Why We Need Sheep Dogs

Here’s one of Aesop’s fables: One day, the wolves sent a delegation to the sheep and asked to make eternal peace with them. “The dogs are at fault for the conflict between us,” the wolves told the sheep. “They are the source of dispute. They bark at us, threaten us, and provoke us. Banish the dogs and there will be nothing to prevent eternal friendship and peace between us.” The foolish sheep believed this and banished the dogs. And so, without the protection the dogs used to offer, the sheep became easy prey for the wolves. -As quoted by Guy Bechor
at Ynetnews.com in his story A Middle Eastern Lesson

You can compress the fable into the sentence, "when one lives with wolves, keep dogs for protection". Bechor is using the fable to illustrate the need for Jews in the middle east, who live among many wolves, to keep "dogs". The primary "dog" kept for protection is the Land of Israel itself and of course, the Land's chief defense force, the IDF. Much of the world, such as the United States and the particularly the Obama administration, believe that the sheep should send away their dogs (the nationhood of Israel and the Israeli army) in order to ensure peace between sheep and wolves. However, if you've been paying attention to a number of terrorist events as I recorded them in a recent blog post, you can see that sending away the dogs is a very bad idea. Especially in light of the so-called unity pact forming between Hamas and Fatah as well as the emphasis that such a pact does not need to recognize Israel as a state. No, Israel needs to keep the dogs.

Bechor says what you'd expect him to say from his perspective, and I agree with him, but he did make one unexpected statement:

When one observes the fate of the Christians in the Middle East, one realizes what would have happened to the Jews had they been defeated, heaven forbid, or remained without protection. Christians are being butchered in states that experienced “democratic change” such as Iraq, Egypt and Tunisia; their churches are being burned, they’re prompted to escape, and their property is looted.

The Christians were misfortunate enough not to establish a state with a clear Christian identity, unlike the Jews. Naively, the Christians believed in partnership with other ethnicities, and now they’re paying the price – in Lebanon, where they’re becoming extinct, in the Palestinian Authority, and very soon in Syria as well.

Bechor amazingly compares Christians and Jews and more or less suggests a "Christian state" in the middle east as a means of protection. He compares the motives behind Zionism and Jewish statehood to what Christianity should have done in the middle east and, having "naively" assumed they (Christians) could live in peace among their Muslim neighbors, are now paying the price, even in so-called "democratic" Arab nations.

I recently read a commentary of Menachos 52 that re-enforced Bechor's point very successfully:

Shortly after the Holocaust, when Rav Yisrael Grossman, zt”l, paid a visit to the Abir Yaakov of Sadigura, zt”l, he was surprised to find him in an exceptionally joyous mood. When the rebbe noticed Rav Grossman’s surprise, he used a parable to explain why he was filled with joy despite the recent tragedy. “Imagine a poor Jew, beaten down and sickly, who has nowhere to even rest his head. If people have mercy and open their homes to him, he will surely be filled with boundless joy from gratitude.

“The Jewish people today are likened to this poor man. Although we endured such cruelty which resulted in the murder of millions of Jews, we must never lose sight of the positive. Now that we have entered Eretz Yisrael, which is our homeland, we are exactly like a poor displaced man who has finally found a home.”

He added, “You might argue that the spiritual level here is not exactly optimal. Nevertheless, the very fact that Hashem has brought us back home after such a tragedy is also enough to make us joyous!”

The Kaftor VaFerach, zt”l, learns the greatness of Eretz Yisrael from a statement on today’s daf. “The Midrash Rabbah explains that the verse (Bereshis 2:12) - 'the gold of that land was good,’ refers to the spiritual gold of Torah. ‘There is no Torah like the Torah of Eretz Yisrael and there is no wisdom like the wisdom of Eretz Yisrael.’ In Bava Basra (158b) we find that the very air of Eretz Yisrael imparts understanding of Torah. In Menachos we see that when Rav Avin told over a teaching to Rav Yirmiyah, his hearer criticized those who live in Bavel saying that they were fools who lived in a place of darkness. This is in contrast with Eretz Yisrael, whose very air is the breath of Hashem.”

Menachos 52
Stories off the Daf
The Land of Light and Wisdom

It's commentaries like this one that warms my heart and makes me long to visit the Holy City and to breathe the air, but this isn't an option for me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is financial. Some Christians, when they describe "going home" are talking about going to Heaven when the die. Other Christians believe that the Jews are just "holding" Israel for them and, when Jesus comes, the Jews will be marginalized, and all of the covenant promises involving Jews and the Land will be transferred to the Christians.

I don't believe that, but then, as a Christian, as Bechor points out we have no place to go. Or do we?

In Rabbi Hershel Brand's book On Eagles' Wings: Moshiach (Messiah), Redemption, and the World to Come, he makes his various points using a fictional conversation between a Rabbi and a young student. At one point, when the Rabbi is describing Gentiles in the world to come, the student is incredulous and asks if there will even be Gentiles in the world to come. The Rabbi answers in the affirmative and assures his student that there are actually some "righteous Gentiles" who have merited a place the world to come. Despite the book's generally anti-missionary tone and its less than Christian-friendly presentation, it's nice to know from Rabbi Brand's point of view, that a few of us will "make it".

