Core Value #5
The richness of the rabbinic tradition is a valuable part of our heritage as Jewish people.
Although weaned and wooed to believe that our New Covenant faith was based on the Bible and nothing but the Bible, "the only rule of faith and practice," we gradually discovered that living out our faith inevitably had a cultural component. The Bible cannot be understood apart from a community context, which helps one understand its deepest meanings. In this way, obedience might become incarnate in daily life. We realized that having our views shaped entirely by a non-Jewish context was leaving a foreign imprint on our hearts, minds and lives. We wondered if this was the best we could expect.
Many of us had been brought up ignorant of, or even hostile to, the varied voices of Jewish tradition. Some had parents who paid lip-service to the G-d of our fathers, while in reality served the lesser G-ds of assimilation, success, and the unquestioned ideals of a good marriage, a home of their own in a good neighborhood, a comfortable retirement, and a better lifestyle for their children. Although these ideals were not unworthy in themselves, they become a form of idolatry when they get treated as the ultimate good. This form of idolatry can never, in the end, satisfy a people formed by HaShem to show forth His praise. But, we had been taught by omission not to look to Jewish tradition to learn how to live "the good life" in the modern world.
Certainly, our evangelical contexts taught us to distrust the opinions of "the rabbis" whose views on life and faith were perceived as a deceptive and legalistic counterfeit of the more abundant life to be found in Yeshua. After all, we had the Holy Spirit! What could we possibly learn from the rabbis except dead religion? "The letter kills but the Spirit gives life." Eventually, we recognized the superficiality of our judgments. We began to reckon with the fact that the proclaimed polarity between Torah and Spirit distorts the testimony of Scripture. We came to appreciate that New Covenant benefits include the Holy Spirit writing the Torah on our hearts, therefore causing us to walk in the statutes and ordinances of G-d. We began to appreciate the unity of Torah and Spirit.
We also began to appreciate how our own spiritual lives stood to benefit from the fruit of thousands of years of Jewish struggle for understanding. Like Paul, we began to bear witness to the undying flame of Jewish zeal for G-d. We began to lean upon these structural pillars, which stabilize Jewish religious life, understanding that they could help strengthen us and the Messianic Jewish community as well.
And what are these three pillars? The first is Torah, instruction for the good life based on the study of the sacred texts. This practice is helping us become more deliberate and informed in discerning the shape of obedience as we encounter life in all its complexity and particularity. Here, too, we learn afresh of the saving acts of G-d, of His promises, and see a reflection of His face.
The second pillar is avodah, the practice of liturgical prayer, which continues to surprise and delight us in its power to enrich our lives. In daily davvening we take our place with our people in the promises and purposes of G-d, reminded again and again of His irrevocable promises to the Patriarchs. We sing His praises with them at the shore of the Red Sea, celebrating our deliverance, sobered by the righteous judgment that overtook our foes, of which not one was left. We hear again and again, as if for the first time, His promise to gather our people from the four corners of the earth, for not one letter of His word will go unfulfilled. Is He not the Blessed One, who says and performs, who decrees and fulfills? We rediscovered daily the faith-transforming power of the Passages of Praise, the time-honored wisdom of the prayer agenda mapped out in the Amidah, and the stability and challenge encountered as we join our people at the foot of Sinai, listening again to the living word of the one who never stops saying to us, "Shema Yisrael." And we leave His presence reoriented and renewed, having again pledged allegiance to Him in the stirring words of the Alenu.
The pillar of gemilut hasadim, deeds of lovingkindness, supports and informs us as we learn to understand the meaning of "true religion," which one New Covenant writer defined as "visiting orphans and widows in their affliction and keeping oneself unspotted by the world." His is a vision totally consonant with this third pillar. The splendid and rich tradition of Jewish ethical writings and discussion of the fine print behind "doing justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with your G-d" never ceases to chasten us, providing teaching, rebuke, correction, and training in righteousness, that we might be fully equipped for every good work.
