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Torah and Testimony: Making Sense of Disputation in Dialogue
Garber, Zev

Dialogue, A Learning Exchange

Dialogue gives insight to the temper of our age and to the temper of our tradition. In the field of scriptural studies, it means to go beyond acquiring bits of information to a critical exchange of ideas and experience. It means to take seriously the four sequential steps of a learning exchange:

Confrontation, where the participant experiences the text superficially; Analysis, where the participant seriously probes the text in light of previous knowledge; Interaction, where the participant’s mutual or reciprocal communication with others helps him/her benefit from their views; and Internalization, where by turning the sharing of ideas upon oneself, the participant rethinks the text as it relates to him/her as an individual and as a member of a religious community.

Biblical exegesis clothed in dialogue has all the possibilities and dangers inherent in any real communication. On the one hand, it can extend one’s experience at the most profound level of his/her religious sensitivities. On the other hand, it can devaluate one’s past attitude and ideas and develop a new orientation of what it means to be scripturally informed. Comparisons are inevitable, and this may lead to a crisis in faith interpretation. That is to say, the old meaning/orientation may have to disintegrate while a new one emerges. Clearly, visions of the other are altered when Christians and Jews read Scriptures in dialogue.


Rabbinic Torah

Various biblical verses point to the Pentateuch as Torah distinct from the rest of the Scriptures. The verse “Moses charged us with the Teaching (Torah) as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob” (Dt 33:4) suggests the inalienable importance of Torah to Israel: it is to be transmitted from age to age, and this transmission has become the major factor for the unity of the Jewish people throughout their wanderings.

The Sages of the Talmud kept the Torah alive and made its message relevant in different regions and times. This has been done by means of the Rabbinic hermeneutic of a Dual Torah that has been read into verses from the book of Exodus. Regarding God’s words to Moses on the covenantal relationship between Himself and Israel, it is said in Exodus, “write down (ktav) these words, for in accordance (‘al pi; literally, ‘by the mouth’) with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel” (Ex 34:27), and, “I will give you the stone tablets with the teachings (torah) and commandments which I have inscribed (ktav-ti) to instruct (by word of mouth) them” (Ex 24:12). The Sages saw the words “write, accordance, instruct” as the warrant for the Written Torah (Torah Shebiktav) and the Oral Torah (Torah Shehb`al Peh). In their view, the Written Torah of Moses is eternal and the Oral Torah, the application of the Written Torah to forever changing historic situations, continues to uncover new levels of depth and meaning and thus make new facets of Judaism visible and meaningful in each generation. Take the laws of tithing, for example.

Ma`aserot and Ma`aser Sheni, the seventh and eighth tractates in the order of Zera`im in the Mishnah, Tosefta and Jerusalem Talmud (Babylonian Talmud lacking) contain Rabbinic rules and regulations in performing scriptural demands for agricultural tithing, that is, when and under what conditions payments are due and by whom and to whom and how a common Israelite may proceed to eat from his own crops after payment of agricultural taxes.

Specifically, Ma`aserot (“Tithes”) deals with the laws concerning which kinds of fruits and plants of the Land of Israel are tithed to benefit the landless Levites (Nm. 18:24), who, in turn, provide for the Priests (terumat ma`aser) and the regulations protecting produce misappropriation. Ma`aser Sheni (“Second Tithes”) discusses (1) the tithing of all yearly produce that is set aside for the benefit of the farmer and his household – after separating the first levy in the yearly produce given to the Priest (terumat gedolah) and the levy parsed to the Levite (ma`aser rishon) taken to Jerusalem in the first, second, fourth, and fifth year of the shemitah (seven-year) cycle and eaten there (Dt 14:22-26); (2) legislation to redeem monetarily the ma`aser sheni by a second party or by the owner himself, who is required to add a 20% surcharge to the crop value (Lv 27:30-31), and in both situations the capital must be spent in the capitol (Jerusalem); (3) the rules regulating the fourth year harvest of tree or vine fruits sanctified by the Torah (Lv 19:24), whose produce or its redemption money must be used by the farmer and household only in Jerusalem; and (4) the instructions regarding the elimination (bi`ur) of the ma`aserot (Dt 14:28-29; 26:12-15), whereby at the termination of the third and sixth years of the shemitah cycle, the ma`aser sheni is devoted entirely to the poor and destitute (ma`aser `oni) are noted and explained.

