Rosh Chodesh Adar Sheini 5768 – Parshas Pekuday / Shekalim 7 March 2008

Yeshaya Perokim 53 – 66 (officially)

Hi everybody –

I would like to apologize for not having written last week’s installment. I was in London, and was not in my regular ‘groove’. But thankfully, now all is groovy.

By the beginning of next week, we are finishing Yeshaya – but probably not really finishing, but just starting Yirmiyahu (to which I believe, Rav Amram, is going to contribute the weekly thoughts…). The idea of having some kind of written thought to accompany our own study is really very important. We all have our own individualized way of interpreting, and storing anything we come across – and we could all learn Tanach/Torah on our own, and have many different understandings of what we learn. The objective of a chabura, is to unify our learning’s, that we are involved in a dialogue, that we understand the Tanach from different (especially Chazal’s) perspectives – rather than live in our own small world of our own minds. This is called growth; Challenging the way each of us looks at anything (a text, life, hashkafa, etc.)

This idea reminds me of an insight of Reb Chaim MiVolozhin to the Mishna in Pirkei Avos: (3:2) –

משנה מסכת אבות פרק ג משנה ב

שנים שיושבין ויש ביניהם דברי תורה שכינה ביניהם שנאמר (מלאכי ג') אז נדברו יראי ה' איש אל רעהו ויקשב ה' וישמע ויכתב ספר זכרון לפניו ליראי ה' ולחושבי שמו

“When two people sit, and discuss divrei torah, the Shechinah rests between them, as it says ‘Az NidBeru…’”

Reb Chaim asks; Why are we using a pasuk that uses the term ‘Az NidBeru’ – let us find a pasuk which says ‘Az diBru’. The word ‘NidBeru’, is, as some of you might know, a reflexive verb (I, on the other hand – don’t really know my hifils from nifals – don’t appreciate the question to its true extent) – but the difference between ‘NidBeru’ and ‘DiBru’, is that the former means “were spoken to” while the latter is translated as “spoke”.

Masterfully, and penetratingly (if there is such a word), R’ Chaim explains that the mishna is teaching us an important prerequisite for the Shechina to be present when we learn: - we must strive to understand our chavrusa (or the other members of the chabura, or really anyone who tells us any ‘dvar torah’…) – we must ‘be spoken to’ rather than ‘speak’, we must have a dialogue rather than two monologues.

Our chabura achieves this to an extent – when we listen to understand our friends (particularly in Torah) – we challenge our own views and can change, while at the same time, allowing the Shechina to take part in our dialogue…..

I had mentioned that I wanted to focus a little on Christianity and its views, especially with regard to how they try to read prophecies of their “messiah” (herewith to be implied by the letter ‘J’) into our Tanach. The very fact that they feel the need to find sources in our Tanach for their religion is quite telling. The validity of the Torah and Nevi’im was unquestioned 2000 years ago – and for any claim of any religion to have any credibility – it had to come from the Tanach. (We shall discuss soon why that is important.)

I was once on a date (with my wife-to-be) in Trafalgar Square (more pigeons than Jews there) – when we were confronted by a missionary lady. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t very bright, and all she could muster at the end was “I’ll pray for you Sam”. This interaction led me to the conclusion that more has to be done in the community to counteract missionary work. Every one of us should have a basic understanding of the major flaws in Christian thought – this is not a novel idea, many Rishonim had debates with Christians, and every Rishon who discussed the Ikkarim (Principles of Faith) necessarily had to touch on these thoughts. (Our day is no different – over the last 30 years, more than 300,000 Jewish neshamos have been lost to Christianity, through Jews for J, and other less conspicuously sounding names….)

My objective here is not to give a full rundown of the many problems, (which there are many – for instance hundreds of misunderstood pesukim quoted and misquoted in the ‘new testament’ – and the fact that there are 2700 versions of the new testament – and the fact that many new testament accounts of the events that took place during J’s life, conflict with other accounts…. So much so, that to someone who actually looks up the quotes, and takes the new testament seriously, soon understands that it is fragments of misunderstood parts of Tanach, placed together in such a way that it seems like the authors are not very intelligent, or at least, assumed that no-one would ever read the books – as was the case, that many of the masses were illiterate.)

