On Sunday, March 29th, George Kelley was our guest speaker in Meeting for Worship. George serves as the Education Director at Congregation Beth-El Zedek, and hosted our Affirmation Youth when they attended worship there recently.
Below is the main body of the message, given by George Kelley on March 29th:
Good morning or Boker Tov as I would say to my school kids, and thank you for allowing me to speak from your pulpit. I am extremely honored to be here today as you celebrate Palm Sunday and to speak about the Jewishness of Jesus. Palm Sunday is a perfect opportunity to do this. It is a story found in all four gospels and celebrated around the Christian world. It has much of the Jewish symbolism that surrounds Jesus in his life. That Jewish essence of Jesus has been lost in the intervening 2000 years since the 1st century. The palm branch, the riding of the donkey, the singing of the Psalms of welcome all have their roots in a Jewish tradition. Jesus, in the ride into Jerusalem, was seen by many as a potential messiah, one that would usher in a time of peace and joy for the Jewish people. Jesus was born into a world ripe for a messiah. Rome was in turmoil, the Jewish Temple leadership was seen as corrupt or collaborators with the oppressor. The Roman appointed governor was mentally unstable and a tyrant, so people looked to their tradition for support. During Jesus’ lifetime there were at least 5 people who claimed the mantle of messiah. When Jesus rode into the city, the people, many who also traveled to celebrate the upcoming Passover holiday, would have heard the stories of Jesus, his miracles, including raising Lazarus from the dead. They were ready for a leader. Jesus fit many people’s definition of a messiah. Now I want to be clear. There were many different ways people envisioned what a messiah would be. If we dig deeply into the story of 1st century Judaism, there were Jews who looked for a king, others a priest, and some a kind of heavenly figure. There was hope for the change in the world, to make it a better place. Often times, when Jews are asked about their connection to Jesus the story that is told is they rejected Jesus for not being the warrior many assume the Jews were looking for in a messiah. However, that is not fully the case. We can talk later about why the Jewish people, or more precisely a majority of Jewish people rejected Jesus, as well has many messianic figures throughout history. But today I think it is more important to discuss how Judaism influenced the man who is now worshiped as part of a Godhead.
Today I want to speak from my own experience and draw on the writing of a scholar of the Christian Bible, Amy Jill Levine of Vanderbilt University. Her work in this area opens up a vision of Jesus from a Jewish perspective through the eyes of a Jewish scholar.
So what was Jewish about Jesus? Everything. He was born a Jew, grew into manhood as a Jew, and was executed as a Jew. Even if we look at the layers of writing since the 1st century, at times clearly trying to distance Jesus from his Jewish roots, there is still a very Jewish theme you can find in what Jesus said and did. There are many areas that we can look to and find evidence of his Jewish vision, but let’s start with a very famous story. In the book of Matthew chapter 22 there is an exchange between Jesus and one of the Sadducees over the concept of resurrection of the dead. They did not believe in this concept (the Pharisees did) and asked Jesus to explain what that would look like in the context of men who married their brother’s widow. Jesus basically snapped them back using scripture from the Law of Moses. This led a Pharisee to ask Jesus what was the most important commandment. This attempt to challenge him was met with a simple answer:
Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” In this answer Jesus quotes two important Jewish scriptural lessons. The first is from Deuteronomy 6:5 verbetim, and which is said 3 times daily by Jews going back to ancient times. In fact these words appear in the T’fillin, the boxes Jews wear in daily prayer that were part of the Jewish tradition even before the first century. These words, known today as part of the Sh’ma recited in services and when you rise from bed and when you go to sleep, V’ahavta… are probably the best known words of Torah to all Jews. His second commandment comes from the book of Leviticus 19:18. God commands us to “love your neighbor as yourself”. This second of the great commandments (remember Jesus was operating with 613 of them) was already seen as such prior to Jesus’ time. A few decades earlier, a great Sage and President of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Court, Hillel, was also asked a question. This famous account in the Talmud (Shabbat 31a) tells about a Roman Soldier wanted to convert to Judaism. He wanted to learn the entirety of the Torah while standing on one foot. He had been rejected by another sage but Hillel accepted the challenge, and said:
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary of this--go and study it!"
These parallel stories shine a light on the fact that Jesus was a person steeped in a very Jewish, and I might add, Pharisaic tradition that looked not at the letter of the law but the spirit of it in order to create a better world. Jesus, like many Jews of the time were looking for a way to understand how the ancient law of Moses applied to the daily lives of Jews, the meaning of the Torah, and its understanding, a discussion that continues today. The Sage Hillel himself had an adversarial relationship with another sage, Shammai, whom we see throughout the Talmud as a foil to understand how to interpret the text.
This literary devise was common in Judaism and often done through story, not unlike the parables that Jesus told, something that again speaks to his Jewish nature. Parables were not uncommon in the Jewish teaching, in Hebrew, the genre is mashal, a metaphor. Like the Greek parable which means to place side by side, use of this technique was a way of challenging authority by cloaking the words in a way that transmitted the lesson without directly saying what you wanted to, at least not at first. Many of Jesus’ parables had strong Jewish themes, lost to history as both Jewish, and later, Christian ears hear them differently. But we can look back at this technique in Jewish writing and scripture. One clear example is in Second Samuel chapter 12 when Nathan is criticizing King David for having Uriah killed to take his wife:
“There were two men in a certain city. One was wealthy, but the other was poor. The wealthy man had a very large flock and herd, but the poor man had nothing except a single small ewe lamb that he had acquired. He nourished it and raised it together with himself and his sons. From his crumbs, it would eat; from his cup, it would drink; and in his arms it would lie. It was like a daughter to him.
