Tag Archives: Judaism

FFOZ TV Review: Messiah

July 3, 2013 James Pyles 13 Comments

Episode 02: The term Christ is one of the most important terms in all of Scripture and yet is seldom fully understood by followers of Jesus. In episode two we will explore the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures and learn about the Jewish people’s expectation of the coming messiah. We will study the Hebrew Scriptures and learn that they speak of a coming anointed one, a king who will come to redeem mankind, defeat Israel’s enemies, and set up his kingdom.

The Lesson: What Does Messiah Mean?

In Episode 2: Messiah, the First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) television series A Promise of What is to Come takes the audience through what to me was like “The Name of Christ 101.” I don’t mean to be flippant or disrespectful in saying it that way, but I guess I didn’t realize that there were so many Christians in the world today who still labor under a lack of comprehension of the meaning of the title “Christ”.

FFOZ teacher and narrator Toby Janicki starts off this episode correcting what most of us probably believed as children, if we were believers as children, that “Christ” is not simply the last name of Jesus. It’s a title and more than that, probably the most important concept in the Bible, particularly to the Jewish people. It not only tells us what Jesus did but what he is going to do.

Let’s look at two ways we can view Peter’s revelation that Jesus is “the Christ.”

And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”

–Mark 8:29 (ESV)

He asked them, saying, “And you, what do you say about me — who am I?” Petros answered and said to him, “You are the Mashiach!”

–Markos 8:29 (DHE Gospels)

By reading this verse using two different translations, Toby illustrates how the declaration of Peter can be viewed in two quite different ways. I find it interesting that Toby used the ESV translation, since in my Pastor’s opinion, it is actually one that promotes more of a supersessionistic or replacement theology viewpoint. Obviously, the Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels are designed to “retro-translate” the Greek into Hebrew and then translate that Hebrew forward into English to give the reader a more Jewish context for understanding the gospel message.

As in other episodes, information is cast as a mystery and we are provided with three clues in order to solve the mystery. Today, we confront the Mystery of Christ.

Toby uses John 1:41 and especially the text, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ) in order to show us the relationship or equivalency between the English words “Messiah” and “Christ.” This text was written for the sake of what John anticipated was a mixed Jewish and non-Jewish audience but as Toby points out, the original readers of this gospel weren’t provided with a definition of the term “Messiah.” That means the Jewish people involved, including Andrew and Simon Peter, already knew what “Messiah” meant. Yeshua (Jesus) did not invent a new role, “the Christ” but came to fulfill a pre-existing role: “Messiah.”

This gives us Clue 1:

The Title “Christ” was not new.

The scene shifts to Aaron Eby in Israel who provides the audience with a language lesson about the meaning of “Messiah” or rather, the Hebrew word “Moshiach.” He tells us that the Hebrew word “Mashach” means “to smear with oil.” We have examples in the Old Testament of both Kings and High Priests being inaugurated into office by literally having oil poured or smeared all over them.

For instance:

Then Samuel took the flask of oil, poured it on his head, kissed him and said, “Has not the Lord anointed you a ruler over His inheritance?

–1 Samuel 10:1 (NASB)

So he said to his men, “Far be it from me because of the Lord that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord’s anointed.”

–1 Samuel 24:6 (NASB)

The “one who is anointed” or “anointed one” is “Moshiach” in Hebrew. When this Hebrew word had to be translated into Greek, the Greek word for “smeared with oil” was used, “Christos.” When the Greek was translated into English, rather than render it as “anointed one” or even “Messiah,” translators created a brand new word in English: “Christ.”

The scene returns to Toby for the rest of the message and we arrive at the final two clues.

Clue 2:

Messiah = Anointed One

And Clue 3:

Old Testament prophesies talk about the anointed one.

No one in the days of Jesus had to define what “Messiah” meant because every Jewish person already knew.

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

–John 1:45 (NASB)

Messiah had been written about in the Torah of Moses and in the Prophets. Toby provides some key texts citing an anointed King such as David or Solomon and linking them to the anointed King: Messiah. He also reminds us of the two roles that Messiah fulfills, being both King, which we have already seen, and High Priest:

He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

–Hebrews 5:9-10 (NASB)

In addition to quoting from Psalm 2 and Psalm 132, Toby relates the Messianic prophesies from Daniel 9:25, where we learn that Messiah will come to rebuild the ruins of Jerusalem, and Isaiah 61:1-3 where Messiah speaks in his own voice through the prophet. This is also the scroll that Jesus read in the synagogue as he declared himself as Moshiach before his people.

The scroll of Yeshayah the Prophet was given to him, and he opened the scroll and found the place where it is written:

The spirit of HaShem is upon me in order to anoint me to bring good news to the humble. He has sent me to care for the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the exiles, and for the blind an opening release … to send the oppressed away free … to proclaim a year of favor for HaShem.

When he rolled up the scroll, returned it to the chazzan, and sat, the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were focused on him. He began saying to them, “Today this passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

–Lukas 4:17-21 (DHE Gospels)

But all is not fulfilled. The Messiah came once but, as we saw in the previous episode The Good News, the Messiah has yet to establish Israel as the head of all nations, redeem her people, and bring peace to Israel and the nations.

As we Christians wait for his return, Jews all over the world wait also for Messiah, as it is said:

I believe with great faith in the coming of Messiah, and even though he may delay, nevertheless, I still believe every day that he will come.

–the twelfth declaration of faith

Maimonides, also known as the Rambam, wrote that declaration over a thousand years ago, and still Jews all over the world await the Messiah in great and perfect faith.

And so do we.

What Did I Learn?

Not to put too fine a point on it, I have heard most or all of this information about the meaning of “Christ” and “Moshiach” before. I guess you don’t have to spend too much time in the Hebrew Roots or Messianic movements before the subject comes up. Also, I believe this information is (or should be) largely available in most churches.

If I learned anything new, it was that, by creating this specific episode, the content planners at FFOZ must believe that this is new and valuable information for a traditionally Christian television audience. If that’s the case, then many Christians must have a great need for even the most basic information about the “Jewish Jesus” or Yeshua HaMoshiach.

If you found this message about the true meaning of the title “Christ” interesting and illuminating, I highly encourage you to watch the complete episode and all of the other episodes available at tv.ffoz.org. It is First Fruits of Zion: A promise of what is to come.

I hope to review the next episode very soon.

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DOMA, Prop 8, and a Guy Named Moshe

June 30, 2013 James Pyles 19 Comments

Growing up in an ultra-Orthodox family in Brooklyn in the 1970s, Moshe struggled with his homosexuality. “I went to yeshiva and there were no gay characters on television,” said Moshe, who asked that we not use his real name. There was no discussion of gay issues at the yeshiva, either, he remembers: Everyone was implicitly taught that the only way to channel their sexuality was to get married—to women, of course. At 22, Moshe did just that, hoping he could “marry the gay away.” “We dated for 12 days,” he recalled. That was in 1994, before the popular advent of the Internet. At the time, Moshe didn’t realize there were other Orthodox men grappling with their sexuality, too.

