A Short Lesson from Feivel the Chasid

He read the Gospels in German. Then he obtained a Hebrew version and reread them. Though he was in the midst of a Gentile, Christian city where Jesus was worshiped in churches and honored in every home, Feivel felt the Gospels belonged more to him and the Chasidic world than they did to the Gentiles who revered them. He found the Gospels to be thoroughly Jewish and conceptually similar to Chasidic Judaism. He wondered how Gentile Christians could hope to comprehend Yeshua (Jesus) and His words without the benefit of a classical Jewish education or experience with the esoteric works of the Chasidim.

Taken from Jorge Quinonez:
"Paul Philip Levertoff: Pioneering Hebrew-Christian Scholar and Leader"
Mishkan 37 (2002): 21-34
as quoted from Love and the Messianic Age

I wonder the same thing. I'll be doing a full review of Vine of David's Love and the Messianic Age by Paul Philip Levertoff in the near future, including the rather large commentary that accompanies the book, but I wanted to connect the aforementioned quote back to last Tuesday's book review and the decidedly Evangelical Christian view of Jesus and his teachings that we normally encounter.

Levertoff had a very specific way of looking at the Gospels based on his education and Chasidic worldview and, if he had not become a disciple of Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), it's quite possible he would have been one of the foremost Chasidic Rabbis of his generation. Instead, he chose to pioneer, in the late 19th through early 20th centuries, an early incarnation of what we now call "Messianic Judaism". It must have been a tremendously difficult and rewarding role to play, and I am sorry that more of his works have not survived because he could have taught us so much more. Here's what I mean:

Levertoff believed that the Gospels and Chasidic Judaism merged seamlessly, and he dedicated his scholarship to demonstrating that conviction. He is said to have best developed his ideas in his major life work, a manuscript on the subject of Christ and the Shechinah. Unfortunately, the book was never published and the manuscript has been lost; however, he presented a lecture titled "The Shekinah Motif in the New Testament Literature" to the Society of the Study of Religions that we may assume represented something of an abstract of the larger work. This short paper provides a glimpse into a compelling and radical attempt to reconcile Jewish mysticism and faith in an exalted, divine Messiah.

Love and the Messianic Age is all we have left of Levertoff's insights into the nature and character of Christ in relation to the Shechinah or the Divine Presence; that aspect of the eternal God which descended upon and inhabited the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in the desert, and later, upon Solomon's Temple in holy Jerusalem. If his book had survived, I believe it would have answered many of the questions about Jesus that Gentile Christianity lacks the ability, experience, and viewpoint to even perceive. Authors like Bowman and Komoszewski, for all of their education and experience in the realm of Evangelical Christianity (and please forgive the conceit) don't have a clue next to what I believe Levertoff saw and understood.

Near the end of the short biography of Levertoff's life that I read last night, I discovered this:

Feivel Paul Philip Levertoff died at the age of 75 on July 31, 1954, on Rosh Chodesh Av (the New Moon of the Fifth Month).

I was born on July 23, 1954, eight days before Levertoff died. All Jewish male babies born on the same day as I was, would have experienced the Brit Milah; the ritual circumcision and naming, as commanded by God to Abraham, on the day Levertoff died. I don't know if it means anything for a Jewish boy to undergo the brit milah on the day a great Rebbe dies, but I hope it does. Although it can have no impact on a non-Jewish Christian like me, it still means something that our lifetimes overlapped for those eight days and, for a very brief period of time, we shared the same planet.

Although he is gone, I hope to learn a little something from what Paul Philip Levertoff left behind. May he be remembered for good and may his legacy cause both Jewish and Gentile disciples of the Messiah to draw one step closer to Heaven.

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