’ul, also known as Paul, who had just come back from a mission trip to Asia Minor (known today as Turkey). He, like Peter, had witnessed God working in the lives of Gentiles. He reported that many Gentiles had come to faith in Jesus. We know from Paul’s epistles that he immediately forbade these Gentile converts from worshipping idols. They could no longer be identified as pagans. So how were they to be identified?

While the “circumcision faction” —probably a majority— answered this question by requiring conversion to Judaism, Paul refused this answer to the Gentile problem. This conflict was resolved in Acts 15 at what is now called the Jerusalem Council. First, Paul’s opponents made their case. Then Peter got up and told his story. Then Paul and Barnabas told theirs. They didn’t give a theological reason for their position. They just told their stories. For them, that was enough. They had seen firsthand how God had miraculously changed the hearts of the Gentiles who had attached themselves to Jesus. It was clear enough to Peter, Paul, and Barnabas that the Gentiles didn’t need another status change. They had been accepted just as they were.

It was James, Jesus’ brother, who gave a theological voice to the position of Peter and Paul. He quoted Amos 9:11–12: “‘After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name,’ says the Lord, who does these things, things known from long ago.” James reasoned that the wave of Gentiles who were coming to faith were a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. At this juncture, with James’s ruling, it became halachah — law — within the early church that Gentiles did not have to become Jews. Not only that, but their identity was just as valid and as valuable as that of the Jews. They too had an eschatological significance, they too were a fulfillment of prophecy, and they too were called by God to be part of the body of believers, just as the Jews were.

At the Jerusalem Council, then, one aspect of the identity of the Gentile believers had been confirmed. They weren’t Jews, and since the term “Jew” and “Israelite” had been synonymous since the Captivity, they couldn’t be called “Israelites” either. They were still Gentiles. But in the first century, the terms “Gentile” and “pagan” were synonymous.

Knowing this, many Two-House proponents are offended at being called “Gentiles.” To them, the terms “Gentile” and “pagan” are still synonymous today. They believe that Israel constitutes the only people of God. The negative connotation of the word goy in rabbinic literature only serves to confirm this sentiment. Yet the New Testament is clear that believing Gentiles are still called Gentiles. They remained members of the ethnē, the nations, and the apostles addressed them as such.

Yet non-idol-worshipping Gentiles were virtually unheard of. There was no precedent. New words and concepts had to be created to explain this new phenomenon, or else familiar concepts had to be adapted. The latter route is the one the New Testament authors took in identifying the Gentile converts, their place in God’s plan, and their obligations to God and to the Jewish people.

-From an unpublished book I can’t talk about yet

Receiving the SpiritIn my various roles as an author, editor, and reviewer, I occasionally receive advance copies of books that I really can’t discuss until they are published or near their publication dates. Nevertheless, as I was reading this one, I came across the above quoted section of a particular chapter and was rather taken by the content. The viewpoint of the author (who must remain nameless for now) is very much like mine, and what is written speaks to not only what I understand to be true for me, but also answers a number of my questions about who the Gentile disciples of the Master were in the first century…and maybe who they…who we really are today.

We don’t really think about it much now from a “church” point of view, but just how did the original Jewish Apostles of the Jewish Messiah see the newly-minted Gentile disciples? What sort of plan was there (if any) to integrate them into the larger Jewish faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? When a first century idol worshiper accepted being a disciple of Jesus of Nazereth, did they stop being a “Gentile” and turn into something else? If so, what did they turn into…a Jew?

Paul says no, otherwise, he wouldn’t have had any objections to Gentiles (males, that is) becoming circumcised (see Galatians 2) and actually converting to Judaism, but if the Gentiles weren’t “spiritual Jews,” what were they? More to the point, who are we now?

(I know you’re thinking “we’re Christians,” but that term didn’t exist back then, at least not as it’s defined today. Who the new, non-Jewish disciples were was a completely unsettled matter in the beginning. So who were they, and who are we?)

That, as they used to say, is the $64,000 question. But why am I even bothering to ask it, especially right now?

