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Hope and Love

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Canon White is not only concerned about the physical safety of the scrolls; he is also dedicated to what’s written on them.

“The thing that I really respect about how Jews live is that God is in everything. If you’re really Orthodox, God is not removed from anything. From the bathroom to the bracha [blessing] you make afterwards, you bless Him and you thank Him. Every time you say ‘Baruch ata Hashem,’ you are showing that you believe that He is the King of the Universe!”

He pauses. “Do I sound frum?”

Yes, he does. Canon White learned the lingo as the first non-Jewish student at the Karlin yeshiva in Jerusalem. A rabbi there permitted him to get a taste of Jewish learning.

He has grown from a student of Judaism into a teacher of it. He offers a weekly course about Judaism to Christians in Baghdad.

“The Iraqi Christians who come to my class are shocked,” says Canon White.

“They say that nobody has ever told them about Judaism before. It’s hard for them to accept that they’ve been told lies.

None of the young Iraqis have heard about the Holocaust. They don’t know how Christians have persecuted Jews.”

-by Ari Werth
“Struggle for the Scrolls”
Aish.com

Every once in a while, I’ll hear about an extraordinary person, an extraordinary Christian who really does love the Jewish people and Israel. In my circle of friends and acquaintances, I hear a lot about Christians loving Jews, but I don’t think the lot of us can hold a candle to the Vicar of Baghdad.

Andrew White is an Anglican priest risking his life helping Christians in Iraq. Even more dangerous, however, is what he volunteers to do – protecting the last few Iraqi Jews.

“I help Jews because the very heart of my own education, of my faith, is a love for Judaism,” says Canon White. “I don’t see how I can be a Christian without knowing my Jewish roots, and without loving them.”

Given the opportunity, I wonder how many of us would take the risks that White is taking to protect Iraqi Christians and Jews and to try to rescue the single largest collection of Torah scrolls in existence; 365 deteriorating Torah scrolls hidden away in a secret sub-basement in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.

I said just the other day that no Christian would ever be admitted into a Yeshiva, but obviously I was wrong. As you read in the quote above, White is the first non-Jewish student ever admitted into the Karlin yeshiva in Jerusalem. His “reward” perhaps for truly dedicating his heart and his spirit to understanding the Jewish people and their closeness to God.

Ignorance, as Canon White calls it, prompted him to write a book about the Jewish roots of Christianity. He shared the newly finished manuscript . It describes several fundamental concepts and practices of Torah observance.

“There is nothing more inspiring than ‘Shema Yisrael,’” he writes in the upcoming book. “I say it every morning and every night. I taught my little boys to say ‘Shema’ before they go to sleep.” He’s planning on translating the book into Arabic. “The Muslims need to know that our faiths come out of Judaism and that therefore the Jews are our brothers, not our enemies. We need to learn from and love our older brother.”

Most believers live in a world where we’ve been taught that the Jews have been marginalized and that Christianity has ascended over them. I know the church is changing, but change is slow. Sometimes change can get sidetracked and Jewish practice and tradition isn’t dismissed, but rather taken over by non-Jewish “Christians” and reinvented as a new type of Christian faith. But there’s a difference between practicing Christianity with a thin Jewish veneer and what White is doing. When he teaches his children to say the Shema, (Deut. 11:19) he isn’t doing so in a way that diminishes the Jewish people but rather, in a manner that honors them. Canon White is one of the few Christians who really “gets it” as far as comprehending what it actually means to honor his faith and recognize Judaism as its root.

Christianity isn’t evil, in spite of what you may have heard in certain corners of the blogosphere. God is opening our eyes and turning our hearts. Men like Canon White are living proof of this (my final article in my supersessionism series for Messiah Journal, which will be published this coming winter, will show how White is hardly alone).

There’s another way to look at Christianity within the current context as well.

On the one hand, it is very difficult for Jews to accept that something is built on the spot of the Holy Temple.

On the other hand, we can thank God for the kindness He has shown – since I imagine He could have allowed a much less flattering structure built on it – like a parking lot, or a sanctuary to an idol. In this case, the Muslims believe in one God and treat the Temple Mount with sanctity.

In fact, Maimonides explains that other monotheistic religions have flourished in order to help spread essential Jewish ideals, to better prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah.

from “Ask the Rabbi”
“Temple Mount”
Aish.com

A strange attitude for a Rabbi to take regarding Islam (or Christianity) but then, it’s just as strange for an Anglican priest to teach Arab Muslims and Christians that Jews aren’t the enemy. Jesus himself said that “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22) and from a Jewish point of view, salvation is about both national Israel and the individual human being. And it’s about hope.

Each day we hope for Your salvation. -Shemoneh Esrei

The Talmud states that one of the questions that will be posed to each person on his or her day of judgment is, “Did you look forward to salvation?” While the question refers to anticipating the ultimate Redemption, it can also refer to the salvation of the individual.

Positive attitudes beget positive results, and negative attitudes beget negative results. Books have been written about people who have recovered from hopeless illnesses because, contrary to medical opinion, they did not give up hope. On the contrary, they maintained a positive attitude. While this phenomenon may be controversial (for many people are skeptical that cheerful outlooks can cure), people certainly can and have killed themselves by depression. With a negative attitude, a person suffering from an illness may even abandon those practices that can give strength and prolong life, such as the treatment itself.

I have seen a poster that displays birds in flight. Its caption comments, “They fly because they think they can.” We could do much if we did not despair of our capacity to do it.

Looking forward to Divine salvation is one such positive attitude. The Talmud states that even when the blade of an enemy’s sword is at our throat, we have no right to abandon hope of help.

