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"It is better to take refuge in Adonai than to trust in human beings; better to take refuge in Adonai than to put one's trust in princes." -Tehilah 118:8-9



Messianic Jewish Culture
Monday, January 08, 2007

Two blog posts by a believer, one that I had read recently and another I had commented on a while back, sparked my interest in commenting on the concept of Messianic Jewish Culture.

As Messianics, we know what we believe: Yeshua is the promised Jewish Messiah who has come and will return. In seeking to live out that creed in our daily existence we rely on two established sources, gentile Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, neither of which provide accurate foundations from which we can relate to and with the world around us. The anthropological definition of culture is: the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another. When one assesses the bevy of congregations, unions, alliances, and ministries functioning in a variety of ways, yet all presenting themselves as "Messianic Jewish" in nature, it is clear to see that Messianic Judaism has no true culture of its own.

Due to the history and nature of the Messianic movement, we are strikingly influenced by the Christian Church. Yet, at the same time, we have a heavy Jewish influence coming from three sources:

1. Jewish believers who have carried Jewish traditions into their halacha with Yeshua.

2. Gentile believers who are learning about and thirsting for the Jewish roots of their faith, thereby incorporating Jewish practices into their halacha with Yeshua.

3. Jewish and gentile believers who are actively seeking to craft a more seemingly "authentic" form of Messianic Judaism by developing their halacha through the lens of Orthodox, or Rabbinical Judaism.

How do these three sources impact the culture of the Messianic movement?

Often, the first two groups approach Messianic Judaism the way Christians approach Christianity-- as a religion performed in a congregation on a weekly/holiday basis. Which leads me to question: How does the incorporation of Jewish ritual instruments/practices influence the way the Messianic community thinks about and relates to the world around them?

The answer is: Not much. Just as many Evangelical Christians go out from their churches to lead secular lives, many Messianics leave their shuls to live seemingly secular lives, with one caveat: They identify themselves as Jews. This inevitably leads to a dichotomous relationship with the real world. Whether they simply abstain from unkosher foods around gentiles, or are relegated to defining themselves to the Christian world, or are left to defend their Jewishness to their non-believing counterparts, Messianic Jews are consistently confronted with the fact that they are, above all, different from everyone else.

In such cases of cultural difference, one usually has a culture to fall back on. In the first two groups of Messianic Judaism discussed above, this "culture" is replaced by your congregation. When the world surrounds you, you are to seek shelter in your congregation, often through havurah groups and religious services. In classic diaspora nature, these Messianic Jews are seeking shelter from the outside world instead of performing the very task they have been given by HaShem to do: to be a light unto the world. Instead of standing bold and proud, being "in the world, but not of the world," these Messianics retreat from the very world they have been commissioned to lead. As a result, their Messianic Judaism is relegated to the walls of the congregation, to religion, to ritual. In which case, this is not a living culture; it is a shelter. Even worse, it is a shelter built by fear.

The third group, the believers who seek to craft their Messianic Jewish culture through the lens of Rabbinic Judaism, does a great deal to incorporate religious tradition and education into their daily life. They often do this through many rituals developed by the Orthodox, i.e.; the recitation of daily prayers, the wearing of tefillin, the donning of kippot, and, even in some communities, the incorporation of headcoverings for married women and beards for adult men. In other words, this group defines Jewish culture through the practices of Rabbinic Judaism. In other words, they base their Messianic Jewish culture on Rabbinic Jewish culture. This presents a serious problem, considering the tenents and practices of Rabbinic Orthodoxyism contradict Messianic Judaism in two major areas: Faith in Yeshua, and belief in the supremacy of Torah over other liturgical texts.

