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Cherishing Her Yiddisher Neshamah

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Tonica Marlow stood looking down into the main hall of the synagogue. She couldn’t take her eyes off the rabbi or the Torah scroll he held in his hand as he faced the congregation. What am I doing here? she kept asking herself. So many times she had promised herself never to come here again, and yet here she was again, dressed in a brown wool habit, her hair covered with a brown scarf.

“Shema Yisroel Ado-nai Elo-heinu Ado-nai Echad,” the rabbi’s voice rang across the synagogue, and the congregants repeated after him. Tonica, too, found herself mouthing the words, though she knew not what they meant. She didn’t understand why her feet kept carrying her back here; but the more she came, the more she longed to hear those precious words again.

Her mother had been born a Jew, that much she knew. But then she’d converted, abandoning her Jewish faith at age 25 and marrying a gentile. Tonica, the youngest of five children, had been raised as a non-Jew. Nonetheless, the question cried out from her very soul: Who am I? It gave her no rest, the question; it tormented her, robbed her of her peace of mind.

Tonica watched as the rabbi lovingly replaced the Torah scroll into a wooden sculptured cabinet and drew the dark blue curtain over it. Then she hurried back to the theological college where she was studying to become a minister.

But she’d tarried too long; she was late for her responsibilities. The principal summoned her to his office. “Where were you?” he demanded.

“Why, I just popped into the synagogue for a few minutes,” she said.

“What?” the principal yelled. “I’m telling you, child, you are a gentile. I forbid you to go there.”

-Mirish Kiszner
“I’m Telling You, Child, You Are a Gentile
A spiritual journey: from Tonica Marlow to Tova Mordechai”
Chabad.org

I got an email announcing a beta version of the new Chabad.org website, so naturally, I clicked on the link. That’s where I found Tova’s story. I started reading it because of the provocative title (“I’m telling you child, you are a gentile”) and continued reading because it reminded me of my wife’s journey…with some differences.

Of course, my wife wasn’t studying for the ministry when she became connected to her Judaism but at the time, we were going to a church. She didn’t go to Israel for years afterwards and never lived with an Orthodox family, but the same “connectedness” was there, the same absolute “need” to be a part of the Jewish community was there for my wife as it was for Tova.

Maybe if she had started that journey at 25 instead of 45, things would have been different.

But she didn’t and they aren’t and here we are.

Tova’s story, at least as it’s rendered in this article, is very light on the details regarding her husband. If she was a Christian and studying for the ministry and she had married a Gentile, chances are that he was (and is?) a Christian, too.

I wonder what happened to him? What happened to their five children? They all live in Israel now. But who are they?

Of course, I could just buy Tova’s book, To Play with Fire, which is the chronicle of her journey from Christianity and return to Judaism. As I write these words, I realize that I probably will.

But what will it tell me about my life?

Probably not as much as I hope.

intermarriageI suppose this is a continuation my previous “meditation,” Opting Out of Yiddishkeit. It contains the same themes: identity, Judaism, intermarriage, interfaith, connectedness, and “just what the heck does God want from me, anyway?”

I was talking to my son this morning after our workout at the gym. He was asking how my Thursday afternoon “coffee meeting” went. I had taken him to one such meeting a few weeks ago with interesting results. Since the men I meet with are all believers, I think my Jewish wife thought I was trying to turn our Jewish son (though he’s not observant in the slightest right now) into a Christian.

That would not sit well with her.

I told him that his mother would be very happy if he’d start going to synagogue again, and asked how his wife would take it, since she (his wife, not mine) is seriously considering returning to church. He tells me that it would be fine with her, but then I brought up my grandson. At only age three, how confusing would it be to have his parents going in different directions?

But that brings me back to my own family and my own situation and the answers just aren’t getting any clearer. Some people would say that Messianic Judaism is the answer as the nexus of Christianity and Judaism, but it doesn’t really work that way. Why?

Sid (played by John Leguizamo): Then why are you trying so hard to convince her she’s a mammoth?
Manfred (played by Ray Romano): Because that’s what she is! I don’t care if she thinks she’s a possum. You can’t be two things.

-from Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2006)

You can’t be two things. I don’t mean that you can’t be Jewish and have a deep, abiding, and real faith in Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Christ). I mean that your identity, your culture, the very fabric of who you are, right down to the DNA level is either Gentile or Jewish. Just like Tova discovered; just like my wife discovered, you’re either one or the other. You can’t be both.

Most “Messianic Jewish” congregations aren’t all that Jewish, at least as far as I know. There are very few that have a completely Jewish synagogue identity and practice. Many, probably most, employ some aspects of a Jewish synagogue service, but largely, their identity as individuals and as a group are Gentiles who come from a strong, traditional, Christian background.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but then using the term “Jewish” becomes a misnomer. They may be a group who acknowledges the Jewishness of Jesus as the Messiah, who loves Israel, who honors the Shabbat and believes that the Torah continues to be alive and strong and incredibly present in the lives of the Jewish people today, but they aren’t Jewish.

Beth Immanuel Shabbat Fellowship is probably the Messianic congregation I’ve attended that has come closest to achieving a true Jewish synagogue identity, but I suspect that the majority of the members and the staff are still non-Jewish. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that, but what if you’re Jewish and you not only want, but you absolutely need to worship with Jews, be around Jews, and belong to a Jewish community?

I suppose like Tova, you stop being Christian and move from being Tonica Marlow to being Tova Mordechai. Or you move from being Lin to being Yaffa (my wife’s given and Hebrew names). Or, like my friend Gene, you maintain your Messianic faith, but you regularly worship with an Orthodox Jewish community.

None of this is at all easy.

I check the statistics for this blog and frankly, personal explorations such as this one just don’t capture a lot of reader interest. I don’t know why, since the stats only provide raw numbers without the attendant human motivation.

However, one of the “meditations” I wrote seems to be getting some attention recently: Fearfully in the Hands of God. Near the end of the blog post, I wrote this:

I know this sounds dismal and depressing, especially on the day when the vast majority of the Christian world is celebrating the birth of the King of Kings, but lest we imagine that God is obligated to grant us a perfect, stress free existence, the counterpoint is that we are but dust and ashes; we are grass that is growing today, and tomorrow, is withered and thrown into the fire. In the end, we can try to live healthy lives, lives of faith, devotion, charity, and study; we try take care of ourselves and others, but still, no one knows the hour of his own death.

In those moments of hideous uncertainty or in that final ”moment of truth”, we can only summon whatever trust in God we may possess and cry out to Him for His infinite mercy. If he should turn the hand of sickness and death away, we rejoice, and if not, we are with Him.

When a Christian cries out to God, we just cry out. But a Jew does something different.

Tova relates that some years ago her mother was lying on the operating table before undergoing life-threatening surgery. From the depths of her mother’s soul, a desperate cry shot forth, “Shema Yisroel Ado-nai Elo-heinu Ado-nai Echad.”

