parashat bchuqotai The Miracle of Non-Assimilation
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The Torah portion read in synagogues around the world this week is parashat bchuqotai. Parashat bchuqotai runs from Leviticus 26:3 to the end of the book. We’re going to read only a short selection from the parasha. Leviticus 26:38-42
“You shall perish among the Gentiles, and the land of your enemies shall swallow you. And as for those remaining among you, they shall rot in their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and also in the iniquities of their ancestors with them they shall rot. When they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors regarding their defiance with which they defied me, and also that they have walked with me contrarily. I too shall walk with them contrarily, and I shall bring them into the land of their enemies or then their uncircumcised heart will surrender and then accept responsibility for their iniquity. And I will remember my covenant with Yaaqov, also my covenant with Yitzchaq, also my covenant with Avraham will I remember, and the land will I remember.”
I trust you were at least slightly bewildered. Leviticus chapter 26 is a list of blessings for cooperation with God and curses for disloyalty. After the long list of horrible curses verse 41 posits that the children of Israel finally come to their senses. But parashat bchuqotai keeps rattling off more terrible consequences. It’s as if confession and repentance make no difference; the Torah continues to lay the curses on thick! If you didn’t spot the problem, attentive readers certainly did. Abarvanel asks,
“When Israel confesses their iniquity and that of their ancestors, HaShem ought to extend them forgiveness. Scripture promises, ‘Whoever confesses and abandons shall be granted mercy.’ [Proverbs 28:13] But here the Torah mentions Israel’s confession and HaShem replies, ‘I too shall walk with them contrarily and I shall bring them into the land of their enemies.’ HaShem increases their punishment and misfortune after their confession more than before!” [Abarvanel, intro to Leviticus 26 question #10].
If you’re following along in a translation, it may be you can’t spot the problem in Leviticus 26:41. Translators have the habit of smoothing out these sorts of things.
One solution to the problem in Leviticus 26:41 is to predicate the verb on two different subjects. The Torah says, “When they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors.” If the subject of the verb “they confess” is only a small minority in Israel, then it might make sense for God to continue punishing the others who fail to confess. This is the solution of Sforno. Sforno was an Italian-Jewish physician who lived from 1475-1550. He comments,
“It was only a few who confessed their iniquity, like Daniel and Ezra and isolated individuals.”
The trouble with Sforno’s solution is that throughout Israel’s history isolated individuals have always been obedient, but they haven’t prevented God from punishing his firstborn son. What’s the point of bringing up Daniel and Ezra in this connection? Daniel and Ezra lived in exile right alongside the culprits who didn’t confess their iniquity. If anything, the example of Daniel and Ezra would seem prove the contrary. Sforno’s solution that God increased the punishment because only a few were confessing isn’t very convincing.
Ramban writes,
“Look here, after saying that ‘They will confess their iniquity’ our Torah ought to jump immediately to ‘I will remember my covenant with Yaakov,’ because what’s the point now of threatening ‘I shall bring them into the land of their enemies,’ when they’ve already been exiled in the land of their enemies?…In my opinion our Torah intimates that after their confession HaShem will walk with them contrarily and bring them again ‘into the land of their enemies’ until they ‘surrender their uncircumcised heart.’ Torah intimates that he will bring them into the land, but that it won’t be conquered in advance, but rather they’ll have adversaries and enemies there, such as are spoken of in the Book of Nehemiah [4:3], ‘Our adversaries said’ ‘And it came to pass when our enemies heard’ [Nehemiah 4:9]. The land will be in the hand of foreign peoples, such as are spoken of in the prayer of Ezra, ‘Behold, we today are servants, and the land which you gave to our fathers to eat its fruit and bounty, behold we are servants in it and its abundant produce goes to kings whom you have set over us on account of our sins. They have dominion over our bodies and over our cattle to do as they please, and we are in great distress’ [Nehemiah 9:36, 37].”
According to Ramban’s interpretation, “the land of their enemies,” which God threatens to bring Israel into, is the Land of Israel itself! Ramban argues that when God brought his people back home from exile, the Land of Israel was “the land of enemies” in the sense that it was still under foreign domination.
Ramban solves the problem of further punishment even after confession by viewing Israel’s rehabilitation in stages. After Israel confessed her iniquity, God brought Israel back to suffer foreign domination in their own land until they fully accepted responsibility for their ancestor’s iniquity and surrendered their own uncircumcised heart.
What’s the weakness of Ramban’s solution? The weakness is the Bible never elsewhere refers to the Land of Israel as “the land of your enemies.” The weakness is in the Bible God never threatens to bring his people into the Land of Israel; on the contrary, he always promises to bring his people into the Land of Israel. The Promised Land is a gift, not a punishment!