No one can ever take hope from us, but we can surrender it voluntarily. How foolish to do so.

Today I shall…

try to always maintain a positive attitude and to hope for Divine salvation.

-Rabbi Abraham J Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Elul 11”
Aish.com

Never abandon hope, even when “the blade of an enemy’s sword is at our throat.” Men like Canon White give me hope in Christianity and the church. He shows me that Christians and Jews can co-exist, work, live, and worship God side-by-side in unity. We don’t have to do away with the Jews so that Christians can thrive. We don’t have to “reinvent the wheel” by creating new “Christian” religions or denominations or sects that discard the church and the Jewish people while taking over Jewish worship practices.

In the modern world, it’s difficult for me to have heroes. So many of them are revealed to be flawed and damaged human beings. I don’t know who Andrew White is behind the article I just read, but today, he became one of my heroes; one of the few. If I needed a model for how to be a Christian in relation to the Jewish people, I wouldn’t have to look any further than men like Canon White.

I hope you read all of the Ari Werth’s article Struggle for the Scrolls. If you haven’t, please do so now. Read it all. Scroll all the way to the bottom. There, you’ll find a section in yellow with information and links that instruct us on how to “save the scrolls” that are being held in Iraq. Read the article. Spread the word. So much of Jewish history has been lost to oppressors. If even some of the scrolls are still undamaged, we can return them to their rightful owners, the Jewish people.

To achieve wonders takes a heart both humble and fearless.

Yes, two opposites. But also from two opposite directions:

The mind awakens the heart to its nothingness, and by this, the soul G‑d gave you is bared in all its brazen power.

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

If you love Israel, and I know many of you reading my words do, then you can do something with that love. You can give hope.

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Questions That Would Cross a Rabbi’s Eyes

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Hashem, your God, shall you follow and Him shall you fear; His commandments shall you observe and to His voice shall you hearken; Him shall you serve and to Him shall you cleave.

–Deuteronomy 13:5 (Stone Edition Chumash)

Yeshua said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one will come to the Father except through me.

–John 14:6 (DHE Gospels)

The most important men in town will come to fawn on me
They will ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise
“If you please, Reb Tevye?”
“Pardon me, Reb Tevye?”
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes

from the song, “If I Were a Rich Man”
by Sheldon Hamick and Jerry Bock
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

I ponder this mystery off and on but it’s a profound one, at least to me. The church often asks the question, “Were the Israelites saved?” Opinions vary. A very literalist interpretation of John 14:6 says, “no,” since Jesus wasn’t there at Sinai. But then I’ve heard that the salvation of Jesus spans across all time forward and back, so that anyone who has faith in God is saved by Jesus.

OK, wait. Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse?

And he trusted in Hashem, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. –Genesis 15:6 (Stone Edition Chumash)

Abraham trusted in God and God alone and it was counted to him (by God) as righteousness. A Christian would say that Abraham’s faith in God saved him, just as our faith in Jesus saves us. See what I mean about “posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes?” Are we talking about two paths of salvation, one through God and another through Jesus?

I don’t think that’s a sustainable viewpoint given the overarching message of the Bible to love and trust God and God only. On the other hand, if we invoke the deity of Jesus, then I suppose the problem is solved. If you have faith in Jesus then you have faith in God and vice versa. End of story.

Or is it?

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. –Hebrews 10:4 (ESV)

So what exactly were the ancient Israelites doing, then? Why did God command them to perform animal sacrifices if they didn’t do any good?

Why do I need your numerous sacrifices? says Hashem. I am sated with elevation-offerings of rams and the fat of fatlings; the blood of bulls, sheep and goats I do not desire…Bring your worthless meal-offerings no longer, it is incense of abomination to Me. –Isaiah 1:11,13 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

Obviously that didn’t work. I mean, God doesn’t seem to want the sacrifices that He previously said He wanted. Seems kind of fickle of God, doesn’t it.

Except it’s impossible for God to be fickle or inconsistent. So what’s the answer?

What does God want and who does He want us to have faith and trust in? If no one comes to the Father except through the Son, why didn’t He teach the ancient Israelites to worship the future Jesus instead of the God of Heaven? Why didn’t God teach Abraham to have trust in Jesus instead of Him, thus counting trust in Jesus as righteousness? Why did God bother teaching the ancient Israelites the sacrificial system in the first place?

Maybe I’m being too literal. Maybe I’m not being “mystic” enough. But it does seem like a head scratcher.

I keep thinking I’m on the cusp of an answer but somehow it always eludes me. I keep thinking that the key is “faith and trust in God.” Of course the blood of bulls and goats doesn’t save. It never did. What saved was that the ancient Israelites trusted in God and agreed to do everything He told them to.

Moses came and summoned the elders of the people, and put before them all these words that Hashem had commanded him. The entire people responded together and said, “Everything that Hashem has spoken we shall do!” –Exodus 19:7-8 (Stone Edition Chumash)

Faith and trust, and then obedience. It’s not so much that what we do has the power to save, it’s that what we do is a reflection of our faith and trust. If God tells us to sacrifice animals at such-and-thus a place in such-and-thus a manner, the sacrifices aren’t as important as our obedience to Him. If we perform the same sort of sacrifice in the same place and in the same manner as before, but not because of faith and trust, the sacrifices are meaningless. It’s always about faith and trust. So that takes care of the salvation of the ancient Israelites and Abraham before them.

But how to we deal with Jesus and “no one comes to the Father except through me?” It would seem as if all one has to do is have faith and trust in God the Father to be saved. What does Jesus have to do with it?

