PODCAST: Yeshua in Context – Resurrection Mystery

Perplexity. Remembrance. Mystery. Continuity. These four themes are what Luke emphasizes in his resurrection account. All four gospels agree that the empty tomb was discovered on the first day of the week, that Mary Magdalene and other women discovered it, that the stone was already rolled away, and that there were variously one or two angelic figures there. All but Mark, with his short account, agree that the women reported to the disciples, that Yeshua appeared in Jerusalem, that people touched him, and that Yeshua commissioned his followers.

Why does Luke develop his account as he does? How do the perplexity, remembrance, and mystery themes work together? They tell us the resurrection is not something to be understood rationally. It happens to you and overwhelms you.

Yeshua in Context is due to be released August 30. The Sourcebook will be available in September. An audio book produced by First Fruits of Zion will be available in November. And an ebook version of Yeshua in Context should be available for Kindle, iPad, and other readers by September. Email derek4messiah@gmail.com to pre-order Yeshua in Context. Also, contact me to come and speak to your group, church, or class.

LISTEN ONE OF TWO WAYS:

(1) Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes (search Yeshua to find it).

(2) Or click on this link to derekleman.com

A Beginner’s Intellectual and Mystical Guide to Reading the Bible

I started a new blog. Yeah, I know. I write crazy amounts of material. I love every second of it.

This new blog may turn into a book. It may be a teaching series for a while at synagogue. It’s about reading the text with a more attuned sense to the mystical, the literary, the gaps, the glimpses we should get beyond into the Eternal Realm. I’m convinced the biblical literature, all genres, features mysteries because the writers didn’t know the unknowable either and struggled to tell the story.

So, feel free to check it out. Since it is an unfolding book or guide to reading the Bible, it goes backwards. That’s the nature of blogs. The oldest and first material gets pushed to the bottom and the newest material is what shows. It’s a good idea to read “Biblical Ascents Toward the Holy One” forward (which means having to read it backwards on a blog, if you catch my drift).

http://bibleofunknowing.wordpress.com

Excerpt: The Messianic Secret

The following is a little excerpt from Yeshua in Context: The Life and Times of Yeshua the Messiah, my upcoming book. The schedule looks good for a late August or very early September release. I will, of course, say more. Many of you are on a list to be notified when the book is ready to ship.

The following excerpt is from the end of chapter 6, on the Messianic Secret theme in Mark:

The Son of Man must suffer many things. Too many people, like the half-healed blind man, would see Messiah with distorted vision. Yeshua’s role and the clues he left of his identity and aims are both different and more exalted than the popular messianic expectations. Texts that promise future redemption and a redeemer combine in unexpected ways. Themes of suffering and serving on the one hand and exaltation, permanence, and kingship would combine through a world of inter-textual references in the allusive and elusive words of Yeshua.

The messianic secret is not impossible to grasp. In the Jewish world of ideas, both the ones we know were written before, during, and shortly after Yeshua’s time and the ones written much later in rabbinic literature, a repository of texts combine in a rich world of midrashic intertextuality. Yeshua hinted at his sense of identity and mission through a world of texts from the Torah, Psalms, and prophets.

By downplaying hasty talk of his messianic mission, Yeshua bought time to educate his inner circle. Even so they would not understand (so that at his death, they had all left him and were in despair). Yet they were prepared to understand after the fact, after death would be reversed in exaltation.

Also, by downplaying popular notions of messianic identity, Yeshua bought time before the authorities decided he was too dangerous. At his trial, the leaders of Israel found it difficult to find evidence against him. They were barely able to make a case with Rome that he should be executed as a potential rebel.

The messianic secret is also a warning for those after the exaltation of Yeshua who might continue to misunderstand his mission. History has shown this warning to go sadly unheeded and that the secrecy theme in the gospels needs much more attention in popular understanding. Yeshua’s followers now, as then, need what was given to the blind man: to look intently and have our sight restored.

Jewish Roots and non-Jews, Part 2

* * * Be sure to read part 1 before this article * * *

The problem a whole host of people face right now is a question of calling. What am I called to do?

Many people are paralyzed, incapable of moving forward defining who they are, or knowing what to do. Non-Jews in Messianic synagogues may periodically wonder, “What am I doing here?” Christians with a love for Jewish roots in churches may periodically wonder, “What am I doing here?” People too uncertain to be in community at either a church or a Messianic synagogue wonder, “Where do I belong?”

Who will play God and answer these questions for other people? Not I.

Each person has a relationship with the Living God. The details of that relationship, the influences and desires mediated by God’s Spirit in persons is a holy thing. Watching from the outside, we should be cautious about speaking into this relationship.

Of course, there are egregious cases of abuse of the idea of divine calling. “God led me to this extra-marital affair,” has a false ring to it to say the least.

In Part 2 of this series, I want to consider the intersection of the individual and the community as well as the intersection between certain principles and subjective senses of divine calling. As for the first, the relationship of individual and corporate identity, we think too much as individuals and realize too little that we are part of families, communities, and people groups. As for the second, between principles and subjectivity, we make discerning God’s will more difficult than it needs to be.

Who Am I: an Individual or Part of the Group?
This question is important for many reasons when considering what non-Jews ought to do about love for Jewish roots. People in different situations are asking their questions from different places:

–”I am a Christian, but I want to keep some Jewish observances, such as holidays, without communicating to others that somehow Christians have replaced Israel and without implying that I doubt the uniqueness of Jewish identity and calling.”

–”I am not Jewish, but have been involved for about five years in Messianic Judaism. I don’t know who I am.”

–”I am Jewish and I don’t know what to think about these non-Jews in our synagogue. I can’t imagine life without them. They are integral to my life, but should non-Jews be here?”

Our decisions about what to do as individuals affect our families, communities, and all circles of relationship. Decisions are never purely about “me and only me.”

If you are married, what effect does the identity of your spouse have on you? I speak with many intermarrieds I have met online and it seems to me that the non-Jewish spouses of intermarriage often fail to realize that their family is connected to the people of Israel. I’ve counseled many a non-Jewish spouse to work toward a more Jewish home or at least a Jewish-friendly home. Should a father of Jewish kids eat babybacks and shrimp? Can a family be divided over important covenantal commitments?

If you are married and both are non-Jewish, is belonging to a Messianic Jewish community the desire of both partners?

Another belonging we have is to congregational communities. When I first began hearing from colleagues that there should be more distinction between Jews and non-Jews, I was angry and upset. People whom I believe with all my heart God has placed in my life should not be pushed away. Our community is strong at my synagogue. And there are non-Jews whom I subjectively believe to be inseparable from the future destiny of our community.

