Tag Archives: Judaism

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Dancing with God on Yom Kippur

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Dancing with GodThe Chazon Ish, zt”l, would say that one cannot learn how to learn Torah on his own. “You need to speak to those who know how to learn to get a feel for it.”

Rav Chaim Chaikel of Hamdurah, zt”l, expended great efforts to fix his soul before finally becoming a student of the Maggid of Mezritch, zt”l. He fasted many days, did various self-mortifications and even stayed up one thousand nights in a row learning Torah diligently. Nevertheless, he felt that his soul lacked completion until he met the Maggid.

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Absorbing the Flavor”
Chullin 99

As a mother and the baby she holds in her arms, as a father and child, as two in courtship or in marriage, so we are with Him. One chases, the other runs away. One runs away, the other chases. One initiates, the other responds. The other initiates, the one responds. It is a dance, a game, a duet that plays as surely as the pulse of life.

Until one falls away and becomes estranged. Then the other looks and says, “This is not an other. We are one and the same.” And so, they return to each other’s arms once again.

It is a great mystery, but in estrangement, there is found the deepest bond.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Dance with the Other”
Yom Kippur Meditations
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

I’m about four months into my current “experiment”; my expressions and self-discoveries in my “morning meditations”. I have been attempting to explore my Christianity through the lens of Judaism and have recently hit something of a speed bump. In pursuing the Journey of the Ger Toshav (you’ll have to read all three blog posts to get the full picture), I came to the realization (with some help, of course), that Christianity and Judaism are fully incompatible. I mean that in the sense that Jews consider Christians to be idol worshipers and polytheists in that (from a Jewish perspective) worship a man as “god” and worship three “gods”. Christians, for their part, see Jews as lost in a “dead, works-based, religion”, who have been abandoned by God and replaced with the church.

That’s a mess.

For my part, I see great beauty in the practices and teachings of Judaism, but all of that isn’t brought into focus without keeping Jesus as Savior, Messiah, and Lord at the heart of faith and trust.

I have been on a journey to discover two things. The first is obvious; a deeper and continuing relationship with God. The second may not have been readily apparent and is a form of community and fellowship. I left my previous community for a variety of reasons, including the desire to worship and study with my wife within her own faith context. So far that hasn’t worked out. I am, or I thought I was, positioned to enter into her realm, but if being a Christian makes my presence unacceptable in the Jewish world, then my desire will never work out.

Fog alleyOf course, I’m only four months into this journey and I have promised myself to wait a full year (barring an encounter with a complete show-stopper) before pursuing a different course in my faith. Still, sometimes the journey is dark and the fog starts to hide the path.

The Days of Awe are just made for intense self-reflection and sometimes self-doubt, it seems. As Rabbi Freeman says above, there’s this “push-pull” engagement with God that is especially acute right now, but it spills over into human relationships, too. But if I have no union with a community, can I still seek a union with God?

The desire to return is innate, but it must be awakened. The soul must first realize she is distant. Return in all its strength and passion is found, therefore, in the soul who has wandered far from her true self and then awakened to recognize she is lost. We are like the child being pushed on a swing by her father — the further our souls are thrust away, the greater the force of our return.

Rabbi Freeman
“G-d’s Fishing Net”
Yom Kippur Meditations
Chabad.org

But is the effort to “swing back” to God a dance or a fight?

As we find on today’s daf, gid hanasheh was prohibited since the time of Yaakov Avinu. It is surely interesting that the angel chose to fight specifically with Yaakov. Why don’t we find that Avraham or Yitzchak had an altercation with a heavenly representative of evil?

The Vilna Gaon, zt”l, learns a very powerful lesson from this. “Avraham Avinu was especially involved in kindness. And Yitzchak was very focused on avodas Hashem, on prayer and meditation. The first two avos were not attacked by an angel since focusing on doing good deeds or praying is not so threatening to the yetzer hara. As our sages revealed, Hashem said, ‘I created the yetzer hara and I created the Torah to temper it.’ Yaakov focused on learning Torah. It is clear that this is why he was attacked. The yetzer hara can tolerate anything else. But when it comes to learning Torah he puts up a much greater fight since only Torah is an assault upon its very existence.”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Fighting Against the Angel”
Chillun 100

GiftThat’s midrash of course, but makes a point. Anything worth having is worth fighting for, especially a relationship with God. Our human natures and human beings around us will always resist devotion to God and walking in His ways, instead taking us down into the abyss. Yet the part of us made in God’s own image creates an irresistible need to rise from the depths. It’s like taking a beach ball and pushing it underwater in a swimming pool; the further under the surface you push it, the greater the ball’s push to return to the air.