But where do we Christians belong? Today, the Jews have a land: Israel. Although the rest of the world is fighting as hard as it (we) can to take it away from them and to exterminate the Jews once more (didn't we just finish commemorating Yom HaShoah?), the Land is God's and He gave it to the Children of Israel as their perpetual inheritance. Some say that, as grafted in non-Jews, we also have a stake in the physical land, but Israel isn't very big, even in terms of its Biblical borders, and it's hard to imagine the worldwide population of Christians and Jews (at least in today's world) being able to fit. Also, you have to examine the idea of whether or not Christians are "Israel" in the sense that Israel is Israel.

In any event, a Christian has as much chance of making aliyah (emigrating) to Israel today as a wolf does of winning a popularity contest among the sheep...that is to say, none.

Jews have a mandate to establish and maintain a Holy Land that goes all the way back to Abraham. Although all nations will be blessed through Abraham's offspring (Genesis 22:18), that blessing doesn't translate into an inheritance such as the one provided to Israel by God.

Gentile disciples are blessed through Abraham's seed, Jesus (Yeshua). As disciples of the Jewish Messiah, we have belonging to each other and to God and salvation in the world to come. As far as I can tell, we also have a part of this:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. -Revelation 22:1-5

The wolves are savaging the Christian sheep in the middle east. They want to do the same to the Jewish sheep, but the Jews were smarter and built a strong pen for themselves (I can't help but be reminded of the three little pigs and houses made of straw, sticks, and bricks). God was the prompt for the Jews to build that pen. The rest of us have our individual nations and it would behoove the Christians in the middle east to find safe haven in countries that will not try to kill them. We don't have a "Christian nation" (America never was and it especially isn't in the current era). Assuming Revelation 22 includes the Gentile disciples of the Jewish Messiah as "his servants" then our inheritance, as such, isn't available in any tangible sense. Until the Messiah comes, we continue to live in the various nations of the world and to live inside our faith and our hope...and we continue to wait.

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

Tragedy in Ashdod

Persecution against Messianic Jews has increased lately in Israel, and last Monday night, February 21st, nearly 1,000 protesters gathered outside a Messianic congregation in Ashdod to spew hatred and lies. The event was organized by Yad L'Achim and was attended by many well-known rabbis who participated in delivering virulent speeches - spewing the typical epithets that Messianic Jews are stealing Jewish souls, prey on children, and equating us with Hitler.

Quoted from the Yinon blog.

You can find more links to the complete story at Judah Himango's Weekly Bracha 52 blog post. I've already been somewhat melancholy about the state of faith in general and the Messianic movement specifically, but reading the Ashdod story resulted in my feeling a profound sadness and remembering these words of the Master:

However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? -Luke 18:8

Supposedly he will, otherwise why return, right? I know just a little bit about trying to grow closer to someone with the desire to help and become connected, only to be rebuffed and sometimes reviled. It must be thousands of times worse for these Jews to be yelled at and feel hated by their own people. Sure, these angry Israeli Jews have a good reason to feel threatened by what they think are "missionaries", but was the "hate fest" really necessary?

What can I say except, may the Messiah come swiftly and in our day.

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. -Friedrich Nietzsche

The road is long and we are surrounded by darkness.

Rebuilding

Both of one's worlds, inner and outer, were destroyed because of our iniquities. Rachel cries over both. Both will be rebuilt. Rebuilding our inner world depends upon our acquiring a new dimension of understanding of who we are and where we're going. Rebuilding our outer world depends on our joining hands together to re-form society in accordance with the vision of the Torah. -Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh

Bilateral Ecclesiology and the Gentiles Series

Gene Shlomovich just said something interesting on my previous blog post:

This is NOT about any sort of immediate "implementation" - we are all waiting for the Messianic Age for that. The last 2K teach us that whatever man touches eventually turns to dung, but it doesn't mean that we are to fold our hands and stand idly by. We can still do things, one thing at a time, one congregation at a time and go from there. We have to start somewhere. We implement things starting with ourselves and those who G-d brings our way, and pray that G-d blesses it over the coming years.

The first thought that popped into my head was this:

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” Exodus 32:1-4

Yes, human beings have a tendency to mess up a free lunch whenever we can. I like to think that the reason the trials of the Children of Israel are so heavily chronicled in the Tanakh isn't to pick on them but to show how all of humanity continually fails God, yet keeps striving to be close to Him. It's also a continual picture of God's faithfulness, not just to the Jewish people, but to the rest of us (see the book of Jonah for a display of God's love to a non-Jewish people).

My understanding of Judaism is that it pictures man as the junior partner with God in an effort to repair the world, both our inner spiritual world and the world we see around us. In some of my recent blog posts, I've been trying, using marital metaphors, to describe a "partnership" between Jews and Christians joining together under one Messiah and one God, using the Torah as the blueprint for rebuilding our inner and outer worlds.

We aren't doing such a good job, but as Gene pointed out, we don't have the luxury of simply folding our hands and stand idly by, either. We have to do something. In fact, God requires that we do something:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. - James 2:14-18

That's right. Rebuilding the world doesn't necessarily require establishing a megachurch and attracting 10,000 followers or performing some monumental act of righteousness or heroism. Repairing our inner and outer world can be as simple as providing one meal to one hungry person, or visiting a sick friend in the hospital.

But what about rebuilding the relationship between Christians and Jews?

I don't know.

