He Established Testimony – Psalm 78:5

Posted on June 7, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

He Established Testimony – Psalm 78:5

“Faith” means believing in something that is not readily evident. We would not use the word “faith” to describe our understanding that the sky is blue or that water is wet. We use the word faith to speak of concepts that we believe to be true but that are not openly obvious.

Both Judaism and Christianity speak of “faith” and both of these belief systems emphasize the importance of faith. Both Judaism and Christianity encourage belief in concepts and doctrines that are not visible and obvious in the physical world. But that is where the similarity stops. The faith of Christianity and the faith of Judaism are as far apart from each other as night is from day.

We can find the difference between the faith of Judaism and the faith of Christianity when we ask ourselves what came first: was it the faith in the heart of the believer or was it the truth in the realm of reality? Did the facts on the ground produce the faith or did the faith produce the facts?

In the case of Judaism God put the reality of His truth directly into the faces of the Jewish people. They collectively witnessed the ten plagues in Egypt, they collectively experienced His guiding hand in the wilderness for forty years and they all heard His voice from the midst of the fire at Sinai (Deuteronomy 4:35). While they were listening to God declare: “I am the Lord your God” it was not a matter of “faith”. The need for faith only arose when the curtain came down and God’s presence was no longer openly revealed.

In order to keep the faith alive from generation to generation God established the testimonial observances through which the Jewish people encounter the testimony of their nation on an experiential level. These observances allow each Jew to touch the solid reality of the founding facts of Judaism. With the strength of these truths established in his or her heart the Jew can step forward into the darkness and walk by the light of the truths which his people encountered face to face.

In the case of Judaism it was the facts that produced the faith.

In the case of Christianity it is the faith that produced the “facts”.

No one in the entire history of mankind ever saw Jesus as the second person in a triune godhead. No one in the entire history of mankind ever saw Jesus die for anyone’s sins. These were conclusions that a specific group of people arrived at after they analyzed and interpreted certain events.

Which specific group of people arrived at these conclusions? It was a group of people who “believed in” Jesus. These were people who had already put their faith in Jesus before they decided that he is the Messiah, before they decided that he needs to die as an atoning sacrifice and before they dreamed that the man that stood before them was somehow divine. These people had committed their hearts to faith in Jesus long before anyone had thought of the foundational doctrines of Christianity.

It was this group of people; those who had already a deep and abiding faith in Jesus, who arrived at the conclusions that form the foundational doctrines of Christianity. The doctrines of Christianity stand on the interpretation of men who desperately wanted to believe. It was the faith that these men had in Jesus which produced the supporting pillars of Christianity.

When the Jew is faced with darkness and confusion he or she can always go back to the anchors of Judaism. Yes; the wicked may prosper and the just may suffer, but our ancestors came face to face with the God of justice. The world may ridicule us because God’s presence is not manifest in our midst, but He joined Himself to us at Sinai, in the Tabernacle and in the Temple to the eyes of the entire nation and that bond can never break. These facts nourish and sustain our faith in times of darkness, we don’t need our faith to nourish and sustain the facts.

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Posted in Faith Structure | 43 Comments

Wicked Success – Habakkuk 2:4; Esther 5:13

Posted on June 3, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

Wicked Success – Habakkuk 2:4; Esther 5:13

 

“Behold the fortified, his soul will never be settled within him; but the righteous will live with his faithfulness”

 

“… and all of this is worthless to me.”

 

The prophet Habakkuk opens his book with an outcry to God about the success of Nebuchadnezzar. Habakkuk cannot understand why God allows the wicked to succeed in their quest for more wealth and more power. Why does God allow these wicked men to crush the righteous and the innocent?

 

In response to Habakkuk’s quest for understanding God says: “Behold the fortified, his soul will never be settled within him; but the righteous will live with his faithfulness.” God is telling the prophet to look just a bit beneath the surface. A man like Nebuchadnezzar, who is constantly seeking to augment his power, to build a bigger and better fortress for himself, is a man who never lives. The very fact that they are so busy building their power base is a sign of weakness and want. People who feel secure don’t need to keep on acquiring new sources of power and strength. People who are happy are not obsessed with the work of obtaining more and more wealth. As much as these people amass strength, power and wealth they will always be confronted with another weakness, another want, another deficiency that they will need to overcome according to their scheme of life. This constant never-ending race leads to nowhere and doesn’t allow their souls to find peace within themselves.