I found that in discussions with other Messianic rabbis, most felt the same way. None were eager to start asking people to leave the synagogue, at least not the kind of people who were one with the community. The talk I have heard from colleagues is more about helping people who come for wrong reasons and who don’t belong in a Messianic Jewish community from making the mistake of false belonging.

We have a mess on our hands of individual and corporate proportions because we have been careless in our notions of identity and purpose. But if I have a point to make here, it is this: those who belong in our communities, who have established a home here in Messianic Judaism, and who believe in and work toward the goals of Jewish renewal in Yeshua — as far as I am concerned — belong to the community.

Clarifying our individual identities and purposes should not be about rupturing communities or asking people to leave. A strategy of vetting people for membership in the future or helping people not to make the mistake of joining a community for the wrong reasons is a good one. But playing God and dividing existing communities is not something I will engage in. It seems my colleagues will not either.

Principles and Subjective Senses of Calling
Another issue in the question, “What are non-Jews to do?” is the balance between principles and the subjective sense of calling.

I remember in Christian clergy circles thinking that a lot of people were confused about the difference between subjective and objective ways of knowing. Applications for ministry positions in various Christian groups would have a question like, “On what date and under what circumstances did you receive the calling?”

The calling. As if our path in life is laid out for us like some prophecy which God reveals in words. I suppose that kind of clarity has happened in some cases in history. But by encouraging an objectifying of something subjective, I noticed that pop-Christian thinking about calling was distorted.

The fact is, deny it if you like, God is largely absent, silent, hidden. Our sense of calling is subjective. There is a lot of room for free choice.

People sometimes tell me God has shown them what to do. They move from failure to failure and eventually blame God. If God told me to do this, why didn’t it produce fruit?

I think the balance between subjective calling and objective principles is not as hard as people make it out to be. Consider first the commandments and wisdom that bear on your decisions. After that, follow your desires which fit with the commandments and wisdom.

Commandments and wisdom are the most objective criteria in decisions. Desires are subjective, but should not be despised as a form of recognizing God’s will. Look up “desire” in a concordance. Wrong desires conflict with commandments and wisdom. Right desires agree with commandments and wisdom. And desire is a primary way God leads us.

Some will sense the danger here. “Derek, are you saying that the desire people have to adopt Jewish customs or to belong to Messianic Jewish communities could be from God?” Am I simply rubber-stamping all forms of desire? Yes, if.

Yes, if these desires are consonant with wisdom and commandments.

The following is a list of principles which I think should inform people as they think about calling and purpose in their lives specifically with regard to Jewish roots or belonging to Messianic Jewish communities:

–God does not love Jews more than people from the nations. No one needs to be Jewish to find greater favor, blessing, or role in life. If there was any uncertainty about this before Yeshua came and the apostles carried on his work, that uncertainty has been removed completely.

–The Torah covenant is not between non-Jews and God, but between God and the people of Israel. As a non-Jew, you do not need to take on Jewish identity markers. It is not wrong for you to eat pork. It is not wrong for you to work on Shabbat. Any sense of guilt you have over these issues is not from God but from false teaching.

–The Church is God’s multi-national institution for non-Jews and being human is as corrupt as anything human will be. Israel is God’s national people set apart for a purpose in history. The people of Israel show the same failings as the Church and vice-versa. There is no room for comparing the Church or Israel unfavorably. Both are a mixture of blessing and curse, hope and failure, light and darkness.

–Supersessionism (replacement theology) is wrong, but does not disqualify the Church any more than rampant sin disqualifies Israel or the Church. There is no righteous community you can join. God will not judge you because your corporate community is imperfect. We are called to be a light to those around us, in the Church or amongst the people of Israel.

–The people of Israel is not a refuge from “Babylon,” as some people put it, or a righteous place for people to run to get away from the alleged paganism of Christianity. Do not seek out a Messianic synagogue because you see no option between church practices that bother you and becoming Jewish. If you think for a minute, people seeking a community free from uncomfortable practices could and perhaps should start Christian community based on those principles before retreating to Israel and giving up on the Church.

–Do not try to change Messianic Judaism into a universal Torah movement so you can have a home. If you cannot see in the Bible that God has a remnant of Yeshua-faith in Israel and that this remnant has a purpose in the plan of God in history, I have doubts about your ability to read the Bible. Any attempt to dilute the remnant of Israel with sloppy theology denies that God has a plan for the remnant of Israel. This point gets me in trouble with my friends in the universal Torah movements. Too often, this is what I think they are doing — redefining Israel to include gentiles with faith in Yeshua. If that is true, then why did God bother to choose Israel at all and why are there continuing statements of Israel’s unique election and calling in the New Testament?

–It is not necessary to come to Judaism or Messianic Judaism to practice a faith more in line with the whole Bible. It is possible to have Christian communities which celebrate Passover. Though I am not in favor of Shabbat observance for Christians, if you believe this is God’s will, you can do it in a Christian group. You don’t have to take over a Messianic synagogue to be a Sabbath-keeping Christian.

–It is possible to be a member of a church and to have periodic fellowship, such as at holidays, with Jewish and/or Messianic Jewish groups. You don’t have to join Israel to have a relationship with Jewish people.

–There certainly are non-Jews who have Jewish souls. Conversion has always been an option through intermarriage and also through other forms of joining the Jewish people. If you look at websites about conversion, you will find that the reasons most Jewish teachers list for conversion are similar to the desires many non-Jews in Messianic Judaism have. Some of my colleagues might criticize me for saying this, but I invite them to dialogue. Why should Messianic Judaism be more dissuasive of potential converts than mainstream Judaism? As long as people have healthy senses of their own identity and worth in God’s eyes, I don’t think we should deny persistent desires to become one with the people of Israel. (NOTE: I do not think “Paul’s rule in all the churches” disagrees with what I am saying here — more on that in the Paul’s rule series of blog posts I will continue here on Messianic Jewish Musings).

Upcoming
So far, we have discussed (in Part 1) the reasons for a wide interest among non-Jews in Jewish roots and Messianic Judaism. We have considered the importance of communal identity as opposed to thoughtless individualism. And we have considered the balance between the subjective and objective in finding God’s will for our calling.

In further installments in this series, we will look at options and issues for non-Jews. We will consider questions like, “How would Christianity have looked if it had not been for supersessionism (replacement theology) and anti-nomianism (a rejection of commandments)?” We will discuss the situations of people in different places, all with a love for Israel, for the Hebrew Bible, and for various parts or the whole of Jewish tradition.

Jewish Roots and non-Jews, Part 1

A great thing has happened in the past few decades in the lives of numerous thousands of Jesus-followers. The yearnings of people who love God and who read the sacred texts of scripture with eyes of faith has broken through centuries of error, misanthropy, and the tragedy of anti-Semitism.

