What an important question! Ever since Abraham and Sarah had to use a surrogate (the Egyptian woman, Hagar) to give birth, we Jews have had issues with building families and fertility. Even during the time of the Talmud, there were people who understood marriage and fertility as two separate issues.

We have seen that democracy and openness are not a panacea for prejudice, anti-Semitism or violence. Look at the former Soviet Union: when openness (Glasnost) came in, anti-Semitic and xenophobic parties became free to express their hatred openly. Why should we expect any different results from the Arab world?

On the other hand, we have experienced the sort of life that freedom and democracy have afforded Jews in the United States, Israel and elsewhere. We generally tend to fare better in an open society. Darkness and secrecy are breeding grounds for the nastier sides of human nature.

Our Jewish values teach us that all humans (pretty much) are made up of a mixture of two yetzarim (inclinations), a good one and a bad one (or selfless and selfish). The tractate Avot tells us to pray for the strength of the government / ruling authority, for without it’s controlling role, people would eat each other alive!

Looked at from another angle, we might well ask if politics, with its struggles over power, is – or can be - the ultimate guarantor of freedom and safety for anybody. I think not. Instead, we must work on a multi-pronged approach: work on systems (political, religious, nationalistic, etc) while concurrently working on the balance of the yetzarim in individuals, including ourselves. There is no guarantee of a successful outcome, but we certainly would be remiss if we allowed the state/political party/military to be the only arbiter of morality. At their best, systems of authority can do wonderfully moral actions, encouraging goodness and helpfulness among their constituents. At their worst, they can destroy worlds.

Perhaps if we all work at it, we can tip the balance a bit more towards the positive results. But even if the ruling party or class is currently benevolent, as Pirke Avot also teaches: the day is short, the task is manifold, the workers are lazy (exhausted? Unmotivated?), but the reward is great. Also, the master is waiting on us…

Let’s get busy!

The questioner seems to believe that these are sincere Christians who merely want to conform to Jewish practices while believing in Christianity.

I have a rude awakening for you:

‘Messianic Jews,’ so-called, come in a Baskin-Robbins assortment of flavors. There are, to be sure, deceptive or furtive Christians among those claiming the ‘messianic Jew’ label. But there are plenty of people who use that term and do not follow Jesus at all, but rather one (or many) of the myriad ‘false messiahs’ (some historians prefer the less biased term ‘failed messiah’) who have presented themselves or been put forward as the messiah.

The term ‘messiah’ comes from the Hebrew ‘mashiach,’ meaning ‘anointed’ (someone over whose head oil has been poured). In Biblical times, this referred to the initiation ceremony for functioning in various leadership capacities. In the Torah, the term is used exclusively for the high priest who had been chosen from among his brothers and had been anointed to serve as the ritual leader of the Israelites.

In later Biblical books, the term comes to be used almost exclusively for kings of Israel and Judah, and eventually for a descendant of the line of King David who will be the sole legitimate heir to the throne. Later,  when there was no longer a monarchy ruling the country, the term came to signify a certain nostalgia for Jewish sovereignty and, with it,  the end of foreign oppression of the Jewish people.  Jewish thought and law later codified the definition of who could legitimately carry the term. Returning sovereignty to the Jewish people, the end of war and oppression, the perfection of human and even animal relationships eventually  load the term with such great expectations that no mere mortal would be able to fulfill them.

During historic periods of oppression and disappointment,  messianic fervor has become most prominent. During Judean oppression by the Roman Empire, some Jews believed that Jesus of Nazareth  would demonstrate his worthiness as the anointed king.  When that movement did not bring about the end of war and oppression, most of Jesus’ Jewish followers abandoned his messianic candidacy.  A century later,  Simon bar Kochba led another Jewish rebellion against Roman authority. It, too, was crushed. The pattern continues throughout Jewish history, leaving behind names of attempts and failures: Sabbetai Zvi (Izmir, Turkey, 1662), Jacob Frank (1760, following the Chmielnicki massacres) and even Menachem Mendel Schneerson (20^th century), the leader of the Chabad (or Lubavitch) Chassidic sect. Each of these and many more could claim hundreds of thousands of followers who were willing to give their all for the one who had come to redeem the world from oppression. Each movement was set back – but not totally derailed! – by the conversion or death of its leader.

Sadly, the world remains unredeemed. But there are many people who are defined halachically (by Jewish law) as Jews, who continue to “believe” that their candidate was the actual and final messiah. Although evidence of failure of these various messianic candidates is present for all to see, great faith can at times trump logic, even in the most well-meaning individuals. Jews (actual Jews) who believe that the messiah has, in fact, come and begun the process of redemption. Meanwhile, the actual Jewish religion of this (currently un-redeemed) world continues, without the messianic fervor that history has proven to be misplaced. As long as the 'messianic Jews' don't target actual Jews for conversion or fundraising, they remain merely anachronistic. When they recruit among the general Jewish population, however, they are no longer a quaint throwback, but they can siphon resources (financial and otherwise) from the mainstream of Judaism that does not accept their skewed view of history. It is then that they become a danger.   

One can address this question as our rabbinic texts do, by means of a mashal (allegory). A certain prominent rabbi was asked by the non-Jewish authorities about the perfection of Torah and the goodness of God. After affirming these qualities and taking leave of the interlocutors,  the sage’s students challenged him, saying “Okay. We understand what you told these non-Jews; but what will you say to US when we ask this same question?”

From this bit of aggadeta, we learn a number of values: we gather that a serious Jew should care about the reputation of God and the Jewish people even among non-Jews (a value expressed as “Kiddush Hashem,” sanctifying God’s name in public), and that those who are most intimate with us have a right (or even a responsibility) to demand that we live up to the highest ideals we espouse (a value expressed in the Torah as “hocheach tochiach et amitecha,” you shall certainly rebuke your fellow Jew when you see him doing wrong).

