Myth: Pro-Jewish but Anti-Judaism

I wrote the following several years ago at the very last meeting I attended at a certain annual conference of Christian missions to the Jewish people. There are still many high-quality people in the organization in spite of the way this isolated quote might make things appear. Nonetheless, the attitude I decry in this piece is prevalent enough I withdrew my participation. I came across this in someone else’s blog and thought I would run it here. The value, I think, is in challenging the way some Christians and Hebrew Roots groups view Judaism:
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Many in LCJE are still infected with anti-Judaism while at the same time being pro-Jewish. It is as if we imagine you can love Jews and oppose the religion that has preserved Jewish identity. It is Judaism that has held Jewish people together, even though many do not practice it. Judaism the religion is what led to the succession of Brit Milahs through the ages, entering Jewish boys into the covenant of God. It is Judaism that led Jews to marry other Jews and not assimilate into the surrounding cultures. It is Judaism that has caused Jewish people to remain distinct, keeping Sabbath and dietary law as God commanded in the Bible. Without Judaism there would clearly be no Jewish people.

Thus, when God tells us, “All Israel will be saved,” we should ask, “Who is Israel?” If our generation is the one that receives the promise, how will God define Israel? If it is a generation hundreds of years from now, how will God define Israel? The only answer consistent through history since the time Jesus wept over Jerusalem and Paul declared that all Israel would be saved is rabbinic Judaism.

Rabbinic Judaism is God’s ordained instrument to preserve Israel for the last days and God’s restoration. Seen in that light, rabbinic Judaism is not quite the enemy many have made it out to be. Ought we not to work with God and not against him? Should our methods encourage Jews to abandon the distinctives of rabbinic Judaism?

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It was true then and it remains true.

Martians and the Myth of Tradition-Less Religion

From several quarters I have felt the press of this issue in the past few days.

A commenter on Messianic Jewish Musings said that a certain piece of Jewish tradition was “a violation of the commandment not to add to Torah.”

A friend from the UK wrote with a wonderful illustration about Martians and religion (see below) and the pivotal role of tradition.

A rabbi friend and mentor wrote in an email discussion about the fallacy of the “I simply read the Bible as I see it” approach.

The idea of a pure and tradition-less religion (Christian or Jewish) is a common myth but is less likely to surface than the Loch Ness monster in the Dead Sea in Israel.

I explained to the commenter here on Messianic Jewish Musings that the Torah leaves out the details and leaves them for the community to fill in with tradition. If you read Torah thoughtfully and consider how to keep its injunctions you will find this for yourself. And neither does the New Testament fill in the details for Christian and Messianic practice. Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is a broad command. Baptism is commanded but not given a specific ceremony or wording.

My rabbi friend and mentor, Stuart Dauermann, wrote in an email: It is sooooo easy to imagine that “other people interpret using tradition, but I just take the Bible as it is!” How true! Observant Jews argue over rice at Passover or the doubling of Yom Tovs and practicing Christians argue over infant versus believers’ baptism and just war versus non-violent resistance.

Following up on Rabbi Dauermann’s point, which Christian denomination is practicing worship “just as it is in the Bible”? Most people are likely to think their own denomination is doing so. Most people lead an unexamined life of accepting what they have been told and whatever their religious experience is. Which branch of Judaism prays properly, according to Torah?

And it all gets much clearer when you consider the illustration I received by email from a friend in the UK (not sure he would want me to use his name). He said:

I recently came up with an wacky illustration – if you were a martian living on mars, knowing nothing of life on earth, and the postman delivered a bible (conveniently translated for you, of course), would you be able to accurately understand and recreate Christianity or Judaism, either as they were in biblical times or are today? Of course you wouldn’t. Our understanding and expression of faith is passed down in communities from generation to generation. That’s the way Hashem intended it – l’dor v’dor.

Consider what my wise friend is saying. If you are Jewish and pray the Shacharit, do you imagine that this Martian would develop a Siddur like the one you use just from the Torah? If you are Baptist, do you suppose the Martian church would look naturally like a Baptist church because that is clearly the intent of the New Testament? Of course not.

So let’s all outgrow the myth of pure religion that is scriptural and not tradition-bound. It exists only in the minds of those who have not examined the idea with any depth.

What Can MJ Learn from Taoism?

My friend and colleague at MJTI, Sean Emslie, is back into blogging and has a nice meditation on a saying from Taoism and its wisdom for Messianic Judaism today. This is a good word for the building of Messianic Judaism that is not willful innovation, but Messianic outgrowth of existing tradition:

http://towardblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/taoist-wisdom-for-messianic-judaism.html

Understanding the Passover Haggadah: Part 1

So, you want to celebrate Passover in a traditional way. You pick up a Haggadah, a Passover manual, and you think it will be simple. Passover is a ritual meal with a few symbolic foods and the story from Exodus, right? But as you read the Haggadah it seems anything but. What’s going on?

It makes no difference if you are Jewish and have some experience at this or if you are a non-Jew trying to learn. Just because you are Jewish and had Passover at your uncle’s house growing up doesn’t mean you understand the Haggadah. And if you are a Christian seeking to add Passover to your spiritual life, don’t think the problem you are having understanding the Haggadah stems from your lack of Jewish background.

I’ll let you in on a secret: no one completely understands the Passover Haggadah just as no one completely understands the Bible.

The Passover Seder, according to the Haggadah, is not a straightforward symbolic meal with the Exodus story thrown in. You might notice some oddities as you read through the Haggadah. The first and most glaring: Moses is not mentioned at all (except in one scripture reference). How can Passover be about the Exodus story and not mention Moses? And the Haggadah doesn’t follow any outline from Exodus at all, but is all over the place with four questions and rabbis having an all-night discussion and four sons and even a song about a goat.

At Messianic Jewish Musings we want to help you be spiritually and intellectually prepared for Passover this year. You will find here leading up to Passover numerous articles for understanding Passover. I would call it “Passover for Dummies,” but I’m afraid I would get sued by the people who own that trademark for a series of books. Besides, it ain’t just dummies who have trouble grasping Passover, its historical layers, the Haggadah, and even the best way to lead a family or group in a Passover Seder.

So, in lesson #1, I want to explain some of the Biblical roots of the Passover Haggadah:

The Passover Haggadah is Less About Exodus and More About Deuteronomy 26:5-10
Judaism is a religion of halakhah, a word which means roughly “walking out the commandments.” Thus, commandments usually take precedence over narratives in Jewish practice. This does not at all mean stories (aggadah, or Haggadah) are unimportant. It just means commandments are even more important.

Thus, the Passover Haggadah is the eventual result of the rabbis and sages considering God’s commandments to Israel concerning the night of Passover and the family table.

Much of what you read in Exodus 12 is actually about the first Passover. While Exodus 12 does have material about the continuing observance of Passover, it is much more in Deuteronomy that we read God’s commandments and institutions for later generations.

Deuteronomy 26:5-10 is a script or a narrative of what the Israelite must say when he brings the firstfruits of his grain as an offering to the priest at the sanctuary. The firstfruits offering for barley occurs during the week of Passover on the day after the Sabbath.

In other words, in Deuteronomy 26 we have a commandment about telling the story of Israel each year during Passover. It is a sacred script, very similar to the command in Exodus 12:25-27 in which God gives a script for the parents to respond to their children’s question about the Passover meal.

And the rabbis chose to focus on the sacred script from Deuteronomy 26 as the basis of the Passover Haggadah. The Haggadah is a series of midrashim (expansive and sometimes fanciful interpretations of Biblical texts) on Deuteronomy 26:5-10:

And you shall make response before the Lord your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the Lord the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which thou, O Lord, hast given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God.

The Four Sacred Scripts in the Torah
Deuteronomy 26:5-10 is one of four instances of a sacred drama or script in the Torah. The first comes right from the Exodus chapter itself, Exodus 12:25-27:

And when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he slew the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.

Similarly, Exodus 13:14-15 is a sacred script for explaining to children the ritual of redeeming the firstborn of animals:

And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of cattle. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb; but all the first-born of my sons I redeem.’