 

The righteous, on the other hand, live in a different world. They live in the world of “emuna”; honesty, trust, faithfulness and loyalty to God. The righteous recognizes that what God did not allot to them in life will not help them. The righteous trusts that it is God who placed him in this world and will take care of his needs and wants. The righteous has a calling in life and he is faithful to that calling. And the calling of the righteous is to be loyal to the God of truth and kindness.

 

The righteous doesn’t spend all of his time building a fortress for protection. Such activity cannot rightly be considered “living”. The work of establishing a strength and protection is just a means of fending of a threat so that life can go one undisturbed. But what is life itself? Is the point of building one wall to be able to live another day so that I can build another wall?

 

The righteous are shepherded with their faithfulness in God (Psalm 37:3). They recognize that the Master of the universe guides every instant of their existence. They trust in Him for protection and they trust in Him for all of their needs and with God as their shepherd they never lack (Psalm 23:1). Every moment is a moment of life, a moment suffused with purpose and with meaning. The righteous see every step of life as part of a walk with God and with God at your side you will not falter (Psalm 16:8; Isaiah 41:10).

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Posted in General | 16 Comments

Annelise on the Law of Life

Posted on May 30, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

Annelise on the Law of Life

The faith and culture of Judaism have been called legalistic by some people, who feel that careful observance of details in rabbinic law detracts from the real spirit of the written Torah. Others believe that the written law itself is made of arbitrary, almost irrelevant rules, or that it was once important but has now been replaced by a better path. To consider these issues and truly understand Judaism as a legal religion, we can ask what the original implications of the Sinai covenant were.

Obedience to the Torah was always meant to involve thankfulness, grace, faith, freedom, repentance, forgiveness, sincerity, and a life that draws very near to God. The law given to Israelites at Sinai contains the ability to turn back to Him and find forgiveness, whatever the situation is. From the earliest preserved Pharisaic texts until today, this recognition of the spirit of the law is still spoken about very often in Jewish life. Sincere service and worship of God are known to be the reason for keeping it wholeheartedly. The belief that Torah laws are to be kept, guarded, and even fenced off so deliberately is not merely self-righteousness if these are the things that God Himself told the Jewish nation He desires from them. Each part matters so much. Some are moral laws, applying to all humans; some are special covenant laws that belong only to the Jews in their personal relationship with Him. But from the moral commandment to love justice to the specific law of making tassels on the corners of their clothing, these things are a means of close connection between Israel and their God. He said that this path is not too distant for anyone to choose.

Fences are made around the Torah to guard it as something valuable and important. This is not the only reason why Orthodox Jews follow rulings that have been made by rabbis and by their communities after what was heard at Sinai. This covenant and law weren’t just given to people as individuals, but to a whole community as a collective sign and witness of their experience of God. The idea is to hold the covenant, keep its laws, and give their testimony, as a unified community through history. The historical fact for centuries has also been one of dispersion through many parts of the world. To hold their identity and their observance together, and for smaller groups to pursue the Torah through their own particular insights into it, an aspect of customs and shared life brings the heart of this law into the living context.

It is definitely wrong to make unnecessary fences or to twist the spirit of the law. Every stringency can draw people away from accessing the shape of the Torah itself, even while they can also help to apply or protect the meaning of the law in important ways. But when care is taken not to confuse the commandments of the Torah with the rulings of any community’s leaders, real freedom and expression of love can come from their rulings and customs. Life is complex, and the Torah is very detailed. The many details of rabbinic law are formed as practical answers to all these everyday questions. They come from conversations between people who have been respected in the community for their grasp of how different parts of the law work together and for the sincerity of their love for the spirit of the Torah as a whole and in its parts. This process is not perfect, but the corrections need to come from within the conversations and lives of the witness community, those who observe the law and have been promised to preserve it by grace. The only groups who take rabbinic authority seriously are those who really believe that the Torah comes from God and that it matters to actually keep it deeply in everyday life, getting closer to obedience over time. Many laws and fences simplify the law so that people who do not study Torah constantly are still able to walk in it with peace of mind, without forgetting details or encountering frequent uncertainty about how things fit together. In the same way, when these things are lived out every day and also studied carefully, they seem less extensive; they become intuitive and valuable when you live in them for every hour of many days.