OK, I know I said before that Jesus does matter. After all, neither we people among the nations nor our distant ancestors stood at Sinai with the Israelites (mixed multitude notwithstanding), and so we do not possess the ancient covenant relationship with God. It is completely understandable that we Gentiles cannot “come to the Father except through the Son.” But what about the Jews?

I’m not so sure I can answer that one. To say that they are “saved” through Sinai means that there is two salvational paths, one for the Jews (Moses) and one for the Gentiles (Jesus). To say that only Jesus saves deconstructs the Sinai covenant and renders Judaism invalid post-Jesus. To say that only Moses saves means we have to throw out the New Testament, and salvation for the Gentiles only comes from conversion to Judaism or obedience to the Noahide Laws.

Traditional Christians would say that salvation through Jesus replaced the Law of Moses and they solve the question that way. Traditional Jews would say that the New Testament is invalid and Gentiles must either convert to Judaism or become Noahides and they solve the question that way. There is a group who tries to split the difference and says that everyone must comply to the terms of both the Mosaic and Davidic covenants and essentially behave both like Jews and like Christians, but as you’ve seen on this and other blogs in the Messianic blogosphere, that becomes hopelessly confusing relative to retaining any sense of Jewish vs. non-Jewish identity.

So what is the answer? I don’t know. I know that’s rather disappointing, but I’ve said numerous times before that I’m not a Bible scholar or historian. I’m a reasonably intelligent human being (depending on the day of the week, how much sleep I’ve had, and whether or not my wife is upset with some dumb thing I did), but the niggling little details of how to interpret the scriptures and the nuances of theology, doctrine, dogma, and so on escapes me.

But does that mean it’s forbidden for “ordinary Christians” to ask questions and pose problems about our faith? Gee, I hope not.

So am I stuck? No. By faith, I worship the One God of Israel. I know that my salvation hinges upon the truth of the Jewish Messiah. He is the vine and I am the branch. I will follow him in search of my answers and believe that ultimately, all truth of God is in him and through him. How it all works behind the scenes, I don’t know. Maybe someone out there does. I know I’m asking for another “punishing” debate and people will question my convictions, my intelligence, and maybe even my sanity.

But I can’t stop asking questions just because people are going to give me a hard time about them.

In the end, there’s God. In the beginning, too.

A prayer of Moses, the man of God. O Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born, and You brought forth the earth and the inhabited world, and from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. You bring man to the crushing point, and You say, “Return, O sons of men.” For a thousand years are in Your eyes like yesterday, which passed, and a watch in the night. You carry them away as a flood; they are like a sleep; in the morning, like grass it passes away. In the morning, it blossoms and passes away; in the evening, it is cut off and withers. For we perish from Your wrath, and from Your anger we are dismayed. You have placed our iniquities before You, [the sins of] our youth before the light of Your countenance. For all our days have passed away in Your anger; we have consumed our years as a murmur. The days of our years because of them are seventy years, and if with increase, eighty years; but their pride is toil and pain, for it passes quickly and we fly away. Who knows the might of Your wrath, and according to Your fear is Your anger. So teach the number of our days, so that we shall acquire a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? And repent about Your servants. Satiate us in the morning with Your loving-kindness, and let us sing praises and rejoice with all our days. Cause us to rejoice according to the days that You afflicted us, the years that we saw evil. May Your works appear to Your servants, and Your beauty to their sons. And may the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us, and the work of our hands establish for us, and the work of our hands establish it. –Psalm 90

Just a small note: this is my 500th meditation if anyone is intereseted.

Torah Portion

Shoftim: Walk with Simplicity

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Be wholesome (‘tamim’) with G-d

–Deuteronomy 18:13

To be ‘tamim’ with G-d means: Walk with Him with simplicity and without guile. Do not seek to manipulate the future; rather, accept whatever He brings upon you wholeheartedly. Then, He will be with you and you will reap the rewards of His apportionment.

-Rashi’s commentary
as quoted from Chabad.org

Instead of complaining about someone’s behavior toward you, it is more constructive to work on your own behavior toward him.

Ignore another person’s grouchiness and anger, and speak cheerfully and with compassion. If you find this difficult, pretend that you are an actor on stage. Adopting this attitude can keep people from much needless quarreling and suffering. Do it consistently and you will see major improvements in their behavior toward you.

Be flexible. People differ greatly on what they evaluate as “positive,” and it is necessary to understand the unique needs of each person you’re dealing with. If one approach is unsuccessful, try other approaches. But keep trying.

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
Daily Lift #555
“Put On Your Best Act”
Aish.com

You may be wondering what all of the above has to do with this week’s Torah Portion Shoftim (Deuteronomy 16:18 – 21:9). We can see that Rashi has focused on a very small part of the reading and derived a very specific principle.

It’s also a principle that is very hard to live up to. As people of faith, we are tempted to “manipulate the future” all the time by asking, praying, and pleading to God for everything that we want and all that is important to us. That’s not a bad thing, but human beings can be very self-indulgent. We tend to want what we want when we want it and are rather disappointed with God when He doesn’t deliver the “goods” on time and in the way that we ordered them.

The same is true of our relationships with other people. As Rabbi Pliskin points out, when there is an “issue” between us and someone else, we almost invariably blame the other person for the problem. Most of the time, it never occurs to us to look in the mirror and see if the person staring back at us has anything to do with it…or everything to do with it.

If only we could stop ourselves and the events flowing around us and take a really good look at who we are and what’s going on. But then, isn’t that what the month of Elul is all about? OK, I understand that the practice of deep self-examination and taking a “spiritual inventory” during Elul is commonly associated with observant Jews as they approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but I’ve also said that it wouldn’t hurt for a few Christians to take up the practice as well. Perhaps we would all discover that the source of whatever pains and sorrows and hurts we experience isn’t located outside of us at all.

