06/13/2023 – Level VII – “The Law” – 335 – 352 C.E. – Chapter Ten // Group fellowship and discussion
Level VII – “The Law” – 335 – 352 C.E. – Chapter Ten
Thoughts / Reflections – Questions:
On pg.534 and repeated frequently in the chapter, “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter…”. (Pg 534). So Yohanan demands an answer from Rabbi Asher: “But why must he (Menahem, his son) suffer in this life? (Pg 535). But does it not lead to their conversion to Christianity ultimately? Menahem tells Rabbi Asher (pg. #577): “God intended salvation to be within the reach of anyone: even me. He sent Jesus to die for me… a bastard… to tell me that the cruel ancient law was no more… that now mercy reigned. Indeed, but did not Jesus say: “Do not think I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Matthew 5:17.
“We are told that John (Yohanan, the father) found snug refuge in the church, Mark (Menahem, the son) did not”, citing a Christian preached brotherhood that was absent in their walk. In the wake of the local massacre of Jews by the German christian marauders, and the desolation including the destruction of the synagogue, we close the chapter as John is completing the new basilica on the old synagogue site but he could not bring himself to use the beautiful colored stones from the synagogue for the basilica floor. The last sentence of the chapter: “…. He was unable to re-create those joyous memories of his youth. (Pg #594) Does that not point to the unfathomable eternal going forward, the one body in Christ, Jews and Gentiles alike? (Again, see Romans Chapter 11).
Notes:
Pg 508 – Four main planks of Judaism “hacked through desert experience and battles with Canaannites: 1. Monotheism – One God; 2) Worship of His Torah (The Law); 3) “uplifted by the lyric outbursts of religious poets like David…”; and, 4) periodically, reconstructed society according to the “flaming cries of true prophets like Jeremiah and the woman Gomer…”. (Question – Gomer, the promiscuous 8th century B.C.E. wife of Hosea ???). To be added later: 5) Talmud; and 6). Rabbis to interpret it. (Pg 522)
Pg 509, The character Rabbi Asher, the Groats Maker, known as “God’s man” emphasizing: “If we know what He wants, we will know what we want.”
Pg. 507 – Michener notes “the preceptors” of the period: Augustine of Hippo, Origen of Caesarea, Chrysostom of Antioch and Anthansius of Alexandria, or “early Christian Church fathers”. Queen Helena, was indeed a prominent Christian influence in Augustine’s conversion and walk.
Pg 514 – The thousand people in the area is noted as the smallest population of Makor in centuries, reflecting the diaspora, the worldwide dispersion of the Jews. Amazingly, we we learn in the Chapter “Twilight of an Empire” chapter, set around 1880 , we will learn of a city Peqiin, or Pekiin, in upper Galilee a very small Jewish community that have not left the area in four thousand years. It is said: “the subservient habits of exile they had not acquired.” I actually verified this on www.touristIsrael.com.
Pg 523 – The Talmud and its two parts : The Mishna and the Gemara. “The Torah consisted of five books, the Talmud of 523. The Torah could be printed in two hundred and fifty pages, but the finished Talmud required twenty-two volumes.” (Pg. #544) On page 532: “Every word of the Torah – even the punctuation mark was analyzed. A single concept of the Mishna might occupy the rabbis for a year and their Gemara, when completed, would be further dissected for fifteen centuries.”
Here is a summary guide to the Talmud:
Rabbi Asher: “A man who laughs is more cherished than one who weeps; a woman who sings, than one who wails. And God is very close to the child who dances for reasons which he cannot explain.” (Pg #545)
Rabbi Asher’s stated purpose for Talmud drills: “If our desire is to uncover God’s wishes, we must develop minds that can penetrate shadows, for the mists produced by living obscure the truth and you cannot discern it unless you sharpen your wits.” (Pg. # 546)
Pg 564 – A Biri rabbi rationalized: “The Samaritans cut our holy book in half while the Christians double it with a new book of their own. At heart each remains Judaism.” If I met up with a rabbi: “Indeed, I am a Jew, the new book you speak of is the Good News!; the fulfillment of the Old Testament Prophets prophecies. Even a fulfillment of God’s promise in the Torah, Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Noting Rabbi Asher ha_Garsi’s mixed ethnic ancestry that reflected the Galilean area, “just as seventeen hundred years later, kibbutzniks in the same area who looked like Russians or Germans or Americans or Arabs would also be pure Jew – for to be so required an inheritance of mind and not of blood. (Pg. #565)
“Rabbi Asher saw that if the Germans destroyed Taverna, too, the expositors who were collecting the law would be forced to gather in Babylonia, where the Talmud would be completed. It was not his responsibility to mourn over a lost synagogue, but to get ahead with the compilation of the law. In his extremity he remembered his own parable about God and Rob Naaman: ‘One shred of law administered with compassion is worth a hundred towns.’ “ (pg #592)
For further reference:
In present day “The Tell” section of the chapter, we are told that Cullinane had not even come close to visiting all the churches in Galilee, with mention of “those mysterious branches which had broken off from Rome: The Greek Orthodox in Keffar Nahum, the Russian Orthodox in Tiberias.” But it added the Monophysite groups that had rejected both Rome and Constantinople: The Abyssinians, the Armenian Gregorian’s, the Egyptian Copts.
Soli Deo Gloria!