There’s a well known idiom in Hebrew that says, “Yeridah Letzorech Aliyah” meaning “descent for the sake of ascent”. With the approach of Yom Kippur and at this moment in my life, the trail has taken a downward turn. The shadows are lengthening and the air contains a freezing fog. Yet, the path must eventually turn upward again toward the sun. Perhaps then, in my pursuit of holiness and community, I’ll find myself dancing with God on Yom Kippur.

In the end, hope is the only tool that works when all other tools fail, but even hope can be a slender thread.

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Journey of the Ger Toshav: Failed Connection

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Broken connectionThe Gemara rejects this suggestion, because it is Rav himself who said that establishing an omen is only prohibited when it is done as we find with Eliezer, the servant of Avraham. When Eliezer went to find a wife for Yitzchak, he announced that the woman who would offer him and his camels water would be the one who would be the wife for Yitzchak.

Tosafos answers that according to one opinion, Eliezer was a Noachide, who was not commanded to avoid this type of conduct. And, according to the view that he was commanded to abide by it, we must say that he actually asked Rivka about her
family before making any decisions.

Daf Yomi Digest
Distinctive Insight
“Relying on omens and signs which portend the future”
Chillun 95

The non-Jewish cook is called a “kefeilah.” Rashi explains that he is a baker, while the Aruch translates this word to refer to a cook. Toras Chaim explains that according to Rashi, the reason we trust the non-Jew is that we present the question to him innocently, in a general conversation, without his realizing that we are going to be relying on his word for halachic purposes. In this case, we do not think that the non-Jew will intentionally lie, as he is not aware that we are listening to his statement for any practical purpose.

Daf Yomi Digest
Distinctive Insight
“Asking a non-Jew to taste the questionable food”
Chullin 97

(Continuing from yesterday’s Part 2 of the series: The Ger Toshav at Worship)

I read these two Dafs last week while pondering the Ger Toshav question and the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and was struck by the contrasting examples of trusted and non-trusted Gentiles from the Jewish perspective. On the one hand, we have the example of Eliezer’s relationship with Abraham. While we cannot say that Abraham was a “Jew” in the modern sense nor an “Israelite” since Jacob was not yet born and had not fathered the 12 patriarchs, he is considered the Father of Judaism and the first ethical monotheist in the line of the Jewish people.

Eliezer, though not a member of Abraham’s family, was a servant who was so trusted, that Abraham sent him back to Haran, the land of Abraham’s ancestors, to find and bring a wife back for Abraham’s son Isaac (see Genesis 24).

On the other hand, as we see in the Daf for Chullin 97, a Jew may trust a Gentile to advise him on an important manner, in this case the taste of a food item that may or may not be forbidden to the Jew, only as long as the non-Jew does not know that he is helping to decide an issue of halachah. The implication is that if the non-Jew knew how important his opinion was to the Jew, he might deliberately lie to him in order to induce him (and other Jews) to eat something forbidden.

Given the long history of enmity between Jews and Gentiles, I guess I can’t blame the Rabbis for this ruling, but it still stings a little. I would like to think there is a way to bridge the gap between Christians and Jews (Messianic and otherwise), but I can see that a rather long and bloody history is standing in my way. Could this also be the problem between Jews and Gentiles in the Messianic Jewish (MJ) community or more specifically, between the One Law (OL) faction of MJ, which is largely Gentile/Christian directed, and the Bilateral Ecclesiology (BE) faction, which is largely directed by a Jewish leadership? Is it a matter of trust, at least in part?

That could very well be. I’ve previously said that OL’s efforts to establish Gentile equality with Jews relative to being obligated to the 613 commandments is interpreted by BE as an incursion into Jewish identity and an attempt (even unintentionally) to obliterate the identity distinctions between Gentile and Jew, effectively rendering Judaism non-existent.

That could be a trust issue (I say that as an understatement).