When we are in pain, are frustrated, or angry, we blame God or we blame other people, or we blame the cruelty of the “generic” universe. Everything’s so complicated. There are too many rules. There’s no clear-cut guideline to tell us how to live our lives and be satisfied with what we’ve got.

Or is there?

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. –Micah 6:8 (ESV)

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. –John 13:34 (ESV)

Ben Zoma would say…Who is rich? One who is satisfied with his lot. -from Pirkei Avot 4:1

HumbleGod is very clear in His intent. Jesus makes his meaning plain. At the core of what God wants and what He knows will satisfy us is not controversies and criticisms, not possessions or acquisitions, but rather to walk simply and humbly with our God and to do good to our fellow human beings. If your life is complicated and messy, it’s most likely not because of anyone else. Even if you’ve had a difficult life, if your family was abusive, if your school teachers were critical, if your church leaders were harsh, at some point as you become an adult, you must begin to cast off your chains or learn to be their victim forever.

Ironically, in order to remove the weight of our restraints and apply the principle of making our lives less of a burden, we have to do something we don’t always want to do. We have to work and work hard to take greater personal responsibility for who we are in our lives and in our faith:

If one wishes to add on more restrictions than the law requires, one may do so for oneself, but not [make such demands] of others. -Shulchan Aruch

Some people employ a double standard. One set of rules applies to themselves, and another to everyone else. The Shulchan Aruch, the standard authoritative compilation of Jewish law, accepts this policy – but on one condition: the more restrictive set of rules must apply to oneself, and the more lenient apply to other people.

Guidelines exist for many things, such as the percentage of income that one should give for tzedakah. Many tzaddikim, righteous people, retained only the barest minimum of their income for themselves, just enough to provide for their families, and gave everything else to the poor. However, they would never expect anyone else to follow their example, and some even forbade it.

Our minds are ingenious in concocting self-serving rationalizations. Sometimes we may have excellent reasons not to give more liberally to tzedakah, even if it is within the required amount. We may project into the future, worry about our economic security, and conclude that we should put more money away for a rainy day. Yet we often criticize people who we feel do not give enough to tzedakah.

We should be aware of such rationalizations and remember that the more demanding rules should apply to ourselves. If we are going to rationalize, let us rationalize in a way that gives the benefit of doubt to others.

Today I shall…

remember to be more demanding of myself than I am of others.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Elul 5”
Aish.com

There is no greater challenge than to seek God. But instead of looking to Heaven, or to your house of worship, or to the holy men, look within. See if you can discover the footsteps of your Master as you peer into your heart. If you can’t, perhaps it’s time to start a new journey and follow where Jesus is leading you.

Good Shabbos.

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Does Jesus Matter?

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Why Native American religions, when scholars acknowledge that Native American tribes do not traditionally distinguish between religion and the rest of life?

-William T. Cavanaugh
Chapter 1: The Anatomy of the Myth”
The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

–Romans 10:8-9 (ESV)

Disclaimer: This is a long “meditation.” I’m sorry. I couldn’t make my point and keep it under 2600 words. Just letting you know.

I’ve been reading Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence, albeit somewhat slowly, but I came to a complete stop when I read the quote from his book I placed at the top of this blog post. Cavanaugh is trying to refute those people who believe that religion is inherently more violent and prone to causing wars than secular systems of finance or government. One of his main criticisms against this viewpoint is the lack of definition for what is a “religion” which, on the surface may seem easily defined, but in the world of scholarly analysis, is pretty difficult to pin down.

But look at what he says about Native American religions. “Native American tribes do not traditionally distinguish between religion and the rest of life.” But shouldn’t it be that way for all other religions as well?

If you’re a Christian, you may be nodding your head and agreeing that your faith is your life, but I think for a great many of us, we tend to compartmentalize what we do into “religious” and “secular” activities. When you go to church, it’s “religious.” When you pay your taxes or take out the garbage, it’s “secular.” A lot of Christians say that their faith “isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship.” If that’s so, then are there times in your day-to-day life when your relationship with Jesus doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter? If you are married, are there times when your marriage or your spouse doesn’t matter or doesn’t factor into your decision-making, particularly when those decisions don’t have a direct connection to your being married?

Who we are in Christ should permeate every single part of our lives, everything we do, every thought we have. It was Paul who wrote (see 2 Corinthians 10:5) that we must “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” If our Christianity is supposed to function down to the level of our very thoughts, shouldn’t it be ingrained into everything else we are as well?

I’ve been participating in a number of online discussions, including one at Gene Shlomovich’s blog Daily Minyan, regarding the relevance of the Mosaic covenant between God and the Israelites as applied to non-Jewish Christians today. The principle question is, do Christians become obligated to the Law of Moses when we first confess faith in Christ?

I know the vast majority of Christians (and probably Jews) will immediately answer, “No.” But then, most Christians believe that the Law or Torah of Moses was wholly replaced by the grace of Jesus Christ when our Master died on the cross. I disagree with this “replacement theology” (and those of you who’ve been reading my blog for long know this quite well) and believe that the Jewish people continue to be bound to the covenant they made with God at Sinai.

But Christian brothers and sisters, you and I weren’t at Sinai. Our covenant connection to God isn’t dependant on that event, even though there were non-Israelites, the so-called “mixed multitude” of people groups, who also stood at the mountain and agreed to obey God in all things.