In one of the above-cited posts, the author writes:
At the bleak time after the destruction of the Holy Temple in 70 CE, specifically the work in Yavneh beginning in 90 CE, the choice to keep Judaism alive and the continuing existence of the Jewish People was hanging in the balance. It was by the vehicle of the post-Temple Judaism developed by the Pharisees and later developed fuller by the Rabbis, including Yochanan ben Zakkai and others. This Judaism is the way of living Jewish life and following G-d's Torah that has kept the Jewish People these 1900 plus years as a dsitinct people and living testimony to the G-d of Israel.
The "vehicle of post-Temple Judaism," is the Talmud, the written copy of the oral law handed down from generation to generation of Jewish religious leaders in the Diaspora. However, the Talmud was not given to the first century community of Jewish believers in Yeshua. To understand why is to recognize the distinction between Messianic and Pharasaic (now, Rabbinic) Judaism.

During the Council at Yavneh, through which the Talmud was established and modern-day Rabbinic or, Orthodox, Judaism was born, the religious authorities present negated HaShem's Torah in order to contradict the Messiahship of Yeshua. By taking one scripture verse (Hosea 14:2) out of context, the Pharisees at Yavneh declared that the ritual prayers of the Jewish people were sufficient enough to replace the blood sacrifice required to atone for sin, detailed in Leviticus 1. In doing so, these Pharisees did more than re-work Judaism to function without a Temple; they denied the power of Yeshua's ultimate atoning sacrifice by denying that it ever had to take place.

What's more, during the medieval era of Yiddish Talmudic scholarship, the Rabbis decided that the study of the Talmud, the written Rabbinical commentary on Torah, superceded the study of the Torah itself. In the Talmud it states, "Study of the Torah is an accomplishment, yet not an accomplishment; but the study of Oral Law, there is no greater accomplishment than this" Baba Metzia, 33a. One medieval rabbi wrote, "True future salvation...can only come through the merit of Talmud study, for Talmud study leads to saintliness and purity...while study of Torah does not even produce righteousness...Even a little Talmud study creates more fear of Heaven than much Torah study" (Yiddish Civilization: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation Kriwaczek, 126-127)

Today, this view of Talmud as having the same divine authority as the Torah, has been transmitted into Rabbinic Orthodox Judaism today. While this belief has not yet been transmitted into the Messianic Rabbinic movement, it is worth noting that Talmud was originally considered a secondary text within non-believing Rabbinic Judaism, and it is a text that contradicts the Word of G-d by denying the truth of Messiah Yeshua. How can we, as Messianics, attempt to define our culture through the words of Rabbis who developed and rely on texts that were designed to deny the Messiahship of Yeshua?

The author presents the argument that, even though these Rabbis did not profess a faith in Yeshua, they still "preserved Judaism" after the destruction of the Temple. However, I would ask this: Would they not have done more to "preserve Judaism" and the Temple itself if they had trusted in Messiah? Yet, their lack of trust caused the fulfillment of prophecy. The acknowledgement of this naturally leads one to also acknowledge that HaShem, the giver of prophecy, is the Master of everything. This leads one to question: Has it not been HaShem who has kept Judaism alive since the destruction of the Temple, and is not His "vehicle" for doing such a great thing Yeshua the Messiah?

Moreover, in approaching the Talmud and culture of the Rabbis, one must recall that, "no lie has its origin in the truth." We cannot divide the contributions of the Rabbis, as good as they may seem, from the fact that they base their works in a denial of Messiah. To base our Messianic Jewish culture on Yeshua through the eyes of Rabbinic Judaism is to build a structure with bad mortar; it will crumble and fall apart with the first breeze that passes by. As has already evidenced itself within Rabbinic Messianic circles, following the way of the Rabbis leads to the same non-productiveness that plagues traditional Rabbinic circles. More often than not, useless word battles over theological issues occur within these ranks that prevent any real growth from occuring within the movement at large.

It is also worthy to note the history of Rabbinic Judaism. The Rabbinic Judaism we know today formed as a response to the destruction of the Temple and the Jewish exile from Israel. In other words, Rabbinic Judaism is a reaction to the gentile denial of HaShem; it is a classic Jewish compromise, one where we relinquish ourselves to the demands of the gentile victors. When the Temple was destroyed, the Rabbis did not follow the instruction of Torah and turn to their G-d for salvation; they re-wrote the Torah to suit a life lived under the thumb of the gentiles. In doing so, they created an un-Biblical religious hierarchy that tagged redemption as a futuristic concept and salvation as something to be attained through the doing of good works.

