Tag Archives: Torah

Lancaster’s Galatians: Sermon Two, Influencers, Circumcision, and What is Torah?

March 21, 2013 James Pyles 10 Comments

No word in the Jewish religion is so indefinable and yet so indispensable as the word Torah. Torah is the most comprehensive term for the substance of Judaism. Torah is Teaching. Torah is Law. No one can hope to achieve even a minimal appreciation of the Jewish religion without learning, and then reflecting on, the idea of Torah and its place in the life of the Jew. Torah has been for ages the sum and substance of Jewish scholarship. But it would be utterly wrong to conclude from this emphasis on study that Jewish spirituality runs dry in the sands of intellectualism.

-Rabbi Maurice Lamm
“What is Torah”
Aish.com

After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law, and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs.

–Acts 21:19-21 (ESV)

Last night’s conversation with Pastor Randy about the second chapter (sermon) in D. Thomas Lancaster’s book The Holy Epistle to the Galatians wasn’t quite as intense as the previous week’s talk (though it had its moments early on). A lot of the focus was on who Paul’s intended audience was supposed to be, what Paul was trying to say, and why he was saying it.

I think Pastor Randy wanted to pull in all of the material from the letter whilst I wanted to try to contain our investigation to the current chapter of Lancaster’s book, which only covers Galatians 1:6-10. Yes, that’s pretty hard to do, but as I’ve mentioned before, I wasn’t satisfied with my original reading of Lancaster’s book, and I wanted to take this opportunity to go through it again with the proverbial fine-toothed comb, sifting its pages, and uncovering its message, along with Paul’s message to the Galatian churches.

Pastor Randy remains convinced that Paul was writing to the Gentile and Jewish populations in the churches in Galatia, and it’s hard to refute that. Pastor did back away from his comments of the previous week regarding Paul’s addressing of “Brothers” as being only to Jews, but he maintains the term can be applied to both Jews and Gentiles in the community of believers.

And then I brought up how silly it would be for Paul to tell Jews not to become circumcised and convert to Judaism.

And then he brought up how some/many of the Jews in the diaspora may not have been circumcised and may not have been all that Torah observant.

What?

It would seem, summoning Occam’s razor to my rescue, that the most reasonable understanding of the Jewish population of the diaspora was that they were observant to Torah relative to the normative halachah of their day, and that the Jewish males would routinely have been circumcised on the eighth day, even as Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day.

I’ll get back to that in a moment, but before I forget, we also discussed the identity of the influencers:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

–Galatians 1:6-8 (ESV)

Who were these “troublers and distorters?” Christian expository preaching for centuries has referred to them as “Judaizers.” We will take a look at that terminology as we wrestle with this question in the ensuing material, but for now, we will adopt a term currently popular in Pauline studies and simply refer to them as the “influencers.” They are within the Galatian communities who are influencing the God-fearing Gentiles to undergo conversion.

One quick observation about the “influencers:” They are most likely believers in Yeshua of Nazareth. This possibility is lost on many interpreters. They might be Jewish believers or believing proselytes to Judaism, but they are almost certainly believers.

How do we know? We will consider the evidence as we work through the epistle, but from the outset, Paul says that they “want to distort the gospel of Messiah.” A non-believer does not want to distort the gospel; he wants to refute it and repudiate it. Only believers distort the gospel. Paul says that they preach “a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you,” but they [are] preaching a gospel, they [are] teachers of good news. For that reason we may deduce that they are believers in Yeshua of Nazareth.

-Lancaster, “Galatians” Sermon Two

When I arrived for my appointment with Pastor Randy, he was working on his computer with translations of Galatians 1:6-8 from the ESV, the KJV, and the Greek text in preparation for our meeting. Here’s the relevant portions of vv. 6-7 from the King James Version with emphasis added:

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

I can’t reproduce the Greek but the question Pastor was asking is if the “gospel” being preached by the Influencers was indeed the gospel of Christ, or another preaching altogether. While we can agree that there is no other “gospel” of Christ, there can be other types or fashions of “good news,” and Pastor’s opinion is that the Influencers didn’t have to be believing Jews based on the text or context, and indeed, they might not be believers at all.

There’s a certain merit in this, since during Paul’s time with the Jewish communities in the area of Galatia, he encountered many Jewish people and God-fearing Gentiles who listened to the message of the Gospel, but not all of them came to faith.

One of the big, big problems that all Jewish people had with “the Way,” including many of the Jews within the Way, was how to admit Gentiles as equal covenant members without requiring that they become circumcised and convert to Judaism. Acts 15 answers that question, but Galatians was almost certainly written before the Acts 15 event. The decision that Gentiles were not required to convert seems to have been clear to Paul as he was writing the letter to Galatia, but James and the Council had not yet rendered a halakhic ruling based on legal proof-texts. The “Jerusalem Letter” made the decision official, but at this point, Paul is going by his understanding of the Messiah’s plan for the Gentiles through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Getting back to circumcision, Pastor maintains that Paul very well could have been telling both Gentiles and Jews that they did not have to become circumcised and observe the Law in order to be disciples of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

OK, I accept that was Paul’s message to the Gentiles, but to the Jews? Would Paul ever say such a thing?

…and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs.

–Acts 21:21 (ESV)

That’s what finally got back to the Jews in Jerusalem about Paul, and they were taking it very seriously. What was Paul going to do to quell these rumors?

What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law.

–Acts 21:22-24 (ESV)

That’s the solution, but was Paul being disingenuous? That is, was he just going through the motions to mollify the Jerusalem Jews by undergoing a Jewish vow ritual, something he no longer saw as relevant in his life because of his faith in Messiah?

In other words, was he lying to the Jerusalem Jews (and was James and the Elders supporting his lies) about whether or not he was telling the diaspora Jews not to circumcise their sons and to forsake Moses? Did he really tell all those things to the Jewish populations in Galatia?

“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.

–Acts 22:3 (ESV)

Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees.

–Acts 23:6 (ESV)

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

–Philippians 3:4-6 (ESV)

Paul was certainly working to establish his “Jewish credentials” in these circumstances. I know that a lot of people, when in fear of their lives, would lie to save themselves, but if Paul were telling diaspora Jews to not circumcise their sons and to go against the Torah, would he have lied about it, even to save his own life?

That hardly seems likely. We know from the New Testament record that Paul endured enormous hardships for the sake of the Gospel of Christ, and that his own life was worth less to him than preaching the good news of Moshiach to the Jews and the Gentiles. If he was trying to save his own life, he wouldn’t have done what we know he did on numerous occasions, which resulted in him being beaten, left for dead, shipwrecked, arrested, put in prison, and ultimately executed by the Romans.

We also know this about some of the Jews in Jerusalem.

And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law…

–Acts 21:20 (ESV)

Jews…who have believed and all zealous for the law. Believing Jews zealous for the law. Jewish disciples of Jesus as the Messiah who were also zealous for the Torah.

Of course they were upset at the thought that Paul was rumored to be teaching against the law to the diaspora Jews. Of course they were upset when they thought he had taken Trophimus the Ephesian into the Temple (Acts 21:29).

