Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Rabbinic minds have thought about the significance of Genesis in a number of different ways. For exegetes like Rashi, Genesis stresses how God is the Owner and Proprietor of the universe and, therefore, God alone has every right to give the Land of Canaan to whomever He pleases; in this case, He bequeaths it to the nation of Israel. As God’s people, Israel has a bond with the land that is eternal and irrevocable.[1] Rashi’s opening salvo was quite a remarkable comment to make at a time when Christians and Muslims were fighting for control of the Holy Land. What began long ago as an ideological struggle during the age of the Crusades continues to haunt present-day reality in the Middle East.

In contrast, some exegetes argue that Rashi’s answer to be inadequate.[2] Genesis stresses a basic theological truth, namely—God is the Author of all existence. Ramban[3] (1194–1270), as well other Judaic commentators teaches the importance of creatio ex nihilo—nothing would exist were it not for the creative power of God. Every creature and entity could not exist were it not due to the conscious act of the Divine bringing each being into existence at every moment.

Like Ramban, Rashbam[4] (ca. 1085-1158) also  supports the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, while adding, “Do not imagine that this world you now see and experience had existed forever, for everything in the universe had an absolute beginning—that is why the Torah states from the onset: “At the beginning of the creation of the heaven and the earth . . .” (1:1). Furthermore, reasons Rashbam, the purpose of the creation narrative is to explain why the Sabbath is the cornerstone of all the Jewish holidays—a point that is emphatically stressed in the Decalogue: “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day. . . . In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD has blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exod. 20:8-10). By observing the Sabbath, Israel bears witness to the world that God is the sole Creator of the universe.

Among the patristic fathers, Theodoret of Cyprus (393-457) explains that after centuries of oppression and assimilation, the Israelites became religiously indistinguishable from their Egyptian masters who believed solely in a visible creation. Consequently, the Israelites had forgotten about the one and true God of their ancestors, who created the heavens and the earth. “The statement that heaven and earth and the other parts of the universe were created and the revelation that the God of the universe was their Creator provided a true doctrine of God sufficient for people of that time.”[5] Theodoret’s point is significant. From the very outset of their freedom, Moses begins re-educating his people by teaching them about the creation story. The purpose of the Sabbath thus serves to teach the people of Israel about the nature of true faith and belief in God. Maimonides later expresses a similar point. According to him, each biblical precept—in one manner or another—aims to raise humankind, as theologian David Hartman notes, “from an anthropocentric to a theocentric concept of religious life.”[6]

Karaite exegete and theologian Aharon ben Eliahu (1260-1320), sharing a somewhat similar opinion to that of Rashbam, points out that the principles of Providence and prophecy would be inconceivable were it not for the belief that God created the world. “Moses,” argues Aharon, “wished to impress upon his people that they look only to God as the Ultimate Cause of their existence.” Like Rashbam, Aharon explains that the purpose of the Creation narrative also serves to theologically reinforce the celebration of the Sabbath.

• Genesis and the Origin of Ethical Monotheism  

R. Samuel David Luzzato (1800-1865) offers an altogether different interpretation. According to him, the opening salvo of Genesis teaches:

Now God wanted to proclaim to humankind about the unity of the world and the unity of the human race, for in error in these two matters caused many evils in ancient times. Without knowledge of the world’s unity, it followed that people believed in private gods with limitations and imperfections, and that people would do evil deeds in order to win their favor. . . . Without knowledge of the unity of the human race it followed that one people would hate and despise another and that physical force—not justice and righteousness—would rule among them. These two cardinal principles—the unity of the world and the unity of the human race—are the overall purpose in the story of Creation.[7]

S. D. Luzzato’s position is reminiscent of the early rabbinic view of 2^nd century sage, R. Simon Ben Azzai, who thought that the greatest single principle one may derive from the Genesis story—or for that matter, the entire Pentateuch—is the statement in Genesis affirming that God created humankind in His Divine image (Gen. 1:26; 5:1). According to Ben Azzai, the most supreme ethical principle in the Torah is the teaching of divine equality and equity. Moreover, this principle exceeds even the famous Levitical passage, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). For Ben Azzai, respecting the divine image beginning first with oneself, and then with others ensures that society will be just and moral. To insult or harm the divine image in any of its forms is to deny the essential brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind. This is why Ben Azzai affirms that the verse affirming the Divine image is by far the most comprehensive principle of the entire Torah—the bedrock of all biblical morality.[8]

The opening chapters of Genesis thus provide the theological basis for ethical monotheism. Since all races of humankind are made in the image and likeness of God, anyone denying this principle will result in a world that is riddled with violence, tragedy, and needless suffering. One may further argue that this particular theme links together the books of Genesis and Exodus. People cannot mistreat one another with impunity, for in God’s creative order there is accountability. Humankind’s very survival depends upon mastering the forces of chaos that threaten its very survival. The same God who creates the universal laws that govern the cosmos also creates the moral law by which humanity must abide. The Decalogue at Sinai is more than a mere ethical prescription—all ethics regarding how one treats one’s fellow beings derive from the creation narrative.

• The Dangers of Pseudo-Piety

Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin also stresses the importance of ethical monotheism that is the bedrock of the Genesis narratives. He writes:

• The matter that is explained in the Song of Ha’azinu in the verse, ‘The Rock—how faultless are his deeds, how right all his ways! A faithful God, without deceit, how just and upright he is!’  (Deut. 32:4). The term “right” comes to justify the fairness of God’s judgement regarding the destruction of the Second Temple, a generation that can best be described as “perverse and crooked.” Although there were devout and pious people who labored in the study of Torah, they neglected to act uprightly in an ethical manner (lit. “ways of the world”). Due to the gratuitous hatred they harbored in their hearts, they lashed out against anyone they felt who lacked the “fear of God” as being either a Sadducee or a heretic. Their self-righteous attitude led to internecine strife—resulting in the Temple’s destruction. God’s judgement was truly just, for He does not tolerate self-righteous people of this sort. With respect to all ethical matters, they must walk in the proper path, and not in perversity—even if they claim that they are acting in the Name of Heaven, for in the end they were responsible for the Temple’s destruction.[9]

Berlin’s observations still resonate with our 21^st century political and religious landscape. The absence of interpersonal piety is a problem that has manifested itself in a variety of fundamentalist religions of our times and no religion can claim immunity from this charge. In our own day, the insistence upon ideological purity and Pavlovian-like obedience to ecclesiastical authorities often produces the worse kind of citizen.

This is certainly the problem with the Haredi and Hassidic communities in Israel, which insist that even non-Haredi Orthodox Jews comply with their standards of modesty and personal piety. The vitriolic disdain for the Other respects no persons, not even mothers or their young children. In the name of zealotry, violence toward the Other is endorsed by many of Jerusalem’s Haredi and Hassidic leaders, as these groups attempt to expand their political and social influence. With the political ascent of Jihadist Islam (a.k.a. Radical Islam), the threat of holy war and promises of a paradisial world replete with all the sexual pleasure a young man can possibly imagine, threatens to destroy millions in Israel with sophisticated nuclear and biological weaponry. Theocracies are a lot like meat and milk; religion, like milk is fine and politics as an endeavor can also be fine–but when they are mixed, you have a toxic substance.

