Tag Archives: messianic judaism

Torah Portion

Vayeishev: Understanding, Living, and Courage

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walking-side-by-side Recognize, please, to whom these belong…

–Genesis 38:25

The arrival of a letter, adorned with official-looking stamps and seals, was quite an event at the small wayside tavern somewhere in the backwoods of White Russia. The simple tavern-keeper, who had never quite mastered the written word, ran to find the melamed he kept to teach his children.

As the teacher read the letter, the tavern-keeper turned white, uttered a small cry, and collapsed in a dead faint. For the letter contained most shocking and tragic news for this simple, good-hearted Jew: his beloved father had passed away.

Said the mashpiah Reb Michael of Aptask:

An outside observer witnessing the events described above may wonder: why does the tavern-keeper react so dramatically to the letter while the teacher is relatively unmoved? Who among the two better grasps and comprehends its contents if not the learned teacher? The other cannot even read and write!

Obviously, this is a ridiculous question. What if the teacher has a better appreciation of the vocabulary, sentence structure, and artful calligraphy with which the letter is composed? What if he better understands the background, the circumstances, the nuances of the event described? It is not his father who died!

True, Reb Michael would concluded, it is important to learn, to study, to comprehend. And the more one understands, the deeper one delves into the nature of his own existence, the world about him, and his relationship with his Creator, the better equipped he is to fulfill his mission in life. But objective knowledge alone is worthless. Unless one sees himself in the picture, the most profound of theories will yield no meaningful results. Unless one sees the subject matter as ‘his father’, a lifetime of study and discovery will have little bearing on life itself.

-Rabbi Yanki Tauber
“The Theory and the Father”
Commentary on Torah Portion Vayeishev
Chabad.org

Apparently, I’m a hypocrite. I don’t believe that I’m a hypocrite, but two individuals have called me one in the past few days. Here are a couple of examples from recent comments on my blog. The first one I present is pretty benign:

…since you are a gentile, dabbling in Messianic Judaism, “which is for Jews”, is a bit of a contradiction, technically you are muddying the waters, so to speak. Would you not agree?

The second example, on the other hand…

I will tell you that you are a hypocrite in your face. I don’t play nicely nicely with the truth. I have to chastise one who does not play with a full deck…You fell for false teaching and with your blog you are causing people to stumble…Go home……

Supposedly, because I advocate for the Jews having a unique covenant relationship with God and that they have a special role beyond any other people or religious group, including Gentile Christians, I have a problem. Actually, the problem is supposed to stem from the fact that I advocate for the above and yet I also involve myself, as a Christian, in the affairs of Messianic Judaism by writing commentaries on the movement. I suppose the fact that I very often quote from Jewish religious and educational sources just adds to my “problem.”

But does that make me a hypocrite?

Just a few days ago I said:

We serve One God and we have one Messiah King who will return to rule over all of Creation. As servants and sons, we each have our roles and duties. We can’t afford to let our limitations, biases, and human ambitions restrict who we are and who God created us to be…both the Jew and the Gentile. Christian support of Israel does not mean taking control of the process of defining Israel. It’s allowing the Jewish people and nation the space to define themselves, and supporting them in this effort through whatever means are at our disposal. That is a Christian’s unique role and purpose in life. It’s time we start living it.

jewish-christianI tried to the best of my ability in the paragraph above to synthesize Christian and Jewish interactions and roles relative to mutual discipleship under the Messiah. Apparently, I failed, at least with the two people who objected to my blog post. I know most of you must be wondering why I’m even writing this. After all, only a few people (publicly) object to me while a much larger number seem to be more encouraging. Why express angst over just a couple of people who question my motives?

I’ve said time and again on this blog that I want to be fair. I want to consider other people’s viewpoints. If someone has a grudge or a beef with me, I have to ask myself if there is anything I’ve done to contribute to it. If there is, then there’s something within me that I need to change. If not, then at least I’ve looked in the mirror and asked myself a few hard questions before moving on.

It’s not that I expect everyone to agree with me all of the time, but it’s difficult for me to comprehend how even my critics can miss what I’m trying to say. It’s one thing to understand my message and to say, “I disagree,” and another thing entirely to misunderstand me to the point what I’m considered to be advocating one position while living out the opposite. Saying that I support Jewish covenant and identity uniqueness is not the same as saying that Jews must be walled up inside their compounds and have nothing to do with the Christians, particularly those of us who are involved with Jews and Jewish community. In my case, I’m married to a Jew. Are we supposed to divorce and live separately? Does my involvement with my Jewish spouse make me a hypocrite? The criticism doesn’t make sense.

I quoted Rabbi Tauber’s story above because it illustrates the relationship and the differences between knowing and understanding; between information and lived experience. The teacher understood the letters, words, and sentences contained in the message but the tavern-keeper experienced the true meaning and impact of what the letter actually said, including the importance of relationship and context. The teacher “knew” the letter while the tavern-keeper “lived” out the meaning and consequences.

I can “know” the “letters, words, and sentences” of the Torah, the mitzvot, and something of the Jewish writings to the limits of my education, but I can never “live” out the experiences, the meaning, the fabric of what it is to be Jewish, whether it is within the context of Messianic discipleship or otherwise. In saying, Recognize, please, to whom these belong, Tamar was calling Judah to acknowledge his unique identity as the father of her children (she was pregnant with twins) and (without realizing it) as the forefather of the Messiah.

I don’t believe that we Christians who stand alongside our Jewish brothers and sisters in the Messiah are hypocrites, either for actually standing by them or by discussing our relationship with each other. If such were the case, a great many writers and teachers, far more knowledgable and talented than I, would have to suffer the same accusation of “hypocrite” and, to serve the honor of Messiah, adjust our behavior accordingly.

contemplating-jumpingBut that would be psychotic.

Jewish and Gentile disciples of the Master are still united by one Messiah and one God. While Rabbi Dr. Michael Schiffman may say that Messianic Judaism and Christianity are two different and separate religions, he also said this:

I also believe Yeshua will bless those gentiles who truly love him. We acknowledge that the gentiles in Yeshua have a place in God’s heart. It makes them our brethren, just as our fellow Jews are our brethren. We are related to other Yeshua followers, just as we are related to other Jews. Nevertheless, Messianic Judaism and Christianity remain two separate religions, yet we have the same Messiah, Yeshua. That being the case, rather than beating each other up with statements of faith we require each other to affirm, it would be good if we just began by treating each other as brethren, loving and supporting one another. I have always been more happy affirming people than doctrinal statements.

That certainly doesn’t sound like he’s requiring isolation between Christians and Messianic Jews. How could he advocate for a complete separatist philosophy and still say that Christians and Jews should “began by treating each other as brethren, loving and supporting one another?” That seems to go along with a “Daily Lift” of Rabbi Zelig Pliskin:

When you build up your own courage, you will be able to serve as a coach to others. Some of the best courage coaches are those who had to struggle to attain the courage they now have. Since it didn’t come easy to them, they know what it’s like to lack the courage to do what others consider easy.

If you don’t yet have the courage you would like, let the knowledge that you will inevitably be able to help others serve as a further motivation to increase your own courage.

Recently, I’ve been encouraged and reminded that in writing this series of “morning meditations,” I’m encouraging others. These are words and actions we are supposed to live by.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

–1 Thessalonians 5:11 (ESV)

Good Shabbos.

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An Invitation to Keruv

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Shabbat-Made-Easy-paintingThough there are an estimated 175,000 to 250,000 Messianic Jews in the U.S. and 350,000 worldwide, according to various counts, they are a tiny minority in Israel — just 10,000-20,000 people by some estimates — but growing, according to both its proponents and critics. Messianic Jews believe that Jesus is the Jewish messiah, and that the Bible prophesizes that God’s plan is for him to return to Jerusalem, prevail in an apocalyptic battle with the Antichrist, and rule the world from the Temple Mount. Unlike Jews for Jesus, which focuses on bringing Jews into churches, Messianic Jews seek to make Jews believers in Jesus while still maintaining congregations that identify as Jewish and observe Jewish customs and holidays.

While these Messianic Jews are derisive of Orthodox Jewish fundamentalism (particularly what they call its “legalism”), they pick and choose some of the practices of traditional Judaism, such as weekly Torah readings — although they add New Testament verses to it.

They import to Israel many of the worship practices and the political agenda of the American Christian right. They are tightly knit with an American-born global revival movement that holds that modern-day prophets and apostles receive direct revelations from God, forming an elite army of prayer warriors on a mission to carry out God’s plans to purify Christianity, “restore” Israel, and bring the Messiah back.

