Hebraic Thought

An Ugly Vessel

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27

If we know that God created each one of us in his image, what are the implications of how we should live? An ancient rabbinic parable gives an answer:

A great rabbi was traveling along one day on his donkey. There he chanced to meet an exceedingly ugly man who greeted him, “Peace be upon you, rabbi.” He, however, did not return his greeting but instead said to him, “Racca (empty one or good for nothing) how ugly you are! Is everyone in your town as ugly as you are?” The man replied, “I do not know, but go and tell the craftsman who made me, ‘How ugly is the vessel which you have made.'” When the rabbi realized that he had sinned, he dismounted from the donkey and prostrated himself before the man and said to him, “I submit myself to you, forgive me!”

Feet shaping clay

The point is this – that any time we insult someone, we are not just defaming him, but the God who made him. After all, he is the one who designed and fashioned him according to his specifications. Even more importantly, if our creator made each human being to reflect his own image, when we call another “ugly”, we are insulting God himself. Imagine if God were a great artist who painted a portrait of himself on every person – it would be like calling God a poor artist, and ugly too. Certainly that will make us reconsider our negative opinions of others, when we realize that we are looking at God’s own handiwork, and a reflection of God himself.

(1) B. Talmud, Ta’an. 20a-b1, quoted by Brad Young in The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation, Hendrickson, 1998.

Photo: Pp391

A Light to My Path

Lois Tverberg

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Psalm 119:105

What does it mean that God’s Word is a light to ones’ path? Imagine what this metaphor would mean if you were traveling in Israel’s rocky, mountainous terrain.

Its narrow, rocky paths are tricky even in the day time. At night they become absolutely treacherous. It is an utter necessity to have an lamp to light the way, to avoid twisting an ankle or losing one’s footing and crashing down a hill.

A poignant Hasidic story expands on this metaphor:

A man was walking through a forest one night without a light, alone and afraid. He stumbled along slowly, straining to find the winding path, tripping over branches and rocks all the while. Then he encountered another man with a bright lantern on the path. Together they walked easily and quickly together until they came to a crossroads.

They bade each other farewell and went their separate ways. Then the man without the light went back to groping and stumbling down the path, while the man with the lamp receded into the distance, moving forward smoothly, with no trouble.

The point of the story is to teach us that everyone must have his or her own knowledge of God’s word to guide them, which is achieved through personal study and effort to know the Scriptures. We can’t be lazy and let our pastor, wife, husband or friends be the ones who learn while we can’t be bothered.

The difference is between worrying and stumbling through each situation, or walking surefooted by God’s word, as a compass that points towards his will.

(1) A Hasidic story relayed in Old Testament Words: Reflections for Preaching, by Mary Donovan Turner, Chalice Press, 2003, p. 8. The Jewish Hasidism (hah-SEED-ism) movement arose in Poland in the 18th century. See this article for more.

Photos: Roman Poberezhnik,  Julia Florczak

Who is Rich?

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Philippians 4:11-13

We live in a culture where TV shows and commercials revolve around having more “stuff,” where our status is based on money, and we are expected to dedicate all our time to achieving financial success. Our culture’s god is Mammon, and especially at Christmas we are bombarded by messages to bow down to this god, when we should be worshipping the God who cared so little for money that he came to earth to lay in a watering trough.

An excellent perspective comes from a rabbi who lived within a century of Jesus. He asked the simple question: “Who is rich?” And answered it with a profound, yet simple answer: “He who is satisfied with what he has.”

Versailles' Hall of Mirrors

Certainly there are many in need, but many more of us don’t see the amazing prosperity that we do have. For much of the world’s people, and for much of human history, people have known regular hunger, have had only one or two changes of clothes, and have worked hard to just make ends meet with little or no safety net of savings.

Nowadays people have retirement savings, buy pricey vacations and entertainment items, and grow obese eating in restaurants. If we saw our homes as palaces that even kings and queens of former generations would feel comfortable in, we certainly would feel satisfied with what we have.

