Thank you for doubling down on nice!
You are mistaken about the ‘Holy Spirit’ (which I’ve come to realize Christians take from the Hebrew phrase “ruakh hakodesh” (holy wind....hey, maybe the Japanese borrow their spirituality from Judaism too?)
And you are mistaken about what credence Judaism gives to a son (of God, G-d forbid, or otherwise.) Our knowledge of the essence of G-d (I believe you used ‘Godhead,’ which is a decent starting point) is vastly different from yours. Our knowledge of His lofty or ‘otherly’ heights and how He connects with, interacts with, and encompasses our ‘lowly’ world is distinct and irreconcilable with your claims.
What Jews say and have done in a literally unbroken chain since Abraham our Father—and OBTW our tradition is deeper—we know that Abraham attended “yeshiva (Torah school)” in the academy of the son and grandson of Noah...what we have done and kept as the “commandments” is precise and perfect. Do you know that we write volumes, splitting hairs, on exactly how to bless “thank” G-d for various different kinds of food that we enjoy in His world—before and after eating— and we do it all to prevent saying G-d’s name(s) in vain or incorrectly? Think of a whole semester of college-level coursework to perfect what you say before and after eating...memorized with song as a child and ‘grown into’ in understanding and personal meaning as an adult. Our “Bible study” is not the same...
The Real Rabbis of Kabbalah (their wives don’t say much...) are men who this very day study and meditate on how G-d’s very “Let there be...” is still creating our world at every moment. Jews know why we have computers when G-d never said ‘let there be computers...” Where did stones come from if G-d didn’t say in the Five Books of Moses “let there be stones too....” We know why and how the 613 commandments, 248 positive and 365 negative, correspond to the bones and major sinews and cartilage of the human body. We study this, each to his own level, but certainly enough to live exactly as we should— albeit with room for and a commandment for constant improvement—and exactly as G-d has ordained for us.
The Torah is unfathomable to non-Jews. How do you know what kind of fringes to tie to the corners of your garments? How do you know what words to “speak of at home and away?” How do you reconcile a Sabbath or not lighting a fire in your tents—unlike the poor Karites who sat in the dark and ate cold food...without Jews and our written and oral Torah? What do you bind as a sign upon your arm and wear as a ‘frontlet’ (or however KJV Bible translates it) between your eyes? It is very easily cast away by anyone— now or at the turbulent time of the Roman destruction and expulsion— to cast away as “un-keepable.” G-d forbid. We keep the Torah exactly as we should and that includes waiting for Moshiach every single day. He’s coming tonight. And if he doesn’t, G-d forbid, then he’s coming before I wake up. A Jew lives on a consciousness that a commandment-shunning co-coreligionist can’t understand.
Dude— the good news is— you don’t have to keep to what I do... Just 7: http://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380332/jewish/The-Mitzvot-of-Non-Jews.htm
Why oh why (I know you have a retort but I tell you it’s oozing with the emotions and sentiments that existed at the time of the progenitors of Christianity) and who oh who would believe in a G-d that packs up and leaves, nullifying His words that He spoke to His people? Let My people go so that they shall serve Me on this mountain. Who would leave this team? (Insert your own In-it-to-win-it motto here.) The original post is about 5000+ rabbis who are in it to end the exile (in other translations, the exile of the Holy Spirit, but I won’t entertain your dogma of what that could entail) and who train their children almost militaristic-ly to fight G-d’s war (against the lack of knowledge of Him, revealing Him in the world.) WE LOVE THIS MISSION. I’m taking my own time from today’s dishes, and toys to put away, and daily portions to study...and the Florida insurance licensing test-—Jew’s gotta make a buck right?.... to post. I love Yiddishkeit (Judaism) and we all love it. You have an image of a Jew of yesteryear. We’re at the end of the ‘gallus’ (exile.)
I hope you’ve enjoyed my musings.... I’m looking for the Jewish Rubio, Paul, and Lee at this time..... (ie, gotta run and end my soap-boxing.)
All the best
Phinneous
I sure don’t want to give you a picture of a God that packs up and leaves.
I want to give you a picture of a God that comes closer.
The Hebraic-ignorant conduct of most of modern Christendom, which is sad, is partly because the Jews dropped the ball on it. The spotlight shifted to the Gentiles who promptly dropped most of the Judaic elements and allowed their own idiosyncratic accretions. I’d tell a Jewish person, please don’t complain about dropping the ball on the Savior, then finding the faith of said Savior to be mismanaged. Modern Jewish Christian movements attempt with varying amounts of success to recapture it. There are still problems. For one thing they shouldn’t have rabbis, but do, in an attempt to look more Jewish. If Jesus said don’t be called rabbi, they should take it at face value. Something like the Qoheleth of Ecclesiastes would be more fitting... and no, they shouldn’t be coy about the Cross either.
I do believe you feel a close spiritual approach to the Lord and the praising of the Lord which is so common to the Chabad movements is a key part of this.
I have been a Christian pianist for almost 25 years. Music means something. Even if you’re an unbeliever in the Christian sense, if you address song and music and praise to God, something good will begin to happen. That is moving out of yourself and into the realm of God’s spirit. One of the Chasidic songs I really see this in is “Sha! Shtil!” in an arrangement by Pinchas Jassinowsky (sp?).
Anyhow, the post of rabbi (”great one”) is something that wasn’t commanded in scripture.
I respect the spirit seen in Jewish mythologies, like the one you shared about Noah. It is way better than being semi-agnostic which is how a lot of modern Jews act. Better a wrong spirituality than none at all, because God can correct a wrong one. I don’t agree all those mythologies are true. “Rabbi” is self glorification, to put it bluntly. In actual recorded history, as opposed to spiritual mythologies, rabbis are an artifact of the first exile, when Jews were temporarily bereft of a temple.
I would imagine that, yes, there is something about the Old Testament that no gentile could appreciate fully. One would have had to actually be there and do that in order to get the full wash of God’s spirit as He operated. Imagination can impart some of the sense, but it couldn’t impart all.
Anyhow...
Even if you disagree with me about the role of the Son... look at my Freep page and check out my poem “Don’t Try To Put The Lion Of Judah In A Cage.” I think you’d agree with the whole thing, though from a different point of view than mine. Feel free to use it, even, in a Jewish milieu, with my blessings. (But I request that you keep copyright notice on it.)
I didn’t do this poem in an attempt to be inauthentic. God put it distinctly upon my heart to write it. I had a tune in mind for it too but it would be more characteristically gentile Christian than Jewish. Christendom embraces the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It’s not for naught that Christendom accepted the entire written Hebrew scriptures, even those that are not daily referenced in synagogues today.
Anyhow, knowledgeable Christians continue to ask God’s blessings upon the Jews. They represent a separate historical thread of God’s plan. Some assert that with the formation of the Christian church, Judaism got absorbed into it and ceases to be relevant. I apologize to you for any Christian teaching you may have heard to that effect. I burn with indignation: that’s just wrong. God specializes in blessing hard cases (I was one) and if there were no hard cases around to bless, how could He do that?
Anyhow I wish God’s peace and blessings to you.