I suppose ongoing conversations like this one are part of that process. Yes, the Messiah will come and he will repair the world, but in the meantime, we still have a responsibility to do all we can to move the process along. Like the Children of Israel and the Golden Calf, we have a tendency to misuse the time we have when we aren't constantly re-enforced by God, but that's the struggle of an imperfect humanity serving a perfect God. The standard quote I use at the end of each of these blogs should be the motto, not just of Jews, but of everyone.

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

Going Along with the Program

That being said, what is bilateral ecclesiology, really? (Forgive me, I’m not working out of the book here, it’s on loan to someone else.) Bilateral ecclesiology is the communal outworking of what happens when Jews recognize Jesus as the Messiah and Christians repudiate supersessionism (without also repudiating their foundational claim, ‘God has made this Jesus both Lord and Messiah’). Jews serve God and devote themselves to Yeshua faithfully as Jews, in Jewish communities and in relationship with the broader Jewish community; Christians serve God and devote themselves to Yeshua faithfully, acknowledging God’s relationship with the Jewish people and relating to that people especially through those Jews who share with them loyalty to Jesus as Messiah.

From Why Bilateral Ecclesiology Will Matter
at Ovadia's blog Just Jewish

Bilateral Ecclesiology and the Gentiles Series

I'm not picking on Ovadia or anything said on the Just Jewish blog; I just needed a quote to introduce today's topic and that provided a brief definition of Bilateral Ecclesiology (BE).

I've been turning the whole "bilateral ecclesiology" topic over in my head again and again and I'm still trying to figure out how it's supposed to work in real life this side of the Messiah's return. Right now, it exists as a concept or an ideal, but I wonder if anyone can point to any actual examples of it being lived out in day-to-day existence?

The idea is that Jews who worship Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah are just as Jewish as any other observant Jews on the planet and must maintain observant Jewish practices for the same reasons as any Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform Jew. This, according to BE proponents, is God's continual plan for the Messianic Jews in terms of lifestyle and worship behaviors.

OK. Dandy. I don't see a problem here. But what about the other side of the coin?

"The church", as illustrated by traditional Christian churches such as Baptists, Lutherans, Nazarenes and so on, is God's plan for lifestyle and worship behaviors for all non-Jews who believe in Jesus (Yeshua) as the Christ (Messiah). That includes the usual "trappings" such as worshiping on "the Lord's Day" (Sunday), the removal of all Torah restrictions for Christians (shopping on Saturday and eating Shrimp Scampi for Sunday brunch is a go), and (egad) supersessionalism (Christians replacing Jews in the covenant promises), all thanks to the grace of Jesus Christ.

Wait a minute. That's not what Bilateral Ecclesiology is proposing for "the church". Well, not exactly.

Rewind.

Sunday worship, shopping on the Shabbat, and Scrimp Scampi are OK for the Christians, but this supersessionalism...one of the cornerstones of modern Christian belief, has got to change. Not only do Christians need to see themselves as separate worship communities with unique practices and few behavioral obligations to God, they must recognize the "Jewishness" of Messianic Judaism and agree that while Jesus killed the Law dead as a doornail for the Gentile Christians, he lovingly preserved it for the Jewish people.

The problem here is that Christianity, by and large, doesn't believe that the Law exists for anyone who says they are a disciple of Christ. Either the Law is all the way alive or it's all the way dead for all believers everywhere, Jews and Gentiles alike.

Sure, you'll find some churches that are willing to go along with the BE perspective if, for no other reason, than because it doesn't require the church to change anything...well, almost anything. However, most churches aren't going to buy into the Law not being dead for Messianic Jews (unless they really aren't accepting the grace of Jesus and therefore, aren't really "Messianic"), and the validity of many practices common in other Judaisms, such as studying Talmud and the authority of the ancient sages. They also aren't going to accept the sanctity of the Saturday Sabbath (except for those few churches that are sabbatarian) for Messianic Jews and the apparent rejection of the Lord's Day.

After all, the reason the church "accepts" (non-Messianic) Judaism in general is that Judaism makes no claim on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. The church, in its heart of hearts, sees Judaism as a carnal and lost religion that (prayerfully) will come to worship Jesus in the end times, but in the present, only shares a "Judeo-Christian" tradition due to a common "Old Testament".

While many churches rent their space to Messianic Jewish congregations, there's still a distance between the two groups and Christianity may see the MJ movement as a "stepping stone", helping Jews leave their former "law-bound" existence and transitioning into a fully Christian life (without the Law). I know of one church that sees their "rental relationship" with their sister MJ congregation as "outreach".

I know I probably sound cynical, but it seems that the MJTI and their members and supporters have mapped out a challenging route for themselves; one they cannot completely control.

While Messianic Jewish groups can create and maintain synagogues that service a primarly or exclusively Jewish population, they cannot necessarily convince the church world wide to accept their premise and expect the church to make the required internal changes to their theology. It would be easier to get the United States Military to accept openly gay recruits into the various services. Oh wait!

At this point, I haven't even addressed those of us who are "inbetween" the MJTI's vision of a Messianic synagogue and the church. We "Gentile Messiancs" are accepted in neither realm, criticized by both the church and MJ for maintaining separate worship venues, yet continue in search of a place to worship corporately in peace and fellowship with both BE/MJ and mainstream Christianity.

Derek Leman, a BE proponent, has suggested another alternative for us, but it suffers from the same roadblock: convincing most or all One Law, Two-House, and otherwise, mostly Gentile "Messianic" congregations to accept the "rebranding" of our groups and our practices.