When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”

–Acts 21:27-28 (ESV)

Paul was believed by the Jews from Asia to have taken a Greek into the Temple, defiling it (think “Maccabees” and Chanukah), and speaking against the people (Jews) and the Torah, and they called to the crowds of Jerusalem Jews to help capture this “traitor.” Either that was true and Paul lied about it to save himself, or it was untrue and Paul was defending himself from these vicious rumors. As I mentioned, Paul lying about this seems completely inconsistent with what we know about his history. If he’s telling the truth and the rumors are false, then Paul never told the diaspora Jews to not circumcise their sons, to not observe Torah, and he never took a Gentile into the Temple or spoke against Jewish people or Israel.

But if Paul supported Jewish observance of Torah and circumcision and if there were Jerusalem Jews who were both believers and zealous for the Torah, then they obviously didn’t see any sort of inconsistency between faith in Messiah Jesus and a traditional Jewish life of Torah observance.

I think I gave Pastor something to think about but he is going to test my beliefs very stringently, as well he should.

What is Torah?

Silly question, right? Not according to the quote from Rabbi Maurice Lamm I put at the top of this blog post. And yet, Pastor Randy said that he and I need to have a working definition of “Torah” so that we can know what we’re supposed to be talking about in these conversations. When I say, Paul was a “Torah observant Jew,” what do I mean? I think I know what I mean, but the answer is far more complex than we might imagine.

It’s also important to understand what “Torah” was in the days of Paul and the Apostles so that we can establish how that relates to what Torah is today. What “Torah” observance is appropriate for a modern “Messianic Jew” to follow? Are those practices identical to say, an Orthodox Jew? How does that observance relate to modern Jewish halachah, let alone the future of the Torah and the rebuilding of the Temple?

Rabbi Yanki Tauber calls the Torah a guidebook, a contract, an identity, a vision, and a daughter and wife. Rabbi Tzvi Freeman calls Torah “oneness.”

The writers at First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) say this about Torah:

The Torah is the foundation of faith in Yeshua. All of the concepts associated with the Gospel—such as God, holiness, righteousness, sin, sacrifice, repentance, faith, forgiveness, covenant, grace and the kingdom of heaven on earth—are introduced in the Torah. Basic sacraments and rituals like baptism, communion, prayer and blessing all come from the Torah. Faith in Jesus is meaningful because of the Torah. Without the Torah, the Gospel has no foundation on which to stand.

The Hebrew word torah is translated “law” in most of our English Bibles. The Torah is called the Law of Moses because Moses wrote it, but the Torah is more than just a legal code. The word “Torah” (תורה) is from the Hebrew root, yara (ירה) which means “to instruct,” or “to teach.” Although it does contain laws, Torah itself is not only a “law,” but it is God’s “teaching” and “instruction.” That explains why the word Torah is often used to refer to the whole Bible. From our perspective, even the Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation fall under the broad definition of Torah. It’s all God’s instruction, and it’s all rooted in the Torah of Moses.

The Torah is the story of God’s people and how they came to be the people of God in the first place. The Torah is something all believers have in common. We all have this common ground. The Torah is our shared origin. It is God’s book.

And that hardly scratches the surface.

What is “Torah” relative to my conversations with Pastor Randy when trying to comprehend Paul, his letter to the Galatian churches, and the wider scope of how to understand Jews in Messiah today?

I am entertaining suggestions and comments. Please let me…let us know what you think and let’s see if we can be pointed in the right direction.

Uncategorized

Four Questions, Part 4

March 20, 2013 James Pyles Leave a comment

This is a continuation on the topic I started discussing in Lancaster’s Galatians: Introduction, Audience, and What Happened to the Torah? and continued in Broad Strokes. I asked the first three of these four questions in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series. Part 4 presents the fourth and final question. Hopefully, the answer will be illuminating.

Just a reminder, all quotes from scripture will be from the ESV Bible unless otherwise stated.

Belief in the coming of the Messiah has always been a fundamental part of both Judaism and Christianity. The Hebrew word for Messiah, Mashiach or Moshiach, means anointed, as does the Greek word, christos. Thus in Christianity, Christ is just another word for the Messiah. Much has been written about Jesus as the Messiah within the Christian realm, but little information has been publicized to the uninformed Jewish community concerning the coming of a Messiah, whom all we know about is that he will be a direct descendant of king David. Although Jesus has been proposed by Christianity to be such a descendant, Judaism does not accept Christ as their savior or king. Because the Messiah cannot be separated from God’s Third Temple and because God’s Third Temple is destined for all people…

“Coming of the Messiah”
–ThirdTempleInfo.org

“For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.”

–Jeremiah 33:17-18

I’ve written about the Messiah and the Third Temple before, but this is a slightly different approach because of the fourth and last question.

What is the Future of the Torah and the Temple?

Pastor Randy and I both agree that there will be another Temple built in Jerusalem, and if the Jewish understandings of the prophesies about Messiah are accurate, then we know that Messiah will build the Temple.

Here’s a brief refresher about the Messianic prophesies courtesy of Judaism 101:

The mashiach will bring about the political and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people by bringing us back to Israel and restoring Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5). He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government, both for Jews and gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1). He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18). He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Jewish law as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15).

The idea of a Third Temple gets a bad rap from a lot of Christians because it begs the question about future sacrifices. If the sacrificial system only existed to point to Jesus and Jesus has come, gone, and will come again, why would Jesus, upon his return, build another Temple and (supposedly) restart the sacrificial system? Weren’t our sins already paid for once and for all by Christ’s death on the cross?

What makes you think that the only sacrifices made in the Temple were for sin? Also, what makes you think that only Jews made sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple of the past or that Gentiles won’t make sacrifices in the Third Temple?

That Gentiles as well as Jews brought sacrifices to the Temple is implied in the prayer of Solomon when he dedicated the Temple (I Kings 8:41-3) and in the declaration by the prophet that the Temple will be a house of prayer for all peoples (Isaiah 56:7).

-Rabbi Louis Jacobs
“Sacrifice”
MyJewishLearning.com

Within the Books of the Prophets, we find that in the past, Gentiles were welcomed to the First and Second Temples, and that they will participate even more at the Third Temple.

In his commentary on the Torah section beginning with Gen. 12:1, Ramban (Nachmanides) wrote:

“Even in the time of Joshua, … the Gentiles knew that this place was the most august of all, that it was at the center of the inhabited world; and Tradition had taught them that it corresponds in this world to the celestial Temple where Divine Majesty, called (righteousness), resides.”

When the First Temple was inaugurated by King Solomon, he beseeched G-d with an eloquent prayer that included the following words (Kings I, 8:41-43) (which show that in the past, Gentiles were welcomed to the First and Second Temples, and that they will participate even more in the Third Temple):

“If a foreigner who is not of Your people Israel comes from a distant land for the sake of Your name – for they shall hear about Your great name and Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm – when he comes to pray toward this House, oh, hear in Your heavenly abode and grant all [!] that the foreigner asks You for. Thus all the peoples of the earth will know Your name and revere You, as does Your people Israel; and they will recognize that Your name is attached to this House that I have built.”