Frankly, my investigation isn’t taking an encouraging direction. I recently discovered that it is not possible to be a Noahide and a Christian from a traditionally Jewish point of view. I’ve exchanged private communications with a Jewish gentleman (and since they are private, I won’t publish any identifying details) who is well versed about Noahides and he assures me that for many reasons, including the “polytheistic” nature of Christianity and the Jewish belief that Jesus (or at least Paul) was a “false prophet”, anyone self-identifying as a Christian could not be considered as a “righteous Gentile”.

It seems my investigation is stalled. How can I take and adapt any elements or cues regarding the relationship between Gentiles and Jews in the Messianic world from the Noahide/Jew relationship in traditional Judaism when any status of “righteousness” as a Christian is cancelled by my Christianity? That means, from a traditional Jewish point of view, I am viewed as a pagan, polytheistic, idol worshiper. I was rather hoping for more.

SeparatedIf the BE contingent in MJ is drawing its identity largely from mainstream Judaism, then how much of that sentiment is carried over into Jewish/Gentile relationships? It can’t quite be the same because both Jews and Gentiles in MJ confess Jesus (Yeshua, within this context) as the Jewish Messiah and that salvation comes through the “living Word.” The question of monotheism is still a thorny one, but I won’t address it as part of this series. Since “righteousness” of all members of the Messianic world must come from the Messiah, then its Gentile members cannot be faulted for having the same faith in Jesus as the Jewish members.

Extending that into the world in which I live, those Jewish members of MJ/BE must also, at least at a very basic level, accept my faith since we both recognize Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and we both are brought before the throne of God through the sacrifice of Christ.

But saying that, I’m no closer to an answer to this puzzling set of queries now than I was when I first conceived this series. I’m also at a loss as to how to proceed and must admit that the series, barring any further developments, is closed.

With the days of teshuvah almost elapsed and the approach of Yom Kippur coming rapidly upon us, I can only throw myself before the mercy of God and let Him deal with His creations. How disappointed in us He must be.

I wonder when I’ll learn that the barriers are firmly in place, humanity in its different groups, including Jew and Gentile, are established as we are, and divided we will be until God unites us all again at the end of all things.

It’s not all bad. At least I learned that BS”D is the Aramaic phrase “B’Sayata Di’shamaya,” which means “With the help of Heaven.”

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The Ger Toshav at Worship

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Yom Kippur prayersHere’s a brief but significant addendum to my first blog post on the Journey of the Ger Toshav. I’ve been surfing the Ask Noah forums which are specifically for Noahides to ask questions regarding their status relative to Judaism. I found the following in the thread Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur as posted by one of the Rabbis moderating the forums:

As a Noahide, here are some guidelines for the Jewish Biblical festivals:

  1. In general, do not specifically intend to be observing any of the Jewish restrictions on activities during the festivals. You can continue your normal types of activities that would be forbidden for Jews (using electricity, driving, writing, etc.)
  2. Do not say a benediction of sanctifying the festival day (i.e. saying “kiddush” at a meal).
  3. Do not actively perform any of the special Jewish festival commandments with the intention that you are observing a Divine commandment (e.g. blowing a ram’s horn on Rosh HaShanah, fasting on Yom Kippur).
  4. In the synagogue, do not get called up to the Torah scroll during the public reading.
  5. A Gentile can’t be counted in the minimum of 10 Jewish men who are needed for a communal prayer-service quorum (a minyan).
  6. You can follow along in the Orthodox Jewish prayer book during the services, but don’t recite those parts that apply exclusively to Jews. Gentiles may bow down to the floor in prayer while the congregation does so during the Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur services.
  7. Don’t forget to turn off your cell phone or pager during the synagogue prayer services.
  8. If attending a synagogue service, a Gentile women should dress modestly. And for respect of the congregation, a man should wear a hat or a yarmulke (Jewish skull cap).

It makes perfect sense for a Noahide and a Christian attending a synagogue service to comply with all of these restrictions, but in the Messianic Jewish (MJ) world, it becomes a little confusing. As I mentioned in the previous blog post of this series, how One Law (OL) proponents in MJ and those that support Bilateral Ecclesiology (BE) see this issue is the difference between day and night. BE, of course, would be in complete agreement with the Ask Noah forums perspective, which is the traditional Jewish point of view, and OL would state that Gentile “Messianics” should have every right to participate in the same activities as the Jewish attendees in the synagogue.