Finally, in Deuteronomy 6:20-25 there is a sacred script explaining to children why the family keeps all of God’s commandments and statutes:

When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; and the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes; and he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land which he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as at this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’

The Haggadah is an extended midrash, with stories, rituals, and questions and answers based on Deuteronomy 26:5-10 and influenced by the four sacred scripts in the Torah. Lawrence Hoffman, writing in My People’s Passover Haggadah, calls the Haggadah a sacred drama:

Liturgy in general is a sacred drama–sacred because of the way it is “performed” and the personal stake the performers have in performing it. It is clearly “theater”: people play roles (getting an aliyah, opening the ark), they wear costumes (tallit and kippah), and they have assigned roles to chant or read out loud. . . . The Haggadah is the Seder’s dramatic script. But scripts come relatively open or closed. . . . Open scripts give over the play to the interpretive capacity of those who plan and play it. . . . The Haggadah presents the foundational story of how we got here, and as its problem, it asks, implicitly, why it matters if the Jewish People continues. Each year demands its own compelling solution. That is why its script remains open and why, also, we have to reenact it every year. If it comes out exactly the same as the year before, we have failed our dramatic duty.

Conclusion: Let the Confusing Outline Be a Guide, Not a Closed Script
So, if you are somewhat confused about the Haggadah, here is some perspective that may help:

(1) The Haggadah is a reflection honed over many generations (actively growing for a period of at least 800 years). It is the end-product of a complex tradition of rabbinic discussion about the commands to tell the story, especially centered on Deuteronomy 26:5-10.

(2) Don’t expect a simple meal and a story, but a meal with parts for people to play and multiple stories centered on the story of Israel emerging from Mesopotamia (“my father was a wandering Aramean”) and being set free by God from bondage to enter a land of promise.

(3) Understand that the emphasis on children’s questions and even the strange passage about four sons (wise, wicked, simple, and stuck-for-words) are midrashim or expansions of the Torah’s commands about telling the children the story.

(4) Don’t simply read every word of the Haggadah and neither fail to add words to the Haggadah. There is a lot of room for creative assigning of roles, abridging the text, and adding modern reflections. Ask yourself, “What can I say this year about God, freedom, and the future that I have not said before?”

Of course, this is just a beginning and not enough to help you understand the Haggadah. But it is an important step. Read the Haggadah well in advance of Passover (I will suggest a few Haggadahs that are readily available in a future article). Especially if you are the leader of the Seder, be educated in advance and know that you will learn something new every year.

In future articles I will continue explaining the Passover Haggadah, largely with the help of My People’s Passover Haggadah edited by Lawrence Hoffman and David Arnow. By Passover, I hope to help you (and myself) understand its flow and have ideas for leading and ideas for participating in this ancient, ever-changing festival of freedom.

Is the Passover a Late Biblical Invention?

No Biblical festival has quite the cultural legacy and rich complexity of Passover. It is a holiday of interest to Jews and Christians and through the Exodus story and the narrative of the Passion of Jesus, Passover has a cultural influence beyond the borders of these two great faiths.

As Passover draws near, it will be a frequent subject on Messianic Jewish Musings. I have a modest but always growing library of books on Passover. I hope, in a decade or two, to be an expert on the subject.

This year I am reading a great new resource for lovers of Passover and its history, My People’s Passover Haggadah, edited by Lawrence Hoffman and David Arnow. I am sure I will refer to it a dozen times in articles leading up to Passover. It puts in one resource (two volumes) a wealth of historical and interpretative material.

In this first Passover article of 2009, I am addressing a subject that may seem less interesting to some than others. Passover articles should be about the mystique, the narrative power, or the spirituality of Passover. Yet, though the topic of this article is somewhat technical, I try to make it interesting, concise, and I hope, by the end, you feel it is a worthwhile addition to your reading as you prepare for Passover this year.
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Is Passover a Late Invention in Biblical History? The Problem in a Nutshell
David Arnow, whose work I quite appreciate both in My People’s Passover Haggadah and in Creating Lively Passover Seders: A Sourcebook of Engaging Tales, Texts & Activities , describes the world of Biblical scholarship’s prevailing opinion that Passover is not the ancient holy day of Israel that it seems to me. Rather, it is an invention from the days of King Josiah, bringing together two different festivals from earlier times and merging them as if they had always been one. And lying behind this lately invented festival are pagan myths and cultic festivals.

But wait, you say, Passover seems rather straightforward. In the days of Moses the Israelites slew a lamb, put blood on the door, and ate unleavened bread. God gave this event a calendrical setting for future commemoration and tradition has added to the elements of Passover since the days of Moses to what we know as the modern Passover Seder, right?

According to Arnow and what he calls the prevailing opinion of Biblical scholars, not so.

Passover, it is said, is a contradiction in the sources from the beginning. The following list represents the basic problems with a simple view of Passover’s origins:

(1) The Bible gives two contradictory dates for the celebration of Passover. Leviticus 23:5 says it is on the fourteenth day of the first month (Abib). Yet Exodus 23:15 (and others places) say it is either “on the new moon of Abib” or “in the month of Abib.” If the correct translation is “on the new moon of Abib,” then we have a contradiction in timing.

(2) The Bible gives two contradictory directives about where Passover is to take place. In Exodus 12:3 the setting is the household, while in Deuteronomy 16:2 the setting is the sanctuary.

(3) The Bible represents Passover in Leviticus 23:5-6 as two separate festivals (Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread) but only one in Deuteronomy 16:2-3 seemingly combines the two (“slaughter the Passover . . . and eat nothing leavened with it”).

(4) Finally, we learn in 2 Kings 23:1-22 that Josiah held a Passover at the sanctuary in accordance with Deuteronomy (which is assumed to contain innovations from the time of Josiah) and we read that “the Passover had not been offered in that manner in the days of the judges who ruled Israel or in the days of the kings of Israel and Judah.” Thus, the Deuteronomic Passover at the sanctuary with all Israel gathered was the first ever held.

The Problem With the Problems
While I appreciate the concise summary David Arnow provides of these problems, they betray a series of assumptions leading for a foregone conclusion, all going back to Julius Wellhausen’s theory that the Torah is a pastiche of sources from different periods (the documentary hypothesis, which in modified form is a widely-held model in Biblical scholarship still).

In my judgment, those looking for contradictions in multiple sources will find them by assuming contradictions when they do not exist. If nothing else, we should be ashamed at our low estimate of the intelligence of those who redacted the Torah in later generations. The genius of the Torah seems too great, I think, to presume these redactors would fail to harmonize such simple details. Thus, here is my response to each of the alleged problems with Passover having a unified origin in the days of Moses:

(1) There is no reason to avoid translating Exodus 23:15 and verses like it in accordance with the view that Passover is in the middle of the month of Abib (“in the month of Abib”). It is no stretch at all in Biblical Hebrew to assume that chodesh could refer to new moons as well as the period between new moons (i.e., months). Thus, the first problem only exists if the narrowest view of chodesh’s semantic range is assumed.

(2) The alleged contradiction between the household Passover of Exodus 12 and Deuteronomy 16 is similarly an illusion (rabbinic literature addressed this eons ago). Exodus 12:3 refers to the first Passover only while Deuteronomy 16 refers to Passover following the inauguration of the sanctuary of Israel.

(3) The idea that Leviticus 23 represents Passover as two separate festivals is exaggerated, though it may contain a kernel of truth. God’s institutions in numerous cases adopt and adapt existing cultural institutions. It is quite possible that a grain festival celebrating the early grains of barley and a pastoral festival celebrating the bounty of spring lambs both lie behind the complex Passover/Unleavened Bread festival. The alleged disunity of Passover and Unleavened Bread is only there for those who insist on finding contradictions.

(4) It is the last of the alleged problems with the unity of Passover’s ancient origins that is easiest to dismiss. In order to interpret 2 Kings 23:21-22 as saying that the first Passover held at the sanctuary occurred in the days of Josiah, David Arnow presented the following translation, “the Passover sacrifice had not been offered in that manner in the days of the judges . . . or during the days of the kings.” The Hebrew is not difficult (ki lo na’asah ka-pesakh hazzeh mimei ha-shofetim) and I would translate it, “no Passover had been held like this one since the days of the judges.” What was different or unique about Josiah’s Passover festival? Arnow and others assume it was the fact that is was held at the sanctuary. But it could quite as easily have been that it was the largest and grandest celebration in Israel’s history.

Conclusion
The evidence that Passover was a late invention in Biblical history is underwhelming. It is possible, of course, to doubt the validity of the Biblical account. It is possible to theorize about changes to the Biblical text made by later editors (and it would be foolish to deny that such things happened). Yet the existence of glaring contradictions in Israel’s most important festival is a rumor greatly exaggerated.

Revelation 5: Love Preceding Judgment

I continue a series at my congregation on the book of Revelation. It is a book that demands of its readers a prior knowledge of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. And now, in my forties, it means more to me than in my earlier readings.