However, there are some folks out there who believe that the non-Israelites at Sinai sets a precedent that not only allows, but actually requires all Christians to be fully compliant (or as much as we can be living outside Israel, and without a Temple, Priesthood, and Sanhedrin) to the 613 commandments that the Jews must perform as a condition of their covenant with God through Moses.

But that raises one big, giant red flag for me. If all any Gentile ever had to do to have a covenant relationship with God was to perform the mitzvot as a Jew would, then why do we need Jesus in order to enter into relationship with God and be saved?

This issue is actually more complicated than I’m making it here, but the details would result in an impossibly long blog post. Also, I’m not historian, linguist, or Bible scholar, so I lack the educational “chops” to fully explore all of the niggling little details this topic brings up. On the other hand, any “ordinary person” should be able to discuss their faith in a reasonably intelligent manner without having to possess multiple advanced degrees. If we can’t, then we must relegate ourselves to the status of “sheep” and be at the mercy of anyone who comes up with a theology based on some understanding of what certain Hebrew and Greek words might mean in English.

(I have to say here that I am not denigrating scholarship and education. Far from it. I possess one graduate and two undergraduate university degrees, so I value education and learning very highly. However, it is important to search out and study the findings of legitimate scholars in religious studies. You won’t always find them involved in online religious debates in the blogosphere.)

Let’s get down to it. If Torah obedience is the primary key to entering into covenant relationship with God, then why don’t we all just convert to Judaism? More to the point, why did God bother to send Jesus Christ to be born, live, teach, suffer, die, be resurrected, and ascend to Heaven? That’s a lot of trouble and certainly it wasn’t any fun for Jesus. All God had to do was send a prophet to go to the Gentiles (someone like Paul perhaps) and say, “Convert to Judaism and you will be saved.”

But that’s not what Paul said. And that’s not what Jesus said. I don’t believe Jesus, Paul, Peter, or anyone else said that the Jews must give up Judaism and become Christians, since even Jesus, Paul, and Peter remained Jews, sacrificed at the Temple, and kept kosher throughout their entire lives. I do believe though, that something had to be done for the rest of the people in the world who were worshiping mute idols of stone, wood, and metal.

But if the Gentile pagans didn’t convert to Judaism, what did they become when they abandoned polytheism and began to exclusively worship the God of Israel through faith in the Jewish Messiah?

For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. –Acts 11:26 (ESV)

The term “Christians” could more or less be thought of as “Messianics” as well, or people who are disciples of the Jewish Messiah. But it doesn’t translate into “Jews” and it doesn’t translate into “Israelites” or any other such thing. What the believers in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah were called was directly connected to his Messianic identity and what we can think of as the “Messianic” covenant; the covenant that makes it specifically possible for non-Jews/non-Israelites to come into relationship with God “without surrendering their ethnic, racial, or national identity as Gentiles.”

If we were expected to surrender our “Gentileness” and covert to Judaism or in some manner or fashion, become obligated to the full mitzvot of Torah, even while retaining our Gentile identity, why would Paul say this?

Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. –Galatians 5:2-3 (ESV)

He said something even more dramatic on the same subject:

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. –Galatians 2:21 (ESV)

Galatians by D.T. LancasterGranted, Paul’s letter to the Galatians is amazingly difficult to understand (see D. Thomas Lancaster’s book The Holy Epistle to the Galatians for an excellent analysis of this letter) but it’s hard to get around the idea that Paul was severely “discouraging” the non-Jewish members of the churches in Galatia from converting to Judaism (being circumcised) because doing so would place them under the full weight of the Torah mitzvot. Also, if the Gentiles thought they had to convert to Judaism and take on board the entire Torah as an obligation in order to be justified, it would make Christ’s bloody, humiliating, agonizing death on the cross completely meaningless.

So I just don’t see how Jesus is requiring every non-Jewish person who comes to him as a disciple to be obligated to the Torah of Moses.

Having said all that, is the Torah such a bad thing? No, absolutely not. Paul knew that even Jews were justified by faith and not by works of the law. (Galatians 2:15-16)

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. –Galatians 3:21

Paul didn’t abolish the law and neither did Jesus (Matthew 5:17). In fact, Jesus said that “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (v. 18) As far as I can tell, Heaven and Earth are still with us and not everything the Messiah was supposed to accomplish has happened yet. So the law continues to exist.

I can confidently say Jewish people remain obligated to the mitzvot, both in Second Temple times and today. This, in my opinion, includes the Jews who have come to faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Jesus never got rid of the Mosaic covenant or replaced it with a newer covenant. I do believe the newer “Messianic” or “Davidic” covenant ratifies the older ones for the Jews so the Messianic promises are realized for them in Christ.

What about the Torah for the rest of us? Modern (non-Messianic) Jews believe that the rest of the people of the earth are obligated to what is called the Seven Laws of Noah and that the covenant of God made with Noah (see Genesis 9) puts all of us in relation with God as long as we obey our Noahide obligations.

But that doesn’t take anything we know from the Gospels or Epistles into account. The Messiah’s mission was not just to restore Israel nationally and spiritually, but to bring the rest of the world into relationship with God. That isn’t dependant on Noah or on Moses but only on Christ.

I’ve heard it said that the Messianic covenant with the Gentiles “travels back in time” as it were, so that the non-Jews at Sinai were brought into relationship with God through Christ and then obligated to the Torah mitzvot as a consequence, but to employ Occam’s razor, when two hypotheses are in competition, the one that makes the fewest assumptions is more likely to be true. The “time traveling” covenant hypothesis creates a lot of hoops to jump through just to support a theory.