Another reason why rabbinic rulings are followed is the centrality of the early texts of Jewish law for the group that has survived in its observance through history until now, such as the Mishnah and Talmud. It was always important to listen to the judgments of priests and judges about how the law should be applied in the life of the community; this is directly commanded in the written Torah. In our time of history, those judgments and that knowledge have been preserved in this form. The leadership of the late Second Temple period still has to be taken seriously by observant Jews. It is also undeniable that some aspects of the law, even some that were serious and punishable with death, didn’t have their details laid out in the written law; they were known by the community who were living them under Moses’ leadership and whose children began to pass them on. In the end, it is this tradition and knowledge, preserved among the observance of His law and among His promise that points to the validity of the Torah, prophets, and other scriptures themselves.

We can always choose to be hypocritical and proud, or to learn integrity and be humbly thankful. What matters is that we live in line with God’s commandment in the place that He has given it to us to do so.

Much of the Torah holds laws surrounding the Temple service. These are not a cumbersome burden. They are the gift of the fact that God has chosen to meet so, so closely with people in that place and in that way, if they will be receptive of relationship with Him in specific obedience. Striving to keep His laws is a way of honoring the continued gift of His presence. And the prophetic promise for the future comforts Israel that the Torah will be kept more fully, in spirit and in its details; that God will be met with so closely there in Jerusalem again, and throughout the world. What matters is not what we feel about the laws, but how we can each obey whatever God has actually commanded us as He reveals His heart in the details of life this world.

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

Posted in Annelise, Oral Law | 3 Comments

Eternal Israel – Excerpt from Council of My Nation

Posted on May 28, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

When one reads God’s declaration “This nation I have formed for Myself” (Isaiah 43:21), one must recognize that “this nation” is an entity that includes living Jews of every generation. “The children of Israel shall guard the Sabbath” (Exodus 31:16) refers to an observance that continues to sanctify people that live in your own neighborhood. “The council of My nation” (Ezekiel 13:9) is a council that abides from the times of Moses until this very day. “You are My witnesses” (Isaiah 43:10,11) is God’s declaration, not only to Jews who lived long ago, but to Jews who are alive today. Those who read these words and understand them as a reference to a “new” Israel (i.e. the Christian Church) cannot hope to begin to comprehend scripture. The people who pay lip-service to the concept of the eternal chosen-ness of Israel, but eviscerate the concept of all meaning (i.e. – by believing that the Christian Church is the only witness that can be trusted) are not much nearer to the message of scripture. These can be compared to one who attempts to read a wedding invitation while denying the existence of the bride. Those who reject Israel’s unique standing as God’s firstborn son should not expect to appreciate the words of Israel’s Father.

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Posted in General | 38 Comments

Works – Excerpt From Critique of Vol. 5

Posted on May 26, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

V. 53. Pages  195-198

Brown describes self-righteousness  as a “feeling that you have attained righteousness before God based on your  actions, or the feeling that you are morally superior to others.”

 

Brown speaks of: “the efforts of  religious Jews on the days leading up to Yom Kippur to have their good deeds  outweigh their bad deeds so their names might be written in the Book of Life for  another year?”

 

In place of the Jewish attitude (as  Brown understands it), Brown offers the word of Paul: “not having a  righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith  in Messiah – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith”(Phil.  3:9).”

 

Brown has again displayed a lack of  understanding of the facts on the ground within Judaism and, more importantly, a  lack of understanding of the spirit of Scripture.

 

It is true that the Jewish attitude  is to focus on our deeds, especially in the time-period leading to the Rosh  Hashana and Yom Kippur, as if our judgment depends upon our deeds. In the words  of Maimonides: “One should always see themselves, throughout the year, as if  they were halfway innocent and halfway guilty, and so the entire world, that it  is halfway innocent and halfway guilty; if he sins one sin, he causes himself  and the world to be considered guilty and he brings destruction upon himself; if  he does one meritorious deed, he has caused himself and the world to be  considered righteous, and he brought upon himself and upon them salvation and  deliverance” (3 Teshuva 4).  