Torah Law holds that Gentiles are allowed to bring burnt offerings to G-d in the Temple when it is standing in Jerusalem. There is a specific commandment to let us know that an animal (sheep, goat or bullock) offered in the Temple by a Gentile must be unblemished, to the same degree as the offering of a Jew. (Leviticus 22:25)

-from “Will Gentiles be permitted to worship at the Third Temple in Jerusalem?”
AskNoah.org

I know I’m borrowing heavily from my previous blog post and you may be wondering why I just didn’t reblog it as the answer to this fourth question. But here’s the new thought.

If there indeed will be a Third Temple that Messiah will build and if part, most, or all of the sacrificial system will be reinstated, then what is the role of the Torah in Messianic Days?

Pastor Randy and I talk a lot about what the role of Torah was in the days before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and what the role of Torah is now. He believes, using Orthodox Jewish halachah as a guide, that the Torah is too difficult to keep and has always been too difficult to keep. I’m pretty sure I spelled a lot of that out in my blog post about my last conversation with him a week ago.

“For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.”

–Deuteronomy 30:11-14

Doesn’t sound like Moses (or God) intended the Torah to be too difficult to obey or too hard to access.

Here’s another reason why the Torah has a future in the days of Messiah.

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the Lord afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths.

–Zechariah 14:16-19

I could draw from more scriptural quotes but chances are you know them all and they’re referenced above anyway. If a Third Temple will be built by Messiah, and if sacrifices and festivals that require sacrifices will be reinstated, and if Gentiles will not only be allowed to worship at the Temple and make sacrifices but in some cases, required to do so, then how will all that be possible if the Torah is not observed, at least as far as the Temple is concerned?

It seems clear that the Torah had a vital role in the existence of the Jews of ancient Israel and it will have a vital role in future, Messianic Israel. But what happens to Torah in the meantime? Does it just vanish temporarily from existence, put in cold storage until it’s needed, and then brought out, thawed out, and then be put back into service when Messiah starts his construction work?

Well, no. First of all, religious Jews observe the Torah every day. For that matter, Christians observe substantial portions of the Torah (ideally) every day. Every time a Christian performs any act of kindness in the name of Jesus, he or she is observing one of the mitzvot. They (we) just don’t call it that. Every time a Christian donates money, food, or some other good or service to the poor, they are observing a mitzvah (probably more than one). Every time a Christian comforts a person who is grief-stricken at the loss of a loved one, performs an act of kindness that assists the successful wedding of a bride, visits a sick person in the hospital, visits someone in jail, shovels snow off of a neighbor’s driveway and sidewalk unasked…they are performing Torah mitzvot.

The Torah is hardly obsolete. The Law isn’t dead. In fact, if Christians and Christianity are functioning properly, the Torah is alive and well and being performed in churches around the world and in the lives of Christians and their neighbors every day. The Torah is also alive and well and being performed in synagogues around the world and in the lives of Jews and their neighbors every day. No, not all Christians and not all Jews are doing what God expects of them (us), but some are. Not everything that some Christians think of as “the Word of God” and not everything that some Jews think of as “Torah” is really God’s Word and Torah.

Some Christians have some pretty funny ideas about how they’re supposed to judge people who don’t comply with their personal political and social agenda, and some Jews have some pretty funny ideas about how far to take all of the massive compilation of halachah that has become attached to Torah. I suspect when Messiah returns, he’s going to help us all out by teaching us what God’s expectations are really all about and what the Torah is supposed to mean as applied to Gentile Christians and as applied to Jews.

But be that as it may, the Torah has a past, a present, and a future. It has to, otherwise what even traditional Christians understand about the Bible doesn’t make sense, and many specific passages of scripture don’t make sense.

I have no idea exactly how we are to apply the Torah in the lives of Jews or Christians today except in a general, common sense way. As I’ve said numerous times before, based on Acts 15, Acts 21 and various other scriptures, I don’t believe that Gentile, God-fearing believers in Messiah are expected to observe the mitzvot in the manner of the Jews. I do believe we are to observe it as taught by Messiah, and what he taught focused on the acts of kindness and charity I mentioned above. I also believe that Jewish people, believers in Messiah Yeshua and otherwise, remain under all of the covenants that God made with Israel. The New Covenant extends the part of the Abrahamic covenant that allows the Messiah to bless the nations to the rest of us, providing salvation and relationship to God for the Gentiles who are called by Messiah’s name, and providing reaffirmation of all of the previous covenants to the Jewish people.

What’s New about the New Covenant, as I was recently reminded, is that it will be written on our hearts. The actual content of the writing won’t change but how we will perceive it and live it out will be different. I say “will be” as opposed to “is” because if the “writing” were a done deal, we all would be leading very different lives, rising above sin, rising above the cares of the world, all “knowing God” in a way that currently escapes us.

Messiah opened the door and he holds all the keys, but he’s not done yet and until he is, the finger of God is still in motion, slowly inscribing “Torah” on the hearts of Christians and Jews everywhere.

But that Torah is and will be about the Temple, Sukkot, Pesach, Shavuot, and many more things most Christians don’t consider important anymore. That Torah will be a pure product, freed from our biases, our interpretations, our confusion, and our controversies.

But there was a Torah. There is a Torah. And there will be a Torah. Our current understanding is not very good, and like Paul said, we are seeing the Bible and the things of God as through a mirror dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12). We’re all still going to mess up a “free lunch” until Messiah returns. Until then, we still have to eat that lunch, so to speak, even if we do so poorly. At least we’re mindful of God and His will and His Word.

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

–Matthew 5:18

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

–Romans 3:31

I hope you enjoyed going over these four questions with me. As you read this, it is Wednesday morning, and tonight, I’ll have another conversation with Pastor on Lancaster’s “Galatians” book. May I continue to be inspired and illuminated by my relationship with Pastor Randy and may God grant both of us the eyes to see and the ears to hear what our Master is teaching us all.

Addendum, March 21: My wife emailed me a link to Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe’s article The Dynamic of Sacrifices. Rabbi Yaffe tells a wonderful story about the meaning of the Olah offering, the fire from God, and how the sacrifices in the Third Temple, built by Messiah, will provide the means for a unity between all people.

“I will bring them to My holy mount, and I will cause them to rejoice in My house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be acceptable upon My altar, for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

–Isaiah 56:7

Amen and may it come soon and in our days.

Torah Portion

Vayikra: Drawing Closer

March 15, 2013 James Pyles Leave a comment

The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying: Speak to the Israelite people, and say to them: When any of you presents an offering of cattle to the Lord, he shall choose his offering from the herd or from the flock.

–Leviticus 1:1-2 (JPS Tanakh)

The book of Vayikra (Leviticus) primarily deals with what are commonly called “sacrifices” or “offerings.” According to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch: a “sacrifice” implies giving up something that is of value to oneself for the benefit of another. An “offering” implies a gift which satisfies the receiver. The Almighty does not need our gifts. He has no needs or desires. The Hebrew word is korban, which is best translated as a means of bringing oneself into a closer relationship with the Almighty. The offering of korbanot was only for our benefit to come close to the Almighty.