In all these ways and more, we have become informed and transformed by our own heritage. We rejoice at the privilege of drinking from our own wells, the wells from which our fathers, and from which Yeshua and the Apostles also drank and were sustained. Besides these wells we meet with Yeshua today, and here He speaks with us anew. Top
Core Value #6
Because all people are created in the image of G-d, how we treat them is a reflection of our respect and love for Him. Therefore, true piety cannot exist apart from human decency.
In the science fiction saga, Star Trek, there was a planet of people who had a cloaking device for their ships. They were able to fly around the universe while escaping the detection of any other starships. While their cloaking device was in operation, they were able to travel where and when they wanted without opposition from others, and it gave them an advantageous position from which to attack their enemies. In a similar way, people have misused religion as a cloaking device through which they could maneuver through life, escape detection for wrongs committed and even launch attacks on others.
Historically, this misuse of religion can be seen as far back as organized religion itself. All the prophets cried out against this abuse; Yeshua of Nazareth railed against it as well. The Church persecuted the Jewish people for almost two millennia in the name of religion.
Most thinking people would admit it is not fair to blame religion itself for these things. The problem is one of human nature. It is easy to cloak wrong intentions and problems under a cover of religious piety. Karl Marx thought the answer was to ban religion, but communism proved that politics could be just as effective a cloak as religion.
Religion can be affirmed as good and right. Ritual can be affirmed as a valid expression of faith and a means of connecting with G-d. Sadly, wherever the valid expression exists, the corruption of the ritual can also exist.
There are many Jewish people rediscovering their heritage as well as its beautiful practices. This rediscovery enables us to affirm identity as well as pass on our heritage to our children. Unfortunately, there are some who misuse ritual and form as a pretext to gain acceptance and authority. Some have taken to wearing the black hats and clothing of the Ultra-Orthodox. Others have sought to learn the rituals themselves as a means to grasp authority in the congregation. They have taken something that, in and of itself, is good, and have transformed it solely by their wrong intention into something malevolent.
Yeshua did not speak against ritual and tradition but against the wrong attitudes of those who taught and practiced them with improper motives. When people treat people poorly, whether for religious reasons or non-religious reasons, the value of their religious practice becomes nullified.
The parable of the sheep and the goats makes this clear. To the sheep it is said, "I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was naked and you clothed me." They answered, "L-rd, When did we ever see you in need?" And He said, "When you did so to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." To the goats it was said, "I was hungry and you gave me nothing. I was thirsty and you let me thirst. I was naked and you did not clothe me." They answered, "L-rd, When did we ever see you in need?" and He said, "When you did not do so to the least of these my brethren, you didn't do it to me." The only difference between the sheep and the goats was what they did or did not do. Yaacov, the brother of Yeshua, said that pure and undefiled religion is to take care of the needs of widows and orphans. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Yeshua taught the issue is not WHO is our neighbor, but that we are to BE a neighbor, rendering assistance to anyone in need. When an individual becomes a neighbor, a person who seeks to reach out and meet the needs of others, it can be a deeply religious act.
Religious people easily become preoccupied with words, presuming to become the voice of G-d to those around them. But it is far more fulfilling to be the hands of G-d in the world, as Yeshua and the prophets taught. Yeshua stated "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve," and "He who wishes to be the greatest among you must become the servant of all."
Long ago people tuned out the many self-proclaimed voices of G-d. It gave them headaches. People need to experience His love through kind actions. They need to feel His hands blessing them. The time is long past where religious pretext can cover up man's inhumanity to man. "Holier than thou" attitudes will prove unprofitable is unacceptable as we approach the next millennium. Actually, they never were acceptable from G-d's point of view. The ability to quote Bible verses or the practice of dressing in religious attire are not acceptable alternative standards of spirituality. All people are created in the image of G-d, therefore, how we treat them is a reflection of our respect and love for Him. True piety cannot exist apart from human decency. This is the heart of G-d; people need to feel it beating.
Continued
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