Ask about Judaism

[ena]

The nature of Christ was the cause of the council of Nicea. Constantine called the bishops to settle it in 325 AD. This is an important moment in Christian history. . The Nicean Creed that came out of that you can see the roots of trinitarian thought. It is searchable. The problem is that in there are verses in the New Testament that allude to it but none that clearly state it.

[agricola]

I would say, rather, there are verses in the NT that can be chosen and interpreted so as to allude to the concept. There are at least as many verses that are clearly contradictory (Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, Jesus praying to God, 'this is my beloved son' and so forth).

The Council of Nicea attempted to meld several differing Christian doctrines about Jesus into a single one that would please everybody. Like most compromises, it pleased no one in particular, and there are good reasons the Church doesn't dwell on the subject too often: a) it is complicated and b)it has caused schisms and even wars within the Christian-dominated empires and c) did I mention it is complicated? According to the Trinity doctrine, Jesus is both God and the son of God simultaneously, and the Holy Spirit is somehow generated either by one of them, or maybe both of them -

Ehrman's book on Lost Christianities is very interesting, by the way, and anybody who is interested in the subject would enjoy it, I believe.

Basically, the earliest Christian communities were a varied bunch, and in one place Jesus was a man who had divine favor, in another he was God who just LOOKED like a man, in a third he was God's literal son, in a fourth place he was a regular man who was ADOPTED by God (the 'this is my beloved son' scene) and on it goes.

From my POV at least, reading the four gospels, it appears that mostly Jesus was a man, who was (or maybe wasn't) chosen by God as the anointed leader of Israel (maybe) and who was bodily taken up in to heaven in company with Moses and Elijah (two famous prophets who ALSO disappeared without a grave) presumably to live WITH God in a position of favor ('at the right hand of') - but not God. Even John, which is way more 'Christy' than the other three gospels, merely has Jesus existing prior to life on Earth as a sort of proto-Torah ('the Word of God, with God') and then he equates God's WORD with God's SELF ('and the Word was God') which is nicely mystical but hardly helpful.

You have to go to Paul's letters to get a really elevated view of Jesus.

Is there a question about Judaism in there? Because Judaism didn't expect a messiah to be anything other than a human person. Still doesn't, except for the more liberal wings, which don't even expect an actual PERSON, but more of a future Golden Age.

[margin overa]

Here's a question to return to contemporary Judaism, agricola: tell us about Jewish thoughts on messiahs and the various interpretations thereof. Obviously, the stuff in Isaiah that was re-interpreted to apply to Jesus is one way the early gospel writers had in appealing to or swaying Jewish contemporaries. Besides a theoretical coming golden age, what are (roughly speaking) current Jewish schools of thought on messiahship and its implications for the Jewish people? Broad question, I know.

[agricola]

Briefly - around the time of the second temple (say, about 300 BCE to 100 CE) there was considerable interest in End Times, Signs of End Times, the Messiah, and such - lots of interest. Like in US history, where we have had a couple of periods of extreme religiousity and new denominations rising up out of it all (like Shakers and LDS and Millerites).

It's even mentioned in the NT - that everybody is looking for a sign.

At any rate, Jesus wasn't the first or the last of the wannabe messiahs, he was just the most long-term successful, mainly, it seems, because his following made the jump out of the Jewish culture and into the greater Roman one. However, about a half century or so after Jesus there was a Jewish leader who became wildly successful at driving out Rome. He was called Simon bar Kosiba which became 'bar kochba' which means 'son of the star' and many MANY people proclaimed him the messiah ('THE messiah', meaning, the one heralding the actual End of Days, not just a regular messiah, who are common).

That rebellion against Rome was so successful early on that Rome ended up sending three full legions to Israel to defeat him, and he WAS defeated and killed in battle, destroying the rebellion. Rome then basically obliterated Israel, destroyed the entire city of Jerusalem (and renamed it) and sent a good third of the population into slavery around the Med (the price of slaves dropped by about half).

