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Chanukah – Isaiah 2:5
1000 Verses - a project of Judaism Resources
Chanukah – Isaiah 2:5
The celebration of Chanukah was instituted after prophecy had already ceased from the community of Israel. The religious leadership of the people established this holiday as an expression of thanksgiving to God that is to last through the generations.
This holiday brings to the forefront the question of the authority of the religious leadership of Israel. Who are they to decide on my behalf? Who are they to dictate my personal relationship with God?
In order to answer these questions we need to understand a basic Scriptural concept. The concept I speak of is the entity called “Israel”. This entity is not just a gathering of individuals. It is a community. A community that stands as one before God from the days of the exodus into the future.
This community is human. We have made mistakes and we will make mistakes but this doesn’t change the…
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Bread of Affliction
Bread of Affliction
Towards the beginning of the Passover Seder, we introduce the Matzah
over which the story of the Exodus will be told. As did our fathers
before us we declare:This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of
Egypt. Whoever is hungry, let him come and eat! Whoever is needy, let
him come and celebrate Passover! Now, we are here; next year may we be
in the land of Israel! Now, we are slaves; next year may we be free
men!The placement of this paragraph in the order of the evening ceremony
would give us to understand that we are simply drawing attention to
the unleavened bread that sits on the table as we tell our children
about the miracles of the Exodus. Why then do we invite the poor and
speak of our hope for the future in the context of this opening
declaration?We can find the answer to this question when we understand that the
Passover Seder is not merely a meal in which a story is told, it is a
reliving of the Exodus experience. We begin by bringing back the
memory of being slaves in Egypt and as we progress through the
evening, we are freed from slavery and become servants of God.As we make that introductory statement about the Matzah we are still
in the mindset of slavery and we are not yet free. But we need to
remind ourselves that even in the darkest times there were two aspects
of freedom that our persecutors could never take from us.One aspect of freedom that we never lost was the ability to share.
Even when we were enslaved we shared our bread with our brothers. And
the second aspect of freedom that we never lost was the ability to hope.It is for this reason that we make these declarations in this
introductory paragraph. We speak of our desire to share with the less
fortunate and we speak of our hope. We are reminding ourselves that
the freedom to give and the freedom to hope were never lost and can never be lost.
Posted in Holidays
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Response to Line of Fire 15
1000 Verses - a project of Judaism Resources
Response to Line of Fire 15
In the October 31 2013 edition of his radio show, Dr. Brown presents one of his old arguments against Judaism. Dr. Brown points to the passage in Exodus 23:2 that charges the courts not to follow a majority to pervert justice. He then takes the Talmud and Maimonides to task for using this verse to support the principle of following a majority. Dr. Brown argues that if Maimonides was able to take a verse out of God’s Bible to establish a principle that directly contradicts that very same verse, then we cannot accept Maimonides as any spiritual authority. Dr. Brown goes on to explain to his audience that the Jewish rejection of Jesus is rooted in the Talmudic misconstruction of this verse.
I have communicated extensively with Dr. Brown over this very verse. As a postscript to this article I will attach a letter…
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Isaiah 53 – excerpt from Covenant Nation
Boyarin attempts to set the stage for his interpretation of Isaiah 53 by presenting his readers with a sketch of the debate between the Christian missionaries and the Jewish community surrounding this passage. The problem with Boyarin’s depiction is that it is inaccurate, simplistic and crude; it presents the matter as a case of “either or” with no appreciation for the nuances involved.
First Boyarin posits that the Jewish community believes that the Messianic interpretation for Isaiah 53 was merely a product of the failure of Jesus’ mission. In other words, the idea that this passage is referring to the Messiah only arose as a Christian apologetic to explain Jesus’ death. Boyarin then counters with the “revelation” that Jewish interpreters have explained this text as Messianic “well into the early modern period”.
What Boyarin fails to tell his readers is that the Messianic interpretation is still alive and well in the teachings of Jewish rabbis who live today. No one is attempting to “suppress” the Messianic interpretation and the Messianic interpretation does not contradict the national interpretation. The debate between Jews and Christian missionaries does not center on the question as to whether the passage is Messianic or national. The question is; does this passage ONLY speak of a suffering Messiah? Is there no other way to read the passage? And furthermore, even if this passage IS speaking of a suffering Messiah; can it be referring to Jesus with all of the theological implications that the Church has appended to this belief? The answer to these two questions, as we shall see, is a resounding “NO”, but first let us gets back to the details of Boyarin’s presentation.
Boyarin finds “no evidence at all that any late ancient Jews read this passage as referring to anyone but the Messiah” (TJG, pg. 152). Boyarin has missed one of the most crucial pieces of evidence in this case. The Christian Scriptures themselves testify that the disciples of Jesus had already identified him as the Messiah, yet they did not expect him to suffer and die. The Gospels tell us that the disciples were completely shocked by Jesus’ death. This would certainly indicate that if anyone read Isaiah 53 as a teaching about the Messiah before Jesus’ times, the teaching was unknown to Jesus’ disciples.
