Small Chasidic Insights into God

Why has God created the world and mankind, and for what purpose? Why has the soul descended into the body? (The preexistence of the soul was assumed in Chasidism.) Is there a more ideal world than the divine world in which the soul previously existed? Is there a greater joy than when man rejoices in God?

-Paul Philip Levertoff
as published in "The Love of God"
Messiah Journal issue 107

I previously reviewed Love and the Messianic Age written by early 20th century Chasidic sage Paul Philip Levertoff and as I am sure you can tell, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Levertoff's insights into the teachings of the Jewish Messiah as written in the Gospels and filtered through Chasidic mysticism are fascinating. I am pleased that Vine of David is publishing installments of Levertoff's classic study Die religiose Denkweise der Chassidim (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs 1918) translated into English.

However, a plain reading of Levertoff isn't always sufficient to comprehend the underlying concepts and history swimming below the surface of his text. In the footnotes to this very brief section of Chapter 1 of Levertoff's work, we discover several things that might not be apparent, including the association between the "birth pangs of the Messiah" (Matthew 24:8), the present age being like a pregnancy, the unborn child being like the "congregation of God", and the Messianic Age being the day of the child's birth.

We also get a glimse in the footnotes, of "Moses the Mystic":

The Prophet Isaiah saw God, when he was being ordained as a prophet (Isaiah 6), yet only according to his revelation of himself in the creation, but not in his true essence (how God actually is in himself, independent of his creation). Only Moses had a vision of God's essence.

We don't normally think of Moses in mystic terms, but he did see God in His "glory" in a manner no other man has beheld (Exodus 33:12-23). Also, in the mystic view of the Chasidim, we see that God's greatest ability is His being able to lower Himself to the level of a human being. This is no more evident than in the projection of the Divine Presence into the existence of the Jewish Messiah among men (John 1:1-18).

This brief taste of Levertoff and the equally fascinating footnotes accompanying the article, are only one small sample of the spring issue of First Fruits of Zion's (FFOZ's) Messiah Journal.

Over the course of the next week or two, I'll post other reviews and comments about Messiah Journal, which includes a special supplement on Isaiah's Exalted Servant in the Great Isaiah Scroll. I've read everything in the current issue except the special supplement and I haven't been disappointed yet.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Review: The Talmud on Trial

Allow me to take this opportunity to demonstrate that the Talmud often agrees with the Gospels. Just as in all the main points of ethics there is agreement, so also both the Talmud and Gospels condemn pride, arrogance, and presumption. Consider the following concluding argument from the Talmud in regards to the above-cited quotation: -By an inspired practitioner of Judaism, I. Lichtenstein, District Rabbi at Tapio-Szele (Budapest, 1886)

I've written a couple of reviews of articles that will be appearing in the Fall 2010/5771 issue of FFOZ's Messiah Journal, including Vine of David and One Law for All but this one is different. This is no ordinary magazine article. To quote from the article's introduction:

Vine of David is pleased to present, for the first time in English, the entirety of Rabbi Lichtenstein’s 1886 publication The Talmud on Trial. Translated from the German by Kevin Hanke, with additional translation by Nikola Orlic, and Jeff Ashman. Rabbi Isaac Lichtenstein originally published The Talmud on Trial in 1886, prior to publicly announcing his faith in Yeshua.

Rabbi Lichtenstein wrote this paper in response to the comments of Scottish missionary, the Reverend Alexander McCaul which, in his publication Netivot Olam, he at once praised the Old Testament and Moses and completely denigrated the Talmud. The following gives you an idea of Reverend McCaul's viewpoint:

The Oral Law is presumptuous; it confers upon itself the authority of God; it is tyrannical, gruesome, heartless to foreigners [non-Jews], it humiliates and degrades the female sex, it promotes heresy and superstition, it weakens the influence of moral obligations, it promotes and is partial to ‘outward observance,’ without feeling, without heart, without consecration, in short, without God. It gives deceptive proof-texts for its absurd assertions, which can only maintain their validity by means of one-sided, illogical arguments which have been brought out of the trash heap.

Interestingly enough, although Rabbi Lichtenstein provides a creditable defense of how the Talmud is the source of morality and ethics among observant Jews and in no small measure, reflects the teachings of Yeshua (Jesus), today among many Gentiles in the Messianic movement, the Talmud remains as poorly esteemed.

I was commenting to someone today in an email how Gentiles in the Messianic movement by and large still conceptualize God, Yeshua, the Bible, and their faith in fundamentally Christian terms and in those terms, the Talmud doesn't make a great deal of sense. It becomes at least a puzzle if not a stumbling block as to why many Messianic Jews continue to cling to the Talmudic teachings when they are extra-Biblical and don't speak of Yeshua. Yet we Gentiles may be missing the point because we don't have the benefit of a Jewish education or growing up ethnically, culturally, and spiritually Jewish.