In reading Ma`aserot and Ma`aser Sheni in the Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi), one sees (1) how Torah-based agricultural laws, written and oral, are understood by the Sages as legalism and teaching; (2) how the Yerushalmi editors augment Scripture and this in turn becomes the pattern for the Tradition (e.g., “You shall certainly tithe all the produce of your seed “[Dt 14:22], understood by the Yerushalmi to be whatever is found and is guarded and grows from the soil, which Maimonides interpreted as all human food which is cultivated from the soil – the Torah states only cereal, wine and oil – is liable to ma`aserot [Hil. Ter.2:1]; and (3) how the talmudic sugya (rhetorical unit) is seen as a living interpretation, reflecting changing times and events by adding and subtracting, thus modifying the Torah of Sinai to the torah of the Rabbis.

Arguably, the crowning achievement of the Sages was the preservation of Judaism following the destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem in 70 C.E. The Jewish War against the Romans ended disastrously; the religious center and national life were in shambles. Nonetheless, the Sages extended the Temple rites into the community and ritualized ordinary acts into sacred activities. Hence, agricultural laws, table fellowship and tithing were seen as supreme religious duties and as a hallmark of the Weltanschauung of the Rabbis. Ultimately, the Tanna’im of the Mishna and Baraita and the ‘Amora’im of the Gemara salvaged Judaism from the Roman pillage of Eretz Israel by placing it beyond space and time. They moved Jewish values and thought from the catastrophic events of everyday to timeless wisdom – planting a portable homeland for the fertilization of the mind and spirit. This, in a nutshell, is the theology of the Rabbinic mind.


Testimony of Jesus1

There is a line of basic continuity between the beliefs and attitudes of Jesus and the Pharisees, between the reasons which led Jesus into conflict with the religious establishment of his day, and those which led his followers into conflict with the Synagogue.

Two of the basic issues were the role of the Torah and the authority of Jesus. Rabbinic Judaism could never accept the Second Testament Christology since the God-man of the “hypostatic union” is foreign to the Torah’s teaching on absolute monotheism. As the promised Messiah,2 Jesus did not meet the conditions which the prophetic-Rabbinic tradition associated with the coming of the Messiah. For example, there was no harmony, freedom, peace and amity in Jerusalem and enmity and struggle abounded elsewhere in the Land. This denies the validity of the Christian claim that Jesus fulfilled the Torah and that in his Second Coming the tranquility of the Messianic Age will be realized. As Rabbi Jesus, he taught the divine authority of the Torah and the prophets,3 and respect for its presenters and preservers,4 but claimed that his authority was equally divine and that it stood above the authority of the Torah. We agree with others who see this testimony as the major point of contention between Jesus and the religious authorities that ultimately led to the severance of the Jesus party from the Synagogue. However, we maintain, that the quarrel began in the words of Jesus on the roads to and from the Torah.

For example, the distinction between the positive articulation of the Golden Rule as given by Jesus5 and its negative form as given by Hillel.6 Jesus’ ethic is seen in Christianity as altruistic and denies the individual objective moral value and dwarfs the self for the sake of the other. Hillel’s moral code as understood within Judaism eliminates the subjective attitude entirely. It is objectively involved with abstract justice, which attaches moral value to the individual as such without prejudice to self or other.