-Rabbi Kalman Packouz
“Shabbat Shalom Weekly”
Commentary on Torah Portion Vayikra
Aish.com

Leviticus is one of the books of the Bible that many Christians can’t stand. It’s so boring. “Anyway,” we say to ourselves, “aren’t we done with all of those icky, bloody sacrifices?”

According to blogger and author Derek Leman, the sacrifices teach us a good many things about Jesus or Yeshua Our Atonement, as he titles his new book. No, I’ve not laid eyes on it yet but at some point, I’ll probably need to get a hold of a copy so I can review it. In the meantime, I’ll just have to offer what meager insights I have on this week’s Torah Portion and what it means for Christians.

The clue is in what Rabbi Packouz says about the nature of sacrifices or “korbanot” which has the meaning not so much of slaying an animal to appease God, but to bring an offering to God in order to draw closer to Him. Where else do we see this imagery?

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

–Romans 12:1-2 (ESV)

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

–1 Peter 2:4-5 (ESV)

Paul calls us to be living sacrifices and Peter says to offer God spiritual sacrifices. Obviously, in neither case are they suggesting that we bring animal sacrifices to the Temple or to offer (gulp) our own bodies as physical sacrifices on the pyre, though as I once mentioned, every soul can be considered to be on the altar of God.

When we connect our lives to making a “sacrifice for God,” we usually think of depriving ourselves of something, doing without, even suffering pain and torture. I can’t say that’s not what God will ask of us. After all, in China and elsewhere in the world, Brother Yun and many others like him have suffered greatly and sacrificed much for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But regardless of what God may ask of you or me, whatever it is, it’s not a matter of what we are doing without but what immeasurable treasures we gain, the greatest of which is the drawing closer to God.

Sometimes it’s not a matter of waiting around to see what God will ask. Sometimes it’s a matter of looking around and seeing what needs to be done.

Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sassov once came to the marketplace in Yaroslav. He was passing among the vendors, checking the quality of the straw and hay for sale, when he met his friend Rabbi Shimon of Yaroslav.

“Rebbe, what are you doing here?” R. Shimon asked in surprise.

“Leave out my ‘rebbe’ and your ‘rebbe,’ and come with me to carry a bale of hay to a poor widow who had no hay or straw upon which to lay her broken body,” the Sassover replied pungently.

The two holy leaders went together, hauling a bale of hay on their shoulders. Astonished bystanders stared in wonder and moved aside to make room for them to pass.

As they went, Rabbi Moshe Leib remarked, “Were the Holy Temple standing today, we would be bringing sacrifices and libations. Now we bring straw, and it is as though we have all the kavanot (spiritual intentions) that come with offering the minchah sacrifice.”

Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sassov’s father, R. Yaakov, would take a job before Passover grinding wheat at the mill—not for himself, though he was also a poor man, but for a widow and orphan who lived in his neighborhood. And he did this despite his great and abiding love for the Torah, which he learned constantly.

Moshe Leib, his son, followed in his father’s footsteps. Despite his greatness in Torah, he did not worry about his honor when it came to performing acts of kindness for his fellow Jew with his own hands, even if they were beneath his status in the eyes of others.

-Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles
“In Place of a Temple Offering”
from Stories My Grandfather Told Me
quoted from Chabad.org

We are the closest to God when we are the closest to other human beings, especially those who have needs far greater than our own. Here we see that two men, two Rebbes who normally did not carry their own straw much less carry straw for a poor widow drew closer to God by looking around, seeing a need, and responding unreservedly. Or as the Master taught:

The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

–Matthew 23:11-12 (ESV)

Drawing closer to God is inconsistent with claiming self-righteousness, self-exaltation, and self-privilege. Servitude, humility, kindness, and a spirit willing to help with no expectation of return draws Creator and creation into close proximity. Seeking who we are in God brings us closer to God. Seeking who and what somebody else is in God as if it were our own will only bring trouble.

This is the way of Torah: eat bread with salt, drink water by measure, and sleep on the earth.

-Ethics of the Fathers 6:4

Does observance of Torah require living a life of poverty and depriving ourselves of all the niceties of the world.

Certainly not. The Talmud is elaborating upon another Talmudic statement: “Who is wealthy? One who is content with his portion” (Ethics of the Fathers 4:1).

People who can be happy with the basics of life – food, clothing, and shelter – can truly enjoy the luxuries of life, because they can be happy even without them. Those whose happiness depends upon having luxuries are likely to be perennially dissatisfied, in constant need of more, and consequently unhappy, even if they have everything they desire.

A wise man once observed a display of various items in a store window. “I never knew there were so many things I can get along without,” he said.

If bread and water can satisfy us, then we can enjoy a steak. If we are not satisfied unless we have caviar, we will discover that even caviar is not enough.

Today I shall…

…try to be content with the essentials of life and consider everything else as optional.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Nisan 2”
Aish.com

As Rabbi Twerski says, this isn’t an invitation to pursue self-deprivation, to give all our belongings to the poor, and then move to India to work with lepers. It’s not even an invitation to abandon motivation and striving to better ourselves, our incomes, and our positions in life. It is, however, an invitation to consider that after we’ve done all we can in taking care of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors, to look around, take stock of our environment, and to realize that we should be satisfied with the gifts of God’s providence. It is from those gifts that we give back to others and give back to God, for everything belongs to Him anyway, and who we are and what we have only exists so that we may serve Him.

And by serving God and serving others, we serve ourselves, for what we then achieve is union and belonging and closeness to who and where we came from in the first place.

Good Shabbos.

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Lancaster’s Galatians: Introduction, Audience, and What Happened to the Torah?

March 14, 2013 James Pyles 38 Comments

The Apostle Peter said that the writings of “our beloved brother Paul” contain “some things hard to understand.” If that was true in Peter’s day, how much more so today. Paul was a prodigy educated in the most elite schools in Pharisaism. He wrote and thought from that Jewish background.

-D. Thomas Lancaster
from the Introduction (pg 1) of his book
The Holy Epistle to the Galatians: Sermons on a Messianic Jewish Approach

I know I’m going to regret this, but if I wait until tomorrow or later in the week to write this, I’m going to forget something about my conversation with Pastor Randy. I have to get up at an insanely early hour tomorrow, but I need to make a record of what we discussed tonight.

As I write this it’s Wednesday night. I left Pastor’s office just about fifteen or twenty minutes ago after discussing the Introduction and first chapter of Lancaster’s Galatians book with him. You’ll recall I mentioned a few days ago our intention to make a study of Lancaster’s Galatians chapter-by-chapter, week-by-week as the subject of our Wednesday night discussions. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I agreed to focus our weekly talks on this book, but I never thought I’d be involved in such a densely packed conversation. Actually, I was afraid that we would run out of material, since Chapter One (really, Sermon One) is very introductory. However, we barely made it out of the Introduction section and into the first chapter before time ran out.