We will have a talk, the first of two, on Revelation 5 this coming Sabbath. This chapter is theology overflowing and it seemed best to me to divide it thematically and not by verses. So this first talk will be on the scroll, God’s decree of judgment, and God’s redemptive love.

The first thing that interests me is the posture of God in this vision and the nature of the scroll in his hand. God is not specifically named, but is referred to as “him who was seated on the throne,” a reference back to the throne vision of chapter 4. Now we learn he is seated with his right hand outstretched and in it — actually upon it (Greek is epi) — is a scroll.

The language describing this scroll would not refer to a book (codex), a fact which confused later scribes and led to some textual variants (see Grant Osborne’s commentary for more). Furthermore, the scroll is an opisthograph, or a scroll written on both sides. It has seven seals.

Considering first the nature of this scroll, I see three options, and prefer the last two, and especially the third:
–Option 1: it is a rolled scroll with its end sealed seven times at the opening.
–Option 2: it is a rolled scroll with seven seals placed at seven stopping points as it unrolls.
–Option 3: it is a fan-folded papyrus with a seal at each of the seven folds.

What is the identity of the scroll? Suggestions have included (adapted from Osborne):
–The Lamb’s book of life (cf. Rev. 3:5).
–The Torah.
–A will or testament containing the inheritance of the saints.
–A bill of divorce in which God has divorced Jerusalem to remarry the New Jerusalem (not a view I would entertain).
–A contract deed.
–A decree containing God’s plans for future judgment.

I notice that in chapter 6, as each seal is broken, a judgment scene occurs. It seems to me that the scroll is God’s decree and the decree is for plagues and judgments on the earth (contra Osborne).

And why is the scroll upon God’s right hand rather than in it? Picture God seated in glory with his right hand of authority outstretched, offering the decree and its authority to someone. But, as the angelic beings ask, who is worthy?

There is only one who is worthy and for good reason. It is not because of power of might that this one is worthy. It is the one who conquered.

And did he conquer like Roman generals and emperors? No, he did not conquer with might or war, but with redemptive love:

Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.

Ransom means purchase. And it opens up the layers of meaning in Yeshua’s atoning death, layers which are all present rather than being competing theories, in my opinion:
–Paying a price demanded by God’s justice (Penal Substitution)
–Paying a price to the slaveholder to buy us back (Ransom)
–Paying a price to demonstrate transcendent love and win us to love in return (Demonstration)

The only one deemed worthy by God to initiate the time of Messianic woes upon the world is the one who was slain in redemptive love.
–He loved his enemies.
–He loved the spiteful.
–He loved the ungrateful.
–He loved the mockers.
–He loved the unworthy.
–He loved the unloving.
–He loved us.

And with the price of his blood he purchased us for God. It reminds me of the priest in Les Miserables who said to Valjean, “With this silver I have purchased your soul for God . . . from now on you belong to good and not to evil.”

And God is the author of redemptive love. It is not as though love is an independent thing which God possesses. Love is God’s nature and is known to us and exists only because God is. He says judgment without preceding love is unworthy. He announces judgment in advance so we will read and repent.

Disaster and fearful uncertainty drive people to reach out to God. We see this in our culture when fearful things happen. People take the religious longings of their culture more seriously in such times.

God announces judgment and most laugh. But we are naïve like children about suffering. We don’t believe in it until it happens. Yet when it does, we become like children in need of a Father, a Father with redemptive love.

Review: The Commentators’ Bible: Exodus

The Commentators’ Bible: Exodus
by Michael Carasik, 2005, Jewish Publication Society.

This book is so beautifully bound and laid out, not to mention well-edited and conceived, that I would count it a tragedy if the other four volumes never make it to print. A quick search on the internet turned up no information about the possibility of future volumes.

This is an over-sized book. The publisher’s page says 9 x 12, but I would say more like 9 1/4 X 12 1/4. Yet the volume is not thick at 368 pages or overly heavy. Still, it will fit in a soft briefcase or backpack. The reason for the large page size is evident as soon as you open it.

What the Commentators’ Bible does is make the traditional Jewish exegetes available to English readers in a convenient format. The only Hebrew is the Biblical text itself positioned in the upper center of the page. All the rest is English, including the commentary of Rashi, Arbarbanel, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, and Nahmanides (Ramban). Several other commentators are featured here and there in the notes at bottom, such as Sforno, Gersonides, Kimhi (a personal favorite of mine), and Bekhor Shor.

Each page in the Commentators’ Bible is laid out in a style familiar to readers of the Talmud. The text, in three forms, takes central stage at the top. The Biblical text is included in the Hebrew (Masoretic text, Leningrad Codex), the Old JPS (Jewish Publication Society) English translation from 1917 and the New JPS from 1999.

Beneath the text are penetrating questions for study and discussion by Arbarbanel. For example, on Exodus 12:40, Arbarbanel asks:

Doesn’t the 430-year length of the Israelite stay mentioned in v. 40 contradict what God told Abraham in Gen. 15:13, that the Israelites would be “enslaved and oppressed four hundred years”–not to mention the actual figure (see Rashi’s comment) of 210 years?

To the left are Rashi’s comments. And here is a great thing: Carasik has translated Rashi in a free style that makes Rashi much easier to understand. Anyone who has read Rashi knows he is famous for using very few words and his comments are often cryptic to all but the best experts in rabbinic literature. Carasik translates him loosely and in a very comprehensible fashion. On the question raised by Arbarbanel, Rashi says:

Altogether, from Isaac’s birth until now was 400 years. God had said to Abraham, “your offspring shall be strangers … four hundred years” (Gen. 15:13), a period that began as soon as Abraham had offspring. But it was 30 years after the decree before Isaac was born and the 400 years began. The 430 years cannot possibly refer to Egypt alone. [Rashi goes on to prove this with genealogies]

To the right are the comments of Rashbam, Samuel ben Meir, the grandson of Rashi. He tended to take the plain meaning even when it contradicted earlier rabbinic sources. On Exodus 12:40, however, he is in perfect agreement with his grandfather about the meaning of the 430 years.

Beneath Rashi is Nachmanides, a commentator I often find illuminating. He is also known as Ramban and lived in Israel in the 13th century. He works off of Rashi and Ibn Ezra’s comments and often adds a mystical interpretation. He finds fault with Rashi’s interpretation of the 430 years. He proves, using Gen. 12:4, that Abraham was older than 70 at the time of Gen. 15 and the covenant between the pieces. He says:

My own opinion is that God was speaking in round numbers; four centuries was such a long time that God did not bother to add the 30 years. After all, he went on to say, “they shall return here in the fourth generation” (Gen. 15:16), to let Abraham know they would not return precisely at the end of 400 years, but only in the fourth generation, when the “iniquity of the Amorites” (ibid.) was complete. This was an allusion to the additional 30 years.

Beneath Rashbam is Ibn Ezra, a twelfth century Spanish scholar (though he died in England). He is a stickler for grammar and reason, though Carasik notes in the introduction he is more reluctant to contradict the earlier rabbinic sages than Rashbam was. In an essay I found online, Carasik also says that Ibn Ezra liked to showboat a bit, showing off his knowledge of topics like astronomy and drawing attention to his great learning. Ibn Ezra likewise proves that the 430 years cannot mean the time from Jacob’s entrance into the land until the Exodus. He gives examples of overlapping Biblical chronologies that explain how this confusion can occur. In the end, he agrees with the early rabbinic tradition:

For what our sages have transmitted to us, that the exile lasted 210 years, is accurate, and their transmitting it is enough for us, because that is all the proof we need.

Finally, at the bottom of the page are additional notes. These may come from the editor himself or from other commentators.

The value of Carasik’s work for English readers is immense. He makes the traditional commentators available to us in an easy to read fashion. Reading The Commentators’ Bible is like having a Chevruta (study group, usually done in pairs or small groups) with the great exegetes of Judaism. They are in conversation with one another and we can easily enter into their conversation.

On Torah Commentaries

Soon, probably tomorrow, I am planning to review a book I received from a Messianic Jewish Musings reader who thought it worthwhile to buy a book and further the cause of blogdom education. I will review The Commentators’ Bible:Exodus by Michael Carasik, purchased for me by none other than a Torah-loving Catholic reader.

As I thought about reviewing this wonderful new resource, it occurred to me I should say something about the many Torah commentaries that I now have. Many of you readers would be interested in buying a book or two like these and you might like to know something about the ones available in English (or English and Hebrew).