 

The key words in this teaching are:  “all the time”. Immediately after doing a good deed, we should still be looking  at ourselves as though we are standing on the edge. When properly understood,  this teaching actually precludes self-righteousness. The thrust of the teaching  is that we must act as if everything depends upon our future actions, and that  at no given point in time could we rely on our past actions. I still haven’t met  the Jew who walks around with the attitude that he or she is righteous enough to  stand before God on the merit of his or her deeds. Maimonides (based on the  Talmud) is encouraging everyone, both a person steeped in sin and a person who  has lived a moral life to see themselves as one who stands on the edge. The  point is not to consider yourself righteous, but rather, to treat your actions  with all seriousness. Judaism emphasizes the concept expressed by David; “…no  living being is righteous before You (God), and echoed by Job (Psalm 143:2, Job  15:14, 25:4). Furthermore, we recognize that, with our deeds, we give nothing to  God that He does not already possess (1Chronicles 29:14, Job 35:7). At the same  time, this does not exempt us from our responsibility as God’s servants. God  puts the burden squarely on our shoulders when He commands us to obey His  commandments and in His mercy, He counts our deeds for righteousness despite the  fact that we gave Him nothing (Deuteronomy 6:25).

 

The joy and happiness we experience  when we fulfill God’s will is not the feeling of pride in our own  accomplishments. Rather, the happiness that results from our obedience to God is  rooted in the recognition that we have just received the greatest gift from God  and the greatest expression of His love.

 

To sum it up; we act as if  everything depends on our deeds, because that is how God wants us to act. We put  all of our trust in God, because we know that everything depends on His  mercy.

 

So Brown has misunderstood the  Jewish attitude towards good deeds, and towards God’s judgment. He has also  misunderstood a basic theme in Scripture.

 

The concept that righteousness  based on our deeds is somehow not from God while righteousness based on faith is  from God, is completely without any Scriptural foundation. God, in His mercy,  counts both our faith and our deeds towards us for righteousness (Genesis 15:6,  Deuteronomy 6:25). As long as these (the faith and the deeds) emanate from a  heart that is humble before God and that recognizes that God is the absolute  sovereign to whom both our faith and our deeds belong, then these are accepted  by God. But a faith that is not based on the recognition that God already  possesses our hearts, such as the faith that Paul and Brown are encouraging,  will never be accepted by God. Such a faith is the height of arrogance towards  God. How could a human being pledge his or her heart to anyone aside from the  One that created it to begin with?

 

Brown’s criticism of Judaism for  possessing an attitude of moral superiority should be directed at the Bible.  Throughout the Bible, God contrasts Israel’s position against the position of  the gentiles (Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 7:6, 14:2, 26:18,19, 33:29, Jeremiah  10:16). There is no question that the people of Israel received greater gifts  from God than did the other nations of the world. The question is: do we  recognize these as undeserved gifts? – as the Scriptures encourage us to do  (Deuteronomy 9:4). Judaism encourages us to acknowledge that which we were  granted from God as undeserved gifts and as a responsibility before God and man,  and not to use these gifts as an excuse for arrogance.   

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Faith – Excerpt from Critique of Vol. 5

Posted on May 21, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

V. 56. Page 205

Brown critiques Judaism: “…it does not provide complete redemption for the soul. In other words, it does not bring the assurance of forgiveness of sins, the assurance of being in a right standing with God, the assurance that upon death, we will be received into His eternal presence.”

 

I don’t see the Christian’s assurance of forgiveness, and the Jew’s lack thereof as a shortcoming of Judaism or as an advantage of Christianity. For people, who are tainted with the character faults of pride, envy, self-centeredness and greed, to stand there and to proclaim that they are “assured of being in a right standing with God” is nothing that I envy. For a person who is tainted with these flaws to be “assured” that they have been cleansed of these flaws, is something that I envy even less.

 

The assurance that the Jew experiences, is the assurance that King David experienced: “Even if I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, because You are with me” (Psalm 23:4). Wherever we are, God is with us. Not a god, who depends upon schools of theologians and libraries of writings to justify our devotion to him, but the God who holds the breath of every being in His hand, including our own breath, and including the breath of Jesus in those few years that he was granted on God’s earth.

 

We walk in the assurance that God is merciful and just and that He does not demand of us that which we are incapable of bringing forth. We experience the assurance that God accepts our sincere repentance to the degree that He forgets our sins. Sincere repentance is an ongoing, never-ending process that requires as to constantly seek greater depths of sincerity and of truth. As we draw ever closer to God, we are flooded with the light of His love – every time we are granted the privilege of fulfilling one of His commandments, and every minute that we are granted the privilege of breathing His air and walking His earth. Our hearts are steadfast with the assurance that His purpose on earth is being fulfilled through us as His beloved firstborn son.

