Judaism and Christianity
So I've been thinking about writing this for while. just never got around to it. As many of you know, I'm currently dating a Jewish guy. This has been an education, let me tell you. As someone well educated in Christian tradition and the Bible, I figured that I knew plenty about Judaism. Well, this is kinda true about Judaism around 3,500 years ago, but I have since learned that I knew next to nothing about Jewish culture since then. Jewish history, yes. Culture, no. The more I learn about it, and the methods by which they interpret the BIble, the more I ask, why in the world don't Christians do the same thing?
For instance, they have a set of writings called the Talmud which is essentially a BIblical commentary, only it's written by dozens of Biblical scholars (aka rabbis) over thousands of years instead of by one guy, like other commentaries. So it's commentary that was written by people who lived very close to Biblical times all the way up to the present, which is just amazing. The writers argue with each other too, debating back and forth on all kinds of points so that every perspective is represented.
Now, the thing that is most interesting to me about this is that these rabbis discussed a variety of issues, many of which I have discussed with my fellow Christians and have never come to a satisfactory conclusion. These guys have already hashed it through and come up with answers to those questions. I want to know why we as Christians don't study what these guys came up with. They had thousands of years to debate these questions, so they probably came up with all of the arguments that we ever could, so why don't we look at them?
One example that I particularly like. There's the age old question of what do you do if someone is threatening to kill you if you don't do something that is wrong, like steal something or defraud someone? Well, the answer the rabbis have (well, I think it must be the general consensus rather than everyone agreeing, because the stereotype of Jews disagreeing with each other over everything is so true) is "live by the mitzvot, don't die by them." A mitzvah is their word for the laws in the BIble. Basically, this means that almost every rule is suspended if it's a matter of life or death. There are only three things that you should die rather than do, and those are harm (some limit it to kill) another person, commit adultery, or deny God. Of course, you are allowed to defend yourself and others who are threatened with whatever force is necessary as well, but you better be d*** sure that the force you're using is necessary before you use it.
And then there are other traditional aspects, like the Sabbath. Jews, at least the more traditional ones, really respect the Sabbath. They look at it like it's a holiday and really go all out to celebrate it. Oh, by the way, they also have rules delineating what is okay to do on the Sabbath and what's not, which I've always wondered about. Basically, it's not business on the Sabbath. No doing your normal work and no business transactions, so no touching money either. It's a holy day, why would you need to handle money? More Orthodox also say you can't do other work like activities, like lighting a fire (ie turning on lights) which, while since making a fire is actually a lot of work I can understand not being allowed to do that, turning on lights isn't exactly difficult. I mean, I can see why they'd say that, since it's basically the same action, creating light, but .... Something you are always supposed to do on the Sabbath is study. The Bible, of course, although technically any studying is okay, because it's all studying. But that's pretty much all you should be doing, other than relaxing. Studying, btw, is incredibly emphasized in Judaism. What I don't understand is why Christians seem to have disrespect for the Sabbath, which is only the first God ordained holiday. I sometimes wonder if the instance in the Bible where Jesus' disciples are picking grain on the Sabbath is the basis for why modern Christians disrespect it so much, but Jesus in that passage is just saying the same thing that the other rabbis were, that you should live by the law, not die by it. They needed to eat, and probably didn't have much in the way of other ways to eat, so it was okay for them to do.
Christians also disagree on which of the laws we should follow and which we shouldn't. Well, of the 613 mitzvot, they are subdivided into one that you can only do if you have the temple and those you only do if you're a Levite. So since these have already been picked out and subdivided this way, why don't we just follow the ones that don't fit into those other two categories (it leaves somewhere around 270 or so, I think)? This, of course, would mean everyone would eat kosher, which some would argue against due to passage in Acts like the sheet that came down in Peter's dream and the early church's decision to only tell the new Greek Christians to follow a couple rules. Now, as for the first, there are even some Christians who interpret that to mean that they should spread the gospel to those outside of the Jewish faith, rather that actually having anything to do with food. As for the second, I personally would say they did that mostly for simplicity sake; I mean, like I said, there are 613 commands in the Torah, that's ridiculous to spring that on people at first, you'd want them to work toward that gradually, rather than overwhelming them with something so different from what they're used to. But that simply means that you work toward fulfilling them one step at a time, not that you can ignore them. Even if you talk about how much of a burden the law is (and it is, everyone knows it) we still use those laws as our guide to what is moral and not; why do we think we suddenly have the ability to discern what of the laws should be followed and which ones shouldn't be? Christians talk about following the moral laws, but then we get into trouble arguing over which laws are moral and which ones are ceremonial. Even the laws that we think we know the reasoning behind and so think that we can cut them out (like not mixing fibers being something to keep the Jews looking different from the pagans, so since that's not a symbol of paganism anymore we don't have to do it) but what if we're wrong? What if those two fibers mixed together create some sort of allergen or poisonous chemical we haven't found yet? Or something else entirely? We don't know for sure why God gave these laws, and we might not ever now that, so why should we cut them out on an assumption?
Also. Jewish holidays. Why don't we observe them? Many of them are proscribed in the Bible and others are celebrating Biblical stories. Since Christianity stemmed from Judaism, and Christians characterize Christianity as the completed form of Judaism, why don't we celebrate the same holidays with like Christmas and Easter added in? Do we just not like holidays or something? I mean we freaking incorporate PAGAN holidays into Christian ones all the time (easter bunnies anyone?) why don't we celebrate Jewish ones?
And this is just a few things that have crossed my mind. Such a different culture, it's amazing. But one that emphasizes education and scholarship, as well as making the world a better place. Which is why it's considered such a good thing to make lots of money, because then you have more of an ability to influence things and help people. The emphasis on life is just amazing too; that's actually why the job that every Jewish mother wants her kid to have is a doctor, because it's a profession entirely about life. As a side note: its also doesn't have Christianity's angst with sex, since, as they put it, the first commandment that God ever gave man is "Be fruitful and multiply." (It's true, check the Garden of Eden story.)
So yes, it's sure been interesting learning about Judaism the last few months, let me tell you. ^_^