First, for those who are new and learning terminology, let me explain a term: chumash. A chumash (KHOO-mosh) means a book containing the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) divided into the weekly readings used in the synagogue and often with the accompanying haftarah readings from the prophets. Chumash comes from the Hebrew word five. It is a book about the five (you know, the five books of the Torah). Many chumashim (plural for chumash) come with commentary notes, often from the medieval commentators such as Rashi and Ramban (Nachmanides).

I have many chumashim. It’s hard to know where to begin. As I sit typing this in my library I realize I don’t have all of my chumashim at my finger tips. My library is too big to completely fit in my house. I have the majority of it in my house and a good portion in another office I use near my house. So I will have to describe some of my books from memory.

The Artscroll Chumash: Stone Edition is a good general chumash and many will find all they need in this one volume. Artscroll makes beautiful books. Their slant is Orthodox and you can certainly tell from the kinds of notes they include. So for traditional commentary on the Torah, this is one you can’t beat. Yet I find I do not care for the Stone translation. It is quirky and uneven, in my opinion. Which is why I prefer the next one . . .

The Soncino Chumash is an older volume and has the benefit of being easy to carry. It is by Abraham Cohen, the author of a book you may have on your shelf: Everyman’s Talmud. It uses the old JPS (Jewish Publication Society) translation. I like the old JPS for a more literal approach than the new JPS and a nice literary feel. His comments are traditional and brief.

The Pentateuch and Haftorahs by J.H. Hertz is similar to the Soncino Chumash, but a little longer. It also uses the old JPS and is traditional. Hertz was the chief rabbi in the U.K. back in the early twentieth century. His wisdom in collecting and commenting on Torah is classic.

Sforno Commentary on the Torah in the Artscroll Mesorah series is a nicely bound volume. I find that I regret buying it, however, since the comments are by one commentator only, Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno, a 16th century Italian scholar. He is very literal and his comments are worth reading, but I do enjoy chumashim that draw from a variety of traditional commentators. Still, if you want a one volume chumash that is attractive and easy to carry and use, this one fits the bill.

The Torah: A Modern Commentary by Gunther Plaut is something different in a chumash. It is a modern, critical, Reform commentary on the Torah. As such, it is invaluable for those who want to have a little variety in their Torah library or who appreciate a modern approach to interpretation. Although the divisions into weekly readings (parashot) are accounted for in Plaut, he uses 145 sections divided by a more detailed outline of the Torah. He has an incredibly useful feature found in no other chumash: a list of references from literature that relate to portions of the Torah (want to quote Melville or Spinoza intelligently in your Torah teaching?).

The Torah With Rashi’s Commentary: Sapirstein Edition by Artscroll is by far my favorite. I know, it seems to violate my earlier statement that I prefer commentary drawn from multiple scholars. But Rashi is Rashi for a reason and this edition of the Torah (comes in five volumes for easy carrying) is the best at helping a modern reader understand Rashi. It not only has Rashi’s famously concise and profound notes on the Torah but also has commentary on Rashi’s commentary — very necessary for a reader who is not intimately familiar with the midrashim and Talmud (that means most of us).

What’s Bothering Rashi?, finally, is a set of five books which starts with Rashi’s comments and turns them into a discussion or individual study experience. These volumes are like having a study partner asking you questions and helping you get to the root of Rashi’s reasons and thought processes. You can see examples of these Torah brain-teasers here if you scroll down to the section called “What’s Bothering Rashi?”.

Which chumash should you buy? That depends on your needs. I’d recommend The Soncino Chumash for a general reader who does not plan to get too far into details. For some reason amazon does not have any new ones for sale, but it can be found at Judaism.com. The second one I would buy, for those who want to get into the details, is The Torah With Rashi’s Commentary: Sapirstein Edition and to round out the collection with variety, The Torah: A Modern Commentary.

As for The Commentators’ Bible, which I will review soon, it is available now only for the book of Exodus. When it is finished, it will be the most complete English chumash available, but in five oversized volumes (not the best for carrying). We’ll take a closer look at it tomorrow or very soon.

Throne Visions

Although it is impossible, I like to imagine the electrifying terror and joy of ordinary men and women beholding visions beyond the veil. The sudden raising of the ordinary to levels unimaginable, the piercing quality of vision, the wonder which it must be painful to let go–the visions that the prophets experienced intrigue me.

I am teaching Revelation at my synagogue as well as to a home group south of Atlanta. The Apocalypse, as it is also known, is vivid precisely because it is the fruition of the many prophets who came before, so that John’s descriptions are a kind of anthology of Hebrew prophecy.

All of these thoughts led me to the dramatic throne vision of Revelation 4, which begins with the language of experience, “I looked, and lo, in heaven an open door!” I wonder if most readers skip over the aspect of this encounter as a frightening, overpowering event. All of the throne visions have this sense about them.

I am aware of four throne visions in the Hebrew Bible and only one in the New Testament.

The purpose of throne visions in the Biblical literature is to contrast the pride and vainglory of human empires with the truer might and goodness of God. John wrote in the Roman period. The Roman empire, and all its machinery and personnel, took itself very seriously, as human empires do. It took itself as if it were the savior and destiny of man.

Behind John’s throne vision lie four others: that of Micaiah the little-known prophet (1 Kings 22), Isaiah’s famous vision of seraphim (Isaiah 6), Ezekiel’s apparition of the throne-chariot of God (Ezekiel 1, 10, 43), and Daniel’s gaze into the throne of the Ancient of Days above the beast kingdoms (Daniel 7).

I am enamored of the Micaiah vision because this prophet is little known, he pioneers the very idea of a throne vision, and the account of it comes in the colorful narratives of Kings in the section known as the Prophetic Narratives with his fellow wonder-workers and seers Elijah and Elisha. His vision occurred in the days of King Ahab, a king who expanded the kingdom of Israel (and I have seen his building works at Megiddo) but who was a dismal failure in matters of goodness and faith.

Standing before a self-made king, a man with no time to take prophets seriously, Micaiah says, “I saw Hashem sitting on his throne and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right and on his left.” Micaiah’s vision reveals God in opposition to a cruel and pretentious king. Ahab died in that battle.

Isaiah’s insight into the throne of God is better known. It came in the days of the Assyrian threat. The world was justifiably on edge at the thought of Assyrian ranks cruelly dealing with conquered peoples and stories of their brutality would no doubt terrify us even today. In this crisis, Isaiah saw God’s authority so large it filled the temple. Heavenly beings mortals would worship as gods are described living in unending service of the true God whose authority makes even Assyrian emperors pale. Isaiah’s vision of God’s might gives confidence to Judah in a time of fear about wars and shifting kingdoms.

Ezekiel’s complex visions of God’s throne-chariot are infamously difficult and inspired several millennia of Jewish mysticism (readers under 30 are asked not to read Ezekiel in Jewish tradition). This vision, primarily from Ezekiel 1, is the closest parallel to the Revelation 4 vision. It involved four living beings, the chariot bearers of God, cherubs so awesome in appearance, might, and knowledge, we would collapse upon seeing them.

And the throne-chariot of God departs from Zion until Ezekiel 43, a chapter not yet to see the light of historical experience. So Ezekiel’s throne vision is about the sadness of God’s departure from Zion and the joy of his someday return.

Finally, Daniel’s throne vision is a masterpiece of symbolic literature. The beast kingdoms of earth (Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, Rome) are depicted beneath and the throne of the Ancient of Days above. Ten thousand times ten thousand serve in the court of the Ancient of Days. The pomposity of the beast kingdoms is ludicrous in comparison. Even the great Xerxes of Persia or Augustus of Rome held not a candle to the radiant sun of God’s glory.

And to whom does the Ancient of Days give an unending kingdom? He gives it to one like a Son of Man. That is, the human empires exhibit the beast-like savagery of man, but the unending kingdom represents the paragon of humanity. The divinely human grace of the Son of Man’s kingdom contrasts with the brutishness of empires below.

And all this was the background, as John took on Roman empire and the entire future of human vainglory with his aged eyes and shaky pen. The context this time is none other than the precipice of Messianic woes to come upon the world. And before that precipice is left behind, so that history enters a time of pain and loss, John’s vision shows the true might and authority of God. It is the next to last stop before judgment. The last stop will feature the second attribute of God necessary to reconcile the pain of his judgment, which is his redemptive love (Revelation 5).

Responding to a Response: The Internet, Messianic Judaism, and the Myth of Biblical Judaism

Theology has implications. Part of the task of talking about God’s ways to concrete communities of faith is considering those implications.

