The King's Scroll

The 17th mitzvah is that we are commanded that every king who sits in rulership over the Jewish people shall write a Sefer Torah for himself; and that it shall never be separate from him.
Translated by Rabbi Berel Bell
Sefer Hamitzvot in English
The King's Torah Scroll
Chabad.org

"It shall not move from his presence except when he enters the bathroom, the bathhouse, or a place where one is forbidden to study. When he goes out to war, it must be with him; when he returns, it must be with him; when he sits in judgment, it must be with him; when he eats, it must be in front of him."
Rambam, Hilchos Melachim, Chapter 3, Halacha

"I will rise up at midnight to give thanks to You for Your righteous judgments." -Psalms 119:62

According to Deuteronomy 17:18, each King of Israel is to write for himself a copy of the Torah scroll. The Talmud interprets this as meaning the King will write two scrolls, one to be kept in the Treasury, and one to be kept, as we see in Rambam's commentary above, with the King at all times. If God's justice and mercy is before the King every waking moment, when he's eating breakfast, when he goes to war, when he sits in his home, when he goes along the way, then God's judgments will not be far from the King when the King issues his judgments over the people of Israel.

We who are disciples of the Jewish Messiah Jesus (Yeshua) have one King. If we are true to our faith, then he and his righteous judgments are always before us. He is our living Torah. But is he his own living Torah?

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14

It's common in Messianic circles to consider Jesus as the living embodiment of the commandments of God, the flesh and blood container for all of God's mercy, compassion, judgments, and ordinances, the Torah incarnate who dwelt among us. As the suffering servant, he set aside his Kingship and his majesty and he died, although he died with the titulus ironically declaring his Kingship nailed above his head. When he returns, he will come as avenging King. When he walked among men as a man, he obeyed all of the mitzvot without error or flaw. As King, he can do no less. But how will the King keep the Torah before him at all times?

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. -Revelation 19:11-16

I'm stretching the metaphor, probably beyond reasonable limits, I admit it. I can't say with any certainty that the commandment for a King of Israel to always have the Torah before him is fulfilled by his name written on his robe and his thigh. Yet it is a fascinating thought and a compelling image, that Yeshua is the Torah and that he wears the Torah, so to speak, upon him. He is the King of Israel; the final King. He is the Torah and the Torah is with him.

But what about us? Deuteronomy 31:19 is understood by the sages as a commandment for every Jew to write for himself a scroll of the Torah, even if he has inherited a scroll from his father. In modern times, the commandment is fulfilled by most Jews, in purchasing a book of Torah rather than writing it out by hand.

It is said that many of the commandments do not apply to Gentile disciples of the Jewish Messiah. I certainly don't think the Talmudic masters intended for non-Jews to be obligated to the commandment of writing a copy of the Torah. It's not a common concern among Christians certainly. Nevertheless, we have this:

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. -Deuteronomy 22:4-5

As the King wears his name, so will we wear his name and we will belong to him. You may believe you belong to him now, and I certainly cannot refute this. However, the "throne of God and of the Lamb" is not yet with us (Revelation 22:3) and we do not yet serve only him with wholehearted devotion as we will in Messianic days. Today, we can keep his name and his word before us by studying the Bible, by associating with other believers, by performing acts of kindness and compassion, by attempting to embrace a mystic understanding of the Messiah beyond the literal word, and by praying that his "will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:8).

Pray that the King comes soon and in our days.

To the Hasidic mind Devekuth and Kawwanah were the primary emotional values, a significance which they had by no means always had before. "That is the meaning of Devekuth that when he fulfills the commandments or studies the Torah, the body becomes a throne for the soul...and the soul a throne for the light of the Shekhinah which is above his head, and the light as it were flows all round him, and he sits in the midst of the light and rejoices in trembling."
from Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
by Gershom Scholem

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

Writing a Reality Check in Mystic Realms

'Major Trends...' is broken down into nine lectures. He covers everything from the beginings of Jewish mysticism up to modern times. He traces its origen from the Second Temple era, through the apocalyptic/pseudepigrapha period, and right into Jewish gnosticism with the Thrown (merkabah) mysticism. The 'Hekhaloth Books' (hekhaloth: the heavenly halls or palaces the visionary passes through on his way to the seventh heaven where there rises the thrown of divine glory) are well known for the their similarity to standard gnostic works. The caves around Khirbet Qumran are another (Dead Sea Scrolls). He covers all aspects of this; the 'Song of Songs' and its mystical meaning (it was banned until a man reached 40 years old), the Shi'ur Komah (Measure of the Body of God), and all the magical elements that encompassed this, also theurgy, and so on.
Amazon.com review (all spelling errors belong to the reviewer)
of Gershom Scholem's book
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

As I mentioned before, I'm a skeptic at heart. A book like this one wouldn't likely catch my attention and certainly wouldn't win any praise from me. So many books like these are fanciful, unbiblical, and simply outright inconsistent with what I know to be true from the Bible. Colton Burpo's story was a refreshing and surprisingly accurate portrait of what awaits each of us whose destiny is Heaven. I read the book with a critical eye, looking for those little details that would prove this story to be at best inaccurate or at worst a fraud. I couldn't find them. His tale seemed honest. His descriptions fit the way a child would describe things, not one whose words had been fed him by an adult. Some of his revelations were simply amazing!
Amazon.com review of Todd and Sonja Burpo's (with Lynn Vincent) book
Heaven is for Real

I know these are two books you wouldn't expect to be quoted side-by-side, but hear me out. There's a reason I'm tossing both of them into the same conceptual bucket.

I was on a Christian blog this morning where the blog writer was touting the virtues of the Burpo's book. For those of you who haven't heard of it (and it's been all over the news), at age four, Colton Burpo suffered a life-threatening incident whereby, according to the book, he "slips from consciousness and enters heaven" (from the Product Description of the book on Amazon). To continue with the description, "He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear."

After reading the book, one Amazon reviewer, Pastor Micah Mauldin AKA "The Heavy Revy", wrote a response, part of which I quoted above.