-Michael Orbach
“For LGBT Orthodox Jews, Growth of Social Media Creates a Safe Space Online”
Tablet Magazine

I would be remiss if I ignored the historic happenings of today. That is, that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) struck down both Prop 8 and a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This is huge. Finally, the “land of the free” is beginning to honestly recognize a neglected portion of its population. We are at a time when 12 states within the nation allow for same sex marriage and more are following suit. (Except for my state, Indiana, with its regressive HJR-6.) The ruling that section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional is a step in the right direction for everyone. Hello, 21st century! While the whole thing needs to be scrapped, at least it allows all citizens who are legally married to be recognized at the federal level.

One big reason I left Christianity was its position on LGBT rights. I plan to write more about this in my post about my spiritual journey to Judaism, however I am going to bring it up here because, well, it is a big deal for me.

-Lynn
“Historic Day for America”
FollowingRuth.com

I’ve been debating on whether or not to even speak to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that relate to the LGBT community and what has been called “marriage equality.” This isn’t the first time I’ve blogged on the intersection (or collision) between faith and homosexuality but I seem to do so sparingly (which I’m sure is a good thing).

I actually started to blog on the Supreme Court’s decision and it’s impact last week, but finally decided against publishing my comments and, uncharacteristically for me, deleted the entire blog post. However, I subsequently read Michael Orbach’s missive at Tablet and it took the hoopla, liberal marketing spin, and mainstream news media hype out of the equation and presented instead a human face full of human pain.

At least as far as the Torah goes, homosexual acts between two men in the covenant are prohibited (the section I emphasized is important) while Torah seems to be silent on sexual acts between two women (Torah has more to say about prohibiting sex between a man and an animal or between various relatives).

The New Testament relates prohibitions against sexual immorality, but some say it’s up to interpretation to determine if this includes sexual acts between two men or not (but they may not have read 1 Corinthians 6:9 along with other such verses). Given that what we call “morality” in the Bible tends to survive intact between the testaments, I’m willing to accept that if the prohibition of sexual contact between two men under covenant is valid in the Old Testament, it’s valid in the New.

I know what you’re going to say. Eating pork and shellfish is prohibited in the Old Testament of the Children of Israel, but it presents no problem at all for Christians. In addition, more liberal elements of both Christianity and Judaism have chosen to reinterpret and reapply older sections of the Bible to mean now what they didn’t seem to mean previously.

But I always get a creepy feeling when churches and synagogues do this, as if those communities are made up of people who don’t really want to give up “religion” but don’t want to appear contrary to the social imperatives of the 21st century either. The “safe” bet is to turn down the Biblical rhetoric and to rev up political correctness. Then everybody’s happy, right?

I’ve spoken before on the question of just how far we can stretch hermeneutics to accommodate human needs and frankly, human wants and emotions. Any Biblical purest would rein in such hermeneutics considerably, but while I’m conservative, I’m not entirely rigid.

If we must maintain a prohibition against same-sex sex within Christianity and Judaism, let us admit that it is within Christianity and Judaism. We can’t hang our morals around the necks of those people who choose not to join those religious traditions, and having said that, we don’t generally complain about men and women living together and having children without the parents being married, Christians don’t complain about unbelievers who choose to mow their lawns and go shopping on Sunday (although many Christians choose to mow their lawns and go shopping on Sunday as well), and observant Jews don’t complain if the goyim choose to enjoy a big, hot, steaming plate of scrimp scampi or devour a (pork) pepperoni, (pork) sausage, and cheese pizza (mixing meat and dairy along the way).

But Christianity and Judaism tend to go out of their way to hold homosexual acts as a special sin that somehow is more “icky” than opposite sex unmarried sex or just about any other sin we can think of.

But what about “Moshe” (not his real name) who is an Orthodox Jew and who has struggled with his homosexuality most of his life?

The Episcopalian church and the Reform synagogue would have no problem with a gay person being in their midst, being openly gay, being in a relationship with another gay person, and worshiping within their communities. Moshe would find a home within Reform Judaism, but Moshe is Orthodox. His life would be a lot easier if he chose a different religious path (or no religious path at all), but as far as I can tell from the article, that is not who he is.

Gays may be celebrating in San Francisco and in Hollywood, but not in Crown Heights (Brooklyn). The Tablet article states that the Internet has provided a semi-safe haven for Orthodox Jews to discuss their homosexuality, but for Moshe, that wasn’t enough.

Surprisingly, the outing wasn’t as bad as Moshe feared. While there was a backlash, it was nowhere near what he had expected. He doesn’t physically live in that community anymore, but he still considers himself Orthodox. When he returns to visit, Moshe said, he’s greeted with kindness and respect. “What ended up happening is I broke the stereotype,” he said. “People started seeing me as Moshe who happens to be gay, not as the homosexuality defining me. … I feel honest. I feel whole. I feel like I’m done hiding who I am.”

I suppose that’s why I’m writing this now. Moshe (who happens to be gay) has a human face. He’s not a monster. He’s not evil (depending on your point of view, I suppose). He’s a person, just like you and I are people.

And Moshe isn’t an anomaly in his environment.

At last count, there are several Orthodox LGBT support groups with an online presence, in addition to Keshet, including Eshel, which was started by a collaborative effort that included Rabbi Steve Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi; the Dina Listserv for Orthodox and formerly Orthodox transsexuals; Tirzah: a community of Frum Queer Women; and Temicha, an online support group for Orthodox Jewish parents of gay children. There are countless blogs, from teens writing about their experiences being openly gay inside a Modern Orthodox environment, and a blog from an openly gay Orthodox man living in the Syrian Jewish community, the melancholy It’s Like Disapproving of Rain blog, to an Orthodox teenager writing about her life with gay parents. A quick search on Facebook with the words “Jewish” and “gay” will lead to several pages, from a gay pride minyan on the Upper West Side to small group called Orthodox Jews Against Homophobia.

Um…wow.

One of my sons has two close friends who he’s known from childhood who are gay. I’ve had next door neighbors in my suburban community in southwestern Idaho who are gay. People of faith, like it or not, encounter gay men and women, perhaps every day. We can’t keep treating them as if they are walking, talking sin. We can’t keep treating them as if they are not human beings. We can’t keep treating them as if they weren’t created in the image of God.

We live in a nation of laws. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted a portion of the constitution to mean that within particular contexts, men married to men and women married to women have certain rights. The State of California is very likely to join twelve other states in our union in offering same-sex couples the opportunity to marry under state law. But while gay couples in California start making wedding plans and while the married spouse of a same-sex partner who works for the Federal government is arranging to be put on his or her spouse’s medical insurance plan, what are we planning to do in the church…if anything?

Or should we be planning to do anything at all?

The apostle Paul spent a great deal of his time crisscrossing various portions of the Roman empire, which was a legal structure that permitted or commanded a wide variety of activities that violated his personal and corporate ethical and moral code. Did Paul arrange protests in Rome to demand that the empire change their laws? Did he make homosexual activities between non-believing Romans and Greeks the main focus of his letters or his preaching?