In a post earlier this week I took issue with a blog by Nate Long because the implications of his thought, in my opinion, are harmful and destructive. Nate has responded by suggesting that I am misinterpreting him and attacking a straw man.

I wish that were true. I wish we could all just agree with everything and decide our differences are of small consequence. They are not. They affect real people and real communities. What I wish to accomplish here is to demonstrate to Nate and those who think as he does that the One Law position he espouses harms the cause of God in this world. That is not to say there is nothing good about One Law communities. There is plenty that is good. I am trying to call out the harmful elements and I hope the helpful elements will be retained.

Does the One Law Position Respect Judaism’s Interpretation of Its Own Torah?
I asserted that Nate’s article failed to respect Judaism’s own views of its own Torah. Before I begin, I hope I don’t need to convince anyone that the Torah is from God to Israel. Christianity also has a claim on the Torah, but it should be a claim that comes respectfully from the original audience to the expanded audience and not attempt to go around historical Jewish insight.

Nate says, regarding my critique, “In fact, I have great regard for what the Jewish people have said about Torah,” and “What axe are you grinding?”

Well, here is how I got from point A (Nate’s blog) to point B (my assertion that the One Law position disrespects Jewish Torah interpretation):

1. Nate does not agree with the universal Jewish doctrine that parts of the Torah (Sabbath, dietary law, circumcision, fringes) were given to Israel exclusively as a sign between Israel and God. Has he properly considered Jewish exegetical reasons for this belief? Or has he dismissed Judaism’s view casually?

2. Nate speaks of Judaism’s alleged inability to discern truth:

they [late first century Jews] refused to accept new revelation when it came. The contemporary use of the term “Judaism” refers to the religious descendants of those who formed a new variation on the biblical religion. . . . Judaism refers to the spiritual descendants of those who chose to reconfigure their observance of the Torah without Jesus.

3. Why this maligning of Judaism’s spiritual blindness if not to discredit Judaism as an arbiter of truth? The rhetorical strategy of Long’s words here is to argue Messianic Jews should identify with Christianity and not Judaism by demeaning Jewish thought. I conclude that this is disrespect for Jewish interpretation of its own Torah. Do I think mainstream Judaism got the Jesus issue wrong? Of course and mostly because the Church presented Jesus as the anti-Torah. Does this mean their views of Torah are corrupted? Of course not.

Does Judaism have a good reason for interpreting the distinctives of Torah as being uniquely for Israel? Respect for the tradition would require one to engage with it instead of doing an end-run around it. Quoting a few verses of the New Testament (and possibly misinterpreting them) is not engaging and respecting the tradition.

Does the One Law Position Set Itself Up as an Alternative the Rabbis?
In my post I said, “Nate Long feels that Torah is the provenance now of Christendom and that ‘Rabbinic Judaism’ took the Torah in wrong directions.” Nate objected, claiming I had misinterpreted him, “You read something into my thoughts and expression that simply is not there.”

How do I get from Nate’s original words to my assertion that One Law believes Torah is taken away from Judaism and given to Christianity?

Well, consider Nate’s own words:

. . . to use the term “Judaism” in today’s world to refer to Jewish Believers in Jesus or Gentiles who worship in a Jewish context is a misnomer.

Was the Sect of the Way a Judaism of the 2nd Temple period? Absolutely; however, the events of history change the connotation of words.

Judaism refers to the spiritual descendants of those who chose to reconfigure their observance of the Torah without Jesus.

[Messianic Jews] please don’t lead us to believe that you are returning to Judaism or that you are something other than fellow members of the Body of Messiah.

From Nate’s own words, I deduce that he believes:
(a) That Judaism is not the proper word to define Torah living.
(b) That Christianity began as a Judaism but the term Judaism has come to mean something else over time.
(c) That Judaism has changed (distorted?) its interpretation of Torah in a way that is not sound.
(d) That Messianic Jews are Christians and should not say they are returning to Judaism through renewal in Yeshua.

If Judaism is no longer the interpreter of Torah, then who is? According to Nate, Christianity (especially his One Law version) is the new interpreter of Torah. If I am to choose between the insights of Rabbi Judah HaNasi, Rashi, Nachmanides, and others versus One Law teachers or even Christians who allegorize or ignore Jewish interpretation, I’ll take the rabbis. I believe Christianity historically has gotten much right in Biblical interpretation and thus I agree with doctrines such as the Trinity. Yet I believe Christianity is not at its best when it ignores Israel and interprets Torah without reference to Judaism.

Does One Law Suggest that Jewish Believers Should Keep Torah Without Regard for Community Standards of Judaism?
In my post, I said: “When the believers at Antioch (in the book of Acts) began to be called Christians, says Long, this was the beginning of a new identity and called for Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus to separate from the synagogues and keep Torah the Christian way.”

Nate objects to my interpretation of his words. He points out that he said, “I consider it axiomatic that neither Jesus nor Paul began a new religion.” I certainly agree with this statement from Nate, but he undermines his own statement later when he notes that Judaism began to go wrong after the death and resurrection of Jesus. He undermines his own statement when he says Judaism changed its way of keeping Torah. He undermines his own statement when he calls for Messianic Jews to identify with Christianity and not Judaism:

So the question is who do you primarily identify with? The sect that rejected Messiah [Judaism], or the sect that exalted Him [Christianity]?

[Messianic Jews] please don’t lead us to believe that you are returning to Judaism or that you are something other than fellow members of the Body of Messiah.

If Torah-faithful Jewish followers of Jesus are to identity with Christianity and not Judaism, then this means Torah now belongs to Christianity and not Judaism in the mind of Nate Long. This is a call for separation, not just now, but even in the early period since Nate already sees Judaism going wrong in the late first century.

Nate says the word “primarily” was key, as in Messianic Jews should not “primarily” identify with Judaism. I guess I should be comforted that I can identify with Judaism as long as I identify more with Christendom.

Conclusion
Nate says that I slandered him with my post. Slander means saying something untrue about a person. I hardly regard criticizing the public writing of another person as slander.

What is at stake in this debate?

I am not against non-Jews coming alongside Israel and being a part of Messianic Judaism. I am not against non-Jews keeping Torah in a respectful way as part of a Messianic Jewish community. I do not regard non-Jews in any sense as second-class members of Messianic Jewish synagogues.

What I do find harmful and destructive is people who feel the right to take Torah away from Judaism and claim it for themselves. What I argue against is replacement of Israel by people who feel that being “grafted in” means there are no longer Jews and Gentiles in Messiah (don’t think for a second this is a legitimate implication of Galatians 3:28). What I am against is, as Boaz Michael, my good friend at First Fruits of Zion, refers to as “silly, self-defined Torah observance.”

My hope is that those who are part of One Law groups and Hebraic Roots movements will over time grow in respect for Judaism and the Jewish community. I hope a day will come when people in the One Law movement will not tell Messianic Jews to identify more with Christianity than Judaism. I hope a day will come when all lovers of Israel, which One Law and Hebraic Roots people certainly are, will catch a vision for Judaism renewed in Jesus and not Christianity with Torah-observance. And I hope a day will come when One Law and Hebraic Roots groups will respect both Christianity as Torah-free and Judaism as communally Torah-bound.

Archaeology, David, the Valley of Elah

I have been here many times and even have 3 “David’s sling” stones from the Valley of Elah on my shelf.

Here is more archaeological work that affirms the account of David’s kingdom (which has many doubters and skeptics):
http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/valley-of-elah.asp

Note I had an article two weeks ago on archaeology and the Biblical historical record:
http://derek4messiah.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/archaeology-amarna-and-doubt/

I wish I could volunteer on one of these digs. Any wealthy patrons out there want to send me this summer? I may be old and past my prime (41, but staying in shape), but I can outdig a lot of those young volunteers :-)

The Internet, Messianic Judaism, and the Myth of Biblical Judaism

Those who try to learn from the internet about Messianic Judaism and a Jewish perspective on faith in Yeshua are only slightly more likely to find good information as those seeking fine coffee at an interstate truck stop. The internet gives pretty much anyone a voice, including many who are willing to speak authoritatively about matters of Jewish faith in Yeshua without being part of the hard work of engagement with the Jewish community. For many, the mere fact that they own and read a Bible is license and empowerment to speak about delicate matters of identity, history, and practice.

Needless to say, the authentic voices of Messianic Judaism should be the many leaders and communities busy applying the Bible and history to actual communities of Jewish people and actively engaging Jewish thought.

It amazes and appalls me that people feel empowered to interpret and apply the quintessential book of Judaism–the Torah–with little regard for what the Jewish people have historically said about it.

