And the earth was … higgledy-piggledy

January 4, 2009 at 6:27 pm (Hebrew scriptures, Judaism)

An excerpt from the novel Disobedience by Naomi Alderman:

In the beginning, the Lord created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was tohu vavohu. What is tohu vavohu? This matter is much debated among the sages. There are those who say: formless. There are those who say: void. There are those who say: astonishingly empty, as though they had stood alongside the Almighty in the time before time, and had been astonished at the emptiness, had, perhaps, remarked upon it.

And there are those who say: chaotic. This interpretation seems to allow the words, which are all that we have of the beginning, their voice. Tohu vavohu. Higgledy-piggledy. Upside-down. Inside-out. Hither and thither. The Creator wanted to show us the first contraction of all-that-is. All modes of expression were open to Him, every human sense. He chose words — tohu vavohu. Tumble-jumble.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was bingle-mingle.

In the beginning, therefore, the most important work is of separation. It is of pulling apart the tangled threads. It is of saying, “This shall be separate from that. This shall be water, this shall be sky and this shall be the line between them, the horizon.” It is of setting a line between them.

What does it mean, that this world came into being at first through a blinding Act, but then, subtly, slowly, as elements were teased away, as infinitely fine lines were drawn? It means, surely, that, to understand the world, one must understand the separation.

The chapter begins with this Jewish prayer:

Blessed are you, God, our Lord, King of the Universe, who distinguishes between the holy and the workaday, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the seventh day and the six days of creation. Blessed are you, God, who distinguishes between the holy and the workaday.

from the Havdalah prayer, recited at the end of Shabbat [i.e., the Sabbath Day]

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Righteousness apart from the law

October 20, 2008 at 6:34 pm (Jesus, Judaism, synoptic Gospels)

The following text presents a play in three acts:

And Levi made [Jesus] a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.

And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

(Luke 5:29-32)

Act 1:
Sinners (represented here by tax collectors like Levi) are powerfully attracted to Jesus. Most churches wish that they could attract sinners in such large numbers. (Though they might not like it very much if it actually happened — if the newly-arrived “sinners” suddenly outnumbered the old-time members!)

Act 2:
The Pharisees object:  Men of God (as Jesus claims to be) are supposed to keep away from the common rabble. This was the very raison d’etre of Pharisaism:  to avoid coming into contact with things unclean. And there was good scriptural justification for such a way of life:  e.g., Lev. 15:27.

Act 3:
Jesus dismisses the Pharisees’ concern by responding, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Jesus’ response is enigmatic. How shall we interpret it?

The traditional interpretation assumes that Jesus is speaking rather sarcastically. The Pharisees think they are “well” (= righteous) — i.e., they think they have no need of a physician / Saviour. But Jesus knows the Pharisees are sinners in great spiritual peril. He is subtly mocking the self-righteousness that blocks them from responding to his message.

In recent decades, some scholars have asked whether Jesus’ words shouldn’t be taken at face value. Jesus genuinely regards the Pharisees as righteous — as Jews understood righteousness.

That doesn’t mean the Pharisees were completely without sin. It just means that they dedicated themselves to obeying the laws of Moses, which kept them squarely within the covenant community. As such, they had no urgent need of repentance — they were already “saved” (to use a Christian word).

But Jesus wanted to broaden the tent and bring others into the covenant community.

To practice the law as the Pharisees practiced it required considerable wealth and leisure time. The common people couldn’t do it; they were preoccupied with tasks necessary to daily survival. So they gave up in despair. They found themselves outside of the covenant community, in company with the Gentiles.

Jesus opened a new path to righteousness:  a path grounded in repentance and fellowship with Jesus rather than law-keeping.

Arguably, then, Jesus meant precisely what he said. To paraphrase:  “My ministry is not to you Pharisees, who are already within the covenant community, but to common Israelites such as these, who think God has given up on them.”

Jesus’ relationship to the Pharisees is one of the most hotly-contested topics among biblical scholars today. It touches on the more general question, what is the relationship of Jews and the Church? Does God accept Jews on the basis of their faithfulness to the old covenant? Or must they convert to Christianity in order to be “saved”?

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Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. I sometimes take the liberty of inserting paragraph breaks where I deem them appropriate.

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