-Sarah Posner
“Kosher Jesus: Messianic Jews in the Holy Land”
An article written for
the Atlantic

In a previous blog post, I mentioned that it’s helpful to take a look at that entity we call “Messianic Judaism” from outside the Messianic Jewish and Hebrew Roots contexts. We have a tendency to see our arguments through a very narrow tube that significantly limits our vision, not only of who and what Messianic Judaism is (along with Hebrew Roots and its variants such One Law, One Torah, Sacred Name, and Two-House), but how the rest of the world perceives it and them.

The above-quote from a recent online magazine article was apparently written by a Jewish reporter who, in all likelihood (but I can’t know for sure), is not religious (I say this based on the overall content of the full article). Her description of Messianic Jews in Israel was either so biased as to make the Jews she interviewed seem overly Christian (and certainly not Jewish in a cultural or halakhic sense) or indeed, the Jews she spoke with were very “Christianized.” But if the latter is true, then did this reporter choose a representative sample of the Messianic Jews in the Land or did she bias her research to only select the most “Christian-like” Jews in the Israeli Messianic environment?

In other words, are there any authentically, halachically, and culturally Jewish Messianic Jews in Israel, and can Messianic Judaism be fairly assessed by a Jewish reporter who may have “issues” with whether or not the Jewish participants in Messianic Judaism are actually Jewish?

When I write about Messianic Judaism as a Judaism (as opposed to “a Christianity”), I’m usually criticized, typically from Hebrew Roots proponents, saying that the majority of people involved in what I term as Messianic Judaism are not Jewish. True enough. As I’ve said before, Messianic Judaism as it exists today is a goal or an ideal. It is not a fully realized movement among the other Judaisms of our era.

And that’s probably Christianity’s fault.

Granted, “ownership” of the Jewish Messiah passed from Jewish to Gentile hands nearly 2,000 years ago and it’s only within the past century or less that any Jews at all have even considered the possibility that Jesus is the Messiah and that it’s “Jewish” to honor him. Tsvi Sadan in his article “You Have Not Obeyed Me in Proclaiming Liberty”, written for the Fall 2012 issue of Messiah Journal, says of past and present Messianic Judaism in Israel:

In the past, leadership was largely in the hands of Christian missionaries. Today leadership is predominately held by American Jews, American “wannabe” Jews, and American Christians. Where Jewish Israelis are in leadership, they have received their education – if they have any – from Christian institutions either in North America or Great Britain. In addition, with the influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, Russian speakers began to establish new churches and assume leadership positions in existing churches (congregations). Yet though some of the people and organizations have changed, the present-day leadership is essentially operating in the same way as their missionary predecessors did. While Hebrew is now the spoken language in most Israeli churches, modes of operation and models of leadership which grew mostly out of evangelical worldviews still dominate the scene.

christians-love-israelSo perhaps Ms Posner’s report on Messianic Jews in Israel wasn’t particularly inaccurate or biased after all. However, Posner ends her article with a chilling pronouncement:

In the meantime, Messianic Jews are assiduously attempting to, essentially, redeem Israel from its Jewishness. That seems to be the task at hand at the Jerusalem Prayer Tower, another 24-7 prayer meeting place located on the top floor of an office building on the bustling downtown thoroughfare Jaffa Street. At the “Restoring Jerusalem” prayer meeting, an American Christian woman read about Jezebel from the Book of Revelation, and exhorted the half dozen people in the room to pray to “purify” and “cleanse” Jerusalem.

Another woman prayed for the Jews “to change their mind, to feel you, Lord, to convert to you, Lord.” The first woman resumed her prayers, hoping that Jesus will give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a great understanding of who you are.” She seems to earnestly believe this is a plausible scenario. “Help him, Lord,” she implores. “Bring him to Messiah.”

I was especially taken by the statement, “Messianic Jews are assiduously attempting to, essentially, redeem Israel from its Jewishness.” This comment clashes incredibly against what most of the Jewish Messianics I interact with tell me. In the article “Messianic Judaism: Reconsidering the One-Law, Two-House Trajectories” written by Boaz Michael, also for Messiah Journal, in addressing Gentile and Jewish roles, Boaz states:

In rejecting the right and responsibility of the Jewish people to define what it means to be Jewish and to practice Judaism, One-Law theology strikes directly at the core of authentic Judaism. One-Law replaces the Jewish rabbis and sages with self-appointed Gentiles who believe that they are divinely sanctioned to interpret the Torah outside of a Jewish context: whatever conclusions they come to are given greater weight than those of Jewish halachic authorities.

There is a struggle to define Messianic Jewish practice as Jewish and some of the Jews in the Messianic Jewish movement are caught between two forces: Evangelical Christianity and Hebrew Roots. Both groups of non-Jews are vying for the opportunity to define the Jewish worshipers of Christ in some manner that removes significant parts of what it is to be a Jew. In the vast majority of cases, this isn’t done from the malicious desire to harm Jews or Judaism, but intentions aside, the results are obvious. Even many Jews in Messianic Judaism believe that to accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, they must reduce or eliminate their Jewish identities. Those Jews who accept the One Law proposal are required to surrender their unique Jewish identity to any Christian demanding an equal share in the Torah.

111-mjThe latest discussion (as I write this) in the “Messianic blogosphere” on this struggle is Derek Leman’s article, CRITIQUE: Tim Hegg’s Article on Acts 15. By the time you read this “morning meditation,” the comments section of Derek’s blog will most likely have heated up to the temperature where lead melts (621.5 degrees F or 327.5 degrees C). There is a great deal of tension in this communications dynamic largely because each group, Evangelical Christianity, Hebrew Roots (One Law, Two House), and Messianic Judaism, have “turf” to defend. But while both Evangelical Christianity and Hebrew Roots see themselves as pro-Judaism and pro-Israel, it has been strenuously asserted by Messianic Jews that their impact is otherwise.

Boaz Michael says:

These movements damage and diminish Jewish identity in several ways. In one way, a very practical and real diminishing of Jewish identity occurs when people who are not Jewish begin to dress and act like they are Jewish (particularly like Orthodox Jews). When Jewish customs and Jewish apparel are taken on outside the context of a Jewish community and authentic Jewish identity, it diminishes real Judaism and real Jewish life. It sends a message to the Jewish people: “All of the things that make you unique and identifiably Jewish are mine too.”

Tzitzit are a prime example. In a traditional Jewish context, tzitzit have real meaning. They send a specific message: “The person wearing these is shomer Shabbos. They keep a high standard of kashrut. They are serious about traditional Judaism.” To see a person with tzitzit, for example, eating a cheeseburger or driving on the Sabbath actually diminishes the Torah and casts Messiah (and Messianics) in a negative light. It is application without understanding. It strips tzitzit of their meaning and significance.

That final statement could be extended to say that such a person “strips Judaism of its meaning and significance.”

Again, the large portion of the blame for this mess is Christianity, not in its intent but in its approach. Sadan stated that many Jews in Israel have come to know the Messiah, not through Jewish people or contexts, but through Evangelical Christians or Jews who have an Evangelical mindset. In the United States, many Jews come to know the Messiah, either through the traditional Church or through Hebrew Roots churches, and particularly One Law groups. My wife and I were introduced to “Messianic Judaism” through a local One Law congregation and for quite some time, we thought this was the only expression of Messianic Judaism. It was our introduction to “Judaism” without having to actually enter into a Jewish community (the vast, vast majority of people present were Gentiles). Jewish customs and practices were very poorly mimicked and an understanding of even the prayers was only elementary.

It wasn’t until my wife joined first our local Reform-Conservative shul and later the Chabad, that we both began to understand actual Judaism. From my wife’s point of view, it was in the form of a real, lived experience, and for me, it was largely by observation.

But I got to observe a lot.

Tsvi Sadan’s article presents an alternate method of introducing the Jewish Messiah to Jewish people in Israel:

Instead of this traditional Mission approach with its “proclamation of alienation,” Messianic Jews should consider the “proclamation of Keruv,” not as a tactical maneuver but as a state of being. Keruv is a Hebrew word that comes from “near” (karov). Essentially therefore, Keruv is a mission to call Jews to draw nearer to God and one another, first and foremost through familiarity with their own religion and tradition. The Jewish people, as taught by Jesus, cannot comprehend his message apart from Moses (John 5:46). Talking about the significance of Jesus apart from the everlasting significance of Israel is that which renders evangelism ineffective. Keruv on the other hand is all about reassuring the Jewish people that Jesus came to reinforce the hope for the Jews as a people under a unique covenant.

elul-shofarIt’s impossible to change the past but we have the power to summon the future. We have the ability to change directions and to correct our mistakes. In order to introduce the Jewish Messiah to Jewish people without damaging Jewish identity, either by removing it or co-opting it from Jews, it must be communicated that Judaism and the Jewish Messiah are mutually confirming and supporting. Instead of Messianic Judaism being seen as trying to “redeem Israel from its Jewishness,” it must behave in a manner that is totally consistent with restoring Jewishness to Israel and the Jewish people. This is not to say that Israel and Jewish people aren’t currently Jewish, but that the Messiah affirms, supports, and restores the rightful place of Israel and the Jewish nation as the head of nations and as a people called out by God to be completely unique from among the nations and peoples of the earth, including Gentile Christians.