The Shema is the first prayer taught to children and it is the prayer at is on the lips of any Jew who is afraid they’re about to die. In some way we non-Jews don’t understand, it is a special conduit between a Jew and God.

Most Christians are baffled why Jews don’t convert to Christianity. Those Jews who come to faith in Jesus but express that faith within a Jewish Messianic context are thought by non-Messianic Jews to have converted to Christianity. Christians generally don’t think so and either publicly or privately, wish those “Messianic Jews” would stop “denying the power of Christ’s death on the cross” (as Pastor Tim Keller might say), and actually come to a “true faith” in Jesus Christ; that is, convert to Christianity.

But as you, my readers, already know…it’s not that simple.

And it’s not right. It’s not right to finish the job that the Holocaust started. It’s not right to cooperate with terrorists who are hurting and murdering Jews to his very day. It’s not right to try to reduce the Jewish population of the world to zero.

Most Christians and even most atheists would say that it’s a sin and a crime to commit genocide, to try to eradicate an entire race, population, or nation. “Ethnic cleansing” is considered barbaric and monstrous by every one except the barbaric monsters who are committing those acts…except when it happens to Jews. Then the world, including most of the Christian world, just doesn’t give a damn.

That’s why I have to support my Jewish wife being Jewish. That’s why I have to support my son returning to davening with a siddur and praying the Shema (though he’s not very close to this point at the moment). And that’s why Christian Tonica became Jewish Tova and currently “lives in Tzfas (Safed), Israel, with her husband and five children.”

I’m sure each interfaith marriage is different. I don’t doubt that each one has its challenges and even its heartaches. I do know that I have my own journey to travel, both as an individual of faith and as a Christian husband married to a Jewish wife. I know that journey is not as simple as converting to Judaism or simply abandoning Christianity for atheism, just for the ways of peace.

I keep asking the question, where do I go from here? I keep answering the question, I don’t know. Except I do know, albeit in an extremely limited sense. I keep going forward, day by day, moment by moment. Yesterday afternoon, I had coffee with a friend and then I went home. I made hamburgers and talked to my wife about her day. My daughter came home and we talked with her for a bit. Then I read for a while and went to bed.

Life is normal. Being married to the girl with the Jewish soul is not really fraught it anguish and troubles all of the time, at least not on the surface. Somewhere beneath the surface of the blue crystal waves, God waits and He’s doing stuff I can’t see. So I walk or I sail or I swim as best I can in the direction I think God wants me to go.

And maybe God has a few surprises left for me on this path I’ve chosen (or did He choose it for me?). I hope they are surprises I can take.

There is an easy path to fulfill the Torah as it is meant to be fulfilled. Not by forcing yourself, nor by convincing yourself, but by achieving awareness:

A constant awareness that all you see and hear, the wind against your face, the pulse of your own heart, the stars in the heavens and the earth beneath your feet, all things of this cosmos and beyond . . .

. . . all are but the outer garments of an inner consciousness, a projection of His will and thoughts. Nothing more than His words to us, within which He is concealed.

And the Master of that consciousness speaks to you and asks you to join Him in the mystic union of deed and study.

In such a state of mind, could you possibly choose otherwise?

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

It’s probably too much to ask that they be surprises that make me happy.

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Opting Out of Yiddishkeit?

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On today’s daf we find halachos that apply to converts.

Converting is a huge sacrifice, which God values greatly—and so should we. But as is well known there is a halachah that a non-Jew who converted as a minor can recant his decision upon reaching majority. In that case, he reverts to being a non-Jew. How sad that he lost out on such a special distinction due to some passing whim!

There was a case where a family converted together; mother, father and children. When one son heard that he was allowed to opt out of Yiddishkeit, he honestly said that he wanted to let go of his conversion. “If I am obligated to be a Jew that is one thing, since God wants me to fulfill the mitzvos. But if I am able to be a non-Jew, why should I take on the obligation to do all the mitzvos? How can I know that I will fulfill them as I should? Isn’t it better for me to go the easier but more sure way?”

But when he expressed this wish, the dayan he spoke to wasn’t sure what to do. “I am not sure whether when an entire family converts one who was a minor at the time can opt out. This is a machlokes Rishonim and I am not certain how we rule.”

When this question reached the Chasam Sofer, zt”l, he ruled decisively. “We hold like the Rishonim who rule that a convert whose entire family converted with him cannot opt out of his Jewishness.”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“The Convert’s Choice”
Niddah 49

I’ve been thinking a lot about religious observance recently. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and wondering if I’d ever get up the nerve to actually blog about it.

So here goes.

It’s fairly common knowledge within the Messianic Jewish and Hebrew Roots communities that the status of non-Jews and their possible obligation to Jewish religious observance is a matter of some concern. Mark Kinzer’s book Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People is something of a blueprint of one end of the spectrum of Messianic Judaism that advocates for parallel but wholly separate conduits of Jews occupying Messianic Judaism and Gentiles occupying traditional Christianity. In theory, both groups relate to One God and to Jesus (Yeshua) as the Jewish Messiah, but their recommended approaches to religious practice are totally different, and the two groups rarely if ever, interact.

On the other side of the spectrum is the One Law group which states that there are no distinctions or differences between Jews and non-Jews in the Messianic movement. Except for a matter of DNA, Jews are no different from Gentiles in their obligation to the 613 commandments that define the modern understanding of the Torah. This brings up the uncomfortable reality that all Christians everywhere have the same obligation to the Torah, whether they realize it or not. The One Law position must come to the conclusion (though I’ve never heard them state it as such) that the vast majority of the Christian church is continually in sin because they don’t refrain from eating trief and work and play on Saturday.

The educational ministry First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) has proposed a sort of “middle ground” in this arena with the idea of something called “divine invitation.” FFOZ has produced a number of books and other, similar materials presenting information from Jewish literary sources suggesting that historically, Gentiles were not always completely forbidden from certain Jewish observances. I won’t attempt to list the details here since they are too numerous, but the basic idea is that, while non-Jews are not obligated to fulfill the Torah mitzvot in the manner of Jews, they are, in many cases, permitted to do so.

This would no doubt fly in the face of more traditional Jewish viewpoints and certainly Orthodox Judaism would be in almost complete disagreement. Nevertheless, within the Messianic context, you will find many non-Jewish people voluntarily taking on board some of the Torah mitzvot as they feel led to do so, but with the understanding that refraining from any of the mitzvot does not constitute a sin on the part of a non-Jewish Christian.

Divine invitation is an opportunity for non-Jews in the movement who have become accustomed to keeping certain of the mitzvot to continue to do so without necessarily crossing the distinction barrier between Gentile and Jew and thus preserving Jewish distinction in Messianic Judaism.

But there’s a flip side to the coin. Divine invitation allows non-Jews in the movement or at least associated with the movement to not observe the mitzvot…at all…ever.

