avakesh

Rabbinic commentaries to the "New Testament".

I recently posted on R. Yakov Emden's attitude to early Christianity.  I just came across a relevant discussion, here

"...There was actually another Soloveitchik who also had a great interest in things Christian. I refer to R. Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik. Here is a picture of him.

He was the grandson of R. Hayyim of Volozhin and the uncle of R. Joseph Baer Soloveitchik, the Beit Halevi. He is also the subject of a comprehensive monograph by Dov Hyman, who was a medical doctor trained in London and who lived in Manhattan. For some reason this book was kept fairly secret, with only fifty copies published and never sold in stores. Here is the title page of the book.

Among Soloveitchik's works is a volume entitled Kol Kore (Paris, 1875). Friedberg, Beit Eked Seforim, describes this book as "in opposition to the New Testament." Yet Friedberg never looked carefully at the volume, for if he did he would have seen that rather than being in opposition to the New Testament, it is in favor of it. Yet it is not a missionary tract. Rather, Soloveitchik followed the approach of R. Jacob Emden (whom he cites in his introduction) that the New Testament is only directed towards Gentiles, and supports the Noahide Laws. However, it has nothing to say to Jews, whom it acknowledges are obligated to keep the Torah. In line with this conception, Soloveitchik felt comfortable in authoring a commentary on the book of Matthew, and that is what the Kol Kore is. Here are the title pages of the first edition as well as the 1985 reprint.

 

This is not the only rabbinic commentary on the book of Matthew. In 1900 R. Samuel Weintraub's commentary on this Gospel was published (Milhemet Shmuel). Yet unlike Soloveitchik's work, Weintraub's commentary is devoted to exposing the Gospel's faults.²⁹ Here are the two title pages of the book.

The book is an interesting polemic, which unlike most polemics is written in the form of a commentary.... "

R. Yakov Emden's teretz for a stirah in the Gospels

R. Yakov Emden was a genius intimately familiar with many branches of knowledge. Among them was the "New Testament", on which he had written an (unpublished) commentary. I suspect that it is his campaign against Shabetai Tzvi that led him to explore this "other" Messianic movement. Here is how he resolves a theologically important contradiction in the Gospels, based on halacha.

"Many have asked that Paul appears to contradict himself here. In the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 16), it is mentioned that Paul circumcised his disciple Timothy. And they found this very puzzling, for this act seems to contradict the later text which seems to indicate that he considered circumcision a temporary commandment until the Messiahs arrival; but this took place after the time of the Nazarene! Therefore you must realize--and accept the truth from him who speaks it-- that we see clearly here that the Nazarene and his Apostles did not wish to destroy the Torah from Israel, God forbid; for it is written so in Matthew (Mt. 5), the Nazarene having said, "Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Torah. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. I tell you this: So long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Torah until it is achieved. If any man therefore sets aside even the least of the Torahs demands, and teaches others to do the same, he will have the lowest place in the Kingdom of Heaven, whereas anyone who keeps the Torah, and teaches others so, will stand high in the Kingdom of Heaven." This is also recorded in Luke (Lk. 16). It is therefore exceedingly clear that the Nazarene never dreamed of destroying the Torah.

We similarly find Paul, his disciple, in a letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 5), accusing them of fornication, and condemning one who had lived with his fathers wife. You may therefore understand that Paul doesnt contradict himself because of his circumcision of Timothy, for the latter was the son of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father (Acts 16), and Paul was a scholar, an attendant of Rabban Gamaliel the Elder, well-versed in the laws of the Torah. He knew that the child of a Jewish mother is considered a full Jew, even if the father should be a Gentile, as is written in the Talmud and Codes. He therefore acted entirely in accordance with the Halakha by circumcising Timothy. This would be in line with his position that all should remain within their own faith (1 Cor. 7). Timothy, born of a Jewish mother, had the law of a Jew, and had to be circumcised, just as he was enjoined to observe all commandments of the Torah (Pauls condemnation of the man who lived with his stepmother is similarly understandable, as such an act is also forbidden to Noahides), for all who are circumcised are bound by all the commandments. This provides a satisfactory reply to the question.