Hillel’s argument is that no person has the right to ruin another person’s life for the sake of one’s own life, and similarly, one has no right to ruin one’s own life for the sake of another. Both are human beings and both lives have the same value before the heavenly throne of justice. The Torah teaching, “Love your neighbor as yourself,”7 means for the Sages just that, neither more nor less; that is, the scales of justice must be in a state of equilibrium with no favorable leaning either toward self or neighbor. Self-love must not be a measuring rod to slant the scale on the side of self-advantage and concern for the other must not tip the scale of justice in his/her behalf.8

Hillel’s point stands in contrast to the standpoint of Jesus, whom Christians believe is above the authority of the Dual Torah. The disparity of self and other in the ancestral faith of Jesus is abolished in the new faith in Jesus: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”9 This may well explain the words of Jesus on retaliation,10 on love of one’s enemies,11 and on forgiveness at the crucifixion.12
The difference between Hillel and Jesus, the Synagogue and the Church, on the purpose of Torah and the person of Jesus, acquired new intensity after the passing of the Jewish Jesus and the success of Pauline Christianity.


‘Ani Hu’/ I Am He

No matter how composite is the figure of the historical Jesus and how rudimentary is the concept of the Christ-event in the Second Testament, there can be no doubt that the Jewish and Gentile believers bestowed divine attributes and power upon Jesus and venerated him above all creatures. Such an attitude towards the person of Jesus as God incarnate led to conflict with the Sages, who revered only Torah-from-Heaven. This is illustrated in the exegetical dissimilarity between Church and Synagogue in how one is to submit to God’s righteousness. Reading the nature of God’s commandment (Dt 30: 11-14), the Apostle Paul comments that Christ is the subject of “Who will ascend into heaven? … Who will descend into the deep?” and confessing “Jesus is Lord … in your mouth and in your heart”13 is the justified salvation for all. For the Sages, however, salvation is in believing and doing the commandments. “Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you … it is not in heaven,”14 is the raison d’Ltre of Rabbinic Judaism. That is to say, the Torah is not in heaven, it is here and near so that Israel can hear “the blessing and the curse” and do the 613 Commandments15 in order “to choose life”16 and live.

As persuasive as such arguments on faith in Christ or observance of the Torah may seem to be disagreements between Jewish Christians in how to reach Gentiles,17 the fallout is decisive and divisive in the disputations between the Church and Synagogue beginning with nascent Christianity, as John 8 seems to suggest. The destruction of Jerusalem and of the Second Temple was sufficient proof for believers in Christ that God has pronounced dire judgment upon his stiffnecked people and that the God of promises dispensed His countenance to those who accepted Jesus as Messiah. Hence, “Christ is the end of the law,”18 in “(whose) flesh the law with its commandments and regulations”19are abolished. But Torah and its Commandments are the matrix in which Rabbinic Judaism was born and it proved to be the mighty fortress to withstand danger of extinction from without (Rome) and from within (non-Pharisaic philosophies, including Jewish Christianity). Thus, in the Rabbinic way, to despise an individual precept of the Torah is tantamount to rejecting the whole Torah; and this explains the measures taken by the Synagogue, e.g., the second century Birkat ha-Minim (prayer against Jewish sectarians inserted in the Eighteen Benedictions), to preserve its national and religious character in the face of adversity and catastrophe.

The pivotal points of the polemics between Jesus and the Jews in John 8 (indeed, throughout the Fourth Gospel) reflect his and their disparate views on the yoke of the Torah (temporary or eternal) and the separation of a specific Jewish Christian community in the late first century from the Jewish society to which its members had belonged and are now excluded by Synagogue fiat. On the former, consider Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman at the well, “(S)alvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…,”20 and on the latter, the intensity of conflict between the Jewish Christian community for which John was composed and the reigning religious authority is reflected in the hostile and vindictive language placed on the mouth of Jesus accusing his Jewish detractors of not accepting the truth, plotting to kill him, and being the children of the Devil.21

In the long history of Christianity there exists no more tragic development than the treatment accorded the Jewish people by Christian believers based in part on the anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John. The cornerstone of supersessionist Christology is the belief that Israel was spurned by divine fiat for first rejecting and then killing Jesus. This permitted the apostolic and patristic writers to damn the Jews in the rhetoric of John 8, and more, to assign the worst dire punishment on judgment day. These are not words, just words, but they are links in an uninterrupted claim of antisemitic diatribes that contributed to the murder of Jews in the heartland of Christendom and still exists in a number of Christian circles today. How to mend the cycle of pain and the legacy of shame? The key is a midrashic interpretation informed by an empathic and emphatic dialogue between siblings, Christian and Jew, individually and together.