We don’t see any of this. It is true that he focused much of his time on what he saw as immoral actions within the community of faith. I think that’s as far as we get to go as religious people, but having said that, it would mean the Orthodox Jewish community does have rights to hold members of that community to certain behavioral standards, just the same as the church, and just the same a Paul held his churches to the standards he considered right and proper as a disciple of Jesus.

But to the degree that Paul didn’t try to lead a revolution to change the laws of Rome relative to homosexual behavior or anything else, what should we religious people do once the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution to say that the laws of our nation cannot interfere with what are considered rights between two same-sex individuals who want to be legally married?

Moshe seems to have found a space that he can live inside of and still be an Orthodox Jew. Whether you or I agree with that doesn’t really matter because we aren’t Orthodox Jews (well, I’m not, anyway) and we aren’t in charge of Moshe’s life. If he’s accountable to God, then it is God who will judge, just as God will judge you and me. If being gay is a sin, then God will judge that sin just like the sins of sex between opposite sex couples outside of marriage, theft, murder, tax evasion (another form of theft), cursing at the person who cut us off in traffic last week, and all of the other sinful things that religious and non-religious people do on a more or less daily basis.

I’m not willing to get all worked up because something happened in the U.S. government that I may not personally agree with. If I did, I’d constantly be upset about something (and I know people who are constantly upset and just for that reason). As my wife recently reminded me, I’m pretty good are reading about religion and writing about religion, but truth be told, I could be better at doing religion.

Blogging is like complaining about gay people: it’s easier and safer to do than to actually live a life that is consistent with our high-flying morals. I…all of us, can either curse sinners or live righteously. Which one do you think will matter more to the people around you and to God?

However, I have a few parting thoughts. Although you may think what I am about to say is not specifically related to the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, the shifting of laws and perceptions as related to the LGBT community in our nation and around the world are sending now and in the future, wide reaching ripples that we should not ignore

I am deeply concerned (if it is true) about the relationship between adult clergy at the Vatican and underage boys. This is an unsubstantiated allegation, but regardless of what the LGBT community may perceive as its “rights,” one of those rights is not to impose its political, social, or sexual imperatives on children. One of its rights is not to compel underage children to have sexual contact with adults, regardless of “orientation.”

Speaking of children, while the LGBT community may be celebrating a victory in terms of six-year old Coy Mathis, a child born as a boy but who now lives as a girl (Coy’s parents sued their school district and Coy is now allowed to use the girls restroom at school), I can’t imagine how any sane and responsible licensed clinical psychologist can determine that a child, at age four years (which is when Coy’s parents took Coy to the psychologist), is “transsexual.” I would definitely like to see the clinical research studies and the battery of testing involved that even makes this diagnosis possible.

I am deeply concerned that the adults involved in Coy’s life, that is Coy’s parents and the aforementioned psychologist, are imposing their own personal, social, and political agendas on a child who can not possibly understand the implications of such a decision. I know that adults impose decisions on children all the time “for their own good,” and most of the time, those decisions are necessary for the child’s well-being, but I do not understand how supporting this sort of identity shift on one so young is at all reasonable, responsible, and healthy.

I’m willing to exceed my own stated limits and the limits of the Bible in defense of children. The rights of adults relative to sexuality, lifestyle, and the legal and social bonds of marriage are one thing, but projecting such profound needs, wants, and desires on vulnerable and easily influenced children is quite another story.

And I wish they’d just leave Bert and Ernie out of it.

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Struggles in Diversity

June 27, 2013 James Pyles 30 Comments

As early as the Jerusalem church, there was linguistic diversity, as likely reflected in the Acts depiction of ‘Hebrews’ and ‘Hellenists,’ terms which probably designate respectively those Jews in the Jerusalem church whose first language was Aramaic and those whose first/primary language was Greek. Also, Paul’s deployment of the little ‘Marana tha’ formula in 1 Corinthians 16:22 is commonly taken as reflecting his acquaintance with Aramaic-speaking circles of Jewish believers, as distinguished from the Greek-speaking (gentile) congregations to whom he wrote.

Moreover, remarkably early there was also a trans-local diversity. In Acts we have reports of the young Christian movement quickly spreading from Jerusalem other sites in Jewish Palestine, to Damascus, Antioch and Samaria, and through the activities of Paul and others (often anonymous) spreading through various locations in Asia Minor, Greece, Rome and elsewhere. Though the historicity of some features of Acts has been challenged, it is commonly accepted that there was an early and rapid trans-local spread of the young Christian movement to locations such as these. It is to be expected that this remarkably rapid spread of the Christian movement would have been accompanied by diversity, Christian circles taking on something of the character of the various locales, and also the varying ethnic groups and social classes from which converts came.

–Larry Hurtado
from pre-publication typescript of his article Interactive Diversity (PDF), pp 7-8
As published in Journal of Theological Studies.
“Interactive Diversity: A Proposed Model of Christian Origins.”
The Journal of Theological Studies 2013; doi: 10.1093/jts/flt063

I tend to think of the early Messianic (Christian) movement as having started out as a single, unified entity and then at some point, splitting into divergent trajectories. I just found out, thanks to reading the above-referenced Hurtado essay, that there is a “‘trajectories’ model of early Christian developments introduced by James Robinson and Helmut Koester.” I think it’s what many Christians think about when they consider the origin and development of our faith from the first century CE forward.

In the Abstract of his essay (pg 1), Hurtado states:

The earliest model of Christian origins appears in certain ancient church fathers, who posited an initial and unified form of Christianity from which a subsequent diversity then flowed, including alleged heretical divergences from the putatively original form.

That sounds terrifically familiar.

But it isn’t necessarily so.

As the quote from Hurtado at the top of the page states, we can expect a certain diversity between Aramaic/Hebrew and Greek speaking Jews was established from the very beginning (see Acts 6:1). Hurtado also brings out how there very well could have been “trans-local” variations in the Christian populations in the diaspora based on ethnicity and social class as well as language and nationality. However I’m interested in exploring one slice of the pie, so to speak:

On the other hand, there are also indications of far more adversarial interactions as well, and at a very early date. Paul’s letter to the Galatians will serve to illustrate this. Exegetes are agreed that this epistle reflects Paul’s exasperation over unidentified other Christians (probably Jewish) who have visited the Galatian churches calling into question the adequacy of Paul’s gospel and urging his gentile converts to compete their conversion by circumcision and a commitment to Torah-observance. Paul represents these people as proclaiming ‘a different gospel . . . confusing you and seeking to pervert the gospel of Christ’ (Gal 1:6-7), and he thunders an anathema on anyone who proclaims a gospel contrary to that which he preached (1:9).

-Hurtado, pp 10-11

This is actually a key point that my Pastor and I regularly discuss. His opinion is that Paul had been teaching both the Jewish and Gentile disciples in the Galatian area against circumcision and Torah observance, while my position is that Paul did not require circumcision and Torah observance for the Gentile believers, but they were a “given” for the Jewish disciples.

We can see a few things from Hurtado. One is that he (and other “exegetes” or textual interpreters of the Galatians scriptures) believes that certain people, which Paul identifies as “false brothers” (probably Jewish) were invading the churches in Galatia and questioning the validity of Paul’s teaching. The second point is that said-false brothers were encouraging the Gentile disciples that they had to be circumcised and take on board full observance of the Torah, and Paul refers to that teaching as a “different gospel,” one this is “contrary to the gospel of Christ.”