Apparently, I'm more skeptical than Pastor Mauldin, because I think it's pretty strange that this child is relating a vision of Heaven that matches so precisely the expectations of modern, western Christianity. If little Colton's experiences were "real", then wouldn't we expect to hear revelations that are unexpected or different interpretations of Heaven than what we have in current Christian doctrine? We know that Colton is being raised in a Christian family and in fact, his father, Todd Burpo, is a Pastor in Nebraska. Frankly, I'd be a lot more convinced of Colton's reports if his parents were atheists or belonged to another faith and he still related a story that matched what we understand of Heaven from the Bible. It's fairly likely that, whatever Colton experienced at age four, as he became older and more verbal, he "filtered" his experiences through the lens of his Christian upbringing as taught by his church and his Pastor father.

Now that I've probably won the "Ebenezer Scrooge" and "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" awards for most mean-spirited reviewer (and it should be noted that I haven't read the Burpo book), you may be wondering why I bring all this up.

I'm writing a "reality check". In a few of my past blog posts, including A Brief Meeting with the Mystic and Search for the Messiah in Pools of Unknowing, I've presented something of my introductory understanding to serious Jewish Mysticism as I attempt to relate some of the concepts it contains to my understanding of and faith in the Jewish Messiah. I am also very conscious of the human capacity (including my human capacity) for self-delusion and wish-fulfillment. I could hardly suggest that the Burpo family, and the many Christians who find their expectations of Heaven realized in young Colton Burpo, are guilty of "reading between the lines", and still enthusiastically proclaim that mysticism is the method by which we can and must understand Jesus (Yeshua) with complete confidence.

In other words, let's slow down a minute and catch our breath (and maybe I'm the only one who is acknowledging the need to take a breather). At this point in my journey, I'm an investigator or explorer looking at possibilities, not an inventor who's already made a great discovery and is seeking support. Maybe I'm onto something and maybe I'm not. I think I'm on the right track, but it's important to pause and to question the assumptions I'm forming, without getting caught up in the potential of the mystic writings and perceptions to interpret Jesus in a fresh and exciting way.

It occurred to me yesterday that, back in January, I said I was going to strip my faith, or at least my dogma and doctrine, down to its gears, wires, and batteries, but it seems as if faith can't exist in its most raw and basic condition for very long. Already, I'm building a system back up and forgetting my original intention. The whole reason I created this blog (and I've said this more than once) was to question my assumptions and to honestly examine my beliefs. I have to do this with what I'm currently constructing as well as with what I've been deconstructing.

On Derek Leman's blog post Biblical Glimpses into Mystical Horizons, Carl Kinbar made this comment:

For (Max) Kadushin, devekut is should be part and parcel of the holy life. This approach is based on the realization that God is near in everything and does not require that we put aside our lives in order to commune with Him. Thus, we encounter the Word as we are immersed in the written word. We connect with God’s presence in the blessings. Etc. But none of this happens apart from a deep thirst for God that prepares the way for him to show himself to us in new ways even in the midst of the ordinary.

In other words, experiencing God in a "mystic" way doesn't always entail entering into meditative states, taking extreme measures, or experiencing highly "unusual" visions. We can "experience God" in many ways, sometimes just in the ordinary events of our lives, or in prayer, or in acts of charity, or in reading the Bible.

No, I'm not giving up my exploration of Jewish Mysticism as a method of approaching the Messiah, and I'm not surrendering in the midst of my journey into the mystic. But I do want to assure you that I do take a few breaks to stop, look at my surroundings, and make a candid assessment of where I'm coming from, where I'm going, and how I arrived at my current location.

The next time you find yourself in an "Oh Wow! Gee Whiz! That's incredible!" situation, take a moment and make sure that it really is outside the normal realm of existence and that it's coming from God...rather than your expectations, desires, imagination, or your need to have all the pieces of the puzzle fit "just so".

I know that's a strange thing for a person of faith to say (since having faith in God means that, by definition, I believe in the supernatural), especially one who is looking into a mystic tradition, but in exploring the dangerous and potentially hostile unknown outlands, we must keep an anchor in the safe and the known, lest we be swept away into imagination and unreality. The veil between the mystical and fantasy is very much thinner than we'd like to believe.

God is real, but not everything we experience is from God. Sometimes, we are very good authors of our own play. We just fool ourselves about the identity of the playwright.

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

Sages , Students, and Rebels: How to Tell the Difference

Our Sages said explicitly, "Between [honoring] his father and his teacher, his teacher comes first. "The Sages have already explained that it is forbidden for a student to dispute his teacher, i.e. to reject his authority, to give separate interpretations, and to teach or issue rulings without his permission. It is forbidden for him to argue with him, or speak angrily to him, or to judge him harshly, i.e. to give any kind of [non-literal] explanation to his action or speech, since it is possible that this was not his intention.

Sefer Hamitzvot in English
Respecting the Sages
Positive Commandment 209
Chabad.org

I can agree with that as far as it goes. When you agree to come under the authority of a Rebbe or a Sage, you agree to "the rules of conduct", so to speak, including the Sage's right to issue rulings, and your responsibility to treat him with the respect and honor that is his due. It would be foolish of a student or disciple to make such an agreement and then dispute and argue against the Rebbe at every turn. It would be (to use an extreme example) as if Peter, John, and other members of Yeshua's (Jesus's) inner circle were to get in his face and disagree with his directives and his commandments. Why bother becoming a Rebbe's disciple if you aren't there to learn from him?

However, this also means you should do your homework on the Sage and his teachings before hand. I can't speak to the nature and character of the teachers operating in 1st century "Roman Judea", but I know for certain that today in both the "Messianic" and "Christian" movements (and in the places where they overlap), there are many so-called "teachers", Pastors, leaders, and self-styled "Rabbis" who are not reliable or honest scholars, and who have assumed positions of authority over groups, not to sanctify the Name of God and to teach others of His ways, but to glorify themselves, create a personal power base and, in some situations, to make money off the deal.

Sadly, many of these "teachers" will misuse the commandments to try and make themselves "criticism-proof". I've seen it happen more than once:

Our Sages said in the Talmudic chapter "HaChelek", "Anyone who goes against his teacher is as if he went against the Divine Presence., as it is written [regarding Korach], 'when they rebelled against G-d,'"; "Anyone who makes a dispute against his teacher is as if he made a dispute against the Divine Presence, as it is written, 'These are the Waters of Dispute where the Israelites disputed with G-d'"...