Hundreds of thousands of Jesus-followers have become philo-Semites in various ways and at various levels.

Common issues have included:

(1) The rejection of supersessionism (replacement theology), which was the idea that Christianity had replaced Judaism in the promises and plan of God. The fullest definition of supersessionism is given in R. Kendall Soulen’s The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Supersessionism has varying types and levels as well and some people manage to shed the most egregious levels while retaining others.

(2) The rejection of anti-nomian reactions to God’s commandments. The explanation many heard about why Christians do not keep the Sabbath is so obviously false, it has been a continual problem. Note the glut of Christian writing attempting to spiritualize the Sabbath (including even recent major books by popular authors). The same arguments used against the Sabbath would call for a commandment-free Christianity. It occurred to practically no Christian authors that Sabbath was and still is God’s commandment for Israel (including Messianic Jews) and that Paul’s freedom-from-Sabbath statements were about non-Jewish disciples only.

(3) A discovery of and deep love for the Biblical holidays. Christians began hearing missionaries to the Jews (such as Jews for Jesus) give Passover presentations in churches starting in the 1970′s. The growth of the early Messianic Jewish movement began to include many non-Jews and the idea of Jesus-followers celebrating Passover, Tabernacles, Hanukkah, and other Biblical holidays spilled over and spread. Hundreds of thousands of Jesus-followers have taken hold of the holidays to one level or another. And the joy of God’s calendar is as evident to these lovers of God as it should always have been and always should be for Jewish people.

(4) The growth of teaching organizations and the proliferation of literature with various names including Hebraic and Jewish roots. Some of this material was poorly thought out, lacking in depth, and so on, but it was new for these Christians who soaked it up. And the beauty of it for many people was bringing the whole Bible back into view, so that study of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) became popular again in this subset of people.

(5) The realization that Jesus is Jewish hit many people with force. The essential denial of the Jewishness of Jesus throughout church history is a scandal. The realization that Jesus did not start a new religion rightfully caused many a non-Jew to repent and seek a deeper way of viewing his identity and purpose.

(6) Related to the second point (above), many found that the old arguments about grace versus law were distorted and that the Torah is full of grace. A new view of Paul was developing in scholarly circles. Many in the Jewish roots movement sought alternative ways to interpret Paul. Sadly, the well-thought-out New Perspective on Paul by scholars proliferated a bit late for many in the Jewish roots movement who had already developed less helpful ways of reading Paul. A common Jewish roots reading was to deny any Torah-free statement by Paul using scriptural gymnastics. The realization that Paul’s letters are directed at a non-Jewish audience which is not obligated to Torah missed the Jewish roots movement just as it has missed church theology for thousands of years. To this date the Jewish roots and universal Torah (One Law, Two House) movements have not absorbed the benefits of the New Perspective on Paul literature.

(7) The growth of non-Jews in Messianic Judaism started fairly early and quickly Messianic Judaism became a movement not about Jewish faith and practice in Yeshua, but about non-Jews discovering their Jewish roots. Messianic Jewish leaders welcomed the people and money this brought to their work. The goals of establishing a Jewish movement for Yeshua were sacrificed to popularity.

The Present Situation
Something beautiful and potentially world-changing is at peril due to confusion and the demanding of rights and privileges.

First, the growth of philo-Semitic Christianity is harmed by the adoption in the Jewish roots and universal Torah movements’ disdain for Christianity and the church. Instead of reforming church structures and bringing many of the joyful realizations of Jewish roots into churches, many of these people left, joined Messianic groups, and developed a line of literature denouncing Christianity as pagan.

So now, you are either a Christian pagan or a Messianic. And Messianic to these people means that you keep the holidays, the Sabbath, and various aspects of the Torah (but almost always reject the rabbis, Judaism, and Jewish tradition).

Second, the goals of Messianic Judaism were co-opted by well-meaning non-Jews who simply wanted to live out their Jewish roots. It was easier to do this in a Messianic congregation. The beleaguered leaders of small Messianic synagogues were happy to welcome an influx of people and funding. Meanwhile, the churches people fled from were not willing to take on Passover or Tabernacles. These Jewish roots people were not welcome to express themselves within church structures.

When you have a church in denial of its Jewish origins, a church which does not understand the Pentateuch, a church which promotes unhealthy views of Judaism, can you blame people for leaving?

Even at this moment, churches are largely blind to these issues. Progress has been made. Christians are far more aware today of the Jewishness of Jesus than a decade ago.

But the pressing problems of church life still cause the repair between Judaism and Christianity to be a back-burner issue. Struggling to remain strong in the post-modern world, the church pays only minor attention to its history of anti-Semitism, the new and better views of Paul and Torah, and so on.

It is all too easy for philo-Semitic followers of Jesus to drop out of such church contexts. And there is no home, other than Messianic Judaism, for these disaffected people. So variant forms of Messianic Judaism have developed which are not Judaism, per se, but universal Torah movements.

Looking Ahead to Practical Solutions
Commenters and friends have recently asked me to suggest a way forward for them and people like them.

On the one hand, I have friends in the universal Torah movements who are not at all happy with me. I have been insisting that the Torah was given to Israel on Mt. Sinai, that it is a covenant between Israel and God, that non-Jews are not part of the Torah covenant, that the New Testament affirms the freedom of non-Jews from Torah obligation, and that the relationship of Torah commandments to non-Jews is complex.

I have insisted that Torah does not mean merely the biblical commandments but the whole tradition of Israel that goes with it. There is no such thing as Torah without tradition. The Torah is designed to be filled in by the community of Israel with traditions. So Torah without Judaism is bankrupt. In fact, the word Torah includes tradition inherently (so that the universal Torah movements are not really practicing Torah, but a sort of neo-Karaitism).

I have insisted that the Church is God’s community on earth for bringing Yeshua to the nations. The supersessionism and anti-nomianism of the Church do not mean God has abandoned Christianity. If God abandoned Israel for waywardness and errors we would have ceased to exist long before there ever was a church.

But what are non-Jews who realize all these things to do? How can people stuck between a church indifferent to Jewish roots and a Messianic Judaism that is trying to regain its purpose as a Jewish movement to do?

There are a number of related questions people want answered:

(1) How should Christianity have developed if it had not been supersessionistic and anti-nomian?

(2) What should non-Jews presently in community in Messianic synagogues do?

(3) What should Jesus-believers who love Jewish roots do?

In a series of posts I want to focus first on issues 2 and 3, the more practical ones. If I don’t forget (remind me), I will come back to issue 1. It is less practical, but for many it would form the theoretical base for the kind of community they would like to see.

Rudolph’s “Paul Rule” Article, Part 1

One of the things that astounds me is the depth of scholarship in our tiny little movement. Messianic Judaism, further delimited in my understanding as the Jewish movement by that name and not the slightly larger movement including many non-Jewish groups, is very small as religious denominations go.