Frankly, I can’t see myself as a Christian married to a Jewish wife trying to put on a tallit and expecting an Aliyah, nor would I attempt to join a minyan during the High Holidays or at any other time. In a traditional synagogue, a Gentile performing these behaviors would be considered deeply offensive.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that this series of blogs is an attempt to see if Christians can define their roles in relation to Jews (including Jews in the Messianic community) through how Jews view the status of Noahides. I know that a Noahide would be considered equivalent to the God-fearers in the day of Peter and Paul (see the example of Cornelius in Acts 10) and this group of Gentiles did not have a covenant status with God that allowed them equal access to the Most High. Confessing Jesus as Lord and Messiah and accepting the Messianic covenant does give Gentiles this access, but I still don’t see how it makes a Christian different from a Noahide (can you be a Noahide and a Christian from a traditional Jewish viewpoint?) as far as the eight points I quoted above are concerned.

Obviously, I’m aiming this blog post at the MJ community and all of its factions for a response. So far, my wee investigation does seem to indicate that Christians can learn from the Ger Toshav, at least a little.

Next and possibly last in this series: Failed Connection.

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Journey of the Ger Toshav: First Step

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JourneyTosafos discusses how to understand how Eliezer, the trusted and faithful servant of Avraham Avinu, conducted himself in a questionable manner by letting an omen determine such a critical matter. The Gemara seems to say that he was in violation of the Torah’s law not to rely upon omens (Vayikra 19:26). Tosafos answers that according to one opinion, Eliezer was a Noachide, who was not commanded to avoid this type of conduct. And, according to the view that he was commanded to abide by it, we must say that he actually asked Rivka about her family before making any decisions.

Daf Yomi Digest
Distinctive Insight
“Relying on omens and signs which portend the future”
Chullin 95

And the 126th prohibition is that we are forbidden from feed­ing meat from the Pesach offering to [any non-Jew, even] a ger toshav.

Translated by Rabbi Berel Bell
Sefer Hamitzvot
“A Gentile Eating of the Paschal Offering”
Negative Commandment 126
Chabad.org

I’ve been trying to understand the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and how we are connected to God (and perhaps even to each other). This has been a recurring theme in my blogs for well over a year and I suspect I’ll never come to a final conclusion, but something in me refuses to let it go.

Between Christianity and Judaism, we like to think we have our roles all figured out. The Jews have Moses and the Christians have Jesus. Everybody else, well…they’re everybody else. The Jews believe that any non-Jew who adheres to the Seven Laws of Noah (see Genesis 9 for the source) is a “righteous Gentile” or Ger Toshav and merits a place in the world to come. This may well be true of the Gentile, regardless of what other traditions or religious practices the Ger Toshav follows. Christianity believes that a person must become a Christian in order to be saved and that there are no other alternatives (John 14:6).

While the Jewish perspective does not discount a Christian being a righteous Gentile (although worship of Jesus as God may rule that out, since it amounts to idol worship and polytheism), a Christian will absolutely not believe that anyone can come to God the Father except by accepting the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Period.

What surprises me is that, if the Old Testament record clearly points to Jesus as the Messiah, why does Judaism just “miss it?” Israel was the keeper of the Holy Scriptures and the only nation on Earth to worship the One and Unique God thousands of years before the concept of Christianity came into being. While Moses and the Children of Israel were standing before God at Sinai and accepting Him as their God, the ancestors of every Christian on Earth were worshiping pagan idols of wood and stone, and some were passing their own children through the flames of their false gods in (supposed) exchange for a good harvest.

There’s another wrinkle.

While traditional Christianity and Judaism have a more or less clear idea of who they are and what their roles are in relation to God and the Bible, there is a third group, rather small by comparison, but growing, which is called Messianic Judaism (MJ). Even within this group, there are a number of factions which have different and sometimes contradictory beliefs. I won’t go into a lot of detail, but the two primary groups are (for lack of better terms) One Law (OL) and Bilateral Ecclesiology (BE).

(Please keep in mind that these aren’t particularly formal groups, but in order to understand the concepts and positions, I need to assign some sort of labels to said-positions).

One Law is a movement within MJ that is made up primarily of non-Jewish Christians and Jews who come from a Christian background. This group states that Jesus never did away with the Law and that, when Gentiles are grafted into the root of Israel (Romans 11), they too become obligated to the exact same 613 commandments (as opposed to the 7 Noahide Laws) as the Jewish people. A major caveat in OL, is that this “Jewish” lifestyle is minus any directives from the Talmud, which they see as without authority and merely the opinions of men.