We have sections of the Torah (Deuteronomy 13:1-5, Deuteronomy 18:20-22) that teach about a false prophet, but what do you do about a false teacher? We see in both the Torah and the Apostolic Scriptures that we are to revere a Sage and to treat a leader with respect:

Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people. -Exodus 22:28

Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. -1 Timothy 5:1-2

The commentary of Paul in 1 Timothy 5 can be applied to Sages and teachers since the Talmud interprets respecting the aged person (Leviticus 19:32) in the same manner. But while I cannot find (at least in this limited study) a Torah or Talmudic provision for dealing with a less-than-sincere leader or teacher, Paul offers one to the Messianic community:

The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” (Deuteronomy 25:4) and “The worker deserves his wages.” (Luke 10:7) Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning. I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. -1 Timothy 5:17-21

Here, Paul continues the general theme of honoring a teacher and a leader, but he also acknowledges that a leader can sin, and offers the congregation the ability to respond when a leader strays outside of behaving in accordance to the position of authority they have been granted by God.

In our modern, western culture, we have a strong history of defending the rights of the individual and questioning authority figures, sometimes to an extreme. Human beings tend towards abusing power when they acquire it (just look at the arena of politics) and even entering leadership with the best possible motives, an honest person can be seduced by the allure of self-gratification and thus abuse their authority and the people they are to be serving.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” -Mark 9:35

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. -John 13:12-17

More so than any other teacher who has ever walked, the great Rebbe Yeshua of Nazareth deserves high honors and authority and his teaching is not to be questioned. Yet he humbled himself to wash the feet of his own disciples (and humbled himself even to death for the sake of many) to illustrate to them, and to us, the proper role of the teacher.

As a mentioned before, we are used to, as a culture, questioning and disobeying rightful authority and to "having our say" and "standing our ground". While this is sometimes necessary, our "rights" can easily become a barrier to obeying the example of the Jewish Messiah in humbling ourselves before God and before His Sages (and remember what Paul said about not showing favoritism to one person as leader over another), so that we might learn his good and upright ways. Be a responsible student. Choose a teacher wisely. If you discover you've come under the authority of one not fit to teach or lead, Paul has provided a method of addressing such a person. Beyond that, if you've selected your teacher carefully, then obey the commandment and do not rebel. Most of all, do not rebel against the Rebbe to whom we are all disciples.

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

Heeding Jesus the Righteous Prophet

The 172nd mitzvah is that we are commanded to obey each of the Prophets, may they rest in peace, and to fulfill all their instructions. Even if his instructions contradict one or many of these commandments, [we are commanded to obey him] as long as his instructions are temporary. This does not apply, however, if he permanently adds or subtracts [from the commandments], as we explained in the Introduction to our Commentary on the Mishneh.

The source of this commandment is G-d's statement (exalted be He), "To him you must listen." In the words of the Sifri: "The verse, 'To him you must listen,' means that even if he tells you to temporarily transgress one of the commandments of the Torah, you must listen to him."

Sefer Hamitzvot in English
Heeding a Prophet
Positive Commandment 172
Chabad.org

What?

This is very confusing. Why, if the Torah of God is perfect, would a Prophet be commanded (Prophets don't speak on their own authority; they speak the words of God, otherwise, they're false Prophets) to temporarily contradict or override one or more of the commandments?

The commentary I quoted from above contains a footnote with the answer:

See Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 9:3, where the example is brought of the prophet Elijah, who brought an offering on Mount Carmel, in spite of the prohibition to bring offerings outside the Temple in Jerusalem. Since it was a temporary measure — only to disprove the idolatry of Baal — it was permitted.

What this says to me is that, under certain circumstances, a Prophet may, as directed by God, temporarily override or disobey a commandment to uphold a higher commandment or to "make a point", so to speak.

That brings me to the class I taught last night.

Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. -Matthew 12:9-14

Jesus (Yeshua) could have waited until the next day to heal the man's shriveled hand. The fellow had probably lived with it for years and waiting one more day wouldn't have made much of a difference. Even in Israel today, on Shabbat, such a disability probably wouldn't be treated by observant Jewish doctors, and only injuries and illness where the person was suffering would be attended to. Christ's example, ("if any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath") doesn't seem to be a good comparison, because a sheep falling into a pit could be injured and might die (or at least suffer terribly) if not rescued from the pit immediately. Not so with this man's shriveled hand.

So why did Jesus heal the man's hand on the Shabbat, especially when he knew the group of Pharisees present were just looking for an excuse to bring charges against him? Why did Jesus (apparently) violate the Shabbat?

While it's passages such as this one that traditional Christianity use as a "proof text" to illustrate that the Shabbat, along with the rest of "the Law", was done away with by Jesus, it's more likely (this presupposes the authority of the ancient Jewish sages to render opinions based on Torah and Oral Law) that the Jewish Messiah was acting in the role of a Prophet. Certainly as the Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8), he would know precisely what is and isn't permitted Shabbat behavior, but using the example of the 172nd mitzvah, we see that he could also temporarily suspend or weaken a portion of his Shabbat observance to obey a higher commandment or to "make a point". In this case, (my opinion), I think Jesus is saying that doing good is upholding the spirit and intention of the Shabbat, as opposed to manipulating the commandments in order to snare someone (which seems to be what the Pharisees were up to).

The Shabbat isn't a straight jacket that God uses to restrict us and to frustrate us. It's a protection from the troubles and problems we must endure the rest of the week. It's a "protected zone" where we are more free to pursue our experiencing God and to behave more completely out of His desires, including "loving our neighbor" (Mark 12:31), which is an extension of the commandment to love God (see Mark 12:28-34 for the complete context). The behavioral restrictions associated with the Shabbat are there to guide us and to help us structure how to observe the Shabbat, not to provide a list of "thou shalt nots".

Keep in mind that Jesus, as a true and righteous Prophet, as well as the Messiah, could not permanently override any of God's Torah because to do so, would have made him a false Prophet...and we know there is nothing false about the Jewish Messiah.

We are told to heed the Prophet because he speaks in the Name of God and not on his own authority (Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." -John 5:19). We are also told in the 6th mitzvah to "cling to the Sages" (based on Deuteronomy 10:20), imitating them in their "good and upright ways" because heeding and imitating a tzadik (righteous person) brings us closer to clinging to God.