It’s been well over a month since I attended FFOZ’s Shavuot conference at Beth Immanuel Sabbath Fellowship in Hudson, Wisconsin. For several days, I was allowed to worship in what seemed to be the ideal Messianic Jewish religious environment. The Gentiles still outnumbered the Jews by quite a bit, but the model for worship was definitely that of the synagogue, though great accommodations were made for non-Hebrew speakers and readers.

There were a lot of non-Jews worshiping in the Jewish manner, though in that environment, they were not obligated to do so. We non-Jews were not obligated to eat the fine kosher food that was provided. We were not obligated to daven shacharit. We were not obligated to don tzitzit. And yet most of the non-Jewish worshipers did so and no one seemed to mind.

But what if we didn’t? I mean, if we’re not obligated and let’s say, we don’t feel led, so what if we didn’t worship in even a remotely Jewish manner? I suppose nothing bad would happen. But is there an expectation that even if we don’t have to keep the mitzvot, that we should, particularly if we are choosing to worship with Jews who are worshiping God as Jews in a (Messianic) Jewish synagogue?

It would be an interesting experiment in that environment to have a non-Jew observe absolutely none of the mitzvot, just to see what it would be like to decline a “divine invitation.” I suppose it would be like going to your high school senior prom and then continually refusing invitations to dance. What would be the point?

The point I suppose, is that the “prom” is where you feel you belong, where your friends and maybe your family are, and yet you feel you aren’t called to dance their dance because you believe you don’t really belong to that group of dancers.

OK, it’s a crummy metaphor, but you get the idea.

Of course, most of the time, I don’t worship with anybody. In fact, I don’t worship in a community at all. This avoids the whole problem of how I should worship, identity confusion, and the whole shooting match, but there’s a problem. I live with Jewish people. Do I do what they do?

Well, sort of.

Here’s the scary part.

The Jewish people I live with aren’t particularly observant.

There, I said it.

It’s true. At this point, my wife and daughter don’t even light the candles on Erev Shabbat. For a long time, I was the only one doing it, but it seemed absurd that I continue since I’m the only non-Jew in the house and a male and I’m the one lighting the candles. I kept asking my wife on Friday as sundown approached, “Do you want to light the Shabbos candles?” Her response was always something like, “You can if you want to.”

Like I said, it got kind of absurd. No one seemed to care if I lit the candles or not. So I stopped.

My wife hasn’t gone so far as to serve up pork chops for dinner and in fact, she’s rather studious about making sure we all continue to eat “kosher style” (see Leviticus 11), but our kitchen isn’t kosher and, strictly speaking, my wife doesn’t understand why I don’t choose to eat trief, since the kosher obligation doesn’t apply to me.

We also (gasp) work on the Shabbat. This part really bothers me, but there’s not a lot I can do about it. My daughter’s and my wife’s employers require that they work highly variable hours including the weekends, and they often work late Friday nights and on Saturday. The missus has made no bones about saying she would like me to keep my writing and editing schedules up on the weekends, though I’m able to refrain from household chores on Shabbos for the most part, deferring them to Sunday. I can’t remember the last time she went to shul, except perhaps to cook for some special occasions.

Yes, I do know that my Jewish family members are obligated to the Torah, though none of them are observant at the moment.

I suppose that makes me a bad husband and father for not compelling them to do so.

But I can’t really compel them to do anything. I have tried being supportive, but my children are all of adult age and my wife is of course, my wife, so she takes responsibility for her Jewishness and again, it seems rather absurd for a non-Jew and particularly a Christian to be telling her the business of being Jewish.

So having tried that and seeing that it didn’t work out so well, I stopped.

(I suppose at this point I should add that my wife subscribes to and reads the same (more or less) Chabad.org newsletters and tutorials that I do, which means her “morning meditations” are substantially similar to my own. I should also say that she anticipates leaving her current “slave job” at some point in the reasonably near but not clearly defined future, so what she does with her “free” Sabbaths after that is up in the air…but I can hope.)

The whole “divine invitation” and Christian identity thing means that I am not obligated to a Jewish lifestyle. I’m sure most Jews out there are relieved to hear that I’m not living like a Jew. But depending on your view of Jewishness and Jewish obligations to God, some of you may be distressed that my Jewish family members are not observant. Heck, there are members of the local Reform shul who are more observant than my family.

I can imagine that many Jews would blame me for all of this. After all, my wife and I are intermarried. Intermarriage is usually seen as the gateway for a Jew to leave Judaism and assimilate into Gentile secular culture or even into Christianity. While I can assure you that my wife has no attraction to Christianity on any level and I don’t believe she has become secularized, she doesn’t display a strong religious Jewish lifestyle.

More’s the pity.

(I’ll add here that my wife does keep up on events at the local synagogues and does have definite opinions about people at the Reform shul with a “questionable” Jewish background positioning themselves to lead services and teach [and that would never happen at the Chabad]. She’s “OK” with non-Jews and even Christians attending synagogue as long as they don’t talk about their faith, but she draws the line at “Messianics” or those who were formerly associated with the movement assuming any formal synagogue role.)

I have been trying to encourage my son David to return to the synagogue. His wife has recently rekindled her interest in attending church but I don’t think David would go with her on a regular basis. His basic internal template for religion is still Jewish and he remembers fondly some of his “debates” with the local Reform Rabbi. Actually, just last Sunday, my wife said she’d love it is David would visit the Chabad here in town, so she has her hopes as well.

The “religious identity” of my family continues to be in flux. I’m not even sure how much more my wife can tolerate my Christianity, so where I’ll end up in the months and years ahead is uncertain. I’d like my Jewish family to return to Judaism as an observant lifestyle. I hope they don’t see me as a barrier. I’m really anything but. In fact, in a recent conversation about conversion with my wife, (hence the quote at the beginning of this “meditation”) she said it would be ridiculous for a Gentile to try to convert to Judaism in Boise, (although a good friend of hers converted within the past year) since the convert wouldn’t have a strong Jewish community in which to live. So I don’t think my wife wants me to be “Torah observant” in any way, shape, or form. But what about her?

It would seem that for the sake of peace in the home, I must decline my “invitation,” and as a Christian, I would not only make a poor model of Jewish observance for my Jewish family, but I would actually be an annoyance if I tried. Thus, I cannot encourage them by my example since my example would be completely unwelcome.

I suppose if I were a Jewish husband and father, it might be different, but that’s not an option. Maybe the fears of Judaism are authentic fears and intermarriage is the path to slow death for the Jewish people. Even though it is not my intent, I certainly seem to be killing the Judaism in my home.

Across the long span of history, an untold number of Jews have suffered and died to preserve who they are as Jews. Given that realization, I wish I understood what was going on in my own home. But then, in this particular case, I don’t have a say. I only have to wait and pray that God, who has never abandoned His people Israel before, won’t abandon those who live in my household now.

