G-d’s Love for His People

R. C. Sproul Jr. has an article on “hesed,” which he translates as “loyal love:”

God loves His people genuinely, immutably, loyally. Both the love and the loyalty are, of course, tightly bound together. That is, just as one cannot love capriciously so one cannot be loyal without love. God is for His people, and will never cease to be for them.

It’s a beautiful idea. But the irony is not lost to me of using an Old Testament Hebrew word to motivate an idea about G-d’s commitment to a group of people who’ve replaced the original group of people that the term referred to. If G-d’s election is irrevocable, then how is it that His election of Israel has been revoked? If His grace ensures the perseverance of the saints, then how is it that the entire original nation that He elected has failed to persevere?

And if His “hesed” for them has failed, then how strong can the idea of “genuine, immutable, loyal” love really be for us?

Christianity and Mysticism

I read an article on Challies Dot Com about the increasing influence of mysticism on Evangelicalism (http://www.challies.com/articles/the-boundaries-of-evangelicalism). The author is concerned about this influence, given that the two ought to be opposed.

I find the attempt to distinguish between Christianity and mysticism interesting, because one thing that becomes readily apparent when one studies Judaism is that Christianity is mysticism. That is, the topics that form the core of Christian belief are, in Judaism, the material of mysticism: heaven and hell, the nature of G-d, the nature of the soul, the Devil, the supernatural understanding of history. The idea of Jesus dying on the cross for sins is a mystical concept. So is the idea of becoming part of his body. And so is the idea of the trinity.

Core Judaism isn’t as worried about making sure your beliefs on hell, or the structure of G-d, or whatever, are correct. In Judaism, you don’t follow the Law so that you don’t go to hell. You follow the Law because you’re a Jew, and the Law is what Jews do. G-d founded the Jewish nation, yes, and you’re obeying Him by following the Law, yes, but at the end of the day, the Law is proscriptive. You’re supposed to do–why isn’t as important. (To be fair, due to the influence of Chassidism, this description isn’t entirely accurate.)

Christianity is mystical to its core. Its main concerns are the nature of G-d in the Trinity, the meaning of Jesus’s death on the cross (understood as the ultimate victory), and eternal reward or punishment in heaven or hell. As a whole, it rejects the idea of following the Law. Some parts (Protestantism) even reject the idea that doing anything has any importance. Everything happens via the vehicle of the mystical Grace of G-d for the purpose of the Glory of G-d, and the only proper goal of life is the understanding that everything that exists is only an emanation of that Grace. The goal is understanding, not action–that’s mysticism.

What’s really interesting is that for some reason (or reasons), much of Christianity has felt the need to see itself as non-mystical. Thus came the “canon law” of the Catholic Church, that tried to essentially become a new law-based religion while still rejecting Judaism. So also comes the article at the beginning, trying to strictly and logically define what is proper, based on rules and guidelines–including rules for the proper way to feel awe at a sunset! It is certainly a curious experiment: making a practical religion out of a mysticism.

Lashon Hara

Recently during a discussion with someone, an argument came up that the idea of lashon hara (the evil tongue, loosely defined as gossip) was a rabbinic tradition that was not found anywhere in the Bible. Consequently, the idea put forth by some Rabbis that the sin of lashon hara is the most severe sin there is was seen as repugnant. But on the contrary: of all the rabbinic traditions, this is one that has a very clear and easily discerned foundation in the Bible.

Psalm 34 says (ESV)

What man is there who desires life
and loves many days, that he may see good?
Keep your tongue (lashon) from evil (ra)
and your lips from speaking deceit.

What is the greatest punishment that could come from sin? Death. How do you gain the opposite, life? It’s explicitly stated: keep yourself from lashon hara.

A further point of note: the early Aramaic version of the New Testament regularly uses the word “live” for the word that’s generally translated into English (from Greek) as “be saved.” In other words, people didn’t ask Yeshua “What must I do to be saved?” They asked, “What must I do to live?” In light of that, the verse above could easily be translated “What man is there who desires to be saved…Keep yourself from lashon hara.” The teaching that lashon hara is the greatest sin, far from being a rabbinic tradition with no support in the Bible, is explicitly taught by the Bible!

Of course, this verse doesn’t explain exactly what lashon hara is. This is very typical of the teachings of the Torah, and is one of the foremost points that demonstrates the need of an Oral Torah. Much is derived through careful exegesis of the verse in Leviticus 19 that says (ESV) “You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD.” The word “slanderer” in that verse comes from a root that indicates the idea of traveling around: thus, a “slanderer” is someone who travels around, spreading stories about other people. From that foundation are derived the many details of lashon hara.

The apostle James knew this exegesis well and endorsed it. In his letter, he exhorts his readers (ESV)

For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

James re-emphasizes the idea that everything depends on how you use your tongue: if anyone doesn’t stumble with regard to his speech, he is a perfect man. That’s the inverse of the rabbinic teaching, that lashon hara is the greatest sin. If you refrain from it, you have no sin at all. That’s how great of a sin it is. The tongue is a world of unrighteousness–that’s how great the sin is, equivalent to the sin of an entire world.