One mega-church or metro Reform synagogue can outnumber our entire movement.

Yet we have a contingent of a dozen or so every year at the Society of Biblical Literature. We are working on having our own track at SBL. If you can be a fly on the wall at our annual Hashivenu event, you will be surprised at the level of research and knowledge in the room. We have a number of scholars with PhD’s from top schools including Cambridge and Harvard.

And the trend is increasing, not decreasing.

The name of Mark Kinzer is already well-known to many beyond the provinces of Messianic Judaism. Another name that will become increasingly known is David Rudolph, a New Testament scholar who is young, articulate, a PhD from Cambridge, and whose measured writings show promise of bringing the ideas of Messianic Judaism to the broader world of Judaism and Christianity.

In a decade, I would not be surprised to find that the name David Rudolph is recognized by New Testament scholarship as a leading player.

I can see David blushing and telling me I am wrong, because that is his humble nature. To meet David Rudolph is to love him. I find that his kind make the best scholars — not the brash ideologues who beat on others (like me), but the calm, humble scholars whose ideas are well-organized and able to speak for themselves with little chest-pounding.

The peer-reviewed journal, Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations has just published an important article by David Rudolph and it is available free online at http://escholarship.bc.edu/scjr/vol5/iss1/2/.

It’s not that David Rudolph has not been published elsewhere (he has) or that this is his first major article (it is not). It is that this is such a good article with important implications for Messianic Judaism, Christianity, Judaism (and something I hope the universal-Torah (a.k.a. One Law or Two-House) people will read).

Overview and Main Argument
Please take the time to click on and read Rudolph’s article at Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations. The article is not long. And the number of clicks can help promote further work by David Rudolph in that journal and others in the future.

Clicking here is a mitzvah: http://escholarship.bc.edu/scjr/vol5/iss1/2/

The full title is: Paul’s “Rule in All the Churches” (1 Cor 7:17-24) and Torah-Defined Ecclesiological Variegation

The passage being discussed is:

“Nevertheless, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each person, so must he live. I give this sort of direction in all the churches. Was anyone called after he had been circumcised? He should not try to undo his circumcision. Was anyone called who is uncircumcised? He should not get circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Instead, keeping God’s commandments is what counts. Let each one remain in that situation in life in which he was called. Were you called as a slave? Do not worry about it. But if indeed you are able to be free, make the most of the opportunity. For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s freedman. In the same way, the one who was called as a free person is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves of men. In whatever situation someone was called, brothers and sisters, let him remain in it with God.”
(1Corinthians 7:17-24 NET)

The author says he questioned church leaders in various settings if any of them were familiar with “Paul’s rule in all the churches.” It’s an interesting question. The phrase makes it sound as if this rule would be important in churches. Yet, as the Messianic Jewish Musings reader can easily surmise, none of the church leaders had any idea what Rudolph was talking about.

I wouldn’t have known either. Would you?

The main point in Paul’s discourse here concerns marriage and celibacy. Yet he brings up the issue of Jewish and non-Jewish identities. Why does he bring these up?

Rudolph says, and a simple reading of 1 Corinthians 7 confirms, that the Jewish identity issue is a supporting argument for Paul’s point about marriage versus celibacy.

The issue Paul is discussing is about each person’s calling in life, by which Paul means the social choices and position they will occupy (a recent commenter said that “calling” always means calling to salvation — but I hope this dispels that false trail). Calling here is equated with “situation in life.”

Paul says, very significantly, that a person’s calling to Jewish identity or to non-Jewish identity is a boundary not normally to be crossed. Those who are Jewish do not need to assimilate into a non-Jewish identity in order to make the community evenly conformed. Nor do non-Jews need to assimilate (convert) to Jewish identity in order to make the community evenly conformed.

Jews will, as a rule, remain Jews. Gentiles will, as a rule, remain Gentiles.

Paul’s Rule and Bilateral Ecclesiology
Paul is basically making the point, Rudolph argues, that has been called in our time by Mark Kinzer “bilateral ecclesiology.”

Bilateral ecclesiology (which some of us call co-community in Messiah) is the idea that Yeshua’s timeless and universal Congregation contains Jews and gentiles as distinct groups.

The common pattern and opposite of bilateral ecclesiology in church history has been assimilation of Jews into gentile callings.

The common pattern and opposite of bilateral ecclesiology pushed or by some of the Pharisees in Acts 15 was the opposite, gentile assimilation (conversion) to Jewish identity.

The modern twist, framed by the universal Torah movements with various labels including Messianic, One Law, Ephraimite, and Two House is gentile assimilation to the status of Israelites which is alleged to be different than Jewish identity, but is practically with all the same markers. It is important to note that Rudolph’s article does not address this particular twist and I am simply bringing it to the fore since it is an issue for many of my readers.

The truly important observation about “Paul’s rule in all the churches” is that there is no intention, according to Paul, that identity in Yeshua will erase Jewish identity or cause non-Jews to need to conform to Jewish identity. Thus, the Jewish-Gentile distinction will continue in the congregations and must be factored in to models of congregational identity and structure.

It is a further step, one not explicit in Paul’s words, to say that separate congregations for those of Jewish identity will be important. This is because Torah life requires communal reinforcement and a one-size-fits-all congregation will not encourage adherence to Jewish identity (just as today, Jews in churches are not able to maintain identity for more than a generation).

I will write more in coming weeks about David Rudolph’s article, extracting from his well-reasoned exegetical and theological observations more of the practical and movement-specific implications. I invite readers of all theological bents (including those who cannot agree with me, which is no sin, I assure you) to comment briefly on their reaction to the article.

You can read Yahnatan Lasko’s thoughts here http://gatherthesparks.blogspot.com/2010/07/david-rudolph-on-pauls-rule.html

PODCAST: Yeshua in Context – Resurrection Absences

N.T. Wright concludes that the resurrection narratives in the four gospels develop from early accounts, accounts in which the startling fact of the resurrection is still raw, undigested (Resurrection, 610-15). Assuming Wright is correct, this feature of the gospel resurrection accounts is beyond strange. Since they are written down quite late (in all probability and as most scholars agree), after four to six decades of theological reflection one would think they would express the meaning of the resurrection clearly and thoroughly. Yet, in fact, Paul’s writings on the resurrection of Yeshua are far more developed. What are we to make of the raw accounts in the four gospels?

. . . What is it about these narratives that makes a leading historian and New Testament scholar to view them as raw, as reflecting early, unvarnished, even puzzled reactions to a virtually inexplicable event? Wright speaks of the strange absences and unusual features of the resurrection narratives under four topics: the silence of the Bible, the absence of personal hope, the inclusion of women, and the unusual descriptions of Yeshua’s body.