(Many of these thoughts are from tapes by my previous Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Ya’acov Weinberg of Ner Yisrael in Baltimore – as well as ‘Permission to Receive’ by Lawrence Keleman – ‘Beyond Reasonable Doubt’ by Rabbi Shmuel Waldman – and some other books….)

Here are some questions to ask someone who approaches you:

1) WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE ‘J’ WHEN HE SAYS THAT HE HAD A VISION?

2) HOW CAN ‘J’ BE FROM THE DAVIDIC DYNASTY IF HE IS ‘SON OF G-D’? (obvious, right?)

3) HOW DO YOU ACCOUNT FOR THE FACT THAT THE PROPHECY OF ISAIAH 7:14 USES THE TERM “ALAMAH” (“YOUNG GIRL”) AS OPPOSE TO “BESULAH” (“VIRGIN”)? (I was looking around in a second hand bookshop in Cambridge, looking at the Religion and Philosophy section, when I met a PHD student in ‘Christian studies’ – I asked him how the Christian intellectuals defend this particular problem of Alamah and Besulah – he told me that they don’t resolve the issue, and that this was ‘indeed a deep problem in Christological predictions of the Old Testament’ but that ultimately they have to resort to ‘faith’ in the face of all adversary…. Basically, there is no answer. See the appendix at the end of ‘Permission to Receive’.)

4) HOW CAN THE NEW TESTAMENT REJECT THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE TORAH, WHEN THE TORAH CLEARLY STATES (ON A FEW DOZEN OCCASIONS – SHEMOS 12:14, 17, 28:43, VAYIKRA 3:17, 7:36, 10:9, 16:29, 31, 34, 23:14, 21, 31, 41, 24:3, BAMIDBAR 15:15, 18:23 and DEVARIM 4:2, 13:1) THAT THIS TORAH IS ETERNAL AND IMMUTABLE? (Surely the entire Christian claim is based on the Old Testament – in which case, it can’t pick and chose which parts to focus on, and which to ignore – the Torah states that the Torah is unchanged-able.)

[When Lawrence Keleman wrote to the Vatican – and all this is recorded in the appendix at the end of ‘Permission to Receive’ – the response of the Vatican was “we should not underestimate the adverse pedagogical impact on the understanding of divine son-ship if the virginal conception is denied” (P.209)… or more simply put; “if people out there actually read Yeshaya 7:14 and realized that we have been pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes – and that there is no such thing as ‘Virgin birth’ – people will stop believing that J is the son of G-d.”]

The first question is really the most important one (the rest simply ridicule), and is in fact the way in which the Torah (Devarim 4:33) describes the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’:

דברים פרק ד פסוק לג

השמע עם קול אלהים מדבר מתוך האש כאשר שמעת אתה ויחי:

“Has a nation ever heard G-d speak to them from the midst of the fire as you did, and you lived.”

(See pages 58-60 in “Beyond A Reasonable Doubt” – as well as the Rambam in Chapter 8 of Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, right at the beginning of the “Mishneh Torah” – I don’t want to go into it in detail, because I want to present the general argument, rather than try to be careful in translating a piece of Rambam…)

An old joke is told of an old Rabbi who died, without telling his community which of his three sons was to take over the town’s Shul. Each son claimed to be the heir to the throne. The eldest son felt that it was his right as the eldest. The second felt that he was most beloved by the community and as a result, he was the right one to take over. The third felt that he was the biggest Talmid Chacham, and as a result, he should be the one to lead the community.

This scenario stretched for months, and turned unto a feud between differing factions of the community, some sided with the first, some with the second, and obviously, some with the third.

One day the third son comes into Shul, bangs on the Bimah and says, “Tomorrow at noon we will decide who is to be the rightful heir – I have something important to tell you all.” The next day, every man, woman and child crushed into the Shul to hear what the youngest son had to say: He got up and said; “Don’t worry my friends; my father came to me in a dream and revealed to me that I, the third son, is to take over the Shul, as I am the greatest scholar.” Everyone started cheering, until someone in the back row shouted, “If your father has the ability to come to people in their dreams – he should have come to US in OUR dreams, and told US that you are to be our next leader. As it stands why should we believe you…”

Dear J, and dear Mohammed, if Hashem wanted us to believe us that you are His prophet, why did He not come to us, and tell us this? Why did He only come to you in your dream? Why should we believe that you are telling us the truth?