Here is the paradox: the love of God can function as a healing life-force, the most profound wellspring of compassion. On the flip side, the love of God  is capable of transforming itself into a diabolical death-force, capable of annihilating all life. Religious hatreds tend to be merciless, unyielding, undying, absolute, and are seemingly capable of spontaneous generation.[10]

Let us pray that ethical monotheism finds a way to triumph over its evil twin—radical monotheism, which subsists upon the hatred of the Other for its existence and power.

Continue Reading

Horace Mann School of Cherry Hill, NJ,  is still living in the dark ages. It is ironic that the original Horace Mann opposed corporal punishment in the classroom. He was an early advocate for teaching moral values in the classroom, and that the character formation was as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Just as he opposed corporal punishment, he also opposed ridiculing children in the classroom.

Horace Mann would be turning over in his grave if he could see the things being perpetuated by the institutions that bear his name.

Our school system has a serious with respect to bullying. With respect to bullying, there is a good deal of bullying without violence, e.g., bullying by words, gestures, treating the bullied person as a pariah. Many children have committed suicide because the taunting they experience in the class room by their peers. When a teacher resorts to bullying, the problem is exponentially worse since children view adults as role models. That is exactly what happened in Cherry Hill, this past month.

When I read about Stuart Chaifetz’s ordeal with the Horse Mann School, I felt sorry for his poor son, Akian. I felt sorry for all the autistic children who might have had similar experiences. Their lives are hard enough without adults making their lives more miserable.

For those of you unfamiliar with the boy’s odyssey, the story began when the parent heard some complaints about his son acting violently in the class. The father related that this was out of character for his autistic ten year-old son, who always had a pleasant disposition. The father decided to wire his son, so he could hear exactly what was going on in the classroom.

The father was shocked by the degree of abuse his child had received from his teachers. The tenured teachers of Horace Mann began talking about their drinking binges, sexual exploits, gossiping about students and their parents. As if that wasn’t enough, they began taunting, shouting, and swearing at his son.

The teacher and her aides did their best to “make a living hell for my son,” Chaifetz said. After being insulted by the teacher and her assistants, Akian began to cry. The teacher began mocking him and yelling: “Shut your mouth . . . ‘Go ahead and scream because guess what? You are going to get nothing until your mouth is shut.’” After a few minutes, the teacher screamed, “Oh Akian, you are a bastard.”

The father’s decision to Youtube the conversation was a brilliant stroke.

Embarrassed by the incident, the school immediately fired one of the teachers; the other teacher is still remaining in the school.

But Chaifetz does not agree. ‘What you did was so disgusting that you should be walking around with your head in shame… And you’re still teaching children today,’ he said. He added, “I want an apology not for me,  so one day, I can play this video back for my son and say, ‘Akian, you did not deserve anything that happened to you. These people are at fault… This is to reclaim my son’s dignity.’”

The absence of human compassion is shocking. The Horace Mann School is probably not the only school that operates this way. Perhaps the time has come for the local school districts to start video-taping the classes that are believed to have serious problems like the case we mentioned above.

It seems to me that it might not be a bad idea for members of the clergy and other civic leaders to consider moral education into the curriculum, much like Horace Mann envisioned in the 19^th century. True, Horace Mann believed that the Bible was the best source for ethical values, but in the 21^st century, we may want to take ethical values from many traditions, e.g., basic teaching from Epictetus, Epicurus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aesop’s Fables, Buddha, Hillel, Jesus, Proverbs, Ben Sira, Ramakrishna,  and the Native American tradition.

A course in the Golden Rule should be a part of any ethics, philosophy, or psychology class in high school.

Our public schools need to teach values about respect, altruism, consideration, empathy, compassion, patience, and prudence. True, one might argue that it is the parent’s responsibility to teach these values, but historically—our country’s schools realized that teaching ethical values (not necessarily religious values) serves to help create a better citizen for society as whole.

If we wish these values to take root, they must be instilled from the pre-school and up, one year at a time. If we wait for children to start learning these values by the time they get to middle school, I am afraid we may be too late. By the time the children become older, bad habits become engrained in their character.

As for Stuart Chaifetz, a lawsuit against the Horace Mann School may be one of the best ways to teach the school a lesson in accountability. It is unfortunate that we have to use lawyers, but this is no frivolous lawsuit. Society needs to learn the hard way that there are serious financial consequences in abusing children—especially those children who have no voice to advocate for them. Continue Reading

Haredim and archaeologists in the Holy Land have never been especially fond of each other. Traditionally, they are a little bit like meat and milk. By themselves, each is fine. However, when they get together, they create a combustive chemistry. Whenever an archeological excavation takes place, they chime in unison:

• May God erase their names . . .The heads of the Antiquities Authority and the chief archaeologists are sub-human, may their hands be cut off, for committing this terrible crime. In broad daylight they remove graves, disturbing the eternal rest of the dead and remove the bones of our ancestors from their graves…They are responsible for desecrating the graves of our forefathers throughout the Holy Land. Please call them and disturb them, at all hours of the day.”

Yes, the Haredi rhetoric has been intensely vitriolic at times. Therefore, when the head of the Karlin-Stolin Hassidic dynasty went on a museum tour of the Israel Museum, shock-waves were felt all over Israel.

The Karlin-Stolin Rebbe, Rabbi Baruch Shochat, made history that day. He is the first ultra-Orthodox leader to visit the Israel Museum.

Most Hassidic rebbes are not known for their love of art and culture, but Rabbi Shochat is a patron of the arts. In fact, he even encourages his followers to take an interest in the arts–-and especially archaeology. The tour-guide made it a point to show him the Shrine of the Book, where the famous Dead Sea Scrolls are kept along with other significant archaeological findings.

Some Haredi leaders are finally starting to show some interest in a field of study, which for many decades had been off-limits.

Several months ago, the First Haredi conference on “Torah archaeology” held in Jerusalem on September 9th, 2o11 and the event drew a packed audience. The sponsors of the event wanted to demonstrate how archaeology can provide answers to longstanding rabbinical debates that have never been resolved for hundreds of years.

Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch runs a museum that displays artifacts dating back to the time of the Mishnah. Among the items he had recently obtained, was a scale. He poses a question, “How much did the litra (a Talmudic measure) actually weigh? The answer: 354 grams—just as Rashi claimed, but contrary to Maimonides!” That figure comes to about 12.5 ounces.

Metrology has never been my field of expertise, so I decided to check out Rabbi Deutch’s claim that the litra weighed only 354 grams. Actually, there is some debate as how much a litra weighs. Some archaeologists think it weighed 340 grams—contrary to Rashi’s opinion. This figure is based on Josephus’ calculation. [1] Other scholars contend that the Greek λίτρα (lítra) represents both a unit of weight and a unit of capacity equivalent to about 0.5, which correspond to 11.5 oz. or 326 or 327.45 grams (cf. John 12:3).