Case in point is a recent blog post by an Anglican Christian who believes that all Christians should keep the Torah. Nate Long feels that Torah is the provenance now of Christendom and that “Rabbinic Judaism” took the Torah in wrong directions. Surfers of Messianic Judaism online (the broadly labeled phenomenon on the internet which runs a gamut of actual belief systems) can certainly find worse voices than Nate Long, but maybe it is particularly intelligent but misguided voices that concern me most.

In a recent post, Long decides to address our community directly. He writes “An Open Letter to Jewish Believers in Jesus” (see his post here). Nate Long, the Anglican, has advice for the community of Jewish people navigating the path of Jewish life and Jesus-faith. His major points include:

–Messianic Judaism, says long, is a “cultural expression” of Jesus-faith (and apparently nothing more).

–Christians have been “grafted in” to Israel, says Long, by which he virtually means there is no difference between Jews and Christians in Christ.

–Contemporary use of the term Judaism, Long asserts, refers to those who departed from Jesus and began a variant religion to what might be called “Biblical Judaism” (note: Long doesn’t use this term, but the idea is clearly in the background).

–Using the term Judaism, as in Messianic Judaism, declares Long, is a misnomer!

–When the believers at Antioch (in the book of Acts) began to be called Christians, says Long, this was the beginning of a new identity and called for Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus to separate from the synagogues and keep Torah the Christian way.

–Jewish believers in Jesus today should identify with Christianity and not Judaism, says Long (while, ironically, he also undermines Christianity in its historical expressions by calling for Christians to be under the yoke of Torah).

–Finally, and most frightfully, Long calls upon Jewish followers of Jesus not to pretend they are returning to Judaism, since Judaism, according to Long, is bankrupt. Rather, says Long, Jewish followers of Messiah should be separate from Judaism and acknowledge membership in the Body of Messiah (apparently this concept of “Body of Messiah” for Long is not identifiable with any actual community such as the Church, but is a nebulous ideal group of believers with no historical or physical identity).

Well, consider this a response to Nate Long’s unsolicited advice to Jewish followers of Jesus:

Is Messianic Judaism Simply a Cultural Expression of Christianity?
I have nothing against cultural expressions of Christianity. In fact, all expressions of Christianity are culturally bound. The old wives’ tale that some American brand of Christian expression is “Christian” culture can only be believed by people who have never flown in an airplane across large bodies of water. There is nothing about 19th century hymns, soft rock modern religious music, Southern Gospel, or any other form of Christian cultural expression that is neutral or simply “Christian.”

While I admire diverse cultural expressions of Christianity, such as the Latino church where everyone hugs you twenty times or the Korean church where people gather daily at 5 a.m. to pray for an hour, I must say Messianic Judaism is not a cultural expression of Christianity.

Messianic Judaism, in all its diverse cultural forms (there is no monolithic Jewish culture either), is supposed to be the continuation of Israelite covenant faithfulness to Hashem renewed in Yeshua. Let me unpack that briefly for those who don’t understand my language here. We, in Messianic Judaism, believe that the descendants of Israel remain under the teaching and covenant of Genesis through Deuteronomy as initiated by Hashem (God, literally “the Name”). We believe that faith in Yeshua (Jesus) flows naturally from Torah living and that historical notions that Torah and Jesus are somehow opposed are all mistaken.

Jewish life is more than a culture (really a set of diverse cultures). It is the continuation of God’s covenant with a specific people. Latino and Korean Christianity are cultural expressions of something bigger than culture too: God’s relationship with the nations.

Are Christians Grafted Into Israel and Thus Bound to Torah?
I have a horticultural expert in my synagogue. His common sense wisdom is something that many interpreters of the phrase “grafted in” desperately need. My friend says to me, “A branch grafted onto a tree never changes its nature.”

That is, a wild olive grafted onto a cultivated variety of olive tree, will never become a cultivated olive branch. Readers of the New Testament will certainly recognize the analogy from Romans 11, “If some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches.”

The language of non-Jews being “grafted in” is regularly misused. Few remember Paul’s admonition, “Remember, it is the root that supports you.” Few believe that the existence and nature of Israel supports the Church. Among the One Law and Hebraic Roots groups few take seriously that wild branches do not become natural branches.

The distinction between Israel and the nations (Jews and Gentiles) is no more erased by verses like Galatians 3:28 than the distinction between male and female. And as for the relation of non-Jews to Torah, Acts 15 makes it clear that Gentile obligation is not the same as Jewish obligation. (Note: the common misinterpretation of Acts 15:21 by Hebraic Roots and One Law groups can be easily demonstrated to be a false attempt to overthrow the meaning of the rest of the chapter by use of false assumptions.)

Is Judaism a False Step-Child of “Biblical Judaism”?
Long seems to have hit on a simple and profound formula. Biblical Judaism plus Jesus faith equals Christianity. Biblical Judaism plus the rabbis equals Judaism, the false religion of those opposed to Jesus.

It should be apparent from the Hebrew Bible that this formula is absurdly wrong-headed. Yet some people will only listen to the New Testament, or only to Paul. Thus I present to you the revolutionary formula of Romans 11:2, “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.”

For the truly stubborn, those who wish to define Israel in Romans 11 as something other than Jewish people (some says only Jewish believers in Jesus are meant or that the whole thing is a cipher for Christians in general), I further present the appallingly clear sayings of Paul in Romans 11:28-29, “As regards the Gospel, they are the enemies of God . . . [nonetheless] the gifts and calling of God [i.e., naming the Jewish people as his Chosen People] are irrevocable.”

Consider the absurdity of Nate Long’s position that Judaism is false. It means that while God continues to regard the Jewish people as his covenant people he nonetheless has not been working within Israel for the last two millennia. Instead, God has spent all his time on the Church, leaving his Chosen People in the darkness.

Equally consider a more promising idea: neither Judaism nor Christianity, in any of their various forms, represents a total claim on God’s truth and love. If Judaism is false, then answer this: which expression of Christianity is true? Which historical community of Christians has lived the lifestyle taught us by Jesus? And which synagogue is devoid of the beauty of God’s teaching?

Though I cannot fully develop the idea here, there numerous signs of God’s continued work within Judaism and even of Yeshua’s hidden presence within Judaism (see Mark Kinzer, Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism for more).

Is Judaism, as in Messianic Judaism, a Term to Be Avoided by Yeshua-Followers?
When we use the term Judaism we mean to say that we are continuing God’s covenant from Sinai, through the history of the kings and prophets, into the time of Yeshua, and also the tradition for the past 2,000 years since Yeshua in which God has very definitely been at work within Israel. Thus is the natural outgrowth of the idea that God has never ceased his covenant with Israel or ceased to develop communal life within Israel.

Some prefer to ignore the last 2,000 years of Judaism, assume God has not been involved ever since the Jewish community largely rejected Yeshua (note: so did the Gentile world), and promote the myth of Biblical Judaism. Biblical Judaism means following Torah, allegedly, separate from the developments of rabbinic tradition.

The idea of Biblical Judaism is laughable. Practitioners of Biblical Judaism fast on Yom Kippur, light candles on Shabbat and Hanukkah, and observe holidays on the Jewish calendar. These are all elements of the allegedly false rabbinic tradition.

You can’t keep Torah in a vacuum. Let me say that again: you can’t keep Torah in a vacuum. Torah means more than the text of the Biblical page. There are a thousand examples of ambiguity in the Torah, ambiguity clearly intended by God as places for the community to fill in the gaps. Ignoring the tradition is akin the wicked generations of Judges who “did what was right in their own eyes.”

Should Jewish Yeshua-Followers Identify With Christianity to the Exclusion of Judaism?
Messianic Jews are a community of Jewish followers of Yeshua rooted in Judaism and related to Christianity.

Being rooted in Judaism is a matter of covenantal obligation and communal identity. Being related to Christianity is a matter of joyous reconciliation in Yeshua between Israel and the nations, Jew and Gentile.

When the outside community in Antioch began calling the Yeshua-followers (Jew and Gentile) Christians, this did not in any way indicate that Jewish followers should depart from the synagogue. In its origin “Christian” simply means “follower of Messiah.” It does not mean, as Long perhaps imagines, “one who has departed from Judaism to join a new community called Christendom.”

Are Messianic Jews Often Returnees to Judaism?
An oft-noted pattern in Messianic Judaism is the path of the indifferent Jew who comes to faith in Yeshua and begins to return to Judaism.