My wife and children are Jewish. I want and even need them to live like Jews. May the God of mercy grant this for them and for the sake of Israel.

Torah Portion

Chukat: The Chutzpah of Entering Fire

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This is the Torah (law): A man who dies in a tent…

–Numbers 19:14

The Torah is only acquired by those who kill themselves for it in the tents of study.

-The Zohar

It happened in the winter of 1798 or 1799, when Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch was a child of eight or nine. Every Friday night Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi would deliver a discourse of chassidic teaching to a select group of disciples. Little Mendel begged to be allowed in, but his grandfather refused.

The dwelling of Rabbi Schneur Zalman consisted of two two-room buildings, joined by a connecting passageway. In one of the wings, a large wood-burning stove, used for heating and occasionally to bake bread, was set in the wall between the two rooms. The stove opened into the outer room, and also protruded into the inner room which served as Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s study.

One Friday night, the Rebbe was delivering his weekly discourse in his study. It was an exceptionally cold night, so a gentile was summoned to heat the oven. For some reason, he found it difficult to push the logs all the way in to the oven, so he built the fire near the opening of the stove. As a result, the outer room soon began to fill with smoke. Once again, he tried to push the burning logs further in, but they wouldn’t budge. The poor man had to start all over again. He put out the fire, pulled out the logs, and peered into the stove to see what was preventing the logs from going in.

His shouts and shrieks summoned the entire household. The session in Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s room was disrupted; those in the second building also came running. Inside the stove lay a young boy.

-Rabbi Yanki Tauber
“The Path of Fire”
Commentary on Torah Portion Chukat
Once Upon a Chasid series
Chabad.org

Chassidic tales are very compelling but it’s impossible to know how much some of them represent actual events. I’ve come to look at these tales as stories that have been crafted to communicate important moral and religious thoughts to a specific audience. Since I’m obviously not part of that audience, it’s rather puzzling that I should be drawn to them at all. Certainly most of my fellow Christians are at best, indifferent to the stories of the Chassidim and prefer moral commentaries from the ancient or current Christian scholars and commentators.

So what’s wrong with me?

I don’t know.

According to Rabbi Eli Touger’s commentary on this Torah Portion:

The term Chukim refers to those mitzvos whose rationale cannot be grasped by human intellect.

I find my own “rationale” for pursuing the writing of a blog focused on not only Jewish, but specifically Chassidic teachings, to be just as difficult to grasp by my intellect. As I’ve said in the past, the content that I discover in Chabad sources talks to me with my metaphors, but it doesn’t make sense that it should. This is not only because I’m not Jewish (and certainly not Orthodox), but that I am not particularly learned either. I should be just as put off by what I’m reading as most people in the church. I have no explanation for why I return to this particular pool daily to drink and seek refreshment.

But then not all of my meditations are particularly refreshing.

I mentioned just the other day that we are all seeking out a greater imagination, particularly when our own well becomes dry. I’ve also said that there are times when I feel as if I’m in a wilderness waiting for God to do something, but in truth, it is God who waits in the desert for me. Like a dunce in the corner of the classroom, I may have asked God too many stupid questions but I just can’t figure out how else to talk to Him.

But it’s not just me and God. If it were, I suppose life wouldn’t seem so complicated. Being married to the girl with the Jewish soul has taught me that Judaism isn’t really accessible to me, but then Christianity isn’t exactly an open door, either. I call myself a Christian as a matter of intellectual honesty, but I’m the weirdest Christian I know. If I ever entered a church and actually said what I really think, feel, and believe in a completely unfiltered manner, I’d most likely get thrown out on my ear.

I’ve talked about “not fitting in” before and I suppose this missive is just the latest incarnation of that personal state. Judaism is, by definition, community and in theory, so is Christianity (though “salvation” is personal and not corporate) but I’ve gotten just too “strange” to fit into anybody’s community, at least for more than a tiny march of days. Not only that, but I have to consider how my joining any particular community would affect my family. My being married to a Jewish woman, and being dedicated to ensuring the safety of her being a Jew takes an obvious toll on my being a Christian. She can tolerate my meeting with a couple of guys once a week, but church would be pushing the envelope a little too hard…for the both of us.

So I have a mystery and no answers. While I share my perspectives with the Internet, it’s a wholly impersonal environment. People respond to me, but it’s “virtual” and only on rare and brief occasions does the virtual transcend into reality.

I know what I’m writing has virtually no connection to Chukat, but this is who I am and where I am right now. How about we finish the story as told by Rabbi Tauber and see what turns up.

A small lamp was the only source of light in the smoke-filled room, so it took some time until the child was identified as the Rebbe’s grandson, little Menachem Mendel.

For some weeks now, the child had discovered that he could hear his grandfather’s words through the thin wall of the stove. Every Friday night he would clamber deep into the large stove, and listen to the profound and lofty words of the Rebbe’s teachings. And now, because of the bitter cold, his listening post had been discovered.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s daughter-in-law, Rebbetzin Sheina, who was present at the time, related:

“When they pulled the child out of the stove, he was paralyzed with fright. My mother-in-law, Rebbetzin Sterna, cried to my father-in-law, the Rebbe: ‘See what could of happened! A tragedy! Strangers you allow to enter, but when your own child begged you, you wouldn’t let him in!’ Father-in-law replied: ‘Sha, sha. Moses reached Mount Sinai only by beholding fire – only then did he merit that the Torah be given through him. Torah is acquired only through self-sacrifice.’ “

One way to deal with not fitting in is to have the chutzpah to fit in anyway. In little Menachem Mendel’s case, he fit himself into a stove, but unfortunately, he didn’t anticipate that on a cold night, he could end up being part of the fuel used to warm the room. Rabbi Tauber relates a childish error in judgment to the willingness to die for the sake of Torah learning, but clearly in the real world, the little boy wasn’t willing to burn nor were his elders willing to incinerate him for the Torah’s sake. The real lesson (at least according to the Rebbetzin, since the Rebbe disagreed) is that if someone wants in badly enough and they show a willingness to make sacrifices, you should let them in.

That doesn’t really work in my case since I’ll never be Jewish enough (or rather, I’ll never be a Jew at all) to learn as a Jew and I’ll never be Christian enough to fit into the church culture. I don’t know what I’d have to be to fit in with my wife religiously. I don’t think there is an answer to that one except, as I said before, to be a “low profile Christian at home.”

But what about God? I guess I can be a Christian at home in terms of behaviorally displaying my morals and ethics without being overtly “Christian” (openly praying or invoking Christ’s name, for example). In this case, chutzpah won’t get me anywhere except in hot water, so I’ve nowhere else to go except into the privacy of my own thoughts, which gets turned into very public blog posts…and to turn to God.

I’m seeking out a greater imagination, but I’m putting some pretty harsh limits on it.

Solomon couldn’t comprehend the mitzvah of the Red Heifer and I can’t comprehend my own existence. If God didn’t require that Solomon understand, I guess I don’t have to, either. I can only continue living and to see what happens next.