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

Depths

Hundreds of linguistic and ideological differences between the commonly accepted Masoretic version of the Pentateuch and the Samaritan text indicate that editing may be one of the world's oldest professions.
Professor Yair Hoffman
Bible Studies / The things that you're liable to read in the Bible
Written for HAARETZ.com

In Israel, a new archaeological “discovery” of sorts is buzzing and making bold claims that they may be the next “Dead Sea Scrolls.” They include a collection of scrolls as well as 70 lead codices (ancient scripts bound in book form, rather than as scrolls). However, we have conflicting reports on the nature of these “newly found” artifacts. They are owned by “Hassan Saeda, a Bedouin farmer in Galilee who says they have been in his family’s possession since his great-grandfather found them in a cave in Jordan, a century ago.” Although there is still a lot of skepticism surrounding these artifacts, there are some strong voices that are willing to attest to their authenticity, wanting to avoid another possible Shapiro Affair.
from the Digging with Darren blog

How did the things we read now in the books of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John get written down in the form we now have them? There are many decisions to make if we try to reconstruct a possible or probably story of gospel transmission. I’ll try to make the story interested, not too bogged down with long lists of sources and proofs. I’ll keep that kind of writing short and refer the reader to various scholars such as Mark Goodacre, Richard Bauckham, Paul Anderson, and others that I know I will find along the way have added something significant to an understanding of gospel transmission.
Derek Leman
Chronicling the Formation of the Gospels #1
from the Yeshua in Context blog

All of the quotes you've just read have something in common. They are all the opening paragraphs of articles addressing the struggle we have in understanding, and in some cases locating, the Word of God. While many Christians in the world believe that the Bible, as it is translated into English (or as it is rendered in people's favorite English translation) is totally sufficient as the original, inerrant, Word of God; the source of truth and facts about God, Jesus, and everything, is this really so?

The quotes I posted and the articles they come from seem to indicate that the Bible, all by itself, as we have it today, isn't the end all and be all of the word of God.

I don't say this by way of complaint. I'm beginning to come to terms with the uncertainty that the Bible introduces as a "stand-alone" document and the requirement of interpretation and examination in "studying the Word". Yet, while we rely on the Bible for so many things, we can also be ignorant of what the Bible can't do for us.

He was born in Israel and lives in the north. He trains rabbinical court judges and writes essays on the weekly Torah portion, which he says are well-respected. Clearly possessed of a sharp, inquisitive mind, he could be described as a religious sage. During the flight, he was preparing a commentary on the Torah portion of Miketz, in Genesis, and he shared various questions and insights with me. I referred to variations of certain words in Genesis as they appear in the Samaritan Pentateuch, and to how the Greek Septuagint translation of the Bible contains sentences that do not appear in the Masoretic version.

My fellow passenger did not know what I was talking about. Not only was he unaware of the existence of ancient versions of the Bible, but he also lacked knowledge of the essence of the Masoretic text - the canonical Hebrew text redacted by scholars in Palestine and Babylon toward the end of the first millennium. He did not know, for instance, that the diacritical marks date only from the 10th century, or that manuscripts and later printed versions of the Masoretic text are not identical.

Yair Hoffman, professor emeritus of Bible Studies at Tel Aviv University, was describing a man he met on a recent flight from New York, a man who was an ultra-Orthodox Jew and who "trains rabbinical court judges and writes essays on the weekly Torah portion, which he says are well-respected." Yet, as Hoffman relates, this intelligent "religious sage" did not grasp some of the most basic facts about the Bible, what it is, and where it comes from. How can this be?

How can this be for any of us?

In my own case, I just didn't know any better. Fortunately I found out (the hard way) and once I got over my shock, I started consuming every text I could lay my hands on, specifically on the New Testament, and with a focus on Jesus and the "deity issue".

Our own Messianic Bible scholar, Derek Leman, addresses similar matters regarding the Gospels in a recent blog post and I certainly hope he continues to write articles for his series "Chronicling the Formation of the Gospels". It's not enough to "have" the Bible as it exists today. "Having" isn't understanding. Like a pool of unknown depths, we must go beyond the surface, brave the shadowy waters, and search for what awaits us as we dive into a sea of many hidden truths.

I had rather high hopes for the recently discovered lead codices before I found out that they were fakes. I did entertain the interesting question "are they Christian or Kabbalistic" with the hopeful thought that they could, in their own way, be both. That may sound strange to some of you, but I've found that looking at the mystery of the Jewish Messiah through a mystic and Chasidic lens has revealed more to me than most traditional Christian commentaries and dogmatic interpretations.

Saying "the Bible isn't enough" probably sounds horrible and maybe even a bit heretical, but if a surface reading of the Bible were enough, we wouldn't have commentaries, interpretations, and scholarly theological theses. Certainly observant Jews don't think the Bible is enough. Otherwise, we (they) wouldn't have Talmud, Mishna, and Gemara. When I introduce this topic among some folks associated with my congregation, I get the argument that we must rely on the Word of God, not the word of man. Yet the Bible we have today is as much (if not more) the word of the human writers, interpreters, and translators as it is the Word of the One, True God of the Universe.

While the "facts" of the Bible may be contradictory, and the truth of the Bible remains elusive, somewhere in the middle of man, God, and the words on the page, I see an inviting but mysterious portal. Paul said that in the present age, we see the things of God as "through a dark glass" (1 Corinthians 13:12). I believe we're looking at the surface of a body of water. We can't tell what's under that surface, how deep the water goes, how hot or cold it is, and what sub-sea enigmas it contains. If we want to know what God has to tell us, we have to dive in, sometimes half-blind, and pray that once we've made our "leap of faith", we will find the illumination under the blue waves that we can't find in the light of day.

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

Treating God as Holy

In the end of tractate Sanhedrin, they ask, "Is a non-Jew commanded to sanctify G-d's Name or not? Here is a statement which proves it: 'The seven commandments of the non-Jews.' If you include this one [i.e. to sanctify G-d's Name], there would be eight!" From this we see that, for Jews, [sanctification of G-d's Name] counts as a mitzvah.

Sefer Hamitzvot
Sanctifying G-d's Name
Positive Commandment 9
Chabad.org

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog post and on numerous other occasions, there are many things that non-Jews can learn from Jewish tradition to help us understand the nature of God and our place as disciples of the Jewish Messiah. While there are a number of commonly applied concepts we can find and study, there are also many demarcation points as well.

The quote I posted above from today's small study of the daily digest of the teachings of Maimonides, seems to tell us that non-Jews do not have a duty to sanctify (make holy) the Name of God, or at least, for we non-Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah, it's not considered a mitzvah (a religious duty, an obligation to God, or an act of lovingkindness).

The lesson I read includes the responsibility of a Jew to love, fear, and sanctify the Name of God. Do none of these apply to non-Jews?