End of Judaism (or so they thought). The surviving rabbis (many were tortured to death by the Romans - we have a martyrology) went underground and taught in secret. The Oral Teachings were almost lost because so many teachers were lost. The center of Judaism moved north out of Jerusalem and into Galilee (Tiberias area) and later east to Babylonia.

As a result, messianism got a bad name. The rabbis were extremely careful about any teachings that might touch on messiah-ideas. This is when Chanukah turned from being about a successful rebellion (the few defeating the many) and more about a minor miracle (the oil lasted eight days).

Since that time, messiahs have arisen several times within the Jewish communities, none have been super successful although a few are famous (like Shabbatei Zvi and Jacob Frank).

Modern Judaism -

orthodox POV: the messiah will be a real person who will restore Jewish rule in Israel, bring all the Jews back to Israel, and there will be universal peace during his lifetime.
conservative POV: what the orthodox said, but we don't really talk about it, and you don't have to believe that exactly because -
liberal POV: there won't be an actual PERSON messiah, but at the end of days we will have a messianic TIME of universal peace, etc.

Basically, Jesus fails on two points a) claiming to be a divinity (totally impossible) and b) he didn't accomplish ANY of the expected tasks of the messiah.

The messiah is supposed to be a direct line male descendent of David, but most folks agree that if some Jewish guy comes along and does all the things the messiah is predicted to do, we will certainly decide he is or absolutely MUST be a direct line descendant of David, whether we can prove it or not.

[agricola]

OK I wrote all that between 3:45 and 4 AM this morning, right before I left for work, so it was a bit off the cuff and the top of my (fairly sleepy) head. But I looked it over and I don't think I'd change anything really.

Bottom line - honestly? About the messiah?

We barely bother with it at all. It has relatively little to do with our lives, and it is not (and hasn't been for a very long time) truly central to Jewish identity.

You can attend synagogue for a year, and never hear anything in particular about the messiah, unless you actually bring the topic up and ask a question - it is kind of a 'given', and 'oh yeah, that' kind of topic.

Don't get me wrong - Judaism is definitely 'messianic' in the sense that 'waiting for the messiah' is part of the basic fabric - BUT:
a) there isn't terribly much we need to DO about the coming of the messiah
b) we tend to be suspicious of people claiming to BE the messiah.

So I guess: cautious waiting?

Some of the more esoteric of the hasidic (mystically minded orthodox) groups do focus more on the messiah than mainstream Judaism, but even there it is more of a 'wait and see' with a bit more of 'prepare for' involved. The messiah ('the' being: the final one) will naturally be a male Jew, who will be quite extraordinary as a person (but will still be a person) and the messianic period will be a time of great peace in the world, until he gets old and dies. And THEN 'the end'.
But you don't see hardly any speculation about that at all within Judaism - the End of Time etc is just something that will inevitably come. We don't have to worry about it, or look for signs of it, or do anything about it -

Maybe because we don't have a 'hell' concept? That could remove a lot of the angst, certainly.

By the way, we don't have a 'hell' concept.

[agricola]

So we don't focus very much on expectations of the messiah. Sure it gets MENTIONED - like in children's classes it gets mentioned. And if you actually pay attention to the liturgy, you'll see plenty of expectations of end times, except mostly that isn't 'messiah': that stuff is all 'God'.

And we are quite clear on the fact that 'the messiah' is definitely not God.

'The Messiah' doesn't save us - God saves us.
'The Messiah' doesn't judge us - God judges us.
'The Messiah' doesn't create miracles - God creates miracles.

and so on.

Here's a couple of 'messiah' related stories from the Tradition:

From the Talmud:
Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai said… If you have a sapling in your hand, and someone says to you that the Messiah has come, stay and complete the planting, and then go out to greet the Messiah. (Avot de Rabbi Nathan, 31b)
(dates from near the time of the Bar Kochba rebellion)


From a traditional joke:
Yankel, a poor Jew, is given employment by the Jewish community. His friend Mottele asks him about it.