Once again, now that we know how much depends on our speech, what are the details? Surely something so important can’t be so ambiguous. James alludes to it (ESV): “With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” The sin has to do with speaking badly about other people. That’s a starting point, but in the thick of the daily struggle with the myriad of forces that influence us, what are the exact details of this terrible sin?

The author of the book Chafetz Chaim, with divine grace and inspiration, took the time to carefully study, think through, structure, and explain the particulars of lashon hara in his book. It is correct that the exact details that he lays forth are frequently not found explicitly in the Bible. However, with meditation and study, one comes to see that psychological principles, experience with people, and logic confirm what he says, even if you don’t accept the sanctity of the Oral Torah.

Hashem has not left us to chance. He taught us that this is a terrible sin, and He gave some the capacity to elucidate it, and the means to disseminate their understanding to those who would otherwise remain in darkness. Baruch Hu uVaruch Shmo.

Conversion

This is something I wrote back on June 9th, but for a number of reasons, I haven’t found it easy to post until now.

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A good friend of mine is converting to Judaism. I found out a few weeks ago, but my reactions seem to be really slow. This past Shabbos, everyone at my congregation was working through it, since he had revealed his decision publicly the week prior. It was a really rough Shabbos. The Sunday following, I spent half a day with him, talking about stuff.

I don’t really know how I feel. I seem to feel a lot of things, but they rise to the surface and then disappear into a murky sea of emotions again. I feel really sad. I’m losing a friend, the one I prayed Musaf with on Shabbos, with whom I discussed hard questions of how Jewish theology intersects Christian theology, to whom I could relate openly my theological and personal discouragement. He made the congregation an encouragement, a soothing touch to my troubled soul. He brought life and joy to the Chanukah program, and inspired the use of some very touching Hebrew songs.

I feel discouraged about facing people in the congregation now. I’m too tsetimlt to defend myself against their concern: Is he going to do this too? I feel like the only way to cope right now is to sit very still and try to let everything come to rest. I wish I didn’t need to worry about proving myself when I’ve been left all on my own to figure out how to put my world back together.

What do I do now?

למה עזבתני?

Review of Love Wins by Rob Bell

Reading Rob Bell’s latest book Love Wins was something of a bipolar experience for me. When I began reading the book, I found it insightful and inspiring. However, as I got to the end of the book, the ideas seemed to peter out into typical wishy-washy Evangelicalism. In the end, I found the book to have a lot of really interesting and illuminating ideas, but the book as a whole seemed to be weak. What this means is, if you have some kind of well-defined worldview in place that allows you to adopt the ideas effectively, you could get some inspiring ideas out of this book, but if you’re looking for someone to help you construct a well-defined worldview, you’ll probably be disappointed.

In general, the points I found to be the most inspiring in the book were the ones that more or less cohered with a more Jewish theology and worldview (to the extent that I can judge something to be Jewish or not). I’ll give some examples. In Chapter 2, Rob Bell considers the story about the rich man who comes to Jesus and asks him what he can do to be saved. Jesus responds with a list of commands. The rich man says he’s kept all these since childhood, to which Jesus tells him that he’s lacking only one thing: sell everything he has and follow Jesus. Rob Bell makes the point that this is the perfect place for Jesus to clearly explain the process of salvation (accepting Jesus into his heart, etc.), and yet he doesn’t. It seems that we’re missing something. If someone asks an Evangelical how to be saved, he responds with a formula that sounds nothing like what Jesus said to the rich man.

The more general argument of Chapter 2 is that “heaven,” contrary to how we usually think of it, isn’t a spiritual place disconnected from this physical reality. Rather, it’s really “the kingdom of heaven,” or, “the kingdom of G-d” — the age of the world when G-d finally (and explicitly) rules over His creation. The discussions about “heaven” in the New Testament are really instructions for how to live now in order to become a person who best aligned with the nature of the age when G-d rules over the world. As the principle goes in Judaism, we’re forming (by our actions) in this world the kind of person we’ll be in the next world (see, e.g., the references to good deeds as garments in Revelation).

Then in Chapter 3, Rob Bell makes a very interesting point that when Jesus spoke of hell, it was not in conversations with heathens trying to get them to follow him, it was with the people who were believers in G-d and followers of His directions. Once again, we see the disconnect with how the subject is approached today, where the primary use of hell is to threaten those who won’t believe in an attempt to convince them when we have no logical arguments left. Now granted, for the (large) segments of Christianity that believe it was always Jesus’s intent to create a new religion, this argument is somewhat weak, since they could say that the reason Jesus threatened the “believers” with hell was because in his new religion, they were no longer believers. I consider the idea that Jesus came to start a new religion false, but that’s an argument for a different article.