The 3rd mitzva is that we are commanded to love G-d (exalted be He), i.e. to meditate upon and closely examine His mitzvos, His commandments, and His works, in order to understand Him; and through this understanding to achieve a feeling of ecstasy. This is the goal of the commandment to love G-d.

Sefer Hamitzvot
Loving G-d
Positive Commandment 3
Chabad.org

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” -Mark 12:29-31

While Jesus (Yeshua) is quoting from the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) and addressing a Jewish audience, the fact that he commanded his Jewish disciples to "go and make disciples of all nations...teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you (from Matthew 28:19-20), indicates that the command to love God applies to the rest of us as well. Also, Noahide.org states the second commandment that must be obeyed by the non-Jewish peoples of the world is to "Respect G-d and Praise Him". This doesn't seem to necessitate "love", but it does define an attitude toward God beyond simple belief.

What about fearing God?

The 4th mitzvah is that we are commanded to establish in our minds fear and dread of G‑d (exalted be He); that we not be calm and nonchalant, but be constantly concerned of imminent punishment [for misdeeds.]

The biblical source of this commandment is G‑d's statement (exalted be He), "You shall fear G‑d your Lord."

Sefer Hamitzvot
Fearing G-d
Positive Commandment 4
Chabad.org

"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." -Luke 12:4-5

That seems to take care of fear. But is there anything Jesus said or a teaching in the Apostolic scriptures that commands non-Jewish disciples to sanctify the Name of God? Before proceeding, let's take a quick look at the definition of "sanctify".

To make holy; to consecrate. Set aside for sacred or ceremonial use; To free from sin; to purify; To make acceptable or useful under religious law or practice; To endorse with religious sanction.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sanctify

Make holy, to reverence as holy, or to give authority to.
www.godonthe.net/dictionary/s.html

I'd probably expand that a bit to include "to honor", "to elevate", "to treat as holy and separate". When we sanctify the Name of God, we perform acts (prayer, charity, righteous deeds) that lift up the reputation of God in our eyes and in the eyes the world. Based on what we find in the Torah and Talmud, no one would question a Jew's duty to sanctify the Name of God. But does a non-Jew, and particularly a non-Jew who has become a disciple of the Jewish Messiah, have the same duty?

Maybe...maybe not. It depends on what translation of the Bible you're using.

The King James Bible translates 1 Peter 3:15 as:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear

This seems to give us an answer that we Gentile disciples have the same, or similar duty to God as do the Jews, to sanctify or to make holy His Name. However, virtually every other Bible translation, at least in English, says something like "But in your hearts set apart (sanctify) Christ as Lord" (New International Version), specifying our duty to sanctify Christ or the Messiah, not God the Father. You can see the list of translations for the verse I'm referring to at bible.cc.

There are a number of verses in the Apostolic scriptures that talk about people being sanctified by God or His Spirit (Romans 15:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Jude 1:1) and that we are sanctified in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2, 1 Corinthians 6:11), but we don't see a lot said about us specifically sanctifying or making holy the Name of God in our lives or in the lives of others as non-Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah.

I can't believe we aren't supposed to, or that we are somehow forbidden to, treat the Name of God as Holy. Yet it is apparent that, from a Jewish point of view, this duty rests solely in the hands of those who received the Torah from the Prophet Moses at Sinai. This may well be true if you believe that only the 7 Noahide Laws apply to all Gentiles everywhere, but did not the coming of the Messiah and the opportunity Matthew 28:19-20 affords us to become his disciples not change anything for us?

It's probably my poor scholarship that is creating the problem here from a Christian perspective, but where can we see that, as Christians or disciples of the Messiah, we have a responsibility to treat as holy and honorable, the Name of God? I hate to say it this way, but it makes "common sense" that we are supposed to revere the Name of God. After all, we know we are to love Him and to reverently fear Him. But where is the Holiness by which we are to treat Him? Didn't Jesus teach us anything about that?

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

Who to Believe?

In this New York Times bestseller, leading Bible expert Bart Ehrman skillfully demonstrates that the New Testament is riddled with contradictory views about who Jesus was and the significance of his life. Ehrman reveals that many of the books were written in the names of the apostles by Christians living decades later, and that central Christian doctrines were the inventions of still later theologians. Although this has been the standard and widespread view of scholars for two centuries, most people have never learned of it.

Amazon.com product description of
Jesus Interrupted by Bart Ehrman

In "How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?" Larry Hurtado investigates the keen devotion to Jesus that emerged with surprising speed after his death. Reverence for Jesus among early Christians, notes Hurtado, included both grand claims about Jesus' significance and a pattern of devotional practices that effectively treated him as divine. Directed at readers across religious lines, this book argues that whatever one makes of such devotion to Jesus, the subject at least deserves serious historical consideration.

Amazon.com product description of
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God by Larry W. Hurtado

I've just started reading Hurtado's book, but I'm already impressed with both his scholarship and humility. I've already read and reviewed Ehrman's book and although I don't agree with all of his conclusions, he too makes a compelling case. And thereby lies my problem.

I've been turning this issue over in the back of my mind for awhile, but reading Hurtado yesterday forced the issue to the surface, something like an eruption at Old Faithful. It wasn't the only catalyst, but I'll explain the rest in a moment.

I've been reading books written by all of these scholars, theologians, and Bible experts and trying to put everything they're telling me into some kind of framework that makes sense and helps me sort out my faith. The problem is, most of them make a sort of sense and I can see all of their points of view. They're well educated and they know their stuff. The problem is, they don't all agree with each other. The real problem is, I don't operate at anywhere near their level of intelligence or education. How am I supposed to critique and evaluate one view vs. the other? How am I supposed to read all these books and say "this one's right and that one's wrong?"

This isn't just a matter of deciding between Ehrman, a New Testament scholar who is an agnostic and most assuredly doesn't believe in the deity of Jesus, and Hurtado, a Professor of New Testament Language and theology at the University of Edinburgh, who certainly does make a case for the deity of Christ, but all of the other learned teachers who have published their opinions and understandings.

For instance, Hurtado mentions Maurice Casey and his book From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God, which I also reviewed and found convincing, and refutes Casey's conclusions that the church arrived at the decision to "make" Jesus a God centuries after the resurrection and ascension. Hurtado makes a pretty good point about the early adoption of the worship of Jesus, but I either have to take his word for it that Casey is wrong or somehow replicate Hurtado's and Casey's research and see for myself, which is beyond my cognitive and educational abilities.