Bilateral Ecclesiology, a term coined in Mark Kinzer’s book Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People, posits that there are clear boundaries between the obligations and responsibilities of Christian Gentiles and Jews, even those Jews who have come to faith in Jesus (“Yeshua” is used as the preferred Hebrew name of Christ by both groups). BE supporters consider that a non-Jew insisting upon being “obligated” to all of the Torah commandments is blurring if not disintegrating the line between Jews and Gentiles and making meaningless what it is to be a Jew. From their perspective. OL effectively makes Messianic Jews and Christians one indistinct “blob”, where you can’t tell where a Jew leaves off and where a Christian begins.

The debate between the two groups can get rather heated on occasion, as you can see in the comments at Judah Himango’s blog, for example (please note that I’m just using this as an example. I like Judah and this is not a criticism of him or his blog). Here’s a sample of one of the comment’s in question (I like the commenter, too and am quoting him just to illustrate the point, not to be critical):

Where Scriptures makes distinction between men and women, priests, etc. There is no mentions whatsoever for Jew and Gentile distinctions as far as keeping Torah is concerned. Even your beloved “scholars at FFOZ only come up with one, only one verse where they have to twist it in order to sustain their agenda, and you drink the kool-aid….

One Law bases its assumption upon the following:

The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living among you. –Exodus 12:49

You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born. I am the LORD your God. –Leviticus 24:22

One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether he is a native-born Israelite or an alien. –Numbers 15:29

Mount SinaiMy opinion is that these scriptures are completely irrelevant to the One Law position since the “aliens” being referred to in these verses are non-Jews who attached themselves to the God of Israel, joined with the Israelites as a people, and eventually were absorbed into that population. They started out as Ger Toshav and their ancestors did not retain their non-Jewish identity but essentially “converted” to Judaism. It would be impossible to apply this set of examples to a group of non-Jewish “Messianic” believers today who want to be as equally obligated to the Torah as the Jewish people but all the while, retaining their Gentile identity and only living a partial Jewish lifestyle (one that disregards Talmudic interpretation of the written Torah).

Groups that hold to a “Bilateral Ecclesiology” framework (I don’t think Kinzer ever intended to make a theology out of BE), while maintaining a rather large Gentile Christian following, are led by a core group of Jewish Rabbis (Rabbi as defined within their own context) who support Messianic Judaism for Jews, including a completely Jewish religious lifestyle (Talmud included). They see the Acts 15 letter as the defining pronouncement by James and the Jerusalem Council, those Jews who held the mantle of authority over the “Messianic” movement after the ascension of Christ. The letter clearly defines limits upon the obligation of the Gentile believers in relation to the Torah of Moses. The letter doesn’t completely illustrate those limits, since Jesus taught outside their scope, but nothing in the teachings of Christ specifically commands that Gentiles become wholly absorbed into the Jewish nation.

Further, Paul, in the book of Galatians, goes to great efforts to discourage the Gentile Christians from converting to Judaism, for in converting, the Gentile Christian would then become fully obligated to obey all of the Torah (Galatians 5:3). That would be a crazy statement to make if the Gentile Christians were already fully obligated, as OL suggests. (D. Thomas Lancaster recently wrote The Holy Epistle to the Galatians, in which he illustrates how to understand Paul’s letter as teaching this distinction.)

To recap, traditional Judaism and Christianity both see their roles as very clear within their own groups and in relation to each other. Jews believe the Torah is only for the Jews and Gentiles, including Christians, are not obligated to it and are, in many cases, forbidden to adhere to its instructions. Non-Jews may only come before God when accepting the obligation of the Seven Noahide Laws and becoming Ger Toshav, and there is no need to convert to Judaism. Christians believe that the Law was wholly replaced by the Grace of Christ (for Jews and Gentiles) and that anyone, even a Jew, must convert to Christianity to have right standing before God. The Christian covenant completely replaces the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants in their eyes.

In other words, Jews aren’t trying to co-opt Christians and Christians aren’t trying to co-opt Jews. They are separate communities with few if any bridges across the gap.

Messianic Judaism muddies the waters of that gap considerably and is still trying to define who they are and who Jews and Gentile Christians are in relation to each other, to the Torah, and to God.