While I can see each Messianic, Christian, and "Judaically-informed" congregation creating their own practice and ritual based on their own internal requirements, how can any one group convince all of the other involved groups to go along with the entire set of stipulations of the BE program?

There's a long road ahead. Can Bilateral Ecclesiology proponents reach their goal?

Mike, Morrie, and the Fence

Update, January 2nd: I created an "official" Mike and Morrie blogspot for their soon-to-be launched comic strip.

Bilateral Ecclesiology and the Gentiles Series

I had a "vision" yesterday of how I wanted to depict the whole Bilateral Ecclesiology interaction between a Gentile and a Jew. I tried to find this image on Google,but it doesn't exist. So I decided to create it. This is just a rough draft, but I wanted to get something out there before the Shabbat. This is just something I threw together in a few minutes with only one cup of coffee under my belt.

Oh, the guy in the left is Mike, a Christian. The guy on the right is Morrie, a Jew. The fence...we'll, I suppose I could carve the initials "BE" into the wood, but you get the idea.

This is an experiment. Maybe a series of dialogues between Mike and Morrie, sharing a cup of coffee across the fence that separates their two backyards will give us a friendlier stage on which to hold our own conversation. It's a thought.

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.

Orthodox Rabbi's View of Torah and the Gentiles

"Anyone who accepts the 7 commandments and is careful to do them, behold he is from the pious of the nations. And he has a place in the world to come. And this is one who accepts them and does them because the Holy One blessed be He commanded them in the Torah and made them known by Moses our master that the sons of Noah were before commanded in them."

Rabbi Mayer Twersky
On the matter of the sons of Noah fulfilling the 613 commandments

I pulled the above quote from an interesting blog called Christian for Moses and should credit Toby Janicki of First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) for posting it on his Facebook page. Otherwise, I might not have found it.

The blog article Rationale for Observing Commandments Other than the 7 (for Gentiles) is short but compelling. You might want to sail over there and read the original source before continuing here. The blog author (who declines to state his or her name) provides appropriate links to the source material written by Rabbi Twersky, but you'll have to know Hebrew to be able to read it. Either the blog author reads Hebrew or had help with the translation. Either way, it should be interesting.

Rabbi Mayer Twersky, the author's source, is an Orthodox Jew who makes some rather startling comments about Gentiles and their observance of Torah beyond the 7 Noahide laws! That has rather profound implications for non-Jews in the Messianic movement relative to our ongoing discussions of what commandments to which we can or should respond.

The blog author's conclusion tells the tale:

So he says that a one who is not obligated in a certain commandment, but wants to perform it can still fulfill it, in this case there is no object of the commandment, but rather the deed is in itself the acceptance of the God of Israel. He notes further that this is the main difference with one who is obligated and fulfills the commandment, in which case there is an object of the commandment, and the fulfillment is the doing of that object.

There's no detail given on which commandments should be addressed by Gentiles, so I don't think non-Jewish Messianics can automatically jump on this and say "Ah ha!" as if it's an open door to Torah obedience for Gentiles. In fact, the statement specifically presents one who is not obligated...but wants to perform it, and says he can still fulfill the commandment, though apparently the act itself is a response to God and not directly to the commandment as such.

Still, I think this opens the door back up for discussion of Gentiles and the commandments outside of the Noahide laws and probably outside of Acts 15, particularly in light of Part 5 and Part 6 of Derek Leman's Not Jewish yet Drawn to Torah series and my response to his commentary. While there's nothing in Rabbi Twersky's statements that says anything about Gentile obligation, he certainly is saying that voluntary action can fulfill the commandment's intent.

I should note that the Heaven is Near blog beat me to the punch by posting their own missive on the same topic. Figured I'd toss my two cents into the hat anyway.

Comments?

All that the Lord has Spoken

Having journeyed from Rephidim, they entered the wilderness of Sinai and encamped in the wilderness. Israel encamped there in front of the mountain, and Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel: 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Me. Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine, but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel." Moses came and summoned the elders of the people and put before them all that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered as one, saying, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do!" And Moses brought back the people's words to the Lord. -Exodus 19:2-8 (JPS Tanakh )

This is the moment when the Children of Israel agreed to obey all of the commandments of God, God's Torah, as a single people. While modern Judaism considers the Torah to be comprised of 613 specific positive and negative commandments, in a recent article on my congregation's blog, I published information indicating that, in the modern era and particularly in the diaspora (anywhere outside of Israel), observant Jews can only obey roughly 200 of the mitzvot, and even that number may be a bit of a stretch. Now let's consider a different perspective.

“‘Everyone who is native-born must do these things in this way when they present a food offering as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. 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 15:13-16

I've already stated in Who Belongs to the Covenant why I don't believe this or other, similar passages in the Torah, can be used to justify Gentile obligation to the entire body of commandments assigned to the Children of Israel at Sinai, but it's such passages as this from the Bible that many non-Jews in the Messianic movement use to justify the "One Law" or "One Torah" theology stating that both Jews and Gentiles who are Messianic have an identical obligation to the mitzvot.

I want to approach the issue of Gentile Torah obedience (compliance, subservience) from another direction. Having already established that no one can obey all of the 613 commandments today, I want to ask the Gentiles (and perhaps some of the Jews) in the Messianic movement a question. What do you do to obey your "obligation" to the Torah? Put another way, what does obeying the commandments actually mean in a practical, day-to-day sense?