The specific focus upon the Gentiles by the false brothers and Paul’s response tells us that in not being circumcised (i.e. having converted to Judaism), the Gentile believers were not obligated to the full weight of Torah obligation. It also tells us by contrast, that the Jewish disciples (born Jews and those Gentiles who previously converted to Judaism) were obligated to observe the mitzvot. Paul defines this “diversity” between the Jewish and Gentile believers he’s addressing in his letter as the “gospel of Christ” and any attempt to change that relationship, Paul says is a perversion of Christ’s gospel.

(As an aside, I recently read a criticism stating that Gentile conversion to Judaism is not supported Biblically and is an extra-Biblical anomaly introduced by the later Rabbis. However, a quick reading of Acts 13:43 shows how Paul and Barnabas encountered such converts in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch [they probably found converts to Judaism in any synagogue they visited, but this is the first example I could find]. To the degree that Luke doesn’t record any displeasure or complaint by Paul at meeting with the converts in this verse, and I don’t believe we see Paul objecting to the authenticity of “righteous converts” to Judaism elsewhere in the New Testament [the exception is in Galatians, when Paul objects to Gentiles converting to Judaism specifically in order to be justified], we cannot automatically infer that either he or “the Bible” object to or invalidate such a practice.)

The diversity of Jewish and Gentile believers relative to Torah observance and related issues are points I’ve been attempting to assert, both in my personal interactions with my Pastor and here on my blog. I bring Hurtado’s work into the mix as a way of illustrating that this discussion exceeds the bounds of what we call “Messianic Judaism” or any interest in a Hebraic interpretation of the New Testament, and is of scholarly interest in the far wider arena of general Christian studies.

(I should say at this point that this isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned Hurtado and Galatians on my blog.)

I’ve never been convinced that the Jewish and Gentile disciples ever “cemented” into a single, unified body of worship, at least not on a large scale. I believe that the “Jesus movement” was too young and was forming in too turbulent a world to allow for a widespread integration of populations. In just a tiny march of years after Paul wrote his Galatian letter, he would be arrested, testify at multiple legal hearings, eventually be transported to Rome, and ultimately be executed. Jerusalem would fall and the Temple would be razed. The Jewish people, including disciples of Jesus, would be scattered. The troubled and frail unity between the Jewish and Gentile disciples of the Master would crumble like ash in such an inflammatory environment.

The diversity of the early Jesus movement was based on a significant number of differences between varying bodies of disciples. Not all believing Jews supported Gentile entry into the way without conversion (see Acts 15:1-2 for example). Even after the halachah issued by James and the Council of Apostles (Acts 15), divisiveness continued. Many Jews said Paul could not be trusted and that he did not support and affirm the Torah of Moses for the diaspora Jews (Acts 21:21). There were even accusations that he was taking Gentiles past the Court of the Goyim into the Temple (Acts 21:28-29).

While Paul fought strenuously to keep the fragmented and unstable populations within the body of Messiah together, it was a losing battle. He even admitted that Israel would be calloused because of the Gentiles for a significant period of time (Romans 11:25), and Hurtado points to Romans 14:1-15:6 as Paul’s attempt to address the social and ethnic differences between varying groups of Jesus believers, trying to draw them alongside each other.

I know I’m painting a rather dismal picture of Jewish/Christian relations, both past and present. In his letter to Rome, Paul was writing of a temporary separation between Jewish and Gentile believers. Temporary means that one day, we will draw closer to each other again (or for the first time). I see some evidence of that today, but it’s only the beginning. I don’t doubt that Messiah will come and it will be he who finishes the work that was started so many centuries before.

But my message for today is that a certain amount of diversity between Jewish and Gentile believers is by design. The gospel taught by Paul supported Jewish continuance in Torah observance but did not require Gentiles to convert, which would have made them obligated to the Law (the implication is that Gentile disciples in the Way were not so obligated). Any teaching imposing circumcision and Torah observance on Gentile disciples was vehemently criticized and opposed by Paul.

Hurtado doesn’t attempt to predict the mechanism of how the diversity will be resolved and for the moment, neither will I. I simply write this to offer further evidence that such diversity between the Jewish and Gentile believers did exist and that it is substantiated not only within Messianic Jewish studies but within mainstream Christian scholarship as well.

Addendum: I wrote this meditation before last night’s (Wednesday, June 26th) conversation with my Pastor. I’ll blog about our discussion including how it may impact what I said above in a subsequent missive.

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What I Know About the Purpose of Torah So Far

June 26, 2013 James Pyles 2 Comments

The Torah, or Jewish Written Law, consists of the five books of the Hebrew Bible – known more commonly to non-Jews as the “Old Testament” – that were given by G-d to Moses on Mount Sinai and include within them all of the biblical laws of Judaism. The Torah is also known as the Chumash, Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses. The word “Torah” has multiple meanings including: A scroll made from kosher animal parchment, with the entire text of the Five Books of Moses written on it; the text of the Five Books of Moses, written in any format; and, the term “Torah” can mean the entire corpus of Jewish law. This includes the Written and the Oral Law.

-from “The Written Law – Torah”
Jewish Virtual Library

Tonight, I’m having my usual Wednesday evening meeting with Pastor Randy. Our agenda includes discussing Chapter Eight of D. Thomas Lancaster’s book The Holy Epistle to the Galatians, “The Antioch Incident: Galatians 2:11-14”.

Here’s the relevant scripture:

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

–Galatians 2:11-14 (NASB)

That’s going to be interesting since, on the surface, it seems as if Paul is accusing Peter of being two-faced in his observance of Torah, living “like the Gentiles” when among Gentiles (which is commonly interpreted as Peter scarfing down plates of ham and shellfish with the goyim), but pulling back from his Gentile friends when “certain men from James” (probably Jewish believers sent to Antioch by James, the leader of the Jerusalem Council and who likely didn’t approve of Gentile inclusion into “the Way”) came around to see what was going on.

However, there is an underlying issue involved in our discussion of Galatians. What is the purpose of Torah in New Testament Judaism? I’ve spent some time this past week looking into that question in three separate blog posts (so far, not including this one) and they have elicited some interesting responses. It’s those responses, more than anything I’ve written, that are helping me begin to pull together some sort of answer.

Today, I want to gather some loosely associated points or statements that point in the direction of an answer. I don’t want to say that they are the answer, but perhaps they form the container in which the answer resides. Although this should be an easy topic to address, in fact, it is enormously difficult to grasp and define.

Here’s what I’ve got so far. I’m going to mine the comments I’ve received on all three blog posts more or less in the order they were submitted.