Moses didn’t tell the Israelites that they had to obey God in all things and believe in the coming Messiah in order for God to be their God. This is what happened right before God gave the Torah at Sinai:

So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. –Exodus 19:7-8 (ESV)

Because of faith in God, the Israelites unreservedly agreed to obey everything God told them to do, including everything He hadn’t told them yet. Their agreement is the Mosaic covenant and the Torah mitzvot are the conditions applied to each party subject to that agreement (the Israelites and God). Belief in the future Messiah isn’t specifically mentioned so at that point in time (I know, mysticism could probably “explain” this but I’m trying to stick to the mechanics of the text), Israelites and the Gentile “mixed multitude,”  because of their faith, agreed to obey God and in order to fulfill their agreement, they obeyed all the conditions of the Torah.

But the mixed multitude who became “alien sojourners” among native-born Israelites have disappeared from history. We can argue back and forth that their lives in relation with God did somehow involve the Messiah and absolutely required mitzvot obedience that was identical to the Israelites, but what of the Gentiles who wanted to attach themselves to Israel during and after the earthly ministry of Jesus. Were there “sojourners” in those days or were they “God-fearers” like Cornelius the Roman Centurion? (see Acts 10) What was their status and was Torah obedience required?

While I think we can make a pretty good argument that even Jewish believers in Christ retain their obligation to God relative to Sinai, that seems to be unique to the descendents of Jacob. I do believe that the very first Gentile Christians probably worshipped God in a way that looked much more “Jewish” than we do today, but that’s just a guess. We only have “hints” of Gentile observance that looks Jewish in scripture, (see the aforementioned Cornelius in Acts 10 for example) but no “smoking gun” pointing to Paul teaching Gentiles to say the Shema, wear tzitzit, or lay tefillin. We never actually see an illustration of the Gentile Christians behaving exactly like the Jewish believers in all of the mitzvot.

the-joy-of-torahI don’t see any harm in Christians performing many or even most of the mitzvot. After all. The commandments have a great deal to do with feeding the hungry, treating even the neighbor you don’t like with respect and dignity, and loving God. In fact, if you actually read all 613 commandments, for those that we can actually perform outside of Israel, and without a Temple in Jerusalem, a Priesthood, a “Biblical” court system, I can’t find much that would violate a Christian’s faith.

I think it is mandatory to feed the hungry, to find shelter for the homeless, to comfort the widow, to make sure the orphan is taken care of. If you’re a Christian and you aren’t seeking social justice and performing acts of mercy and kindness, then there’s something wrong with your faith and your lifestyle. Recently, I’ve encouraged Christians to seek God and repent of sins during the month of Elul. I think it’s perfectly fine for Christians to participate in the High Holidays, light candles on Chanukah, eat the Passover meal with their Jewish brothers, count the Omer, celebrate Shavuot/Pentecost, and build a Sukkah.

Certainly Jesus did all these things in accordance to the halachah that was normative for the Jews of the late Second Temple period. Perhaps (though there’s no way to know for sure) even Cornelius the Roman built a sukkah. It don’t think it’s an outrageous idea.

I do think, believe, and endorse with all my heart, mind, and spirit, that Jesus, or Yeshua as he’s called in Hebrew, absolutely, positively must be the center of our faith and covenant connection with God. Without Christ and the specifics of the Davidic covenant that allows us to be in relation to God and to call Jesus Lord and King, we among the nations are lost. We have nothing. Neither Jew nor Gentile has ever been justified by obedience to Torah commandments. As Paul said, we’re justified by faith.

Jesus does matter. He matters to anyone who wants a relationship with God.

Make Christ your everything. He is not irrelevant. He is indispensible. He is the key. He is the vine and we are his branches.

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Learning to Live

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I have been testing the waters, trying to get involved in Judaism. But I feel like I’m swimming in a vast ocean of unfamiliar concepts: Hebrew texts, legal nuances, culture, etc. I’m not sure any of this is for me!

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

There is a misconception that many people have about Judaism, what I call “the all or nothing” syndrome. With 613 mitzvot in the Torah, things can seem a bit overwhelming. People take a look at traditional Judaism with all these different commandments and say to themselves, there’s no way that I can be successful at living that type of lifestyle, so what’s the point of looking into it or getting involved? Where to start? What to focus on? How to make sense of it all?!

That’s not the Jewish way!

Imagine you bump into an old friend and he tells you how miserable he is. You ask him, what’s the matter? He says, I’m in the precious metals industry. My company just found a vein of gold in Brazil that’s going to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

You say, that’s fantastic. Your financial problems are solved. What’s the problem?

He says, you just don’t get it. Do you realize that this is just one vein of gold? It represents such a tiny fraction of all of the unmined gold in the world. What do I really have, compared with what’s out there?

You say, are you nuts? Who the heck cares about what you haven’t found yet? What you’ve got now is a gold mine!

That’s the Jewish approach. Any aspect that you learn about, or can incorporate into your life, is a gold mine. What does it matter what aspect of Judaism you’re not ready to take on? In Judaism, every mitzvah is of infinite value. Every mitzvah is more than any gold mine. Don’t worry about what you can’t do. Even if you never take on another mitzvah, you’ve still struck eternal gold.

The best advice: Relax.

“Judaism: All Or Nothing?”
from Ask the Rabbi
Aish.com

Performing mitzvot or “Torah commandments” as such isn’t really the focus of most Christians. And on top of that, what the Rabbi seems to be saying in the above-quoted passage appears to contradict this:

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. –James 2:8-11 (ESV)

According to the traditional interpretation of this passage, to violate one commandment in the law is to violate them all. But since we are all human, sooner or later, we are all going to make a mistake. How could anyone obey all of the laws all of the time?