It's not just the big time experts either. I happened to mention (and I've been mentioning this a lot), that I find Paul Philip Levertoff's perspective on the Gospels to be particularly convincing, largely because Levertoff seems to solve many of my personal problems with the traditional Christian viewpoint on Christ. However, there are other opinions that oppose my personal judgment:

Let us stop to consider what you are arguing here: you are arguing that a first-century Jewish teacher is better understood in the context of eighteenth-century Jewish mysticism from Poland derived primarily from a thirteenth-century work of Jewish mysticism from Spain than in the context of his students' (John) students' (Polycarp) students (Iraneus) ninety years later.

While I think you can make a case that the unique perspectives of a Chasidic Jewish scholar who lived less than 100 years ago might say more about the ancient Jewish teachings of Jesus than Gentiles who lived much closer to the time of Christ, I'm hardly an expert and after all, I can be wrong. The young man who made this comment on one of my recent blog posts is intelligent and certainly better educated in both Christian and Jewish theologies than I am. In trying to understand, explain, and defend my evolving comprehension of who Jesus is and what he taught, I'm barely able to keep my head above water.

How do people do it? How do people seem so completely sure of what they believe, not just in general, but down to the most minute details?

I do have one answer. I noticed something when I was reading Hurtado's book. I bought a used copy from Amazon and the book has various highlights and underlines (apparently made by the original owner of the book) pointing out specific parts of the text. So far, I've noticed that the passages treated thus all support the deity of Jesus and the idea that worship of Jesus as God occurred almost immediately after the ascension and certainly within the first 30 years after the ascension of the Jewish Messiah to the right hand of God the Father.

I think people read books that support the positions they already hold. I previously made the point that I thought Bowman's and Komoszewski's book Putting Jesus in His Place seemed specifically written for an audience that already believed the book's central assumptions (and the book is written as a teaching aid for Bible studies to present the conclusions of the authors).

I suppose only reading books that support your already held beliefs works in a sense, but what about people like me who are trying to get a wider perspective? Are we just supposed to take an expert's or a group of experts' word that they are right and everyone else is wrong? Which expert or experts are we supposed to believe? On what basis do we choose to believe one scholar and not the other? I want to be a good "Berean", but apparently they were a lot smarter than I am.

I can see agnostics and atheists believing Ehrman because his viewpoint supports their own. I can see evangelical Christians believing Bowman and Komoszewski because the points they make in their book support the evangelical view of Jesus. I can see more scholarly Christians who support the deity of Christ going for Hurtado's book because that's what he presents. I can see people like me, who need to believe that Christianity isn't totally and completely divorced from a Jewish conceptualization (Jewish Messiah teaching Jewish disciples, revealing mysteries in a Jewish mystic context in first century Judea...seems like there ought to be a Jewish interpretation being employed to me) gravitating toward people like Levertoff, who see the Gospels as closely mapping to Chasidic mystical teachings.

But are we supposed to make these sort of conclusions based on what seems or feels right to us? Is there nothing objective to our understanding of God? In the final analysis, are we just letting our personalities determine what is right and what is wrong as far as how we understand our faith in Jesus?

If anyone's got an answer to these questions, I'm all ears.

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

Is the Church Even Remotely "Christian"?

Bell correctly notes (many times) that God is love. He also observes that Jesus is Jewish, the resurrection is important, and the phrase “personal relationship with God” is not in the Bible. He usually makes his argument by referencing Scripture. He is easy to read and obviously feels very deeply for those who have been wronged or seem to be on the outside looking in.

Pastor Kevin DeYoung
from his blog post: A Review of "Love Wins"

I read an interview with a scholar recently in which he talked about the patronizing concept of the Jewishness of Jesus. I’m not precisely sure what he had in mind as the interview did not get specific enough on this point and I have not read enough of this scholar’s work to be sure what opinions he holds. I do know one complaint he had: people who say their historical presentation of Jesus is a Jewish Jesus and then proceed to explain how Jesus is radically different from their notion of the Judaism of his time.

Derek Leman
from his blog post: Jewish Jesus.

A few days ago, I posted an article on this blog called Who Gets to Define Christianity?. It was my "rant" about how the argument over Rob Bell's new book Love Wins seems to have given Evangelical Christian pastors a license to define the particulars of the Christian faith for the rest of us, including those of us who aren't specifically attached to evangelicalism. Among other things this morning, I read Derek Leman's blog (one of them anyway...he has many) and started wondering if the actual, lived person we call "Jesus" would recognize anything about how we express our worship of him today?

That question may come as a shock to some of you, while others may just assume that the church today bears little resemblance to what the Jewish Messiah taught his disciples in the ancient Middle East 20 centuries ago.

What is Christianity? That may seem like a question with a simple answer, but it's not really. To answer the question, we have to take what the Jewish Messiah established as an expression of the living essence of God and the Torah, and then filter it through all of the defining acts and events that have occurred since the birth, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Once Jesus handed off the torch to his Jewish disciples, who then brought in just a boatload of non-Jewish disciples, who then established "the church", what has changed?

Not being a historian, I can't answer that question with any sense of authority, but I do know that we don't have an unadulterated and unchanged way of understanding and responding to Jesus from the time of the original Apostles. I know there are movements, such as the Eastern Orthodox Christian church, who believe they represent an unbroken chain of understanding and faith from the days of Peter and Paul, but I don't believe this is true.

If it were true, then Christian worship and belief as expressed in those churches, would look remarkably "Jewish"...and it doesn't.

There's no indication in the Bible (here's where I'm going to get into trouble) that there was a specific understanding of God as a "Trinity", yet the Eastern Orthodox church holds such a doctrine. There is also significant use made of iconic images and objects which, based on the commandment, You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (Exodus 20:4), would have made all of the original Jewish Apostles bristle. I really think Paul would have told all of the non-Jewish disciples to ditch the statues.

I don't want to hammer the Eastern Orthodox church or any other faith group, but I do want to illustrate that I don't believe any modern church institution can trace their worship and doctrine directly back to Jesus with absolutely no change in form or substance. In fact, I think there have been just a ton of changes.