But what about the Ger Toshav? I previously addressed the differences between the Noahide and the Christian in a pair of blog posts: The Sons of Noah and Children of God. Nevertheless, I believe that the clues to how Messianic Jews and Gentile Christians are supposed to relate to each other, to the Torah, and to God may be found in the more traditional understanding by Judaism of the Ger Toshav (and I’m deliberately sacrificing sure footing for the sake to my journey in pursuing the Ger Toshav).

What started this line of thinking for me was Rabbi Bell’s translated statement, “…is that we are forbidden from feeding meat from the Pesach offering to [any non-Jew, even] a ger toshav“. It never occurred to me that a Noahide would have had a special status in relation to Passover and the other festivals in the ancient community of Israel, but that was a logical outcome of the “one law for the native and the alien” statements during the forty years of wandering.

Going to GodIn Messianic Judaism, One Law accuses Bilateral Ecclesiology of denying Gentile Messianics (Christians) access to the same benefits of Torah living as the Jews and, by inference, treating Christians as if they/we were any other Gentile group. BE states that Gentile faith in the Jewish Messiah does make a difference, but that difference is largely in the areas of moral and spiritual behavior and does not include Jewish identity markers (wearing tzitzit, laying tefillin, keeping Kosher, observing the Shabbat). Traditional Judaism, while not recognizing a special status among Christian Gentiles relative to other non-Jews, does believe there is a difference in expectation between the general population of the world and those Gentiles who accept the mantle of Ger Toshav.

(Just to be clear, traditional Judaism sees all factions of Messianic Judaism as Christians; “Jews for Jesus”. Traditional Christianity sees Messianic Judaism as a group of Judaizers who are “under the law”. Like I said, the waters are muddy)

Eliezer was considered a Noahide, a righteous Gentile, a Ger Toshav and the most trusted of the household of Abraham. He was empowered to select a bride for Isaac, the son of the promise, who would father Jacob and continue a line that would lead to the patriarchs, the twelve tribes of Israel, and ultimately, the Messiah himself. Yet Maimonides considered even a Ger Toshav as forbidden from eating of the Passover sacrifice. Who is the Ger Toshav and can we take any understanding away from who he is and who we are in Christ, especially as we attempt to relate to our Messianic Jewish brothers?

What does it all mean and can any conclusions be drawn from this rather confused mess? That’s what I’m going to try to find out in my next blog.

For now, I remain a Christian at the gates of the Temple of God.

Part two of this series is The Ger Toshav at Worship.

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A Voice of Silence

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Infinite darknessAllow me to relate a story a friend of mine tells about one of his early childhood experiences. This is how he relates the event:

“When I was about four years old, I awoke from my nap one day, ventured out of my room, and walked through the house. No one was there. I tentatively called out for my mother, but there was no reply. Slowly, a realization dawned on my little mind: ‘It’s finally happened. My parents have abandoned me…’

“I raced to the phone on the kitchen wall and dialed the operator. ‘That’s it,’ I told her, between sobs, ‘my parents are gone; I’m all alone now.’ The operator stayed on the phone with me until, sure enough, my mother did come home. She had slipped out for a few minutes to pick up some milk. It was, however, an experience I shall never forget.”

Now, if you will, perform a little mental exercise. Imagine for a moment that you are four years old. Your parents are everything to you. Consider the terror you would feel thinking they have abandoned you, leaving you to somehow manage life on your own. Of course, as an adult, you know that this would never happen. However, as a child, you would not have known this. The threat would have seemed real. How does that terror feel?

-David Fohrman
“Holy Days: A Relationship with God”
Torah.org

So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. –I Kings 19:11-12 (NASB)

In his book God in Search of Man (page 186), Abraham Joshua Heschel says the words translated as “a sound of a gentle blowing” (more commonly translated as “a small, still voice”) in Hebrew are literally “a voice of silence”. It was as if Elijah heard something and yet nothing at all. Does “silence” make a sound?

We know from the larger narrative in I Kings that Elijah felt very much alone and abandoned, and that he expected to die, either by the hand of his pursuers or by God’s. Like David Fohrman’s “abandoned” four-year old, how many of us feel abandoned and alone because we think God has left us and because of God’s “voice of silence”?

In Judaism it is believed that God opens the Book of life on Rosh Hashanah and closes it again at the end of Yom Kippur. Between those two events, there are ten days of teshuvah; ten days in which a Jew still has time to turn from his sins, abandon them completely, throw himself at the feet of God, and beg that his name be inscribed in the Book for another year. Right now, we are in the middle of those ten days.