The irony is that I don’t know what to do, and yet I feel as if God is waiting for me to make the next move. I guess that’s what faith is…acknowledging God and proceeding forward, even when it doesn’t make sense, for what alternative do we have?

Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.” –Psalm 95:7-11 (ESV)

Good Shabbos.

 

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Being Married to the Girl with the Jewish Soul

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“To get to the point, our daughter has informed us that she has fallen in love with a non-Jew, and that they intend to marry. We have tried everything to dissuade her, but our arguments, appeals, threats and tears have all been to no avail. She now refuses to discuss the matter with us at all, and has moved out of our home. Rabbi! You are our only hope! Perhaps you can reach her; perhaps you can impress upon her the gravity of the betrayal against her people, her parents and her own identity in what she intends to do!”

“Would she agree to meet with me?” I asked.

“If she knew that we had spoken to you, she’d refuse.”

“Then I’ll go speak to her on my own.”

I took her address from her parents, and rang her bell that very evening. She was visibly annoyed to learn of my mission, but too well-mannered not to invite me in. We ended up speaking for several hours. She listened politely, and promised to consider everything I said, but I came away with the feeling that I had had little effect on her decision.

For several days I pondered the matter, trying to think of what might possibly be done to prevent the loss of a Jewish soul.

-Aaron Dov Halprin
“A Jew in Brooklyn”
from “The Life and Teachings of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson”
Translated from the Hebrew by Yanki Tauber
Chabad.org

The loss of a Jewish soul.

Derek Leman recently posted a link to a discussion “between Messianic Jew David Brickner and John Piper” concerning “supersessionism.” From a supersessionist Christian point of view, the only way for a Jewish person to become reconciled to God and the Jewish Messiah is to forfeit his or her Jewish soul.

The loss of a Jewish soul.

Is that really what the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would want?

I know Christians who would answer “yes” so fast that it would make my head spin. But then you see, I have a Jewish wife. She is a Jewish soul.

I’m not going to go into the whole “is she saved or not” argument, which is probably way over my head (though I frequently wade into waters that are way over my head). Of course, it would gladden my heart if she would come to know, or at least be re-acquainted with (as she was in years past) the Jewish Messiah, but in her view of Judaism, which is not unlike that of the Chabad, a Jew does not believe the “Messiah of the goyim” is the Jewish Moshiach.

The local Rabbi consults the Rebbe and he presents a solution. The solution to the problem of the Jewish girl who intended to marry a non-Jew was to tell her that there was a Jew in Brooklyn who was deeply troubled and could not sleep at night because of her intentions. The Jew (whether this story is true or not, I have no idea) was named “Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” Although the girl lived in Brazil and had never met the Rebbe or even seen a picture of him, when the local Rabbi showed her a photo of the Rebbe, she exclaimed, “this man has been appearing in my dreams and imploring me not to abandon my people.”

The story ends without telling us what the girl does, but presumably, she breaks off her engagement to the non-Jewish fellow and returns to her family. Not very much like the story between me and my wife, but then we were married for many years before she became determined to enter into the Jewish community and decided that a Jew would never believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

I’ve been pondering this story for several days but only read the following tale just a few minutes ago (as I write this):

Rabbi Zalman Serebryanski, a senior chassid from Russia and dean of the Lubavitch Rabbinical College in Melbourne, Australia, once brought a girl to Rabbi Chaim Gutnick. “Please, help this girl convert,” he asked.

Rabbi Gutnick listened to the girl’s story. She lived in Balaclava, and from her youth had felt a strong attraction to Judaism. Whenever she heard stories of the Holocaust, she was deeply touched. She had been reading and studying about Judaism for a long time, and now wanted to convert.

Rabbi Gutnick was moved by her sincerity. Nevertheless, he did not want to perform the conversion. The girl was still living at home with her non-Jewish parents. Would she be able to practice Judaism in her parents’ home? Would her interest continue as she matured into adulthood? Since he could not answer these questions, he decided to let time take its course. If the girl was still interested when she was older, she could convert then.

Rabbi Gutnick’s refusal plunged the girl into deep depression, to the extent that she had to be confined to a hospital. The elder Reb Zalman, stirred by the depth of her feelings, continued to visit her from time to time.

After several weeks, he called Rabbi Gutnick, telling him of the girl’s condition and asking him whether perhaps he would change his mind because of the strength of her feelings.

-Eli and Malka Touger
“The Girl Who Had To Be Jewish”
from “The Life and Teachings of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson”
Chabad.org

This appears to be the opposite of the previous story. Here, a non-Jewish girl is pursuing Judaism to the point that she becomes severely depressed when the option is denied her. On the surface, it seemed conversion was impossible because her family was Anglican, but appearances can be deceiving. In this case, the Rebbe is once again consulted and the results are surprising.

Rabbi Gutnick did not receive an immediate reply to his letter. But at a later date, at the end of a reply to another issue, the Rebbe added: “What’s happening with the Jewish girl from Balaclava?”

Rabbi Gutnick was surprised. The girl and Reb Zalman had both made it clear that her family was Anglican!

He and Reb Zalman went to confront the girl’s mother. At first, she continued to insist that she was Anglican, but as the sincerity of the two rabbis impressed her, she broke down and told her story. She had been raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in England. As a young girl, she had rebelled against her parents and abandoned Jewish life entirely, marrying a gentile and moving to Australia. She had not given Judaism a thought since. She loved her daughter, however, and would not oppose her if she wished to live a Jewish life.

Once the girl’s Jewishness was established, Rabbis Serebryanski and Gutnick helped her feel at home in Melbourne’s Lubavitch community. She continued to make progress in her Jewish commitment, and today is a teacher in a Lubavitch school.

But Rabbi Gutnick still had a question: How did the Rebbe know she was Jewish? At his next yechidut (audience with the Rebbe) he mustered the chutzpah to ask.

The Rebbe replied that, at Reb Zalman’s urging, the girl had also written him a letter. “Such a letter,” the Rebbe declared, “could only have been written by a Jewish girl.”

Again, I have no idea if this story is true, but it is compelling, especially to me.

My wife’s mother was Jewish and her father was a non-Jew (both of my in-laws passed away many years ago). My wife’s mother, as a young woman, rejected her family in Boston and her Judaism and walked away from both, about seventy years ago. My mother-in-law met my father-in-law on a blind date and they subsequently married and had five children. At no time did the fact that my mother-in-law was Jewish ever come up in the family.

True, my wife as a child, knew that her maternal aunt and cousin, who lived in Southern California where she grew up, were Jewish, but she never made the connection that her mother was Jewish (and thus, her children) until my wife was a young woman herself.

Of her two sisters and two brothers, only my wife was driven to self-identify as a Jew and decades later, to pursue a life as a Jewish woman.

The girl who had to be Jewish.

These two stories collide because the girl who had to be Jewish married the guy who ended up being Christian.