Starting with the comments in Part 1:

According to Rabbi Carl Kinbar, the Christian tendency to separate the Torah into ritual/ceremonial law and moral law originated with the church fathers and was perpetuated by the reformers, but does not have a basis within the Bible itself. That is, the Bible doesn’t categorize the Torah mitzvot into those two containers. They are a convenient method of defining why the “ceremonial” laws were killed by Jesus but why Christians must still maintain the “moral” laws.

altruistico suggests that the Torah, which for him includes all of the authoritative and sacred texts in Judaism, has functionally preserved Judaism as an entity and the Jewish people as a unique and distinct people group for the last two-thousand years or so, particularly in the absence of the Jewish homeland, Temple, Priesthood, Sanhedrin court system, and Messiah King. Without Torah observance on some level and a halachic lifestyle (although many Jews today are non-observant and non-responsive to such), the Jewish people and Judaism would have gone the way of the Hittites and the Canaanites long ago.

ProclaimLiberty (PL) says that the purpose of Torah is very simply expressed and contained in Psalm 19 and that the teachings of Jesus as well as his death, resurrection, and ascension have changed none of that purpose for the Jewish people, Messianic or otherwise. Jesus himself said that until Heaven and Earth passed away, the Torah would remain, as stated in Matthew 5:17-18. In fact, PL says that verses 19 and 20 illustrate the Messiah’s encouraging better performance of the mitzvot for his Jewish listeners.

Proceeding to the comments in Part 2:

Carl Kinbar says that as a Messianic Jew who studies the Rabbinic writings every day, he finds them “illuminating and nurturing” but presents the opposite side of the coin in saying that he weeps “over the gaping absence of the Master from their pages.”

ProclaimLiberty and Carl Kinbar engage in a lengthy discussion in the comments section of this blog post regarding how the Rabbinic writings should be considered by Messianic Jewish people. PL seems to have a more traditional viewpoint about the authority and binding nature of Rabbinic rulings, and while Carl Kinbar also esteems the Rabbis, he notes that their viewpoint would discount the reality of Yeshua as Messiah, even if a Divine Voice from Heaven should declare the truth.

I know you are probably thinking at this point that I’ve strayed from my original question, but for observant Jewish people, except in rare circumstances, one does not separate Talmud from Torah and in fact, studying Talmud is studying Torah. It would be best for you to review the full text of PL’s and Kinbar’s conversation, since any attempt to condense it here would likely do them both an injustice.

Moving on to Part 3:

At my request, Carl Kinbar gave me his understanding of how Matthew 23:2-4 can be interpreted relative to the Noel Rabinowitz paper (see the body of the blog post for the link or go to my Books page). In his series of comments, Kinbar specifically addresses the legal aspects of Torah which are not easily, if at all, enacted in the modern world due to the lack of an appropriate Sanhedrin or other court body. Except in Orthodox Jewish contexts, there are no judges to rule on matters of halachah and to issue judgments binding on the Jewish people involving such legal cases.

However, Kinbar did offer one other nugget for consideration that addresses the variability we see in both ancient and modern Jewish practice. One of the problems in defining what “Torah” is and how it is observed is the inconsistency across different Jewish communities (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and so on). Kinbar notes that in ancient times including during the “earthly ministry” of Jesus, Judaism had a common core (common Judaism), which was defined as the basics of Torah observance according to the prevailing customs of the time, but that different communities, synagogues, sects kept their own unique set of “specifics.” Most synagogues did not have a centralized leadership and did not recognize the authority of other sects (including the Pharisees) to impose other laws on their groups.

It is my contention that even within the Messianic Jewish sect of “the Way,” there were sub-groups that disagreed with the halachah issued by the leadership of the Jerusalem Council, principally around the mechanism of allowing Gentiles entry into their Jewish religious space.

Whether in ancient or modern times, it seems clear that there has been a long-standing pattern within the overarching entity we call “Judaism” of many individual communities operating off of a varying religious and cultural praxis, all of them considered “Jewish,” and yet with no one group having any influence on the observance or behavior of any other group. Many communities within both ancient and modern Judaism do not even have a centralized leadership, allowing for variability between the practice of different synagogues occurring within the same sect of Judaism.

Thus the “function” of Torah or rather how (or in some cases “if”) it is lived out, differs across the variety of Jewish communities in the ancient and modern worlds. This includes how Torah functions within modern Messianic Judaism. No one group has the corner market in defining what “Torah” is and how it works.

I do want to point to a few additional details.

One function of Torah from a Christian perspective, is to point to the Messiah. It has been a tutor or custodian of the Jewish people, keeping them “contained” within a certain moral/ethical boundary (Galatians 3:23-25) until such time as the Messiah arrived. However, if we do away with the Torah as custodian or pointer after the first generation of Jews is born post-ascension, what is left to point subsequent generations of Jews to Moshiach, especially those who do not have an awareness of Jesus as Messiah? I know Christians would say “the church” is the new pointer, but seeing as we have the majority of Jews defining themselves as Jewish primarily because they don’t believe in Jesus, we might want to reconsider our position. We should let the Torah be the pointer for the majority of Jews on Earth, allowing Torah to continually fulfill this purpose.

Even setting Talmud aside for the moment, nothing defines the Jewish people more than the Torah. We can indeed see that during every exile, the Jewish people have maintained their identity and distinction because of their religious and cultural observances as defined and provided by Torah. Without Torah observance, the Jewish people would long ago have assimilated into the cultures among which they were exiled. It’s always a danger and is a particular threat in the modern world where so many Jews are secular. Only a slender thread of DNA and a few ethnic leftovers prevent a person now known as a “Jew” from vanishing, if not from the sight of God, then at least from the human cultural consciousness.

So much for the entire Sinai event and the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and every subsequent generation of Jews as spoken by the Prophets that a Messiah would come to restore the Jewish people, restore Israel as a nation, and inspire unprecedented zeal for the Torah.

That’s what I’ve got so far. No definitive answers, just a list of important points to consider. Most of them can’t even be said to be “the inspired word of God,” at least not as how Christianity would see it.

You need not, like withered leaves, fall away from your ancient stock, or deny parents or nationality; you need not be unfaithful to the God of your fathers, on account of reverence rendered to the Son, for only when you do him homage are you a true Jew, a genuine son of Abraham, not only after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

-Rabbi Isaac Lichtenstein
from “Points of Contact between Evangelical and Jewish Doctrine” (1895)
as quoted in “The Story of Rabbi Issac Lichtenstein”
by D. Thomas Lancaster, pg 32
The Everlasting Jew: Selected Writings of Rabbi Isaac Lichtenstein

If you want to add anything to this summary before tonight, now would be a good time.

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Healing the Gaps in the Wall

June 25, 2013 James Pyles 2 Comments

The next Sabbath nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming. Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.

But the Jews incited the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city, and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium.

–Acts 13:44-46, 50-51

Are believers who live under the law generally joyful people?

Instead of God’s truth, with what did Satan fill the hearts of those who believed that justification before God could only come through keeping the law of Moses? Do you think that they were sensing a loss of influence and control?

-Questions in the Bible Study Class notes from last Sunday

Last Sunday at church, Pastor Randy preached from Acts 13:42-52. I was impressed that Pastor was able to give a sermon on such a potentially inflammatory set of verses in a way that expressed great sensitivity for the Jewish people, and correctly identified (in my opinion) the source of the “irritation” expressed by some of the Jewish leadership in the Pisidian Antioch synagogue upon witnessing vast crowds of pagan, idol-worshiping Gentiles flood into shul to hear Paul speak.