I finally confessed to Pastor Randy tonight that I’m more than a little in awe that we’re having these conversations. Debating theological topics with him, given his intellect, education, and his fluency in languages, makes me feel like a five-year old trying to discuss the Grand Unified Theory with Albert Einstein. OK, maybe it’s not quite that extreme, but I’m definitely out of my depth. To his credit, Pastor Randy said the benefit he receives is that I am well versed in the New Testament from a Messianic Jewish point of view.

I’m sure there are a few people out there who would disagree with that assessment or me, but such is life.

Did Paul convert to Christianity? That question came up rather abruptly.

No, not from my point of view and Pastor Randy agreed but he believes that Paul changed direction 180 degrees from his former life as a Pharisee, not just in turning from persecuting believing Jews to supporting them and evangelizing the Gentiles, but in his entire conceptualization and attitude about Judaism (as opposed to “Jewishness” which is the quality of a person being a Jew without the religious and halalaic implications) and the Torah.

Acts 15 came into the conversation very quickly and I realized that Pastor Randy believes that not only did James and the Council absolve the Gentiles from having to observe Torah, but the Jewish believers as well. As I’ve said before when addressing Acts 15, I don’t believe James made a decision that extended beyond the Gentile disciples of Messiah.

This all goes back to our previous conversations about the purpose of the Torah, which we’ve been having for many weeks. While Pastor Randy doesn’t believe Jews and their “Jewishness” ended with Jesus, ultimately, he believes the Torah pointed to Jesus as a sort of culmination and that it’s not Judaism but the message of the Gospel that saves. He believes that if Jews had continued in the “Messianic faith” (i.e. Christianity) beyond the first century or two after the ascension, the observance of Torah would have largely fallen away. Certainly the vast majority of what we think of as Rabbinic Judaism wouldn’t have gained traction and evolved and expanded to what we see today, particularly in Orthodox Judaism.

I know more than a few Jews reading my blog post probably just winced or gasped a bit. when reading the last few sentences.

On the other hand, looking at the opposite end of history, we both agree that the Jewish Messiah King will return and sit on the Throne of David in Jerusalem. There will be a Third Temple. The festivals will be reinstated. Gentiles as well as Jews will observe the festivals but, according to Pastor Randy, the Messiah will be the focus, not simply observance for its own sake.

But will “Judaism” disappear? Should “Judaism” (as opposed to “Jews” and “Jewishness”) disappear?

I didn’t hear Pastor say that Jews should disappear, quite the opposite, but we did discuss, and discuss, and discuss what is a Jew, what is Jewishness, and what is Judaism. My argument is that, whether you agree with everything that the Rabbis said, did, and wrote over the past twenty centuries, for right or for wrong, it was the necessary element and organizational structure for the preservation of Jews as a people and without that ethnic, traditional, legal, corporate structure, with only a string of DNA identifying the Jewish people as Jewish , they would ceased to exist as an identifiable people group in the world a very long time ago.

Both Pastor Randy and I agree that God will not allow the Jewish people to perish.

But what then are the distinctions between Jewish believers and Gentile believers in Messiah, both in ancient times and now? That was a hotly debated discussion. No, we didn’t get “hot under the collar,” but we did go around and around the point, orbiting it like two comets chasing each other’s dust trails.

If the Torah is to be observed in Messianic Days during the time of the Third Temple and if God meant for the Torah to be obeyed by the Jewish people prior to the first coming of Messiah and even during his lifetime, what was supposed to happen to it between the ascension and the return? Granted, we have no Temple today, but does that mean the entire Torah is in cold storage awaiting a spring thaw? And what about the sages? Are none of their interpretations, rulings, and judgments valid? Even in Yeshua’s day, he agreed with some of the halachah of the Jewish authorities (PDF) and indeed, he agreed they had authority to make such rulings.

At one point in the conversation, Pastor Randy said that he believes both Jews and Gentiles in Messiah in today’s world should look and behave in substantially similar ways, if not identically based on his understanding of the New Testament. His issue is that Torah was always impossible to keep and was put in place primarily to point to that impossibility and why we all need the Messiah. My point is that such an act looks like God just set the Jews up to try to obey an impossible set of rules for the sake of eventually pointing to Jesus. Those hundreds of generations of Jews who lived and died struggling to obey Torah would have led lost lives if the only reason for Torah’s existence was to make a point. What saved those ancient, devout Israelites?

“Grace,” says Pastor Randy.

My point exactly. Torah never, ever was intended to save. It was always faith and grace.

I think he can agree with the value of the Jewish traditions if they’re viewed as traditions and not behaviors one must do in order to please God. “But what about feeding the hungry and visiting the prisoner,” says I? The Torah didn’t stop, particularly the parts that clearly are a responsibility for Christians and Jews today. And if “Rabbinic Judaism” was God’s mechanism for preserving the Jewish people as a people since the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., then who is to say that it’s wrong? After all, what systems have been put into place to implement and sustain Christianity over the long course of history?

One of the big stumbling blocks in the discussion was “Rabbinic Judaism” which could be defined as relying on a “system” instead of what the Bible says. I countered that a Christian denomination is a system and that Pastor Randy operates within one. He countered that he can and has existed outside a denomination before and that what the Bible says is ultimately more important than a denomination or any other system of religious practice.

But do we have unfiltered access to the Bible and to God? Don’t we use “systems” as the means by which we implement what the Bible tells us to do in our daily lives? Yes, if we take all of the incredible detail involved in living life as an Orthodox Jew, for example, those “implementations” are vast, multi-layered, and frankly, there are many that seem to go too far (I know I’m going to catch heck for that), but it’s still fits my definition of what humans do to “operationalize” a life of faith. Christian denominations do this to a lesser or greater degree, but without the same level of formalization (after all, what is Christmas, what is Easter, and what is Lent?).

Can we live a life of just the Bible without a system (be careful how you answer that)? Are there portions of both the modern Christian and the modern Jewish “systems” that are valid interpretations of a Biblical life, even if Messiah would (and will) have “issues” with other portions?

Jesus made distinctions between halachah he supported and did not support (is it lawful to heal on the Shabbat?) when he was first here and I suspect that he’ll “straighten out” both Jews and Gentiles when he returns. Some Jewish authorities write that one of the things Messiah will do when he comes (returns) is teach Torah properly and I believe it, too.

Pastor Randy says he believes that Gentiles should and will observe Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot along with the Jews but you can’t do that without the Torah not only being intact, but valid, and able to be applied in our world.

You can see why we almost didn’t make it out of page 1, let alone the Introduction of the book, and this is where we spent most of our discussion time. Sermon One runs from page 9 to page 19. It’s where we’ll have to pick up next week, but we did encounter an interesting question in the Sermon One material, and one I thought I knew the answer to. To whom did Paul write the Galatians letter? Yes, the churches in Galatia, but who in those churches? On page 19, Lancaster says it’s to the “God-fearing Gentile believers in Galatia” specifically.

But get this:

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel.

–Galatians 1:11 (ESV)

Would Paul have called Gentles “brothers?” Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to call his fellow Jews by that name?

We ourselves are Jews by birth…

–Galatians 2:15 (ESV)

Paul is obviously talking to Jewish people at this point.