This doesn’t diminish the Christian in the slightest. Even non-Messianic Jews assert that Jews are not better than Christians or any other group of Gentiles, just different and unique. I’ve said many times before that we Christians have a responsibility to support Jews, both materially and in their return to the Torah of their Fathers, all for the sake of the Kingdom and the return of the Messiah. As Boaz Michael said in a recent blog post, “The completion or resolution of Israel’s story does not and will not occur until she is redeemed from her exile, planted firmly in the land God has promised to her, and returned to a state of loving obedience to the Torah under the leadership of the Son of David, Yeshua the Messiah.”

We serve One God and we have one Messiah King who will return to rule over all of Creation. As servants and sons, we each have our roles and duties. We can’t afford to let our limitations, biases, and human ambitions restrict who we are and who God created us to be…both the Jew and the Gentile. Christian support of Israel does not mean taking control of the process of defining Israel. It’s allowing the Jewish people and nation the space to define themselves, and supporting them in this effort through whatever means are at our disposal. That is a Christian’s unique role and purpose in life. It’s time we start living it.

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Giving Compassion to the King

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charity-tzedakahI feel the whole thing depends upon humility, grace, and gratitude.

Reasoning:

1. Christians should be humble, gracious and grateful because without Jews we’d have NO knowledge of God, NO bible, and NO HOPE of redemption. They are our spiritual elder brothers, the covenant people of God, and the firstborn son of Adonai.

Does that mean they have it “all” correct, and there is no failings? No.

2. Believing Jews should be humble, gracious and grateful because it’s not their plan, after all, it’s God’s, and He has one for us gentiles too who have kept the Apostolic mission (go tell all nations) knowledge of Messiah alive for these 2k yrs. Additionally, most Jews who have entered into relationship with Messiah did so due to a gentile Christian.

Does that mean they have it “all” correct, and there is no failings? (h, e, double toothpicks, No.)

Therefore, no one is left out of the plan, and there is room for all IF there is first humility. Are there unreasonable Jews who want to act as if they have all truth and there is no room for a gentile?

Yes, of course.

Just like there are (far more) unreasonable gentile Christians who think all Jews need to become Christians and act like a Gentile to believe in their Messiah.

It’s hard for reasonable God loving people to reject others who come in humility and offer love and grace.

Comment of Lrw
on my blog post Divergent Trajectories

I suppose this is a continuation of the “Divergent Trajectories” blog post. I think the concept and the dynamics of Christian/Messianic Jewish relationships bears a great deal more examination than it has been given thus far (and it’s been given plenty). We just can’t seem to figure each other out, or at least, we just can’t seem to figure each other out in the same way.

I want to return to a part of the gospels that caused me some embarrassment in my Sunday school class a couple of weeks ago.

It will be that when the son of man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, he will sit on the throne of his glory. All nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them like a shepherd separates the sheep and the goats. He will stand the sheep to his right and the goats to his left. Then the king will say to those standing on his right, “Come, those who are blessed by my Father, and possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was traveling, and you took me in; naked, and you covered me; sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.”

The righteous will answer and say, “Our master, when did we see you hungry and sustain you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you traveling and take you in, or naked and cover you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?

Then the king will answer and say to them, “Amen, I say to you, what you have done for one of these young brothers of mine, you have done for me.” Then he will also say to those standing to his left, “Go away from me, those who are cursed, to the eternal fire prepared for the satan and his angels. For I was hungry, but you did not feed me. I was thirsty, but you did not give me a drink. I was traveling, but you did not take me in; naked, but you did not cover me; sick and in prison, but you did not visit me.”

These, too, will answer, “Our master, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or traveling or naked or sick or in prison and did not attend to you?” Then he will answer them, saying, “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these young ones, you also did not do for me.” These will go to an eternal place of torment, but the righteous to eternal life.

–Matthew 25:31-46 (DHE Gospels)

I’ve always thought that the sheep were the ones who gave food, gave drink, and visited anyone who was in need but Charlie, the teacher at the Sunday school class I attend, told me that he believes the true meaning has to do with how we Gentile Christians treat the Jewish needy. The sheep specifically are those who provided for the Jews, the “young brothers” of the Jewish Messiah, and the goats were the ones who specifically did not provide for the needy among the Jews.

Frankly, this interpretation reminds me of the following, also taught by the Master:

Not everyone who says to me, “My master! My master!” will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but rather the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. It will be that on that day many will say to me, “My master, my master, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name do many wonders?” Then I will answer them, saying, ” I have never known you. Depart from me, workers of evil!”

–Matthew 7:21-23 (DHE Gospels)

Of course, I’m forcing a connection between these two portions of scripture and further, forcing a connection to Charlie’s interpretation of Matthew 25:31-46 as meaning how Gentile Christians minister to the Jews, but then, we always have this:

I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.

–Genesis 12:3 (Stone Edition Chumash)

tzedakah-taking-rootAgain, I’m creating associations between different parts of the Bible that may not be connected, but I think I can make a credible argument that how we non-Jewish Christians treat the Jewish people directly reflects not only how we obey (or fail to obey) the words of Jesus Christ, but our eternal destiny in the kingdom of Heaven as well (which probably isn’t the same as saying that we’ll go to heaven or hell, but it just might).

But I’ve never heard of Charlie’s interpretation of Matthew 25:31-46 before, and while it nicely fits into my own budding understanding of the relationship between Christians and Jews, where does this interpretation come from (if anywhere)? The Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels, from which I quoted earlier, didn’t have a commentary for those verses, so I turned to my brand new ESV Study Bible to see if there is a common Christian interpretation that matches this teaching. I came up with this notation for Matthew 25:40:

In the context of the parable the least of these refers to those who are most needy among Jesus’ brothers – a reference most likely to Jesus’ disciples and by extension all believers. The “sheep” are commended for their great compassion for those in need – for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger; for those who are naked, sick, or in prison. The righteous will inherit the kingdom not because of the compassionate works that they have done but because their righteousness comes from their transformed hearts in response to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom, as evidenced by their compassion for the “least of these.” In caring for those in need, the righteous discover that their acts of compassion for the needy are the same as if done for Jesus himself (you did it to me).

Not exactly iron-clad support for Charlie’s interpretation, but it does suggest that Jesus probably meant his Jewish disciples when he referred to his “young brothers.” However, the ESV commentary states that “by extension” offering compassion to “all believers” would be the same thing, so the “sheep” would be any believer who gives kindness to any other needy believer, Jew or Gentile.

I would hesitate to say that any Christians who have only ministered to other non-Jewish Christians or even to other people who are not believers have been wasting their time and been doing nothing but “evil.” Much good has been done by the church over the centuries. Many hospitals have been built for the sick in impoverished areas of the world, a great deal of food, medical supplies, and Bibles have been given freely to the sick, the outcast, the desperate, and the dying. Houses have been built, churches have been repaired, roads have been constructed, and many more acts of compassion and kindness have been performed in the name of Jesus Christ where the Jewish people have not been the direct beneficiaries. Is that a bad thing?

The only way I can see that it would be “bad” is if the Christians performing these acts of charity and kindness gave them away freely to everyone except the Jews or deliberately withheld such compassion from Jews or worse, offered food, drink, and shelter to Jews only upon the condition that they hear the Gospel message or be converted to Christianity. I don’t believe that Jesus intended that the sharing of compassion to the Jews (or anyone else) should be conditional upon compelling those being helped to listening to an evangelical message.

But what if…

But what if Charlie is right? I know I’m stretching credibility to its limits and perhaps beyond, but what if part of our mission as Christians is to minister to the Jewish brothers of the Master? What if, as firstborn son of Israel, Messiah’s primary concern was for his own people, the Jewish people, and that we from among the nations, because we are blessed through Abraham and is descendants, have an obligation to respond by offering whatever care and compassion is needed by the Jews? Remember, Jesus didn’t just care for his own Jewish disciples, he said, “I was sent only to the lost (or “perishing”) sheep, who are of the house of Yisra’el.” (Matthew 15:24 DHE Gospels) Jesus was sent to all of Israel; all of the Jews. 