This will also solve the apparent contradictions in the Nazarenes own statements. Christian scholars have assumed from certain passages in the Gospels that he wished to give a new Torah to take the place of the Torah of Moses. How could he then have said explicitly that he comes only to fulfill it? But it is as I have said earlier--that the writers of the Gospels never meant to say that the Nazarene came to abolish Judaism, but only that he came to establish a religion for the Gentiles from that time onward. Nor was it new, but actually ancient; they being the Seven Commandments of the Sons of Noah, which were forgotten. The Apostles of the Nazarene then established them anew. However, those born as Jews, or circumcised as converts to Judaism (Ex. 12:49; one law shall be to him that is home-born, and unto the stranger) are obligated to observe all commandments of the Torah without exception. "

A book was written based on this letter, here and here

Philosophy is Pagan

I recently encountered an interesting discussion in Dr. Sholom Rosenberg's In the Foosteps of Kuzari". On pp.137-139 of the second volume, he develops the concept that classic Aristotelean philosophy was built on pagan assumptions. Thus, Aristotle believed  that supernal spheres each had an Intelligence that moved it, which Rambam identified with angels but Aristotle himself saw as gods. Dr. Rosenberg points out that Aristotle himself, on one of his lost manuscripts that only became available after the MIddle Ages, thought that Paganism evovled out of ancient philosophy and that the concept of multiple gods arose on the basis of having to explain how these spheres moved. By providing each one with an internal "engine", it was able to explain the working of the spheres, and from there humanity moved onto the concept of a Pantheon of gods.

I found this interesting because in a recent shiur  we discussed  the disagreement  of the Kuzari with this Aristotelean idea tha the "lifeforce" of each object is located within it. Instead, R. Yehuda Halevi posited a Divine Force (Inyan Eloki), that rests on each object in the Universe from the outside and serves as its Lifeforce and agent of movement. The different perception of what animates things also leads  to the distinctly different views of "nature". The former sees it as something internal to the World, while the latter sees is as being external to it. This obviously has major effects on the religious viewpoint. Pagan gods existed within the world, subject to tis laws and animated by the same forces that move humans, desire for power, victory and lust. Spinoza's God was also within the world, as its Life-force. Biblical God, on the other hand, may be described in some human terms but is certainly outside of the World, having created it. Unlike human-like pagan gods, God has no sexual nature and all His descriptions are easily explained in non-literal terms.

Dr. Rosenberg goes on to point out that Newton produced a conceptual revolution by positing an outside element, the force of gravity, as the agent that causes objects to move. Aristotle did not know why objects move and thought that their natural state is to be at rest. Consequently, he had to posit an internal force, something similar to a soul, that set spheres in motion, and which in turn caused sublunar objects to be set in motion. Newton innovated the concept of inertia and proposed that objects naturally remain in motion unless they are stopped by an external force, usually friction. An object would remain in motion unless stopped by something else. This opened the door to the Deist view of God as the originator of the universe, a glorified clockmaker who wound up the Universe and stepped back to watch it continue in its preset course. This view was in turn undermined by the recent discoveries in theoretical physics that produced fantastic and counterintuitive pictures of the universe as a jumble of shifting fields, fluxes, structures and relationships, a picture to which popular religion has not yet fully responded. It is, of course, the view of reality found in Kabbola, which, I think, makes Kabbola indispensable to any contemporary religious Weltschaung.

In general, I find the concept that our assumptions about the World affect the models that we use to understand Biblical narratives and to formulate our religious language, to be a poweful tool and a warning for any religious philosopher. We must remain focused on the forms and formulations of the traditional religious discourse and thake extreme care that we do not infuse them with time-bound, perceptually distorted contemporary content, at least, not without the caveat that the forms and traditions are unchanging while our fromulations are merely a time-bound attempt to understand them as best as we can, until better explanations come along.