Without going into a lot of detail, it seems that several centuries after Peter, Paul, and the rest of the Jewish Apostles had shuffled off this mortal coil, a bunch of non-Jewish guys got together and made some rather defining decisions about what Christianity was and wasn't. As early as about 150 C.E., a group of men we call "the church fathers" (Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and so on) generated various teachings and writings designed to "defend the faith" as it were.

Of course, the "biggie" as far as defining Christianity in the early centuries of the Post-Jesus era, are a number of "councils" instituted by the Emperor Constantine, most notably the Council of Nicea, which created the concrete "creeds" of the church. These are the "what we believe" parts of Christianity, much of which we still practice today. In 380 C.E., Emperor Theodosius, by law, made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, pretty much sealing the deal, since the Empire (and a bunch of subsequent Empires) and the Holy Roman Catholic church would meld conquest, colonization, and evangelizing into one package and export it to the rest of the world.

OK, I know what you're thinking. What about the Protestant Reformation? True. Much of what we understand Christianity to be today was put into place by Martin Luther in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Like I said. I'm no historian and I don't want to try and list all of the details these various individuals and groups instituted over the long stretch of time, but I do want to make a simple point.

The vast, vast majority of changes made to the original practices and understandings of who God is and who we are as disciples of the Jewish Messiah were made a long time (on the order of centuries) after Jesus ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father. The vast, vast majority of these decisions were made by guys who weren't Jewish and who, given the schism that occurred between Gentile Christianity and Judaism, probably didn't even like Jews (Martin Luther for instance, was a rabid anti-semite). Taking all that into consideration, what makes you think that what we have today as Christian worship, theology, and doctrine, even remotely resembles the original intent of the Jewish Messiah for his Jewish and Gentile disciples?

I know this isn't exactly the first time this question has been asked, but given recent developments in modern, American Christianity as far as defending their position and their teachings in relation to, for instance, Rob Bell's book, I think it's a point that needs to be stated again (and again and again).

I don't think we're "getting it".

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

Shaking the Apple Cart

When Chad Holtz lost his old belief in hell, he also lost his job. The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls. Two days later, Holtz was told complaints from church members prompted his dismissal from Marrow's Chapel in Henderson.

from the Yahoo News article:
Who's in Hell? Pastor's Book Sparks Eternal Debate

Update, March 25th: I ran across this very brief video where Rob Bell answers the question, What if you're wrong about hell?

A few days ago, I wrote the blog post Who Gets to Define Christianity, which was largely inspired by the debate in the Christian community over Rob Bell's book Love Wins (and I suppose it's ironic that all of the evangelical negative "buzz" about Love Wins will probably make Bell's book a bestseller). Now, it seems, that the controversy over what is "hell" and is it eternal, has made its way to the mainstream news outlets. I wasn't going to spend any more time on Bell's book and how the various aspects and denominations of the Christian world are responding to it, except that I find they're still responding in a very poor manner.

I spend a lot of time in the classes I teach, talking about our responsibility, as believers, to sanctify the Name of God. I describe this as living a lifestyle and generally behaving in a way that honors the Jewish Messiah we serve and that brings glory to the Name of God. As Christians, we have a choice we must make every day; are we going to sanctify His Name or desecrate it?

I've already briefly defined how we sanctify His Name, but the details have to do with our behavior. Whenever we encounter an ethical or moral decision point, what do we do? When we see someone who is hungry, do we feed him? When we know someone is in the hospital, do we visit her? When people see how we live, listen to how we talk, observe how we behave when we're under stress, do they see us actually operating out of the faith we are supposed to cherish? The opposite, desecrating the Name, means behaving in a manner that is inconsistent or opposed to our stated faith and values. It means flipping someone off when they cut us off in traffic. It means cussing someone out when they beat us to the last spot in a crowded parking lot. It means holding a grudge against our next door neighbor who borrowed our favorite power tool six months ago and still hasn't given it back. It might even mean wishing someone ill when they write a book that disagrees with our current understanding of hell.

Living a life that desecrates the Name of God means acting as if we have no faith in Christ at all.

So, how is the evangelical church behaving? I'm not convinced they're acting out of their faith or at least, they're not doing a very good job of expressing their faith (although I have no doubt they think they are). Was firing Chad Holtz out of hand the right thing to do when he started publicly questioning the assumptions the church makes about hell?

For all I know, it was the right decision. I'm only getting this through the news media and I have no illusions about the objectivity, or lack thereof, regarding information they publish. I don't have the inside story. Still, on the surface, it seems rather harsh. I have also heard it said that the church is the only army that shoots its own wounded, and it's quite possible this is a true assessment. More's the pity.

Apparently, a well-known (though I've never heard of the guy) evangelical pastor named John Piper used his twitter account to deliver a very succinct message that summarizes the evangelical opinion of Rob Bell and his book:

"Farewell, Rob Bell."

I wonder if that's the same thing as, "Go to hell, Rob Bell", but I digress.

Not all of the responses in the above-referenced news article were severe or unkind. Some people seemed to generate a more measured reaction and even some Christian concern:

"I just felt like on every page he's trying to say 'It's OK,'" said Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler at a forum last week on Bell's book held at the Louisville institution. "And there's a sense in which we desperately want to say that. But the question becomes, on what basis can we say that?"

Page Brooks, a professor at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, thinks Bell errs in a conception of a loving God that leaves out the divine attributes of justice and holiness. "It's love, but it's a just love," Brooks said. "God is love, but you have to understand you're a sinner and the only way to get around that is through Christ's sacrifice on the cross."

I think Bell has done the Christian community a tremendous favor. As people of faith, we need to evaluate, re-evaluate, and constantly challenge our theological beliefs and what we understand. That's how we grow. I created this blog last summer to chronicle my personal exploration into this realm and anyone who's been following me since the beginning knows that, at times, it's been very painful and distressing. Of course, it hasn't affected me to the point of losing my livelihood, as it did Reverend Holtz, but asking such questions takes a person's faith and strips it down, exposing the bone and nerves of what you know...and what you suddenly realize you don't know.

However, my experience with many other people of faith is that they never question their assumptions. Once they arrive at a basic theological understanding of God, faith, the Bible, and all of the details held dear by their church and their Pastor (hell, the rapture, Jews, and so on), they stop looking, learning, and developing in any significant manner.Oh sure, they go to Bible studies, but those are the sorts of experiences that have been canned and scripted with the conclusion already in mind, and it's a conclusion that completely agrees with the established doctrine of their church. What's there to learn?

Sometimes it helps if you shake up the apple cart, just to see what falls out.

