Bilateral Living

Even if I could guide my congregation into a viewpoint more like my personal stance, I don’t think I could stay. The dissonance between that lifestyle and living with a Jewish wife isn’t something I can resolve over the long haul. If I’m going to be considered a Christian in relation to her being a Jew, I might as well try to own the label and see what our lives together are going to be like as we both continue to travel down our paths together (and that’s an odd image to visualize…two people traveling two separate paths together…I wonder if that’s “Bilateral Ecclesiology?”).
-My comment on the Daily Minyan blog post:
Bilateral Ecclesiology: Infrequently Answered Questions

Bilateral Ecclesiology and the Gentiles Series

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I'm not 100% sold on everything proposed by "Bilateral Ecclesiology" (BE) as presented in Mark Kinzer's book Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People. I understand and even support the need of the Jewish community contained within the Messianic movement to establish and maintain a uniquely Jewish identity and practice rather than assimilating into the Christian culture. However, I believe that BE may actually  be working against one of it's stated goals; to promote "unity" between the Messianic synagogue and the Christian church. Often, the blogosphere discussion revolving around BE seems to build a brick wall between Jews and Christians, rather than encourage an open exchange.

While Gene Shlomovich makes a compelling case for Bilateral Ecclesiology in his latest blog post, I still think the ideal has a long way to go before it can be effectively and practically implemented in a manner that doesn't automatically reject most churches and the vast majority of Gentiles who, in one fashion or another, have attached themselves to Messianic or Messianic-like groups.

That said, a rather odd thought occurred to me the other day, but you'll need a little background about me first.

My wife is Jewish. More accurately, her mother was Jewish (my mother-in-law passed away many years ago) and her father was a Gentile (which still makes my wife halachically Jewish). My mother-in-law became estranged from her Jewish family in Boston decades ago and my wife was raised without any awareness that she was Jewish. She knew she had Jewish aunts, uncles, and cousins living in Southern California where she was raised, but she didn't make the connection back to her mother and then back to her.

When my wife began attending university in San Francisco, her dorm roommate was Jewish. As they started to get to know each other, they talked about their families, and it was my wife's roommate who put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out my wife was Jewish. On a school break, my wife went home and confronted her mother and it was confirmed. My wife discovered her Judaism. She has since gone through the local Chabad Rabbi and had her background looked into and found that all of her mother's deceased relatives are buried in Jewish cemeteries.

You'll need to know all this to understand what I'm going to say later on.

When my wife and I married, neither of us had a religious faith. My wife was even more vehemently opposed to religion and religious people than I was. By that time, she knew she was Jewish, but it didn't make any particular impact on her life. I spent a lot of my history having secular Jewish friends (including other Jewish girlfriends before my wife), so I was "familiar" with Judaism, but only within that context. I never met any of my wife's Jewish relatives from back east and I only met one Jewish cousin from California, and his lifestyle was completely secular (and by the way, when he passed away, we went to the funeral and he was buried in a Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles).

In other words, as "intermarrieds", we had virtually none of the issues you'd expect in a Jewish interfaith marriage.

Time passed.

Long story short, we both came to faith in Jesus Christ in our early 40s and started attending a church. As "new believers" we had lots of questions but the church didn't seem to have lots of answers. Also, the "cliquishness" of the various "in groups" in the church gave us a very poor impression of Christianity, although we met many wonderful people who epitomized the grace and compassion of Jesus (I still miss Pastor Jerry).

My wife, by "accident" (if you believe in random events occurring within a created and purposeful universe) came into contact with our local "Messianic" (One Law) congregation and she was instantly hooked. I was finally finding a role in our church and it took some time for me to transition but eventually, I adopted a traditional early First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) One Law perspective on Jews, Gentiles, the Torah, and God. I never looked back.

Another long story short, I stayed with the "Messianic movement" as my preferred worship and faith lifestyle, while my wife shot out the other end, through conservative and reform Judaism (for decades, the only synagogue in Southwestern Idaho was comprised of a reform group and a conservative group which had merged to create a viable, single membership) and into the Chabad, where she studies and worships today (though she still has strong ties and friendships in the reform/conservative community).

Welcome to my Jewish interfaith marriage.

Now for the "odd thought".