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All or Nothing? – The Case of Aviyah (Abijah)

Posted on May 19, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

All or Nothing? – The Case of Aviyah (Abijah)

The book of Judges describes how Israel strayed from obedience to God (Judges 2:11 – 23). Before the monarchy was established in Israel we find that the Jewish people swayed back and forth from serving idols to serving God. With the emergence of Samuel the people turned back to God (1Samuel 7:2). This period of loyalty to God lasted throughout the times of Samuel, the reign of Saul and David as well as Solomon. But under Rechav’am (Rehoboam) the son of Solomon the people of Judah went back to do worse than all of the evils that were done before then (1Kings 14:22). This trend continued into the reign of Aviyam (or Aviyah – Abijah) as the prophet records (1Kings 15:3). This was the most sinful generation of Jews up until that time.

Now let us turn to the book of Chronicles. We find Aviyah facing off in battle against the Israelite army of the Northern kingdom. Although outnumbered Aviyah is confident that his Judean army will prevail. The Scriptures tell us how Aviyah stood on a mountain and lectured to the Israelite army about his own loyalty to God and the loyalty of his kingdom. Aviyah speaks of the service in the Temple that is being kept up by the people of Judah and he speaks of the fact that his people have not abandoned the watch of the Lord (2Chronicles 13:4 – 12).

Aviyah and the Judeans were indeed victorious over their Israelite opponents because they relied on the God of their fathers (2Chronicles 13:18).

Let us step back a minute. Didn’t the prophet teach us that this was a sinful generation? Where do we see Aviyah’s humility before God? How can we reconcile the dismal portrait of Aviyah as presented by the prophetic author of the book of Kings with his own assessment of himself as recorded in the book of Chronicles?

This is not the only such contradiction in the Scriptures. The righteous King David says about himself: “For my sins have gone over my head as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me” (Psalm 38:5). Yet the same David declares: “All of His judgments are before me and I have not turned away from His statutes” (Psalm 18:23). So was David a person drowning in sin or was he someone who was loyal to God?

We find the same contradiction concerning the nation of Israel as a whole in their exiled state. In Psalm 44 Israel declares to God:  “All this is come upon us but we have not forgotten You nor have we been false to Your covenant” (Psalm 44:18). And the same Israel declares: “We have sinned with our fathers we have done wrong and acted wickedly” (Psalm 106:6).

Through the prophet Jeremiah we learn how God was never pleased with the deeds of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 32:31). Yet God refers to the original state of the city as the “faithful city” (Isaiah 1:21). So which is it?

Hezekiah pleads to God to spare him on account of his own righteousness (2Kings 20:3). But didn’t the prophets teach us that no one is completely righteous (Job 15:16)?

The answer is that there are different levels of God’s judgment. On the one hand no one is justified before God’s absolute justice (Psalm 143:2; Job 9:30,31). On the other hand God is merciful and He factors our humanity into His judgment (Psalm 78:39; 103:14). We need to recognize that even if we were to obey God perfectly He would still owe us nothing because we have given Him only that which he already possesses (Job 35:7). On the other hand we must appreciate the blessing of obedience that God granted us in whichever limited sense we were blessed. God rewards even imperfect obedience; not because He owes anyone anything, but because in His mercy He counts our obedience for us as righteousness.

Both are true. We are sinful and we are loyal to God. The limited loyalty that we were granted directs us to yearn and to strive for greater closeness to God and deeper obedience. And our loyalty to God also directs us to stand tall in our obedience as the righteous Yehoshafat (Jehoshaphat) did before us (2Chronicles 17:6) and thank God for that blessing in our present state.

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Posted in General | 3 Comments

Freedom

Posted on May 19, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

Freedom

“There is no free man but one who busies himself with the study of Torah” (Avot 6:2)

Freedom means not being tied down by the boundaries and limitations that tend to limit us. There are different types of freedom. An acrobat is someone who has developed and cultivated a certain freedom of his or her physical body. A skilled acrobat is not limited by the forces that limit the rest of us. A musician is another person who cultivated freedom. An accomplished musician can express themselves with an instrument in ways that the rest of us cannot. The same applies to a race-car driver, a stunt pilot, and to so many other skills that people develop.

Each of these people develops a specific freedom. And in order to develop any freedom one needs to limit themselves. The skilled acrobat, musician, and mathematician all need to spend many long hours, days weeks, months and years cultivating and developing the particular skill in order to be able to obtain that specific freedom that they seek.

But is there any one freedom that we can point to and say that this is the freedom? Can we say about any specific type of freedom that this particular breaking of boundaries is the true freedom?