Yet Ramban’s solution contains more than a grain of truth. The children of Israel who returned from Babylon felt the exile dragging on because idol-worshipers continued to control them. Israel rebuilt the temple, but God’s visible presence did not return. Not even his throne, the ark of his covenant, returned to his temple. During the entire time the 2nd temple stood the holy of holies remained an empty room. The children of Israel felt their punishment was continuing and they remained unforgiven. They longed for God to personally intervene and take charge of the little outpost of the kingdom of Heaven on earth. For Israel, forgiveness of sin meant God’svisible return to Zion and communal salvation.
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The oldest rabbinic commentary on any book of the Bible is Sifra. Sifra is a commentary on Leviticus dating from the 3rd century of the Common Era. Sifra has a different take on punishment after confession.
והבאתי אותם בארץ אויביהם זו מדה טובה לישראל שלא יהיו ישראל אומרים הואיל וגלינו לבין או"ה נעשה כמעשיהם. אני איני מניחם אלא אני מעמיד נביאי עליהם ומחזירין אותם למוטב תחת כנפיי שנאמר והעולה על רוחכם היו לא תהיה אשר אתם אומרים נהיה כגוים וכמשפחות האדמה אלא חי אני נאום ה' אלהים אם לא ביד חזקה ובזרוע נטויה ובחמה שפוכה אמלוך עליכם. “’And I shall bring them into the land of their enemies.’ This is actually a favor to Israel, to prevent Israel from saying, ‘Since we’ve been exiled among the nations of the world we might as well act like them.’ HaShem says, ‘As for me, I will not let them alone, but I will appoint my prophets over them and bring them back under my wings for good,’ as it is written [Ezekiel 20:32], ‘What comes to your mind shall never be, you who suppose we will be like the Gentiles, like the families of other countries who serve wood and stone.’ As I live, oracle of HaShem Elokim, ‘If I shall not be king over you with a strong hand, and an outstretched arm, and poured out wrath.’”
That’s the end of the quotation from Ezekiel 20. Sifra continues.
על כרחכם שלא בטובתכם ממליך אני מלכותי עליהם. “I will forcibly be king over you; contrary to your desire, I shall impose my kingdom on you.” [Sifra 48, 4 p. 1139 apud Malbim]
Did you pick up on the Sifra’s reasoning? The Sifra construes God’s promise, “And I shall bring them into the land of their enemies,” not as an additional punishment, but as a favor. Since the children of Israel will have confessed their iniquity, God ensures that Israel will not disappear during their exile. Israel will not be assimilated. God ensures that outsiders will continue to be Israel’s enemies, which will insure that the children of Israel stick together, at least until they surrender their uncircumcised heart.
Everybody who’s surrendered his or her heart to God recognizes that while this is a matter of free will, there’s also a strong element of compulsion. God yanks. When God gets your attention, it’s very hard to turn him down. As we sang a few moments ago when we shut the doors of the ark, השיבנו ה' עליך ונשובה“Return us, O L-rd to yourself, and we shall return.” We return when God turns us to himself. This is not only a beautiful turn of phrase in traditional Jewish worship, this is biblical teaching. It’s a direct quote from Lamentations 5:21. We return to him only because God turns us to himself. Every repentance is a divine intervention; every repentance is a miracle.
I think the Sifra is really onto something here. The sense in which God brings Israel into the land of their enemies is that during the Babylonian exile he didn’t permit Israel’s assimilation. Israel’s survival is unique in human history. No other ethnic entity has survived so long and under such adverse circumstances. Christian thinkers have frequently used Israel’s survival as evidence for God’s providence. One of the strongest arguments for the truth of the Torah is that the people of the Torah are still around. Other ancient peoples we know only through artifacts and archaeologists. But we you don’t have to visit the Jewish museum to meet a Jew!
The prophet Bilaam calls Israel “A people dwelling alone and not reckoned among the Gentiles.” [Numbers 23:9]. For the sake of the mission of exhibiting his love to the whole world, God purposed that Israel should be distinct. Christians need to affirm that distinctiveness. Especially those of us Christians whose worship incorporates so many Jewish elements need to affirm Israel’s distinctiveness. We need to respect Israel’s right to Israel’s own identity. If non-Jews up and borrow all Israel’s distinctives, what distinguishes Israel? Beth Shalom Seventh-day Adventist of Thousand Oaks is not a missionary trap aimed at absorbing the Jewish minority in the Christian majority. We’re not a halfway house to assimilation. The world doesn’t need any more paths to Jewish assimilation. Our goal here isn’t to turn Jews into non-Jews.