There's another reason why we can't obey all of the 613 commandments today. They aren't all contained in the Five Books of Moses. Wait. Let me explain.

Each and every one of the 613 commandments or mitzvot is based on a specific verse or verses in the Five Books of Moses (I'm saying it this way because "Torah" can mean so much more than just Genesis through Deuteronomy). However, how they are interpreted and understood isn't always plain in the written Torah, and operationalizing the commandments may need a little help. That's where other meanings of the term "Torah" come in.

In a previous article on this blog called What Did Jesus Change: Ritual, I provided what I hope is a simple and straightforward way to understand the Jewish perspective on what "Torah" means. Based on a class my wife took at the local Chabad, the term "Torah" falls into three general categories: Written and Oral, Derived, and Legislated. Each of these explanations was previously published in my "ritual" blog post and I'm repeating them here.

The Written and Oral Torah

Torah can be considered both written and oral. Remember, Moses was on Sinai with God for 40 days and nights, 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.

Derived Torah

After the written and oral 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.

Legislated Torah

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.

From an observant Jew's point of view, all of this is "Torah". That is, all of this is binding and Jews are obligated to live a lifestyle taking each and every one of these rulings into account. I'm not saying that every Jew on earth obeys every individual commandment and mitzvot recorded, and even "observant Jews" don't obey the mitzvot in the same way, but these are the rulings and teachings that make up a lived Jewish experience.

Do you do all of this? Have you studied the Babylonian Talmud with a learned Rabbi in a recognized and accredited Yeshiva? Do you buy your meats from a kosher butcher and eat (for example) glatt kosher?

No? You don't? Why not?

Oh. Because the rulings of the Rabbis were made up and/or only apply to Jews and they aren't binding on Gentiles who are grafted in to Israel through the blood of Yeshua (Jesus).

If that's so, how can you (Gentile Messianic) say that you are obligated to the Torah and keep all of the Torah mitzvot identically with your Jewish brothers and sisters?

Don't you hate tough questions?

OK, perspective time. I'm not necessarily saying that obeying all of the mitzvot in robot-like fashion will be a benefit to you in your walk of holiness. Certainly, if you don't "buy into" the Jewish definition of "Torah", then keeping glatt kosher, refusing to drive on the Shabbat and walking to shul instead, and having men and women sit separately during worship isn't going to do you any good and it won't make you feel any closer to God. You'll just be "legalistic".

And yet for a world of observant Jewish people, these and many more such behaviors define their worship of and devotion to God. If Judaism and Christianity hadn't experienced its schism in the early centuries of the common era, how do you know that Gentile believers wouldn't (assuming you are of a One Law/One Torah perspective) be observing all of the written, oral, derived, and legislated Torah, just as many observant Jews do today?

Yet aren't you (we) Gentile Messianics "picking and choosing" which commandments to obey and which to disregard based on your (our) own preferences? I've heard some non-Jewish Messianics criticize "the Church" for doing the exact same thing. Is this getting to be at all sobering for anyone out there?

All that said, there are a few things to consider. For instance, we don't really know for sure all of the little details about how non-Jews are to implement obedience to God. If we did, it wouldn't be such a hot topic in Messianic Judaism and I wouldn't be writing this blog post. We only "believe" we know based on this opinion or that opinion. It all depends on who you follow and who you choose to trust as a leader or teacher.

When I took a good hard look at what Yeshua taught in the Book of Matthew and applied it to the Matthew 28:18-20 mandate, I came up with these conclusions. I'm not saying they make up the entirety of Gentile obligation to God, but they're a good place to start.

This morning, Rabbi Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh said this on twitter:

For true peace on earth there must be one religion for all mankind. That religion is Judaism: 613 commandments for Jews and 7 for non-Jews.

Given that it's only about two weeks until Christmas ("Peace on earth, good will to all men"), it isn't very difficult to understand why Rabbi Ginsburgh posted this comment. I note it here because it's the first time I've heard anyone in Judaism say that there should only be one religion: Judaism, and that it should be applied to everyone on earth (with the vast majority of people obeying the Seven Noahide Laws).

I want to invoke a much older authority to add a bit of illumination.

“A gentile once came to convert to Judaism, on the condition that he could learn the whole Torah while standing on one foot. He approached Shammai, who rejected him, so he went to Hillel, who taught him: "’That which you dislike don't do to your fellow: That’s the basis of Torah. The rest is commentary; go study!" -Shabbos 31

This very famous passage from the Talmud tells a story of the great Jewish scholar and teacher Hillel, who lived in the late 1st century B.C.E. into the 1st decade of the Common Era, and whose lifetime overlapped that of Yeshua (Jesus). Here, Hillel seems to be conducting the fastest Gentile to Jewish conversion in the history of Judaism short of Ruth's statement to Naomi (Ruth 1:16). But what really happened?

I'm not prepared to analyze all of the nuances of this event, but notice what Hillel said was the core of the Jewish understanding of Torah: That which you dislike don't do to your fellow. This is a negative expression of the following:

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself...' -Matthew 22:39 (quoting Leviticus 19:18)

Hillel was a scrupulous teacher of halachah and ritual obedience and would hardly have disregarded the mitzvot of Sinai in favor of such a reductionist view of the Torah and yet, he's saying something here that we all need to understand. He's saying, in my opinion, if you cannot grasp the "obedience" of loving your neighbor and not doing any harm to him, will keeping the entire body of mitzvot including loving God mean anything to you?