Christianity’s answer is to replace behavioral obedience to the law with the grace of Jesus Christ and thus, any of our mistakes are forgiven, as long as we repent, turn away from wrongdoing, and return to God.

Of course, if you keep reading James 2, you discover verses 14-17 in which he says that faith without works is dead, so it’s not a matter of doing away with the behaviors that are associated with a life of holiness.

So what is it? If we commit to the law but cannot keep all of it are we perpetually doomed to failure or are we commanded to perpetually try?

The Rabbi isn’t responding to a Christian’s question, though. There are scores of Jewish people who haven’t lived religious lives but who desire to come closer to God, especially in the month of Elul. But as the questioner admits, the number of mitzvot to learn is dizzying and the details associated with proper observance is beyond intimidating. How could anyone not only learn all of the commandments, but additionally, how modern halachah defines proper observance?

The Rabbi has a simple and surprising answer:

The misconception that Judaism is all-or-nothing includes the false idea that a person is either “observant,” or “non-observant.” But that’s not true. In fact, here’s a secret:

Nobody is observing all the mitzvot.

That’s because certain mitzvot only women usually do – like lighting Shabbat candles or going to the mikveh. Other mitzvot only men can fulfill – like Brit Milah. Others only apply to first-born children, such as the “fast of the first-born” on the day before Passover. And only a Kohen can fulfill the mitzvah of reciting the Priestly Blessing.

Actually, it’s not that surprising but then again, I don’t think it adequately answers the original question.

I have an answer of my own. Here’s a story.

Many years ago, I was at my local Reform shul. One of the Jewish members was telling his own story about observance. He had been an atheist for most of his life. He was also an educator and took annual trips to Israel for scholarly purposes. It was on one of those trips that he told a Rabbi that he wanted to live as a religious Jew. Just one problem. It was the same problem the questioner above has. There’s just so much to learn.

Here’s the Rabbi’s answer.

Pick just one mitzvot. It doesn’t matter which one. Let’s say it’s lighting the Shabbos candles. Get a siddur and learn the blessing. Every Erev Shabbat, say the blessing and light the candles. Do nothing else. Keep doing that on every Shabbat until you have learned the mitzvot well and are very comfortable performing it. Once you have achieved that level of competence, pick another mitzvot. It doesn’t matter which one. Learn to perform it until you are comfortable and competent at it. Continue adding mitzvot in this manner. It will take time, but as the months and years past, you will progressively learn to perform a great number of the mitzvot.

I reconstructed all that from memory, so I’m sure it’s not “word-for-word” accurate. But you get the idea.

But what does that have to do with James and with Christians. We don’t obey the mitzvot of Moses. We weren’t called to do so. After all, when Jesus gave his Jewish disciples the “great commission” to make disciples of the people of the nations, here’s what he said:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” –Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)

Path of TorahNotice what Jesus didn’t say. He didn’t say to teach the disciples from the nations “to observe all that Moses has commanded you.” If Jesus wanted to have the Gentile disciples observe the Torah in an identical manner and for an identical purpose as the Jewish disciples, his message would have been different. It would have been much easier for him to tell the Jewish disciples to convert all Gentiles everywhere into Jews.

Galatians is Paul’s great cautionary tale against Gentile disciples converting to Judaism as a means to be justified before God. He said it would make the bloody, sacrificial death of the Master a waste of time and effort if they did so (see Galatians 2:21).

Paul went on in chapter 3 of his letter to explain that it is by faith and not merely the mechanical observance to the law that we Gentiles received the Spirit. In fact, everyone, Jew and Gentile, received the Spirit by faith, not by the law.

At Sinai, the Israelites agreed to do all that God would tell them to do (at the point when they agreed, the specifics of the Torah had not yet been given). They accepted God’s rule by faith and subsequently, God, through Moses, gave the Israelites the Torah. By faith, we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and through him, we can come to God in a covenant relationship. But since we Gentiles among the body of believers were not at Sinai as were our Jewish brothers, what do we receive from God?

The Jews have the Spirit, just as we have, but they also have the Torah. Do we have the Torah?

Yes and no.

Naturally, this is just my opinion, but the “Torah” we have isn’t all that dissimilar from that of the Jews (and I know some Jewish and Christian readers may balk at this part). But consider the following.

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. –Mark 12:28-34 (ESV)

I know I tend to revisit this particular scripture with an almost annoying frequency, but it is one of the core teachings of our Master. He emphasizes that we are to love God and love other human beings above all other considerations. The process by which we do so may vary from person to person, but Matthew 25:31-46 gives us a pretty good idea of what Jesus is looking for in how we follow him.

Within myself, I have long since resolved the meaning of what Jesus intended for the disciples of the nations to learn. That’s a personal resolution, and I don’t expect anyone else to particularly agree with my conclusions. On the other hand, we have just a ton of examples of obedience to God as chronicled in the Bible. If you were a new Christian, what would you tackle first? Feeding a hungry person? Going to church every Sunday morning? Praying every night? There’s a lot to consider.

On the other hand, maybe even for we Christians, it’s just as simple as picking one thing, practicing it over and over, and getting good at it. It doesn’t matter what it is. Let’s say it’s praying to God every night before going to bed. Once you’re good at that, you can pick something else. Let’s say it’s donating to a charity. How about collecting canned goods in your home and every month, taking your collection down to the local food bank. Seems simple enough.