To give a human example, brothers…

–Galatians 3:15 (ESV)

Brothers, I entreat you…

–Galatians 4:12 (ESV)

I could go on. There’s 4:28, 4:31, 5:11, 5:13, and 6:1 to consider, but according to these references, there’s every reason to believe that Paul was addressing both a Jewish and a Gentile audience in this letter. That being the case, Pastor Randy suggests that Paul is explaining to both Jewish and Gentile believers that obedience to the Law is not necessary if one is in Christ. Is obedience to the Law unnecessary for either the Jew or the Gentile if Messiah is your Master?

Salvation is through Jesus but does that obliterate the Sinai covenant for the Jews? Pastor Randy and I agree that it is through Abraham and the New Covenant that we Gentiles are “grafted in.” We know that the Hebrew for the word “New” in “New Covenant” really means “new” and not “renewed,” even though the wording of the New Covenant (see Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36) largely confirms and expands all of the covenants that God previously made with Israel.

Something I didn’t remember to bring up during my conversation with Pastor Randy is the question of whether or not the New Covenant is already completely written on our hearts or if God is in the process of doing the writing? If the latter, then God may be rather slowly (from a human perspective) doing away with the old (yes, the Torah will go away when heaven and earth go away) and replacing it with the new, but that such a thing has not been accomplished yet (Hebrews 8:13). As I alluded to a moment ago, Jesus also said that “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished,” (Matthew 5:18) and I don’t think that “all is accomplished” yet. After all, the Messiah hasn’t returned, we don’t have universal peace on earth, the Temple hasn’t been rebuilt, and Israel is not yet the head of the nations.

You can see why I didn’t want to wait until later to get this all down. I’m tired but energized at the same time. I’m fighting well out of my weight class, so to speak, but I have to keep going. I agreed to have these conversations in order to learn and I know that Pastor Randy is both teaching and learning as well.

There’s nothing better to show you what you truly know and believe than to have your belief’s challenged and be asked to give a “ready defense.”

The funny thing is, after the conversation was over and Pastor Randy was walking me to the door of the church (by the time we’re done talking, just about everyone is gone and he wants to make sure all the doors are securely locked for the night), he continued to share with me his love for the Jewish people and his fascination with Judaism. Listening to him talk about his life in Israel and his relationship with his Jewish friends, it is abundantly apparent that he adores the texture, fabric, and essence of living among Jews. But at that moment, his words and emotions seemed so inconsistent with his beliefs on the Law and Judaism relative to our conversation. And yet in every other way, he confirms my own belief in the exceptional “specialness” of what it is to be Jewish and to live a fully realized Jewish life. The Jewish Jerusalem is where we feel the beat of God’s heart.

If ten thousand religious Jewish people came to faith in Yeshua as Messiah tomorrow, should we really ask them to give up everything in their lives that defines them as Jewish and that allows them to worship God as Jews? It sure didn’t sound like Pastor Randy was saying that in those last seconds we had together before I walked out into the night. I know he agrees that we Christians haven’t gotten it all right and we’ve built up our “systems” that help us understand how to obey God. Someday, Messiah will show us what we did right and what we didn’t do right, what we should have included, and what we should have let go.

In examining the vast body of Jewish practice, particularly the complexities of Orthodox Judaism, can we say that much of it is right and necessary now but that when Messiah returns, he will also say what is proper and what is not? Will there be a distinction in Torah for Jews that will be Jewish and will be a Judaism but will not look quite the same as Judaism looks right now?

Incredibly tough questions. I don’t have the answers. Messiah does but he’s not here yet.

This series of conversations and my blogs about them are controversial by design and I don’t expect all of my readers to accept everything I’m documenting here. I have no idea what kind or how much “blowback” I’m going to receive, but I expect there will be some.

Please be patient and exercise kindness and even some restraint in your responses, should you choose to respond. This is a journey of exploration into what for me is an undiscovered country. If you know the territory and would like to share some details about the road ahead, you are welcome to participate.

The journey continues next week.

Addendum, March 15: After reading all of the comments and continuing to struggle with the conversation and the issues involved, I have produced another reflection of my thoughts in an “extra meditation,” Broad Strokes.

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Weight

March 14, 2013 James Pyles 6 Comments

Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

–Deuteronomy 10:14-16 (ESV)

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.”

–Matthew 23:23 (ESV)

I’ve been reminded lately that blogging isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. No, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere (I hear a few disappointed sighs in the background). But I agree with one of my recent critics that we need to focus on more than just words and in particular, more than just certain, oft-repeated conversations.

Usually we think of negativity – the tendency to criticize, blame, hate, fear, or be depressed – as a psychological disposition. “Some people are just upbeat; I’m not.”

It sounds as neutral as saying, “Some people are blonde; some are brunette.”

But what if you viewed negativity as a spiritual disease?

-Sara Yoheved Rigler
“The Danger in Your Head”
Aish.com

This isn’t the only message I’ve received on this theme lately.

We live in an age of addictions. I grew up hearing about drug addicts, and had a brother-in-law who died from an overdose. Other people are addicted to food, and others to alcohol. The reason for some addictions is physical, as in the case of drugs or cigarettes. Other addictions are psychological, as people seek to escape the more painful aspects of their lives. I have noticed over many years, that some people are addicted to negativity.

Like most addictions, people who are addicted to negativity mask it with the notion that they are doing something noble, or filled with righteous indignation. Indeed, there are people who are noble, and are filled with righteous indignation who seek to challenge the status quo and change society for good, like the people who fought for civil rights for various groups.

-Rabbi Dr. Michael Schiffman
“Addiction to Negativity”
Drschiffman’s Blog

Yeah, that describes me. It also describes some of the people who criticize me. To be fair, once we get on our white chargers and lift up our lances, we start tilting at windmills with a ferocity and obsessive determination that would make Don Quixote look like a paragon of calm and reason.

Dr. Schiffman ends his blog post by saying, “In the end, if you let them drag you down, you can’t be of help to anyone else.” When he says “them,” he means addictions, but he could just as well mean “negative conversations” or “negative people.” What he really could have said is “when you let yourself drag you down…”

Sometimes negative people come unbidden to my blog but often I really am asking for it. I’ve seen a nice, juicy windmill in the distance and it seems to just call to me, like a pint of Guinness calls to an alcoholic. So I slap on my armor, hoist myself up on my big, noble steed (no doubt with the help of an imaginary Pancho Sanza), grab my weapons, and it’s off I go to joust with ethereal foes on the fields of honor. Then I tick someone off and they come to my blog and complain at me.

So what have I accomplished?

Or more to the point, Oh duh!

Judaism always strives to make the mundane sacred. If we elevate physical acts like eating by making a blessing, then why not cleaning?

When we do ‘bedikat chametz,’ the traditional search for bread that is performed with a candle and feather, we are searching our inner selves. The wick of the candle represents our body, while the flame that always strives to aim upward is our soul. The bread (the chametz) is our own puffed up ego. It is our sense of self-importance that often blocks the soul.

So when we look in those deep, dark places for bread, we are searching our inner selves for our ego. When we find the chametz, we then burn it with the flame, symbolically purging ourselves of our ego and liberating our soul.