Yankel explains: 'I am paid one ruble a month and my job is to sit on the main road and watch for the coming of the messiah'.
Mottele says: 'That isn't very much!'
Yankele responds: 'No, but it's a permanent position.'

[agricola]

Most significantly, Jewish tradition affirms at least five things about the Messiah. He will: be a descendant of King David, gain sovereignty over the land of Israel, gather the Jews there from the four corners of the earth, restore them to full observance of Torah law, and, as a grand finale, bring peace to the whole world. Concerning the more difficult tasks some prophets assign him, such as Isaiah's vision of a messianic age in which the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the calf with the young lion (Isaiah 11:6), Maimonides believes that Isaiah's language is metaphorical (for example, only that enemies of the Jews, likened to the wolf, will no longer oppress them). A century later, Nachmanides rejected Maimonides's rationalism and asserted that Isaiah meant precisely what he said: that in the messianic age even wild animals will become domesticated and sweet­tempered. A more recent Jewish "commentator," Woody Allen, has cautioned: "And the lamb and the wolf shall lie down together, but the lamb won't get any sleep."

[agricola]

I posted this elsewhere but it applies here too - I asked my DH (Israeli Jew) if he learned about the messiah in class when he was a kid, and he said 'I don't think so. Maybe there was a class but I was sick that day.'

So there you are. There's a messiah expected, but if you are sick that day, you could have missed learning much about him.

[margin overa]

Interesting as always!

[agricola]

Leonard Simon Nimoy is dead.
Blessed is the Lord, the True Judge.
(recited upon hearing of a death)


What are Jewish death/mourning customs?

For the immediate family, ALL normal activities and even religious observances (to some degree) are suspended for seven days beginning from the time you hear of the death.
The funeral is simple. The body should be buried within 24 hours. From death to burial, the body is never left alone. The body of the dead is washed with water (usually by a special group of people called a Hevra Chadisha (basically, holy companions)) and dressed in a simple white cotton shroud.
Embalming is forbidden.
The body is placed in a plain wooden casket (usually without nails) and is buried in the ground. The casket is closed - open casket funerals are not 'done' and flowers are not part of the traditional practice.
The family and other mourners recite mourner's kaddish (I'll post it later) and tear a little bit of their clothing (usually a black ribbon, actually).

Then they sit 'shiva' (meaning 'seven') for - guess what - seven days.

The immediate family stays at home, the door is not locked, people come in and out and express their condolences. The family may sit on the floor or on low stools. They may cover all the mirrors in the house with cloth. Nobody will argue with them if they want to get mad at God, or cry, or whatever. You don't try to console somebody in the immediate time of loss. People bring food (natch).

Now if the Sabbath or a major holy day arrives before the seven days are up, the family will probably end the shiva period a bit early.

After the seven days, the closest family members (usually the children) observe a lesser mourning period of thirty days (I guess it is actually 23 days) during when they will avoid buying new clothes, getting hair cuts (or shaving) and any 'fun' things like parties. At the end of the thirty days, people return to their normal activities, except the eldest son (or sometimes, eldest child of either sex) will attend services daily in order to recite kaddish daily, for a year (11 months and 29 days, to be exact).
After THAT - the son (or children) will recite mourner's kaddish annually on the anniversary of the death. It is also customary to light a long-burning (24 hour) candle, and to make a donation to some charity on each anniversary.

When my mother in law died, my husband's beard grew in very gray, which was new. The anniversary of a death is called 'yahrzeit' in Yiddish which means 'year-time' literally (or 'anniversary').

Mourner's kaddish, by the way, can only be recited in the presence of a minyan (a 'congregation') which is a group of ten adult Jews (male in orthodoxy, both sexes are counted by Reform and most Conservatives).