If you expanded Hillel's statement just a bit, wouldn't it sound something like this?

There's much more I could say on this topic and I probably will in time, but I want you folks reading this article, especially those of you who are Gentiles in the Messianic movement, to stop and take a moment to question your assumptions. This entire blog was created for the purpose of questioning and testing assumptions. Unlike many pundits on the web and particularly in the Messianic blogosphere, I can't claim to be infallible, a perfect interpreter of the Bible, or some sort of "prophet". Like I wrote in the profile section of this blog, "I'm just one person searching for the light on the path and trying to understand my relationship with God".

Maybe some of this will help us all understand who we are in God.

Comments?

Light and Dust

The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. -Deuteronomy 7:7-9

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. -Ezekiel 5:5

God chose the Children of Israel as His "treasured, splendorous people" for a reason. It wasn't because they were the most numerous people or the most powerful. In some ways, it may have been because they were few in number and, by demonstrating their ability to have faith in God and overcoming insurmountable difficulties and win against impossible odds, they brought the glory of God to the rest of the world.

Why does God say in Ezekiel 5 that he placed Jerusalem "in the center of the nations.." and what does it have to do with the "chosen" status of Israel. According to the Wikipedia article on "Jews as a chosen people", the Conservative Judaism view point is this:

Few beliefs have been subject to as much misunderstanding as the "Chosen People" doctrine. The Torah and the Prophets clearly stated that this does not imply any innate Jewish superiority. In the words of Amos (3:2) "You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth - that is why I will call you to account for your iniquities". The Torah tells us that we are to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" with obligations and duties which flowed from our willingness to accept this status. Far from being a license for special privilege, it entailed additional responsibilities not only toward God but to our fellow human beings. As expressed in the blessing at the reading of the Torah, our people have always felt it to be a privilege to be selected for such a purpose. For the modern traditional Jew, the doctrine of the election and the covenant of Israel offers a purpose for Jewish existence which transcends its own self interests. It suggests that because of our special history and unique heritage we are in a position to demonstrate that a people that takes seriously the idea of being covenanted with God can not only thrive in the face of oppression, but can be a source of blessing to its children and its neighbors. It obligates us to build a just and compassionate society throughout the world and especially in the land of Israel where we may teach by example what it means to be a "covenant people, a light unto the nations.."

The phrase "where we may teach by example what it means to be a covenant people, a light unto the nations" (emphasis mine) indicates that God's choosing Israel does not affect just Israel nor does it benefit just Israel. If God placed Jerusalem "in the center of the nations.." it was to uniquely position the Children of Israel so that their light could be seen by the world around them; and so they could, by example, illustrate the blessings of living a lifestyle devoted to the one, true God.

Yeshua said something similar in addressing the Jewish people:

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. -Matthew 5:14-16

Depending on your point of view, when Yeshua says "let your light shine before men..", he could have been saying, let your righteousness be an example to other Jews or he could have been saying, let your righteousness be an example to other people, Jews and Gentiles alike. If the latter and if indeed the interpretation of Conservative Judaism is correct regarding Israel as a light to the world, then the mandate of Israel to be holy as God is holy extends beyond Israel itself. Why would God do this unless He continues to care about the rest of the nations, at least to the degree that we "praise our Father
in Heaven."

The relationship between the Jewish nation being chosen and God's relationship with non-Jews has also been expressed this way:

Crucial to the Jewish notion of "chosenness" is that it creates obligations exclusive to Jews, while non-Jews receive from God other covenants and other responsibilities. Generally, it does not entail exclusive rewards for Jews. Classical rabbinic literature in the Mishnah Avot 3:14 has this teaching:

Rabbi Akiva used to say, "Beloved is man, for he was created in God’s image; and the fact that God made it known that man was created in His image is indicative of an even greater love. As the verse states [Genesis 9:6], 'In the image of God, man was created.')" The mishna goes on to say, "Beloved are the people Israel, for they are called children of God; it is even a greater love that it was made known to them that they are called children of God, as it said, 'You are the children of the Lord, your God. Beloved are the people Israel, for a precious article [the Torah] was given to them ...

Rabbi Reuven Hammer of Masorti Judaism comments further:

The actual intent is to say that we are thankful that God has enlightened us so that, unlike the pagans, we worship the true God and not idols. There is no inherent superiority in being Jewish, but we do assert the superiority of monotheistic belief over paganism. Although paganism still exists today, we are no longer the only ones to have a belief in one God.

If you read all of the different sections of the Wikipedia page I'm referencing, you'll see that there are a number of different ways that different sects of Judaism see their being a chosen people, but in that chosen state, Israel does not disregard or denegrate the non-Jew who also seeks God.

How do we understand "A Gentile who consecrates his life to the study and observance of the Law ranks as high as the high priest," says R. Meïr, by deduction from Lev. xviii. 5; II Sam. vii. 19; Isa. xxvi. 2; Ps. xxxiii. 1, cxviii. 20, cxxv. 4, where all stress is laid not on Israel, but on man or the righteous one.