The Master further said, “…for salvation is from the Yehudim.” (John 4:22 DHE Gospels). Of course, according to D. Thomas Lancaster’s commentary on Acts 9 (from Torah Club, Volume 6: Chronicles of the Apostles):

A great multitude of hopeful Samaritan people assembled at the Samaritan village of Tirathaba and prepared to ascend Mount Gerizim together with the prophet. Some came armed. The Samaritan believers, however, were not deceived. By casting their allegiance with Yeshua of Nazareth and the apostles in Jerusalem, they had forsaken their ties to Mount Gerizim. They knew that “salvation is from the Jews” and that the Samaritans worshipped what they did not know. They knew the hour was coming when true worshippers would be unable to worship either on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem.

While the words of the Master from John 4:22 were immediately directed to the Samaritans and not to believers in general, like the interpretation from the ESV Study Bible on Matthew 25:31-46 suggests, we may be able to take a specific teaching or command of the Master that is focused on a limited population and extend it to a wider group of people, in this case, all believers in Christ, Gentile and Jewish.

jonathan-pollardI don’t believe that any of this means we Christians shouldn’t minister to the needy in the church. I also don’t think this means that we Christians shouldn’t minister to the needy of the world, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. I do believe though, that we should give serious consideration to Charlie’s interpretation of Matthew 25:31-46 and when we consider the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, we should look for those who have needs and, in the name of our Master, we should feed the hungry among them, give drink to their thirsty, offer hospitality to Jews who are traveling and in need of shelter. We should visit the sick among Israel and go to those who are in prison (and the plight of Jonathan Pollard who is imprisoned, ill, and who has been denied justice by the United States does not escape me here).

Imagine…

Just imagine that one day you face judgment from our Master and King. You believe you have served him faithfully and consistently throughout your long life. The time of final reward is at hand. Then suddenly, mysteriously, shockingly, you find that he brusquely casts you aside, as if you were among those who have disdained and ridiculed the name of Jesus Christ for their entire lives. How could such a thing be possible? Then you remember that in your long life as a Christian, you had always set aside the Jewish people as “carnal” and “unsaved” and “Christ killers,” and though you had ample opportunity to render aid to the hungry, the naked, and the sick among Israel, you always turned away from them.

And now the Jewish King turns away from you.

I can’t prove to you that any of this will happen as I’ve described it.

But just imagine.

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Divergent Trajectories

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I have recently been involved in a discussion online with Christian pastors who argue that the “Law” is passed, or fulfilled and therefore they believe Judaism is religion of works righteousness. I told them that is not Judaism, and the Law is not passed, but is part of living a godly life. It highlights for me why Messianic Judaism is not Christianity. We do follow the same Messiah, but the idea of how we are to live is vastly different. Does following Yeshua make one a Christian, or do you think we are something different? Outside of Yeshua, I see nothing in common with them.

-Rabbi Dr Michael Schiffman
from his Facebook comment

Rabbi Dr Schiffman made this comment in a closed Facebook group to which I belong, so I can’t post a link to the entire conversation. I do want to insert a few of the responding comments, but I will disguise the identity of the responders:

RG: we have nothing in common with them…at least I don’t have…G_d’s Covenant with Abraham is an Eternal Covenant for all the ages, as is the Covenant of Circumcision…Forever means ’til revisionists decide to jettison it…?

KS: If I may interject, it’s not that our brethren that don’t see Messianic Judaism as a doctrinally pure way to live feel you can do anything you want. Rather they recoil at the idea that God would expect you to do anything for Him. He is “love” and our greatest and in their mind only commandment is love. But what is the standard. How do I know what love is? Their concept of the Gospel is very subjective. If you engage many christians in dialogue the only firm thing they believe is that you should not follow the “Old Testament” because that is “law”. Unfortunately they then are like the blindfolded men who come across the elephant and one thinks he’s a trunk, another a big foot, a third thinks he is this little tail. We need to walk in the light and then we will see. The light is what David describes in the Psalms: “Torah” is a lamp for my feet and light for my path”. If you reject His written Word how can you hear clearly the Living Word?

YL: So far it seems the conversation is focusing on Christians whose theology is supersessionist, and speaking of those Christians as if they represent the whole. But there are also Christians who have rejected supercessionism and are working to repair its horrible effects on Christian theology and Christian/Jewish relations. If the primary thing that defines Messianic Judaism as a different religion than Christianity is supercessionism and anti-Judaism, then what about those Christians who affirm the Jewish people’s ongoing covenantal relationship with Hashem via the Torah?

Rabbi Dr Schiffman: There is always some overlap among different groups, just as there are differences between Messianics. While there are some post-supersessionist Christians, the majority are supersessionist, and as they find dispensationalism wanting, many have turned toward tradiitional supersessionist theology. Hopefully this will change in the future, but if we are really in a “post-Supersessionist” era, why do we have so many supersessionists around? I guess it hasn’t trickled down yet.

YL: Agreed. So what, if anything, can we do to help make the vision of post-supercessionist Christianity a reality? And are there things we need to avoid as MJs because they subtly undermine that vision?

SB: If a Gentile respected Torah, he (she) would follow the Noakhide instructions. They were given to all mankind. This respect for Torah, I think, is something that should be spread.

I’m sorry for posting such a lengthy transaction but keep in mind this is only a fraction of the responses I’ve reviewed in the conversation as I write this “meditation.” You may be wondering why I’m bothering with all this, but the question of the relationship between Christianity and Messianic Judaism (and I’m deliberately setting aside the Hebrew Roots variants including One Law and Two-House) has been a problem, at least once it came to light that Messianic Judaism must be a Judaism in order to function and be a valid religious and cultural expression of faith in Yeshua for halakhic Jews.

Nearly two months ago, Rabbi Dr. Schiffman wrote a blog post called Messianic Judaism and Christianity: Two Religions With The Same Messiah which more formally presents his ideas on this matter. It is very much in line with what you’ll find in Mark Kinzer’s book, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People

To distill all of this down into a single sentence, necessarily compressing many complex details, what is being suggested is that Christianity and Messianic Judaism are mutually exclusive religious expressions that, although they share the same God and the same Messiah, otherwise service wholly different populations. Granted, that’s a gross oversimplification, but I believe it captures the essence of what Kinzer and Schiffman are trying to communicate to the rest of us…that is, Christians.

At one point a few years back, this idea bothered me so much that I created an entire blog and series of blog posts, starting with something called Fractured Fellowship.

So where does that leave us. YL provided the most hopeful suggestion in the above-quoted conversation, with the idea that there are “post-supersessionist” Christians who “are working to repair its horrible effects on Christian theology and Christian/Jewish relations” and “who affirm the Jewish people’s ongoing covenantal relationship with Hashem via the Torah.”

I’m not sure YL’s comments were all that well received, especially with the follow-up query about whether or not post-supersessionist Christians should follow the Seven Noahide Laws (and to my understanding, by definition, Christians should already be obeying them).

I must admit to a bit of confusion. I was invited to this Facebook group with the knowledge that I’m not Jewish, so there is some idea that it’s “OK” for Christians and Messianic Jews to occupy the same space, or at least the same virtual space in Facebook. I also have a few Messianic Jews who I feel are my friends and who I have worshipped with fairly recently. Others have invited me to worship and associate with them should we ever overcome the geographic barriers that keep us apart.

This isn’t the only conversation on the web discussing this topic. Both Derek Leman and Gene Shlomovich have written recent blog posts contrasting Christianity and Messianic Judaism. For my own part, I too have have discussed early Christian and Jewish relations as they affect the interaction and fellowship between believing Jews and Christians today.

Yet in reading many of the comments in the Facebook conversation, it is as if fellowship between Messianic Jews and Christians on many levels is undesired and unwelcome.

I wonder if this was built into the original design?

They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

–Luke 21:24 (ESV)

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

–Romans 11:25 (ESV)

It would seem that not only have (most of) the Jewish people been temporarily blinded to the identity of the Messiah for the sake of the Gentiles, but until the time when Jewish eyes will be reopened, there will be enmity between the Jew and the Gentile (Christian). This somewhat flies in the face of the following:

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

–Ephesians 2:13-16 (ESV)

However, if you add the passages from Luke and Romans to my analysis of Cohen from his book From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, you start seeing a picture of a less than rosy relationship between the first Jewish disciples of the Messiah and the first Gentile disciples right from the start.