I'm not telling you all of this because I think my life and marriage are generally fascinating to the blogosphere, but because I realized when I wrote the words on Gene's blog which I quoted above, that my life and the proposal of BE have something in common. Let's take a look at the core of my realization again. I'll edit my original comments to provide clarity:

I'm a Christian man married to and living with a Jewish woman. Our lives are like two people who are traveling down two separate paths together. How can two people travel down two separate paths and, at the same time, be side-by-side, sharing the same lives and even to some degree, the same lifestyles, but being two separate and unique beings?

It's an odd image, but maybe not as odd as you might think:

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. -Genesis 2:24

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. -Mark 10:7-9

Anybody who's been married knows that men and women seem to be so different from each other, it's as if we were originally supposed to live on different planets. We conceptualize our environments in fundamentally different ways. We use radically different neural brain paths to process the same information. Men tend to be linear thinkers and are task-oriented, while women tend to be global thinkers and are relationship-oriented.

There are days when my wife just about drives me nuts...and I'm sure the reverse is true.

But what's all this got to do with Bilateral Ecclesiology? Plenty.

Despite all our differences based on being a man and woman, our different cultural backgrounds, differences in where we were raised, how we were raised, and now, differences in how we conceptualize God, the Bible, and faith, it's amazing we can live in the same house and still have a civil conversation.

But we love each other.

We share three grown children and one adorable grandchild. We live together, talk together, argue together, laugh together, cry together, drive each other crazy together, eat together, and we are married together...in spite of those things, including our interfaith marriage.

We are what God joined together.

As they set out from their place above, each soul is male and female as one. Only as they descend to this world do they part, each to its own side. And then it is the One Above who unites them again. This is His exclusive domain, for He alone knows which soul belongs to which and how they must reunite.

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (2nd century CE)
Zohar, Book I, 85b

Now imagine that the Christian church and Messianic Judaism are married. I know. What a shock. I've probably just offended every Messianic Jew/Bilateral Ecclesiologist on the Internet. I hope I didn't, because this is the vision I have that, if such a thing is possible, would make the Bilateral Ecclesiology vision (I won't even call it a model because it's not that far along in its developmental process as yet) work. Read what I said again but in the current context:

I'm a Christian man living with a Jewish woman. Our lives are like two people who are traveling down two separate paths together. How can two people travel down two separate paths and, at the same time, be side-by-side, sharing the same lives and even to some degree, the same lifestyles, but being two separate and unique beings?

Two peoples progressing together like a man and a woman who are traveling down two separate paths but who are together.

I don't know how it will work, but I do know my marriage works. No, I don't have a "perfect" marriage. It has plenty of warts, bruises, and scars. But it also has the advantage of enduring for almost 28 years through terrific stresses and trials, and also through terrific joys and celebrations. If you can answer the question about what keeps a marriage together under far less than optimal and problem-free circumstances, you'll probably have the answer to what has to happen to make BE work.

A word of caution. My daughter told me something this morning. We aren't out of the woods by a long shot. Here's why.

A friend of ours (a Gentile Christian woman married to a Jewish man and who attends the Chabad shul together) was "babysitting" for the Rabbi's six kids (yeah, that's a lot for a father and mother to have who are both under the age of 30). She took the kids to the main branch of our local library and they spent time looking through the children's books. At one point, one of the kids realized she was looking at a book about Christmas. Suddenly, as if the book had just burst into flames, she threw it out of her hands and cried out, "It's goyishe!"

She didn't mean it as a complement.

This is my "concern" about Bilateral Ecclesiology. I don't know exactly how the Chabad community views things that are Gentile and people who are Gentile, but this child's reaction seems to indicate that she was taught that "goyishe" things are "bad"...really "bad". Kind of like picking up what you think is a pretty flower only to realize its what the dog left on the lawn. Yuk!

If any expression of BE depicts things that are not Jewish (and people who are not Jewish) as "yukky Goyishe" and behaves as if even touching them is disguisting, we are going to have a problem. This was the problem that Peter had to confront:

About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”

“Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”

The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” -Acts 10:9-15

We can have a beautiful marriage together. Yes, it will be full of all of the special challenges and difficulties that any interfaith marriage faces, but with a lot of work, patience, and understanding, we can overcome those obstacles and be what God wanted us to be when He put us together.

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. -Ephesians 3:6 (ESV)

Are we going to stay married honey, or are you going to ask (God) for a divorce? Your choice.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark, ignoring the light of the world. Look for the lamp who lights your path or you may become lost in the dark forever.

"A Jew never gives up. We're here to bring Mashiach, we will settle for nothing less." -Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh

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.

What Did Jesus Change: Ritual?