Love,  so-called, without demands, is no love.  Jews learn that to love someone is to have great expectations of them, to see them in the light of possibility as few others can. Love is the light that illuminates the holy possibilities of which the beloved can be capable, if only someone were to believe in them enough. The great Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev (author of the seminal work “Kedushat Levi”) is perhaps best known as the Jew who subpoenaed God to a Din Torah (an accounting before a tribunal), because God was not taking care of the Jewish people, as God had promised. It is due to love,  rather than hatred or spite, that one can expect exemplary behavior of another.

Although we try to be circumspect when pointing out Israel’s flaws, we do her no favors when we pretend that everything  is rosy. Without criticism, Israel cannot grow. Without truth, Israel cannot be a “light unto the nations.” Without integrity,  it must also be noted, Israel’s enemies needn’t work so hard to find reasons to attack her.

Truth certainly is fundamental to the Jewish understanding of God, but Truth is in essence a construct: The great Hillel would regale every bride with the words “kalla na’a va-chasudah” (BT Ketubbot) “the bride is lovely and charming” as opposed to Shammai who “told it like it is” regarding the bride’s appearance.  Are we to understand Hillel’s statement as a lie, or can we see a greater method in his telling a truth about brides in general?

The alternatives  from which we are to choose are not ‘truth’ or ‘cover-up,’ but rather truths that can teach and exhort, versus truths wielded merely to brutalize.  However much lovers of Israel might not want it to be this way, those who hate Jews or Israel will always distort reality to paint her in the darkest possible tones.  Israel’s friends and defenders therefore need to do all they can to keep hope and the dream alive.  They must speak with integrity and particular clarity so as not to give a Pitchon Peh Le-Satan (an opening of the mouth / opportunity / for persecutors to attack). Such is the fragile nature of this world: we say what we can and what we must, but we say them with an eye towards how others may twist our statements. 

Having made that disclaimer, though, I can certainly say that a broad swath of Jewry understands prayer (despite its complexity) as a response to God’s presence in our world. Some Jews understand prayer as a simple and direct attempt at “conversing” with God. Others see prayer as our obligation to God, and thus its purpose would be fulfilling that obligation out of a sense of love and duty.

Still others understand “the purpose” of prayer to be much more centered on the person doing the praying rather than on the One to whom the prayer is directed. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the famous 20^th century theologian and scion of the Apt Hassidim, spoke of prayer as an opening up of the soul, of standing revealed and naked (as it were) in the presence of God who can plumb the intimate recesses of our hearts. It is a laying bare of one’s innermost essence, and thus requires both great humility and boldness.

In that sense, prayer is the most difficult pursuit anyone can undertake, but also the most crucial if one is to become gloriously and fully human. Containing a spark of divinity, our souls yearn to grow to the greatest level of profundity and candor we can attain.  How fortunate is anyone who can live even moments of their life robed in the dignity and brilliance such an achievement grants! Like an actor rehearsing for the role of a lifetime, we rehearse the scripted lines over and over, trying desperately to connect with the emotional reality that helps those words ring true. We learn the words until they become second nature to us, then spend the rest of our days reaching for the truths they convey. Yet the character we prepare to inhabit is none other than ourselves; the life we portray is our own.

The purpose of prayer is thus to become most truly and sincerely ourselves, in the best possible way. It is the greatest challenge we face in life.

Rabbi David Bockman

As you might imagine, no specific text talks about this general situation. The traditional way of answering such a question, if it came from a specific individual in specific circumstances, would be to address the constellation of facts, as presented, with specific responsibilities. For instance:

In the Jewish tradition, of course, there are two “exceptions” to this general principle: the first is murder, which we all have the ability to accomplish. Rather than leaving a person’s lifespan to its natural course, it is within our ability to shorten our fellow human’s time in this life, either through acute trauma or through a more disingenuous fashion. Rather than allowing the natural course of events to take place and life to slowly ebb away as it otherwise would, some of us intervene in some fashion, thereby hastening the inevitable demise. Such action does not change the final outcome, which by dint of our biological physicality is an inevitable death, but rather steals away moments or hours that otherwise would have been moments of life, the value of which none of us can really know. In Jewish law it is forbidden even to dig someone’s grave or subject them to loud noises if those actions would hasten their death.  

The other “intervention” we control is our efforts to save a life in danger. Just as the Talmudic rabbis derived that great principle from the words of the Torah itself (ve-rapo yeirape – he shall surely heal the sick), permitting and even considering it obligatory for those with the ability to save life where they can, even us “normal” people are not permitted to “stand idly by the (spilling of) our brothers’ blood.” We must, in a sense, stretch ourselves to be heroic and preserve life that exists while yet the breath of life is within the body.

But look at Noah in the Biblical story: when he exits the Ark, plants a vineyard and drinks until he passes out, the Bible (and later Jewish tradition) takes an extremely dim view. Jews are not meant to deaden our minds or anesthetize our senses. Any mystical awareness we have that in other cultures might be found through hallucinogenic drug use is accessed in Jewish tradition through study, prayer, contemplation and fasting. These are the “normal” pathways that open the doors to mystical experience, and although they are more difficult to access (they require more effort), they pay off better in that the one who experiences them can replicate his success and can take back whatever knowledge he’s gained.

While our tradition does not “criminalize” drunkenness and altered states, neither does it approve. Rather, it understands the human need behind it and occasionally excuses us for doing what we can’t pull ourselves away from.

Rabbi David Bockman

Conservativer