Yeshua in Context is due to be released in August. The Sourcebook will be available in September. An audio book produced by First Fruits of Zion will be available in November. And an ebook version of Yeshua in Context should be available for Kindle, iPad, and other readers by September. Email derek4messiah@gmail.com to pre-order Yeshua in Context. Also, contact me to come and speak to your group, church, or class.

LISTEN ONE OF TWO WAYS:

(1) On iTunes under “Yeshua in Context” podcast or

(2) At this link from derekleman.com

Notes on the Shema, Daily D’var

I have an email service known as the Daily D’var with notes on the daily Torah (Chumash) readings and readings from the Gospels and Acts. A community of about 120 people receive them at present. If we pass 200, I’ll have to use some type of email service and quit using Apple Mail.

But I believe very much in the value of reading daily. Chumash (the five books of Moses, Torah) is the obvious choice from the Hebrew Bible. It is the foundation of the Bible (all biblical ideas are tied to something in the Chumash), of Judaism, and in ways that few recognize, of Christianity. The Gospels and Acts are the logical choice from the New Testament. Paul’s letters have gotten inordinate attention to the detriment of the gospel. The apostles used the term besorah or the Greek evangelion (good news, later English coined the term gospel from “God spell”) for the life of Yeshua. The stories of his life are good news, light, and life for us.

Today’s Chumash notes are about the central text of the Chumash, Judaism, and Christianity: the Shema and V’Ahavta (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). If you’d like to sign up to receive the Daily D’var by email, contact me at derek4messiah@gmail.com.
…………………

DEUTERONOMY 6:4-25
Shema (4), V’Ahavta (5), teach these (6-7), bind them on your person and your dwelling (8-9), do not forget in the time of blessing (10-13), revere only the Lord (14-15), keep covenant so your enemies will be driven out (16-19), a haggadah for the children (20-25).

NOTES: Vs. 4 is, of course, the central verse of Judaism. It epitomizes the ambiguity and difficulty, however, of translating ancient concepts from ancient languages into modern contexts. There are two main translation possibilities and several possible meanings for the Shema. Should it be rendered “the Lord is one” or “the Lord alone”? Tigay points out that Zechariah 14:9 plays on the Shema with the relational understanding (“the Lord alone”) speaking of a day when all idols will be discredited and the worship of the Lord will be unified. But this does not indicate that Zechariah was limiting the interpretation of the Shema to the relational aspect. It is likely that the meaning of the Shema encompasses all of these: relational (to be Israel’s sole deity), uniqueness (the Lord is incomparable), singular (the only deity), and unity (all goodness and power are unified in his being). The Shema is pivotally placed, being the beginning of an exposition of the first commandment. Its importance within Deuteronomy stands out, along with its following verse about loving God. Vss. 4-5 make up the heart of Judaism: profound reflection and daily devotion to the concepts of the Lord’s uniqueness, incomparability, relation to his children, and loveliness.

Deuteronomy 4 and Israel’s Unique Calling

There are many reasons, coming from many different philosophies, why people do not believe that the Jewish people have a uniqueness or a unique calling. Just a few days ago a commenter said that I would be “hard-pressed” to show any text in the New Testament which argues for a unique calling for Jewish people in the continuing reality of Yeshua’s Congregation.

How about Romans 11:29?

Should faithful readers of the Bible believe that Israel has a unique calling? Has Israel ever had a unique calling? If so, does it continue?

One text to consider is in this week’s Torah portion (Va’etchanan): Deuteronomy 4:5-40. Consider an outline of the passage’s larger topics:

(4:5-8) The teachings (chukkot and mishpatim) are full of wisdom and worthy of obedience

(4:9-14) Remember the Sinai revelation

(4:15) God did not appear in a form like an idol

(4:16-18) Do not make images of earthly or heavenly things

(4:19) Do not worship the stars and heavenly bodies

(4:20-24) God is jealous as our story up to now has shown

(4:25-31) If you turn your back you will be scattered, but God will not give up on you

(4:32-40) Has any nation had such a revelation?

Uniqueness in the Torah Portion
There is a relativizing tendency many readers of the Bible fall prey to.

A common Christian mode of reading of Torah passages (there are different Christian modes and many people mix and match with little consideration of method) is to assume that the individual Christian is being addressed. This is usually combined with a filter: anything about guilt or judgment is about Israel but any timeless truth that can be derived is for the Christian as is any promise.

In this Christian mode of reading, Deuteronomy 4:25-31 could be read “devotionally” as a statement that God will not give up on any Christian who is in sin. God’s love will pursue and reconcile (in this life or the next) any disobedient child. And 4:32-40 could be read as a statement about the uniqueness of revelation to those who read and believe the Bible (note: that is the whole Bible as understood via a Christian reading as opposed to the Torah covenant as read specifically by the descendants of Israel).

Another mode of reading, one that has been constrained to various Sabbath-keeping Christian groups and, in more recent times, to universal-Torah-movement groups (often called “Messianic” and sometimes self-defining as One Law or Two House movements) is a reading of identification and extension.

By identification I mean that this type of reader writes himself/herself into the text, the promises and relational statements of the Torah.

But Deuteronomy 4:32-40 resists such identification by non-Jewish readers..

Has anything as grand as this ever happened, or has its like ever been known? Has any people [other than the Jewish people] heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire, as you have, and survived? Or has any god ventured to go and take for himself one nation [the Jewish people] from the midst of another by prodigious acts . . . from amidst that fire you [the Jewish people] heard His words. And because He loved your fathers [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob], He chose their heirs [the Jewish people] after them; He Himself, in His great might, led you out of Egypt, to drive from your path nations greater and more populous than you, to take you into their land and assign it to you [the Jewish people] as a heritage, as is still the case. . . . Observe His laws and commandments, which I enjoin upon you [the Jewish people] this day, that it may go well with you and your children after you . . .

The entire point of this passage is based on physical descent:

–Israel is chosen because of the patriarchs from whom they descend.

–Israel saw the revelation at Sinai and no other nation did.

–God took for himself one nation — both words (“one” and “nation”) are important here.

–God enjoined his Torah upon this one nation.

–The continuation of this Torah covenant is for the benefit of the children (physical descent) of the nation.

Not Diluting Uniqueness
Has anything as grand as this ever happened? God asks.

It is a point worth remembering that the Torah covenant between God and Israel is unique. Nothing like it happened before with the nations (gentiles).

And if Israel breaks the treaty of Torah, Deuteronomy 4:25-31 describes the results: punishment but not final rejection.