May we seek first his Kingdom, rather than worrying about the things we have or don’t have. And may we learn to be content in every circumstance, knowing that God abundantly supplies all our needs. Then we will see how rich we really are.

(1) Mishnah, Pirke Avot 4:1, Ben Zoma.

Photo: Myrabella

Deeds of Loving Kindness

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

Jesus probably knew a beautiful saying that was attributed to a scholar who lived hundreds of years before him, and was written down in the Mishnah in about 200 AD (1):

For three things the world is sustained: For the study of scriptures (torah), for worshipping and serving God (avodah), and for deeds of loving kindness (gemilut hesed).

What this means is that for three great reasons God created humanity and allows the world even to keep existing: for us to discover God’s great love through his Word; to worship him and want to serve him because of it, and then to show God’s love to those around us.

This idea of showing God’s love to those around us was a beautiful concept called gemilut hesed (gem-i-LOOT HES-ed), “acts of loving kindness”. This was different than charity (tzedakah), giving money to the poor. Jesus and many other rabbis emphasized the great need to give to the poor, but as good as it was, gemilut hesed was considered even better.

Poor sharing foodAfter all, only the needy benefit from charity, but we can show kindness to anyone, rich or poor. And, it is easy to hand a $10 bill to somone for a meal, but to invite him into your home for a meal shows God’s love, and causes you to grow in love as well. Because of this, some Jews make a point to use some of their “giving dollars” to do gemilut hesed with their own hands. (2) For instance, instead of just giving money to charity, one woman invested her money in a library of books and then regularly found ways of loaning or even giving them to others. Certainly a Christian could do even more by buying and sharing good devotional books or Bible studies with others.

Considering as much money as we spend on entertainment from movies, cable TV, etc, wouldn’t a wonderful Christian alternative would be to “entertain” ourselves with gemilut hesed? To make a “hobby” out of a particular form of kindness to others? One Christian couple I know invested in a truck to use during snowstorms, to go up and down their country road pulling people out who had slid off the road. Another friend makes a habit of stopping to help or offer a cell phone to anyone stranded with road trouble. Yet another woman, who teaches classes on job hunting, enjoys helping friends find jobs if they need one or want one that suits them better.

What about even making a practice of being kind to waitresses and tipping them generously? Or inviting single or elderly people home for Sunday dinner after church? And, of course, to share your faith in Christ? All these kind acts will have the effect of showing God’s love to others in small and great ways. But they will have an even bigger impact on ourselves and our families, as we see God’s love transform our hearts too.

This article is based on an excerpt of a longer directors’ article, “Acts of Loving Kindness at Christmas,” from December 2004.

(1) Verse 1:2 of Pirke Avot, (Sayings of the Fathers), a collection of rabbinic sayings written about 200 AD in the Mishnah. Many of these saying were attributed to rabbis who lived in Jesus’ time and even before, and many relate to things Jesus said as well. This saying is attributed to Simon the Righteous, who was said to live at the time of Ezra.

(2) For many wonderful stories of the practice of Gemilut Hesed, see the outstanding book, The Book of Jewish Values, by Joseph Telushkin, (c) 2000, Bell Tower, New York, ISBN 0609603302.

Photo: Peter Isotalo

Orphans and Widows

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless
is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
James 1:27

orphans tucked in

Knowing that the scriptures say that we should “look after orphans and widows,” how can we do that today? In James’ time there were many women and children whose families were torn apart because of the death of a husband or father. In that day, if a child had a mother but lacked a father, he or she still was considered an orphan, because in that society, the single-parent family would be impoverished and unable to survive without help from others. Now it may seem that the need is not so urgent when relatively few men die before old age, and with better economic times, especially for women.

