Kesher: A Journal of Messianic Judaism: Issue 24 / Summer 2010

Kesher

A Journal of Messianic Judaism

issue 24 / summer 2010

Andrew Sparks, M.Div., S.T.M., M.B.A.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

©2010 by MJTI Publications

isbn: 978-1-60899-636-0

eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-7646-7

Published jointly by Wipf and Stock, 2010

Table of Contents

Title Page

• Israel, Torah, and the Knowledge of God: Engaging the Jewish Conversation

• Finding our Way Through Nicaea: The Deity of Yeshua, Bilateral Ecclesiology, and Redemptive Encounter with the Living God

• The Life of the First Jewish U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: Exploring Privacy Issues and Ancestral Cultic Connections

• Halakic Authority in the Life of the Messianic Community

• Sparks, Kenton L. God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.

• The Koren Sacks Siddur, with English Translation and Commentary by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Koren Publishers: Jerusalem, 2009.

• Colonna, S. J., Carlo. Gli Ebrei Messianici: Un segno dei tempi. Verona, Italy: Edizioni Fede & Cultura, 2009.

• Frederiksen, Paula. Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism. New York: Doubleday, 2008.

As a journal, Kesher continues to distinguish itself as a platform for some of the best of Messianic Jewish scholarship and theological reflection. This issue is no exception and explores a wide range of topics ranging from theology to halakha. It is a privilege to edit such a journal alongside a talented team of editors. I welcome back Dr. David Rudolph to the Kesher editorial team.

This editorial is brief since I would like to encourage you to subscribe online and tell others about Kesher. The impact of Kesher has been significant in its over ten years of existence. These results have only been possible because of our faithful readers and subscribers. Please take a few moments at this time to go online. Also, consider referring a friend by emailing them the link, www.kesherjournal.com. Thank you!

Shalom,

Andrew Sparks

Editor-in-Chief

Andrew Sparks, Editor-in-Chief

Andrew has served the Messianic Jewish community for more than fifteen years. Currently, he serves as Chief Advancement and Operating Officer of the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute. He holds an M.Div. (Westminster Theological Seminary), S.T.M. (Yale University), and M.B.A. (Fox School of Business, Temple University).

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Israel, Torah, and the Knowledge of God: Engaging the Jewish Conversation

¹

by Carl Kinbar

In his paper Finding our Way Through Nicaea,

²

Mark Kinzer sharpens his previous thoughts about the connection between community and the interpretation of Scripture.

³

Because Messianic Jews are involved in two communities, that connection affects us in unique ways. Kinzer writes,

I am proposing a theological and hermeneutical approach in which we as Messianic Jews take our place as part of the Jewish community with its tradition of interpretation, and as a partner to the Christian community with its tradition of interpretation, and from that place listen and respond to the Bible’s witness to the God of Israel and the Messiah of Israel. From this place of communal connection, we learn to hear what Jews and Christians have heard before. However, because we are connected to both communities and traditions, we also hear new things which these communities’ mutual and unnatural isolation prevent them from hearing. We can describe this as a hermeneutic of dialectical ecclesial continuity.

Kinzer’s paper speaks to aspects of what Christians have heard before, addressing the deity of Yeshua in conversation with Nicaea. This paper engages what Jews have heard before, addressing issues arising from a Messianic Jewish encounter with midrash. It is divided into three parts. What is Midrash? provides a basic orientation to this unfamiliar genre of rabbinic writing. The second part, God, Israel, and Torah, reads selections from a midrash concerning the love relationship between God and Israel in the dual contexts of Torah and covenant. The third part, The Word as Mediator, explores additional midrash selections that demonstrate the role of a mediator in that relationship.

Part One: What Is Midrash?

After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, there arose a movement of sages for whom Torah study was a vital form of worship. Though apparently all of them had families and worked to support them, their true vocation was study and the production of oral and writing texts.

⁴

They were not unique in this respect: Scripture study and the production of texts was an established practice among Second Temple Jewish groups. However, Midrash was the Palestinian sages’ primary mode of Scripture interpretation, philosophic discussion, spiritual formation, and public Torah teaching. They established patterns of study, interpretation, social networking, and community-building that helped them first to survive over the centuries, then flourish, and finally to penetrate virtually the entire Jewish community in Late Antique Palestine.