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?" -Mark 7:1-5

This is bound to be another "unpopular" blog post of mine, but I feel it really needs to be addressed.

In Christian tradition, the scripture I've just quoted is the beginning few sentences of the sequence of events in which Jesus would "declare all meats clean". A careful reading of the context reveals that he did no such thing, but it's hard to buck tradition.

However, it does appear that what Yeshua (Jesus) is doing, at least in part, is calling the Pharisees out on a man-made tradition that doesn't have its basis in the Torah. That's how most One Law groups read this, but there's a problem from a strict Messianic Jewish (MJ) point of view. The problem is that much of MJ believes in the validity of both the written and oral Torah, in which case, the ritual of hand washing would be perfectly valid.

My wife, who's been attending classes given by our local Chabad Rabbi, was trying to explain all this to me last night. She was saying that there are three types of "law" in the Jewish world (I'm doing this from memory, so please forgive me if I get the exact wording wrong): Torah, derived, and legislated.

Torah can be considered both written and oral. Remember, Moses was on Sinai with God for 40 days, so they must have talked about something. Actually, the oral law makes a certain amount of sense, once you realize that many of the commandments in the written Torah don't explain how to obey them (just how does one wear fringes on the four corners of a garment?). In that, the oral law modifies the written law so that it is "operationalized", describing the mechanics of how to perform the various commandments.

After Torah, there are the derived rulings, which is like how the U.S. Supreme Court interprets the U.S. Constitution. Originally, the Sanhedrin, in the days of Moses, was charged with interpreting the Torah for people, particularly in disputes, clarifying its meaning in difficult to understand situations. Also, over time, laws have to be understood in the light of new technological and social changes. For instance, laws previously passed in our country that addressed telegraph and telephone communications, some over a century old, have to be reinterpreted in light of the Internet.

Let's apply this to the Torah. When the laws dictating proper behavior on the Shabbat were first codified, automobiles and microwave ovens didn't exist. Once they were invented and put in popular use, the Shabbat laws had to be interpreted to render a judgment relative to whether or not these devices could be used lawfully on Shabbat. The directive to not drive on the Shabbat (at least in the Orthodox community) was derived from the original Shabbat commandments based on not igniting a flame on the Sabbath.

After this come legislated rulings. These can actually be local customs and can differ between, say the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. For instance, among the Ashkenazi, it is prohibited to eat or possess rice and beans during the Passover season as they are considered "leaven". You might wonder why, since these items are never used to leaven bread, but in centuries past, these food items were sometimes mixed with flour. It wasn't always easy to tell which ones were and which were not mixed with flour, so the Beit Din (Rabbinic Court) ruled that all rice and beans were to be considered leaven in order to resolve the conflict. Although the original problem has probably long since vanished, the ruling is still binding.

I know it all sounds confusing, particularly from a Christian point of view where it's believed that grace replaced the law and all of these details are now simply moot. However, if you're an observant Jew and obeying God is uppermost in your mind and heart, these details are of vital importance.

Now, back to hand washing. First let's continue with the transaction from Mark that we begin at the top of this post:

And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' " -Mark 7:9-16

As you can see, Yeshua isn't really talking about food but about a matter of paying lip service to the Torah while making a big deal over a minor procedure. In other words, blowing off your parents so you can seem more holy by giving money that could have supported them to the Temple, and then turning around and hassling a bunch of Jewish guys for not performing the ritual of hand washing before a meal. Yeshua is calling this group of Pharisees hypocrites, and rightly so, but is he also nullifying the ritual of hand washing? Consider this:

"Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us concerning washing of hands."

That's the English translation of N'tilat Yadayim or the blessing of the ritual washing of hands, which is performed to this very day among observant Jews. Are we to say that Yeshua directly contradicted this practice which is observed by at least some present day Jews including perhaps some Messianic Jews?

He doesn't actually say so (though he calls it a tradition that you have handed down), but he does say this:

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' " -Mark 7:17-23

Yeshua largely seems to be saying that making a big deal over such a small thing as hand washing is relatively meaningless as compared to sins such as "evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly", so he may have just been using this situation to make a point, rather than doing away with the ritual of hand washing among Messianic Jewish believers. On the other hand, Yeshua's Jewish disciples weren't practicing the tradition of hand washing in the first place, so they must have gotten the idea that they didn't have to as part of leading a life holy to God. Yeshua, of course, would have been the person to override this "commandment" with his disciples and, to the degree that they don't seem bothered by not performing the ritual, it couldn't have been too earth-shattering for them to give it up.