None of this means God’s love, his redemptive purpose, or his calling of people to relationship was, is, or will be limited to the Jewish people. Torah itself deals with Israel’s calling as priests to the nations (gentiles) and gives more than one category for non-Israelite people (temporary resident in the land, permanent resident, foreigner).

None of this means God would not extend an offer of relationship to other peoples.

But the Torah covenant is between Israel and God. Israel’s calling is unique. And the Torah denies that this calling will ever end.

Historic Moment: MJ’s Future Through Education

Coming up on Messianic Jewish Musings: It happens occasionally that I have so many topics for the blog and so few days. Look for the following this week and next. (1) A series on a crucial paper by David Rudolph, MJTI professor and a New Testament scholar of note about “Paul’s Rule in All the Churches” (see Yahnatan Lasko’s write-up here), (2) a theology of Torah and election from Deuteronomy 4, (3) a theology of redemption and election from Acts 3, (4) an interview with Mark Kinzer about the Helsinki Consultation on Jewish Identity, (5) more on our J-BOM selections for July and August, and (6) podcasts on the resurrection narratives.
……………………..

History is often made with little notice until years after the fact when an event is looked upon as a turning point.

A good bit of history has been made, in my opinion, in recent weeks. A group of Messianic Jews and Jewish Christians met in Helsinki, Finland, and resolved together to work on faithfulness to the covenantal identity of Jewish people who follow Yeshua (Jesus). That Jewish followers of Yeshua in churches and in Messianic synagogues (and in mainstream synagogues) could work out theologies and practices for continuing the unique calling of Jewishness is a major advance from the Reverse Galatianism of the past (Galatianism = requiring Gentiles to live as Jews, so you can imagine what Reverse Galatianism has been).

David Rudolph has published a paper which breaks new ground, even restoring to Christian theology Paul’s “rule in all the churches,” an idea you would not think could have been lost by a church so devoted to Paul’s writings. Yet, as Rudolph shows in his paper, Paul’s rule has been forgotten and the consequences have been disaster.

And history, I believe, will look back on the MJTI summer intensives of 2010 in Beverly Hills as a turning point as well (see more about MJTI here).

Seven students gathered including a congregational rabbi (myself), a candidate due to receive rabbinic ordination this summer (Joshua Brumbach of the Yinon blog), two students working on ordination requirements, a long-time Messianic Jewish lay-leader and teacher of Hebrew, a much-beloved rebbetzin whose work in Messianic Judaism has touched scores of lives, and a brilliant Jewish physician from Brazil who is also a budding scholar of rabbinics.

MJTI’s Rabbi Carl Kinbar and Rabbi Rich Nichol poured their lives and knowledge into us with some help from Rabbis Stuart Dauermann and Paul Saal.

What was potentially historic about this week-long intensive class?

(1) When in MJ history has there been a trajectory set for study of the Tradition (rabbinic literature) in the original languages by a group capable of engaging the ideas and creatively forming them into theology and practice? We read Eichah Rabbah texts in the difficult language of early rabbinic Hebrew and found in midrash a place in the tradition which affirms the immanence and emotional involvement of God in his creation and among his people. The midrashic conceptions of God are very amenable to Messianic Jewish faith and counter the rather deistic tradition of much modern Judaism. It will not be easy for Jewish opponents of Messianic Judaism to claim that our faith is un-Jewish as our scholars (present and future) delve deeply into the more immanent and mystical parts of the Tradition.

(2) With great wisdom the course was set for MJTI’s educational pattern to blend the practical/spiritual with the academic/theological. The afternoon course was about the prophetic and spiritual power and endowment of God upon his people. MJTI’s students will not simply be readers of Hebrew texts, writers of theology, and teachers of ideas. If the power of God is not made known among us, if we do not have the sense of immediacy that characterized the sons of the prophets in Elisha’s day and the Yeshua-community in Acts, then our message will fall on deaf ears.

The week-long class was a turning point.

MJTI is making the future, I believe, through the blessing of God upon us. He has brought together the intellectual and spiritual leadership of key people. Rabbi Mark Kinzer is leading the way in dialogue with Jewish and Christian scholars. David Rudolph is intimately involved in this Jewish-Christian relations work as are a few others (whose names I am not sure I should publicize). Jewish scholars whose names are well-known (but again, until there are press releases, I am not sure I should name them) are talking with us and even delivering lectures at events MJTI is sponsoring. Christian leaders and scholars of equal note are involved.

Messianic Judaism is functioning as it ought to, as the bridge of peace between the parts of the Congregation of Yeshua, bringing Jewish and Christian leaders together.

Rabbis and other leaders in the future will be equipped as never before, with a Jewish and Christian education of depth and breadth that will help us restore ancient divisions and equip and empower many people for a vibrant and active faith.

Truth time: Messianic Judaism is a small movement. The actual numbers in our movement are misunderstood. Our survival as a movement is very much in question. Many competing ideas exist including models in which Messianic Judaism is Christianity practiced with a veneer of Jewish tradition or in which Jewish identity is lost in a universal Torah movement. The large influx of Jewish people toward faith in Jesus came to a virtual stop after the 1970′s. Jewish interest in Jesus is largely expressed through assimilation in churches or through private and uninvolved interest by postmoderns who refuse to identify and join.

Will the year 2020 see a vibrant Messianic Judaism? Our leaders mostly come from the Jesus movement of the 1970′s that caught up many Jews in the Jesus-fever. Most will be retired by 2020. What will replace current structures? The number of rabbinic students is small. The prospects for a paid rabbinate are small.

Will there be a new influx of Jews and intermarrieds looking to bring together Yeshua-faith and Jewish identity and tradition? Will it be a God-initiated movement of power like what we saw in the 1970′s?

I hope so. But in the meantime, those who share the vision need to come together around the vision of a faithful Messianic Judaism: faithful to Yeshua and faithful to the covenant between the people of Israel and God. Perhaps by 2020, people will point to events such as this class in midrash and Spiritual endowment as a watershed. The studies will continue. Those joining us for the studies will increase. The voice of Messianic Jews and Christians who support the vision will broaden and the old discourse of anti-missionary vs. missionary will diminish.

May it be true, the ability of Jewish people to ignore or dismiss Yeshua as a foreign deity will fade.

Observing Tisha B’Av (Reprint from Last Year)

How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she that was great among the nations! . . . She weeps bitterly in the night, tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.
-Lamentations 1:1-2

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
-Elie Wiesel

Tisha B’Av (the ninth of Av) begins tonight at sundown, July 19, 2010. According to a Talmudic passage (Taanit 26a), five things happened in history on this date:

(1) The Exodus generation was told they would die in the desert.

(2) The first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians (586 B.C.E.).

(3) The second Temple was destroyed by the Romans (70 C.E.).

(4) Bar Kochba’s fortress was destroyed by the Romans, ending the second Jewish revolt (136 C.E.).