My wife (who is Jewish) tried to explain it to me and I chronicled her explanation, based on a class she attended that was taught by the local Chabad Rabbi, in a blog post called What Did Jesus Change: Ritual? It's a bit of a long read, but it's the best I can do to try to explain to a Gentile Messianic and Christian audience how Jews see the Talmud differently than we do. Of course, I only have my perspective to go on so you'll have to take it for what it's worth.

We also tend to neglect what the Talmud says directly about Gentiles. Fortunately, I blogged on that topic, too.

In about fifteen pages, Rabbi Lichtenstein tries to explain to his Christian audience how the Talmud functions in the life of every observant Jew, how it acts as a clarifier of the Words of God and a pointer to the Heart of the Almighty. You'll have to read the entire article to really get Rabbi Lichtenstein's point and fortunately, the issue of Messiah Journal containing this paper comes out in about a week.

You might ask yourself why a Gentile Christian/Messianic audience should care about the Talmud and its relevance to the teachings of Yeshua and his disciples? Hopefully part of the answer is in the question itself but beyond that, if you truly want to solve the mystery of why so many (but not all) Jewish Messianics consider Talmud study and a Talmudic lifestyle a "must", Rabbi Lichtenstein's defense should give you a clue.

If you're interested in more on the Lichtenstein article, the Gathering Sparks blog has a short commentary. To discover more about the contents of the soon to be published Fall issue of Messiah Journal including additional reviews, visit the FFOZ blog.

Oh. At the beginning of this blog post, I quoted a small portion of Rabbi Lichtenstein's commentary regarding the relationship between the Talmud and the words of the Master. Here's the rest:

Whoever humbles himself, he will be lifted up by the Holy One, blessed be he; but whoever lifts himself up arrogantly in pride, he will be abased by the Holy One, blessed be he. Whoever covets positions of honor, from him honor retreats. Whoever shuns a position of honor, a position of honor pursues that one. Whoever tries to go against the “spirit of the times” (Zeitgeist), the current of time will oppose him; he will be pulverized by the flywheel of time. But whoever takes into account present-day conditions will find that time actually, regularly assists him and proves to be to his advantage. (b.Eruvin 13b)

One Torah to Rule Them All

In Messiah everyone is in equal standing before God as regards salvation, but we all have our individual responsibilities. There is only one Torah for all of God’s people, but within that one Torah are many different distinctions. Once we understand that the Torah itself makes these distinctions, it becomes easier for us to grasp the words of the apostles, because, after all, it is the Torah from which they themselves are drawing.

Toby Janicki
Article: One Law for All
Messiah Journal 105/ Fall 2010 Edition

Recently, Boaz Michael of First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) asked me to review some of the material in the latest edition of Messiah Journal. I wrote the first review on my congregation's blog addressing Boaz's letter about the FFOZ sister organization Vine of David, but the topic of Toby Janicki's One Law for All article seemed better suited for my personal blog. It's here where I am more at liberty to express my personal opinions on the issues that unite and separate Gentiles and Jews in the Messianic movement.

One Law for All is, as you might imagine, FFOZ's commentary on the traditional assumption among many Gentile Messianic groups that all of the Torah commandments which apply to the Jews apply also to Gentile believers by virtue of our being "grafted in" (Romans 11). Actually, the more common argument from the Gentile Messianic point of view has to do with the "ger" issue; the set of apparent statements in the Torah that say "one law" shall apply to the native born Israeli and the ger ("stranger", "alien", "sojourner") among you. The following is just one example:

For the generations to come, whenever a foreigner or anyone else living among you presents a food offering as an aroma pleasing to the LORD, they must do exactly as you do. The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same before the LORD: The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you -Numbers 15:14-16

Early in the article, I thought Janicki was going to step into the classic argument presented in traditional (that is, non-Messianic) Judaism stating that only the seven Noahide Laws apply to Gentile believers in Yeshua, as if Yeshua never existed, never taught, and never considered Gentiles in his teachings (let alone the teachings in the letters of Paul). Fortunately, he only starts out there.