R. Isadore Epstein, who writes in his notes to the Soncino Talmud that the litra is identical with the Roman libra, which weighed one pound.[2] Steinzaltz in his notes to the Talmud writes that the litra weighed 327 grams. The Artscroll commentary abstains from providing any information; it says a litra is “a measure” and adds no further comment. Upon further research I found that the Alexandrian litra weighed about 363.83g, which actually exceeds Rashi’s figure![3]

This is the main problem of the Haredi attitude regarding archaeological research. All the speakers at this event agree “using ancient artifacts to shed light on religious texts – as long as they don’t undermine the traditional reading of the texts, of course.” Such a reaction only begs the real issue: What if archaeology contradicts the Talmud? What then? Judging by the archeological evidence, Rashi’s position is still questionable. Does this mean Rashi is not infallible?

No, dear reader, no rabbi is infallible–not even Rashi or Maimonides.

It is wonderful to see a change in attitude taking place among certain Haredi groups. When I look back, I think about a famous Hassidic rabbi who refused to accept archeological evidence in solving a classical halachic dispute. Once someone asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe about the shape of the menorah, which existed in the Temple. The man thought that based upon the ancient pictures of the menorah seen in Israel–the menorah should be depicted as U-shaped. “Not so, not so,” insisted the Rebbe. To the surprise of everyone in the room, the Rebbe dismissed the archaeological sources that indicated the menorah was round. Instead, he followed Maimonides’ view who taught the menorah was angular in shape.

Even if Maimonides personally subscribed to such a peculiar view of the menorah, there is no archeological support from the last 2300 years that would even indicate that the Temple menorah ever had a V-shaped geometrical design. All the numerous artifacts unearthed from the time of the Maccabees (e.g., gravestones, coins, amulets etc.) suggests that the branches were U-shaped rather than V-shaped. In one recent archaeological discovery, an ancient synagogue dating back to the Second Temple (50-100 B.C.E.), the walls of the synagogue show  pictures of a seven-branched menorah.

Incidentally, the famous Arch of Titus portrays the menorah as being U-shaped.

Some people do not wish to be confused with the facts. But again, Rabbi Schnersohn was the only rabbinic authority of the modern era who believed that the sun still revolves around the earth—contra Copernicus![4] Rabbi Schnersohn is hardly alone on the matter of science vs. the wisdom of the Torah  Sages. There are still many Haredi rabbis who reject Darwin’s theory of evolution. By the same token, many of these Haredi and Hassidic rabbis believe God actually created the world in six literal days, despite the physical evidence that refutes this antiquated notion.

One of the recent event’s main sponsors, Rabbi Eliahu Soloveitchik, offered some positive words strongly suggest that the Haredi community is gradually moving toward a new orientation regarding the use of science and archaeology in the study of Judaism. When asked what he and his colleagues would do with findings that appear to contradict the Torah, R. Soloveitchik said, “If there are findings that contradict my fundamental beliefs, we’ll let the experts resolve it. The message is that we aren’t afraid of science and can digest it.” R. Soloveitchik is also the founder of Matmonei Eretz, an organization that promotes Haredi study of archaeology and history.

Rabbi Soloveitchik’s approach is commendable. We can only hope that more Haredi Jews and their rabbis will learn to see science and archaeology as an ally instead of a foe.

——-

Notes:

[1] Josephus (Ant 3.6.7 §144 on Exod 25:39) translates Heb kkr as “100 minas” and adds “kinchares is the Hebrew word that means talanton in Greek,” where he is probably thinking about the Roman centarius of 100 “pounds,” but elsewhere (Ant 14.7.1 §106) he relates that Crassus took a bar of gold “of three hundred minas,” noting that “our mina is two and a half litrai.” This litra, usually interpreted as a Roman pound, is probably the “mina” of 100 denarii (≈ 340 g), and 125 such “minas” would be the mass of a Tyrian talent (≈ 42.5 kg), suggesting that the Tyrian talent may have been divided in Josephus’ time into 50 “minas” (340 g × 2.5 × 50 = 42.5 kg). Thus, the “shekel” of NT times probably refers to the Tyrian tetradrachma (so Ben-David 1966). This seems to be based on a “mina” of 100 denarii (100 × 3.4 g), corresponding to the Roman pound plus 4 denarii, divided into 24 parts, yielding a “shekel” of ca. 14.1666 g and a 3,000-shekel talent of ca. 42.5 kg. Thus, Josephus was probably speaking only in approximate terms in identifying the “shekel” with 4 drachmai-denarii (Ant 3.8.2 §195, 18.9.1 §312, JW 7.6.6 §218; likewise Matt 17:24). Anchor Bible Dictionary Vol. 6, (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 907.

[2] BT Nedarim 57b.

[3] Atti dell’Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana, Volume 12 p. 190. Others think it ranged from 322.3 g,-323g.

[4] R. Menachem Mendel Schnersohn, advocated just such a position. Here is an extraordinary letter the Rebbe wrote (September 16, 1968):

• I am in receipt of your letter of September 10th, in which you touch upon the question of whether the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa, in view of the fact that you heard from a college student that the truth is that the earth revolves around the sun. It greatly surprises me that, according to your letter, the student declared that science has resolved that the earth revolves around the sun. The surprising thing is that a person making such a declaration would be about one half century behind the times insofar as the position of modern science is concerned. This belief is completely refuted by the theory of Relativity, which has been accepted by all scientists as the basis for all the branches of science. One of the basic elements of this theory is that when two bodies in space are in motion relative to one another (actually the theory was initiated on the basis of the movements of stars, planets, the earth, etc.), science declares with absolute certainty that from the scientific point of view both possibilities are equally valid, namely that the earth revolves around the sun, or the sun revolves around the earth. Herman Branover, Joseph Ginsburg, and Menachem Mendel Schnersohn (trans. Arnie Gotfryd) Mind over Matter: The Lubavitcher Rebbe on Science, Technology and Medicine (Jerusalem: Shamir 2003),

• Are there any biblical analogies to today’s contemporary economic problems?

Well, sort of . . .

Today’s economic times may be compared to one of the more turbulent periods of the early monarchy, to the time of King Solomon and his son Rehoboam. Most of us know that King Solomon was famous for his wisdom and his love life. Despite purportedly being the “wisest man” of all time, when it came to women—King Solomon proved to be quite foolish. Having one wife to love and cherish wasn’t good enough for the old Testosterum-driven monarch—he had to have a thousand wives. By doing so, he violated a number of biblical prohibitions designed to keep monarchial power in check:

• But he shall not have a great number of horses; nor shall he make his people go back again to Egypt to acquire them, against the LORD’S warning that you must never go back that way again.Neither shall he have a great number of wives, lest his heart be estranged, nor shall he accumulate a vast amount of silver and gold (Deut 17:16-17)

King Solomon lived the good life, while conscripting the male population to a life of slavery. He used the proceeds to build extravagant palaces for his lovers–all at the public dole. In fact, the biblical narrator writes:

• King Solomon conscripted thirty thousand workmen from all Israel. He sent them to the Lebanon each month in relays of ten thousand, so that they spent one month in the Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the draft. Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stone-cutters in the mountain, in addition to three thousand three hundred overseers, answerable to Solomon’s prefects for the work, oppressing  the people who engaged in the work (1 Kgs. 5:27-28)

King Solomon even recreated an Israelite form of slavery that was reminiscent of the Egyptian bondage. The noun מַס (mas) is usually translated as “levy” but it is sometimes used to denote “taskmaster,” or “forced labor” in Biblical Hebrew. Solomon instituted corvee labor,  which involves involuntary, unpaid labor or other service for a superior power—a feudal lord, a king, or a foreign ruler (cf. Exod. 1:11; Est 10:1; Lam 1:1). One cannot have high expectations of a pagan Pharaoh, who could scarcely recognize or pronounce the God of Israel’s Name.