⁵

Although some midrash and related materials are found in the Babylonian Talmud, Babylonian sages never developed a comprehensive midrash tradition. They did not produce any midrash collections.

The word midrash arises from the Hebrew root darash [#$rAdf], which means examine; question; interpret. Midrash is an interpretive response to Scripture as read in the sages’ social context. As such, it includes the process of determining what is said and what seems to be missing in a particular scripture, the questions that arise from these observations, and the development of what could be termed a theological response that would be relevant to the social context, whether the sages’ discipleship circles or the wider Jewish community. Often, our written midrash reflects the sages’ oral teaching and preaching. A midrash, then, is the oral or textual embodiment of the interpretive response, generally expressed in the form of a narration, story, or word-picture. Midrash collections are edited volumes of such interpretive responses.

Midrash can be insightful, vivid and memorable, often beautiful, sometimes offensive, sometimes confusing, sometimes routine, but typically challenging if we are open to being challenged. When midrash is read and understood on its own terms, it often enlarges the frame in which a scripture is seen. As an example, let us look at a fairly well-known midrash on Genesis 12:1–4.

Genesis 12:1–4

⁶

Now hwhy said to Abram,

"Go forth from your country,

And from your relatives

And from your father’s house,

To the land which I will show you;

And I will make you a great nation,

And I will bless you,

And make your name great;

And so you shall be a blessing;

And I will bless those who bless you,

And the one who curses you I will curse

And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

Abram went forth as hwhy had spoken to him.

This text presents significant problems for interpretation. Abram hears a voice (audible or not, we do not know) telling him to leave his country and family and head out to an unnamed place. Did Abram understand that the one God was speaking to him, or did he imagine it to be the voice of some very powerful god among the gods was speaking to him? What was his reaction to the voice—terror, faith, reflection? Did he go on the basis of faithful obedience, compelled by terror, or motivated by the promised reward?

When the sages looked at scriptures like this—terse and open to multiple interpretations—they were willing to study, deliberate and argue, if need be for generations, until they settled on a number of midrashim (plural of midrash) composed in response to the questions raised by the text. These were gathered in midrash collections and passed on to the following generations. One of the sages who contributed a midrash on this passage was a certain Rabbi Isaac, who lived in the Galilee region in the mid-to-late third century C.E.

God spoke to Abram: Go you from your land . . . R. Isaac opened his discourse with a parable: This may be compared to someone who was travelling from place to place, and he saw a burning mansion. He said: ‘Is it possible that no one is responsible for this mansion?’ The owner of the mansion looked down at him [from an upper floor] and said: ‘I am the owner of the mansion.’

Thus our father Abraham would say: Is it possible that no one is responsible for the world? The Holy One, blessed be he, looked down at him [from above] and said: I am the owner of the world. So shall the King desire your beauty, for he is your Lord (Ps. 45:11). So shall the King desire your beauty. To beautify you in the world. And to bow down to him (Ibid.). Hence, And the LORD spoke to Abram. (Genesis Rabbah 39.1)

While Abram is wondering whether there is someone responsible for the whole world, God responds, I am the owner of the world, implying that he is responsible for it. So there is, in part, a revelation of a God who hears and responds and who at least claims to be owner of the world. He is not like the gods and idols of Abram’s home culture, who squabble over bits and pieces of territory, over day or night, gods who were willing to co-exist with other gods. This God is sole owner of the world in the same way a man is sole owner of the burning mansion.

Psalm 45:11 is then introduced to express God’s intention to beautify Abram, to reward him because he rose above the theology of his day and inquired about the existence of the One who is responsible for the whole world. This intention is fleshed out in Genesis 12:2–3. God tells Abram to Go . . . and Abram bows down, as it were, by obeying.

In this parable, both masters are stuck, as it were, on an upper floor. Although the world is not described as burning, it is difficult not to picture the Holy One calling from an upper story of a burning mansion. If this is the intent of the midrash—and midrash is usually very intentional about leaving space for the imagination rather than connecting all the dots—then Abram is being asked to Go . . . in order to deal with a world on fire. Because Abram sought God, he was considered fit for this mission.