My Sunday School class discusses Pastor’s sermon after services (the church offers multiple classes on Sunday on a variety of subjects, but I chose this one since for me, the highlight of going to church is the sermon), and in going over my study notes the day before, I knew there could potentially be some problems. I wasn’t looking forward to class and once it started, I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say.

Fortunately, although the notes could have been worded a bit better, the attitudes expressed didn’t reflect any negative attitudes toward “the Jews” …

… exactly

No, no one spoke against the Jewish people, but the language of Christians talking about “the Jews” has been crafted over many centuries and there seemed to be an echo of that language in my study notes. If I hadn’t known better, I probably would have been concerned a time or two in class.

Actually, I did become concerned, since the teacher inserted the assumption that part of the reason “the Jews” in Antioch became upset, was because Paul was teaching that the grace of Christ replaces a life “under the Law” for Jewish believers.

As the time to go to class approached, I was still uncertain how or if I was going to respond to this assumption, but when the moment arrived and I heard “the Law” being (apparently) dissed, I asked to read from Psalm 19. I had the ESV Bible with me, but below, I’m quoting from the Stone Edition Tanakh (note that the verse numbers are slightly different between the Christian and the Jewish Bible):

The Torah of Hashem is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of Hashem is trustworthy, making the simple one wise, the orders of Hashem are upright, gladdening the heart; the command of Hashem is clear, enlightening the eyes.

–Psalm 19:8-9 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

Does that sound like the Psalmist thought the Torah was a burden? That’s the question I asked the class. Pastor, in his sermon, bent over backwards to illustrate that saying “the Jews” in this context, would be highly insulting and would not accurately reflect what was happening in the Antioch synagogue. Not literally every Jewish person turned against Paul and Barnabas and no, Paul did not permanently turn away from bringing the good news of Messiah to Jewish people and take it only to the Gentiles from that moment on. And there’s nothing in the text of Acts 13 that tells us Paul spoke against the Torah.

It’s sections of scripture like this one that have been used by the church to berate, denigrate, harass, and persecute the Jewish people for centuries. Although I didn’t get any push back at all in class as I made my points, I had to be sure that the people I’ve been studying with for over half a year weren’t misunderstanding this portion of Acts 13 based on long-standing Christian tradition (yes, Christians can interpret scripture based on tradition, too).

I don’t believe they were, but it was one of those moments in church that helps me realize we have a long way to go in healing the rift between traditional Christianity and the Jewish people.

I probably wouldn’t have written about this at all except when I got home from church, I went online and read the following:

We are now entering the Three Weeks, the time between the 17th of Tamuz (observed Tuesday, June 25th) and the 9th of Av (starting Monday day night, July 15th). This is a period when many tragedies happened to the Jewish people. Why do we mourn the loss of the Temple after so many years? What did and does it mean to us?

The 17th of Tamuz is a fast day. The fast begins approximately an hour before sunrise and continuing until about an hour after sunset. The purpose of the fast is to awaken our hearts to repentance through recalling our forefathers’ misdeeds which led to tragedies and our repetition of those mistakes. The fasting is a preparation for repentance — to break the body’s dominance over a person’s spiritual side. One should engage in self-examination and undertake to correct mistakes in his relationship with God, his fellow man and with himself.

-Rabbi Kalman Packouz
“Shabbat Shalom Weekly”
Commentary for Torah Portion Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-30:1)
Aish.com

You might think I’m being overly sensitive about all this. I suppose some of the people in Sunday School class might think that of me. I couldn’t see all the faces around the room as I was speaking, so I can’t gauge how each person was responding. I can only tell you that no one disagreed with me out loud, and in fact, a few people spoke up in support of my statements.

Rabbi Packouz, while reminding me of the terrible tragedies and losses that have befallen the Jewish people and how Israel is once again entering a time of national mourning, also helped me realize that for every descent, there is an ascent, and every wound offers an opportunity for healing.

The story is told of Napoleon walking through the streets of Paris one Tisha B’av (the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, a day of fasting and mourning for the destruction of the two Temples). As his entourage passed a synagogue he heard wailing and crying coming from within; he sent an aide to inquire as to what had happened. The aide returned and told Napoleon that the Jews were in mourning over the loss of their Temple. Napoleon was indignant! “Why wasn’t I informed? When did this happen? Which Temple?” The aide responded, “They lost their Temple in Jerusalem on this date 1700 years ago.” Napoleon stood in silence and then said, “Certainly a people which has mourned the loss of their Temple for so long will survive to see it rebuilt!”

If we know our history and understand it, then we can put our life in perspective. We can understand ourselves, our people, our goals, our values. We will know the direction of our lives, what we want to accomplish with our lives and what we are willing to bear in order to fulfill our destiny. Friedrich Nietzsche put it well, “If you have a ‘why’ to live for, you can bear with any ‘how’.”

Sara Debbie Gutfreund also wrote about the 17th of Tammuz but from a much more personal perspective.

A few years ago my grandfather passed away right before the 17th of Tammuz. On the fast day I was helping my mother as she sat shiva and an old family friend offered me a drink.

“No thanks, I’m fasting.” I said.

“What are you fasting for?” he asked. So I explained that it was the 17th of Tammuz, and we were mourning the day that the walls of Jerusalem were breached before the Second Temple was destroyed.

“I never heard of this fast day. But you know what’s even sadder? Last year my wife and I visited Israel for the first time. We went on a tour of the Old City and the tour guide points out the Temple Mount. And all we could see was this huge mosque and then the tour guide points out the Western Wall. And I couldn’t believe it. That’s it? That’s all that’s left of the Temple? One wall? So I think I know why there’s a fast. There’s so little we have left.”

-from “Filling the Crevices of the Wall”
Aish.com

So where is the uplifting part of the story. I promise you that there is one.

Last night, my son, who is named after my grandfather, was standing with me on the deck.

“Why is the world so big?” he asked me as we gazed up at the towering trees and the endless stretch of star-studded sky.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe because we need room to grow.”

And as the fireflies began to light up the dark corners of the yard, I thought that it must be true. The darkness is here for us to create light. The brokenness is here for us to learn how to make ourselves whole. And the Western Wall – all that’s left – is so much more than just a remnant of our past. It’s there to remind us to rebuild. It’s there to hold our crumpled notes and dreams. It’s a gift. Like the gap between the waves that pulled me in and brought me back to shore. Like the saltwater that poured down my face and the sand that blurred my eyes. Like the silence that gives us a chance to find our own words. Like the hugeness of the world that makes room for us to grow. Like the man who put down his drink and said. “I think I know why there’s a fast.” There’s a gap. In our hearts. In the crevices of the Wall.

But the gap is the gift. And all that’s left is the extraordinary opportunity to fill it.