In Christianity, Jesus came, in part, to do away with the law...all of it, and replace it with grace. From a Christian point of view, it's no big deal if Jesus taught his disciples to violate every last tenet of Torah, written, oral, and whatever, and Christianity doesn't expect the disciples to have batted an eye at surrendering all of the beliefs they had considered part of obeying their God and had observed all their lives (though just look at how Peter reacted when it seemed God was telling him to eat non-kosher foods in Acts 10). Put back into context, Yeshua couldn't have revolutionized or abandoned Jewish practices and it's more likely that he clarified the interpretation of what Moses brought down from God at Sinai.

After all, it's not like Yeshua told his disciples to go fishing on the Shabbat or to take money from the poor; acts that would have horrified them in their blatant violation of Torah. Yeshua couldn't possibly have taught his Jewish disciples anything that would have gone against traditional Jewish belief in such a bald-faced manner. Perhaps hand washing was indeed a tradition that operated outside of the legitimate structure of Torah living and was truly made up by the Rabbis.

Today in Judaism, the rulings of the ancient Sages are revered and although there can be disagreement between different commentaries, they all are considered to operate within the boundaries of Torah and no judgment of a Sage is believed to be "made up".

However, if ritual hand washing is considered a valid expression of Jewish lifestyle and faith today and, as a ruling of the Sages, is believed in Judaism to be within the boundaries of Torah, how can we reconcile this with Mark 7 and the deliberate lack of observance of this ritual by Yeshua's disciples?

For Christianity, this simply means that all "man-made" rituals in Judaism were done away with (although Christianity and yes, every other faith practice, has plenty of man-made rituals in place), but for those of us who believe that once God established the Torah it was never to be reversed, how are we to understand this? Did Yeshua actually rule against certain Jewish rituals? If Mark 7 is an example of this, can we believe other rituals considered to be "holy" in their day were just made up?

If all that is true, can we extrapolate to the present and dare ask the question: Are some of the traditions kept by rabbinic and even Messianic Jews today "made up"? If so, which ones and how are we to tell?

The One Law movement largely disregards all of the oral law as well as the derived and legislated practices of Judaism as "made up" which tends to be one of the criticisms the Bilateral Ecclesiology branch of Messianic Judaism levels against OL, but the issue isn't entirely clear cut. If OL considers all believers, Jew and Gentile alike, bound to Torah obedience, we have to determine how far that obedience extends. MJ/BE says that more or less, Acts 15 is the limit of Gentile Torah requirements. OL considers the written but only the written Torah as having authority over their lives, thus imposing limits on their own observance. Did Yeshua muddy the waters in Mark 7 for Jews and Gentiles by suggesting that at least some parts of oral law and tradition were not really from God?

Gentiles, Torah, and the Moshiach

And while it's true that the Moshiach's primary task will be to bring the Jewish Nation closer to God, the Moshiach will also convince the entire world of the existence of God and the truth of the Torah.

Rabbi Hershel Brand from his book
On Eagles' Wings: Moshiach, Redemption, and the World to Come

I reviewed this book on my congregation's blog last October and by way of introduction, I said:

The book’s intent is to take all of the widely scattered references of the Moshiach throughout the Bible and all of Jewish authoritative literature, and gather them in one place for easy access to Jews who want a definitive Messianic guide. Rabbi Brand settled on writing this book as a fictional conversation between “Rabbi Cohen” and a student named “Daniel”, focused on answering Daniel’s questions about the Messiah. For those of us who lack a classic Jewish religious education, we experience a particular “stretch” at the sources “Rabbi Cohen” uses in his responses to Daniel’s queries, yet from a Jewish point of view, these are the only answers that make any sort of sense. Commentaries by Rambam and Ramchal, and quotes from the Gemara, Mishnah, and Zohar, are all perfectly expected within the context of this book. Christianity tends to dismiss these authorities as “just commentaries”, but the insights of the ancient Sages are the clarifying lens by which the Jewish people have been viewing the Torah for untold centuries.

This blog post is an extension of Gentiles and Torah which I posted yesterday and continues the assumptions I made in that article relative to MJ/BE and Orthodox Judaism. If MJ/BE very closely identifies and agrees with rabbinic Orthodox Judaism, then, with very few exceptions, it should accept the same belief structure as the Orthodox. For instance, if Orthodox Judaism accepts that in Messianic days, Gentiles will be brought to an understanding of Torah (whatever that understanding may be), the MJ/BE congregations should likely accept this idea as well. Here's what else Rabbi Hershel has to say about Gentiles, Torah, and the Moshiach via "Rabbi Cohen" and "Daniel":

Daniel: Even the gentiles? I mean, will there even be gentiles after the Moshiach arrives?