Instead of living life by Torah, the Rabbis crafted a Torah that suited a life lived among gentiles. We criticized the first two groups of Messianic Jews for replacing culture with congregation, and using the congregation to hide or sheild themselves from the real world; we blamed this on the stigma of Diaspora culture. Yet, in understanding the foundational history of this stigma, we must question: Isn't Pharasaic (now, Rabbinic) culture the root cause of this fearful, destructive behavior?

The influence coming from the three Jewish sources discussed above is couched in the mindset of Diaspora Judaism, a Judaism created and designed to function in the Western, Greek-thinking, pagan world. As we discussed, when the Rabbis replaced Temple with Talmud, culture with congregation, they were designing a Judaism that could function under the thumb of gentile rulership. Modern Christianity was an equally perverted form of Judaism suited to function in a pagan mindset. The truth is, to clearly understand and take hold of a Messianic Jewish culture, one must go further back than the Council of Nicea, than Constantine, than Yavneh; one must go back to Yeshua, when He first walked the earth. We must look at Him, the Living Torah, to understand who we are as a people. We must also look to Him and identify with Him if we are to develop the courage we need in order to live out Jewish lives openly, boldly, and fully.

We also must accept that we cannot do this by looking at Him through the lens of gentile Christianity or Rabbinic Judaism. Neither of these methods will suffice. We must look to understand Messiah through scripture, with the guidance of the Comforter, the Ruach haKodesh, the presence of HaShem, whom Dovid HaMelek himself relied on (Psalm 51). Rav Shaul writes in I Corinthians 2:9-16
But, as the Tanakh says, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard and no one's heart has imagined all the things that God has prepared for those who love him."

It is to us, however, that God has revealed these things. How? Through the Spirit. For the Spirit probes all things, even the profoundest depths of God. For who knows the inner workings of a person except the person's own spirit inside him? So too no one knows the inner workings of God except God's Spirit. Now we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God, so that we might understand the things God has so freely given us. These are the things we are talking about when we avoid the manner of speaking that human wisdom would dictate and instead use a manner of speaking taught by the Spirit, by which we explain things of the Spirit to people who have the Spirit. Now the natural man does not receive the things from the Spirit of God - to him they are nonsense! Moreover, he is unable to grasp them, because they are evaluated through the Spirit. But the person who has the Spirit can evaluate everything, while no one is in a position to evaluate him.

For who has known the mind of ADONAI? Who will counsel him?

But we have the mind of the Messiah!
For today's believers, understanding that "we have the mind of Messiah" requires both spiritual agility and the ability to throw away the tenents of human thought that have plagued us for centuries. Rav Shaul writes,
Indeed, the Tanakh says, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent." Where does that leave the philosopher, the Torah-teacher, or any of today's thinkers? Hasn't G-d made this world's wisdom look pretty foolish? 1:19-20
Only when we see our Messiah, our faith, and ourselves in this fashion will we be able to "be restored to having a common mind and a common purpose" (1:10). Only when this commonality is reached can we hope to build a Messianic Jewish culture that will last.

Therefore, I encourage you, dear readers, to seek to dwell as one with the Ruach haKodesh and respect the gift you have been given- "the mind of Messiah." Ascribe to His Judaism as He lived and taught it. For thousands of years, this gift was abused and misunderstood by the believing community. Now that our trust has ressurected it from its dormancy, we must embrace the mind of Messiah to the fullest-- if we do, the change and growth in the Messianic Jewish movement will be "as life from the dead!"

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posted by Shoshana @ 5:57 PM

6 Comments:

At 9:39 AM, Blogger Shoshana said...

