Boychiks in the Hood

I never said that the Jewish people didn’t have the right to live in Jewish communities, Gene. Also the John 10 statement isn’t that clear as to the “implementation” of “two pens, one flock, one shepherd”, so there’s a bit of a wobble in the picture. If we acknowledge that there’s a Jewish pen and a Gentile pen, where does the “one flock” come in?

It’s sort of like saying that Chicago has a Jewish neighborhood and a Gentile neighborhood (although by definition, every neighborhood that isn’t Jewish is goy) but Chicago has one mayor who has “authority” over both neighborhoods within the city limits. Yeah, we all live in the same city, but if you’ve ever lived in a city with distinct “hoods” separated by nationality, ethnicity, and language, they might was well be on different planets. Even if you go to visit another neighborhood, you don’t belong and the “mayor” is an irrevelency in the equation (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor). In this sense, both neighborhoods (pens) being in one city (flock) really doesn’t matter, except they still both have to pay the same taxes, obey the same traffic laws, and so forth. There’s no “connection” between the two neighborhoods based solely on having the same mayor (shepherd).

My response to Gene in Ovadia's blog post
Why Bilateral Ecclesiology Will Matter

Bilateral Ecclesiology and the Gentiles Series

This builds on conversations on Gene Shlomovich's blog as well as the blog I just quoted from and is an extension to my article from earlier today Bridging the Vastness. Before I continue though, I have to apologize to author Robert Eisenberg for "borrowing" the title of his book Boychiks in the Hood. I've never read his book (though I know where I can get my hands on a copy), but the title fit the metaphor I used above so well.

It's been just over 24 hours since this happened (forgive the length):

I had an interesting and somewhat related experience last night. The local Chabad Rabbi and his family had a “financial reversal” and were forced to move out of their home and relocate in a smaller space. My wife and I have been storing some of their belongings in our garage until their situation improves. After I came home from work last night, my daughter told me that the Rabbi’s wife was coming by to pick up some clothes for the kids.

When the Rebbetzin arrived, she seemed to have a hard time talking to me directly, answering to my daughter, even when I asked a question. I offered to help her take her things out to her car, but she said she’d be able to manage herself. I got the distinct impression she wasn’t comfortable with me at all, though we’d never met before.

After the Rebbetzin left, I asked my daughter if I had done anything that could have made the Rabbetzin uncomfortable. My daughter thought that she was just uncomfortable around Gentiles. She said that the Rabbi’s family have only Jewish friends and don’t associate with non-Jews socially. Later, I posed the same question to my wife, and she thought it was just because I was a guy and her husband hadn’t been present.

I say all this to emphasize that, while we talk a great deal about unity and brotherhood between Gentile and Jew, we tend to forget that we live in different worlds. While I’ve generally had no difficulty in casual relationships and even friendships with secular and liberal Jewish people over the years, I have tried to steer clear of the local Chabad because I realize that they’d be upset with my “Messianic” affiliation, if it became known.

I’ve continued to ponder the matter this morning and am coming to realize that the gulf between Gentiles and Jews, even in the Messianic movement, is a great deal wider than I’d previously considered. If indeed Jews in the Messianic movement, like religious Jews in general, need to have synagogues and communities to serve their unique needs, then Gentiles may very well not be able to “join in” without provoking a great deal of anxiety.

While, as Gene says, the Rebbetzin's response to me may simply be an Orthodox Jewish woman's being uncomfortable in a man's presence, particularly with her husband not being around, it did serve as a catalyst for a rather rapid trip down an uncomfortable path. Please bear with me.

I'm not going to go through a series of lengthy quotes from the Aposotlic scriptures describing the struggle of trying to integrate formerly pagan Gentiles into discipleship and worship of the Jewish Messiah. We all know or should be aware of how Paul describes these events. None of the Jewish disciples could really figure out what to do with the Gentiles but, after all, in Matthew 28, Yeshua was clear that he wanted Gentiles to be made disciples as well. In Acts 10, Peter had a close encounter with a blanket full of treif and as a result, got to witness the fact that Gentiles could receive the Holy Spirit in the same manner as believing Jews. Perhaps the Acts 15 letter was a response to the "Gentile crisis" and designed to at least temporarily put the Gentiles "on hold" with a limited set of requirements closely mirroring the Noahide Laws, while giving the Jerusalem Council some breathing room to develop a long-term plan (admittedly, I'm taking liberties with the text, but be patient with me on this).