Rabbi Cohen: Of course. We mentioned once...that the Moshiach will destroy the enemies of the Jewish people, but those nations who are friendly to the Jews will still exist during the time of the Moshiach as before. Obviously they will accord great honor and respect to God’s true, chosen nation. And, like the Jewish nation, their primary occupation will be to understand and become closer to God.

"Rabbi Cohen" then goes on to quote the sources that support his statements to "Daniel":

And they shall bring all your brethren from all the nations as a tribute to the Lord, with horses and with chariots, and with covered wagons and with mules and with joyous songs upon My holy mount, Jerusalem," says the Lord, "as the children of Israel bring the offering in a pure vessel to the house of the Lord. -Isaiah 66:20

So said the Lord of Hosts: In those days, when ten men of all the languages of the nations shall take hold of the skirt of a Jewish man, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." -Zechariah 8:23

From the traditional Jewish viewpoint, learning to understand and come closer to God always involves Torah study, both the written and oral Law, so it seems reasonable to believe that, from an Orthodox (and thus MJ/BE) perspective, Gentiles will at least be studying those portions of Torah that have a direct bearing on the nations.

As I intimated in my previous blog post, what portions of Torah Judaism considers relevant to Gentiles extends beyond the Acts 15 letter and perhaps even beyond the Seven Noahide Laws. While conducting my online research for this blog, I came across a site called Wikinoah and a page on that site which asks Can Righteous Gentiles Study the Torah? The page starts out asking these questions:

It is said that Noachides are not allowed to study Gemarah, but what about Rashi Commentary on Torah? Is it recommended? I also want to know if a noachide is free to study all the midrashim? If Maimonides "The Guide for the Perplexed" is not considered a religious work but a philosophical book, is a noachide permitted to read from it although it seem to contain references to Gemarah? I also wonder about "Everyman's Talmud" by Abraham Cohen...is it wrong to read it.

The wiki site is dedicated to a population I have long suspected existed but never saw any evidence for: Gentiles who believe the Jewish paradigm of the "righteous Gentile" and who seek to adhere to the Noahide Laws. As a believer in Yeshua, I can see the efforts of these Gentiles as well-meaning though in error, but if you are a Gentile who completely accepts the rabbinic Jewish viewpoint about the nations and you want to have a place in the world to come, closer fellowship with the Jewish people, and to walk humbly with God, this would be a logical response. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a number of Gentiles who originally were involved in the OL and MJ movements "shot out the other side", so to speak, and either converted to rabbinic Judaism or became a Noahide.

Returning to the question quoted above, the answer is an unabashed yes, but with some possible qualifications:

So... exactly what can TOGs (Torah Observant Goy) study?

A more realistic example of what I'm talking about is, in fact, the question on what a TOG is allowed to study. There is discussion in the Talmud about this, but it appears to be divisive. One sage votes for the death penalty to Gentiles who study the Torah. (Seriously.) Another states that a Gentile who studies the Torah ‘is as a High Priest’.

The current view seems to be that Torah study for TOGs (which presumably would include appropriate portions of the Talmud, and the Rabbahs, etc.) is a blessing, not a sin. Yet others insist that TOGs are only allowed to study the portions of the Torah which directly apply to them: in particular, the first twelve chapters of Genesis or only that which directly applies to the Seven Noahide Laws. Still others argue that Gentiles should never be permitted to read the Torah, but instead rely solely on materials written by rabbinical authorities which specifically address the Noahide Commandments.

The latter opinions are the moral equivalent of someone wearing a kippah and tallit coming up to you and saying “You can't drink...” By this view one would not even be allowed to read the part of the Talmud which states you can't study it!

Without such study we have no way to determine what is legitimate teaching. Yet we must not merely take someone's word for it, because doing the wrong thing would be a Very Bad Thing. Ultimately it's my destiny at stake.

The article goes on (and since I previously posted a link to the relevant page, you can read all of its content), but it's important to point out that, from the Noahide point of view, there is no restriction on what a righteous Gentile can study. The only question is what parts of the Torah specifically apply to Gentiles, including the oral laws. If the Gentile doesn't study the entire body of content, how are they to know? The conclusion is that Gentiles are permitted to study the entire body of everything called "Torah" to both gain an understanding of the commands of God that apply to them (us) and also to gain a greater, general spiritual wisdom.