Only Moshe Rabbeinu has been pointed to in front of our own eyes to be the Prophet of Hashem. Unless we have another Matan Torah, we do not believe anyone who comes in the name of G-d and changes the Torah. Never before Matan Torah, and never again after Matan Torah, has there EVER BEEN A CLAIM that Hashem came to a mass (3 million) of people and spoke to them, and pointed to an individual to be His spokesperson.

רמב"ם הלכות יסודי התורה פרק ח הלכה א

ובמה האמינו בו במעמד הר סיני שעינינו ראו ולא זר ואזנינו שמעו ולא אחר האש והקולות והלפידים והוא נגש אל הערפל והקול מדבר אליו ואנו שומעים משה משה לך אמור להן כך וכך, וכן הוא אומר פנים בפנים דבר ה' עמכם, ונאמר לא את אבותינו כרת ה' את הברית הזאת, ומנין שמעמד הר סיני לבדו היא הראיה לנבואתו שהיא אמת שאין בו דופי שנאמר הנה אנכי בא אליך בעב הענן בעבור ישמע העם בדברי עמך וגם בך יאמינו לעולם

This is the very short version of my thoughts on Christianity.

One of the claims of Christian’s, is that Yeshaya chapters 52-53, which describes the ‘suffering servant’ is a reference to ‘J’ on the cross…

This is very obviously foolish. All I need to do to disprove this is to show how the other references to the ‘servant’ are not J, and I have shown its falsehood.

THE FOLLOWING IS A QUOTATION FROM: http://www.geocities.com/logic_faith/prophecies_files/suffering_servant.htm

The theme of Isaiah is jubilation, a song of celebration at the imminent end of the Babylonian Captivity. It is in this setting that we find the Song of the Servant, chapter fifty-three. (In fact, chapter 53 is actually the fourth of a quartet of "servant songs". The others are 42:1-9, 49:1-6 and 50:4-9). Who, then, was this servant of whom deutero-Isaiah speaks? It is evident that the word is used in two different ways. First, it is used by deutero-Isaiah to apply to himself, as the servant of God (49:5). The word is used overwhelmingly, however, by the author to refer to the nation Israel itself.

Isaiah 41:8-9 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.

Isaiah 44:1 Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen...Thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant...

Isaiah 44:21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.

Isaiah 49:3 ...Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.

It should be abundantly clear, then, that the servant is the nation Israel. When we combine these two facts, the fact that the theme of second Isaiah is the restoration of Israel after Exile, and the fact that the servant is the nation Israel itself, we then find that the meaning of the Song of the Servant, in chapter 53, becomes clear.

Why Isaiah chose to use the third person is not immediately obvious. Some have suggested that the Song is written from the perspective of the gentile nations. This is certainly the case in 52:15 (the fourth Song of the Servant actually starts at 52:13). Here, the nations are said to be astonished at the restoration of Israel. Another interpretation is that deutero-Isaiah is speaking of the generation that went into Exile so many years ago as "him", and the generation that is now returning to Israel as "us". In this sense, the author casts the former generation in the role of a sin-offering (53:10), who were punished for the sins of the nation (53:5-6) so that the later generation could be forgiven and restored (53:11).

Actually the Christian interpretation does not even fit the context of Isaiah 52-54, and further is not supported by some statements in the Song itself. For example, verse 10 states that the Servant will live a long life, and have many children. It should be fairly obvious that Jesus died at a young age, and never had any children. Christian apologists often claim that this verse is symbolic, that it refers to Jesus' resurrection, and the establishment of the Christian Church. It has not been explained why we are required to take the rest of Isaiah 53 literally, but this one verse as allegorical.

Doing this cut-and-paste just saves me a lot of time, and lets me go to bed tonight before 1am, rather than finding all the references to “Avdi Ya’acov” – ‘my servant Ya’acov’ (from which evolved the song that many sing on Motzai Shabbos: ‘Al Tira Avdi Ya’acov’.

Well Folks – that is all for now – I still hope to write ‘this week’s chapters piece’ before Shabbos – lots of great stuff to write about, but it might just come through a little too late. I hope it doesn’t.

I hope that you enjoyed reading this. Please understand that this only scratches the surface of what is a very complex, delicate and important topic. Keep the flag flying.

Love from Yerushalayim – “Ki Mitzion Tezei Torah, Udvar Hashem MiYerushalayim” (Yeshaya 2:3)

By R’ Shmuel Kimche

shmuelkimche@hotmail.com