But one contemporary Jewish writer points out that our modern society has an ever-growing abundance of a different kind of orphan, which are those whose families have been broken by divorce. With so many marriages dissolving and children born outside of marriage, a large proportion of our young people are now growing up lacking either a father or mother, or changing parents with each relationship. They may not lack financially, but may be impoverished in terms of having the family structure and life experience that allow them to form stable relationships and raise families of their own. They may have no one to serve as model of how a parent or spouse should act, so are likely to pass this sad legacy on to the next generation too.

Almost every family, church and neighborhood has an abundance of “orphans” of this type. We can all name relatives and neighbors who could use a “big brother” or “big sister,” who could benefit from our love. And many divorced people, singles and elderly long to be connected into the family of Christ, like widows long for a husband. How hard is it for those of us with stable lives to befriend someone from a broken family? God says that he especially watches over the “widow and the orphan,” and bids us to do likewise (Deut. 10:18). Rather than protesting against the lack of family values today, we would do more to help stabilize future marriages by enfolding a few young people into our own families, to show them that they are truly loved.

(1) J. Telushkin, The Book of Jewish Values, (c) 2000, Bell Tower, New York, ISBN 0609603302, p. 70-71.

Photo: Information of Photo Division 

The Lame and Blind Man

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds. ” Jeremiah 17:10

Jewish parables were an effective way to explain complex ideas about life and God. One parable from the Talmud1 gives a clever answer to a difficult question. How does God judge sin, when he knows that the spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak? (Matt. 26:41) How does God judge an alcoholic who has a family tendency toward alcoholism? Or, how does he look at a man who struggles with homosexual thoughts? The rabbis told this parable:

To what may this be compared? To a human king who owned a beautiful orchard which contained splendid figs. Now he appointed two watchmen, one lame and the other blind. One day the lame man said to the blind man, “I see beautiful figs in the orchard. Put me on your shoulders so that we can pick and eat them.” So the lame man got on the shoulders of the blind man and they gathered the figs and ate them.

Some time later, the owner of the orchard came and asked them, “Where are those beautiful figs?” The lame man replied, “Do I have feet to walk with?” The blind man replied, “Do I have eyes to see with?” What did the owner do? He placed the lame man upon the blind man and judged them together. So the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring the soul, replace it in the body and judge them together…. (Sanhedrin 91a-b)

Boy on Woman's ShouldersThe king in the parable is God. (This is usually the case in parables, including those of Jesus.) Each of the two disabled men represent part of a person. The lame man is the person’s will, and the blind man is the flesh. Neither part is capable of sinning on its own — both act together in order to do anything.

The point is that when God looks at us, he sees us as a whole — he knows what we are made of. We are a combination of factors including family history, mental make-up, religious upbringing, etc, and both our background and our own will work together to influence our actions.

Knowing this can give us wisdom. On the one hand, if we know we have a background or personality type that leads us toward a certain sin (like an abusive family or a tendency to anger), we need to go out of the way to avoid what we might do impulsively. We can’t just plead helplessness and give up. You are responsible for what you have done with what you’ve been given.

On the other hand, we should be careful not to condemn others because we can’t know where a person comes from. We don’t know their struggles, insecurities, or what they’ve lived through. Two people may act similarly, but one may have triumphed over many trials, while the other has barely used their abundant gifts. Only God knows the whole picture, and only God is able to judge us justly.

To explore this topic more, see chapter 5, “Greek Brain, Hebrew Brain” in Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus, Baker Publishing, 2018, p 83-112.

(1) The Talmud is the compendium of Jewish commentary from Jesus’ time and after, written down about 500 AD.

Photo: Emily Walker

Beautifying God’s Commands

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.” Exodus 15:2

The line above is part of the song that Moses and the Israelites sang after God parted the Red Sea and miraculously saved them from Pharaoh’s armies, one of the most joyous moments in their history.

Rabbinic thinkers meditated on the words “I will exalt him,” and asked the question, “How can mere mortals hope to exalt God, the Creator of the entire universe?” Their answer was that they could exalt him by doing his will in the absolute best and beautiful way possible. They called this hiddur mitzvah, meaning to exalt (or beautify) God’s commands.