The thirty years of our marriage haven’t always been easy for one reason or another. I think any couple who has been married for decades will say that there have been trials in their relationship from time to time. It’s not all romance and flowers. But typically, at a foundational level, the couple is united in terms of their basic worldview. If the husband is a Christian, usually so is the wife. If the wife is an atheist, usually so is the husband. You get the idea.

Jewish/non-Jewish interfaith marriages are at an all-time high as far as I understand the statistics, and this is a crisis in the world of Judaism. Particularly Orthodox Jews see the marriage of a Jew to a non-Jew (and especially a Christian) as the loss of a Jewish soul.

There are plenty of books, guides, and advice blogs that address interfaith marriages, but usually the couples being targeted arrive at their wedding day as fully realized Jews and Christians. As far as I know, all interfaith couples at my local Reform/Conservative and Chabad synagogues are Jew/Goy (non-Christian). Some of the non-Jews who have married Jews convert to Judaism. The issues are complex and troublesome but not insurmountable.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my wife about some of the things that had happened at the First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) Shavuot conference in Hudson, Wisconsin. One of the issues was having Christians who are already in a church or who would be willing to return to a church, be sort of “messengers” and advocates for a positive relationship with Jewish people within the Christian community.

My wife’s response was something like, “Are you thinking of going back to church?” I wish I could remember her exact words. They could have been, You aren’t thinking of going back to a church, are you?” But I’m not sure. I’m also not sure if the tone of her voice registered any distress or not. It’s hard to tell with her sometimes. She plays her cards “close to the vest,” so to speak.

If we had entered our marriage with her as a fully realized Jew and me as a fully realized Christians (we were agnostics/atheists on our wedding day and for many years afterwards) and if we agreed to still get married, we probably wouldn’t be experiencing what we are today with each other. I’ve asked her about this aspect of our relationship point-blank, but she remains elusive.

As nearly as I can understand my options, the best thing for me to do is to let her be “the girl who has to be Jewish” and for me to be a low profile Christian at home. I don’t think we have a “typical” interfaith marriage, if there is such a thing. I don’t know if she sees my faith as somehow threatening to her, but it isn’t something that she’s comfortable discussing.

PrayingBut I don’t want the world to lose another Jewish soul. Supersessionist Christianity wouldn’t care, and would walk all over her Jewish soul without feeling the slightest pang of guilt or remorse. However, that Jewish soul is my wife. She gave birth to three other Jewish souls who are my children. Like any husband and father, when confronted with a threat to the family, I become defensive and protective. I cannot let their Judaism be extinguished for the sake of someone else’s theology…not even my own.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. –Romans 9:3-4 (ESV)

Paul was in anguish over his Jewish brothers and sisters who did not understand the blessings of Jesus the Messiah and who would be temporarily “cut off.” He was sincerely willing to become accursed and cut off from his own salvation for the sake of other Jews. It meant that much to him; his Jewish brothers and sisters meant that much to him.

Although I am not a Jew, how much more should my Jewish wife and children mean to me?

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Hadassah and the King

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The Queen Esther daughter of Abihail wrote, along with Mordechai the Jew, with full authority to ratify this second letter of Purim. Dispatches were sent to all the Jews, to the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahashuerus – [with] words of peace and truth – to establish these days of Purim on their [proper] dates just as Mordechai the Jew and Queen Esther had enjoined them, and as they had confirmed upon themselves and their posterity the matter of the fasts and their lamentations. Esther’s ordinance confirmed these regulations for Purim; and it was recorded in the book. –Esther 9:29-32

I love a happy ending, don’t you? With Purim only a few days away, Jews all over the world are getting ready to celebrate one of the most joyous occasions on their annual calendar. As with many Jewish celebrations, there will be plenty of good and sweet things to eat, lots of laughter and happiness and, on this particular occasion, practical jokes, dressing up in costumes, and generally acting silly. What better way to announce to the world your happiness at not being exterminated as a people?

However, there’s another aspect to Purim that isn’t generally mentioned, although it should be obvious to anyone familiar with the story of Queen Esther, or rather Hadassah, and King Ahashuerus. This wonderful victory was accomplished because they were an intermarried couple, a Jew married to a Gentile.

In today’s world there are still plenty of Hamans. Iran is threatening Israel with nuclear attack and Islamic Jihad sends suicide bombers. Skinheads still tattoo themselves with swastikas and synagogues around the world are defaced. Jews are still killed because they are Jews.

Perhaps we now have a glimmer of hope coming from an unlikely place. Intermarriages, which until now have been so troubling, now offer us opportunities and new realities.

Perhaps in all the intermarriages that are happening today, we are acquiring allies for the Jewish people. Perhaps we now have hundreds of thousands of non-Jews who are also committed to the survival of the Jewish people, its customs and teachings, and to raising Jewish children. Perhaps we have fellow travelers who appreciate the richness of our heritage and will step forward to help us combat the hatred that exists. Perhaps we will find it safer to live as Jews.

-Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael
“Purim and Intermarriage”
Originally published March 14, 2006 and reprinted February 27, 2012
InterfaithFamily.com

In Judaism, intermarriages are usually thought to contribute to the destruction of the Jewish people, largely through secularization and assimilation, if not downright conversion of the Jewish partner to Christianity. The non-Jewish partner, if not seen as “the enemy” when accompanying his or her Jewish spouse to the synagogue, is often considered with suspicion or maybe just a little anxiety, particularly if the non-Jew is actively Christian. Today, many Evangelical Christian congregations have completely embraced the right of Israel to exist and are strongly attempting to influence American politics in supporting Israel, but that doesn’t mean intermarriage would be welcomed by most Jews because of this.

intermarriageHowever, as Rabbi Raphael pointed out, the Gentile member of an intermarriage can also be seen as an especially close ally because he or she is married to a Jew. To the Gentile spouse, the Jew is no longer an “other” or “outsider.” Jews are family. Up until a few days ago, as an intermarried husband, I hadn’t really considered celebrating Purim in any way except as a remembrance of the victory of the Jews over a moral enemy and against total annihilation. But now there’s something new to commemorate as well. Purim, for me, has become the time of year when it’s OK to celebrate the victories that can be attained through Jewish/Gentile intermarriage, even if this aspect of Purim is never mentioned in the synagogue.

Perhaps the rabbis are afraid that such an admission would amount to implied acquiescence with those who choose to intermarry today — as if an ancient historical precedent affects the decisions individuals make about love, life, and Jewish continuity in today’s secular society.

The Purim story is timeless. That is its strength.

But this timelessness is not a result of a lachrymose approach to Jewish history, in which we see enemies rise up against us time and again, regardless of where we live.

Rather, it is Esther’s relationship to Ahashuerus that catapults the story through the portals of Jewish history.