In some cases, the indifferent Jew is rather secular, with some experience in Jewish life, but little connection to God and faith. Learning to sing the Hebrew text of the Torah for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is a chore to be endured so one can have a party with a D.J. and all of one’s friends. Hebrew School is a laborious chore to be left behind at the soonest possible opportunity.

Then comes Yeshua and faith in God. Suddenly that Hebrew text is God’s word and not a stepping stone to girls, dancing, and D.J.’s. Suddenly that prayer book is a way to converse with God who is no longer remote or mythical.

In other cases, the indifferent Jew is indifferent because of Christianity and its frequent disregard for Jewish life, covenantal obligation, and identity. A Jewish person comes to Jesus, is handed a ham sandwich by the well-meaning but ignorant church community, and comes to think of their Jewishness as a cultural choice to be abandoned for the alleged culture of Christianity.

Then comes a crisis, such as a death in the family or a feeling of guilt at a relative’s Bar Mitzvah, and Jewish Christian seeks out a Messianic Jewish synagogue. Or, if not a crisis, some relationship draws the Christianized Jew into a community of Jews who follow Yeshua. And over time a clarity of purpose slowly (or quickly) grows in the life of the Christianized Jew. The Judaism of their family and friends is no longer the foreign “other” but the welcome homeland of faith and practice. The taboos of populist evangelical Christianity, such as its disdain for liturgical prayer, begin to fade.

These Jews are returning to something Nate Long does not wish to call Judaism. Why does Nate Long not wish to call it Judaism? He imagines that he is following a non-Jewish path of Torah observance. Torah, he thinks, is for Christians. Jews, he thinks, have made a mess of Torah. Christianity, he vainly imagines, has found the way. (Please note: thoughtful Christians, and I hope Nate Long is among them, realize that Christendom is human, fallible, and far from achieving the ideals of Yeshua).

Conclusion
I and many others in Messianic Judaism reject Nate Long’s open letter. We do not see Judaism as the bankrupt branch of those who rejected Jesus. We see Judaism as a continuation of God’s covenant people and way of life. We do not believe that God ignores and withdraws from people and cultures which do not yet follow Yeshua. We believe God works among all peoples and cultures, first and foremost with his Chosen People, Israel.

We rejoice in our rootedness in Judaism as well as our relationship with Christianity.

Formulas of Intermarriage

If you are Jewish, have you ever thought about what it would be like to be married to a Christian? If you are Christian, have you thought about what it would be like to be married to a Jew? Of course, many of you reading this have done more than think about it. For couples and families involved in Messianic Judaism the issues come together often in nice ways. For couples and families not involved in Messianic Judaism, how do things work out?

Although I will speak of formulas, I don’t mean in any way that people, complex relationships, or feelings can be reduced to formulas. But I do mean that general patterns emerge that can help us think about intermarriage.

And this subject is not just for intermarrieds or their children to be interested in. Even if you are not intermarried, chances are you have friends who are.

In early January I was in Palm Springs with other leaders in the UMJC (umjc.net) for a retreat whose topic was intermarried families. We were all given a book, Interfaith Families: Personal Stories of Jewish-Christian Intermarriage by Jane Kaplan. The thoughts that follow come from a little reading of these sometimes painfully and sometimes joyfully realistic stories (they are real) and also from my own experience with intermarrieds as a Messianic Jewish congregational leader.

One story in particular moved me, a story about a strong Christian who married an indifferent Jew. The formula for this story might look like this:

Strong Christian + Indifferent Jew = loneliness, a guilty Jewish parent, kids worried that their dad will not be in the world to come, an assimilated family

What I mean is this. The wife, in this case, is the strong Christian. She thought faith didn’t matter when she got married, but her commitment to Jesus has grown since the wedding day. She now finds herself now after many years of marriage feeling lonely. The most meaningful thing in her life is her relationship with God through Jesus, and her husband does not share any part of it. She says:

I think that, for me, the hardest part has been the loneliness. . . . There is this one couple I know from our church. They are so strong in their faith, and they have devotions together and they pray together. I would love to have that with my husband, but I don’t. I am always attending Bible studies where couples attend, but I am by myself.

The husband, meanwhile, is an indifferent Jew. So it might seem that his Jewishness does not haunt him in any way as he looks at his Christian wife and children. Yet even an indifferent Jew has a connection to Hashem and a longing that comes out from time to time.

Occasionally he feels guilty and attends temple. He takes Jewish holidays off from work though he does not keep them. Why? Because he doesn’t want people at work to think he doesn’t care about being Jewish. And after attending a relative’s Bar Mitzvah celebration, he reconnected with childhood memories: the melodies of the prayers, the feeling of a synagogue community. Afterwards he felt bad and even made some donations to a temple in his area. His wife described his melancholy as disappointment with himself.

If this weren’t all poignant enough — a lonely Christian wife and an abashed Jewish husband — what also touched me about the story is the unspoken tragedy of ignorance from the Christian side. Here is a Christian woman, married to a Jewish man knowing his feeling of loss and disappointment. And she reads the same Bible that speaks of Abraham and God’s covenant with Israel. And she belongs to a church that should know better. But the church too often has a blind spot when it comes to Jewish matters. Why did it not occur to this woman or her pastor to encourage Jewish practice in the home? Where is Messianic Judaism as an option for this family?

What would happen if Jesus himself gave this couple one session of marriage counseling?

Aside from the poignancy of the story, there are also many familiar cliches, as common as air to those who are intermarried and know intermarrieds:

–The omnipresent statement of good intentions: “We’ll teach them both religions and let them decide when they are older.”

–The Christian spouse speaking to the pastor who is well-meaning but clueless about Jewish identity, “What are you going to do when you have kids? Will you be bringing them to church?”

–The Christian children who try to get their dad “saved”: “The conflict for our children is that they are always wanting Richard to become a Christian.”

The whole story, for me, is tragic. I so wish I knew this couple and could at least try to help the Christian spouse understand and the Jewish spouse return to his Jewish identity with enthusiasm. There is no reason for this marriage to be sad and defeated.

Of course, there are other formulas besides Strong Christian + Indifferent Jew. Here are just a few examples and maybe I will reflect on some others in the future:

Strong Jew + Strong Christian = not likely to get married . . . (unless the Strong Jew becomes Messianic)

Indifferent Jew + Indifferent Christian = interfaithless marriage

Indifferent Jew + Indifferent Christian + Strong Jewish In-Laws = (see below, “Strong Jew + Indifferent Christian”)

Indifferent Jew + Indifferent Christian + Strong Christian In-Laws = (see above, “Strong Christian + Indifferent Jew”)

Indifferent Jew + Indifferent Christian + Strong Jewish and Strong Christian In-Laws = trouble!

Strong Jew + Indifferent Christian = often a half-hearted conversion of the Christian spouse, a guilty Christian parent, a one-sided Jewish upbringing (but sometimes things like Christmas trees sneak back into the home), if the Indifferent Christian is the wife she ironically will do most of the Jewish education of the children

People are not formulas, I know. And many do not fit the formulas I am laying out broadly.

But this intermarriage thing takes work. It also calls for a maturing of both the Jewish and Christian communities, to stop viewing the other as the enemy and to wake up to mutual values. Both communities have a lot in common, which is one of the fulfilling things about Messianic Jewish life.

The World Grows to Middle-Age

As I grow older I find it is more than a matter of my hair and beard whitening or my knees stiffening. In the forty-second year of my life I feel my certitude about many things shrinking.

The words of Michael Fishbane, in Sacred Attunement, lulled me into a meditation of this certitude-slippage. I’ve not read enough to be sure I even know what Fishbane is talking about, but my middle-aged mind resonated with his opening words:

This work is an attempt to “do” theology in a dark and disorienting time–a time sunk in the mire of modernity. Naivete is out of the question. The mirror of the world reflects back to us our willful epistemologies, our suspicion of values, and the rank perversity of the human heart. Like Kafka we prowl around the debris of old Sinais, in a wasteland of thought. The tablets of despair are strewn everywhere.

I am certainly experiencing something like this while my beard grows hoary. Are you?

No, please don’t write me emails and letters asking if I am having a faith struggle. I don’t think that is it. I think my faith enlarges as my certitude contracts. Should the devil, God forbid, drag me now to his terrible lair to torment and confuse me, I would have a greater chance than before of defeating him.

No, I don’t think my positiveness of conviction in so many areas is reducing because faith is failing me faster than my stiffening knees. I think instead I am more open than ever to paradigm changes, to confessing ignorance, to the willful resistance to answers too easily obtained.

