A World Without Boundaries

In the thick of the month of Ellul, nearing Rosh Hashanah, penitence is or should be in the air. Also recently marked was the 75th yahrzeit of the great mystic, jurist, and theologian Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935). As it turns out, Kook's teachings on the meaning of repentance are among his most striking, stamped with his distinctive mix of piety and audacity. In his eyes, teshuvah, generally translated as "repentance" but literally and more powerfully "return," signifies not only a deepened and renewed commitment to religion and commandments but, paradoxically, nothing less than a new birth of freedom.

I discovered the article Repentance = Freedom? written by Yehudah Mirsky today and found it intriguing. The Hebrew word Teshuvah which is normally translated as repentance, is rendered better as return, but return to who or what? Yes, we commonly and rightly think of returning to God and returning to a right relationship with family, friends, and anyone we may have slighted, but in Mirsky's presentation of Rabbi Kook, we learn to see "return" as something else:

Repentance, in other words, is return to the very womb of creation—a "place without boundaries" in the words of the author of the 13th-century kabbalistic treatise Shaarei Orah. Its connection with freedom was spelled out in the 16th century by Judah Loewe, the Maharal of Prague, who wrote that "when people undertake teshuvah and return to their beginnings, the world too returns to its beginning, to restore and repair every ruined thing in the world."

I find myself somewhat drawn to the phrase "place without boundaries" if, for no other reason, than the fact that certain corners of Messianic Judaism seem obsessed with the concept of boundaries to the exclusion of all other considerations, including healing the wounds and gashes that separate us, and particularly the chasms that separate Jews and Gentiles in "the movement".

The month of Elul is supposed to be a time when we turn our hearts to God and to each other. As Rabbi Kook points out, it's a return to God by way of the Garden of Eden and before the fall. It's an attempt to return to a time before mankind became disobedient to God and lived in harmony with his environment and with other people (OK, there were really few other people back then, but it still applies).

I frequently find myself beating my head against the brick wall of the Messianic movement trying to convince its more conservative elements and particularly proponents of Bilateral Ecclesiology that seeking to have unity with each other under the Messiah doesn't have to mean Jewish identity gets eroded for the sake of Gentile inclusion.

Unity, like repentance, is a "place without boundaries", but that doesn't mean a place without individual identity and distinction. It means that we seek to overcome those things that keep us apart and isolated in our little enclaves. One Law is typically characterized by strict Messianic Judaism as being a collection of small, insular, communities who only listen to their own voice and reject the rest of the world of faith, but I suspect that only describes a small subset of the OL group. In fact. Messianic Judaism, in it's desire to protect its boundaries does largely the same thing, taking offense at the first sign of someone not showing proper respect to Jews and all things Jewish and "circling the wagons" whenever "the stranger" enters its realm.

Does Rabbi Kook look like he's saying that the Torah and teshuvah are only for the Jew?

Release from sin thus requires not only a practical commitment to Torah and commandments but also a relaxation of the sorrows, and the guilt, that create blockages in the soul. As he writes in an amazing passage: "One who grieves constantly for his sins and the sins of the world must constantly forgive and absolve himself and the whole world [emphasis added], and in so doing will draw forgiveness and a light of lovingkindness onto all being and bring joy to God and to His creatures."

Of course, the article goes on to say:

Still, he insists, "there are levels, levels," and these are realizable in "the extent to which each personality can grasp, through good inclinations, acts, and longings, its choice and its heavenly freedom." And there is something that can lead the way—namely, the "national renaissance" of the Jewish people. This powerful phenomenon is, for Kook, "the foundation of the great edifice of teshuvah, the higher teshuvah of Israel and of the entire world that will follow in its train."

Rabbi Kook talks about the Jewish people leading by example with his words, "the "national renaissance" of the Jewish people." yet if Messianic Judaism wants the Gentile worshipers of the Jewish Messiah to follow where MJ leads, it will need to do a better job upholding the ideals of Judaism, Torah, and God, as opposed to the behavioral mechanics of Judaism and defending its "identity boarders" at all costs, which seems to be the primary activity of MJ these days.

As much as strict Messianic Judaism says it is modeled on Orthodox, Rabbinic (mainstream) Judaism, I find more enlightenment in the writings and insights of Rabbi Kook, certainly a non-Messianic Jew, than I do in a number of the conversations I've recently been viewing in the Messianic blogosphere.

No, I'm not the model to follow. I'm only a guy (or goy if you really want to be technical about it) but if Teshuvah is a return to Gan Eden, then it's the ultimate leveler of playing fields. In humbling ourselves, all of us, rending our hearts and not our clothing, we become as Adam and Eve were...naked before God and before each other. God's first creations were naked and unashamed (at least as long as they listened to God), and if we'd at least try to approach who they were, rather than hiding behind theologies, symbols, and titles, we would feel much more vulnerable, but we'd also be closer to God.