The problem with this statement is that it ignores the known fact that the Talmud was a compendium of the Oral Law as it was passed down and developed from teacher to student IN ISRAEL as well as the Diaspora for 1500 years prior to Yeshua's ministry.

True. However, during Yeshua's time, it remained an oral law- the Talmud as we know it today (the Mishnah and Gemara in written form) did not begin to come into existence until after the fall of the Temple, at Yavneh. If we are to discuss the idea of "the vehicle of post-Temple Judaism" we are discussing the written book itself.

Yeshua Himself quoted the Oral Law quite a bit, praising some parts and criticizing others. There is no basis for the idea that they were not, in fact, living by standards mainly acceptable to the mainstream of Judaism at the time.

Hence, Yeshua instructed His talmidim to "do as the Rabbis say, but not as they do," because He recognized the inherent hypocrisy of the Oral Law in practice.

Dr. Joseph Shulam goes quite in depth into Yeshua's relationship to the Pharisees and the concept of Oral Law in his lecture Jewish Sects and Messianic Rumors, found on the Kol haYeshuah website. Shulam argues that Yeshua could be classified as a Pharisee, for the simple, basic reason that Pharisees believed one could derive G-d's will directly from the text of scripture, not only through prophets or third parties. If this is the basis for calling Yeshua a Pharisee, then yes, even His talmidim were Pharisaical in nature, as their subsequent letters and dialogues are filled with exegesis from the Tanak.

However, to claim any more of a relationship to Pharasaism via the Oral Law, to me, enters into vague territory. Considering the Oral Law was just that, oral, at the time, and considering that Yeshua never directly quoted one Rabbi or another ("for He was not instructing them like their Torah teachers but as one who had authority Himself"- Matt 7:29) and His only real encounters with Pharisees seemed to end up in condemnation of their attitudes/actions, I question His true attitude toward the Oral Law.

Perhaps, though, that is the essence of the message. A great deal of my argumentation against Talmud rests in the attitudes taken toward it by the Rabbis. Their manipulation of it at Yavneh to suit their own purposes, and their subsequent misappropriation of it as a supersedent text mirrors Yeshua's own complaints against the hypocritical and divisive attitudes of the Pharisees of His own day. If you want to say that you can comprehend the will of G-d from a reading of the Tanakh, fine-- but don't take advantage of that belief and turn it into a justification to claim authority and manipulate the text for your own benefit at the cost of the truth and your peoples' lives, both physical and spiritual.

This is exactly why the Oral Law as put forth by the Pharisees of Yeshua's day was not "acceptable to the mainstream of Judaism at that time." Shulam points out very clearly that the Pharisees of Yeshua's day were so prejudiced and divisive in their teachings that they alienated the majority of Yisrael- the am ha'aretz, or average people of the land. The Pharisees were no more effective as a unifying force than any modern day Judeo-Christian denomination. They weilded power in high places, but that doesn't mean the majority liked them- especially not when some Pharasaical teachings went so far as to claim the am ha'aretz should be "torn to pieces" and were, in essence, eternally lost, so to speak.

While it is important to understand that it does not supercede Torah, one cannot have a Judaism today without the Talmud.

One cannot have a Rabbinic Judaism today without Talmud. Did Adonai on Mt. Sinai give Moshe the tablets and then throw in some Cliff's Notes for extra measure? No. Did Yeshua say, "I came to fulfill Torah...and the ideas of men, too"? No. Rabbinic Judaism relies on Talmud because they denied the Living Torah. It is through G-d's grace that the non-believing Jewish community has survived in Diaspora. Did HaShem say, "And after I scatter you because of your many sins, I'll give you some nice Rabbis who will misappropriate my Word for their use, in order to save you while you're in mitzrayim"? No. To go about giving credit to the un-Biblical musings of religious authoritarians for the promises Adonai fulfilled in miraculous fashion, is an action that mirrors the same hypocrisy possessed by the Rabbis themselves.