Rav Meir's statement ..where all stress is laid not on Israel, but on man or the righteous one may hold an important key in that the purpose of any person, Jew or Gentile, should ultimately be to serve other people and to focus on the righteousness of God. As previously stated, Jewish people shouldn't be considered superior over the other people groups of the planet, but rather, the superiority rests in the belief that God is One rather than many and even in that, Jews no longer (thanks to their being a light) are the only people who are attached to God.

That being said, as the previously quoted source material also states, the Jewish people do have unique responsibilities and duties to God that are not incumbant on humanity as a whole and will always remain a distinct people.

God made the Jewish people a light to the nations. Yeshua affirmed that the Jewish people were to be a light to the nations and that they should not hide their light under a bowl, but put it on top of a hill so everyone can see (and Jerusalem physically sits on the "high ground" relative to the surrounding area). Gentiles respond to that light by becoming aware of God and respond by praising God, contemplating God, and obeying God's will.

In Judaism, the responsibilities and duties to God are different than those of Gentiles, but that doesn't mean Gentiles can't serve God or are a lesser quality of human being than Jews.

In Romans 11 Paul defines the "glue" that keeps both the Jewish and Gentile branches attached to the root as faith. Any branch, Jewish or Gentile can be attached to or knocked off the root based on the strength (or lack thereof) of their "glue".

Frankly, this is good news for me and something of a relief that it has always been God's plan to shine a light to all the world so that we would be able to see and acknowledge the light. Lately, I've been reading some statements from certain members of Messiniac Judaism that, on the surface, would seem to indicate that Gentiles aren't quite up to snuff and only exist within the MJ movement to further the interests of the Jewish members of MJ. In other words, Gentile human beings have no intrinsic worth to God just because we're people and created in God's image.

You could say I suppose, that I'm just engaging in wishful thinking, though. After all, Yeshua also said this:

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.

He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour. -Matthew 15:21-28

While calling the Canaanite woman a "dog" certainly seems to have been a denigrating comment, Yeshua responded to the woman's faith, if not her ethnicity. Of course, there are many times in the Gospels when it is said that "Yeshua knew what they were thinking" and so, he may have not been as critical of her as it seems but instead was offering her a test of faith. In that, we can all take a lesson. No matter how discouraging it may be when people put us down or say we are somehow inferior, it's our faith that God notices and responses to, not our ethnicity.

Here's another example:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering." Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."

The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour. -Matthew 8:5-13

At the end of the book of Matthew, Yeshua gave a directive to his Jewish disciples that the Christian church calls "the Great Commission" to go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teaching the nations (non-Jewish people) everything that Yeshua had taught the disciples.

It seems then that Gentiles in general and me in specific can have a relationship with God. He desires it. He set a light out so we could follow Him and praise His Name. But is there more to the relationship between Jew and Gentile, particularly in the "Messianic" framework than Jews being the light and Gentiles responding to the light? Something to consider in my next blog.

Dust and Genesis

To those who curse me, let my soul be silent; and let my soul be like dust to everyone.

Those words are part of the final paragraph an individual says at the end of the Shemoneh Esrei prayers as found in the Artscroll Siddur: Nusach Sefard. They speak of a deep humility, not only in the presence of God but in the presence of all other human beings. I suppose by virtue of the fact that I'm blogging here, I'm not allowing my soul to be silent and in expressing opinions, can I, or any other blogger in the realm of faith, be said to have our souls be like dust to everyone?

Probably not. And yet, something inside of me won't let me be silent. Vanity? Ego? The American need to "have my say?" I can't dismiss those possibilities and remain honest with myself, with anyone who may stumble across this blog, or with God. Therefore, I'll continue to chronicle my personal journey on the path, looking for illumination, and trust that there's a higher purpose for the words I'm posting to the web. I can't promise that everyone will agree with what I say here or that I'll completely avoid offending someone, however this blog isn't an exercise in political correctness. Remember, you were warned.

I suppose I should say here that there are those who may consider it inappropriate for me as a Gentile to quote from or reference in any way a Jewish siddur. I am sorry if this disturbs anyone, but despite the fact that I’m not Jewish, I find myself drawn to the beauty of these prayers.

I also need to say that I'm not writing the blog "at" anyone, although I do admit that recent conversations with members of particular factions within the Messianic Jewish movement have inspired my personal re-evaluation of my faith and how it's expressed. At the risk of sounding egotistical, this really is about me, however, I suspect, it's also about a lot of other non-Jews who are trying to find answers to the questions I'm posing here. In other words, try not to take anything I say personally.

Now let's continue.

I'm taking this opportunity to re-examine my faith beginning at a fundamental level. To turn a phrase, I'm taking it "back to formula". I'm not quite going to the basement level though. I'm willing to keep a few assumptions.

I'll assume that the Bible containing the Old and New Testament texts (or Tanakh and Apostolic Scriptures, if you prefer) is indeed the inspired Word of God and that, as it was originally given, those texts were and are the documented history of God in relation to people.

I'll also accept from those texts, that the Jewish people, the nation of Israel collectively and individually, are the chosen people of God and that they have a unique, covenental relationship with God that is not shared by the rest of humanity. This relationship is well documented in the Bible and in fact, the vast majority of the Bible speaks to the relationship between God and the Jewish people.

For me then, the question is, do non-Jewish people have a relationship with God or can we in some sense, request such a relationship, albeit one that is outside the covenant between God and Israel? More basically, does God only care about what happens to people who are Jewish or does he care about humanity as a whole as well? More personally, do I matter to God in even the smallest degree?