The only reasons a Gentile would not be permitted to study Torah, from the Noahide perspective, are these:

The restriction on Torah study is not that we shouldn't study it in the sense of reading it. It's that we should study Torah with a given purpose in mind, be it better understanding of the Seven Commandments or just to gain a better spiritual understanding. Studying the Torah with the intent of converting Jews to, say, christianity, is what the sage who suggested the death penalty had in mind.

TOGs shouldn't study as Jews are required to, because that is a special mitzvah between the Jews and Hashem; just as TOGs shouldn't wear tefillin or tallitot. Study for a purpose; don't study because you think you have to.

According to Rabbi Tzvi Freeman on AskMoses.com, the Lubavitcher Rebbes have even suggested a course of study for Noahides as follows:

What to learn:

1. The Bible with classic Jewish commentaries (including the talks of the Rebbe, which are specific to our day and age), excluding those parts dealing with commands specific to the Jewish people;
2. The thirteen principles of the faith from Maimonides;
3. The Book of Knowledge of Maimonides;
4. Laws dealing with property and personal damages, including slander, gossip, verbal abuse, verbal pledges, cruelty to animals;
5. The second book of Tanya (this was explicitly mentioned by the Rebbe), as well as selections from the first; and
6. Stories of Tzadikim.

Morning prayer (all these in translation):

1. Modeh Ani—optional
2. Study and meditation
3. Adon Olam—optional
4. Psalms of Praise (as in the siddur) — optional
5. Shema Yisrael — first paragraph (this was an instruction of Rav Azulai, father of the Birchei Yosef, to a Ben Noach in his time)
6. Psalm 100 — optional
7. Recitation of the Noahide Creed — optional

Why am I including all this and what does it have to do with Gentile Yeshua-believers associated with the Messianic movement? For one thing, it does establish that rabbinic Judaism permits a wider range of Torah study for righteous Gentiles than one might understand from some of the MJ/BE commentaries on the Messianic blogosphere. I don't necessarily say this should be the extent of our study and in fact, from what was previously mentioned, a Gentile can study any part of the Torah that a Jew can. The only question is what does and doesn't directly apply to the Gentile.

I should also probably note that, from a rabbinic Jewish point of view, no one who believes in Yeshua could be considered righteous because of the issue of Yeshua's deity (believing that a man is God) and the trinity (believing in three Gods instead of One God). That, I think, is one point where ML/BE and Orthodox Judaism must part company at some level. In fact, to the best of my understanding, only a minority of Messianic Jewish congregations join rabbinic Judaism in denying the deity of Yeshua (or the deity of the Messiah). Fortunately, as Messianic believers, we understand our righteousness this way:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. -Romans 3:21-26

It's not our righteous we have to depend upon, because we have none of our own, but only through faith in the Messiah are we considered righteous before the Throne of God.

That said, let's "marry" the concept of a Gentile's righteousness through faith in Yeshua and what the Orthodox rabbis say about "righteous Gentiles" (and granted, it's a shotgun wedding, but it's just for illustration). As righteous Gentiles, we have full access to the study of Torah and even to a limited range of "Jewish practices" such as praying from the siddur and even saying a portion of the Shema. While MJ/BE may not have actively denied any of this, it is sometimes difficult to get an understanding that they'd be OK with this sort of behavior from a believing Gentile. Now, am I saying I believe that this is the limitation of behavior for a "Messianic Gentile"? That's the topic of the next blog post. In the meantime, feel free to make comments and suggestions.

Afterword: In reading this and considering the traditional Christian perspective, I can imagine all of my comments and arguments seem foolish. In Christianity all of my "issues" are moot. Christ nailed the Law to the cross with him and it died with him. There are no more barriers between humanity and God as long as a person receives Jesus Christ as Lord and personal Savior. It's just "me and Jesus" (I think there's a song by that title). I'm not blogging because I am doubting my relationship with the Messiah at this point, but for the sake of both gaining a greater understanding of my duties to God and to gain a better relationship with my brothers and sisters who maintain different viewpoints on these matters. As I said in the comment section of my previous blog post, the core of our service to God isn't complicated at all. If we believe, and we act out of that belief by loving God with all of our being and spirit and if we love our neighbors as ourselves (and these commandments should be familiar to everyone reading this blog) and produce good fruit and actions out of our faith, we are doing well.