There was Judaism long before there was Talmud. In fact, the Oral Law only ever came into being because we broke our covenant with HaShem, didn't heed the warnings He gave through the prophets, and wound up in exile in Babylon. When the exile happened again in 70 C.E., did we learn from our mistakes?

Some of it, yes, is bad -- it's commentary, of course some of it is. But much of it is good. The problem is keeping only that which upholds Torah while not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I once heard a Rabbi interviewed on Israel National Radio, who managed to begin speaking out against Disengagement from Gush Katif, and, in the same breath, managed to speak in favor of it. It is a longstanding Jewish tradition to see both sides of the coin and get nowhere in the process. Yeshua instructed us, "Let your Yes be a simple Yes and your No a simple No; anything more than that has its origin in evil." (Matt 5:37) If "no lie has its origin in the truth," (I John 2:21) then we can assuage that anything but a clear cut answer is rooted in a lie.

Do I believe one can derive the will of HaShem through reading the Tanak? Yes. Does that make me a Pharisee or an adherent to Rabbinical Judaism? No, because Rabbinical Judaism is rooted in attitudes and actions my Messiah condemned, and a text that perverts the Word of HaShem in order to deny the very existence or necessity of the Moshiach (who has already come and will return) they so desperately claim to desire.

"As for you, the Messianic annointing you received from the Father remains in you, so that you have no need for anyone to teach you. On the contrary, as His Messianic annointing continues to teach you about all things, and is true, not a counterfeit, so, just as He taught you, remain united with Him." (I John 2:27) We have been blessed with the great gift of the "mind of Messiah" (I Cor. 2:16). Should we censor ourselves from every exegesis of scripture? No. We don't have to, because we have been given the gift of discernment through our trust in Yeshua. We have also been given the gift of freedom-- we are not bound, like the Rabbis, by the Oral Law of any teacher or sect. We are free to think for ourselves and to function as one through the Ruach!

I leave you with this thought: Why should we even seek out the words of Talmud, or to identify with a text rooted in such ridicule? Only if we seek to be like every other Jew should we seek to do such a thing, in which case, I ask- what kind of a witness are we to the truth and power of Moshiach?

 
At 10:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

To be honest, though, the third group you mentioned is probably still quite a bit closer to what the Master would have taught and practiced than those people that merely have a vague interest in something Judaic. Yeshua and his talmidim wore tefillin, had beards, covered their heads, and said the traditional prayers. On the flip side, they certainly didn't believe that studying the Temple was some sort of replacement for having it, or that any one group somehow has a monopoly on how to interpret the Torah.

Yes, the Talmud is not divinely inspired in any way (I believe the same thing about Shaul's letters, so that may cause some contention). It has its good, and it has its bad. But the historical context it provides, the amount of wholesome tradition that does not contradict Torah, the amount of decent and enlightening commentaries and perspectives, is reason enough not to part with it. It's not Scripture, but it is a very helpful Cliff's Notes. The mistake is to treat it as something it's not. To assume that we can fully understand the Tanakh and the various recorded accounts of the Ribi's teachings and times, without takins some heed of the people that have been living it for thousands of years, is to give ourselves too much credit.

 
At 10:28 AM, Blogger Shoshana said...

You're still missing my point completely. I can assuage from your post that this is due to the fact that your perspective of Judaism is Rabbinical, that is to say, Judaism is what the Rabbis have made of it. I must ask this: Who came first, Adonai, or the Rabbis? What came first, Torah or Talmud?

There existed Judaism long before there existed the culture of the Rabbis. It was the Judaism of men and women like the patriarchs, Moshe, D'vorah, and King David-- people who communicated directly with Adonai without the need of a mediator, like a Rabbi, to tell them how to best "understand" or "interpret" the will of G-d.

There is a reason David prayed that HaShem would not take His Ruach away from him- for the same reason we call Adonai "El Shaddai", G-d who is Sufficient. Adonai says in D'varim 29:29, "Things which are hidden belong to Adonai our G-d. But the things that have been revealed belong to us and our children forever, so that we can observe all the words of this Torah." He didn't tack onto the end of that phrase, "That's why I'm giving you Talmud, so you'll get what I'm saying." He is Sufficient. We may comprehend all things we are given to know through His guidance, given by His Ruach.

