Dean's World

I have a good friend who's the son of an Orthodox rabbi. He himself studied to become a rabbi before deciding it simply wasn't his calling. He speaks fluent Hebrew, even studied at a rabbinical school in Israel. He's a proud (to the extent that pious Jews are allowed to be proud) orthodox Jew, a fiercely protective member of his people and his faith.

I've had a number of late-night (and sometimes beer-laced) discussions (and occasional arguments) with him. A fact that will interest some Dean's World readers is that he is certain that I can't possibly be an atheist. He's wrong about that, but I digress.

In any case, he's told me something that I found utterly unsurprising: in the quiet of their own arguments, away from the public, pious Jews of course consider Christianity a heresy. Not in an angry way, not in a "we must stamp it out" way, nor in a "we should hate them" way. Not at all. Most of them have Christian friends, respect and even love them. It's just, you know: "There's just no way this Jesus guy was the Messiah. And oh, have you ever noticed that these Christians have some really odd beliefs about the Bible, because they have no understanding of Talmud at all?"

I think a lot--and I mean a whole lot--of my Christian friends seriously need to sit down and have some (ecumenical, friendly) discussions with some pious Jews. Because what you Christians think you understand about the Old Testament versus what your average observant Jew thinks is often night and day.

There's a common strain of Christian thought which basically holds that Judaism is a sort of limited, primitive, constrained faith that, because it lacks Jesus and the New Testament, is sort of dark and depressing and authoritarian. It's as if they think everything for the Jews is all that is written in the book of Genesis through the book of Malachi, and it all sort of ends there.

That's not even close to the truth. Especially because, when you speak of what the Christians call the "Pentateuch" (the first five books of the Bible), the Jews think that what Christians miss is extraordinary.

The Jews have thousands of years of commentary and debate on those five books. Serious Jewish worshippers not only learn these books in the original ancient Hebrew, but often spend their life studying Talmud, which encompasses thousands of years of rabbinical commentary on them.

The Jews also have something called the Oral Tradition, which is referred to in the first five books of the Bible but which most Christians know nothing at all about. That oral tradition, combined with Talmudic scholarship, combined with the fact that most observant Jews grew up reading Torah in the original Hebrew, often causes some Jews to snicker at Christian interpretation of things found in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronmy.

"What, they said that? Bwahahahahahaha!!!!"

There's much to discuss there--indeed, thousands of years of things--but I'd like to share with you what prompted me to write this essay. Before I get to that point, though, I'll share something profoundly amusing that I have learned about the Jews:

Christians understand that God came to Abraham and made a covenant with him. For Christians, it sort of ends there: God appeared to Abraham and declared to Abraham that he would have a covenant with God.

But in the Jewish tradition--which encompasses many thousands of years--there is a catch that flies completely past most Christians:

A covenant is a contract. Contracts are not things that one entity imposes on another. Contracts are agreed upon. In the Jewish oral tradition, God appeared to representatives of many peoples of the Earth, and offered each His Covenant. One after the other, they refused.

Well, all but one refused. The man who didn't refuse was named Abraham.

Abraham accepted God's proposed contractual agreement. Abraham accepted God's covenant, when none other would.

Which leads to one of my favorite stories about the Jews. A century or two ago, a snotty, moderately anti-semitic writer wrote a nasty bit of doggerel:

He didn't much like Jews, you see. But one Jewish wag soon dashed off a response:

These people have thousands of years of written (Talmud) and oral tradition in understanding their scriptures, of which most Christians are blissfully unaware. While some Christians may want to snort at this "oral law" that the Jews revere, it would be wise to recall that Christ said that he came not to change one word of the law, but to fulfill it--and he was a good Jewish boy, was he not?

To the Jews, the law has always included the oral law. To them, the Oral law was quite alive and well at the time of Jesus and the pharisees.

While Christians often think they understand all they need to understand about Torah, and even pat Jews on the head about it, the Jews (who are used to being an oppressed minority) often just shrug and say "whatever."

I suppose I could stop there. I'm tempted to. But here's something more I have to tell my pious Christian friends, which I hope my Jewish friends will forgive me for revealing:

In the quiet, when no one else is around, the Jews often ask themselves, "Do you think that Christianity, being so obviously a heresy, leads these people to being closer to God?"

They don't just think you guys get much of scripture wrong, mind you. Sometimes they think you get it ridiculously wrong. Indeed, at times, it seems almost like pure luck that you aren't all complete disasters, you get it so hilariously wrong.

By the way, if you aren't chuckling at that, then you should check yourself. You'd better be laughing, sinner. These people laugh at themselves as much or more than they laugh at you.

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You know, I was tempted to end my essay right there. Just cut it off there. I was. But you know what? I think I should go on. Some of you may not like me for going on, but I'm going to:

Just by revealing what I just said (that the Jews wonder if you Christian people aren't all crackers), some of my Jewish friends may be upset. After all, they have survived as a people in large part by avoiding that kind of confrontation. I mean, you know that it's not just the holocaust that's in their memories don't you? It's also the razing of the temple, the crusades, the inquisitions, the burning of the heretics, the expulsion of the Jews from Christian Europe, and more.

I have seen a number of Christians on this weblog, and in other forums, spouting off about the flaws in Islam, about the corrupt and evil nature of that "oppressive" (maybe even "satanic") religion of Muhummad that "enslaves" people. Yet the people saying this, devout Christians most of them, need to hear an uncomfortable truth--one that more than one Jewish friend has quietly spoken to me. It's something which isn't spoken aloud much in America, but which most in the Jewish community know well:

On Shabbat after 9/11 (the evening of Friday, September 14th 2001, and the morning of Saturday September 15 2001), in synagogues all across America--Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox--while there was much weeping and praying for the dead, praying for justice, praying for mercy and forgiveness, there was something else:

In synagogues all across America, quietly it was spoken by the rabbis and the other synagogue leaders: "The Christians, they may come for us."

They did. More than that, they also said:

"They may blame us for this, as they have blamed us for so many things in the past. We should not hate them for it--but we should be ready, and we should prepare for the worst."

Everywhere in America, the Jews prayed and wept for their countrymen--and clutched their children and readied themselves.

I love America--love it in the deepest parts of my marrow. The very fact that their fears came to naught affirms everything I love about my country and my countrymen. It's part of why I'd lay my life down right now to defend her. In a heartbeat, I would.

But I ask my Christian friends not to forget this: they were afraid of you. In their hearts, almost all of them were.

Afraid of you.

Not just "you Christians."

You.

I suggest that my Christian friends who like to excoriate other faiths such as Islam need, quite seriously, to stop and think very, very hard about that.

(But by the way, while I should end it there, I'll add one more thing: just in case some smug atheist is smirking at all of this: Shut the f*** up, moron.)