Of course, the long-term plan, if it was ever considered, never was enacted and a long series of events resulted in a separation between the Gentile and Jewish believers and ultimately, thrust the now Goy Jesus into the hands of the Christians while most Jews came to "realize" that the Messiah was yet to come.

Question. Did the Goyim kick the Jews out of the "Messiah club" because Gentiles couldn't or didn't want to enter into a Jewish religion where their options for expression were limited due to their lack of being Jewish or did the Jews walk out because the Gentiles were overrunning the place? I know this sounds cynical, but in many ways, this is the same struggle we find ourselves in today between Gentiles and Jews in the Messianic movement.

Derek Leman has suggested that Gentile Christians can form Judaically-informed congregations and refrain from referring to themselves as "Messianic" to clear up the identity confusion, but this hasn't met with complete acceptance by other involved parties. There really isn't a "quick fix" to this problem, nor do I suspect there will be. Gene has said and I'm agreeing with him at this point, that the struggle won't end until the Messiah comes and straightens us all out.

But what do we do in the meantime?

Do we continue to attempt to build a bridge between our two separate and isolated "neighborhoods" or do we just agree to be separate and distinct and apart and wait. Well, we wouldn't be waiting exactly, we'd be doing what Christians and Jews have done for two-thousand years. We'd be trying to be polite neighbors (I'm not anticipating any pogroms in the United States at this point) but we wouldn't have much to do with each other, except in rare cases. We would live on the world but not in each other's worlds.

Oh, there'd be friendships and sometimes (heaven forbid) intermarriages and other wrinkles in the fabric. Some liberal Jews would associate with Christians and some Christians would want to hang out and learn from the Jews, but like I said...it would be rare...and no one would be threatened.

Based on the "neighborhood" metaphor, there isn't wholesale mixing of people and "practices" between "hoods". If you live in a predominantly white suburb, for example, chances are, you wouldn't be completely at ease in an inner city ghetto, a barrio, or even a predominantly Jewish neighborhood like Crown Heights in Brooklyn. Sure, you could visit. Maybe you have a favorite deli you like to visit and their pastrami on rye is out of this world, but it's just a visit. You don't live there. You don't fit in. It's not your "hood". People are different there.

Frankly, I'm amazed that Gentile participation in "Messianic Judaism" got this far. Of course, we can attribute it to the One Law movement which, up until fairly recently, was the predominant voice of "Messianic Judaism", but as Gene outlines in his blog, as Messianic Judaism progresses more toward a "Judaism" in practice, purpose, and lifestyle, it won't be a "Christian" neighborhood anymore...it will be Jewish.

That leaves something of a vacuum for the Gentiles who have previously felt welcome in a "One Law" style "Messianic Judaism". Sure, we can form our own "Hebraic" or "Judaically-informed" congregations, but they'll suffer from terminal isolation from both the Christian and Jewish worlds. Either people in One Law congregations will circle their wagons and create their forts or the people in them will return to the church where at least they'll be in a "Christian" neighborhood.

Some like me will discover that we no longer belong in the Christian neighborhood either. The concepts are too different and, after all, I have a Jewish wife who, when the last kid moves out, wants to kasher our kitchen, so my home will become continually more Jewish. No, I wouldn't fit in the Christian hood.

I already know many Gentile "Messianics" who choose to not affiliate with any congregation, usually due to the dangers in One Law of poor leadership bordering on cultism or some other unpleasant experience. They maintain quiet home fellowships or simply worship as individual families.

I've quoted from Matthew 8:11 more than once today but given my continual progression down this path that I've been walking for a little over a day now, I don't see how I'll ever be able to sit down at that table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob without feeling like a damn fool or at least like a fish in a bicycle factory.

Bilateral Ecclesiology proponents say that for the good of the Jewish people in the Jewish Messianic "neighborhoods", we Christians (my wife calls me a Christian) should stay in our neighborhoods, shop at our stores, eat at our restaurants, play in our parks, and worship in our congregations. We can be polite and even friendly neighbors. Nothing wrong with borrowing a cup of sugar on occasion. But the wall stays up. I'm again reminded of Robert Frost's very famous poem Mending Wall:

But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go...

Good fences make good neighbors.

Afterword: I just told Gene on a blog comment that I don't so much write essays as process thoughts. That means my blog posts aren't final conclusions so much as periodic journal or diary entries. This is my entry for tonight. Tomorrow when I wake up, the world may look different. I'll let you know.