WHAT IS DISTINCTIVE IN THE TEACHINGS OF YESHUA (JESUS) Dietz Ziechmann March 27, 2011

“I am a Jew because, for Israel [i.e., the Jewish people], the world is not completed, we are completing it.

 I am a Jew because Israel places humanity and its unity above the nations and above Israel itself.” The Gates of Prayer for Shabbat and Weekdays. New York: The Central Conference of American Rabbis.

One will note that this Reform Prayerbook places the unity of humanity above the narrower interests of the Jewish people, it transcends the shallowness of the kind of conquest theology espoused in portions of the Five Books of Moses (the Chumash), which place an implicit barrier between Jews and the rest of humanity. Other prayers in this text cite the imperatives to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry and above all establish a complete and lasting peace throughout the world.

The opening books of the Torah seek to manifest through dramatic stories the presence of God in the universe and then a code of conduct, the Ten Utterances (known to English speakers as The Ten Commandments) about which Miller and Bernstein have some useful comments, claimed to have been given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The focus in the Torah really becomes on the moral principles to follow and status issues about the leader fall by the wayside. Moses indeed, unlike Yeshua, is depicted as having some very human flaws, most memorably anger, and Jews are notably enjoined to not idolize him, or any other prophet! Yeshua, by way of contrast, by tradition is said to be perfect in every way. His status in the New Testament and most empathically in every cinematic Easter drama is paramount, you must believe in his status as messiah, as the supreme Son of Man and God, as attributed to St. John, or you will burn in the fires of everlasting hell, a view belatedly repudiated by the Vatican in Nostra Aetate. The Koran deals with Yeshua in the manner of the various Gnostic Christians as an honored prophet, not as God, but falls into the error of saying all those who do not, or even did not pre-Koranically, believe in a singular God will be doomed to eternal hellfire, a view which rankled many of his contemporary followers and was later softened by a subsequent pronouncement that an all-merciful God releases everyone for punishment following a day of judgment. Normative Judaism is more tolerant: actions, not beliefs (which are shaped largely by emotions) are all important. Atheists (those “without God”, who do not believe God exists) and agnostics (those “without knowledge” who are not sure whether God exists) are generally tolerated within normal Judaism so long as they do not attack the moral norms or practices; indeed a Chief Rabbi of Israel (this must have been from the Mandate period) was even cited in a Park Synagogue program as commending “atheists [who by their criticisms] keep us honest.” (More on this subject can be found in J. Kirsch, The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold Story of Jewish History.) Indeed in the Jewish tradition, what should really be called the Jewish-Israelish tradition, one is encouraged to “wrestle with God”, to ask probing questions, to challenge assumptions to get as much clarity on root issues as is humanly possible.
 
Thus I get back to the question I have been grappling with, an effort made intense with the thoughts provoked by Healing the Jewish-Christian Rift: what is distinctive in the teachings of Yeshua that may set him apart from normative Judaism. Here we encounter the problem of fuzzy borders. I find very little to set him apart prescriptively, accept his emphasis on outreach and inclusiveness. That sets him apart to some extent from the Sadducean-run Temple hierarchy with its emphasis on meat and grain sacrifices at the Temple altar, but nevertheless allows worship at the House of All Peoples (except maybe Samaritans). That inclusiveness seems to set him somewhat apart from the Pharisees whose very name in Hebrew, PERUSHIM (“Separatists” from sinful people), indicates a fear of moral contamination by miscreants. Yet the New Testament aspersion against them that they are rigidly legalistic followers of the Law (nomos, Torah, halakah) seems unfounded, except perhaps for their non-championing the interests of the Samaritans. Indeed, Hillel the Great’s willing to summarize the Torah for the non-Jew while that potential convert stands on one foot indicates a willingness to include the other which, while very familiar to ordinary Jews, is unfortunately an unfamiliar source to most people calling themselves Christians.

Hillel’s formulation became normative for Rabbinic Judaism, though not always honored in the practice of some; nor unfortunately was the Torah redacted once again to reflect this core teaching by removing and explicitly reproving the passages of Conquest Theology, despite, perhaps even because Jews and other Hebrews lost control of Canaan. The wisdom of Heinrich Heine, the Great German Jewish poet should be applied, “The Torah is my mobile homeland”, particularly if we are to see, more and more, the world as one entity. The “Noahide Laws” should guide humanity and be applied by government more or less world-wide. The consist of “prohibitions against (1) Blasphemy (2) Idolatry (3) Sexual immorality (4) Murder (5) Robbery (6) Eating a portion of a living animal; and an injunction concerning (7) the administration of justice (Sanhedrin, 56a).” The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion (1965/6). I say be applied “more or less” by government because 1-3 should be left basically to the realm of public persuasion, with a few exceptions whereas 4-7 are appropriate and sometimes variable matters for government enforcement and are broadly reflected in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, which seeks to adumbrate the seventh principle.

Rabbi Raymond Apple in his keynote address, “Healing Rifts Between Nations” before the International Council of Christians and Jews (Sydney 9 July 2007)(www.jcrelations.net) set forth his inhibitions about promoting a more uniform set of religious norms, noting that for most people generally “we will never completely understand and share the inner essence and depth of the other’s intellectual truth and spiritual personality, but we can become good friends, good neighbours, parts of each other’s lives and families.” There is something to be said for Rabbi Apple’s formulation, but I think we should at least try to go beyond it. I am uncomfortable with people, self-described Christians, companions on much of the path, being confined to a religious ghetto, or side-tracked onto a dead-ended lesser line, when they could be enjoying the benefits of what I see as the mainline. The Trinitarian construction puts people at some remove from seeing God as a unity or the universe as a holistic entity. (Ironically there is a church denomination known as Unity, but it has much formulative work to do, ridding itself of astrological influences and attempts by some to communicate with the dead.) Trinitarians often pray to “Jesus”, not to “God”, Catholics often to dead saints (which would make them “gods”, if one recalls the Indo-Aryan-Germanic root word for god being “that which is invoked or evoked”).

In Isaiah, there is a quotation, “You shall be as elohim …” The Hebrew word elohim is usually translated into English as “gods”. When capitalized in English transliteration it is used to signify “God”, and a pretense is made by Jews that it is an intensifying plural, rather than concede that it stems from the days of Jewish polytheism. The term is also used to describe judges, in the Book of Judges, so its meaning is along the order of “high ones”. So what does Isaiah mean, and what does it signify for Jews and non-Jews? It really means that believe should act in accordance with the Biblical poetic that you, all humans “are created in the image of God” and act with an appropriate self-respect, morality, and dignity. That idea is recognized by many Christian as well as Jewish and other leaders: I think of Meister Eckhart, Giordano Bruno, Hildegard of Binghem, St. Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, Kabir, Rumi, Hermes Trismegistus, Lao Tzu, Pythagoras, and others who humbly recognized the unifying spirit of ineffable wonder. One can reach these heights through appropriate meditation and then take appropriate action.

Namaste, Shalom,
Dietz Ziechmann

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