Actually, the whole of Chapter 3, where Rob Bell examines the ideas of hell in Scripture and develops them, is very informative. What emerges is an idea of hell as a punishment in the next world for the wicked behavior of people here. This can include, maybe surprisingly, even G-d’s people. The cause of the innocent victims will be upheld and justice will be done. The general discussion of hell by the prophets and Jesus is not necessarily a thread of eternal punishment for failing to choose the correct religion. Consequently, we start to see hell as being more logically a limited punishment, rather than an eternal one. This idea is well attested in Judaisim and more Orthodox Christianities.

There was one place where Rob Bell seemed to make a point with a particularly Jewish understanding, even though it wasn’t clear to me that he got it from Jewish tradition (some of his other points appear to be more obviously informed by it). In Chapter 5, he picks up on the fact that in John, the first couple of signs that Jesus performs are numbered (saying things like “this is the first sign that Jesus performed etc.”). He notes that if one counts all the signs in John, one gets to seven before Jesus dies and rises from the dead: eight signs. He see this as being significant based on the seven days of creation in Genesis followed by a second description of creation: the “eighth day” is a new creation. This idea is furthered confirmed by the Jewish tradition that seven indicates a fullness of the physical realm, whereas eight indicates a transcension of the physical realm into the spiritual, eternal realm (see Artscroll’s book on bris milah).

Finally, in Chapter 7, Rob Bell makes a point that I think goes very much to the heart of the problem with a lot of Evangelical theology. Let me quote the punch line: “…we do not need to be rescued from God. God is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. God is the rescuer.” The reason I like this statement is that it blows away the haze and confusion that exists in many Christians’ minds about the powers in the world: G-d, Jesus, Satan. While saying they believe in one, all-powerful G-d, too many Christians believe in a dualistic polytheism. Dualistic because they believe that G-d and Satan are struggling for control of the world, polytheistic because they believe that Jesus is G-d but acts independently from Him. Jesus doesn’t save us from our sins. G-d does.

Like I said, I thought that most of the book had really thoughtful, interesting points in it. However, at the end it started to peter out into more feel-good, “I’m ok, you’re ok” kind of thinking. By this I don’t mean that he became universalistic. At the point he started talking in more wishy-washy terms, he started to sound much more like any other generic Evangelical. I’ll give a couple of examples.

The first example is in Chapter 6, “There Are Rocks Everywhere.” Now don’t get me wrong, this chapter is actually very profound for one who is willing to hear. However, I think that in trying to communicate something profound too plainly, it ended up becoming rather washed out. Rob Bell says, “…Jesus is bigger than any one religion…[he] is supracultural. He is present within all cultures, and yet outside of all cultures.” These statements are alluding to profound truths, but spoken like this, without qualification or nuance, destroys the profundity of Scripture and the traditions we’ve received. It implies that they are good ways of understanding G-d, but don’t necessarily have any advantage over any other way. I’m not saying that this is what Rob Bell is trying to say, just that it’s how it comes across.

Another example is in Chapter 7. Again, the concepts in this chapter are indeed touching on profound truths, but the way they’re stated overly plainly makes them washed out. Rob Bell says that “Forgiveness is unilateral…God has already done it…The only thing left to do is trust.” The problem I have with statements like these is that they take away the power of our actions to really change the world, reality. The way they’re stated, they take oppose the idea brought up earlier in his book that we’re shaping in this world who we’re going to be in the next world. Reality is not all in the mind. It’s not that in one mental state (trusting) I’m in heaven and in another (not trusting) I’m in hell. Again, I don’t think that Rob Bell necessarily thinks this, just that it’s how the argument comes across. The ideas are flattened out too much.

All in all, I think it’s a very useful book to read. The material that Rob Bell covers is very interesting and very useful to think about, but it ought to be understood that his book alone isn’t enough. The ideas he brings up touch on profound and deep subjects which need to be examined slowly, carefully, and thoughtfully to reach the truth of the matter.

Introduction

I’m interested in Orthodox Judaism and Charedi Judaism (Litvish and Chassidish). In Christianity: Orthodox, Reformed, Evangelical, and the Emerging Church. I’m interested in Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment society; in Republicans, Democrats and libertarians. I’m interested in the inter-action and re-action of all these groups, and in trying to find a more consistent and integrated way of understanding the merits and demerits of each.

Currently I’m reading the book Love Wins by Rob Bell. This book has sparked a lot of controversy, and I’d like to offer some comments on a few articles written in response to this book. So I’ll probably try to write some kind of review of the book when I’m done, and then I’d like to eventually respond to a series of articles, the first written by Dr. Al Mohler reviewing Rob Bell’s book, the second written by Brian McLauren in response, and the third by Dr. Al Mohler responding to Brian McLauren. I think this particular series of articles reveals some of the bigger issues going on the most clearly. There’s also an interesting article written by Dr. John MacArthur in response to Bell’s book which I’d like to comment on.