Another round of the “One Law” vs. “Bilateral Ecclesiology” debate has reared its ugly head, this time starting in Derek Leman’s blog post We’re Not All the Same and then continuing in Comfort, Agitation, Breakthrough (I say “raised its ugly head” not to disparage Derek’s writing or choice of themes, but just to describe the rather repetitive nature of said-discussions and their lack of concrete resolution). The comments sections of Derek’s blog posts were fresh in my mind as I was reading the text from the above-quoted book and I couldn’t let the matter go, much as I’d like to.

Besides my usual stance that non-Jews claiming obligation to a Jewish lifestyle that (apart from disdaining Mishnah, Gemara, and Talmud) mirrors actual Jewish observance dilutes and threatens to eliminate Jewish distinction from the nations, I realized there was another serious matter going on.

Consider this.

When a Gentile Christian with an attraction to Jewish observance concludes that the same 613 commandments that the Creator gave to the Israelites at Sinai are also assigned to any non-Jew who has accepted discipleship under the Jewish Messiah, then they are saying that every Christian is obligated to a Torah lifestyle. That means, astonishingly enough, that any Christian who does not observe the entire “yoke of Torah” is sinning!

And yet, the vast majority of Christians in the church have absolutely the opposite understanding of their obligations to God.

It’s one thing for a “Messianic Gentile” to say that, as a matter of conscience and personal commitment, they have taken on board behaviors such as refraining from eating Leviticus 11 “treif,” praying with a siddur, and wearing tzitzit, but it’s another thing entirely to say that, according to their own understanding of the Bible, they declare that all believers, Gentile and Jew, must perform the same mitzvot!

That’s rather cheeky.

Particularly when, based on the rather lengthy block of text I quoted at the start of this blog post, the Jewish disciples were still trying to figure out what to do with the Gentile disciples back when all this first got started. Full Torah obligation for all non-Jewish believers certainly wasn’t the obvious conclusion at which the Jewish Apostles arrived. In fact, James said that it seemed not only good to the Council, but to the Holy Spirit as well (Acts 15:28), that the full Torah lifestyle not be dumped upon the Gentiles as a whole. Further, the non-Jewish disciples not only didn’t mind not being obligated to the weight of Torah, they were actually happy about it.

So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. –Acts 15:30-32 (ESV)

PaulMaybe the movement to bring the Gentiles into discipleship with the Jewish Messiah never reached a point where matters of identity and practice were resolved before the destruction of the Temple and the final, tragic exile of the majority of Jews from their homeland. Those events paved the way for a “Gentile takeover” of this Messianic Jewish sect (which would eventually evolve into what we call “Christianity” today), such that theology and history would be re-written to remove Judaism and Jews from devotion to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

For twenty centuries, the original vision of Paul and Peter was lost or at least significantly distorted, and only in the last few decades has their been a modern attempt at restoration.

But now we have a new problem. Originally, it was up to the Jewish sect administered by James from Jerusalem to apply a set of standards to the non-Jewish disciples, defining identity and limits to their religious practice. Today, the cart has come before the horse, so to speak. The non-Jewish disciples are doing their own defining and identifying, and to that end, summarily ignoring or disagreeing with how Jews define themselves, their participation in the Messiah, and the mechanism for practice of non-Jewish attachment to the God of Israel.

It was Paul who attempted to resolve the “Gentile identity problem” by bringing Abraham into the picture, but that story exceeds the scope of this “extra meditation”. I only want to point out that we haven’t come to the point where we fully understand how a non-Jewish person is supposed to relate to Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah, or for that matter, how (or if) our religious practice relates to Judaism. I certainly think that mainstream Christianity has missed a few things along the way, but I think that many non-Jews in the Hebrew Roots movement have “over-corrected” by jumping from a “no-Law” position to a “the Torah is totally mine” stance.

Who are we among the nations who have our identity in Christ? The Bible has a lot to say about the answer, but it doesn’t say everything, at least in a language we can understand. Once the book that has inspired this missive is available to be discussed openly, I hope to write more about this topic.

Until then, let us conclude that each of us is making personal decisions about how we choose to practice our faith relative to how “Jewish” we behave. We just don’t know how or if those decisions mesh with the intentions and desires of God for the people of the nations of the world. We certainly don’t know enough to walk into a church and condemn everyone present for not wearing kippot and tallitot.

I wrote a Part 2 to this article. I hope you’ll read it.