But Solomon is different.  Surely the “wisest man” of the earth ought to have stronger moral scruples, but he chose to emulate the potentates of the ancient world who ruled by force and despotism.

Solomon’s brutal reign  reminded the Israelites of their historical experiences in Egypt (Exod. 1:11). When the Pharaoh who introduced slavery died, the Israelites hoped that a new Pharaoh would take pity upon them. Instead, the next Pharaoh ruled with even greater vindictiveness. (Exod.2:23). A similar development occurs after the death of Solomon. Seeking to curry favor with Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the people said to King Rehoboam,“Your father put on us a heavy yoke. If you now lighten the harsh service and the heavy yoke your father imposed on us, we will serve you” (1 Kgs.12:1). The King then takes counsel with his advisers and later proclaims, “My father put on you a heavy yoke, but I will make it heavier. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions” (1 Kgs. 12:14).

Solomon’s reckless economic policies bankrupted the nation and Rehoboam’s foolishness led to the secession of the ten tribes under the leadership of Jeroboam.

Are there modern day parallels to this biblical story?

You betcha!

The real issue that clergy across the religious and political spectrum ought to be critiquing the degree of excess, misappropriation, and willful theft of the American consumer by our governmental leaders—from the President down to the typical bureaucrat. Here are several examples that come to mind.

By now, most of you probably heard about the GSA Las Vegas scandal. The GSA stands for the General Services Administration. Several top executives decided to spend over $800,000 of taxpayer dollars on an extravagant “conference” off of the Las Vegas Strip. What made this story so controversial? Well, the General Services Administration (GSA) was created to, in their words, “streamline the administrative work of the federal government” and it “oversees the business of the U.S. federal government.”

Oh really?

• $31,000 on a “networking reception” that featured $19-per-person “American artisanal cheese display” and $7,000 in sushi

• $3,200 on a session with a mind reader

• $5,600 for in-room parties

• $100,405.37 in employee travel costs to scout the event–meaning, these people returned to the Las Vegas area multiple times to visit hotels before settling on the fancy M Resort and Casino.

• $3,700 for T-shirts and $2,800 in water bottles

• $1,500 for “Boursin scalloped potato with Barolo wine-braised short ribs” and a $525 bartender fee for a cash bar.

• Three officials spent almost $400 for rented tuxedos

• $1,840 for vests for the 19 “regional ambassadors” and other employees

• $146,527.05 was spent on catered food during the entire conference

• $75,000 for a “team-building” exercise — the goal was to build bicycles (which would later be donated to a Boys & Girls Clubs)

Had it not been for an honest reporter, nobody would have known the difference. Think for a minute: Have you ever wondered how many extravagant parties our elected officials have thrown that we have never heard about? But all of these parties are nothing but chump change—when you compare the amount of billions that President Obama’s green energy corporations have squandered with our “stimulus” money. Obviously somebody is getting a lot of stimulation, but not the kind we have expected.

Consider:

• Last April, Solar Trusts of America received a $2.1 billion grant from the Department of Energy to build the world’s largest solar plant in California.

• On 31 August 2011 Solyndra announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, laying off 1100 employees, and shutting down all operations and manufacturing, while providing no severance for the fired employees, or even providing back due vacation day credit.[1]

(NaturalNews) Just a few months ago, FBI agents raided the headquarters of now-bankrupt solar panel company Solyndra, which received more than half-a-billion dollars in federal stimulus funds as part of the federal government’s green energy stimulus initiative.

According to a new investigation by CBS News, the Solyndra scandal is just the tip of the iceberg, as at least 11 other green energy companies have either already failed, or are on the verge of failing, taking with them more than $6.5 billion in taxpayer money.

Lastly, I must say that I have always been a Democrat but I am a Scoop-Jackson Democrat, one who believes that our elected officials must exemplify integrity and fairness to all—regardless of race, religion, or economic background.

Judging by her behavior, Mrs. Obama has aspirations of becoming the next Imelda Marcus  of the Philippines.  Imelda Marcus’s  extravagant lifestyle reportedly included five-million-dollar shopping tours in New York, Rome and Copenhagen in 1983, and sending a plane to pick up Australian white sand for a new beach resort.

White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10 million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year. Not bad for just 42 days of vacation, or a little more than one  million out of every nine days, according to a White House Dossier analysis of her travel.

Her vacations, the cost of which are mostly borne by taxpayers, include trips to Panama City, Fla., Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, South Africa, Latin America, Vail, Colo., and her visit this week to her brother in Corvallis, Ore.

One can only conclude that, “It’s good to be President!”

Amos the prophet once said, “Hear this word, women of the mountain of Samaria, you cows of Bashan, You who oppress the weak and abuse the needy; Who say to your lords, ‘Bring drink for us!’” (Amos 4:1). It seems that the fat cows of Bashan have invaded and conquered the White House.

So ask my fellow clergy: Where is your sense of outrage? When you consider how many people can barely fill their cars up with gas, Michelle Obama’s spending habits seem obscene.

If I were the President, I would make it a point to be more circumspect with my personal conduct. The appearance of impropriety undermines the confidence the President is trying to establish for his presidency. Continue Reading

As we open our door to welcome Elijah, some of us probably snicker and say “Yeah, right…” The cynicism of our age makes us doubt whether the Messiah will ever really arrive.

People often wonder who the Messiah is going to be. Many faith communities believe it will be Jesus; Chabad Hasidim believe that Rabbi Schnersohn will arise from the dead and save humankind. Personally, when asked, I often like to tell my students, “Here’s the bad news: The Messiah is more metaphor than it is a historical reality–at least with respect to the present or future generations.  Antecedents for this belief appear in BT Sanhedrin 99a:

• Rabbi Hillel said: There is no messiah for Israel, seeing that they already had him in the time of King Hezekiah. Rav Yosef said: May Rabbi Hillel’s Master forgive him. Hezekiah lived during the First Temple while Zechariah prophesied during the Second Temple.

Rashi notes in his commentary that R. Hillel accepted the concept of a future redemption but merely held that there will be no individual who will bring that redemption. Rather, God will do it without a human messenger. In other words, the human aspect of the Messiah is not that important; what matters is that it is God Who will bring about the final redemption. The 15th century Jewish philosopher, Joseph Albo, contends that the belief in a personal messiah is not essential to Judaism. There is also nothing indicative that R. Hillel rejected the futuristic concept of a messianic age—just a human messiah.