Gene Shlomovich confirms this in a comment on his blog:

To begin with, it took nearly 20 years since the all Jewish Messianic community was founded around 30 CE to make first Gentile converts. So, only around year 50 CE we have first Gentile believers coming unto the scene. Even then it wasn’t all flowers between the two groups. I think the example of Peter being afraid to be seen with Gentiles shows that the two groups had an uneasy social relationship from the get go, which hardly meshes with your statement of “unprecedented level of social cohesion” and supposedly fully integrated messianic synagogues. (While you read this, keep in mind that Romans destroyed Jerusalem and led Jews away in chains mere 20 years later, in 70 CE).

Secondly, almost immediately after the first converts among the Gentiles were made, there was a rise in Roman antisemitism. We read that already in Acts 18:2 that Roman Emperor Claudius threw out all Jews from Rome (around 50 CE). This had effectively ended whatever the Jewish presence that existed among the Roman Christians, who were probably the biggest single group of Gentile believers at the time. Secondly and some say as a result of that expulsion, we see an undercurrent of pride and anti-Judaism beginning to appear among Gentile believers – and we have Paul warning (some say around year 56 CE) Gentiles under his care about it. (Romans 11:18) And just 16 years later, Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed, effectively ending the Messianic Jewish presence in the land, along with whatever communities and synagogues that had existed at the time.

Fortunately, he followed up with another comment:

I have no problem fellowship and worshiping with Gentile believers. In fact, the goal of this blog, as it says in the head, is ” Jewish-Gentile Reconciliation”. What I take issue with is the Supersessionism found within some Hebrew Roots circles, the appropriation of Judaism and misuse of Jewish sancta, anti-Judaism, and misleading Christians (Gentiles) to force them to do things that G-d never intended them to do by making them feel that they are sinning if they do not eat up the One Law agenda.

So what we have, at least from Gene’s perspective, is not a requirement for absolute separation between Messianic Jews and Christians in our individual silos, but a clear definition of relationships and roles within any mutual fellowship context.

Of course, you’ll find variation among believing Jews, with some advocating for total or at least significant inclusion of Gentiles within a Jewish worship and cultural lifestyle, and others advocating for the polar opposite and requiring that non-Jews be excluded from any Messianic Jewish community (which will be pretty tough, since to the best of my awareness, there currently is no Messianic Jewish synagogue, congregation, or community composed of exclusively Jews or even of a majority of Jews).

But then what do we do with the following passages?

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and let not the eunuch say,
“Behold, I am a dry tree.”
For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
I will give in my house and within my walls
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off.
“And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,
and holds fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
The Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,
“I will gather yet others to him
besides those already gathered.”

–Isaiah 56:3-8 (ESV)

Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

–Zechariah 8:23 (ESV)

While the Matthew 28:18-20 imperative is the command of Jesus to his Jewish disciples to also make disciples of the nations, it doesn’t necessarily pre-suppose a lasting relationship and a fused corporate identity between said-Jewish and Gentile disciples. Certainly there is ample evidence to support how the Jewish and Gentile disciples of the Master almost immediately developed separate communities, probably within a few decades of the first Gentile being brought into worship of the God of Israel through the Jewish Messiah.

And yet Isaiah and Zechariah suggest that we Gentiles (Christians?) may have a closer relationship to the Jews and the Temple than what modern-day Messianics such as Schiffman and Kinzer would necessarily support. It has been suggested that in the future Temple, even Gentiles (Christians?) will be allowed to serve as Priests, but this is disputed by Gene Shlomovich in another of his recent blog posts:

Will the reign of Yeshua as Messiah mean that anyone who truly worships G-d, Jew or Gentile, could finally just waltz into the sanctuary of G-d in the new Temple, have the unfettered access anywhere, even if they are not priests? Does this mean, as some teach, the Gentiles will be selected to work as priests in the new Temple? Not at all!

They [that is “priests, who are Levites and descendants of Zadok” Ezekiel 44:14] alone are to enter my sanctuary; they alone are to come near my table to minister before me and perform my service. (Ezekiel 44:15)

Gene also quotes scripture that supports the idea of Gentiles continuing to be restricted to the outer courts of the future Temple in Messianic times.

Go and measure the Temple of G-d and the altar, with its worshipers. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. (Revelation 11:2)

His final comment on the matter is this:

The Temple will be a place where both Jews and Gentiles could worship the G-d of Israel, both together and in unique ways. All nations will come to learn from Israel because they will all know that G-d is with the Jewish people:

This is what the L-rd Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that G-d is with you.’” (Zechariah 8:23)

The bottom line seems to be that Messianic Jews and Gentile Christians may have started out at a single point in history but once we began to diverge on separate trajectories, those separate and distinct paths forever defined our destiny in terms of a relationship with each other (Jews and Christians) and our separate relationships with God (relative to differences in application of Torah upon Jews and Christians).

Boaz Michael’s new book Tent of David: Healing the Vision of the Messianic Gentile will become available in January 2013 and defines the Gentile mission in the community of the church as one of healing between Christian and Jew. There is also an educational group open to Jews and (Gentile) Christians called MJ Studies that bills itself as “a gateway to post-supersessionist New Testament scholarship”. This group presumably would allow Christians to participate with Jews in mutual study and fellowship (at least virtually) so Jewish/Christian relationships don’t have to be totally severed for the sake of the modern Jewish disciples of Messiah.

There’s a part of me screaming in my ear that the easiest method of satisfying Messianic Jewish requirements is just to let them be. If the integration or even occasional inclusion of the Gentile Christian into a Messianic Jewish context is a great a difficulty, I can solve the problem by having nothing to do with Messianic Judaism. I can exist in a wholly separate and sealed conduit containing only Gentile Christians or, if that’s not to my taste, I can form a “community of one,” but in either case, I can allow Messianic Judaism to develop and grow without injecting my presence into their awareness. Of course, that’s an extremist solution, but it’s the easiest one to implement.

But while some Messianic Jews (and many Jews in general) see Christians as “the enemy,” largely due to the centuries of crime, hostility, rejection, and murder we’ve committed against Jews and Jewish communities, all fueled by our supersessionistic theologies, there are a few voices out there (including a few Jewish voices) that express the hope that some in the church actually support the Jewish right to define Judaism, including the Jewish worship of the Messiah Yeshua. If that is true, there may be hope for future dialog between our two groups. Perhaps that will lead to healing.

I want you to know that I support Jewish uniqueness both generally and as it applies to the Messianic movement. For my part and with that in mind, if someone invites me into their house, I will enter. If they have a “keep out” sign in their yard, I’ll pass by their house and keep on walking.

As for unity in the body of Messiah…as far as I can see, based on everything I’ve just said, that is yet to come.

I know that on Fridays I typically post a commentary on the week’s Torah Portion, (this week it is Vayishlach) but the current topic captured my thoughts and I found I had lost all enthusiasm for that other endeavor. Besides, with images such as “warring” brothers, and man wrestling with God, maybe the theme of Christian vs. Messianic Jew isn’t so off base after all.

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The Early Christian According to Cohen

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In order to maintain their distinctiveness and identity, most Jews of the ancient world sought to separate themselves from their gentile neighbors. In the cities of the East, they formed their own autonomous ethnic communities, each with its own officers, institutions, and regulations. Some cities, notably Alexandria and Rome, had neighborhoods inhabited mostly by Jews. (These were not “ghettos” but “ethnic neighborhoods.”) Following the lead of Ezra, the Jews of the Second Temple period grew more and more intolerant of marriages with foreigners.

Shaye J.D. Cohen
Chapter 2: Jews and Gentiles
Social: Jews and Gentiles, pg 37
from the book
From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 2nd Ed

I quoted this portion of Cohen’s book in a recent extra meditation and I want to continue discussing the theme of early Jewish and Christian (and Gentile) identity as we can apply it to today’s community of Jewish and Gentile believers. As I also mentioned in my previous missive, there is a group within Hebrew Roots that is invested in believing that for a time, both the Jewish disciples of the Messiah and the non-Jewish disciples brought into the faith, primarily by Paul, were completely of one accord and shared a completely uniform identity as “Messianics,” being “neither Jew nor Greek” (Galatians 3:28), but rather “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15) in Christ, with all distinctions of cultural, ethnic, national, and covenant identity as established by God, completely obliterated.

In traditional (supersessionist) Christianity, this takes on the form of Jews no longer being Jews but rather, “converting” to Christianity. Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that I reject this suggestion and I do not believe it can be sustained from even a casual reading of the Bible. The chronicles of the Jewish disciples recorded in the early chapters of the book of Acts clearly shows them continuing to live lifestyles completely consistent with the other Judaisms of their day. There is nothing to say that Peter, James, or Paul ever surrendered being Jewish and while the Temple stood, ever forsake the festivals or the sacrifices.