Is Rob Bell right or wrong about hell? I can't say for certain. I do believe that, beyond a certain point, you don't get to come back to God. I believe there's a line you cross and once you've crossed it, you don't get to reverse your steps. How that all works though, in intimate detail, I don't know for sure. The Bible doesn't provide those details and, as no doubt you understand by now if you've been reading this blog, the Bible isn't the simple, straightforward document we all wish it was.

The point for me, at least in the short run, isn't whether or not Bell is correct or incorrect (or whether he's going to hell or not...people haven't publicly said it in those terms, but I'm sure that's what some of them are thinking), but what the results are of his "apple cart shaking".

Some of the apples have popped out of the cart and frankly, they don't look so polished.

Dear evangelical Christianity. You have a choice to make today. You have a choice to make every day. It's the same choice I make every day, and it's the same choice all people of faith make, whether they're aware of it or not. Here's the choice. Are you going to sanctify God by your actions or desecrate Him? Before opening your mouth and uttering your answer, would you think about it...please?

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

The Descent of God to Man

“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD.
-Isaiah 66:1-2

Isaiah 66:1 is often allegorically interpreted to describe the union of the heavenly with the earthly, the spiritual with the material, the infinite and the finite, in the Torah. The Torah is the "descending of the divine wisdom from the highest heights and embodying itself in earthly commandments." In these commandments God reveals His will and wisdom which are really one with Him.
-Paul Philip Levertoff
Love and the Messianic Age

You might think of this blog post as "part 2" of this morning's article We Are Living Torahs. In fact, it was the small essay I am creating now that I intended to write this morning, but as my fingers were moving over the keyboard, I discovered the need to appeal to people to extend their (our) spirits and to consider so many others in pain.

I previously described you and me as people who are "living Torahs", yet there is another living Torah, the living Torah, that we must also ponder. I am continuing to meditate on the issue of the nature and character of the Jewish Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) and whether we can include in that nature, the deity of Jesus. Is the Christ literally God as has been described by traditional, and particularly by evangelical Christianity, or is there another way to understand the Master and how he is illustrated in the Bible? I believe there is a way to understand Jesus as both human and as containing the divine:

According to this concept, God's unknowable and divine will and wisdom (which are inseparable from His being) descended to be clothed in the corporal substance of commandments of Torah and ink in a book. This is not to say that a Torah scroll is God, but that the Torah scroll is an earthly container for His will and wisdom. It is similar to the concept of the Shechinah, the "Dwelling Presence of God." Just as the Shechinah took residence and filled the Tabernacle, the Spirit of God fills the words of the Torah. -from the Love and the Messianic Age Commentary

The Word became a human being and lived with us, and we saw his Sh'khinah, the Sh'khinah of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth. -John 1:14 (CJB)

Looking at the quote from the commentary on Levertoff's book, we can see that God and the Torah are one in the same and at the same time, the Torah is not literally (or even figuratively) God. God has extended some portion of Himself out of His heavenly realm and "humbled" himself, if you will, to send a portion of His essence into His creation so that we can perceive and act upon His will and wisdom. Yet the words we find in the first chapter of John's Gospel also describes Jesus as both Word and, in a sense, God.

The Jewish doctrine of the "real Presence", to quote Levertoff and the book's commentary, is "that the Torah is the divine expression of God's will and wisdom, placed within the physical limitations of this world and translated into terms comprehensible to human beings. However, God's will and wisdom cannot be separated from HaShem Himself. If the Torah contains HaShem's will and wisdom, then it contains something of HaShem Himself; they are 'one in the same'."

That's kind of like saying the Torah is and isn't God. Remember, we're dealing with mystical and metaphysical concepts, so don't try too hard to understand the "nuts and bolts" of how a Torah scroll can contain something that is intrinsically connected to God and yet not actually be God.

Levertoff projected this Chasidic concept into the eucharist to explain how the bread and the wine could "be" the body and blood of the Christ and yet not literally be human flesh and human blood.

While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. -Mark 14:22-24 (NRSV)

My understanding of Levertoff is that he's saying while the matzoh and wine at the Seder were not literally or symbolically his body and blood, but in a mystical way, they contain something of him and something of God that we must incorporate into our being and in doing so, we become part of the "body of Christ". Again, don't try to imagine the mechanics of this process. If this only works for you on a strictly symbolic level, that's great, but if we compare how "real Presence" is applied to a Torah scroll and to the matzoh and wine, then it brings a whole new meaning to how we will experience our next Passover Seder.

Finally though, as found in the commentary for Levertoff's book, we discover that the "real Presence" is extended into the area that describes the relationship between the Father and the Son:

Regardless of how the "real Presence" is interpreted, Levertoff sees a parallel between the Chasidic idea of Hashem's presence in the Torah and the Christian concept of Christ's incarnation in the Eucharist.

Another way of presenting the parallel is to say that just as the mystics and the Tanya teach that the Torah is God's will and wisdom made into a scroll, the apostles and the Gospel of John teach that Messiah is God's will and wisdom made flesh.

In other words, if we can accept that something unique about God can inhabit the Mishkan (Tabernacle in the desert), Solomon's Temple in holy Jerusalem, the Torah as a "personified" object, and the eucharist, can we not accept that the divine God "inhabits" the living, human Messiah in the same manner?

I realize that's a lot to take in, but if you are a religious person who fully accepts that Jesus is literally God the Son, part of the triune God, then is what I'm writing here, as presented by Levertoff and his commentators, really so extreme?

Christianity isn't accustomed to utilizing Jewish mysticism to understand its own conceptualization of Jesus, but it might be wise for them (us) to start. So far, Paul Philip Levertoff, a man born a Jew, educated in the Jewish Chasidic tradition, who came to faith in Jesus as Messiah in the late 19th century, and who spent the majority of his adult life preaching the word of Jesus from a uniquely Jewish viewpoint, offers a different way of looking at the statement "Jesus is God." Did Levertoff believe Jesus was divine in the way Evangelical Christianity declares? Probably not. Did he see the divine residing within the Messiah in a special way that at once made Jesus God and not God in the same fashion as God "inhabits" a Torah scroll? Probably.

Some call Jesus "the living Torah" because he lived a human life in complete consistency with the will of God, never sinning. If we believe God can humble His nature so that he can "inhabit" a tent, a building, and a scroll (and none of these are literally God), can we not think of the Messiah in the same way?

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