“There came a visitor to the wealthy man, but he was unwilling to take from his own flock or herd to prepare a meal for the wanderer who had come to him. Instead he took the poor man’s ewe lamb and prepared food for the wanderer who had come to him.”
David became very angry because of this man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”
Then Nathan told David, “You are this man!
The technique is used throughout Jewish commentary, and thus also used by Jesus but too often we are not equipped with the experience to fully understand the meaning of the parables at the time of Jesus. They are taken out of context and they are used to attack the Judaism of the time. However, I, along with Levine, would argue that many of the parables elevate a particular view of the law and do not attempt to destroy it. The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18 is a great example:
He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves, as though they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed these things about himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men: extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I tithe of a 10th of all that I earn.’
“But the tax collector, standing at a distance, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but struck his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Tax collectors appear several times in gospels as good characters while the Pharisees are seen as evil. In the setting of the gospel, among 1st century Jews, this would be unheard of as the tax collectors were seen as collaborators with Rome and the Pharisees were the pious who walked with God. However by the time of Luke’s writing of the gospel, the Pharisaic movement was eponymous with the Jews who rejected Jesus. Jesus story was to challenge individuals to think about themselves and how they approached God. Luke seems to transform it into an attack on all Pharisees and thus in the future Jews. But the challenge to the Jewish audience in the first century was fairly clear. They, like Jonah, might be angered that the tax collector can get close to God as the people of Nineveh did when they repented. This discomfort may well be lost on us today but that doesn’t make the story any less Jewish.
Throughout the teaching of Jesus we see clear indications of what makes him a Jewish figure. But one must understand that Judaism, even in the first century, was not a monolithic religion. More often than not Jews were in dialogue and argument over the meaning of Torah and the way one should live a Jewish life. This was very much the view of Jesus at the time. When Jesus challenges authority in the gospels, the stories don’t always make sense to me. In part because they are used in way to challenge all of Judaism, when in fact Jesus was acting in a very Jewish manner. I can illustrate this in a story from the Talmud.
Towards the end of the first century, a few decades after the big Jewish rebellion against the Romans, the sages of the “Sanhedrin” (The highest court in Jewish law) had to determine whether a certain oven “the oven of Achnai” is appropriate to use according to the Jewish law.
With the exception of one sage, Rabbi Eliezer, all sages declared that the oven can become ‘impure’.
Rabbi Eliezer who was convinced that his position was right declared: “If the rule is as I say [That Achnai’s oven is in fact pure], then let this carob tree prove it!” Then the carob tree flew out of the ground and landed thirty yards away.
The sages were not impressed: “One does not bring evidence from the carob tree!”
Rabbi Eliezer continued: “If the rule is as I say, then let the stream of water prove it.” And the stream of water flowed backwards.
“One does not bring evidence from a stream of water,” replied the other sages.
“If the rule is as I say then let the walls of this house prove it!” continued Rabbi Eliezer, and the walls began to fall inward. Rabbi Joshua, Eliezer’s main opponent, censored the walls for their interference and they did not fall but neither did they return to their previous position.
“If the law is as I say then let it be proved by Heaven,” continued Rabbi Eliezer and indeed a voice from Heaven came and asserted that Rabbi Eliezer was right! Rabbi Joshua stood up and said (quoting Deuteronomy 30:12) “It is not in Heaven, ” . Immediately everything went back to the way it was. The voice was gone. When asked later what God was doing at the time of his discussion, the prophet Elijah told all that God was dancing through the heavens saying joyfully, “My children have defeated me”.
Jesus was acting in a manner typical of the time. Taking the Torah and making it work in the context of the world he lived in, using the historical commentary and the writing of the prophets to back him up. Jesus was not unlike many Pharisees who were seeking to define Judaism during the second Temple period for the times. They drew heavily from what was called the Oral Torah and did so with great debates, and their legacy became the Rabbinic Judaism of the post Temple period that defines all of Judaism today. It was in this context that Jesus taught and expressed his Jewishness; a Jewishness that led him to be a radical in the tradition of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his family, Moses and Miriam, Ezra and Judah Maccabee. Jesus created a vision for his followers that was deeply Jewish and resonates today with many who may not all agree but, which links back to a Galilean who worshiped at the Temple and studied at Hebrew School.
I thought about how in his Jewish voice might be heard today by modern people. In Matthew Christians read:
Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
"Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'
What I hear him saying creates a standard here on earth for what is required of us in God’s eyes, even if we can never truly achieve perfection. It speaks to the here and now. It calls us to create a heavenly existence in one’s lifetime. While Jesus does reference heaven, this passage also call for humanity to take seriously the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, repairing the world. It is, as if, the passage speaks to building the rewards of heaven now, something Jews strive for every Shabbat. This is captured in a story shared in many traditions but found in Jewish folklore.
A great Rabbi was allowed to receive one special gift from an angel, so he asked to see the precinct of Heaven and Hell. First taken to hell he witnessed a long banquet table filled with food and people sitting there. The people’s arms were outstretched locked in a position by metal bands at the elbow and they could not bring the food to their mouths. Shuttering the Rabbi asked to now see heaven. In heaven he witnessed a long banquet table filled with food and people sitting there. The people’s arms were outstretched locked in a position by metal bands at the elbow and they could not bring the food to their mouths. What is the difference? In heaven the people are feeding each other.
We are all preparing for a holy time of year, let us take this time to move into silence as we consider how we can create our own heavenly existence by finding ways to feed each other…