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September 4, 2017 - May 16, 2018
Just as rain water comes down in drops and forms rivers, so with the Scriptures: one studies a bit today and some more tomorrow, until in time the understanding becomes like a flowing stream. — Song of Songs Midrash Rabbah 2:8
The first word, shema, we usually translate “hear.” But the word shema has a much wider, deeper meaning than “to perceive sound.” It encompasses a whole spectrum of ideas that includes listening, taking heed, and responding with action to what one has heard.
Through an obedient disciple God can do truly miraculous things to expand his kingdom, far beyond human imagination.
Hebrew verbs stress action and effect rather than just mental activity.
Hebrew realizes that the longest twelve inches that your faith has to move is from your head to your heart. And once your faith makes that move, it naturally comes out through your hands and feet.
But when properly understood, this line shows that the greatest commandment is actually a call to commit ourselves to the one true God.
Be as strong as the leopard, swift as the eagle, fleet as the gazelle and brave as the lion to do the will of your Father in heaven. — Judah ben Tema1
“Sometimes I wonder if too many of us assume that ‘The Feeling’ is the whole point of worship—worse, that it’s the whole point of Christianity,” McLaren comments. He imagines God as asking, “If you never felt ‘The Feeling’ again, would you keep worshiping me anyway—for me, and not just for the feeling?”6
When the Israelites were commanded to love God as part of their covenant, we can read it as not so much about passionate feelings as much as an utter commitment to loyalty toward God, the one they obeyed.
Love is both inward and outward, both the warm fuzzies and the actions that result from them.
When he commanded us to love our enemies, he may have been thinking more about our actions toward them than our inner affections. If
When someone acts cruelly toward you, you don’t need to deceive yourself into thinking that he or she is really a wonderful person. But if you do your best to act with love, your feelings are bound to change over time.
Once English speakers hear me’od defined as “strength” or “might,” we see the issue as solved and move right on. But remember that the wording, actually, is “all of your very.”
“Listen up, Israel—The LORD is your God, he, and he alone!! You should love him with every thought that you think, live every hour of every day for him, be willing to sacrifice your life for him. Love him with every penny in your wallet and everything that you’ve got!”
Modern Christians, especially American Protestants, still maintain a strong sense of “Jesus and me” individualism, emphasizing one’s “personal relationship with Christ” as the essence of faith. By contrast, Judaism throughout the centuries has declared that “life is with people.” Religion, in their thinking, is inherently communal. Whereas Christians seek out solitude for drawing close to God, many Jewish prayers can only be recited in the presence of a minyan (min-YAHN), a group that contains at least ten adult Jewish men.
Hundreds of us were worshiping side by side, a sea of voices resounding together, and every one of us was pretending to be all alone.
gezerah sheva, “a comparison of equals.” Because the two verses share a common word that is only found a couple other places in the Scriptures, one could assume that one line was expanding on the other, as an explanation of how to love.
Having a “good eye” (ayin tovah) is to look out for the needs of others and be generous in giving to the poor. But to have a “bad eye” (ayin ra’ah) is to be greedy and self-centered, blind to the needs of those around you.6
He was exhorting his followers to cultivate an open-handed attitude toward others and not let money rule over them. Caring for those around us isn’t merely a nice habit to cultivate; Jesus says that it is central to our character as a whole.
Our desires may be legitimate and the sermons good messages. But after a steady diet of self-therapy, we simply won’t tolerate a sermon that points out sin or pushes us to care about others. All we want to hear about is, “What’s in it for me?”
Despite their emphasis on giving, Judaism takes a pragmatic approach. Orthodox Jews are expected to give at least 10 percent away to charity. But there’s an upper limit to giving too. Unless one is enormously wealthy, people are discouraged from giving more than 20 percent. Why? Because giving everything away causes you to become impoverished, and then you can’t help anyone else. One sage commented, “It’s better to give one shekel a thousand different times than a thousand shekels at once, because each time you give, you become a kinder person.”17
Egyptian documents describe the time before creation as “when no name of anything had yet been named.”
But the idea of kiddush hashem is to associate loving deeds with God’s reputation.
Jonathan Miles is a Christian who founded the ministry of Shevet Achim in Jerusalem.10 His team brings Palestinian and Iraqi children to Israeli hospitals for heart surgery.
As long as I remain silent, I control my tongue. Once I start speaking, my tongue controls me. — Judah ben Samuel of Regensberg
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you. — Mark Twain
In Jewish thought, we’re responsible for the actions of our community, not just ourselves. We should guard not just our own words, but even the words that we cause others to speak!
Judging fairly does not mean judging naively. If someone does many bad, even wicked things, we are not obligated to devise far-fetched explanations to excuse her behavior. Indeed, viewing such people favorably can have a negative impact on our own character. “One who gets into the habit of ignoring the acts of wicked people [or trying to explain them away] will begin to condone their practices…. We must oppose them and take a stand against them.”6
Remember that you are not so good, and the world is not so evil. — Rabbi Zev Wolf of Striko
Jesus was talking about judging in the sense of condemnation rather than discernment.
The issue of prayer is not prayer. The issue of prayer is God. — Abraham Heschel1
Sincere questions give God respect. They acknowledge his power. They honor him.5
For instance, do humans have free will, or does God foreknow our actions?
That’s the same thing. You mean predestine.
“Everything is under God’s control, yet man has free will.”
The Jewish attitude is different. Contrary to our traditional Christian assumption, their discussions about the Law do not arise out of an anxious striving to earn one’s way to heaven. Jewish thought generally assumes that Jews are already saved, because God graciously chose Israel as his people. In their minds, the Law teaches them how to live in a way that pleases a loving God and upholds their covenantal relationship.
The Bible does not yield its meanings to lazy people. — Rev. Arthur W Pink
The rabbis commented that each line of the biblical text is a “jewel with seventy faces” — that we should “turn it, and turn it, and turn it again.”
God bears with corrupt humanity because the alternative is the death of every sinner on earth. The fact that a good God does not destroy evil is not because he’s impotent; it’s because he’s merciful.16
Jesus replied, “Show me a denarius.” As the priest’s hand fumbled through the folds of his robe to withdraw a coin, guffaws arose from the crowd. As the shiny disk glinted in the sun, the realization dawned on him that he had just revealed his own hypocrisy. Denarii were strictly forbidden from the Temple, because they bore Caesar’s blasphemous claim to be divine. Some purists, like the Essenes, refused to touch or even look at this particular coin. But the cleric had no qualms about carrying these pagan money pieces in his pocket. The man’s face reddened as he saw how easily the Galilean
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But Jesus was saying something more. What has God stamped with his image? Human beings! Therefore, we should offer our lives back to God. Humans are the handiwork of God. We owe our very existence to him. The fact that we bear his image shows his ownership over us. Caesar was not God, so let him have his measly coins back. But humans owe our very lives to God. He’s stamped his seal on us to show that it is he alone that we must serve.2
But if you are walking in your Rabbi’s dust, you are called to follow him into the ashes of our crumbling, burning world.