Janicki expands his investigation into the use of the term "ger" using many examples (too many for me to cite in this review) showing the distinctions between how some of the various Torah commandments apply to the Jews and the Gentiles who lived among them in ancient times. He also very neatly integrates what FFOZ has called "divine invitation" (though he never mentions the term) into his narrative by illustrating how some of the Torah commandments are required by the Children of Israel but allowed by any Gentile who desires to comply. To illustrate this, let's look at a slightly different translation of the above quoted passage from Numbers:

And if a stranger is sojourning with you, or anyone is living permanently among you, and he wishes to offer a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the LORD, he shall do as you do. For the assembly, there shall be one statute [chukkah achat] for you and for the stranger [ger] who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner [ger] shall be alike before the LORD. One law [torah achat] and one rule [mishpat echad] shall be for you and for the stranger [ger] who sojourns with you. -Numbers 15:14-16

The quote used in Janicki's article brings out a bit more clearly the distinction in this particular command between the obligation of the Jews to make such an offering and the acceptance (but not requirement) of the same offering from a Gentile temporary visitor or permanent "alien" resident. What Janicki doesn't state but I believe to be true, is that the distinction between "ger" and native Israeli persisted until either the ger left the community of Israel or completely assimilated (see Rahab, Ruth, and the mixed multitude who followed Moses out of Egypt) and finally became indistinguishable from the the Children of Jacob (See Who Belongs to the Covenant? below).

As a whole, I found Janicki's article to be well researched, easy to read, and straightforward in its approach. To go further, I agree that you can't base the Gentile Messianic "One Law assumption" on the set of "ger" quotes in the Torah. I previously wrote an analysis of this issue on my congregation's blog called Who Belongs to the Covenant? If you read my commentary and then review Janicki's article in Messiah Journal, you see that there is significant overlap in our viewpoints. That said, where I state in my article how the coming of Yeshua changed the landscape for the Gentiles, Janicki concludes with the following:

With this understanding we can approach Apostolic passages such as, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:3), and “Neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God” (1 Corinthians 7:19). These passages were written to communities that contained both Jews and Gentiles. Each person hearing these words would have understood “commandments” as referring to the specific parts of Torah that applied to them as a Jew or Gentile and man or woman.

Janicki's, and thus FFOZ's conclusion is that what was established as the relationship between Jew and Gentile relative to God and the commandments in the Torah remains completely unchanged post-Messianic times and that only a tiny subset of Biblical commandments have any sort of application to Gentile believers. This would be the identical subset of Torah commandments established in the time of Moses and, from Janicki's perspective, be completely unmodified by the coming of Yeshua.

While I can agree with the vast majority of what Janicki says, he fails to acknowledge that the coming of the Messiah had any sort of impact on the change in status for Gentiles who have come to faith in the Jewish Messiah. It's as if we continue to remain "strangers" and "aliens" in the kingdom of God, like rogue asteroids or comets temporarily captured by the sun's gravity and always in danger of being cast away again into the darkness, as opposed to the more stable planetary (Children of Israel) bodies in permanent residence within the solar system. But what about this?

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me - just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life - only to take it up again. -John 10:14-16

Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. -Ephesians 3:2-6

The passages from John 10 and Ephesians 3 are repeatedly cited by Gentile Messianics when we try to establish that we do have a place in the Kingdom of God where we can stand alongside our Jewish brothers and sisters, however, they are never addressed in articles such as Janicki's, which primarily seek to establish areas of distinctions between Gentiles and Jews rather than create links or build bridges between our two groups.

I don't mean to say that Janicki's intent was hostile or divisive in any sense. There is nothing in the wording or tone of his article to suggest that he is attempting to marginalize Gentile believers in the Messiah in any way. His intent seems completely focused on clearing up how the "one law" passages in the Torah don't automatically mean Gentiles are obligated to Torah commandments in a manner identical (or even vaguely resembling) to the Jewish people. It's important to understand though, that the "ger" issue doesn't encompass the entire scope of Gentile status as the adopted offspring of God, and does not at all cover the things that Yeshua's coming changed as far how Gentiles can enter the kingdom.

I spent some time going over what Yeshua taught in the book of Matthew and collected a summary of my conclusions in the article What Did Jesus Teach the Gentiles to Obey? While there is additional exploration required in this area, but I do believe that there's more to the Gentile relationship to God and the commandments than can be accounted for by a hard look at the "ger" scriptures in the Torah.

I really like Janicki's article and recommend it as a very clear picture of how the "ger" and "one law" passages in the Torah can not be relied upon to establish Gentile "obligation" to Torah commandments, but please keep in mind that the scope of Janicki's analysis begins and ends within the "ger" topic. Relative to Yeshua, there is much more to discover about Gentile identity within the Messianic realm.

Do I believe that Gentile and Jewish obligation and observance of the Torah is different? Absolutely. Is the matter completely defined and settled within the confines of Janicki's article? Not at all. Janicki only settles (assuming you agree with all his conclusions) one aspect of the puzzle. There are many more jigsaw pieces to examine and construct before the entire picture becomes apparent. I hope this is a journey both Jewish and Gentile believers can undertake together.

Black sheep author signing off for now.