However, the aforementioned movement within Hebrew Roots, sometimes referred to as “One Law” takes the same approach from the opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of demanding that Jews stop being Jews, they demand that Gentiles have the right and obligation to be “Jews” in all but name (sometimes referring to themselves as “Israel” or “Spiritual Judaism”). They cite a number of passages in the Bible to support their claim, primarily the “one law for the Jew and the Stranger” in various parts of the Torah (for example, see Leviticus 24:22, Numbers 15:16, and Numbers 15:29) as well as Acts 15:21 to establish the suggestion that God and the Jerusalem Council required the Gentile disciples to more or less “convert” to a form of Judaism without actually converting to Judaism. Further, assuming these suppositions are correct, they state that this practice must be carried forward and established among Gentile Christians today, using the modern synagogue worship model as the template for Gentile practice of what they refer to as “Messianic Judaism.”

In reading Cohen, I’ve become more convinced than ever that the foundation upon which One Law is built is a soggy sandcastle rather than a rock. One Law, by definition, must require the ancient Israelite to share national and tribal identity with the (non-Israelite) “ger” (stranger, alien, sometimes convert) among them and also, that the Second Temple era Jews must surrender their halakhic, ethnic, cultural, national, and covenant identity to the Gentile disciple due to their grafted in (see Romans 11) status. In both cases, the unique people group established by God must become “un-unique.” For this to be true, it must mean that God lied to the Jewish people when He established them as His splendorous treasured people (Exodus 19:5) among all the nations of the earth.

I know there’s a danger is relying on a single source of information (Cohen) for doing any sort of research, so I’ll say right now that my conclusions can’t be considered definitive. On the other hand, I think Cohen’s work does indicate that a number of historical factors related to the ancient Israelites and the Second Temple era Jews have been ignored by One Law proponents and I’d like to briefly bring some of those factors into the forefront.

Let’s take ancient Israel and the status of the “ger” first. According to One Law supporters, the various “one law for the native, etc…” passages indicate that God originally intended for Israelites and non-Israelites (who have attached themselves to the God of Abraham) to operate identically in terms of covenant and identity.

When discussing Conversation to Judaism in Chapter 2 of his book, Cohen states:

In preexilic times, conversion to Judaism did not yet exist because birth is immutable. An Ammonite or an Aramean could no more become an Israelite in preexilic times than an American can become a citizen of Liechtenstein in our own. Mere residency in the land does not confer citizenship, and a social system that defines a citizen solely as a child of a citizen has no legal mechanism by which to assimilate a foreigner.

This seems to support the general supposition of One Law, that Gentiles did not “convert” to Judaism in preexilic times (before the Babylonian exile), and if taken out of context, may be construed as meaning that Gentiles who lived in the land would be under the same law (Torah) and have the same legal status as the native of the land…even though they didn’t have citizenship. But does that make sense?

Biblical law frequently refers to the “resident alien” (ger in Hebrew) who is grouped with the widow, the orphan, and the Levite. All of these are landless and powerless, and all are the potential victims of abuse. (An American analogy to the ger is the Chicano (specifically, undocumented alien) farmworker; a European analogy is the Turkish laborer in Germany.) The Bible nowhere states how a ger might ameliorate his status and become equal to the native born, because there was no legal institution by which a foreigner could be absorbed by a tribal society living on its ancestral land. Resident aliens in the cities of pre-Hellenistic Greece fared no better.

Cohen soundly torpedoes the suggestion that “one law” gerim were equal to the native Israelites in the Land in all aspects of Torah and other covenant status. There was no legal avenue that would allow a non-member of an Israelite tribe to enter into a tribal society that was established by heredity and covenant. There was no way for the ger to become equal to the Israelite in terms of the Mosaic covenant, at least according to Cohen. Any legal requirement for the ger to become circumcised or to not eat from an animal killed by a wild creature was not an indication that the ger was in anyway equal to the native of the land in covenant status, anymore than an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. shares equal status to  U.S citizens.

After the exile of 587 BCE, the Israelite tribal structure was eliminated and the Jews who returned to Judea from Babylon were organized as clans, according to Cohen, not tribes. The ritual organization was specifically “Priest,” “Levite,” and “Israelite.” Further, it became possible to consider the idea that foreigners could somehow be “joined” to Israel and to God. Cohen continues:

But these centuries saw the creation of an institutionalized method for the admixture of gentiles. Ezra was still unfamiliar with the notion of “conversion,” but some of his contemporaries were discussing the idea. One prophet assured the “foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants” that they would not be excluded from the rebuilt temple but would be gathered to God’s people (Isa. 56:6-8). Several prophets predicted that in the end of days foreigners would join in the worship of the true God in Jerusalem, either as servants of the Israelites or as independent worshipers.”

The mechanism by which all this would occur was not spelled out as far as Cohen is concerned, but Christians believe that it is through our being brought into the New Covenant through faith in the Messiah, Jesus Christ, that we are joined to the God of Israel. Of course, that still doesn’t mean we become identical to the Jewish people in every conceivable detail, particularly if, as we’ve already seen, Gentile residents of ancient, tribal Israel were not included equally in citizenship or covenant, but rather, relegated to the status of alien residents with few, if any rights.

However, as the history of Israel progressed, the concept of conversation to Judaism for the Gentile began to become more formalized. Cohen cites three essential elements of conversion to Judaism: belief in God, circumcision, and joining the house of Israel. Again, this is a definition of a convert to Judaism, not conditions required for the Gentile to join “the Way” as disciples of Christ. Cohen even references the difference:

For Paul, circumcision represents subjugation to the demands of the Torah (Gal. 3-5).

In other words, while Paul did not see circumcision and thus full obedience to the mitzvot as a requirement for the Gentile Christians, he did see it as a necessary step for full conversion to Judaism. The natural conclusion then is that a Gentile becoming a disciple of the Jewish Messiah in the time of Paul was not the same as a Gentile converting to Judaism.

If we take the message of the Book of Galatians as a unit, then we must conclude that Paul is arguing for the sufficiency of faith in Christ for the Gentile. The non-Jew does not have to convert to Judaism in order to be justified before God.

We tend to take the concept of God-fearers as they existed in the late Second Temple era as a sort of stepping stone between Gentile paganism and Christianity, but according to Cohen, these Gentiles were just as likely to be attracted to another form of Judaism (one without the involvement of the Messiah) and perhaps to even convert to one of the many Judaisms of the day.

Even more numerous, however, were those gentiles who accepted certain aspects of Judaism but did not convert to it. In polytheistic fashion, they added the God of Israel to their pantheon and did not deny the pagan gods…In the city of Rome, many gentiles observed the Sabbath, the fasts, and the food laws; in Asia Minor, many gentiles attended synagogue on the Sabbath. Although these gentiles observed any number of Jewish practices and venerated in one form or another the God of the Jews, they did not see themselves as Jews and were not seen by others as Jews.

Cohen does not specifically state that any of these God-fearers were associated with “the Way” nor do we have any indication that the Gentile God-fearers saw themselves as obligated to the Torah or having “rights” of observance. Just as they would have observed any number of other religious practices associated with other “gods,” these God-fearers also observed a number of religious practices associated with the God of Israel. Cohen goes on:

They resemble the polytheists of the preexilic period who feared the Lord but who never changed their identity.

For One Law proponents, the good news is that there is a record of early first century C.E. gentiles observing some of the mitzvot. The bad news is that they were polytheists who did not truly “convert” to any form of Judaism (or necessarily what we now think of as “early Christianity”) nor did they forsake polytheism, which is in direct opposition to fiercely monotheistic Judaism.

Cohen does reference the New Testament (specifically sections of Acts) in further describing these God-fearers.

The book of Acts calls these people “those who fear” (phoboumenoi) or “those who venerate” (sebomenoi) the Lord (Acts 13:16, 26; 16:14; 17:4, 17; 18:7). Modern scholars call them “sympathizers” or “semi-proselytes,” but these terms lack ancient attestation…After all, how can a gentile become a “little bit Jewish?” And why would he want to?

The explanation goes back to Cohen’s description of God-fearers as polytheists who considered the God of Israel as “just another god.” But there may have been other reasons.

Rather than look upon God-fearers as gentiles interested in Judaism, perhaps we should see in the phenomenon the contribution of Judaism to the cultural mix we call Hellenistic. Greco-Roman culture provides various analogies to Jewish ideas and practices.