But how would he know? Unless God explicitly reveals to the person that his name has been written in the Book of Life, how would he know, except for the fact that day by day, he doesn’t die? Where is the voice of God when call to Him and ask, “Have You written me in the Book?”

If you are a Christian, you probably think such concerns are ridiculous or at least misplaced. You’ve been taught that once you were saved when you initially accepted Jesus, your salvation was secure and your place in Heaven was carved in stone. Of course, none of that means you can’t die at any second or that you don’t carry some burden of sins from one day to the next. Christians tend to take salvation for granted and even get a little lazy in their “Christian walk” from time to time (Christian blogger Antwuan Malone commented on this a few days ago).

How do we know when we’re forgiven? How does God reveal this to us? Do we even understand when He is speaking? For that matter, how did the great prophets of old such as Moses know when God was speaking? It certainly seemed a mysterious process to Elijah. Was it also a mystery at Sinai?

“It is very difficult to have a true conception of the events at Sinai, for there has never been before nor will there ever be again anything like it.” (Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, Book II, ch. 33) “We believe,” says Maimonides, “that the Torah has reached Moses from God in a manner which is described in Scripture figuratively by the term ‘word,’ and that nobody has ever known how that took place except Moses himself to whom that word reached. -Heschel, pg 185

We may sometimes feel absolutely certain we have heard from God, but articulating that experience to others is almost impossible, probably for the same reasons Heschel believes that we will never understand the experience of Moses at Sinai or at the burning bush. He goes on to say (pg 185):

This is why all the Bible does is to state that revelation happened; how it happened is something they could only convey in words that are evocative and suggestive.

Stand aloneHeschel shoots down the hopes and dreams of many Bible literalists by stating that the “surest way of misunderstanding revelation is to take it literally” (pg 178) and that we do not give the Bible or God what is owed by interpreting the words literally because we almost always impart an understanding that “would be a partial, shallow understanding; because the literal meaning is but a minimum of meaning.” In other words, the Prophets, and the Apostles most likely didn’t exaggerate their claims but simply described the ineffable experience of God within the inadequate limits of human language. God, after all, is so much more than what the Bible could possibly contain.

Meanwhile, here we are, trapped in the ten days of teshuvah and waiting for the silent and elusive voice of God. Here we are, trapped on Earth in a mortal life, struggling with sin, hardship, and sometimes tragedy, begging for God to answer our cries, pleading with Him not to leave us alone and defenseless in a harsh and cold universe. What Jews experience within the ten days, should be what rest of us experience in the course of our lives:

Herein lies a connection to the above concepts. Our Sages describe the days preceding Yom Kippur with the verse: “Seek G-d while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” At this time, everyone has the potential to feel close to G-d, and therefore the Arizal says: “If a person does not cry during the Ten Days of Teshuvah, his soul is not complete.” Reading Parshas Haazinu before Yom Kippur highlights the fact that each of us is “close to the heavens.”

-Rabbi Eli Touger
“Close to the Heavens”
Adapted from
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. I, p. 415;
Vol. IX, p. 204; Vol. XX, p. 266
Chabad.org

Faith is believing God is near when we cannot perceive Him. Faith is knowing that God is speaking even when we can hear only a complete and total silence. Faith is a four-year old waking up from a nap, finding himself home alone, but knowing his mother will be right back. But like a four-year old home alone, crying for his mother and hearing no reply, how can we help but believe that we really have been abandoned, even when faith tells us we’re not? Even if we experience an unexplanable “something”, how do we know it is God except that faith guides us to believe?

The word of God is not just information and it is not just comfort, it is the very air we breathe and the very food that sustains us:

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” –Matthew 4:4 (Deut. 8:3)

In the absence of the words of God, we are not only alone and terrified, but we are starving and gasping for our last breath!

The revelation of God is a paradox. He is near because His Word is near, but He is also a God with a voice that is silence and who dwells in unknowable darkness.

The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad;
let the distant shores rejoice.
Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. –Psalm 97:1-2

God made Himself known to the Children of Israel violently and in raging fire at Sinai (Exodus 19:18; Deuteronomy 4:11) yet spoke in less than a whisper to Elijah and somehow, He speaks to us, though we may not ever hear Him.