Christians may be surprised that the word mitzvah, meaning commandment, is positive rather than negative in Jewish culture. We think of commandments as burdensome regulations, but the usual Jewish usage of mitzvah is that it is an opportunity to do something good that God told you to do. Jewish people say things like, “I had a chance to do a mitzvah today when the elderly woman asked for my help.” Or, “It’s a mitzvah to celebrate Passover with a lovely dinner with family and friends.” The word is always used in a positive way, suggesting that doing what God has asked is a joy and a spiritual opportunity, not a burden.1

Inspecting an EtrogThe idea of hiddur mitzvah (beautifying the command) says that if God tells us to do something, we shouldn’t just do the minimum, but to perform it in the best way possible, sparing no expense or trouble. Since God told Israel to build booths for the Feast of Sukkot, when a Jewish family decorates their sukkah (booth) skillfully and elaborately, they “beautify the command.”

When one poor Jewish man was asked why he spent $50 for a citron, a lemon-like fruit required for Sukkot, he replied, “Why would we worship God with anything less than the very best?” Spending sacrificially on doing God’s will is a way of showing great love for God. 2

In Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan, it sounds like the Samaritan went far beyond the minimum to care for the wounded man by the road, a kind of hiddur mitzvah. The Samaritan man obeyed God’s command to love his neighbor by personally caring for the injured traveler, carrying him to the inn on his own donkey, and investing a large sum of his own money to care for him. Because he was a Samaritan he was even risking his own life, because as an enemy of the Jews, he could have been accused of being the attacker. (Luke 10:33-35)

If we are grateful that Christ has died for our sins to bring us into relationship with God, we should serve him as well as we possibly can too. As Paul said,

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24

See more at these links: Hiddur Mitzvah: The Case for Beautiful Ritual Objects and Hiddur Mitzvah: What a Beautiful Mitzvah.

Photos: Wikipedia – Etrog, Sukkah

The Direction of Your Heart

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Psalm 24:3

The prayers that Jesus, Paul, and the Jewish people of their day prayed were a combination of spontaneous petitions and traditional prayers that were prayed at certain times of day. For thousands of years these petitions have remained nearly the same. In contemporary Protestant culture, we tend to disdain rote prayer, preferring the intimacy of spontaneous prayer and feeling that a repeated prayer is empty and hollow. We wonder how a person could avoid just “going through the motions.”

The answer is a concept that the rabbis developed known as kavanah. The word means direction, intention, or devotion, and the idea behind praying with kavanah is that you set the direction of your thinking toward God, and toward praying the memorized prayer “with all your heart.” A person who has kavanah focuses his entire being on prayer, and is not distracted by the chaos around him. He may have said the same prayer a thousand times, but his mind is immersed so deeply into the words that he is experiencing new insights and feelings from them each time that he has never experienced before.

In synagogues, above the ark that holds the Torah scrolls, there is often a plaque that says, “Know Before Whom You Stand.” That is exactly what it means to have kavanah in prayer – to have a sense of standing in the presence of God, to know that you are addressing the sovereign Lord of the universe. Prayer is so simple and it is easy to do it half-heartedly. But God deserves our best, not our least efforts in prayer.

Da Lifne Mi Atah Omed – Know Before Whom you Stand

 

Kavanah can go beyond prayer as well – our lives should also show it too. We should live each hour and every day with devotion and intention, fully aware of God’s presence all around us. When we do this, our lives will truly be the reflection of Christ, whose every desire was to please and honor God with his whole being.

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For more on this topic, see the chapter, “Kavanah:  The Direction of Your Heart” in Listening  to the Language of the Bible (En-Gedi Resource Center, Holland, 2005) which is available in the En-Gedi bookstore.