There are so many people out there who seem to think that serving God and obeying the mitzvot is this long, complicated, list of actions and behaviors. Maybe it is for them. I know it seems that way when we look at observant Jews. But no one obeys God perfectly or completely. No one performs literally every act of obedience that they can. I’m not suggesting that we should be lazy or to neglect doing what God wants us to do, but we can also give ourselves some time to adjust our lives and learn to be better people, better servants, and better adopted sons and daughters of the Most High God.

For Jews, the month of Elul is a time to prepare for the High Holidays and particularly for the day of judgment. It’s a time of deep spiritual introspection, repentance, and study. Jews renew old friendships, repair broken relationships, and perform many acts of kindness and charity. Maybe it’s a good month for the rest of us, the Gentile disciples of the Jewish Messiah King, to reconsider our own lives, to see where we have gotten things right and where we’ve fallen down face first in the mud.

If your life of faith has become cumbersome, complicated, and even overwhelming, maybe it’s time to step back and see what’s really important to do, and what you could set aside. Just decide what God thinks is important, maybe volunteering to visit sick people in the hospital, for example. Then arrange to do that (or something like that). Keep performing that mitzvot regularly. Learn to get good at it. Love God. Serve His purposes. Help other people.

If you do that, the rest will probably take care of itself.

Learn to live.

Torah Portion

Re’eh: Choosing to Love

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These concepts are relevant with regard to this week’s Torah reading, Parshas Re’eh, which begins: (Deuteronomy 11:26.) “See that I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse.” The portion continues to allude to free choice, reward and punishment: (Ibid.: 27-28.) “The blessing [will come] if you obey the commandments… and the curse [will come] if you do not heed… and go astray from the path which I have commanded.”

Moshe is telling the people that their observance of G-d’s commandments will not be a spontaneous response. Instead, they will constantly be required to make conscious choices.

Why does G-d grant man choice? To elevate him to a higher plane of Divine service. Were man’s choice between good and evil to come naturally, he would not have any sense of accomplishment. What would he have earned?

-Rabbi Eli Touger
“The Power of Sight”
from the “In the Garden of Torah” series
Commentary on Torah Portion Reeh
Chabad.org

But wouldn’t it be easier and a lot less hazardous to our souls if God didn’t give us a choice? After all, look at how badly we messed up the first choice we were ever given.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. –Genesis 3:1-7 (ESV)

Were we elevated “to a higher plane of Divine service” on that particular occasion?

On the other hand, consider this.

You are raising a young child and trying to teach him good work habits as well as basic moral and ethical principles. On top of that, like all parents, you want your child to love and respect you. You can teach your child in a couple of different ways. You can threaten to punish your child if he doesn’t do what you ask of him, or you can offer rewards if he does what you want.

This is more or less how we tend to parent children. We put them in “time out” or take some other punitive action when they make “bad choices,” and we give them treats or allowances (money) for achieving certain goals.

But what we really want more than anything else, is for our children to do what we ask of them because they love us.

I mean, what Mom’s heart hasn’t melted when their little boy gives her a card made with construction paper, glitter, and colored with crayons saying “I love you” and it’s not even her birthday or Mother’s day? He did it just because he loves her.

Even the toughest Dad, if he has a heart at all, will turn to mush when his little girl jumps into his lap, gives him a big hug and says, “I love you, Daddy.”

You’re not alive if that doesn’t get to you.

What does God want?

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. –Matthew 22:37-38 (ESV)

God loves people and He blesses us. He desired to bless the children of Israel, not because they were the best or the brightest or the most humble of all the peoples of the earth, but because He loved them (and He loves them still). The words “bless” and “blessed” are all over this week’s Torah portion. We also see from the often quoted John 3:16 that it wasn’t just the Israelites that God loved (and loves), but it’s the whole world. God loves all of His creations. He loves all of us who have been created in His image.

Naturally, He wants us to love Him back. He provides us with blessings and curses in order to do what we do as parents for our children. To discipline us. To teach us lessons in ethics and morals. To help us understand the difference between right and wrong. But most of all, He doesn’t want us to obey him just because of the blessings and curses. He wants us to obey Him because we love Him.

Be aware of the positive attributes and behaviors of the people with whom you come into contact and help them build upon their strengths. Encouragement is a much more powerful tool for change and growth than blaming and condemning. You can bring about miracles in people’s lives if you believe in their potential.

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Bring about Miracles in People’s Lives”
from the “Today’s Daily Lift” series
Aish.com

In Matthew 22:39, Jesus tells us that we can show our love to God by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. We should show love to our neighbor, not because we want a reward or we fear a punishment, but because we love God and frankly, because it’s the right thing to do. Nevertheless, love brings blessings. Rabbi Touger finishes his commentary this way:

The ultimate expression of the potential of sight will be in the Era of the Redemption, with the fulfillment of the prophecy: (Isaiah 40:9) “The glory of G-d will be revealed and all flesh will see.” In contrast to the present era, when we can see only material entities and G-dliness is perceived as an external force, in that future time, we will see directly how G-dliness is the truth of all existence.

Nor is this merely a promise for the distant future. The Redemption is an imminent reality, so close that a foretaste of its revelations is possible today. Indeed, it is already possible to see manifestations of the blessings of Redemption in the events which have occurred to the Jewish people in the recent past.

Whenever we love God by acting out that love toward others, we see not only a vision of the ultimate redemption of the world that will occur when Jesus returns, but we summon something of that Messianic redemption in the very act of being loving. This applies not only to the Jewish people but to anyone who is learning to know and love God. This is also one of the values of the Shabbat, which is a foretaste of the Messianic Age wrapped up in a single twenty-four hour period.

Love God and love others, not because you want something or are afraid of something. Love because you know what it feels like to be loved. Love because you are loved. Just love.

Good Shabbos.