(5) The city of Jerusalem was plowed under.

Tradition has it that practically every tragedy in Jewish history is connected to this day. According to George Robinson (Essential Judaism) there is literal historical truth to that fact. The ninth of Av is the date when the Romans began destroying the Temple in 70 C.E. (they finished on the tenth). He says that it was truly on Tisha B’Av in 1190 when the Jewish population of York, England was massacred and in 1290 when Edward banished all Jews from England and Tisha B’Av was the deadline for Jews to leave Spain the expulsion of 1492. The Nazis deliberately chose this date in 1942 to send Jews from the ghetto at Warsaw into Treblinka for extermination.

A Disturbing Day, a Mournful Day
Walking into synagogue on the eve of Tisha B’Av, you find the chairs either removed or turned upside down. People sit on low stools or on the floor, as did Job in his distress. Curtains and coverings are removed, making the synagogue look bare.

The last meal before sundown is traditionally lentils and eggs. Their round shape is said to speak of mourning, since life is a circle of mourning.

The texts for reading are sad ones: Lamentations, Jeremiah (but not the consolation passages), Job, Deuteronomy 4:25-40, Jeremiah 8:13 – 9:23, and also Kinot, sad poems of mourning composed through the ages for reading on Tisha B’Av.

Lamentations is read in whole at the evening service. The cant gets louder through the first three chapters, silent on the fourth, and then loud again on the next to last verse:

Hashivenu, Adonai, eleikha v’nashuvah! Chadesh, chadesh yameinu, chadesh yameinu k’kedem!
Restore us to thyself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old!
-Lamentations 5:21

Tisha B’Av as Spiritual Discipline
It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.
-Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) 7:2

As long as we live in the age of death and futility, we ought to set times to meditate and reflect on these things. Our prayer and worship is heavily populated with verses of hope and consolation. May Messiah come speedily. Rebuild the Temple. May our own eyes see your return to Zion.

Such hope is vital and rightly emphasized. But in this age we will deal with death and we ought to deal with it purposefully and thoughtfully.

Tisha B’Av is a spiritual discipline. We eat our lentils alone and not in the joy of a communal table. Fasting on Tisha B’Av is a way of experiencing the pangs of suffering to remind ourselves, even in good times, that this is the lot of humankind. We pray silently and alone, even in synagogue, because death separates loved ones and harms community.

We need Tisha B’Av to remember how great the hope and consolation of Messiah truly is.

We pass 500,000 reads!

I had planned to announce when Messianic Jewish Musings passed the mark of 500,000 reads. We passed it yesterday and I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway, it’s a cool number and I’m glad so many people like reading theology, Jewish-Christian relations, biblical issues, rabbinic texts, and so on. Thanks to you all and keep reading — reading as a habit to stay connected to God is not a hobby, it is survival!

Few Jews Following Yeshua?

Just a quick thought for today. I am reading Luke Timothy Johnson’s commentary on Acts for the Daily D’var, an email list commentary through which I send out readings from the Chumash (five books of Torah) and the Gospels and Acts.

I came to Acts 2:37, “Now when they heard this, they were acutely distressed and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘What should we do, brothers?’”

Johnson’s comment is as follows:
.
.
.

At the death of Jesus, Luke showed the reader a people ready for repentance; when they observed the death of Jesus, they had turned back to the city beating their breasts in a gesture of remorse (Luke 23:48). Now, hearing Peter’s message, they are ready to do what is required by God’s action.
–The Acts of the Apostles. (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), 60.

My comment, a few sentences from my Daily D’var email on this passage:

Luke does not emphasize Israel as rejecting Yeshua but shows the segment within Israel open to the work of God revealed through Yeshua. In Luke 23:48, many witnesses of Yeshua’s death go home beating their breasts (Johnson). Here in Acts 2:37 those who hear Peter’s message are stunned. Later, in Acts 21:20 we will hear of the tens of thousands (muriades, mistakenly translated as thousands in many English versions) of Jewish believers.

We are used to the idea of few Jewish followers of Yeshua. In the first century and now, it seems there are so few. What do we do with the “fewness” theme?

We can see it the other way as a sort of muchness. Johnson goes on the say that when Peter quotes from the book of Joel, he uses the Septuagint version (the LXX). And though he does not quote this particular verse, it is adjacent to one he does quote, and in midrashic thinking the unspoken next few words of a passage are often meant to be the main point: For it will be in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem that there will be a remnant, just as the Lord said, and they will be preached the good news (Joel 3:5b, LXX version, 2:32 in modern Christian Bibles). The Hebrew text doesn’t say “remnant” or “be preached the good news” but rather “those who escape” and “will be those whom the Lord calls.”

Could it be (Johnson thinks so) that Peter has in mind especially the idea that his audience, Judeans at the Temple hearing the good news of Yeshua, are the remnant to whom good news is preached?

I get a question from Christians with regularity: why are there so few Jewish followers of Yeshua? My response is: why are there so few Gentile followers of Yeshua? I might also say, are there really few Jewish followers of Yeshua?

It depends on how you look at it.

Where are the Messianic Jews today? Well, very few are in so-called Messianic Jewish congregations. I’d be surprised if there were more than 3,000 actually Jewish Messianic Jews in the Messianic Jewish congregations in the U.S.

So where are we? There are three other places to find us: in churches, in mainstream synagogues (of the non-Yeshua-believing type), and staying away from both church and synagogue.

Those in churches, I hope will discover the importance of belonging to the Jewish people and will in the future be drawn to community with other Jews. Sadly, most will not know they are Jewish anymore in one generation. If you don’t know what I am talking about or think I am wrong, think about it.

What about Yeshua-believing Jews in mainstream synagogues? They exist in all branches of Judaism, from teh Hasidim to the Reform and Reconstructionist. I’m not saying this is a major number of people. But it happens.

And why do Jews stay in churches and mainstream synagogues instead of joining Messianic Jewish synagogues? Well, many have experienced unusual things including: Messianic congregations that have no Jews, Hebrew Christian fellowships that are really churches and not synagogues, weird theology and practices, an environment lacking love and maturity, unqualified leaders who are an embarrassment, and so on.

Churches and synagogues look pretty good compared to 90% of the so-called Messianic congregations (I mean the 90% literally).

And why do some Jewish Yeshua-believers stay away from all kinds of religious communities? First, they buy into radical individualism, the idea that personal faith is sufficient. Never mind the fact that God’s promises are communal and that neither the Hebrew Bible nor the New Testament know anything of solitary worshippers who resist joining with the community. Second, postmodern shallowness leads many to think Yeshua is an interest or intellectual/spiritual pursuit to be compared with other interests like eco-kosher or organic gardening or reading political blogs.