The question we must first address is who are we? The Scriptures teach that we were all created in the image of God. This means that deep inside of all of us is the yearning to be kind as God is kind, the desire for truth as God is true and the desire for fairness, justice and mercy. That is who we are.

The true freedom is when our sensitivity to truth, our humility and our gratitude are mature, developed and unencumbered by the limitations that would stand in our way. True freedom is when our practice of kindness soars to heights that we may otherwise not have reached. We can only say that our inner selves have obtained freedom when our consideration for others breaks boundaries and exceeds limits.

Let me illustrate with a small but true story. This took place in an elementary school. A group of eighth grade girls were going to get up on stage to sing for the rest of the school as part of the annual color war contest. The team’s colors were maroon and black so each of the girls was dressed in a black outfit trimmed with a large maroon bow. One of the girls lost her bow. She only realized that her bow was gone as she was about to go up on stage. She panicked. How embarrassing! Please get me a bow! But there were no extra bows around. Another girl immediately took off her own bow and tied it around her friend and that is how the group went on stage.

Do you think that the girl who lost her bow was not a considerate girl? I am sure that she is a nice and fine girl but her quality of consideration was hampered and limited by the wall of embarrassment. The girl who so readily and unhesitatingly gave away her own bow was not limited by the same wall of embarrassment that tied down her friend. Her consideration of others was more free and unlimited than that of her friend.

This is a miniature story but one that sheds light on so much more. It could be consideration versus embarrassment; it could be gratitude versus pride; it could be kindness versus greed and it could be holiness versus self-centeredness. In each of these situations we need to break barriers and find freedom and the range is endless.

How do we develop this true freedom? What are the exercises that develop our sensitivity to kindness and break the petty walls that tie us down?

This is the Torah. Studying the words of the Torah and following the precepts of the Torah with a heart that is humbled before the One who so lovingly granted us the Torah is the way we develop true freedom.  The way we cultivate the freedom of the image of God in which we were all created is by imbibing the holiness, the beauty and the truth of the Law of the Creator of heaven and earth.

There is no free man but one who busies himself with the study of Torah

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Acts and Faith

Posted on May 17, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

Acts and Faith

In the third and fourth chapters of the Book of Romans Paul sets down one of the cornerstones of Christian theology. Paul argues that no man can be justified by works as described in the Law of Moses because such justification would be a justification of debt and not of grace. Only through faith, argues Paul, is the justification a justification of grace.

Paul is saying that if God rewards good works it would be as if God is paying off a debt to the doer of these works. But when God rewards faith then God’s mercy and grace are revealed.

In order to support this theology Paul points to Genesis 15:6 where God reckoned Abraham’s faith for righteousness. The conclusion Paul arrives at is that only faith and not works can count for righteousness.

This Christian doctrine is the very antithesis of the Jewish Scriptures.

First of all, if God were to reward works it would NOT be an issue of paying a debt. God owes nothing to any of His creations. Whatever works are done by God’s creations give nothing to God that He did not already possess. If God chooses to reward works it is an expression of grace and mercy because our works belong to God before we gave them to Him. Just as God counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness so did He count Phineas’ works for righteousness (Psalm 106:31) and so does He count our works as righteousness (Deuteronomy 6:25). Whatever it is that God counts as righteousness it is never a debt that He owes. It is always an expression of His grace and mercy.

But, protests the Christian, can works not be a product of hypocritical self-righteousness and an expression of self-absorption?

The answer is that of-course works can be empty and hypocritical but these are not the works that the Law of Moses talks of. The works described by the Law of Moses are works of obedience, works of hearkening to God’s voice, works that emerge from a heart that is completely submitted to God. It is only to the degree that the person is submitted to God in heart and in deed that we can consider the works as “hearkening to God’s voice”.

But as much as Christians are confused about works it seems to me that there is a deeper confusion about faith. I am not even referring to the fact that the faith of the Christian in Jesus has nothing to do with the faith of Abraham in the One Creator of heaven and earth. I am talking about the delusion that the path of faith is somehow free of self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

Christians seem to believe that their faith can justify them. But what is faith in God? Faith in God means recognizing that God is the only true power. If someone feels more secure because he or she has a steady job then their heart is leaning on a power other than God. If a person feels any better because the doctor reported that they are in good health then again the heart is not complete with God. If someone doesn’t feel as safe and secure in a lonely forest as they do in a civilized city then again the heart is relying on the power of men and not so much on the power of God.