Boyarin argues that the suffering of the servant described in Isaiah is parallel to the suffering of the “saintly exalted ones” described in Daniel 7:25 (TJG, pg. 144). At first this would seem to undercut his entire position which attempts to posit that the Isaiah servant is the individual Messiah and not the nation, while Daniel clearly refers to the suffering of the nation. Boyarin postulates that the passage in Daniel was read as a reference to an individual despite the plural terminology that the prophet uses. This faulty argument in and of itself is enough to discredit Boyarin’s position, but there is more to it. The prophet actually describes the suffering as an attempt by the enemies of the holy exalted ones to “alter the seasons and the law” – a fitting description of the religious persecution of the Jewish people which attempted to abolish observance of the appointed holy days. These metaphors can in no way be read as a description of Jesus’ suffering. Boyarin does not bother to explain how the details of Daniel’s prophecy harmonize with his interpretation.
The key difference between the Jewish and Christian interpretations of this passage has completely escaped Boyarin. Isaiah 53 is all about vindication. God’s servant, who suffered grievously, will one day be vindicated to the eyes of those who despised him. This is the primary thrust of the passage.
The missionary interpretation insists that it is Jesus who is going to be vindicated and ONLY Jesus who will be vindicated. According to the Church, the servant’s role can only be fulfilled by one who stands apart from all of humanity by virtue of his alleged divinity – no one can share in the servant’s accomplishment. The key element of the Church position is that the servant must be Jesus to the absolute exclusion of anyone else.
Judaism, on the other hand, asserts that the primary thrust of the passage is the vindication of those who accomplished God’s purpose on earth. Israel is God’s agent here on earth and it is through this nation that God’s purpose is fulfilled. Some individuals from within the nation, such as the prophet, the Messiah or the righteous may play a more prominent role in fulfilling God’s purpose, but they do so as part of the collective Israel. It is not by virtue of their being apart from Israel that they fulfill their role but because they are the heart of the nation that they achieve God’s purpose. If the passage is primarily speaking of Messiah, the prophet or the righteous remnant, it is not to the exclusion of the nation but that the nation’s role is concentrated in these individuals with the nation fulfilling the same role in a general sense. The vindication of the Messiah, the prophet or the righteous remnant is not something that stands apart from the vindication of Israel, but is part and parcel of the general vindication of the nation.
The concept of God’s purpose being fulfilled both by the nation and by an individual or an entity within the nation is a theme that is open and evident in the later chapters of Isaiah. In these chapters (40-66) the prophet refers to the nation as God’s servant (41:8; 43:10; 44:1; 44:21; 48:20) and he refers to an entity within the nation as God’s servant (42:1; 44:26; 49:3). Yet the prophet uses the same imagery and language to describe both the nation and this entity within the nation. The collective nation and the specific entity within the nation are both called from the womb (44:2,24; 49:2,5), are supported by God (41:10; 42:1), are chosen by God (41:8; 42:1), have God’s spirit placed upon them (44:3; 59:21; 42:1), are sheltered in the shade of God’s hand (51:16; 49:2), are called upon to establish the earth (51:16; 49:8), will bring the desolate ruins to life (61:4; 49:8), will be honored by kings (49:23; 49:7), will have ministers bow to them (45:14; 49:7), will serve as a light to the nations (60:3; 42:6; 49:6), were humiliated by their enemies (51:7,23; 49:7), fear that they have toiled in vain (40:27; 49:4), are honored by God (43:4; 49:5), and God is glorified through them (44:23; 49:3).
The theme of Israel’s vindication is also prevalent throughout the book of Isaiah. The prophet consistently teaches that those who trust in God will not be shamed (25:9; 30:18; 40:31; 41:10,11; 44:21; 45:25; 49:23). Isaiah describes how Israel’s righteousness will be obvious to the eyes of the nations and that God will reward their labor on His behalf (26:2; 40:10; 51:7; 60:21; 62:2).
The Jewish interpretation that has God’s purpose achieved through the prophet, the Messiah and the righteous more precisely and through the nation in a general sense – is fully supported by the text. The Christian interpretation which categorically cuts the nation out of God’s plan completely ignores the words of the prophet.
The concept that Israel is God’s servant has always been an integral part of Jewish self-identity. The Jewish people understood that they were called by God to serve His purpose here on earth. It was always understood that various members or entities within the nation, such as the prophet or the Messiah, will fulfill this calling more precisely than the nation as a whole – but these individuals will always be seen as an integral part of the nation. The theological assumption that only a divine being can fulfill God’s purpose and the doctrine which completely cuts Israel out of the role as God’s servant has no basis in any version of Jewish thought.
Posted in Isaiah 53, Messiah
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