Esther and Mordechai were heroes, but so was Ahashuerus. The Purim story shows that in the face of Jewish destruction — whether it comes from the outside, as in ancient Persia, or from inside the American Jewish community — intermarriage has the potential to help us rather than destroy us, if we are willing to bring the intermarried into our Jewish family and invite them to cast their lot with our own.

-Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky
“Purim – story of intermarriage gone right?
Jewish Outreach Institute

This isn’t to say that intermarriage has gained any greater approval in Jewish society lately or that there aren’t about a million trap doors that intermarried/interfaith families can’t fall through, but I’d also like to encourage Jews and Judaism to stop thinking of intermarriage as a road that automatically leads to disaster for the Jewish people. I’d also like to encourage Christians and the church to stop seeing intermarriage as a means of converting the Jewish spouse and children to Christianity and eliminating their Jewish identity, which can be a danger as great as any represented by Haman, may his name be blotted out. Purim is the victory of the successful joining of a Jewish wife and a Gentile husband against the forces that would eliminate all Jews from the face of the earth, a destruction I believe God would never allow.

Hadassah called herself “Esther,” hiding her Jewish heritage for a time, but when it was important, she revealed herself to her husband, the King, risking everything to save all Jews everywhere. By the time of our happy ending, Hadassah didn’t have to stop being a Jew because her husband wasn’t, and her uncle Mordechai the Jew, was elevated to the position of viceroy to King Ahashuerus. For that time in that place, Jews and Gentiles lived together in peace.

May there be peace in all the intermarried families and peace between all of God’s children, Jews and Gentiles. And may the Messiah come soon and in our days.

Purim Sameach.

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Saving Israel

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Several reasons are given why it is prohibited to record the oral Torah in written form.

Ritva (Gittin 60a) and Ra”n (14a) explain that once something is put into writing, it is subject to being interpreted or misinterpreted according to the viewpoint of the reader. Putting such developed ideas into written form necessarily restricts the concepts into rigid sentences, which is too limiting for their true meaning. When, however, concepts are transmitted orally from rebbe to talmid, they are able to be articulated and explained with emotion and clarity.

The give and take which follows allows a student to ask and pursue that which needs further elucidation. This is essential for the transmission of the mesorah, and this is why the Torah prohibits us to record the oral law in written form.

P’risha (O.C. 49:1) also notes that the written word limits the ideas it represents by the usage of particular phrases and expressions. This leads to subjective interpretation and understanding based upon the author’s choice of words, which may or may not convey the accurate intent of the writer to the reader.

Daf Yomi Digest
Distinctive Insight
“The oral law may not be written down”
Termurah 14

I have to admit, I’ve never comprehended this. It’s always been my understanding that information transmitted orally from one generation from the next was subject to distortion over time. We see this demonstrated in the children’s game where kids sit in a circle and one child whispers a short story to the next. The story is transmitted around the circle, and by the time it gets to the person who told the original story, it (in all likelihood) has significantly changed. Even an individual’s memory of a single even tends to change over time, making eyewitness testimony in court unreliable, although legally, it is still considered one of the more reliable forms of evidence.

Add to all that the fact that during different periods of exile in Jewish history, there were “breaks” in the transmission process when it is very likely that the Oral Law was not transmitted at all. Once such a break occurs, how could this information be recaptured if it has not been preserved in some documented form? Once the last of the old generation dies, if they haven’t passed on the oral law to the next generation, the oral law dies with them.

That’s why we have written information. That’s why we have books, magazines, newspapers, and other physical and virtual documents. So that information can be preserved over time, unaffected by a distortion of transmission or a distortion of memory.

And yet, the above commentary is right in that, once information is nailed down in written form, it becomes accessible to everyone’s individual and subjective interpretation. We see this commonly in Bible interpretation, particularly within the church, where any individual can tell themselves that a scripture means “such and thus” to them, even if it doesn’t carry that meaning for anyone else.

(I say “particularly within the church” because Judaism tends to interpret the Bible based on established tradition rather than an individual’s “feelings.” To be fair though, it is true that Christianity also has traditions that are applied to Bible interpretation, but the “freedom” the average Christian has seems to include the freedom to ignore scholarship, at least on occasion)

Don’t look to me for an answer to this conundrum, because I have none to give you. We know that the Oral Law was finally redacted around 200 CE because of the fear that it would be lost due to the Jewish exile from Israel, and so we have a rich body of interpretation and commentary on Jewish Law that is with us to this day.

But in studying this topic in today’s Daf and the original reasons that documenting the Oral Law was forbidden, I did come across this.

Yefei To’ar (to Shemos Rabba 47:1) explains, based upon the Midrash, that if the oral law would be written there would be a risk that the gentiles would take our law and copy it for themselves. They would implement many of the aspects of our system of life, and the clear and obvious differences between the Jews and the non-Jews would be less apparent, causing many Jews to blend into the non- Jewish society.

Most Christians reading this quote will find it rather a strange concern for the Jewish sages to have, since one of the foundations upon which Christian faith is built is on the destruction of Jewish Law and it being wholly replaced by the grace of Christ. In fact, in the long history of the Christian church, most church theologians, scholars, and clergy have gone out of their way to avoid any type of practice of anything that looks like Judaism in worship or belief. Christians are not only completely uninterested in copying Jewish law, they actively disdain it.

(OK, this is overly simplistic and there are a number of parallelisms historically between Christianity and Judaism, but for the sake of this “mediation,” let’s assume that the schism between Jewish and Christian thought, faith, and practice is absolute)

But in the here and now, we have a glaring exception. Messianic Judaism.

To be more accurate, there’s a branch of Messianic Judaism called “One Law” that states Gentiles who are “grafted in” to the root of Israel are also grafted in to the full “yoke of Torah” such that, there is no distinction between Jewish and “Christian” practice of the Law. In essence, the dire worry of the sages has come to past. The Gentiles have taken the Law and copied it for themselves. Let’s read part of the quote again that predicts the result:

They would implement many of the aspects of our system of life, and the clear and obvious differences between the Jews and the non-Jews would be less apparent, causing many Jews to blend into the non- Jewish society.

This is precisely the concern many ethnic, cultural, and religious Jews in the Messianic movement have, and it seems the concerns of the sages are well justified.

But wait.

It’s not the Oral Law that is being copied by the Gentiles, it’s the written Torah. The Gentiles in “the movement” have about as much interest in the Oral Law as their traditional Christian counterparts. So it seems that documenting the oral traditions really hasn’t yielded the feared result.

But the core of the concern remains. Gentiles are copying Jews and the distinction between Jews and Christians is eroding. Some Jews who have only a tenuous understanding of what Judaism actually is, are gravitating to One Law congregations rather than pursuing more significantly Jewish communities (Again, to be fair, many One Law Jews have been raised in Jewish homes and have a very strong Jewish identity). Many Gentiles who have become disillusioned with the church are flocking to One Law congregations in droves, believing they are embracing their “lost” Jewish roots and in practice, becoming “pseudo-Jews.” It doesn’t matter then, whether the Oral Law was written down or not, since the written portion of Torah was sufficient to produce a collection of Gentiles who, for all intents, believe they are “spiritual Jews,” and who have adopted many of the Jewish religious practices and traditions.