Do Not Destroy

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“When you lay siege and battle against a city for a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy (lo tashchit) its trees, wielding an ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?” Deuteronomy 20:19

You might assume that the Bible has nothing to say about caring for the environment, but surprisingly, the Torah contains a law about this very thing. In the verse above, God forbade the destruction of the fruit trees outside of cities that were under siege by the Israelites during war. It was common practice during wartime to destroy the land – to chop down the trees and poison the fields by sowing them with salt. God expressly forbade this kind of wanton destruction and declared that the trees were “innocent bystanders” who should not be victims of the war.

fruit tree

The rabbis looked at how this scripture can continue to teach us, and concluded that if God forbade the destruction of the environment in the dire situation of war, he must certainly must oppose it during peacetime. They reasoned that modifying the land to build useful things is fine, but needless destruction is wrong. They also concluded that the reason destroying fruit trees was forbidden was because God gave the trees to provide food, and when we destroy any useful thing, we insult God’s gracious care for us. To them, the words “do not destroy,” bal tashchit (bahl-tahsh-KEET) should teach us not to waste any useful thing:

Whoever breaks vessels, or tears garments, or destroys a building, or clogs a well, or does away with food in a destructive manner violates the commandment against bal tashchit. (Talmud, Kiddushin 32a, written about 500 AD)

Because of this interpretation of Deuteronomy 20:19, there has been an ethic of conservation and avoidance of waste in Judaism for thousands of years. They see this as an act of reverence for God. One 18th century rabbi, Sampson Hirsch said that when we preserve the world around us, we show that we believe that God owns all and is above all. But when we needlessly destroy, we are showing our self-centerness and lack of regard for the gifts and will of God. Waste and excess therefore come from self-idolatry.1

Western Christians tend to see our material possessions as entirely ours for use or disposal as we see fit. What if we regarded all our possessions as gifts from God? Would we be wasteful and throw away useable things? Would we instead try to give them to someone else who needs them? What we do with our gifts shows how we see the One who gave them to us.

1From http://www.coejl.org/learn/je_tashchit.html.

For more reading, see these links:

Judaism-and-Environmentalism: Bal-Tashchit

Summoning the Will Not to Waste

Photo: Carol Walker

The Dust of Gossip

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

“No man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” James 3:8

The Hebrew term that is used for gossip is Lashon Hara (La-SHON Hah-RAH). It means literally, “the evil tongue.” Jews define it as defaming a person in the eyes of others by revealing details about them that put them in a negative light. Lashon Hara is different from slander, which is telling lies about others. While everyone recognizes that slander is wrong, fewer will say that it is also wrong to speak negative truth about others. Lashon Hara is telling your co-workers all about how the boss messed up his presentation, or pointing out to your husband how poorly the worship leader sings. This habit is what tears down friendships, demeans others, and undermines trust. There are, of course, a few times when a person needs to relay damaging information, but outside of that, this kind of negativity is frowned upon in the Jewish community.

dust storm

Many rabbinic stories focus on the damage done through Lashon Hara. One is told about a man who gossiped about a rabbi, causing much damage to his reputation. The man repented and came to the rabbi to ask for forgiveness. The rabbi told him to take a pillow and open it and cast it to the wind. When he had done this, he asked him to now go gather all the feathers back into the pillow again. The man said, “But that is impossible!” and the rabbi replied that, in the same way, it was impossible to repair all the damage that his words had done.

The rabbis point out that other actions close to Lashon Hara should be avoided as well. For instance, to read a newspaper editorial article that you don’t like and then show it to someone just so they will scoff at it is called the “Dust of Lashon Hara” (Avak Lashon Hara). It also includes sarcastic comments about another person, like, “She is such a genius, isn’t she?”, or innuendos like, “Don’t mention so-and-so — I wouldn’t want to say what I know about her.” Even to laugh or sneer when someone else gossips is considered avak lashon hara, because it communicates your negative feelings. It is difficult to change lifelong patterns, but we must learn to avoid damaging others through our subtle comments and even body language. As James says,

“We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” James 3:2

(1) This is an excerpt from the longer En-Gedi Director’s Article, Taming the Tongue. Articles about Jewish ethics of speech are available at this link .

Photo: Saperaud