In seeking the guidance of the Ruach instead of the words of men, we are merely seeking out the same kind of relationship our Biblical ancestors had with HaShem, be they Moshe, D'vorah, David, or the talmidim themselves. It has nothing to do with pride and everything to do with what is right in the sight of Adonai: "[Messiah Yeshua] has become wisdom for us from G-d, and righteousness and holiness and redemption as well! Therefore, as the Tanakh says, "Let anyone who wants to boast, boast about Adonai!"" (I Cor. 1:30-31/Jeremiah 9:23-24)

To ascribe pride to a Ruach-filled study of the Word is to accuse the innocent of the crimes of the guilty. It also plays into the hand of the Rabbinic authorities who insinuate divine right by attaching a supersedent divinity to their own words (the Talmud). This is a dangerous perspective to have, as it is one with seriously grave reprocussions. I would refer you to the perspective of an Israeli Messianic Rabbi: >>http://clearblogs.com/rabdan1/17417/Why+rabbinic+Halacha+when+they+deny+our+Messiah%3F.html<< who clearly points out the dangerous effects of ascribing unBiblical authority onto religious leadership.

We must not allow ourselves to see Judaism through the lens of the Rabbis. Yes, they have been living what the world has accepted as "Judaism" for the past 2,000 years, but look at the history of it; it was a Judaism born in exile, grounded in exile, and designed to function in exile- from the land, from Messiah, and, to an ideological and spiritual extent, from Torah itself. Unless we want to function in that same exile, we will choose to refocus our perspective onto the true foundation of Judaism as designed in Torah and lived out by pre-exile Israel, the Israel of the prophets, Judges, and even the King who was a "man after G-d's own heart."

 
At 10:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 10:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shoshanna, please hear me out. I do not believe in seeing Yeshua "through the eyes of the Rabbis". Rather, I believe that the Pharisaic model of Judaism is nearer to what the Ribi would have practiced. Your (I presume) near-Karaite position means that we'll be throwing out ALL of it, good or bad. No more objects of pure unadulterated piety such as tefillin, or kipas, or traditionally tied tzitzyot, or even mezuzas for that matter. Even that statement in the Talmud that you presented can be interpreted midrashically: that studying the Torah alone is not the highest accomplishment, but studying it in the Talmudic method is. Let's not disrespect Yeshua's Pharasaic method of teaching the Torah, or act like we think we're somehow better than the greater observant Jewish community. I am not ashamed about the tefillin Yeshua would have tied, the prayers and motzis he would have said, and no less willing to see the Torah through Rabbinic eyes than MY Rabbi (Yeshua) was. Just saying.

Shalom.

 
At 10:47 PM, Blogger Derek Leman said...

Shoshana:

Your position seems quite reasonable, but in fact there are assumptions that I think are throwing you off. It seems so simple to say, "Let's just keep the Bible and not listen to the rabbis." Well, when does the Sabbath start? When does it end? How will you answer that question armed only with the Bible?

I don't think we have to uncritically accept the commands of the rabbis either, but then again, there are multiple positions on most topics amongst the rabbis. "The rabbis" are not a monolithic group.

The way many of us UMJC rabbis would phrase it is Jewish tradition, rather than "the rabbis." There are some applications of Torah that are widely agreed on in Jewish tradition. To live as a Jew, it is a good thing to live in harmony with your people and not have every Jew with their own halakhah.

God did establish the idea of judges and teachers in Israel defining parameters of the Torah. Yeshua did affirm the role of the scribes and Pharisees as a human (not divine) institution with authority to set standards for the community. And the standards are subject to broad interpretation because the community has many voices.

Jewish tradition is not as cut-and-dry as scripture, but with careful thinking, it is to discern halakhah worth following.

Derek

 

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