Full faith in God means freedom from self-centeredness. If you feel just as happy when your friend acquires some goal in worldly or in spiritual matters as you do when you yourself reach that goal then you can say that you are free from self-centeredness.

Faith in God means freedom from pride. If you feel the same way when someone insults you as when someone compliments you then you can say that you are free of pride.

Does this mean that faith in God is impossible? No! Not at all. But it won’t happen without God’s help. You need to pray to God so that he can fill your heart with true faith in Him. You need to recognize that just as you cannot produce works that are pleasing to Him without complete and utter humility before God so will you not produce faith without complete humility before God.

You need to follow the path that God set for us so that we can walk in His faith. This path is the path of works. By doing justice and loving kindness we can learn to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). Not that we see these (the practice of justice and kindness) as a means to “earn” a walk with God. Because God will never owe us anything. Instead we see the practice of justice and kindness as opportunities to imbibe in God’s goodness and to humble ourselves before Him.

No one can say that their heart is entirely pure (Proverbs 20:9). All we can do is yearn and look forward to the day when God will intervene and cleanse us Himself (Deuteronomy 30:6). To yearn means to walk the path that God mapped out for us with as much obedience as God grants us each and every day.

But what happens until then? What happens before our hearts and deeds are completely subject to God? The Jewish Scriptures make it clear that God doesn’t expect perfection from His creations (Psalm 103:14). The Scriptures are replete with examples of God looking favorably upon the hearts and deeds of men even though we know that these men and women were not perfect in heart or in deed simply because they were human.

To think that we have “arrived” is arrogance. To believe that we are nowhere is spurning God’s goodness. We need to recognize our blessings at the same time that we need to recognize our utter dependence on God.

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

 

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Covenant – Minimal Requirement

Posted on May 13, 2013 by yourphariseefriend

The Jewish people stand in a covenantal relationship with God. Not only as individuals, but also and primarily as a national entity. The nation that consists of individual Jews from all geographical locations and from all generations stands together as one party of a covenant in which the other partner is the Creator of heaven and earth. Members of this covenant nation recognize that this relationship with God requires a certain commitment. Our commitment to the covenant requires that we obey those precepts that our nation accepted as our part of the deal between God and ourselves. Our commitment to the covenant also requires that we cultivate appreciation of the covenant in our own hearts and in the hearts of our fellow members of this covenant.

The concept of a covenant implies that there are or that there will be factors that threaten the relationship between the two parties. A covenant is the solemn promise that both parties in a relationship pledge towards each other that they will maintain their loyalty to the relationship despite the various factors that might otherwise work to weaken or to break the relationship. God promises the Jewish people that no matter how much they sin and stray from His truth, He will maintain His side of the covenantal relationship (Jeremiah 31:36). The people of Israel face many forces that attempt to break their standing as a covenant nation before God. The human proclivity to self-centered pleasure seeking and desire for power threatens to create a barrier between themselves and their Divine partner. Those who wish to maintain their covenantal relationship with God encourage themselves and their fellow Jews to keep sight of this holy relationship and overcome the temptation to get lost in the sea of self-centered materialism.

The most direct assault on Israel’s relationship with God is the sin of idolatry. The Jewish Bible compares idolatry to spiritual adultery. The prophets saw Israel’s relationship with God as a marriage. There is an ideal marriage in which both partners think of nothing but of their love to each other and of their responsibilities towards each other. A marriage in which one of the partners moves into the realm of self-centeredness and forgets their responsibility towards his or her partner is certainly less than ideal, but the marriage has not been violated. It is when one of the partners enters into a marriage-like relationship with someone other than their spouse that the marriage has been directly violated. When a Jew forgets his or her covenantal responsibilities, the relationship between themselves and God has moved away from the ideal, but it has not been directly violated. It is when the Jew enters into a relationship with an entity other than God that the covenant with God has been broken.

In light of their standing as a covenant nation before God, the Jewish people as a community have resisted the Church’s missionary campaign that would have them direct their hearts towards Jesus. The Jewish community views devotion to Jesus as idolatrous; the most direct violation of their covenant relationship with God, and Israel views its own resistance to the Church message as an expression of loyalty to the covenant it shares with God. In the eyes of the Jewish community, being a Jew means at the bare minimum, not entering into a devotional relationship with Jesus (or with any other idol).

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Yisroel C. Blumenthal

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