-Nicole Bem
“Spiritual Scrubbing”
Aish.com

Judaism schedules numerous events on the calendar for “spiritual scrubbing” but that schedule isn’t written very well on the Christian soul. More’s the pity.

Even having participated in Judaism and “psuedo-Judaism” over the years, I haven’t really gotten used to it. It is said that we should repent one day before we die, but since we never know when we’ll die, we should repent constantly. Christians know this but it is part of human nature to put off what we need to do until the last second. Problem is, as I’ve already said, we never know when the last second is going to tick away and expire.

What were those “weightier matters of the Law?”

Justice
Mercy
Faithfulness

I recently complained that bloggers representing a certain minority variant of Christianity fail to actually talk about these “weightier matters.” I’ve been told that the “ideals, theologies, and doctrines of an infant and growing movement” are more important or at least more interesting to the audience on the web than the aforementioned justice, mercy, and faithfulness. I hope that’s not true because if it is, then it’s a sad and pathetic commentary on that movement, and people consuming such material have lost their focus far more than I ever could.

It’s been so long since I’ve blogged about losing my focus that I can’t even find my previous write-up in a search. I guess that means it’s long overdue.

What are the weightier matters of Torah? Justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Many of the final exhortations of Paul’s letters also focus on these matters.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

–Philippians 4:8-9 (ESV)

As both Passover and Easter approach, I think it’s a good time to clean out my head, my heart, and my spirit. It’s a good time to rejuvenate myself and to focus my attention on what really matters. I can give out all the advice in the world about what I think others in the religious blogosphere should do, but that’s really meaningless. If they don’t know what God wants of them by now, nothing I can say will make any difference. However, I can make a lot of difference in what I say and do.

But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

–Titus 3:9 (ESV)

I really need to take this piece of advice on board, because the adherence to these “foolish controversies” just consumes the web. I think there’s a better note to write for my virtual “message in a bottle.”

In his article Love Humanity, Rabbi Noah Weinberg provides a list as a way to answer the question, Why is “Loving Humanity” a Way to Wisdom?

In order to realize your own potential, you have to love humanity. Their success is your success, too.
The more you have love in your life, the more happy and efficient you’ll be.
If you don’t appreciate the phenomenon of human beings, you’re missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures.
Loving others connects you to the world, to all facets of creation.
Love helps you get out of the confines of “me” and into the expansive “we.”
Prioritize your love. Appreciate the relative value of each virtue.
Realize that all human beings are God’s children.

If I write more like this in my “morning meditations,” I probably won’t attract very many readers and probably most people won’t comment or reply (although you are certainly encouraged to…hint, hint). People usually respond when they’re upset, not when they’re encouraged (though I’m trying to change that in myself for the better). I understand the need to write blogs and papers on theology, doctrine, and dogma. I know we need to provide clarification and solid Biblical research and teaching on what we understand the Bible to be saying to us.

But beyond that, what we really need is a guide to the simple way of living and doing the Word and Will of God. Dismissing people in favor of “things” and “mechanics” isn’t doing that. After all, how much theology do you really need to understand to volunteer to play with the little ones in the church’s nursery on Sunday morning, or to visit one of the older church members who is sick and in the hospital?

Some laws are heavier than others. They require more “strength” to lift. But the reward is that when you perform the “weightier matters of Torah” on a regular basis, they become very light…and this also lightens the heaviness of your soul…and of my soul.

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Vayakhel-Pekudei: Come Together

March 8, 2013 James Pyles 14 Comments

Moses then convoked the whole Israelite community and said to them: These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do.

–Exodus 35:1 (JPS Tanakh)

The verb vayakhel – which gives the portion its name – is crucial to an understanding of the task in which Moses is engaged. At its simplest level it serves as a motiv-word, recalling a previous verse. In this case the verse is obvious:

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they assembled around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us.” (32:1)

Moses’ act is what the kabbalists called a tikkun: a restoration, a making-good-again, the redemption of a past misdemeanour. Just as the sin was committed by the people acting as a kahal or kehillah, so atonement was to be achieved by their again acting as a kehillah, this time by making a home for the Divine presence as they earlier sought to make a substitute for it. Moses orchestrates the people for good, as they had once been assembled for bad (The difference lies not only in the purpose but in the form of the verb, from passive in the case of the calf to active in the case of Moses. Passivity allows bad things to happen – “Wherever it says ‘and it came to pass’ it is a sign of impending tragedy”. (Megillah 10b) Proactivity is the defeat of tragedy: “Wherever is says, ‘And there will be’ is a sign of impending joy.” (Bemidbar Rabbah 13)

At a deeper level, though, the opening verse of the portion alerts us to the nature of community in Judaism.

In classical Hebrew there are three different words for community: edah, tsibbur and kehillah, and they signify different kinds of association.

-Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
From the “Covenant and Conversation” series
“Three Types of Community”
Commentary on Vayakhel
Aish.com

There’s a tendency in certain corners of Christianity to struggle with the definition of words like “kahal” and “kehillah” vs. the word “ekklesia.” Does “ekklesia” mean “church” or is it associated with one of the words that has to do with “Jewish” gatherings? Certainly “ekklesia” and “synagogē” although related, tend to be split in our modern world to mean (Christian) church and (Jewish) synagogue. But digging just under the surface, here’s what we find.

At its most basic level, “ekklesia” means “a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly.” (see BibleStudyTools.com). This strips the word of all its religious connotation and gives us the “nuts and bolts” understanding. An ekklesia can be any gathering of citizens called out into a public place. They could be football fans or a lynch mob. They don’t have to be “the church.”

Interestingly enough, one definition provided by my source says, “the assembly of the Israelites,” but there’s no way to understand in that context if we are to take “Israelites” as strictly Jewish people or rather to overlay a Christian understanding and include Gentile believers as “Israelites.” Given that ekklesia tends to be considered a compound word made up of “ek” (out of, from, by) and “kaleo” (to call, to invite, to give a name to), it seems more likely that the application in this sense, is recognizing “Israelites” as those called by God in the original “called” or “chosen” manner at Sinai. I don’t see the idea of a “mixed” population of Jews and Gentiles being called collectively “Israelites” here.

By contrast:

A synagogue (from Koine Greek: συναγωγή transliterated synagogē, meaning “assembly”), sometimes spelt synagog, is a Jewish or Samaritan house of prayer (When broken down, the word could also mean “learning together” – from the Greek συν syn, together, and αγωγή agogé, learning or training) that emerged at first essentially within the context of Hellenistic Judaism in the diasporas of Greece and the Hellenized regions of the MENA area (Cilicia, Syria and Alexandria) in the second half of the Second Temple period, then progressively became the typical place of Jewish worship and education after 70 CE, when Roman persecutions accelerated the geographic dispersion process that accompanied the abrupt ending of Temple worship and priestly rituals and traditions.

–Wikipedia

So synagogue seems to be more related to “house of assembly,” “house of prayer,” or “house of study,” but within a specifically Jewish context (we do see God-fearing Gentiles periodically attending synagogues in the late Second Temple period, but they were clearly non-Jewish guests within a Jewish venue). People don’t typically ever say something like “Christian synagogue” or “Jewish church.”