Praying with tefillin(It should be noted here that many non-Jewish One Law practitioners actually do adhere to some of the Oral Law without realizing it, since the traditions involving how to put on a tallit gadol, lay tefillin, perform a blessing before a meal, conduct a Torah service, and many other worship activities, are rooted in the Oral Law rather than in written Torah. Some of the prayers in the siddur originate in the Zohar, thus even small portions of Kabbalah are unknowingly included in One Law practice)

The irony is that, in utilizing the written but not Oral Law of the Jews, One Law Gentiles fulfill the concern of the sages which has lead to…

…a subjective interpretation and understanding based upon the author’s choice of words, which may or may not convey the accurate intent of the writer to the reader.

Modern Judaism believes that the written Torah, and the intent of the author’s choice of words, cannot be accurately understood unless seen through the lens of the oral Torah. In disregarding the oral traditions and rulings, the Jews and Gentiles in One Law may be falling into the trap that so concerned the ancient sages. Of course, there are branches of Judaism that historically have rejected the Oral Law, such as the Sadducees and Essenes, but unlike the Pharisaic tradition, they did not survive into modern times. The Kararites have survived and currently exist, but they are the only Jewish sect I’m aware of, that does not, in some manner or fashion, recognize the Oral Law.

(It is true that between Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism, there are differing levels of adherence to Oral Law, but none of these branches does away with the it altogether).

Usually, in discussions like this one, the primary concern presented is Gentile “misuse” or “misapplication” of Jewish Law, which I’ve certainly addressed, but the Story Off the Daf for Temurah 14 illustrates another problem.

It is tragic that so many Jews have fallen away from Torah observance in the modern period. Immigration to America—the “Goldeneh Medinah” —played a large role in a historic shift away from tradition. The vast majority of those who arrived here from “der alter heim,” the “old country,” fell away from observance. At a superficial glance, this seems a bit hard to fathom. Throughout our long past, the Jewish People faced so many obstacles, a multitude of decrees forbidding Torah, which did not deter us at all. What was it about America, and the rest of the free world, that had such a detrimental effect on Torah and mitzvos?

Perhaps we can understand the solution to this puzzle in light of how the Chofetz Chaim, zt”l, explains a statement on today’s daf. “In Temurah 14 we find that it is better for the Torah to be disrupted then forgotten. When various parties rise up and block us from learning Torah, the situation is not so spiritually dangerous as one might have thought. When they chase after people who learn, usually we find a solution. Jews learn in caves, attics and cellars, and Torah is preserved.

“A far worse situation is when Jews forget the Torah—when it is abandoned and considered unimportant. Then, learning Torah is something that Jews simply do not aspire to at all. In such circumstances, there is a vast spiritual danger.

“To understand the true state of a Jew without Torah let us consider a person who is completely paralyzed. Just as such a person is sadly unaware of what the senses of a normal person would perceive—since he is completely unfeeling—the same is true of those who have no feel for the value of Torah.”

My wife was raised in an intermarried family. Her mother was Jewish and her father, raised as a Christian Scientist, had left the faith and was non-religious. Her mother also had left religious, and for the most part, cultural Judaism to such a degree that my wife didn’t even realize that she was Jewish until early adulthood.

After my wife and I converted to Christianity some fifteen years ago or so, her first sustained exposure to “Judaism” was via the One Law congregation we started to attend. If she had stayed there, she more than likely would have continued her faith in Jesus. However, she wouldn’t actually have understood what it is to be a Jew, since the congregational leader and most of the board of elders were not Jewish. Even those Jews who participated in the congregation back then, had not been raised in cultural and religious Jewish homes.

But the drive in her to understand what it is to be a Jew would not let go, and she eventually gravitated to first the Reform, and then the Chabad synagogues. There, she established herself among other Jews and enjoyed the full measure of participation in a completely realized ethnic, cultural, and religious Jewish community.

But the cost was her faith in Jesus.

What would have made a difference? I’m not sure anything would have. I’m not some sort of dictator in the home, and I cannot simply tell my wife where to go, how to feel, and believe. I’m not going to tell her she must embrace Jesus as the Messiah. I believe each human being negotiates his or her own relationship with God and no one can act as a go-between. If, perhaps, we had a congregation available that offered a fully Jewish community and true Jewish worship of the Jewish Messiah, maybe…maybe it would have made a difference. Maybe my wife could have securely explored her Judaism while preserving her faith in Jesus. But we don’t live in a world of “what ifs”. We live in a world of completed actions and what is done, is done.

I know that my friends in the One Law movement (who will no doubt be upset at today’s “meditation”) will tell me that if she had stayed in One Law, she could have lived a completely Jewish lifestyle and a continued to be believer, but I know that congregation well. I love the people who attend and who lead, and they are sincere in their faith and wonderful disciples of the Master…but it’s not a Jewish congregation. The men may wear kippot and don tallitot in prayer, they may use siddurim, and call the Master, “Yeshua,” but the vast, vast majority of them are Gentiles, and most of the Jews weren’t raised within Judaism.

tallit-prayerSo should I raise Judaism above the Messiah? As Paul might put it, “heaven forbid.” But I can’t separate a Jew from the Jewish worship of the Jewish Messiah, either. I cannot demand that a Jew, in order to maintain faith in the Moshiach, water down or delete their Jewish identity in any aspect. 2,000 years of history have created the illusion that there must be a separation between Judaism and Jesus and sadly, that separation is being maintained, not only by traditional Judaism and traditional Christianity, but by (hold on to your hats) the One Law expression of the Messianic movement. For in removing the Oral Law and traditions, which I’ve said before have been the only things that preserved Jewish cultural and religious existence in post-Second Temple times, they have removed almost everything that comprises historic and modern Judaism, and that tells a Jew what it is to be a Jew.

(I’m not making this up. For an excellent illustration of the meaning of Oral Law, tradition, and Talmud to the Jewish lifestyle, read Rabbi Daniel Gordis’ book God Was Not in the Fire)

I know I’m going to be criticized for yet another one of my opinions, but like the proverbial baseball umpire, “I calls ’em as I sees ’em.” I continue to be grieved that my wife no longer recognizes Jesus Christ as the “hidden” Messiah who will one day be revealed to Israel, but I cannot behave toward her as have countless generations of Christians across the long march of history, and demand that she stop being Jewish, even in the smallest detail, for the sake of worshiping a Messiah most of Judaism disregards. I do however, continue to pray that this is not the end of her story or the final destination of her path, and that there is a milepost up ahead, or an unseen bend in the trail, where she will one day be reunited with the “Maggid of Natzaret.”

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion,he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” –Romans 11:25-27 (ESV)