In other words, gentile interest in Judaism was not for Judaism’s sake per se, but for the sake of multi-culturalism within Greek society, the way that many different religious and cultural practices are integrated into modern Japanese life. My daughter lived in Japan for almost a year with a Japanese family. At one point, she attended the wedding of a Japanese couple who practiced Buddhism but who were married by a Swedish Catholic Priest. When my daughter tried to find out the reason for such an interesting mix, about the best answer she could get was, “In Japan, it’s all good.” Maybe that was also true in some corners of Greek society.

Continuing to read Cohen, I began to wonder if, from the Gentile point of view, converting to Christianity was viewed in the same light as how Gentiles were converting to other forms of Judaism.

Josephus insists that Judaism has no mysteries, no secrets that it keeps hidden from curious observers. This claim may not be entirely true (note, for example, how secretive Jesus is according to the Gospel of Mark), but it is essentially correct. Some Jews even engaged in missionary work. The Pharisees travel about land and the sea in order to make even one proselyte (the Greek word for convert to Judaism; Matt. 23:15). Josephus narrates that in the middle of the first century CE, the royal house of the kingdom of Adiabene became Jewish under the tutelage of itinerant Jewish merchants…

Some scholars have suggested that much of the Jewish literature written in Greek had as its goal the propagation of Judaism among the gentiles, since the literature often emphasizes those elements of Judaism that would make it attractive to outsiders.

Seen from this perspective, Paul and his mission to convert the Gentiles to faith in the Jewish Messiah may have well been just one Jew among many who were attempting to mine the same population of Gentiles and convert them to one of the various forms of Judaism that existed in that era. So it wouldn’t be unusual at all for “Christian” Gentiles to practice various Jewish religious and cultural behaviors in the same manner as other “converts” to Judaism, although as I previously stated, a Gentile converting to Christianity was not converting to Judaism. But at that point in history, the “Judaism” we consider “early Christianity” was considered a Judaism and it had not yet adopted a trajectory that caused it to deviate from Jewish practice and finally to not be considered a Judaism at all.

Apparently that took some time.

Many Christians, generally called “Judaizers” by modern scholarship, were drawn to Jewish practices. For some of these Christians, Judaism was attractive because of Christianity. Through Christianity they learned the Jewish scriptures and became familiar with Jewish observances. Many Christian groups, for example, insisted that Easter must coincide with the Jewish Passover and that it be celebrated with rites similar to those of the Jewish Passover.

It’s interesting that Cohen, although acknowledging a close Christian association with Judaism, continues to differentiate between the Gentile Christians and the Jewish people, presumably even those Jews who followed Jesus as Messiah. Note that early on, the concept of Easter was born and was to be treated in a similar manner to the Passover, but not as if they were the exact same festival or celebration. Nevertheless, according to Cohen, the Jewish-Christian connection endured for a number of centuries, even through the schism began most likely within the lifetime of Paul and John.

In Antioch in the late fourth century, John Chrysostom was shocked that many Christians were doing what pagan God-fearers had been doing in other parts of the empire three centuries previously: they were attending synagogues and observing the Jewish festivals.

It seems as though Christianity and Judaism maintained a “mix” for hundreds of years after the fall of Jerusalem but were never quite “in synch,” making Christianity a unique experience for the Gentile disciples, since they never adopted an actual Jewish identity the way that other proselytes did when they completed an actual conversion to one of the other Judaisms. This seems to indicate a bond between Gentile and Jewish disciples of the Master but not a fused cultural, national, or ethnic identity.

What may have driven a further wedge between Gentile Christianity and the Jewish “Messiah” movement was this:

What did change after 70 CE was that Jews, or at least the rabbis, were no longer as eager to sell their spiritual wares to the gentiles.

There is also some indication that post-Second Temple, Gentile Christianity began to gain some traction independent of the other Judaisms, possibly including the Judaism of “the Way.”

Perhaps (and this is the common explanation) the rabbis saw the growing power of Christianity and decided not to try to compete with it. Outside of rabbinic circles, perhaps some Jews still actively attempted to interest gentiles, especially Christians, in Judaism, but the evidence for this activity is minimal.

The picture Cohen paints of Gentiles in relation to the Judaism most of us call “Christianity” is incomplete, but we can draw some conclusions. First, the historical figure of the “ger” in ancient, preexilic times, is not a model for modern One Law Christians in adopting equality with Messianic (or any other sort of) Jews. The ger’s observance of Torah was for the purpose of having them obey “the law of the land” the way that even an undocumented alien worker would obey some or most of the laws in the U.S., but it didn’t make them citizens of a tribal nation nor did it confer anything even approaching equality between the gerim and the native-born Israelite. There were laws to protect the gerim in the manner of widows or orphans, but they were most definitely “second-class inhabitants” in Israel. The final blow to the “gerim” argument of One Law is that in post-exilic times, the status of the ger ceased to exist because Israel had shifted from a tribal-driven to a clan-driven society.

We see that in the time of Jesus and following, God-fearers were in evidence and they did practice synagogue worship and a number of the other mitzvot but primarily in the manner of polytheists who practiced the religions of multiple Gods. They did not forsake all other gods for the sake of the One God or become equal to the Jewish people in any covenant sense. As far as a Gentile converting to “Christianity” goes, they were not actually converts to Judaism in that they did not enjoy the full covenant benefits of converts to the other Judaisms and full obligation to Torah (which required circumcision as a covenant sign). It is acknowledged that the Gentile disciples of the Way did practice many of the Jewish religious customs including Shabbat and the festivals, even into the fourth century C.E., but the Roman authority never recognized these “Christians” as having legitimate legal rights to these observances the way that the Jews did and Cohen indicates that Gentile observance, particularly of Easter, was similar to but not identical with Passover.

And as the centuries passed, the trajectories of Christianity and Judaism continued to diverge until any “quasi-Jewish” observance by Gentile Christians simply ceased to exist.

Today, Christianity can be said to have its origins in Judaism but it has not been even remotely associated with Judaism for nearly 2,000 years.

I am not saying that there are not Christians today who maintain an attraction to Jewish practices, theology, and philosophy, but there is nothing that we can pull forward across from the time of Paul, and absolutely nothing we can draw forth from the time of Moses, that would suggest that a Gentile Christian today has any right or obligation whatsoever to observance of any aspect of the Jewish Torah mitzvot, except perhaps those that are common with kindness, compassion, and decency toward other human beings (feeding the hungry, and so forth).

While Cohen cannot be considered the final word in the history of Gentiles in the early movement of “the Way,” he certainly gives us a perspective we must pay attention to, and he helps us to realize that whatever the early Christians were in the days of Peter, Paul, and John, we are not the same as they were. They never were Jewish and neither are we.

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Learning the Traditions of Our Fathers

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Talmudic Rabbis“We keep the customs of our forefathers.”

–Shabbos 35b

The Gemara here notes that we keep the customs of our forefathers, even when the rationale behind the custom no longer applies. One such custom is the recitation of Kedushah in U’va LeTzion. Why do we repeat Kedushah if it has already been recited during Birkas Kri’as Shema and Chazaras HaShatz?

The origin of this recitation is recorded in Shibolei HaLeket (ch. 44). There was a time when the gentiles banned the Jews from reciting Kedushah and would send a representative to sit in shul through Chazaras HaShatz to guarantee that it was not recited. Once Chazaras HaShatz was completed, the representative felt confident that his job was finished and he would leave. Only later, when the gentiles left, were the Jews able to say Kedushah. They therefore inserted Kedushah into U’va Letzion, in Hebrew and Aramiac, to replace the two times they were not able to say Kedushah, in Birkas Kri’as Shema and Chazaras HaShatz. Although we are now able to say Kedushah without fear of being harmed by gentiles, we continue to recite Kedushah in U’va Letzion based upon the principle of “Minhag Avoseinu Biyadeinu” — “The custom of our forefathers remains in our hands.”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Keeping the customs of our fathers”
Commentary on Shabbos 35b

All denominations or sects of Christianity of which I’m aware have a problem with the relationship between religious Judaism and its traditions and customs. As we see from a Christian point of view, the function of traditions in Judaism seems to exceed what we would consider practical utility and common sense. Certainly all cultures and groups engage in various traditions and as such, there’s no problem in this, but why participate in a custom or tradition that has outlived its usefulness and may well (though not in this case) contradict the Word of God?

Christianity, and particularly the Protestant church, sees itself as relying solely on the Word of God as we have it in the Bible without the “traditions of men” getting in the way (Sola scriptura), while we tend to see Judaism as relying primarily on their traditions (which we see growing and growing, even when some of them have outlived their original purpose) as equal or even superior in authority to what God has said to Israel. But does that really reflect the reality of what we do (and you probably know where I’m going with this)?