In the Tanakh itself, the term Messiah, simply means, “the anointed one,” originally referred any individual consecrated with sacred oil such as the king of Israel and the high priest. But it  the was also applied to any person for whom God had a special purpose – Cyrus of Persia, for example (Isa. 45:1). This passage in particular is especially intriguing, because the prophet suggests that God can designate anyone–even a gentile–to function in an anointed capacity. One could further suggest that in modern times, President Truman was King Cyrus redux, for he alone made it possible for Israel to be recognized as a Jewish state.

One could even argue that the idea of a Messianic age is another metaphor for Utopia.

But then I tell my students: “Now here’s the good news: You’re it! You must act like a Messiah in redeeming the world around you.” To create the Messianic world, each of us must actualize the goodness p that we possess. Nobody is going to do this task for you. Here is a remarkable Talmudic story that speaks about the importance of getting in touch with the kind of redemptive lives each of us must live–if we are to ultimately midwife the Messianic Era that was envisioned by the prophets.

The Sages often wondered when and where the Messiah would appear, and frequently criticized individuals who claimed or believed in a messiah, e.g., Jesus and Bar Kochba.  Despite their reticence to make messianic predictions, the rabbis nevertheless believed that his coming remains an eternal possibility. As for the time when this consummation was to take place, it was generally held to depend on the degree of progress men will have achieved in their moral development.

This point is well illustrated in the well-known Talmudic parable:

• Rabbi Joshua ben Levi met Elijah standing at the entrance of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai’s tomb.… He then said to him, “When will the Messiah come?” “Go and ask him” was the reply. “Where is he sitting?”—”At the entrance of the city.” And how shall I recognize him? — “He is sitting among the poor lepers, untying and re-bandaging their wounds, while thinking, “Should I be needed, I must not delay.” …[1] So he went to him and greeted him, saying, “Peace be upon you, Master and Teacher.” “Peace be upon you, O son of Levi,” he replied. ‘When will you come, Master?’ asked he. “Today” was his answer.” When the Messiah failed to appear that day, a deeply disappointed Rabbi Joshua returned to Elijah with the complaint: “He lied to me, stating that he would come today, but has not!” Elijah then enlightened him that the Messiah had really quoted Scripture (Ps. 95:7): “Today, if ye hearken to His voice” (Sanhedrin 98a).

One might wonder: Why wasn’t the Messiah worried about ritual impurity? One exposition found in the commentaries suggests that the Messiah is among those afflicted with leprosy (cf. Isa. 53:4); while this is a plausible exposition, I prefer the image of the Messiah ministering to the lepers. The answer to the question is even more remarkable when considering how the ancients marginalized the lepers.

In the days of the Temple, lepers lived outside the cities in special huts, where they all congregated for support. People feared any kind of physical contact with them for fear of contagion, or because of the possibility they might become ritually contaminated.

It was not uncommon for children and adults to throw stones at the lepers because they were the outcasts of ancient society.[2] Anytime a person merely approached a leper, the leper had to say, “Unclean!” in order to avoid contact. One could only imagine the havoc this caused in the leper’s family. The mere appearance of a leper on the street or in a neighborhood meant that everyone had to avoid him.[3] No one could even salute him; his bed was to be low, inclining towards the ground.[4] If he even put his head into a home, that home or building became ritually contaminated. No less a distance than four cubits (six feet) must be kept from a leper; or, if the wind came from that direction, a hundred were scarcely sufficient. For all practical purposes, a leper was like a walking dead man.

Yet, the Messiah of our story seems as though he could care less about ritual impurity; for him, caring for the lepers is a supreme ethical demand that transcends ritual laws.

Learning to heal the lepers—just like the Messiah

The Messiah’s response is intriguing. Redemption will not occur tomorrow, but today when we emulate his acts of selfless love; messianic redemption comes when we bandage the wounds of those suffering in the world around us. It seems as though the Talmud is suggesting, we have a personal role to play in redeeming the human condition. Redemption comes by living a redemptive life.

Bandaging the open wounds of the lepers, one open sore at a time, is the only viable human response to preparing the world for ultimate redemption. This process begins with treating the forlorn and abandoned members such as the lepers, or the AIDS victims, or anyone with a terrible disease with prayer, consideration, kindness and compassion— regardless of the disease.

The Talmud relates a story that is consistent with the ethos of the Messiah passage mentioned above. “R. Helbo was once sick. But none visited him. The Sage rebuked the scholars, saying, ‘Did it not once happen that one of R. Akiba’s disciples fell sick and the Sages did not visit him? So R. Akiba personally entered his student’s house to visit him, and upon finding the chamber neglected, Rabbi Akiba instructed his students to clean up the home and the sick student soon recovered. Thankfully, the student exclaimed, ‘My master—you have revived me!’ R. Akiba began his very next lecture with the statement, ‘Anyone who fails to visit the sick is like a shedder of blood’” (Nedarim 40a). The moral of the story stresses the importance of mutual-aid and responsibility. Simply put, we are our “brother’s keeper.

The French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas stresses how God’s face is mirrored in the face of the ordinary people we encounter; when we see the beggar on the street asking for us to help, God’s face is present in the face of those struggling just to survive–one day at a time. Kabbalists sometimes describe the Shekhinah (the maternal aspect of the Divine) as always present among those who experience pain and loss. Jewish tradition teaches us that we become most God-like when we outflow compassion to a suffering world.

According to Levinas, God participates in a “divine comedy” in which God makes himself both “knowable” and “unknowable” in the shape of the Other—neighbor, stranger. The way we care for the Other speaks volumes about our faith in God. Isaiah 58 contains a powerful message that still speaks across the chasm of time:

You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.

You fast, but you swing a mean fist.

The kind of fasting you do

won’t get your prayers off the ground.

Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:

a day to show off humility?

To put on a pious long face

and parade around solemnly in black?

Do you call that fasting,

a fast day that I, God, would like?

“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:

to break the chains of injustice,

get rid of exploitation in the workplace,

free the oppressed,

cancel debts.

What I’m interested in seeing you do is:

sharing your food with the hungry,

inviting the homeless poor into your homes,

putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,

being available to your own families.

Do this and the lights will turn on,

and your lives will turn around at once.

Your righteousness will pave your way.

The God of glory will secure your passage.

Then when you pray, God will answer.

You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am”

(Isaiah 58:5-11).

Continue Reading

Once there was a rabbi and soap merchant who were debating the pros and cons of religion. The soap merchant said, “Frankly I really don’t see the good of religion. Observe how corrupt the world is because of religion!”  The rabbi listened and said nothing. As they were walking together, they came across a youngster that was playing in a mud puddle. The rabbi said, “My goodness, I really don’t see the value of soap, why doesn’t soap keep the mud off of him? Just look how filthy that child is!”  The soap merchant said, “But rabbi, owning soap is not going to make you clean; you must use the soap daily in order for it to be effective!”

The rabbi, replied, “So too is it with religion. It’s not good enough to simply have or own a religion—you must use it daily in order for it to be effective.” Continue Reading

Who says  that a picture is not worth more than a 1000 words?

