Define Jewish

One is a kind of rabbinic Dr. Phil, taking the unorthodox step of asking those saying Kaddish to rise from the pews — as if in a grief support group — and to talk about their deceased mother or aunt or lifelong friend. The other, like a jazz player improvising a new ritual on the fly, will switch from Hebrew to English to chant particularly meaningful sections of the Torah and Haftorah — and then offer a “short overview” of the significance of that section. Both rabbis are employing outside-the-box techniques — for Conservative synagogues, that is — and they are leading unlikely revivals of two such synagogues on Long Island, one in the North Shore town of Glen Cove, the other in the South Shore community of Freeport.

From The Jewish Week
Unorthodox Rabbis Growing Two L.I. Synagogues

I'm not trying to be divisive in publishing this blog post, but from a non-Jewish person's point of view, we have a tendency to have a rather narrow understanding of who is Jewish and what is Judaism. I thought I'd take a break from my current series of blogs and post this little tidbit. Along with the article above (the link leads to the full story), I saw this:

Like so many newly religious American immigrants to Israel, 20-year-old Sarah Weil immersed herself in Torah studies and the intricacies of Jewish law, learning intently with the strictest chasidic rebbetzins in various Jerusalem seminaries. “I desperately wanted to keep Torah and mitzvot and be in the Orthodox world,” said Weil, who made aliyah in 2005. There was only one problem — no matter how many times she tried to talk herself out of it, Weil, now 26, knew that she was gay, and that homosexuality is considered an abomination in the eyes of many in the Orthodox community.

From The Jewish Weekly
For Orthodox Lesbians, A Home Online

While internally, these two groups of people may consider themselves Jewish and experience their faith and their observance as Jewish, as we can see, larger Judaism has a problem with them. I say this because larger, mainstream Judaism has a problem with another group as well:

Under the headline "Yeshua Superstar," Yoaz Hendel looked at the Messianic Jewish community in Israel as part of a series on "Who is a Jew?" "They circumcise their children, celebrate bar mitzvah, get married at the rabbinate, but they believe in Yeshua as their Messiah. 15,000 Messianic Jews currently live in Israel. If you met them in the street or the army, you probably wouldn't know who they are ... A Shabbat table loaded with food, the father of the family bends his head and blesses for the food and a good life, everyone holds hands and answers amen. If this scene had been in English, you might have thought that it was an episode of 'A Little House on the Prairie' - except that the prairie is the Yad HaShmonah moshav near Jerusalem and those praying are native Hebrew-speaking Israelis - Messianic Jews.

From the Maoz Israel Blog
Who is a Jew?

Internally, Messianic Jews also consider themselves Jewish and experience their faith and their observance as Jewish and at the same time, larger, mainstream Judaism (there may be exceptions, but generally speaking) definitely has a problem with MJ, considering them not to be Jewish at all but in fact, Christian.

Despite their belief in Jesus, Messianic Jews insist that they are Jewish. They call their religious leaders rabbis, they call their houses of worship synagogues, and their articles of faith emphasize what they call their Jewishness.

Jewish leaders think otherwise. "He’s not running a Jewish synagogue," says Rabbi Tovia Singer, founder of an organization dedicated to opposing Christian proselytizing, speaking of Messianic rabbis in general. "It’s a church designed to appear as if it were a synagogue and I’m there to expose him. What these irresponsible extremist Christians do is a form of consumer fraud." Religious leaders across the Jewish spectrum have all declared that Messianic Jews are not Jews.

From the Wikipedia entry:
Messianic Judaism

In fact, Jews for Judaism is an organization created to specifically counter the Missionary efforts of organizations like Jews for Jesus and other faith groups that actively attempt to convince Jewish people that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Jewish Messiah. Messianic Judaism isn't just disapproved of among mainstream Jews but specifically resisted.

Each group I've mentioned attempts to define itself within the confines and limits of its own boundaries and then export that definition the groups outside itself. This doesn't usually work out too well, at least for "minority groups", as experience has shown, and building bridges, either between a minority group and the majority, or between two or more minorities, is difficult at best and, in the worst case scenario, impossible this side of the Messiah's coming (or return, depending on your viewpoint). The result can often lead to each "minority" group (defining mainstream and particularly Orthodox Judaism as the "majority" in this context) becoming increasingly isolated from the larger group and circling the wagons into an ever tighter and more self-contained community.

This is one way that Messianic Judaism tends to view Gentile One Law groups, but I suspect that the behavior is more widespread in the larger, more general "Messianic" realm as well. What we aren't taking into account (at least I've never seen it expressed in the Messianic blogosphere) is God's point of view.

Messianic/One Law/Two-House conversations tend to focus on the physical manifestations of religious practice and the specific text of the Bible as applied to our various viewpoints, but rarely do we directly talk about what God sees and what God wants out of us. We also don't seem to talk about who God thinks is and isn't a Jew and how God sees both Jewish and non-Jewish people who have come to faith in the Jewish Messiah (and I say this from the point of view of a non-Jewish person who has come to faith in who I believe is the Jewish Messiah).

Yeshua talked about creating one flock out of two pens which is another way of saying "unity" between believing Jewish and Gentile people. I'm not sure how that unity is supposed to play out and I suspect that even those people who seem sure of how that unity (or disunity) is to manifest, when push comes to shove, can't be 100% sure that they are right on each and every point.

God is sure. He knows who is Jewish and who isn't. He knows how or if there is supposed to be a significant difference in religious identity between believing Jews and Gentiles and between Messianic and non-Messianic Jews. In our current existence, we fret and moan over who is Jewish and who isn't and what it all means. I suspect in the World to Come, Messiah will solve all that for us and straighten out all our quarrels and feuds.

In the last days
the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.

Many nations will come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths."
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

He will judge between many peoples
and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

Every man will sit under his own vine
and under his own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the LORD Almighty has spoken.

All the nations may walk
in the name of their gods;
we will walk in the name of the LORD
our God for ever and ever.
-Micah 4:1-5