But why am I delving into all of this and why should you care?

This week, I’ve been discussing (complaining) about the interactions and friction that seem to occur between certain groups of believing Jews and certain groups of believing non-Jews (i.e. Christians). One of the questions that comes up in such transactions is how closely those groups are related. Are they a single group with a single identity, differentiated only by a bit of DNA and a slice of culture, or are they defined as more distinct and separate on the level of community and covenant?

Let’s take a look at what we know about “ekklesia,” which is how we commonly think of the community of disciples of Jesus Christ, and compare it to Rabbi Sacks’ definitions for different communities of Jews (and I’m setting “synagogue” aside for the sake of this conversation). First, Rabbi Sacks’ discussion:

Edah comes from the word eid, meaning “witness.” The verb ya’ad carries the meaning of “to appoint, fix, assign, destine, set apart, designate or determine.” An edah can be a gathering for bad as well as good. The Israelites, on hearing the report of the spies, lose heart and say they want to return to Egypt. Throughout, they are referred to as the edah (as in “How long will this wicked community grumble against Me?” Bemidbar 14: 27). The people agitated by Korach in his rebellion against Moses and Aaron’s authority is likewise called an edah (“If one man sins, will You be angry with the whole community?” Bemidbar 16: 22). Nowadays the word is generally used for an ethnic or religious subgroup. An edah is a community of the like-minded. The word emphasises strong identity. It is a group whose members have much in common.

By contrast the word tsibbur – it belongs to Mishnaic rather than biblical Hebrew – comes from the root tz-b-r meaning “to heap” or “pile up”. (Bereishith 41:49) To understand the concept of tsibbur, think of a group of people praying at the Kotel. They may not know each other. They may never meet again. But for the moment, they happen to be ten people in the same place at the same time, and thus constitute a quorum for prayer. A tsibbur is a community in the minimalist sense, a mere aggregate, formed by numbers rather than any sense of identity. A tsibbur is a group whose members may have nothing in common except that, at a certain point, they find themselves together and thus constitute a “public” for prayer or any other command which requires a minyan.

A kehillah is different from the other two kinds of community. Its members are different from one another. In that sense it is like a tsibbur. But they are orchestrated together for a collective undertaking – one that involves in making a distinctive contribution. The danger of a kehillah is that it can become a mass, a rabble, a crowd.

The beauty of a kehillah, however, is that when it is driven by constructive purpose, it gathers together the distinct and separate contributions of many individuals, so that each can say, “I helped to make this.” That is why, assembling the people on this occasion, Moses emphasises that each has something different to give: Take from what you have, an offering to God. Everyone who is willing to bring to God an offering of gold, silver and bronze … All you who are skilled among you are to come and make everything the Lord has commanded …

Moses was able to turn the kehillah with its diversity into an edah with its singleness of purpose, while preserving the diversity of the gifts they brought to God…

And to sum up his definitions, Rabbi Sacks states:

To preserve the diversity of a tsibbur with the unity of purpose of an edah – that is the challenge of kehillah-formation, community-building, itself the greatest task of a great leader.

Kehillah seems to be what God, through Moses, was trying to forge from the Children of Israel. Each type of group had something valuable to offer but those elements needed to be brought together and combined within a single container to result in both diversity and unity being focused on constructive purpose.

How does that compare to our understanding of ekklesia?

In a Christian sense:

an assembly of Christians gathered for worship in a religious meeting

a company of Christians, or of those who, hoping for eternal salvation through Jesus Christ, observe their own religious rites, hold their own religious meetings, and manage their own affairs, according to regulations prescribed for the body for order’s sake, those who anywhere, in a city, village, constitute such a company and are united into one body

the whole body of Christians scattered throughout the earth

the assembly of faithful Christians already dead and received into heaven

But ekklesia can also mean “any gathering or throng of men assembled by chance, tumultuously.”

It’s as if ekklesia is trying to mirror the Jewish (or at least Rabbi Sacks’) understanding of kehillah. Ekklesia is taking the general understanding of a group of people who are called out, in some sense, who are dissimilar, who can also be assembled by random chance, but who also, when given a purpose by God, gather together from widely diverse backgrounds to be united into one body of believers for the sake of Jesus Christ.

I know that some people don’t think being gathered together for the sake of Christ is a “constructive purpose.” Certainly the vast majority of Christian history has shown us we haven’t been very “constructive” in relation to the Jewish “kehillah.” Many atheists would also agree that, based on their perception of “Christian bias,” the body of believers is hardly constructive and especially not “progressive.”

But for those of us who authentically and honestly seek out God through being disciples of the Master, being gathered together in the ekklesia of Messiah very much is a constructive purpose. Feeding the hungry, comforting the grieving, visiting the sick and imprisoned is all “constructive purpose” as far as I’m concerned and as far as the teachings of Jesus and the Torah are concerned.

Pulling all this together within the widest possible sense of the body of believers, just how close a comparison can we make between the Messianic Jewish kehillah and the Christian (including Hebrew Roots) ekklesia? I’m unwilling to say that the only difference between Jewish and Gentile believers is a string of DNA or a bit of cultural context and rather, believe that the manner in which God distinguished the Children of Israel at Sinai continues to distinguish their descendants, the Jewish people, even within the community of Messiah. I also believe, going back to Rabbi Sacks and his commentary, that community must be active and not passive, we must live holy lives, not just talk about holiness.

In other words believing Jews and Gentiles are and aren’t different at the same time. We are different in that Sinai is the defining moment for the Children of Israel and always will be relative to their special “called out-ness” from the nations. All Jews are born into this covenant relationship whether they want to be or not. But what believing Jews and Gentiles have in common is that we all had to consciously and willingly hear the voice of Messiah and respond to him, and to accept the good news of salvation from sin and the promise of the restoration of national Israel under her King.

There are groups who want to separate the believing Jews and believing Gentiles completely and have us live in two parallel but isolated silos. There are other groups who want to pour us all into a single silo like so many millions and millions of grains of wheat, completely indistinguishable form one another.

I believe we are more like two sheep pens united in a single flock with a single shepherd. Not all sheep look the same. Not all sheep act the same. Some of the sheep, a relatively small number, have a more specified purpose within the flock than the vast majority of other sheep in the flock. In spite of that, we have one shepherd whose voice we all listen to and who we all respond to in faith and trust. Since we’ve originally come from two separate pens, we have two separate histories and we different sheep have a lot to learn about one another. Sometimes, that means we “butt heads,” so to speak. The shepherd, seeing this, encourages us to live at peace with one another, not as identical drones or dough stamped out from the same cookie cutter, but as sheep from the Jewish pen and sheep from the Gentile pen in the flock of Messiah.

Kehillah/Ekklesia: different and distinct but brought together for a common and constructive purpose, offering our distinctive talents and identities in a unified container all for the sake of Messiah and by the plan of God.

Come together, right now
Over me

-John Lennon (credited to Lennon-McCartney)
Come Together (1969)
from the Beatles album Abbey Road

Good Shabbos.

"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