Midrash draws attention to what we would call the theological implications of the text. It responds to questions that arise from the gaps and brevity of a scripture by framing that text in a narrative that arises from a rabbinic worldview that encompasses all of life, especially the relationship between God and humanity. Midrash represents a very concrete way of thinking, where ideas are embedded in actions and relations rather than described abstractly, and is the fundamental idiom of the non-halakic Jewish thought of its time.

⁷

R. Isaac’s midrash is not the result of an anarchic mode of interpretation. It reflects a deeply-held rabbinic view of the relationship between God and humanity. Created in the image and likeness of God, human beings and their choices are significant in God’s eyes. Unlike other gods, the Holy One does not treat human beings as mere pawns in a scheme. R. Isaac believes that one explanation of the scripture is that Abram was already a seeker. He was not transformed by God’s sudden intervention (something that smacks of coercion not only in rabbinic theology but in many varieties of moral philosophy). God spoke to Abram because Abram inquired after God.

Like most midrash, R. Isaac’s midrash does not stand alone (nor, as a single midrash, is it considered authoritative), but is embedded with other interpretations of the same scriptures in a collection of midrashim on Genesis named Genesis Rabbah, probably edited in the early fifth century C.E. These midrashim do not claim to reveal the secret and previously unrecorded history behind Genesis. Rather, they address issues that arise in the exploration of the text.

Midrash approaches Scripture in often strange and exotic ways. In order to engage this vital part of the Jewish conversation about Scripture, we must avoid extremes of outright rejection (or indifference) and naïve enthusiasm. A more academic approach—treating midrash as an object of knowledge—can be helpful for some, but can also lead away from exploring midrash as a vital expression of Jewish spiritual life. Learning midrash on our own can also be helpful, but holistic learning requires a learning community. The best conditions for engaging midrash in a deep and life-giving way require the formation of Messianic Jewish learning communities. Whether in twos and threes, small groups, or classes, when we learn together we stand in continuity with the learning practices of the Jewish people through the generations. Learning online or by conference call involves similar dynamics of group learning. Participants in Messianic Jewish learning communities will be positioned to engage more effectively in the ongoing Jewish conversation about Scripture.

Shir Hashirim Rabbah

In this paper, we will explore a portion of the Jewish conversation about Scripture contained in Shir Hashirim Rabbah, a midrash collection edited in Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, in the fifth or sixth century C.E. Tiberias was a multi-religious city, where Jews, Christians (both Orthodox and Monophysite), Samaritans, and pagans had co-existed tensely even as they shared a measure of common culture. It also served as a center of Rabbinic Judaism. In that city, the rabbis edited numerous collection of midrash. The synagogues of Tiberias were involved in the flowering of liturgical poetry and popular preaching. Tiberias was home to the Masoretes, who finalized the authoritative text of the Tanak.

As the rabbis explored the Scriptures and composed midrashim, their audience played a role as well. Back in the second and third century C.E., the rabbis and their disciples had formed small study circles. Their primary concerns were interpreting Scripture and determining halakah. By the fourth century, the rabbinic movement was expanding. It included not only the rabbis themselves, but also their families and an uncertain number of those outside their circles who were interested in their work. There are indications that the preaching of the rabbis (which was midrashic in nature) had a larger audience still, especially in Tiberias and other areas of Galilee. The spiritual and social needs of this more diverse group differed from the earlier rabbis-only group. In addition, as budding community leaders, the rabbis became more concerned with the lives of less halakically-inclined Jews who were not part of their circles. These expanded interests played an important factor in their interpretation of Scripture, producing many midrashim of comfort and consolation directed at all Jews, not only those involved with the rabbis.

Shir Hashirim Rabbah is based on the biblical book, the Songs of Songs. In this midrash collection, the Song of Songs is seen as an expression of the relationship between God and Israel. At the same time, the rest of the Scriptures are seen in the light of the Song of Songs. The midrashim based on the first two verses of the Song of Songs are examples of this approach.

In its commentary on