Let us explain. It is a fact that Church-Synagogue relations turned for the better when the Second Vatican Council (1963-1965) issued the document Nostra Aetate (“In Our Times”), the first ever Roman Catholic document repudiating collective Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. In the Roman Catholic world, this inspired many dioceses and archdioceses to implement Nostra Aetate and to rid the anti-Jewish bias of Christian teaching. To illustrate, consider the sentiment of the Italian Bishops to the Jewish community of Italy (March 1998): “For its part, the Catholic Church, beginning with Second Vatican Council – and thanks to the meeting of two men of faith, Jules Isaac and John XXIII, whose memory is a blessing – decisively turned in another direction, removing every pseudotheological justification for the accusation of deicide and perfidy and also the theory of substitution with its consequent ‘teaching of contempt,’22 the foundation for all antisemitism. The Church recognizes with St. Paul that the gifts of God are irrevocable and that even today Israel has a proper mission to fulfill: to witness to the absolute lordship of the Most High, before whom the heart of every person must open.”

Few can rival Pope John Paul II’s twenty-three-year papacy (as of this writing) in ridding the Roman Catholic Church of antisemitism. He more than any predecessor has condemned “the hatreds, acts of persecution, and displays of antisemitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place (Yad Va-Shem, March 23, 2000). He has labeled the hatred of Jews as a sin against God, referred to the Jews as Christianity’s “elder brother,”23 with whom God’s covenant is irrevocable, and established diplomatic relations with the State of Israel (1994). The Vatican documents We Remember (1998) and Confessions of Sins Against the People of Israel (St. Peter’s Basilica, March 12, 2000) are major milestones in the Roman Catholic Church’s efforts to reconcile with the Jewish people. And, we might add, main line Protestant denominations in the World Council of Churches, in different degrees, have done likewise.

We welcome this gesture of professing and confessing spoken in the spirit of teshuvah (repentance) from the largest member-church in the “Body of Christ” and it bodes well for Jews to offer teshuvah

(response) in kind. Jews must be true to their Torah, distinct from other sacred scriptures and religions. At the same time, they must do their homework and cleanse the People Israel of any conceived and/or perceived anti-Christian bias. Jews must see the Roman Catholic Church’s altering attitude and action toward them as good omens done in the spirit of humility and contrition. Jews need to be reminded that the Roman Catholic Church views the encounter with Judaism and the Jewish people, in the words of Rabbi Joachim Prinz on Swiss Catholic scholar, Clemens Thoma’s ground breaking work, A Christian Theology of Judaism (1980), “not merely one of historic importance but an organic part of Christian unity.” Christianity is a legitimate dialogue partner in tikkun ‘olam, endowing the world in peace, understanding and unity.

Admittedly, dialogue at times creates unexpected friction, of a kind found in chronicles and hoary debates, if aggressively done for the purpose of settling a score. Progress not regress in Christian-Jewish dialogue is only possible if old canards are exposed and reciprocal teachings of respect are encouraged. So proper dialogue on John 8 neither overlooks the harsh statements against the Jews and explains them in a setting in life of that time, nor allows misguided judgments of mean-spirited hermeneutics pass by unchallenged, nor allows a conjunctional albeit controversial thought go by untested. The “I am “ of John 8:24, is such an example. It reveals an aura of divinity by Jesus because his words, “I am the one I claim to be,” can be equated with God’s identity to Moses, “I Am that I Am.”24 For the Christian divine, this can be interpreted as “I Am” (God) is revealed in “I Am” (Jesus). But the text continues, “He (God) said, ‘Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel: I Am has sent me (Moses) to you.”25 This can translate that God as God not God as Jesus is the absolute and sufficient revelation of the divine pathos for the Jewish people.