To define sola scriptura without academic terminology might sound something like this: The Bible is the only authority in the believer’s life; it is never wrong about anything; it touches on every aspect of life; it needs no outside help to be correctly interpreted; it never disagrees with itself; it can be understood by anyone of average intelligence; and it applies to everyone in every situation.

I only use the example of translations to illustrate the fact that in a very practical sense, the Scriptures in their original languages are, for most Christians, not enough – tools such as translations, concordances, the Masoretic vowel points, and commentaries are required in order to understand the text. Of course, the goal is to understand the original text, which in itself is not an objection to the doctrine of sola scriptura – until one realizes that every translation, every commentary, and even the textual tradition itself are all based on traditions along with the divine written revelation. It is simply impossible to get away from these traditions and study the Bible in isolation.

-Jacob Fronczak
“The Five Solas: Sola Scriptura”
Messiah Journal, Issue 111 (pp 47, 52)

If you read my recent blog post, Chayei Sarah: Oil for the Lamp, you recognize the quotes from Pastor Fronczak. You also remember the meaning behind those words: that Catholic and Protestant Christianity does not understand what the Bible is saying apart from our own traditions. That is to say, no one of us has raw, unfiltered, unmediated, uncommentaried access to anything the Bible is telling us. We all read the Bible while wearing the moral and intellectual equivalent of “rose-colored glasses.”

Not only do we find that we must accept the wisdom of the “traditions of the Christian elders,” but we must also accept the wisdom of the “traditions of the Jewish elders.” Why?

Consider the Old Testament. About two-thirds of the Christian Bible is made up of the Old Testament. Who wrote the Old Testament? Jews (It’s important to realize that Jews also wrote the New Testament, but that’s a discussion for another time).

The organization of books, chapters, verses, and insertion of vowels and punctuation all come from Jewish sources, and have been altered very little if at all by Christian translators in most cases. Without realizing it, the vast majority of Christians, when reading nearly any part of the Old Testament, are tacitly accepting Jewish tradition in how it is translated and presented to us.

Right now, you might be saying, “So what. I still believe the Bible is the highest written authority and no Rabbi, Pastor, or scholar is going to have an opinion or judgment that overrides scripture.” Well, that’s not exactly true.

Translating dead languages (ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek are all dead languages and only somewhat associated with the modern-day “living” counterparts) into the land of the living so that English speakers (for example) can read the Bible is no small thing and it’s hardly an exact science. The art of Biblical analysis and translation is highly specialized and it’s not a matter of simply saying, Word A in Hebrew means word B in English.

Even with the Masoretic traditions, though, many English readings of the Scripture can be divined from a single Hebrew text. Translation committees have to pick one. Many times readings are chosen to emphasize some Messianic prophecy which appears to point to Jesus Christ, while a Jewish translation committee might choose a different readings for the exact opposite reason. Both readings might be technically correct. However doctrinal presuppositions dictate which reading is chosen. In effect, then, when Christians have only an English Bible and no other tools, they are completely unable to interact with the Scripture – the original Greek and Hebrew texts. They are completely dependent on the work of the translator.

-Fronczak (pg 52)

Let’s go through that again. Two separate translations of the Hebrew (or Greek) text can both be technically correct, but actually render opposite meanings, depending on the doctrinal presuppositions of the translation committees involved.

I’d love to just copy and paste the entire text of Fronczak’s article into this blog post because I think every Christian (and Jew) should read it, but that’s highly impractical. You’ll just have to purchase a copy of Messiah Journal to read all of his write up (and even if you disagree with Fronczak, you’ll still have to read the complete content in order to craft a rebuttal that contains any validity at all).

But beyond apparently trying to shoot down the doctrine of sola scriptura, why am I bothering to write this and why should you care?

The vast majority of Christians do not interact with the rabbinic tradition at all. As a consequence, it is poorly understood and even attacked. Modern Jews have not forgotten the Christians who burned copies of the Talmud in Europe. Even many in the Hebrew roots movement disparage the teachings of the rabbis and ancient sages, without realizing that in many ways, we rely on these very teachings in order to interpret the Bible.

First Fruits of Zion has been vehemently attacked for this very reason – we rely on rabbinic traditions and other extra-biblical literature to illuminate and explain the text of the Scripture. Like any reputable translation committee or research institution would do, we consider a lot of evidence before coming to a conclusion on what a Bible passage means. Unfortunately, people who do not understand the importance and usefulness of this literature continue to disparage the ministry of First Fruits of Zion, even though they, as explained above, are equally reliant on traditions and extra-biblical evidence for their own interpretations of the Scripture. The continuing attacks on traditional Jewish literature such as the Talmud and Zohar betray anti-Judaic and perhaps even an anti-Semitic spirit on the part of many of our detractors.

-Fronczak (pg 53)

The focus of my point for this blog post and for the existence of my blog in general, overlaps Fronczak’s and First Fruits of Zion’s (FFOZ’s) message, but my overall scope is beyond the confines of Messianic Judaism and Hebrew Roots (and all of the variants those two groups contain). This is a message that should concern every Christian and every church, regardless of denomination or affiliation. We all share a common Bible (relative to translation), a common Jesus, and a common God. The origin of the core faith in Christ of the church can be traced directly back to ancient Israel and the Second Temple period, and the origin of everything Jesus taught as we have it recorded in the New Testament, every bit of it, travels deeply back into the Old Testament, to David, to Moses, to Jacob, Issac, and Abraham, and indeed, back to before Adam and the creation of the world by God. Not one word of what Jesus said wasn’t Jewish, nor was any of it disconnected from the Jewish reality of the Bible.

Add to that the fact that we in the church rely just as much on our traditions (and some Jewish traditions) to understand all of what God is saying, and we have a very poor case for tearing apart Jewish reliance upon tradition to understand themselves and God.

It is really, really important to view the struggle of Christianity trying to comprehend Judaism as not a specialized or niche perspective or movement. It’s not just for those few people who are affiliated with those entities we call “Messianic Judaism” or “Hebrew Roots.” This is the struggle, the mission, the challenge for everyone who calls themselves a Christian.

If the church has any hope of understanding itself, it (we) must come to terms with not only where we came from, but the people and nation God granted the ability to give us life in Him, the Jews. We cannot afford to keep living in an isolated silo pretending that those connections are forever severed or relating to our “Jewish roots” as if the last 2,000 years of Jewish and Christian history, culture, custom, and tradition simply never happened.

Not long ago, I wrote another blog post called Intersection. There are a small group of Christians and Jews who are approaching a point of intersection where we going to realize we are, in some mysterious or even mystic way, interdependent on one another for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven (which has nothing to do with “going to Heaven” and everything to do with enacting and progressing God’s plan for humanity on Earth). What may now appear as minority religious groups, variant Christian and Jewish sects, and even (Heaven forbid) cults, may well actually be part of the resurgence, the restoration, and the re-establishment of God’s intentions and design for His people Israel and the other nations of the Earth.

I believe when those Jewish and Christian people arrive at the intersection, this will happen.

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts; I myself am going.’ Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

–Zechariah 8:20-23

No, I don’t believe Christians will be turned into Jews or Jews will be turned into Christians (and a Jew being Messianic is not the same as being “Christian” as we comprehend the concepts and lifestyles), but we will all flow to “the mountain of the house of the Lord” and the people of many nations will say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” (see Micah 4:1-2)

Many Christians, including those in the Hebrew Roots movement, are fond of quoting from Ephesians 2 (particularly verse 15) and saying that differences and distinctions between Jews and Christians were all obliterated (along with the Torah, Talmud, shabbat, Passover, and anything even remotely referring to a Jewish identity and life) in Christ, “nailed to the cross,” so to speak.

And yet the unity that we see described in Zechariah 8 and Micah 4 requires no melding into uniformity between Gentile and Jew in order to achieve the prophesied unity between Israel and the nations. What is required is a sense of humility and recognition, the humility to “take hold” of the tzitzit on the tallit of a Jew, and to ask him to guide us to the mountain of the house of the Lord, the holy Temple in Jerusalem (which apparently will exist again) so that even we non-Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah King may be taught his ways and walk in his paths. (Zechariah 8:23 “says take hold of the robe of a Jew.” Is that any Jew or only one, the firstborn son of Israel…Moshiach?)

We’re all doing our best right now to do that; to walk in his paths. But we can do better. We must do better. Let us hurry to the intersection and meet together, Christian and Jew, we who share the Messiah and honor the One God. Time is short. There’s a lot of work to be done, starting with learning how to listen to one another, and comprehend the wisdom of the customs of our fathers, both the Jewish and Christian fathers.