Posted on 01/20/2005 1:10:49 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator
It's tempting to let last week's Prince Harry Nazi-uniform episode pass from memory as a moment of meaningless comedy. Tempting but wrong, and not for the reason you may think.
Twenty-year-old Harry, third in line for the British throne, attended a costume bash dressed in a khaki military shirt and swastika armband. He was photographed in this get-up, cigarette and drink in hand, and London's Sun newspaper splashed the picture on its front-page. An upper-class twit had acted like an upper-class twit. The horror!
It was hardly a big serious deal, in truth because who cares anymore about the British throne? Yet the story occasioned days of melodramatic media coverage. The Sun reported "worldwide anger over Harry's gaffe" and highlighted what it called the "hard-hitting" comments of Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
CNN brought on Rabbi Hier, who denounced Harry's behavior as "shameful," demanded that the prince tour a death camp, and more: "He should visit Auschwitz to be part of the British delegation to show the world that he can be serious, that he understands the great atrocity that occurred there. He could be at his grandmother's side when she greets the Holocaust survivors at Buckingham Palace, rather than remove himself from the scene and expect the world to forgive him because he's a kid."
Much more depressing than anything Harry had done, the episode reinforced the world's impression that the chief moral purpose of Jews is to denounce instances of alleged antisemitism. In my last column I wrote about the role Torah asks Jews to fill, that of the "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6) who minister to and teach others about God. I noted that a few, very few, Jewish voices are raised in this capacity today. Now comes the flip side.
Sad to say, the most broadly recognized "moral" voices on the American-Jewish scene, the purported authorities on Jewish values best known outside the Jewish community, concern themselves not with illuminating other people with the beauty and wisdom of the Torah, but too often merely with ferreting out either imagined or meaningless acts of Jew-bating.
The Anti-Defamation League hounding Mel Gibson, the Simon Wiesenthal Center hounding Prince Harry — this is what we are reduced to.
Meanwhile American Christians are continuously stepping into the breach, acting as the moral leaders we should be. One thinks of James Dobson, the country's most distinguished evangelical Christian voice, leading the fight against homosexual marriage (see Leviticus 18:22), a fight from which Jews are largely AWOL.
It is regrettable. On the bright side, it clarifies a mystery I've been thinking about in the Ten Commandments.
The mystery has to do with the Sabbath, the subject of the Fourth Commandment. What's interesting is that Jews and Christians agree that observing the Sabbath as Biblical tradition teaches — namely, not performing any of the 39 creative acts (melachot) that the Talmud details in tractate Shabbat — would be inappropriate for Christians.
The Talmud even makes Sabbath-observance by non-Jews a deed worthy of death (Sanhedrin 58b). Nuts, right? What's that about?
I didn't understand until the week Marvin Hier launched his assault on Prince Harry. I was reading Abraham Joshua Heschel's profound little book "The Sabbath," which reminds you in a very lovely and moving way that the Jewish Sabbath isn't merely about desisting from work. It's about meeting God in a "sanctuary in time," a day created to serve much the same function that the Jerusalem Temple did before it was destroyed in 70 C.E.
Sabbath-observance is defined by those 39 melachot, which are the same forms of "work" that the Jews, after the Exodus from Egypt, used to build the desert Tabernacle, forerunner to the Temple. Shabbat is a Temple — not in space but in a holier dimension, time. It is special domain of the Jews because we serve uniquely as the priests who minister there.
The Talmud's seemingly harsh prohibition of gentile Sabbath-observance seeks to depict a reality: When non-Jews function in the role ordained for Jews, something has gone wrong. Naturally, Christians have little choice but to take up our role when we drop it. But the fact that we dropped our role is not acceptable. Not to us, if we know what a Jew should be. But neither should non-Jews amiably allow Jews to get away with our dereliction of duty. The Christian understanding that the Jewish Sabbath isn't for them indicates that, perhaps unconsciously, they feel this.
When Hier or the ADL's Abraham Foxman goes on TV yet again to reinforce the perception that we have nothing more morally serious to do than sniff out antisemitism, we are like alcoholics or junkies, gripped by a soul-wrecking vice. Non-Jewish Americans, who after all make the decisions to give Foxman and Hier the national pulpits they have won, are our enablers, making it possible for us to pursue our addiction.
If non-Jewish Americans chose not to give representatives of the antisemitism industry so much attention, groups like the ADL and the Wiesenthal Center, which thrive when the media scare Jews into making donations, would quickly wither. If only.
David Klinghoffer is the author of "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History," due out from Doubleday in March.