Unlike certain Christians, Seventh-day Adventists we do not pit Mashiach against Torah. We encourage assimilated Jews to return to the Torah and to strengthen their heritage. If the early Christians abandoned the Torah, this was not because Jesus was a bad teacher. Christians who contravene Jesus’ teaching are answerable to him. In our understanding Jesus did not come to put an end to Israel’s God-ordained way of life. On the contrary, we propose that Jesus is actually the one person capable of uniting Jews and non-Jews in the worship of the God of Israel while fostering our respective mission tasks.
Historically the Church has done everything in its power to encourage Israel’s extinction. The Church has taught that the God-given behaviors which distinguish Israel, such as circumcision, ritual family purity, ritual food purity, holidays, recitation of blessings, etc. are at best optional. At Beth Shalom Seventh-day Adventist we don’t agree that this is the route to unity. That conviction explains why this community doesn’t behave either like a typical church or like a typical synagogue.
As we understand it, the plan of salvation is not Jewish assimilation, but non-Jewish sharing in Israel’s heritage. God desires those of us he has called from the nations of the world to be join-heirs in the promise, but in a non-Jewish way. If all God’s true worshipers became Jews, then God’s redemption would be limited. God’s plan is to redeem his creation in its entirely, not only the Jewish segment. God loves the whole world and his plan has always been to redeem the whole world. In order for God to redeem the whole world, the Gentiles must someday come to serve him as Gentiles. The Hebrew prophets prophesy Gentile salvation. The God of Israel clearly doesn’t want an all-Jewish world.
God’s plan is to redeem Israel as Jews and to redeem the Gentiles as Gentiles, to redeem males as men and to redeem females as women, to redeem slaves in their bondage and to redeem freemen in their liberty [1Corinthians 7:17-24 Galatians 3:28]. This is why the Apostle Shaul is concerned that God’s children should not seek to change who God has created them to be. God’s every creature is unique and indispensable for the wholeness of his world. This is the logic behind the Apostle Shaul’s adamant opposition to Gentile conversion to Judaism [Galatians 5:2]. God calls his Gentile people to worship him alongside his Jewish people, not to be absorbed into Israel or to presume to replace Israel. Romans 15:7-12.
“Therefore accept one another, just as Mashiach accepted you to the glory of God. For I say that Mashiach became a servant of the circumcision for the sake of God’s truth, to confirm the promises to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. Just as it is written, ‘For this reason I will confess you among the Gentiles, and sing your name.’ And again it says, ‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people!’ And again, ‘Praise the L-rd, all you Gentiles, and laud him all you peoples!’ And again Isaiah says, ‘There shall be shoot of Yishai, he shall rise to rule over the Gentiles. In him shall the Gentiles hope.’”
Israel is the material/social/ethnic base of the incarnation. The “fleshly” covenant with Avraham and Sara’s descendants, expressed by the irreversible of circumcision, is the point where the Creator enters his own creation.
Israel is the first outpost of God’s kingdom; the Church is edge of the expanding frontier. The Church operates from that Israel outpost and extends the territory.
Israel is the nursery where the tender plant is nurtured; the Church is the wild ground where the mature plant is transplanted and propagates.
Israel works on the model of gathering; the Church works on the model of diffusion. God’s people going up to Jerusalem is Israel; God’s people being sent out from Jerusalem into all the world is the Church.
Israel’s mission is to faithfully testify of her experience with God; the Church contextualizes that testimony so that other people groups can enter into Israel’s experience with God.
Israel is the genuine original; the Church is the bold translation.
Israel sings the melody of God’s praise; the Church sings harmonious counterpoint. The folks in the bass section shouldn’t worry that the altos don’t sound exactly like them. What we’re doing is complimentary, but not exactly the same thing.
God never intended neither Israel nor the Church to go it alone. The Church has half the apostolic mission. We Christians have Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, spoken about in Galatians chapter 2 [2:7], but not Peter’s mission to Israel. Our part is worthy of our best efforts, but it’s not the entire mission. If we think the mission is all ours, then we don’t know who we are.
This afternoon we want to thank him that during the long exile God did not allow Israel to be assimilated. We want to work and pray for the renewed miracle of unity between Jew and Gentile, which the world hasn’t witnessed since the 1st century. As Seventh-day Adventists we anticipate reconciliation with our Jewish brothers and sisters. This afternoon we’ve worshiped borrowing Israel’s words of praise. Someday God will unite Israel and the Church in worship and together we will unite his name. That’s our conviction. Let’s get on with our mission task and rejoice that the children of Israel have gotten on so well with theirs for so long.