And I do not believe it is just me. I believe people collectively go through periods of thought as well. We influence one another and the culture that pervades all things links us, even those of us who resist it.

It seems to me the world is middle-aged, not yet venerable and able to wisely and with dignity stand against peril and doubt. But rather, the world is immature in a middle-aged sort of way while leaving behind naivete, as Fishbane said, as out of the question. I hope I am not reading my own middle-age “crisis” into my view of the world, but I don’t think this is an exercise in narcissism. I believe middle-age crisis may be a good definition of our post-modern existence. We will only achieve venerable status, perhaps, when Messiah comes.

I think I see now why I went through such a period of illusory confidence in finished answers and unquestioning reason. I think it was not more faith, but less faith that led me to be closed to options, to close off discussion, and negotiate a unilateral treaty with truth.

But my mind is opened if only because the longer I experience God the larger he grows in my perception and the thicker grows the cloud of unknowing. I am not disturbed because I know that a cloud atop Mt. Sinai grows more opaque the nearer I draw to it. My openness to uncertainty is not a sign of withdrawal, but of coming home.

I suspect the world is drawing nearer, by distance if not by relation, to God. The middle-aged world may soon be in a crisis which makes all before seem like the worries of youth. Even as I think such dread thoughts as arthritis and knee-surgery, the world faces upheavals in late middle-age that take away all the breath of adolescent imperviousness.

“Where shall wisdom be found?” asks Job (28:12).

“Man does not know the way to it,” he replies to his own question, “it is hid from the eyes of all living” (28:13, 21).

He was not troubled beyond perseverance by his lack of certitude. “Behold, the fear of Adonai, that is wisdom” (28:28).

What is Talmud and Rabbinic Literature?

What follows is a guide to the basics of rabbinic literature for beginners as well as an insightful guide to the meaning of rabbinic literature for those who are already students. The insight is due to the research and writing of Mark Washofsky. What I seek to do here is put it in a format that will help beginners and more advanced students alike.
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They say Rabbi Akiba started his studies when he was forty. I am forty one and I have no doubt I will never be a master of rabbinic literature. After all, Akiba had a lot less to read when be began his mid-life education. And rabbinic literature is a vast field of study that makes Biblical studies seem easy and narrow in scope.

I have been reading Mark Washofsky’s Jewish Living: A Guide to Contemporary Reform Practice and loving it (though when I review it in upcoming days, I will take strong issue with his stance on Messianic Judaism). Though I may never master rabbinic studies, I have studied enough to be familiar with issues. Studying with my mentor in such matters, Carl Kinbar, the Provost at the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute (mjti.com), has brought me many leagues from my starting place in understanding Talmud and rabbinic writings.

That is why reading the introduction to Washofsky’s guide to Reform Jewish practice made me smile. Washofsky is a professor of rabbinics at Hebrew Union and the chair of the Central Conference of American Rabbis Responsa Committee. In other words, he is a master of rabbinic studies, someone whose vast reading of the primary sources and modern critical commentary makes him far more able to write with authority than I ever could.

And so I had to smile when I read Washofsky’s brief introduction to rabbinic literature and said, “This is profound because it is simple and yet insightful, concise and yet voluminous in perception.”

What is rabbinic literature? The term applies most clearly to the writings of the first six centuries of the Common Era, especially the Mishnah, Talmud, and the early Midrashim. Yet it also applies to later writings, with deference always given to the more ancient literature. The medieval commentators on the Bible and the Talmud, the medieval Midrashim, the work of thinkers like Maimonides and Joseph Karo, and the Responsa even of modern times, all count as rabbinic literature. In fact, when looking at more modern rabbinic writing and asking, “Is this rabbinic literature?” seems a little to me like asking, “Is this modern novel a classic?” Time will tell. The belief that the Jewish conversation about how to live the Torah never ends means some things written in the future will even be considered rabbinic literature.

How important is the role of the rabbis in Judaism? I believe Mark Washofsky captures this perfectly when he says:

Judaism, as we know and understand it today, is a rabbinic creation. Jewish religion, in virtually every form we encounter it, the the product of a circles of thinkers and scholars called “the Rabbis” or “the Sages,” who flourished during the first five centuries of the Common Era, which we therefore designate as “the Rabbinic period.”

I would extend that period to the first six centuries based on theories I have read about the date of later material in the Talmud.

The point here is that there is no Judaism without the rabbis. Washofsky eloquently describes how the rabbis took the agricultural, sacrificial, and purity rite religion of the Hebrew prophets and translated it into modern life in the aspects of religious life we would recognize: prayer, Sabbath, festivals, home life, ritual life, etc.

For Christian readers, I should point out something similar could be said about Christianity. There is no primitive Christianity really. Each community has to decide how to live out Biblical commands: how to have communion, how to baptize, how to congregate, etc.

What are the earliest forms of rabbinic literature like? The earliest rabbinic literature comes from the first two centuries of the Common Era. Washofsky defines these two genres aptly:

Mishnah – It means repetition and it is a concise statement of Jewish practice (halakha) that does not seek support in Biblical verses or in a precedent from earlier sages. It simply states the ruling, though minority opinions are often included, in case later rabbinic courts decide the minority opinion was correct. There were various collections of mishnayot (plural of mishnah), but one in particular became authoritative, the collection gathered by Rabbi Judah HaNasi (called simply Rabbi). This work is what people refer to as “the Mishnah,” though other sayings by these early sages (called the Tannaim) are also preserved in later rabbinic works.

Midrash – It means searching or investigation and it is a commentary that derives Jewish practice (halakha) from an analysis of the text, says Washofsky. So, where Mishnah states without proof the halakha, midrash goes to some trouble to demonstrate it from the text. Midrash also includes stories, many of them stories beyond anything found in the Biblical text. The extra-Biblical stories serve a purpose — to demonstrate in narrative points about halakha and wisdom. The stories are called aggadah (the same root as haggadah as in the Passover liturgy) and the more direct analyses of the text searching out principles for Jewish practice are called halakha. The core works of midrash come from the first four centuries but other important midrashim come from the medieval period.

What is the Mishnah like? The Mishnah is a collection of mishnayot (plural of mishnah) by Rabbi Judah HaNasi (simply Rabbi) from about 200 C.E. Washofsky notes that this was not the only collection (oral or written) of mishnayot, but that it “soon supplanted” all others. It has six sections (orders) divided into subsections (tractates) arranged topically, though the arrangement is subject to free association so that topics overlap. Washofsky notes that Rabbi was very selective in choosing what to include and the majority of mishnayot were omitted. Nonetheless, even the supremely concise Mishnah includes minority opinions so that later rabbinic courts could use the minority opinion if there was a reason to (Mishnah Eduyot 1:5). The sages of the period leading up to the Mishnah are called the tannaim.

What is Talmud? It means study, but like the words midrash and mishnah, it eventually became a proper noun referring to two specific works: the Jerusalem (or Palestinian) Talmud and (more importantly) the Babylonian Talmud. Washofsky notes that the Talmuds appear to be commentaries on the Mishnah, but that is deceiving. The Talmuds discuss the mishnayot not included in the Mishnah (called baraitot or, singular, baraita). The discussions of the rabbis in the Talmuds also include numerous topics not found in the Mishnah, so that Washofsky calls the final product “an encyclopedia of the rabbinic mind.” Science, medicine, and other topics are discussed as they were known in the time of these rabbis of the Talmudic era (the amoraim). There are numerous stories about Biblical figures and rabbinic figures (aggadah).

What is the nature of the Talmud? The Talmuds represent the firm belief that for every issue “there are at least two sides for every interesting question.” Indeed, readers of the Talmud quickly get the idea that the purpose is not to find answers but to demonstrate the complexity of every question to note that there is no simple answer for any question. Talmudic material is dialectic, the record of dispute and debate. Washofsky notes that the best word is conversation rather than a record of answers. Nonetheless, Washofsky laments the fact that the Talmuds were eventually taken wrongly to be authoritative statements of halakha. Texts whose original intent was to “help the reader think through a problem or a question as the talmudic editors would” became an authoritative statement so that all future halakha had to be derived from the Bible and the Talmud.

Washofsky’s conclusion is that Judaism can only speak of “tentative conclusions” and that the job for anyone writing about halakhic matters is to “persuade” the rabbinic community of a position:

To engage in halakha, therefore, is to take one’s part in the discourse of generations, to add one’s own voice to the chorus of conversation and argument that has for nearly two millennia been the form and substance of Jewish law.