When you add this commentary by Klinghoffer to the article I posted yesterday on 'Agudat Yisra'el, it sounds like good things are beginning to happen in the Orthodox Jewish community. And it's about time!
Ping
There is no change in attitude on the part of the Orthodox community. Orthodox Jews are the only Jews who even have enough children to duplicate themselves, number one; and, number two, their average age is younger, and and so they are more energetic than their increasingly aged secular, Reform and Conservative counterparts.
The collapse of traditional Christianity has also made the larger society more open to Orthodox Jews, as well as making Orthodox Jews more interested in the larger society.
Ya know, in all serious...
Prince Harry's act was stupid because it was going to get taken wrong. But come on people, be real.
Prince Harry's costume no more signaled anti-semitism than dressing up as a vampire signals a desire to slaughter young women and drink their blood.
The most notable exception in the last generation being the 'Lubavitcher Rebbe', and his followers, who live by his words:
[T]here was a time when we did not reach out to the gentiles to encourage them to observe the Seven Noachide Laws [which are morals for society and not a religion]...In our generation things are different. There is no danger involved in this activity, and to the contrary, such activity will increase the respect that the nations show us, for they will realize that Jews care not only about their own welfare but also about the good of all humanity and the whole world.--Shabbos Parshas Tzav, 5747, Sichos in English, vol.35, p.75.
What you say is, of course, correct. I ask forgiveness for expressing my frustration in the manner I did.
I agree.
The problem with Harry is that he is not connected to the heroism of his own grandparents and great-grandparents. I find it hard to believe that Jews would be on the mind of someone so heedless of his own family and people.
All due kudos to the late Rebbe (zt"l, zy"`a).
Prince Harry's act was stupid because it was going to get taken wrong. But come on people, be real.
Prince Harry's costume no more signaled anti-semitism than dressing up as a vampire signals a desire to slaughter young women and drink their blood.
True. Not too long ago it would have simply been accepted as a costume (and I've heard of Orthodox Jews dressing up as Nazis for Purim), but the Holocaust (like slavery) is one of those issues that seems to actually be becoming more immediate, rather than receding, with time.
I wonder if Rabbi Heir has expressed any concern over the behavior of the fanatical moslems and their Leftist supporters?
Actually, the Seven Laws oblige all non-Jewish mankind both collectively and individually. Sounds like a religion to me.
Six of one and half a dozen of another, as my Mama says.
I might add that the late, great Yosef Soloveitchik (known as 'The Rav') informed his students of the need to know the Noachide Laws to order to inform non-Jews even before the late Lubavitcher Rebbe launched his campaign. Thus we have great contributions in this from Aaron Lichtenstein and Israel Chait, as well as from disciples of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Right now, Rabbi Yoel Schwartz (with the approval of the Chief Rabbis of Israel) with Rabbi Yechiel Sitzman are doing great work in this regard.
Actually, Israel was charged at Mt. Sinai with spreading the Noachide Laws. The reason the Noachide campaign seems so "new" is simply that for centuries any attempt by Jews to instruct the non-Jews among whom they lived would have led to the direst consequences at the hands of the non-Jewish religious authorities. This led to an understandable insularity that has begun to thaw only relatively recently, as you have elucidated.
Rambam (Maimonides) makes such a legal ruling. But preserving life under threat of death for such activity has historically been a more critical principle than pro-actively teaching. But from a case of a Roman emporer to a Frenchman in the 1940s, non-Jews have been taught the Seven Laws by rabbis.
Whether increased anti-Semitism by the Greek-book or Mo-HAM-head crowds also justifies the suspension of such teaching is subject to legitimate debate.
When non-Jews function in the role ordained for Jews, something has gone wrong.
Has it?
Malachi 1:
The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of Malachias...The son honoureth the father, and the servant his master: if then I be a father, where is my honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear: saith the Lord of hosts. To you, O priests, that despise my name, and have said: Wherein have we despised thy name? You offer polluted bread upon my altar, and you say: Wherein have we polluted thee? In that you say: The table of the Lord is contemptible. If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? offer it to thy prince, if he will be pleased with it, or if he will regard thy face, saith the Lord of hosts. And now beseech ye the face of God, that he may have mercy on you, (for by your hand hath this been done,) if by any means he will receive your faces, saith the Lord of hosts. Who is there among you, that will shut the doors, and will kindle the fire on my altar gratis? I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will not receive a gift of your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.
