Have you ever wrestled over the question of whether Messianic Jews should keep Torah or not?
Purim 2010 (5770) begins Saturday night and it's a serious party. Think socially responsible Mardi Gras and you begin to get the picture.Rabbi Hirschfield goes on to list the four essential ingredients of Purim:
J-BOM starts this coming month (March).One increases joy when Adar begins because Adar and (next month) Nissan historically have been full of miracles, including the redemption from Egypt and (nearly a millennium later) the miracle of Purim.
Adar is considered an auspicious month for the Jews.
Source: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 141:1
Last fall I read Paula Frederiksen's book Augustine and the Jews. One of the reasons Augustine stands out in early church history is because we have so much of his writing, much of which was highly introspective. Because of this, we can actually trace the development of Augustine's thinking on a particular subject over the course of his life. In Augustine and the Jews, Paula Frederiksen does just that, as she attempts to show that Augustine developed an innovative Christian theology of the Jewish people which, though it would certainly be judged anti-Semitic by today's standards, was actually far better than the existing theologies of the Jewish people (developed by John Chrysostom, for example).Should Jews thank the church?From Dovbear:
. . . Augustine's philosophy, although really, incredibly backhanded, was that Jews survive and should survive throughout all time until the End of Days in order that they serve as evidence to Christianity's truth. By Jewish survival, Jewish books survive, and, according to Augustine, it is Jews and their books that provide a walking, talking, breathing witness to the truth of Christianity -- that the church fathers didn't just "make it up." Jews and Judaism were not a challenge to Christianity, insisted Augustine, but a witness to it!
. . . Is it Augustine's (REALLY BACKHANDED) doctrine that has allowed the world to not completely destroy Jews and Judaism?
John Chrysostom, was from the "kill them all "school. During his remarkable career as a preacher of violence against the Jews, he put it this way: "When animals are unfit for work they are marked for slaughter, and this is the very thing which the Jews have experienced. By making themselves unfit for work, they have become ready for slaughter."Check out the full discussions!
Augustine, disagreed, and lucky for us, his view won the day. Basing himself on a proof-text found in Psalm 59.11, he argued that the Jews should be kept alive, in a demoralized and decrepit state, to serve as proof that God had rejected them. His model was Cain, a type for the Jews, who had murdered Able, a type for Jesus, and was likewise made into a despised wanderer as punishment.
From A Fire Burns in Breslov:Rav Yisroel Salanter zt”l had a student who was famous for his diligence as well as his creative thinking; he had the distinction of being both a masmid and a mechadeish. This bochur studied many years under Rav Yisroel, but one day, to the shock and dismay of all the other students, the “prodigy” went off the derech!Let this story be an exhortation to take stock of the "fruit" produced in our lives last year and to connect yourself to the true Vine this coming year!
When the terrible news was brought to the Rav, he displayed no surprise at all.
“During all the years that I oversaw this student’s progress, I never glimpsed the least glimmer of joy on his face. He worked very hard to grasp the depth of a subject, but it was obvious that he was never really moved by any of his chiddushim. He never allowed himself to be connected to the Torah, and so it was easy for him to fall away!”
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Bear much fruit, and so show yourselves to be my disciples. ~R. Yeshua
Powerful statement (find it on page 61). What say you, readers? Do you identify with Dr. Stern's words? Do you agree with him?The reason why Jewish history is my history is that I am . . . a Messianic Jew. A non-Messianic Jewish objector might ask, "Why is Jewish history important for you? Be Christian and find your place in your own stream of history." No, that is unsatisfactory for several reasons.
First, Jewish history is mine because I am Jewish. I reject the claim that I am not. Jewish history leads to me and explains who I am.
Second, Jewish history is important for me because Judaism has preserved some elements of truth...
And third, Jewish history is mine because if we Messianic Jews are to undertake our task to help heal the split between the Church and the Jews, as insiders to both, we must be fully identified with Jewish as well as Christian history.
So the Rambam is my Rambam, and David Ben-Gurion is my Ben-Gurion, and so are Moses Mendelssohn and Moshe Feinstein and Solomon Schechter and Stephen Wise and Judah HaNasi and the Raba and Abaye and Meyer Lansky and Albert Einstein and the Marxes--Karl and Groucho--and Peres and Shamir and Rav Kahane and Charlie Biton. All mine! And I, a Jew who honors the Jewish Messiah Yeshua, am theirs.