Most people  would be surprised to hear that the charge of drinking blood was a common accusation made against the nascent Christian religion in the first three centuries of its existence. Yes, this historical fact is true and recorded in the annals of ancient history. The Roman historian Tacitus (56 –117 CE) hated the Christians so much, he believed Christians drank blood and killed babies.

Rumors like these abounded largely because of a remarkable passage in the book of John, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). Paul the Apostle is credited as instituting the ritual of the Eucharist. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians (c 54-55), Paul gives the earliest recorded description of Jesus’ Last Supper:

• The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes (1 Cor. 11:22-25).

Some of the Early Church followers may have felt confused whether Jesus actually gave his flesh and blood literally to his students to partake of during his Last Supper.[1] Romans, much like some of the early disciples, did not appreciate the language of metaphor and simile, so they considered the Eucharist as a magical ritual. The Romans Emperors took the Eucharist liturgy literally and assumed that the early Church preached and practiced cannibalism!

In addition, since people heard Christians calling each other, “brother” and “sister,” they also assumed the Christians practiced incest as well. These beliefs persisted well into the second century and it could explain why the Romans persecuted the Early Church with a vitriolic delight, believing they were ridding the world of a dangerous new cult.

The Roman historian Tacitus (56-117 C.E.) recalls:

• Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.[2]

Trajan (53 –117), also continued Nero’s policy of persecuting Christians. Justin Martyr (103–165 CE),[3] and Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225 CE) defended themselves from the charges of cannibalism, which continued to persist into the 4^th and 5^th centuries as well. However, each of them admitted that sects (presumably Gnostic) behaved promiscuously and did so in the name of Christianity. The Christian historian Eusebius wrote about how Christian slaves confessed under the threat of torture that their Christian masters behaved promiscuously and practiced cannibalism.

When the historian Pliny interrogated a number of Christian about the charge of cannibalism, the Christians insisted their Eucharist was a harmless ritual.  Unfortunately, these mistaken beliefs did not stop the masses from their pogroms against the Christians living in their communities.[4]

The Roman revulsion toward the Christians occurred for many reasons. They thought Jesus was a magician, one who was executed for treason. Ergo, Christians were guilty by association. In addition, their Gospel taught that there was only one God, and like the Jews before them, they rejected the belief that the Emperor was a deity Romans regarded the Christians (and the Jews) as “atheists.” They also preached that someday, God would destroy all the hierarchies that defined their society. Since the Christians belonged a cultist organization, their enemies presumed they did all sorts of forbidden activities, e.g., cannibalism, drinking blood—practices of which magicians were commonly accused. From the Roman perspective, the Christians’ Eucharist was not much different from the cannibalistic rites associated with Osiris, Dionysus and Attis, each of whom were dismembered in sacrifice for rebirth.

Blood libels persisted in the 5^th century as well. Once Christianity became the official Roman religion, Christians started accusing Christian Gnostics of practicing cannibalism! Another Early Church father, Epiphanius (439-496), accused a group of Christian Gnostics that he called, the Borborites (literally, “the filthy ones”  from borboros, meaning ‘mud,’ was used to symbolize the group’s moral depravity), of smearing their hands in menstrual blood and semen, and extracted the fetuses from pregnant women, which they consumed as part of their enactment of the Eucharist. The real name of this group is believed to have been Phibionites, who happened to be a group of Gnostic Christians that really knew how to party.

Prior to Epiphanius’ conversion, he recalls his own sexual encounter with this sect. His description of this libertine Gnostic sect is in some ways, a forerunner to the 1960s philosophy of “free love,” that was the characteristic of the “Hippy” generation:

• Their women, they share in common; and when anyone arrives who might be alien to their doctrine, the men and women have a sign by which they make themselves known to each other . . . when they have so assured themselves, they address themselves immediately to the feast, serving up a lavish bounty of meats and wines, even though they may be poor. And when they have thus banqueted. . .they proceed to the work of mutual incitement. Husbands separate from wives, and a man will say to his own spouse: “Arise and celebrate the “love feast” with thy brother.” And the wretches mingle with each other, and although I am verily mortified to tell of the infamies they perpetrate, I shall not hesitate . . .[5]

It is unknown whether all these rumors were true or hearsay, but some historians think that they did have a basis in fact. The Borborites had a ritual where the woman and the man receive the male sperm in their hands, raise their eyes toward Heaven, offer their semen to God and consumed it.[6]

• Is the Eucharist a Form of Sacred Cannibalism?

Some scholars think the Last Supper, as defined and understood by Paul, represented a spiritualized example of sacred cannibalism.[7] Although Tiny Tim once popularized, “You are what you eat,” sacred cannibalism takes a different approach, “You are whom you eat,” i.e., the cannibal believes that he will incorporate the life essence and soul of that individual he is digesting. In a pre-conscious manner, primal peoples wished to assimilate the attributes of the god or hero, whose life experiences a mythic rebirth in the individual/community participating in the ritual. This process is also seen in primal societies, whenever the tribe partakes of the totem animal in a sacred meal. By ingesting the totem animal, the tribe believed the act of consumption created a bond between the tribal member and the spirit of the totem creature.  From a Christian perspective, the blood of Christ creates an astral link between him and his disciples, one which would keep them connected even though Christ would no longer be physically dwelling among them, but in a manner of speaking he would be reborn through them.[7]

Catholics have long understood this passage to mean that Christ is both substantially and supernaturally present in the Eucharist ritual, thus the bread and wine are actually the body and blood of Christ. For Catholics and other Christians, the ritual symbolizes something more than just metaphor. Regardless how one interprets the historical and apologetic literature concerning this subject, Paul’s introduction of the Eucharist became one of the most important rituals that severed Christianity from its Judaic roots. With Paul’s theological and mystical understanding of Christ, Christianity became a new religion.

It is a pity that the Catholic and Protestant Church forgot about how others have accused their ancestors, much like they had alleged against the Jews, witches, and Cathars of their time. From this perspective, Western civilization has a long way to go along its evolutionary path.

Gandhi was once asked, “What do you think about Western civilization?” Gandhi responded, “I think it would be a good idea . . .” Continue Reading

Of all the different types of Jewish literary expression, “Purim Torah” is a unique and remarkable genre. It is rabbinic satire at its best that centers on the festivities, customs, and traditions of Purim. Individuals writing Purim Torah display remarkable wit in weaving Talmudic logic in fabricating conclusions that border somewhere between the ridiculous and sublime.

A couple of years ago, I received a delightful section of a fabricated Talmud–replete with all the Aramaic expressions one would expect to find in a Talmudic debate. The selection contains a discussion written in Aramaic and Medieval Hebrew involving President Obama, Al Gore having a debate about global warming. Even the commentaries of Rashi and Tosfot that explained the make-believe text looked pretty authentic. The name of the tractate is Mesechect Obama Metzia (a pun on the Talmudic tractate Bava Metzia). The article proved to be quite novel and ingenious.