“Every intelligent person knows” that when the Bible asserts that the people saw and heard the voice at Sinai, it does not refer to a “perception by the eye” or “a perception of the ear,” but to a spiritual perception. -Heschel pg 188

A man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. –1 Corinthians 2:14

HopeThe only way we can experience God is through His Spirit for without it, we are blind and deaf, though God may be “shouting”. In the ten days of teshuvah, Jews stand apart from the din of the world and listen for the “small, still voice,” straining to hear God speaking while He turns the pages of the Book of Life. We shudder in fear and awe at any sound that may be Him writing our name into that Book. Even a Christian knows that there will be a day of reckoning when the Book will be opened and then closed one final time and our fate will be sealed within. A Jew does not take for granted that all is secure, even though he may pray three times daily while facing Holy Jerusalem. While we believers are certain of the grace of Christ, why should our confidence turn into arrogant presumption? Let us also tremble before God, for we cannot know ourselves and our lives as He knows us. And we cannot know Him as He knows Himself.

Christianity has no time in its calendar like the Days of Awe. Not even the passion of Easter approachs it; when man and God become almost inseparably close, though for man, it still feels as if the expansive gulf of the universe stands between us and Him. God will never abandon us, but we can be far from Him. Imagine you had only ten days to somehow bridge the immense gap between human beings and the Divine. Impossible? Do you feel the terror welling up inside of you at the prospect? What will you do? Where will you look? How will you know when God is close? What will His voice “sound” like?

We must look, but not with our eyes. We must listen, but not with our ears. We must reach out, but not with our hands.

He is speaking. But His voice is silent and His light shines in unbroken darkness.

Reach for hope. He is coming.

Even now – the word of Hashem – return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with lamentation. Rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to Hashem your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and He relents of evil. Whoever knows, let him repent and regret. and it will leave a blessing behind it, for meal-offering and libation to Hashem your God. –Joel 2:12-14 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

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God Have Mercy!

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PleadIsn’t this strange, that a created being should take part in its own creation? Can a caricature hold the pencil in his artist’s hand? Can the characters of your own story edit your words? Can the figments of your own imagination tell you what to imagine?

Yet here we are, created beings pleading with our Creator, “Grant us life! Good life! Nice things! Be out there, in the open! Get more involved with your world!” Here we are, in the inner chamber of the Cosmic Mind, where it is determined whether we should be or not be, participating in that decision.

We are created beings, yet there is something of us that lies beyond creation.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Pleading to Exist”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Earlier this week, I talked about how we are like plants in a garden that must cooperate with the gardener for our existence and well-being. Yesterday, I commented that we act as co-creators with God of the “rebooted” universe on Rosh Hashanah. In the words quoted from Rabbi Freeman above, we see that we are indeed unique created beings in that we participate in our own creation and continued development. We are the painting and God is the artist, but both God and man have their hands on the paints and brush. Yet, do we dare contend with God?

But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? –Romans 9:20-21

Of course, God has the final say, as one of these men understood:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” –Luke 18:9-14

Apparently, this is a lesson that the tax-collector knew all too well, but not so the Pharisee. The tax-collector wasn’t just asking God for goodness and favors, he was pleading for his very life. By comparison, the Pharisee was very confident in the status of his life and his relationship with God, but according to the Master, his confidence was very foolish. The Pharisee was depending only on his outward appearance and behaviors and assumed that if other people were impressed, God would be impressed, too. Not so.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. –Matthew 23:25-28

PrayingI’m not inditing all of the Pharisees and I don’t believe Jesus was either (consider Nicodemus), but he was declaring that many people in positions of religious authority were being hypocritical by behaving as if they were obeying God and harboring “hypocrisy and wickedness” inside.

It’s the same with us. Not only should we take the opportunity afforded by Rosh Hashanah to examine what we are doing, but what we have inside our hearts. Do we say we love our fellow man but curse him behind his back? Do we claim devotion to God but still deliberately sin in secret?

At sundown tonight, Rosh Hashanah begins and continues for two days. Like a certain tax collector, let us beg for God’s forgiveness, let us plead for a life with great dedication to God in the New Year ahead.

For the holiday, I won’t be submitting meditations on Thursday and Friday and because Shabbat begins when Rosh Hashanah ends, my next blog will be on Sunday morning.

L’shanah tovah tikatev v’taihatem. May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.