The significance attached to the Name of God in the above midrashic discussion dispels illusion by illustration. The holiness, sanctity and power of God’s call are heard equally and necessarily differently by Church and Synagogue. One by Christ and the other by Torah. However, the completeness of God’s Name, meaning His essence and plan, is hidden in this world forever,26but in the fullness of time it will be made known: “Therefore my people shall know my Name; therefore, on that day, that ‘Ani Hu’ (Name of God, the shem ha-mmephorash) is speaking: here am I.” 27

It is incumbent upon Jew and Christian together in dialogue to bring that day speedily in our lifetime


________________

1. Our view on the historical Jesus is spelled out in Zev Garber, “Know Sodom, Know Shoah,” in Z. Garber and R. Libowitz, eds., Peace, In Deed (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998), pp. 83-98, and especially, pp. 89-93.
2. Cf., among others, Mt 26:62-64; Mk 14:60-62; Lk 22:60-70.
3. Cf. Mt 5:17-20.
4. Mt 23: 1-3a
5. Cf. Mt 7:12 and Lk 6:31.
6. The origin of the Golden Rule is Lv 19:18.Evidence of the Golden Rule as an essence of the moral life is found in Jewish tradition long before the period of Hillel and Jesus. E.g., the books of Ben Sira and Tobit (both second century B.C.E.) expound: “Honor thy neighbor as thyself” (Ben Sira) and “What is displeasing to thyself, that do not do unto any other” (Tobit). Similarly, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (first century B.C.E.), warns: “A man should not do to his neighbor what a man does not desire for himself.”
7. Lv 19:18.
8. Cf. the Baraitha in B. Mes. 62a, which pits the view of the altruistic Ben P’tura against R. Akiba, and Pesah 25b where a man asks Raba (280-352) what he should do if an official threatened to kill him unless he would kill another man.
9. Gal 3:28. Also, 1Cor 12:13; Col 3:11.
10. Mt 5:38-42; Lk 6:29-30.
11. Mt 5: 43-48; Lk 6:27-28, 32-36.
12. Lk 23:34.
13. Rm 10:6 commenting on Dt 30:13-14.
14. Dt 30:11-12a
15. The Talmud states: “613 Commandments were revealed to Moses at Sinai, 365 being prohibitions equal in number to the solar days, and 248 being mandates corresponding in number to the limbs of the human body” (Mak. 23b). Another source sees the 365 prohibitions corresponding to the supposedly 365 veins in the body thereby drawing a connection between the performance of Commandments and the life of a person (“choose life”). The standard classification and enumeration of the TaRYaG Mitzvot (613 Commandments) follows the order of Maimonides (1135-1205) in his Sefer ha-Mitzvot (“Book of Commandments,” originally written in Arabic and translated several times into Hebrew).
16. Dt 30:19.
17. Galatians, for example, which I discussed in my paper, “How Believable Is the Allegory of Hagar and Sarah (Gal 4:21-5:1),” given at the annual meeting of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew (NAPH), meeting in conjunction with the annual meeting of AAR-SBL, in Nashville, Tennessee, 18-21 November 2000.
18. Rm 10:4a.
19. Eph 2:15.
20. Jn 4:22b-23.
21. Jn 8:31-59.
22. Term associated with Jules Isaac (1877-1963), French Jewish authority on antisemitism, who in an audience with Pope John XXIII in 1960, persuaded the Holy Father to consider the errors of the Church’s teachings on the Jews. Isaac’s writings on l’enseignement du mépris played a key role in the declaration of Nostra Aetate.
23. Phrase introduced by Pope John XXIII.
24. Ex 3:14.
25. ibid.
26. In the unvocalized Hebrew of the Torah, “this is my Name l’lm” can be read not as “forever” but “to be hidden.” See Ex 3:15b
27. Is 52:6