Here is another example of “Purim Torah” that almost sounds like a Rod Serling story from the Twilight Zone. The story is well-known. Haman’s plot to destroy the Jews of the Persian Empire ended in disaster for Haman and his family. Queen Esther and Ahashverus have a conversation.

• And the king said to Esther the queen: The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the capital, and the ten sons of Haman…Now whatever your petition, it shall be granted; whatever your request further, it shall be done. Then said Esther: If it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews that are in Shushan to do tomorrow also as this day, and  have the bodies of Haman’s ten sons hanged in public display on the gallows.” (Esther 9:12-14)

One might ask: Esther’s request seems somewhat strange. The ten sons of Haman had already been killed, why did the King bother hanging them? The simple approach suggests she made this request so that everyone would know the consequences that would befall them,  just in case anyone else might attempt to harm the Jews. However, rabbinic commentaries offer a different spin. Commenting on the word “tomorrow” in Esther’s request, the ancient rabbis comment, “There is a tomorrow that is now, and a tomorrow which is later” (Tanchuma Bo 13 and Rashi on Exodus 13:14).

From this interpretation, some 20th century rabbis claim that  the hanging of Haman’s ten sons is not an isolated episode in history. Esther unconsciously prophesied a time when the Jewish people would reenact the hanging of Haman’s ten sons! While this sounds preposterous, there is something to this story that you may not know.

And now you are going to hear–the rest of the story …

Rabbi Moshe Katz writes about one of the most remarkable “Torah Codes” of all time. The subject of the Torah Codes (a.k.a. Bible Codes) is widely debated and any student who understands textual criticism realizes the dubious validity of the Torah Codes as an interpretive enterprise. Advocates of the Torah Codes  (Hebrew: צפנים בתנ”ך‎) allege that the Torah contains set of secret messages encoded within the text Hebrew Bible and describing prophesies. This hidden code has been described as a technique by which specific letters from the text can be selected to reveal an otherwise obscured message. Torah Code expositors essentially view the Torah as a gigantic anagram. The subject has been popularized in modern times by Michael Drosnin’s book The Bible Code. However, this particular Bible Code in the book of Esther is too striking to ignore. If nothing else, the author presents an incredible synchronicity [1]

• During World War II, the Nazis in Germany tried to wipe the Jewish race from the face of the earth. Six million Jews were killed by the Germans. After the end of the war, the surviving Nazi leaders were tried at Nuremberg for this and other war crimes. These trials began on November 20, 1945, for 22 German Nazi leaders. On October 1, 1946, twelve of the German defendants were sentenced to death by hanging for their part in the atrocities committed against the Jews and others. One of those convicted was Martin Bormann, who was sentenced in absentia. A second was Hermann Goering, who committed suicide in his cell just hours before the executions by taking cyanide poison. The remaining ten Germans were hanged to death on October 16, 1946.

• The Massorah prescribes that the names of the ten sons of Haman be written in a perpendicular column on the right-hand side of the page, with the vav, i.e., and, on the left-hand side. This is probably derived from the tradition that the ten sons were hanged on a tall gallows, one above the other. . . . (The Five Megilloth, p. 179) However, there may be another reason why these names are listed one above the other. As you can see by looking at the list of names, four letters (the tav in the first name, the shin and tav in the seventh name, and the zayin in the tenth name) appear smaller than the other letters. Starting at the top of the passage, I’ve highlighted three of these four small letters in red. In the Hebrew language, letters can also represent numbers. Tav has a numerical value of 400, shin a numerical value of 300, and zayin a numerical value of 7. The tav, shin, and zayin, totaled from top to bottom, represent the number 707. . . [2]

• In Esther 9:7-9, we find a list of the ten sons of Haman who were killed by the Jews. Below is the Hebrew text of these verses as it appears in the Tanakh. Remember, Hebrew reads from right to left. The three letters together form taf-shin-zayin, the Jewish year 5707 (1946 C.E.), the year that the ten Nazi criminals were executed. Of the 23 Nazi war criminals on trial in Nuremberg, 11 were in fact sentenced to execution by hanging. Two hours before the sentence was due to be carried out, Goering committed suicide–so that only 10 descendents of Amalek were hung, thus fulfilling the request of Esther: “let Haman’s ten sons be hanged.” Furthermore, since the trial was conducted by a military tribunal, the sentence handed down should have been death by firing squad, or by electric chair as practiced in the U.S.A. However, the court specifically prescribed hanging, exactly as in Esther’s original request: “let Haman’s ten sons be hanged.”Though doubts may linger about the connection between the Book of Esther and the Nazi war criminals, the condemned Julius Streicher certainly had none….[as The New York Herald Tribune of October 16, 1946 reported after he ascended to the gallows] “With burning hatred in his eyes, Streicher looked down at the witnesses and shouted: “Purim Fest 1946!”…  If these “coincidences” are not enough, examine the calendar for that month. The date of the execution (October 16, 1946) fell on the Jewish festival of “Hoshana Rabba” (21 Tishrei), a day when God’s verdicts are sealed. This was the very day they were hanged, as we have said, all is hinted at in the Torah! [3]

We’ll add one more detail Moshe Katz left out: The Book of Esther recorded that the ten had been hanged on a tree. The Hebrew word for tree is eytz, which is also “wood” in English. The hangman at Nuremberg was named John C. Woods, an American army officer. (After the executions Woods burned the hoods and ropes even though he had been offered $2,500 for them as souvenirs. John Wood’s revulsion for pecuniary gain also corresponds to another passage found in the book of Esther, “The Jews of Shushan mustered again on the fourteenth day of Adar and slew three hundred men in Shushan. But they did not lay hands on the spoil” (Esther 9:15).

Could Rabbi Moshe Katz’s exposition qualify as “Purim Torah” according to the criteria we mentioned above? Maybe. Nevertheless, connection between the death of Haman’s sons and the ten Nazis, combined with Streicher’s realization that he and his fellow murderers were reliving the conclusion of the ancient Purim story. However, this time it was, as Streicher said,  “Purim Fest 1946.” This unexpected synchronicity ought to give us pause to think that history sometimes follows a trajectory of archetypal patterns. Actually, one would be hard-pressed to find a better example of Purim Torah than the story of the ten Nazis and its alleged connection to the ten sons of Haman.[4] Continue Reading

Shmuley Boteach is a complicated man. At the risk of sounding obvious, Shmuley is not your typical Chabad rabbi. His past associations with singer Michael Jackson and his book on Kosher Sex have set him apart from most of his colleagues. He has a flare for the sensational and his critics say there is hardly a camera he does not like. Boteach’s ambitions vary depending upon his mood. More recently, he has even explored the possibility of running for Congress. Prior to that, he expressed interest in becoming the next Chief Rabbi of Britain.

Is the ultra-Haredi rabbinate of the British Commonwealth ready for Shmuley Boteach? Sorry, not in this incarnation.

Boteach would probably be wise and return to what he does best: teaching, writing interesting books, and appearing on the Oprah and Dr. Phil shows.

Although I have written on this topic before, there are some lingering afterthoughts I would like to share with you—the reader, especially since I have had more time to read the book for a second time.