Let's look at some details. Has God ever had a relationship of any sort with people who aren't Jewish? If you go far enough back in the Bible, the answer is "yes".

No one will argue that the oldest members of Judaism are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There were no Jews before them. That means the first people God created, Adam and Eve, weren't Jewish. This is important because God had a personal relationship with Adam and Eve. They talked to God and God talked back...one to one.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"

He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." -Genesis 3:8-12

While this passage from Genesis doesn't describe the highest point in the lives of Adam and Eve, it certainly shows that a direct conversation was taking place between God and Adam and further more, that it mattered to God what Adam and Eve did and didn't do. They weren't irrelevant to God as living beings and in fact, they were special among all of the other living creations of God. Only human beings could disobey God and disappoint God.

I know what you're thinking. Things didn't work out so well for the non-Jewish creations of God prior to the days of Abraham and in fact, God brought a flood to the earth to destroy all living beings because their sin was so great. Only Noah and a few others were spared, along with just enough animals to repopulate the planet once the flood subsided. But let's consider Noah for a moment.

This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. -Genesis 6:9

Noah was a righteous man. By definition, he wasn't Jewish. God talked to him and he talked to God. He obeyed God and in that obedience, he was responsible for all living land and air creatures (as far as I'm aware, he didn't have huge aquarium on board the Ark) surviving the flood.

God can have a relationship with non-Jews. Non-Jews can be righteous. Non-Jews can obey God and walk with God. As it says in Genesis 6:22, Noah did everything just as God commanded him. After the flood subsided and Noah, his family, and all living things could come out of the Ark again, Noah did something interesting.

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. -Genesis 8:20-21

Noah built an altar and sacrificed clean animals and birds as burnt offerings on it. We usually associate that sort of behavior with the Children of Israel in the days of the Tabernacle and later the First and Second Temples. Interesting.

This isn't the first time the Bible records non-Jewish people offering sacrifices to God. Genesis 4:1-4 describes the sacrifices offered by Adam and Eve's sons Cain and Abel (and subsequently, the world's first murder, unfortunately). Thus Gentiles were able to talk to God, have God talk back to them, listen to God, obey God, be considered righteous by God, and to offer animal sacrifices to God which God could then accept or reject, depending on the motivation of the person offering the sacrifice.

In other words, Gentiles, before and at least right after the flood, had a relationship with God...at least some Gentiles did. This means that Gentiles who choose to listen to God and obey God are not insignificant to God and in fact are noticed and may even be considered important to God. Certainly the sins of Gentiles were significant to God since they resulted in the flooding of the whole Earth (or just the populated areas of the Earth, depending on whose theology you consider).

So far, so good. If God can have a relationship with Adam and Noah, maybe He'll be willing to have a relationship with Gentiles today, too, including me.

Looks like God is even willing to bless Gentiles:

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. -Genesis 9:1-3

It was from Noah's immediate family that the human population of the Earth was restored. Among Noah's children, Shem would be the ancestor of the Semitic peoples including the Jews. All the peoples of the Earth would come from Noah's line.

God "chose" Adam in the sense that He created Him. I don't know the process God used to create human life and if God "chose" Adam as a personality or if Adam was a generic "anyman". God did choose Noah specifically in response to Noah's righteous walk with God. Now God chooses Abram.

Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. -Genesis 12:6-7

This is the first time God makes a promise that will ultimately result in the Land of Canaan being the sacred inheritance of the Children of Israel (Abram's offspring through Isaac). Remember, Abram who subsequently is called Abraham by God, did not start out life as a Jew nor were all of his children considered Jewish. Yet he did establish a relationship with God as the One God of the Universe. He's also a model, like Noah, of righteousness through faith.

Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."

Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. -Genesis 15:4-6

Paul references this moment in Abraham's life in Romans 4:3 to illustrate that man is justified by faith, not by actions. Of course, Paul also referred to Abraham as "our forefather", so was he only talking to a Jewish audience and not including the Gentile believers? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Or am I?

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. -Romans 4:9-12

There's at least a hint here that justification by faith is available to both Jewish and Gentile believers, according to Paul. To recap, up until the time of Abraham, it was possible for non-Jewish people to have a relationship, even a relatively close relationship with God. Did that change with the ascent of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and Jacob's children? Did God so love the Jewish nation that He stopped considering everyone else? Were the Gentile nations relegated to being only "the bad guys" in the larger Biblical saga?

I don't believe so, but I'm forced to follow the Biblical narrative, step by step, tracing the lives of the Jews and Gentiles recorded there, trying to see where the relationship of Gentiles with God came from and what eventually happened to it. Did the covenant promises of God to the Jewish nation result in only Jews being loved, considered, and cared for by God? Is the rest of humanity just an exceptionally large field of dry grass that will eventually be thrown on the fire as the Jews enter the life of the world to come when Messiah returns?

So far, there are indications that it doesn't have to be this way particularly if you consider Paul's words in Romans, but I don't want my first "dusty" article on this topic to be overly long. I'll end my own narrative and analysis here at Genesis 15 and at Romans 4, but there's more to come. I hope to understand that the existence of non-Jewish humanity isn't completely irrelevant to God and that my own existence in the world and my worship of God isn't in vain. Will I succeed and can I find evidence for this in the Bible? We'll see shortly.

Stay tuned.