Darkness opened its claws

They came in the dark with steps of steel

In smoke and flares and the smell of fear

Hearts of black, demon screeching, copter blades a-whirr

Surging dark, smoke and fire, blurry, unclear

*

In a flush  fear took hold and for a moment clapped

Consumed best we had, and obscured their light

Wings of darkness descended, and the star-light blinked

Vile evil smirked forth and the angels cried

*

They were pleasant in life and in death not slain

Darkness won for a moment but will not remain

Faithful is consolation and true is His hope

Certain our triumph, hallowed is His name

*

Flee then darkness from light and Death, You be gone

For you time has passed and will not return

The lamplighters will come and you shall be scorned

And the light of the righteous will forever burn 

 *veritas

 

Shakespeare was a Jewish Marrano woman

Amateur Shakespearologist John Hudson is not the first to question whether the actor William Shakespeare was actually the author of the body of work we've come to know as his, but Hudson is the first to suggest that the true author was a Jewish woman named Amelia Bassano Lanier. Of Italian descent, Bassano lived in England as a Marrano and has heretofore been known only as the first woman to publish a book of poetry ("Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum" in 1611) and as a candidate for "the dark lady" referred to in the sonnets. Hudson is the first to argue that she's the true author of those sonnets. He is so convinced of Bassano's authorship that he formed a theater company, The Dark Lady Players, to bring out, through performance, the true meanings of the plays (Jewish religious allusions) as, he argues, Bassano intended them. The theory rests largely on the circumstances of Bassano's life... more here

Ozymandias - Ramesses

Ozymandias was another name of Ramesses the Great, Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works ye mighty and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

          -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Praying dog - it's not Purim

A 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white Chihuahua named Conan has become a celebrity in Japan after he began joining his master in daily prayers at Naha's Shuri Kannondo Zen Buddhist temple.

Yoshikuni said Conan generally goes through his prayer routine at the temple in the capital of Japan's southern Okinawa prefecture (state) without prompting before his morning and evening meals.

"I think he saw me doing it all the time and got the idea to do it, too," Yoshikuni said.

The priest is now trying to teach him how to meditate.

Well, sort of.

"Basically, I am just trying to get him to sit still while I meditate," he explained. "It's not like we can make him cross his legs."

Purim Torah

Had Chritianity retained the Law - what may it have looked like?

This makes me feel green...

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment. The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere....

Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev said he was not convinced by the environmentalists' argument. He warned that the campaign would take away from the light of Torah that each and every candle symbolizes. "The environmentalists should think about how much pollution is caused by one solitary diesel truck on the road," Ze'ev said. "They should be fighting the trucks instead of Judaism. This is so trivial, so anti-Jewish and so anti-religious that even the worst anti-Semites couldn't think of it. Just like the Helenists, they are trying to extinguish the flames of the Jewish soul."

United Torah Judaism MK Avraham Ravitz called the environmentalists "crazy people who are playing with the minds of innocent Jewish people." He said the campaign would only convince people who do not light candles anyway. "They should encourage people to light one less cigarette instead," Ravitz said. Rabbi Benny Lau of Jerusalem's Ramban Congregation, who is himself an environmental activist, praised the good intentions of the people behind the campaign. But he said the environmentalists should be trying to reach out to observant Jews instead of running campaigns that turn them away. "People in the green movement who have an agenda have unfortunately made it anti-religious," Lau said. "This makes religious people think incorrectly that anything environmentalist is against them. The damage ends up being a thousand times the benefit. Tikkun olam [fixing the world] must be done by adding more light and not by adding more darkness."

The fastest growing religion

"A conversion for the ages

Local Karaite Jews welcome 1st converts since 1465

by dan pine
staff writer

“We haven’t done this in 500 years,” announced Joseph Wahed in his elegant Egyptian accent. “We’re a bit rusty.”

About 80 members of the 1,000-strong Karaite Jews of America (KJA) who were gathered in their Daly City synagogue laughed knowingly. Wahed was right: This was the first known Karaite conversion ceremony since 1465, when a group of Spanish Christians became Karaite Jews in a Cairo synagogue.

For the Daly City congregation and for Karaite Jews around the world, the July 31 ceremony was historic. After a year of intense study, 10 adults and four minors had come from far-flung places –– the Czech Republic, Australia, Canada and the hinterlands of America –– to swear fealty to Karaite Judaism. "  ....

More http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/33163/edition_id/614/format/html/displaystory.html

see also http://www.avakesh.com/2006/10/the_final_break.html