The challenge for Messianic Judaism’s future, and we are discussing it here at the class I am taking in L.A. through MJTI, is to engage the Jewish world with the power of Yeshua’s name expressed through loving, ethical communities involved in healing and serving in this broken world. I think along with this power there must be sound knowledge as well, knowledge of both the Jewish and Christian traditions expressed in a thoroughly Jewish and radically Yeshua-empowered form of worship that is true to Judaism and faithful to the identity and message of Yeshua which we share with Christianity.

Another Midrash on Lamentations

Every morning we translate sections of Eichah Rabbah (Lamentations Rabbah) at the summer intensive class in L.A. I am taking through MJTI (mjti.com).

Lamentations is my kind of book. I believe that life has a hard edge to it and God, though present, makes his absence felt. That sounds contradictory, I know, but you likely can see through the apparent contradiction if you try.

Just this morning a close friend wrote to me of her disappointments and sense of loss. Faith is often in spite of rather than because of the happenstances of life. I believe it is good to speak to the brutal realities, to keep an edge of melancholy in our God-talk. God gives a hard road and looks for faith anyway.

In last week’s exploration of a midrash from Eichah Rabbah (see “Pt 2, A Consoling and Disturbing Midrash for People of Faith”) I retold a parable whose punchline has God in the days of Messiah saying to Israel, “My children! I am amazed at how you have waited for me all these years!”

It is an interesting thought: that faith is surprising, even to God.

I’ll share with you another midrash, one we worked on this week, and my translation (with much help from other class members and Rabbi Kinbar):

And Moses was crying and weeping until he reached the Fathers of the World (Abraham, etc.). Immediately also they (the Fathers) tore their clothes and they rested their hands on their heads and they were crying and weeping until the gates of the Beit HaMikdash. As soon as he saw them, the Holy One, blessed be He, immediately it happened: “and Hashem Elohim of hosts proclaimed that this day is for weeping and lamenting and tearing out hair and donning sackcloth” (Isa 22:12). And if it were not scripture, as it is written, it would not be possible to say it. And they (the Holy One, Moses, and the Fathers) were weeping and went on weeping from this gate to this gate like a man whose dead person lays before him. And the Holy One, blessed be He, was wailing and saying, “Woe to him, to the king who in his young years will succeed but in his later years will not succeed.”

The midrashes on Lamentations often show God mourning with Israel. This is not to say that God did not cause the judgment to fall on Israel, but that even so he mourns. In at least one midrash, God has to ask the angels how to mourn. The omniscient God doesn’t know how (a profound thought).

It helps to understand this midrash if you know the law about an onein, a person whose loved one has died and is not yet buried (“his dead person lays before him”). An onein does not have to recite Shema or keep any of the positive commandments. They are excused from anything they say in grief, including words of doubt about God.

In this story, Moses is weeping over Israel’s devastation and is joined by the Patriarchs and then the Holy One. The midrash centers on a verse in Isaiah where God declares a day of mourning. The sage reads it as though God is participating in the mourning.

And God is an onein. His dead loved one (metaphorically Israel) lies before him. He is excused for anything he says.

What he does say is shocking. He utters a proverb about kings who have early success and late failure. He implies that this is the case with himself. This casts doubt on the whole issue of whether God will be able to redeem and heal the world.

The point of such a midrash is not to deny the messianic hope. It is to explain our human condition of despair. It is to say that God shares our despair and is with us in mourning.

Some people cannot get past the idea in these stories that biblical characters and God do fictitious things. That is the point. No one is expected to believe these stories as non-fiction. They are stories illustrating surprising truths and elements of life.

And if the shocking messages of these midrashim disturb you, they are doing their job. But those who might criticize the midrash should read the texts from which they are derived. Lamentations is an utterly realistic book about devastation. And the ideas and wisdom of the sages is biblical in the ultimate sense: it is true to the revelation and is not a replacement for the revelation.

Overcoming Learning Paralysis

Learning. We all, like Tevye in that scene in Fiddler on the Roof, romanticize the possibility of becoming learned, of engaging in some regular, daily bliss of study.

Why do so few succeed?

The Paralysis of Too Many Choices
Being in this class with MJTI, a summer intensive in L.A., I am reminded that Jewish learning (the same can be said of Christian learning) is a matter of choosing specific priorities from among an astronomical field of subjects.

Think of the Bible, for starters. It has only a certain number of pages, but the depth and complexity is overwhelming. It is misleading to see the relatively few words of the Bible. Perhaps you could get a better image of the colossal amount of information in the Bible by going to a university library and seeing the shelves of reference and commentary on it.

Why not just start on one end of this massive collection of commentary and read twenty pages a day until you are done? You will finish somewhere in the lifetime of your great grandchildren!

And consider that many of us want to learn not only Bible, but history, theology, ethics, archaeology, and more. Draw from the Christian and Jewish traditions and you get even more: Talmud, midrash, halacha, sages, creeds, councils, church fathers, and on and on.

Just a note worth making: Orthodox Judaism has developed a priority of Talmud study. But it appears that Messianic Judaism, while not neglecting Talmud in the future, may go a different route, emphasizing midrash study. (I’ll blog more about this later).

The point is, with so much to learn, we hardly know where to begin.

The Paralysis of Too Little Time
Granted our lack of time, we wonder if learning is even worthwhile. I am one of the fortunate ones who can devote forty hours a week to study. Many people are fortunate of they can find a quarter hour a day.

When you consider the galaxy of material and your oh-so-slow spacecraft, exploration seems impossible.

The Paralysis of Controversy
As if all this weren’t hard enough, there is galactic warfare going on. If we read a Christian work, does it matter if they are Reformed, Wesleyan, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox? Can that liberal Jewish philosopher be worthwhile or only a medieval commentator?

What is the possibility of getting well-rounded material in the midst of the shooting, dog-fights, and differing battle strategies that surround us?

Pointers Along the Way

–Small revelations are worthwhile, so if you don’t have time to learn it all, just be engaged and you will see the stars from many angles even if you don’t chart the galaxy completely.

–Choose important subjects. For Messianic Jews (and I think Christians would do well here also), my opinion is that the Pentateuch and the four gospels are primary. They are foundational. Judaism has a reading cycle for the Pentateuch. The gospels and Acts can be read (these are five books, just like the Pentateuch) alongside the Torah.

–Don’t be paralyzed. A little work is better than no work.

–Get yourself teachers. Find good referrals for books, instructional materials, and helps. I have made recommendations here in the past under the category of education (you can search by categories on the right side of this blog page).

–Be part of a community that studies. If possible, don’t invest your time too heavily in a community that places no value on it.

–Find yourself partners, people to discuss with, and so on. Don’t overlook your own immediate family members.