While Boteach may seem like a radical in acknowledging Jesus as an important teacher of ancient Israel, he is not the first Orthodox rabbi to make such a claim. Boteach did not mention the 18th century savant, Rabbi Yaakob Emden (1707-1776), who is one of the first Orthodox rabbis of the modern era to praise Jesus as an innovative ethical teacher. [1] Hacham Isaac Barnays (1792-1840) [2], an early mentor of Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), went even further and considered Jesus on par with the biblical prophets. By today’s Haredi and Hassidic standards, both Emden’s and Barnays’ view of Jesus would have been considered risqué—even heretical. More recently, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin spoke glowingly about Jesus as an ancient 1st century Jewish sage. He even referred to Jesus as, “Rabbi Jesus,” but quickly retracted his earlier statement in order to quell the Haredi critics of his community and beyond.

Although Boteach briefly referred to the Historical Jesus, he chose not to explain why this subject ought to be of interest to Jews and Christians alike. There are many Christian thinkers and expositors he might have considered using, e.g., Marcus Borg, in his excellent, Jesus: A New Vision, (NY: SPCK Publishing; 2nd edition, 1994). Borg is a Christian theologian and NT scholar who has written extensively about the ethical message of Jesus and how it fits in within the context of 1st century Judaism. The Historical Jesus movement is not a 21st or 20th century phenomena; it actually has antecedents that begin in the 18th century with Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), and later with Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), David Freidrich Strauss (1808-1874), and Albert Schweitzer 1875-1965).

Boteach’s introduction to Kosher Jesus makes no reference whatsoever to the pioneering work of Jewish scholars like R. Pinchas Lapide (an Orthodox rabbi), Rabbi Leo Baeck (best known as the rabbi of Theresienstadt), who wrote some important books on Jesus and his relationship to Judaism, or Samuel Sandmel of Hebrew Union College. David Flusser’s excellent works are also among the most important studies on this topic. Flusser loves showing the rabbinical parallels between Jesus and the subsequent rabbis of his era. There was no need for Boteach to reinvent the wheel on how Jews have historically viewed Jesus–especially in modern times.

The study of the Book of James has become an important field of scholarly endeavor, largely because he is the brother of Jesus. Martin Luther’s disdain for the book of James is especially significant. Luther writes in his Preface to the NT that James is an “epistle of straw” because the author rejected the Pauline doctrine of “justification by faith” that is at the heart of Pauline Christianity. By referring to James’ value as “straw,” Luther wished to convey the idea that the Letter of James has no value to a Christian. Luther even argued for its removal from the NT canon because of its “Judaic” overtones.

It is a pity Boteach did not say something about James—especially in light of the  animus James and Boteach both  felt toward Paul the Apostle. According to James, good works will always mean more than the platitudes of faith espoused by Paul.

• So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Indeed someone might say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’   Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to  you from my works. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the Devil believes that and trembles. Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless? (James 2:18-20)

Boteach might have used this passage in particular to illustrate why Paul was wrong. Obviously James was speaking about anyone who would be foolish enough to follow Paul’s “justification by faith” doctrine that subsequent Christianity accepted, hook, line and sinker. James appears to have held a position similar to the Ebionites, who categorically rejected Paul’s doctrine of the Virgin Birth, as well as his metaphysical belief in the cosmic “divinity” of Jesus that is necessary for personal salvation. Paul makes almost no reference to James, perhaps because James considered Paul a religious opportunist. From James’ perspective, Paul was a man who did not understand Jesus’s seminal message about inseparable relation between faith and ethics. In the end, James may have also felt that Paul was much better suited for a gentile audience. (Readers may want to consider watching Martin Scorsese’s 1988 film, “The Last Temptation of Christ,” for Jesus survives the crucifixion, gets married and lives a happily married life. One day he meets Paul, who preaches about the “Risen Christ.” Jesus then scolds Paul for distorting his original teachings. The film is available on Youtube.)

Although Boteach briefly touches upon the Ebionites in a quote he makes from Maccoby, he uses the latter’s argument to prove that Paul was not really a native-born Jew, but a convert. Boteach should have said more about this remarkable sect of Jews, who stood loyal to their tradition and faith, while following in the ethical steps of Jesus—the Jew. Incidentally, the Ebionites regarded the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew as the only true record of Jesus’ teachings. Most importantly, the Ebionites rejected the supersessionist claim that Christianity “replaced” Judaism. The Ebionites also rejected Paul’s attempt to eliminate the Torah’s distinction between Gentile and Jew. [2] For the Ebionites, Jesus represented the exemplar of the pious man that every human being ought to aspire toward becoming. Jesus is not the great exception, but he is a great example of the righteous person.

With all it faults and omissions, Kosher Jesus is a bold book, and its most positive feature is the fact that a Hassidic rabbi wishes to talk about Jesus in a manner that is respectful and kind. This is quite a rarity—especially when you consider the animus that most Hassidic and Haredi Jews feel toward Jesus.

Although the true believer might be shocked by this idea, Jesus’s personality bears a striking resemblance to one of the greatest Jewish spiritual teachers of the 18^th century—Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name)! When one looks back in history, the Baal Shem Tov taught a very important message that many of his movement’s descendents have seemed to forgotten. Here are some his seminal teachings:

• Ahavat HaShem—a love for God; in the theology of the Baal Shem Tov, the bond between a Jew and God Almighty is grounded in the heart of the Divine. More than that, the precept of love is   the basis of the entire Torah.

• Harmony and peace with one’s neighbors is  essential for having a healthy relationship with God.
• Worship of God with a joyfulness of heart enables one to achieve of mystical state of bliss with God called “devukut”   (cleaving).
• There is no room for asceticism in the spiritual life of a Jew.
• The Baal Shem Tov managed to upset the  scholarly elite of his era by befriending the most ignorant Jews of his community.

Jesus similarly taught:

• The love of God is reflected in how we love  and treat our fellow man.
• Although ritual and religious tradition are important, they cannot come at the expense of one’s interpersonal relationships.
• Harmony with God and peace with one’s neighbor are symbiotically interconnected—you cannot have one with the   other
• Always treat the downtrodden and marginalized  members of society with respect and love.
• Love is the basis of the entire   Torah.
• Acts of love and sacrifice will redeem the world.
• Jesus also upset the Pharisees and directed most of his attention to the scattered flock of Israel.

It is a shame Boteach did explain why Jesus and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson are examples of “failed messiahs,” i.e., messianic personalities who did not fulfill all the biblical criteria regarding the Messiah. A chapter on this subject would have added even more controversy to his book. Timidly, the author decided to stay far away from this soul-searching topic. In failing to doing so, Boteach missed an opportunity to make Kosher Jesus a more memorable book.

Shmuley Boteach may want to consider some of the ideas I have mentioned in this short book review and use them for a future revision of his Kosher Jesus. All in all I admire his courage and his willingness to talk about a subject that has remained a forbidden topic of discussion in Jewish circles of all denominations. The Chinese say, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step” and by this standard, one can argue that Shmuley’s Kosher Jesus should serve as a meaningful first step for many Jews wishing to promote a more truthful and meaningful dialogue with the Christian community. Continue Reading