The Crucial Difference
But take the utmost care and watch yourselves scrupulously, so that you do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes and so that they do not fade from your heart as long as you live. Deuteronomy 4:9
Eyes – Abraham Herschel said it. “The essence of Jewish religious thinking does not lie in entertaining a concept of God but in the ability to articulate a memory of moments of illumination by His presence. Israel is not a people of definers but a people of witnesses.” Read it again, please. There is no greater difference between the Greek-Western worldview and the Hebrew-Eastern Semitic worldview than Herschel’s insightful summary. The West is the world of the mind. We have a God of the mind; a God of concepts like omnipotence, omniscience and salvation. Our theologies are systematic, rational exercises which attempt to catalog, categorize and define God within the blueprints of our mental constructs. We are people of the book, in the worst sense of the term, waiting for rational explanation through more and more detail. The Greek world knows only one unlimited entity in the universe – thought. What exists is only what we can ultimately understand.
Herschel points to the West’s intellectual bankruptcy. God does not come to us in nicely defined, rationally explained, thought categories. God does not fit Himself into our theological text books. The Hebrew God breaks all the rules. He is near, yet transcendent; clothed in human form, yet holy; more terrifying than can be imagined, yet compassionate; invisible, yet revealed; judging, yet merciful, sovereign, yet humble. No matter where you look, God breaks the molds. The incarnation is only the paradigm example of an indefinable God.
Herschel notes that the Jews are a people of witnesses. That means that their history is the history of God’s selective choice, using Israel for His purposes through a long line of divine-human encounters. The theology of Judaism is the story, not the definitions. It is the story of God revealing Himself to a people, chosen by Him. In this story, the most important thing is the accurate retelling from one generation to the next because this is the story of who God is and it is the only story that we have. Doctrine is not nearly as important as encounter. In Jewish thought, the encounter of God with His people is not something that resides only in the past. It is anchored there, but it extends itself to everyone who comes after the encounter who is also a part of the called people. We, as Christians, share in this story – the story of all creation. We are grafted into the community and the continuity of Israel. This is critically important because it means that God’s personal illumination in His presence with Israel is also our personal illumination. The story belongs to us. Therefore, we also take on the necessity of accurately remembering and transmitting this unique encounter to the next generation.
God’s encounter with Israel is the whole of the Scriptures. It includes both the Old and the New Testaments. When Peter proclaimed that the prophecy of Joel was being fulfilled, he drew us into the circle of the story-tellers. So, the history of Israel is now our history.
That raises a question for every one of us who claims to follow the Messiah. Do we know the story? I don’t mean, “Are we familiar with it?” I don’t mean, “Do you recognize some of the parts from our childhood Sunday school days?” I mean, “Do we know the story?” And, of course, in Hebrew “to know” is to absorb it into the actions of my life.
So, do you know the story? Or is your God just a conglomerate of definitions?
Topical Index: Judaism, Greek worldview, story, witnesses, definitions, eyes, Deuteronomy 4:9
Thank you Skip, for putting into words what I have never been able to explain. I have been through much in my 54 years of life and yet in the midst of all of it I can honestly say that only a very few brief moments have I even thought about blaming or getting angry at God for my struggles. People have noticed this and asked me why I seem to have the “faith” that I do and I’ve not always been able to answer them. But now I see something much clearer and how it has molded my thinking for now.
I am the survivor of 19 years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse from both of my parents – the kind you find on the front page of the newspaper but usually only after the child is found dead. This even while my father was the “Shabbat Goy” of a synagogue on my street. When, as a 9 year old I first entered that synagogie I saw a statue honoring the 6 mil Jews murdered in the Holocaust, I identified with them and I made a mindful decision to trust THEIR God to bring me through rather than the Baptist God I’d been told about. Hence I came to personally KNOW this God who was there even in the midst of the unthinkable and so here I am today. THIS is the God I trust – yesterday and today. Again, thank you. Kathleen
Baruch HaShem, sister!!!
We have a GOD who you can know…, and One who knows you! o/o/o/
Rabbi Herschel hits the nail on the head. What makes Judeo-Christianity unique of all the religions on earth is the fact that they alone have a GOD who has revealled Himself to a whole nation of people- NOT one who reveals himself mystically to some individual who is able to convince others of his personal revelation. Nations saw the plagues upon Egypt; the whole nation of Israel saw the parting of the Red Sea, water from the Rock, manna from heaven, and heard the voice of the Almighty at Sinai! Many thousands saw the miricles of Messiah, and experienced the resurrected Messiah! We are meant to experience HIM!!!
This week during the Holy One’s appointed times of Pesach and Unleavened Bread He commands us to recall what the Almighty has done for us. We are to recite the Passover experience and tell of how the Holy One did this for us. We can appropiately recall our Passover Lamb, Yahushua, and His resurrection. Paul tells us we are all sons of Abraham grafted in through the work of Messiah, that all our fathers passed through the Red Sea and drank from the Rock which was Messiah. This is OUR heritage. It is because our experiential GOD that we can have faith and hope- NOT in our works, but in His covenant faithfulness! 🙂 o/o/o/
A couple of quick points…I’m at work and supposed to be working 🙂
But seeing and narrative (spirit) as opposed to thinking and understanding (mind) is most interesting to me.
And difficult to communicate (I’ll be back 🙂
The other point was my surprise to find the concepts of Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience, in Everyman’s Talamud.
For me, these concepts are very “Catholic” and “Greek.”
I would ask here that we not throw the baby out with the bath water. Salvation is offered to the Jew first and also to the Greek. I believe in a G-d of action, but I also believe G-d “thinks” before He acts, just as I (a Gentile) or a Jew would do. In the beginning was the Logos. I (a Gentile) will love the LORD my G-d with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. My attitudes will influence my actions, my beliefs will alter my behavior, my creeds will determine my conduct, my doctrines will determine my deeds. My mind is very involved in my faith. My mind contains who I am. This old house carries “me” around. I would suggest we not separate Jew from Gentile but remember our G-d is a G-d of diversity and unity and our wonderful Savior died for the sins of the entire world, both north and south of the equator and both halves of the hemisphere. Let’s take a closer look at Ruth, a “half-breed”, who represents the bride of Christ. Messiah has come to make of the two- one new man. If “any man” be in Christ, he is a new creation. Both Jew and Gentile are all under the new covenant blood of His cross and are part of His chosen family. Our G-d was in Christ reconciling “the world” unto Himself. G-d so loved “the world.” The cross of Christ is what unites all of us during this holy week for Jew and Christian alike. I will glory in the cross of Christ- it is my only “claim to fame.” We all (all) are either in Adam or in Christ. I will bless His name for His salvation offered freely to all (all) who believe. And brother Skip- because I believe and now belong- this will alter my behavior because I now belong to Him- I am bought with a price. I am redeemed and rejoicing because of the blood of the Lamb of G-d who takes away the sin of the world.In Christ- “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, (could we add Baptist,Methodist,Catholic?): but Christ is all, and in all. Hallelujah for our unity and freedom in the cross of Christ!