I amazes me that a people and a nation who have suffered so much can continue to bounce back and not only to survive, but to live, and grow, and embrace the God of Jacob wholeheartedly. As Napoleon was supposed to have said, “Certainly a people which has mourned the loss of their Temple for so long will survive to see it rebuilt!” Nietzsche’s statement “If you have a ‘why’ to live for, you can bear with any ‘how'” is well and appropriately applied to the history of the Jewish people. The Kotel or what some people refer to as “the Wailing Wall,” is all that there is left of the Temple at present and in the crevices, people insert written prayers to God. The Jewish people fill the gaps in their existence with their faith that one day, God will answer their prayers and send His Messiah to restore them as a people in their Land, to redeem Israel, to raise her up, to give her a King who will bring peace to all the world.

The gap between Christianity and Judaism gives me the opportunity to help fill it with who I am as a believer and what the Jewish Messiah King means to me. I can fill the gap as a Christian man who has been married to a Jewish wife for over three decades, who has raised three Jewish children, and who is sensitive to what Christians have traditionally said and believed about the Jewish people based on some misunderstood portions of the scriptures.

Not something to dread, but an opportunity to help educate and to introduce a balance (though it probably wasn’t needed much in this case).

But like many Jewish people are doing right now, part of me grieves the losses, even as I know there are gains. It’s going to get worse for our world before it gets better. There will be battles. There will be heartache. There will be a need for courage.

We will need to fill the gaps that God has left us because that is helping to repair the world, tikkun olam. That is part of bringing the return of the Messiah. Part of the gospel message is the promise of personal salvation for anyone who believes. But the especially good news for the Jewish people is that when Messiah returns, he will redeem and restore national Israel, rebuild the walls of David’s fallen sukkah, and bring peace between the Jewish people and the people of the nations who are called by his name.

And beyond what Rabbi Packouz and Ms. Gutfreund reminded me of, I remembered Boaz Michael’s message in his book Tent of David. It is true that, as my friend Tom once said, I’m ultimately seeking not Christianity or Judaism, but an encounter with God by returning to church, but I am also seeking the vision of Boaz Michael in healing the “crevices in the wall” between what Christianity has largely become, and what Messiah truly wants us to be.

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The Purpose of Torah in New Testament Judaism, Part 3

June 24, 2013 James Pyles 13 Comments

Rabbi Simeon said: If a man looks upon the Torah as merely a book presenting narratives and everyday matters, alas for him! Such a torah, one treating with everyday concerns, and indeed a more excellent one, we too, even we, could compile. More than that, in the possession of the rulers of the world there are books of even greater merit, and these we could emulate if we wished to compile some such torah. But the Torah, in all of its worlds, holds supernal truths and sublime secrets…

Thus the tales related in the Torah are simply her outer garments, and woe to the man who regards that outer garb as the Torah itself, for such a man will be deprived of portion in the next world.

-Zohar, III.152 as quoted in
The Garments of Torah by Michael Fishbane
Chapter 3: The Garments of Torah – Or, to What May Scripture be Compared?, pg 34

(If you haven’t done so already, please read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.)

I mentioned previously that there is a strong temptation to take the Torah into mystical and spiritual realms since it seems that’s where it comes from. I also previously mentioned that Pastor Randy believes there is a pure and perfect Word of God that exists in the Heavenly Court and that the Bible we possess in our world, while it contains the Word of God, is not, in fact, the Word of God (ProclaimLiberty commented that indeed this isn’t a correct way to look at the Torah, though). As the Zohar states, we may consider our Bible to be merely a garment, an outer covering, but not the essence of its Holy contents.

Fishbane, in Chapter 3, compares and contrasts Torah as mystic vs. mundane, if I can apply such a word to Torah. This is his response to the current trend in Bible studies to address and consider the Biblical texts from a purely literary perspective. This is the sort of viewpoint we find in Richard Elliott Friedman’s book Who Wrote the Bible?.

Friedman carefully sifts through clues available in the text of the Hebrew Bible and those provided by biblical archaeology searching for the writer(s) of, primarily, the Pentateuch. He does so with clarity and engaging style, turning a potentially dry scholarly inquiry into a lively detective story. The reader is guided through the historical circumstances that occasioned the writing of the sources underlying the Five Books of Moses and the combining of these diverse sources into the final literary product. According to Friedman, the most controversial part of his case is the identification of the writer and date of the Priestly source. This book is neither comprehensive nor unduly complex, making it a good introductory text for beginners and nonspecialists. Recommended for all academic libraries. –Craig W. Beard, Harding Univ. Lib., Searcy, Ark.

Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

-as quoted from Amazon.com

Many modern Bible scholars are in love with the “JPED” theory of Old Testament (Tanakh) authorship, but in this approach, said-scholars all but remove God from the equation and reduce the Bible to a book written for political, religious, and personal motivations, rather than to impart the history and message of God’s interaction with human beings.

However, mysticism is an equally difficult realm in which to thrust the Bible as it far exceeds mere “inspired Word of God” and goes into structures of comprehension that are supposed to transport us into the upper chambers of the Almighty. I personally know some people in the Hebrew Roots movement who immediately become offended and incensed at the mere mention of the “K-word” (Kabbalah) and the quote from the Zohar above is not likely to earn me any points with them.

I’ve admitted before that I’m not mystic. I appreciate and enjoy some of the Jewish mystic writings as metaphors for certain spiritual truths, but I don’t take them as literal experiences. In fact, in an effort to understand something of the Christian mystical perspective, I recently read John A. Sanford’s book Mystical Christianity: A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John, however Sanford’s attempt to analyze this gospel from the perspective of Carl Jung and Jungian psychology seemed anachronistic and distracting rather than spiritually revealing.

I do agree though, that if we look at the Bible just as a book, even a Holy and inspired book, and see only the nuts and bolts narrations, our understanding of the message God is trying to deliver to humanity will be extremely limited. The problem is, digging any deeper than the literal meaning of the text presents the danger of getting lost in either mystical byways or just our own imaginations.

I started writing this series as an effort to explain what “keeping the Torah” means to the Jewish disciples of Yeshua (Jesus) but the “question behind the question” is “What is Torah?” That’s an amazingly difficult question to answer.

But if we lack wisdom by considering a mitzvah as just a text on paper narrative (the commandment to visit the sick) or as a simple behavioral act (visiting a sick friend in the hospital), do we gain wisdom and insight and the deeper meaning of Torah by considering the study and performance of a mitzvah as a transcendent act that intimately connects us to God?

“Such a man,” says another Zoharic text (II.99a-b). “is…a ‘bridegroom of the Torah’ in the strictest sense…to whom she (divinity as beckoning Bride) discloses all her secrets, concealing nothing.”

-Fishbane, pg 35

Here, I see a poetic image of the Torah in her “garments,” chaste before her bridegroom, and approaching the act of intimacy, she sheds her clothing, revealing herself to her beloved and finally, she holds back no secrets from the spirit of her cherished one. Fishbane, in discussing the bride, presents both the narrative or legal form of the Torah, the bride in her garments, and the expression of divinity, the inward truth of God, the veiled body of the bride in the process of disrobing as the groom not merely studies Torah but occupies himself (“osek”) fully in Torah:

Said Rabbi Joshua the son of Levi: Every day, an echo resounds from Mount Horeb, proclaiming and saying: “Woe is to the creatures who insult the Torah.” For one who does not occupy himself in Torah is considered an outcast, as is stated “A golden nose-ring in the snout of a swine, a beautiful woman bereft of reason.” And it says: “And the tablets are the work of G-d, and the writing is G-d’s writing, engraved on the tablets” ; read not “engraved” (charut) but “liberty” (chairut)—for there is no free individual, except for he who occupies himself with the study of Torah. And whoever occupies himself with the study of Torah is elevated, as is stated, “And from the gift to Nahaliel, and from Nahaliel to The Heights.”

-Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers) 6:2

As Fishbane progresses in his writing, he temporarily sets aside the mysticism of Torah to “put matters in a fuller historical and hermeneutic perspective.” (pg 36) Fishbane characterizes the Torah being viewed in ancient Israel as “the divine voice” spoken directly or indirectly through a number of “filters” (Prophets or more indirect signs and wonders). God’s revelations are expressed in the text as legal and ethical teachings presented across an epic narrative of the history of Israel and her relationship with God.

However, if the text is treated too much like “text,” there is a danger of swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction and stripping the Torah of its divine origins and worse, reducing it to a set of anachronistic tribal laws that do not “travel well” going forward in time.

Of considerable importance in the sanctification of Scripture is that the prestigious literary canon of divine teachings had become a “closed literary corpus” – one culturally reopened only through human textual exegesis.

-Fishbane, pg 37

This leads us to Fishbane’s commentary on the early Pharisees and their comprehension of the “paradoxical and dialectical” nature of the scriptures. According to Fishbane, their resolution to the ambiguities presented in the Bible and in an effort to prevent Torah from becoming a “dead letter,” was to search the text “in every possible way for every possible prolongation of the original divine teachings in new times,” thus making “the old written Torah (into) a ‘living Torah.'”

So we stand between preserving the divinity of scripture as a romanticized mystical text and hermeneutically extending the Torah in order to adapt its divine truths to a constantly changing environment.

I can imagine that neither perspective will be particularly appealing to most readers.

I once criticized John MacArthur because I mistakenly believed he said that, in defining “Biblical sufficiency,” the Bible was literally the only book anyone would ever need to understand any topic.

I’ve since learned that “sola scriptura” doesn’t quite work that way, though I’m still not a big fan of this method of considering the Bible. Fishbane however, explains that Rabbinic commentary takes the idea of “the Bible contains all there is” to a level that would make even MacArthur balk.

…the early Pharisees revealed unexpected possibilities in the original divine communication. It was gradually claimed that “all is in it” (Mishna Abot v.25) – or better, that all could be recovered from it if one but had the appropriate hermeneutic key.

-ibid, pg 38

In considering my commentary on Boaz Michael’s teaching “Moses in Matthew,” I can only believe that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Matthew “had the appropriate hermeneutic key” in extracting and applying portions of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings to the life of Messiah in ways that had not originally been presupposed (Hosea 11:1 to Matthew 2:15 for instance). However, unless we assume that the Pharisees and the later Rabbinic Sages also had access to the same influences of the Spirit, can we believe that their “hermeneutic key” is just as “appropriate” as Matthew’s, and that it unlocked the same doors?

I previously wrote a multi-part commentary based on the paper “Matthew 23:2-4: Does Jesus Recognize the Authority of the Pharisees and Does He Endorse their Halakhah?” written by Noel Rabbinowitz for the Journal of the Evangelical Society (PDF). In his paper, Rabbinowitz concluded that not only did Jesus recognize the halachah of the Pharisees but he acknowledged that they had the authority to establish valid halachah in Israel!

This may be a bit of a stretch for most of you reading this, but if we allow Matthew 23:2-4 to act as a bridge between the inspired authority of the gospel and other New Testament writers and the subsequent Rabbinic authorities in Judaism, we may somewhat reasonably conclude that halachah established after the New Testament canon was closed was still tacitly approved from Heaven.

This interpretation has tons and tons of problems (Rabbi Carl Kinbar posted a wonderfully insightful comment on this matter), not the least of which are the pronouncements of the Rabbis which are in direct opposition to Jesus and faith in him as Messiah, however dismissing this perspective out of hand denies not only the stated word of Messiah in the Bible, but the opportunity to view post-exile Judaism as possessing leaders who indeed did speak to and hear from God (which is historically what Christianity has done in the development of supersessionism for the past nearly twenty centuries).

Returning to Fishbane and connecting him (temporarily) with Matthew, I believe that Matthew “encoded” certain information in his gospel that could only be decoded or unpackaged by an audience with the “appropriate hermeneutic key,” one that provided the traditional associations and interpretations to older sections of the Holy text. In addressing scripture, the Pharisees and the Jewish sages who followed them attempted to continue to unlock the pages of the scriptures using (inspired?) hermeneutic keys and amazingly, Fishbane acknowledges that Christianity has done the same thing.

Surely you will have caught here more than a faint Jewish echo of the well-known “interpretatio Christiana,” by means of which Virgil and other pagans were accommodated by the Church Fathers into the normative Christian fold insofar as their writings were shown to “anticipate” the real good news — albeit through a glass darkly.

-ibid, 39

OK, so it doesn’t sound like that much of a compliment, but it does compare the interpretative activities and methods of the Pharisees to the early church fathers conferring, if only by inference, the authority to said-church fathers to develop valid Biblical interpretations. Of course, I have to deliver the same caveat for some of their hermeneutic gymnastics (especially those that discount Israel and denigrate the Jews) as I do certain conclusions, rulings, and pronouncements by the Rabbinic sages that discount the Messiahship of Yeshua.

So where does all this leave us?

…and thus to regard the uniqueness of Scripture as its capacity to teach simultaneously at various cognitive levels; the esoteric tradition of Judaism was concerned to encounter the presence of God, and thus to see the special sanctity and uniqueness of Scripture in its being at once a hieroglyph of the divine Logos and divine Reality itself. God is not merely present in Scripture through a kind of verbal displacement. God and Scripture are, in fact, one mysterious and inseparable Truth.

-ibid, pg 42

What is Torah and how is it applied in the lives of New Testament Jews, both in the first century CE and today? The answer seems to travel in different directions. Torah is a bride and the Jewish people are the bridegrooms, and at the intimate urgings and involvement of the bridegroom, the bride begins to doff her garments and reveal her deeper mysteries and truths. Torah is a multi-layered, encapsulated, encoded set of pronouncements that at once present the details of moral, ethical, and legal standards and that, properly read, reveal the divine meaning lurking behind the words on the page, allowing the performance of each mitzvah not simply to be a “good deed” but an act of loving intimacy and devotion of the Jewish people to God.

Mystic or hermeneutic pathways both leading to the same goal: the desire to draw nearer to the Creator.

In this, I don’t mean to say that only Jews desire intimacy with God or that Christians cannot deeply occupy themselves in Torah and benefit from the experience, but the focus of this series has to do with the purpose of Torah in the lives of the Jewish disciples of Messiah. Thus, my focus must be on Torah as applied specifically to Jewish people.

Part 4 of this series should return to this topic and confront something a little less “mystical.”

"When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness." -Rabbi Tzvi Freeman