The Christian understanding that the Jewish Sabbath isn't for them
The Christian view is that the Sabbath is about sacred space for the Lord, but a good deal more besides. The Christian view is that the great Sabbath rest of Christ in the tomb signifies the end of his salvific work "Jesus therefore, when he had taken the vinegar, said: It is consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost.") by which he makes the world a new creation "Behold, I make all things new.")
Christians worship on Sundays because it is the eighth day: the first day of the new week, the first day of the new creation.
Of course. Understood.
But from a case of a Roman emporer to a Frenchman in the 1940s, non-Jews have been taught the Seven Laws by rabbis.
Barukh HaShem!
When non-Jews function in the role ordained for Jews, something has gone wrong.
Has it?
Yes it has.
I know what chr*stians believe (I used to be one), but if the "new testament" is the work of men rather than of G-d, then all your invocations of its claims and of its interpretations of the Prophets are worthless.
I realize there's no point in the two of us arguing over this. We'll just have to agree to disagree. Your attitude does point out one of the unfortunate side effects of Orthodox Jewish insularity into today's world, however.
Then how do you account for Malachi's prophecy of an acceptable sacrifice -- a pure oblation -- coming from Gentile hands? Malachi looks to the Gentiles to fulfill the sacrificial role defaulted by the Jewish priesthood. If this is a peculiarly Christian interpretation, please let me know the Jewish understanding of this verse.
if the "new testament" is the work of men rather than of G-d, then all your invocations of its claims and of its interpretations of the Prophets are worthless.
I agree -- and as you must know, the apostle Paul said as much himself.
Few? None at all, ZC. Priests are not rabbis. Priests may teach or study or pray, but their single, defining role is that they offer sacrifice.
The Bible looks to the people of Israel as a kingly, priestly people. And so they are, so more's the pity that virtually all are unmindful of their king and careless of his priestly sacrifice.
Malakhi 1:11 nowhere mentions a sacrifice "coming from gentile hands." It says a pure sacrifice will be offered from the rising to the setting of the sun, preceding and following this statement with "great is my name among the gentiles." But it doesn't say that gentiles offer this sacrifice.
The traditional Jewish interpretation is that after the corruptions that had crept into the Temple service the Jews would be exiled among the nations where they would be purified. The prayers offered by the exiled Jews "among the gentiles" would purify them and make G-d known to the non-Jews among whom they were exiled.
I realize that you may argue against this that this is not a "literal" sacrifice. I can only point out that in light of Catholicism's longstanding hostility to the literal meaning of the Bible's words (especially if the literal meaning would require believing a miracle had occurred) this is most unfair. (There seem to be only two cases in which the Catholic Church absolutely insists on the miracles required by literal Biblical interpretation: the resurrection of J*sus and the "real presence" in the eucharist.)
However, the whole point may be explained as follows. The chr*stian interpretation assumes the Torah (the Pentateuch) is the lowest level of revelation--a sort of "launching pad" for the rest of the Bible. They believe this understanding of the Torah (and its alleged temporary, preperatory nature) were always understood, and that the Prophets represent a higher and more clear revelation. Ultimately revelation reaches its absolute crescendo in the "new testament."
In Judaism/Noachism the Torah is not the "launching pad" but the absolute highest revelation of G-d. The Prophets and Hagiographa are not progressively higher, but progressively lower than the Torah. Nothing any prophet has ever said can legitimately be interpreted as predicting a new religion to replace the Torah (in fact, anyone who made such a prediction would not have been a True Prophet and would never have been canonized by the Sages). As I understand it, in the Messianic Age/World to Come the Prophets and Hagiographa will cease to be read publicly as Scripture (with the exception of the Book of Esther) while the Torah is eternal. The Prophets wrote their books after perceiving G-d's message in prophetic visions; the Hagiographa was written under Ruach HaQodesh (the "Holy Spirit," or Divine inspiration). The Torah was actually written by G-d before the Creation and then dictated to Moses letter-for-letter. Chr*stianity has never understood this (since it must reject the Torah as the Logos and replace it with its "messiah"). This assumption that the Torah is low, elementary, and temporary is so ingrained that it is not even recognized as an assumption. No wonder chr*stians interpret the words of Holy Prophets as predicting a new system (G-d forbid). This understanding of "progressive revelation" is not only the exact opposite of the authentic Jewish understanding; it actually makes certainty impossible, since there is no end to new religious books making claims of "finality" and of "fulfilling" what preceded them (as moslems claim the qur'an fulfills the "temporary" new testament). The "final revelation" is unprovable and subjective. The First Revelation is certain and objective. That Judaism alone makes the First rather than the "last" revelation its absolute ultimate authority is one of its most distinctive characteristics and marks of its Truth.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.