A little over eight years ago I chose to pursue obeying the biblical
law. Back then, whenever I first noticed that the "Old Testament"
supported the law as being eternally applicable, and even the
non-pauline parts of the "New Testament" did likewise, I thought this
same level of obviousness would be apparent to my former friends and
associates. It wasn't long until I recognized my naiveté, and that
there is a lot more to the matter of "beliefs" than determining what the
text actually says.
Words like "religion" are treated
as bad words to many people, and not just by those who spurn the service
of a deity. "Religion", at times, is seen as the source of problems
and the thing which prevents others from seeing how YHWH wants us to
obey His commandments. However, "religion" is just a word used to
describe certain sets of beliefs, even though it has negative
connotations to some people. These beliefs and priorities are
describing the relationship of people to their god and/or to the
universe, whether through tradition or otherwise.
There
can be many influences on beliefs, and there are many things that can
hold beliefs in place. Concepts of personal identity, one's
presentation to the public, not wanting to be changing one's mind on
serious issues, feeling doubt, uncertainty about the response of family
or friends, uncertainty about the future, avoidance of the unfamiliar,
deference to supposed religious authority, deference to family
tradition, or many other unconsciously influenced feelings can be
allowed to come up or to otherwise take precedence over the adherence to
what is textually evident. These things can be allowed to take
priority to the texts people believe in, or can even be allowed to
overcome their desire to obey what they believe God might have
commanded, even if they consciously can admit that they wish to obey and
seek God. This is aside from the fact that some consciously admit that
the words of the text are not their priority, even if they claim to
believe in those texts.
These beliefs and priorities,
as well as many others, can come up in a variety of ways. I have
witnessed many people actually admit to the fact that the biblical law
is commanded to be obeyed forever, only to see them ultimately ignore it
after stating fears about potential responses from their family and
friends, or after stating their unwillingness to take personal
responsibility. On the other end of things, I have also witnessed
others who seem utterly incapable of reading or otherwise believing what
the text says, and not due to any failure of intellect, but rather, due
to preconceptions about the text or due to internal insistences to
force the text to say something it doesn't. I'm sure that many also
fell between those two ends of the theoretical spectrum, in that they
might notice a potential problem (e.g., verses that support obeying the
law), but then never act upon their concern. Simply because this, from
our perspective, leads to them putting other priorities (such as the
perceptions of others) above what God requires does not necessarily mean
that they are consciously rejecting God. It could just be a matter of
not yet understanding how to protect all of their priorities at once.
They might want to protect both their relationship/obedience to God and
their relationship with their family at the same time, yet might not
know how, so the easy response could be to continue maintaining the
beliefs and behaviors that existed before that concern came up. Not
worrying about that concern and just continuing with the old ways might
end up being the only way they understand how to proceed with the
issue. Of course, consciously ignoring these problems (that is,
evidence of a need to obey the law) over time can eventually lead to
those verses not seeming like problems any more. Most people naturally
want to believe they are doing the right thing, regardless of what they
ultimately do, so the mind has a way of working that out.
Over
these past years of dealing with the beliefs of myself and others on a
more conscious level, there are some things I have recognized as
important and relevant:
***1. Don't disrespect people***
We
don't really know for sure what a person is thinking, or what a
person's past experiences are. Oftentimes, we don't even consciously
know what is going on in our own personal experience, so how is it that
we can be so sure about everyone else around us? Talking with others
who might be interested and trying to understand what they are
communicating can be helpful to all involved. Allowing for others to
express what they understand and what they are seeing, and actually
giving an objective analysis internally, can do likewise. We can seek
to understand while avoiding imposing our presumptions about them upon
them.
Also, there is no place for disparaging people.
Insulting people or rudely criticizing someone's beliefs can gain plenty
of support by those with similar mentalities and with similar
willingnesses to speak in those ways, but it can serve to generalize
your beliefs as a source of negativity for people who disagree, or even
to interested people who are more sensitive to such things. Thus, our
intent to prove our beliefs right ends up serving to turn people away.
One can point out what the text says and what it does not say without
calling someone names or without saying that all people of a certain
label are idiots.
Of course, some people will get
upset or be offended simply because their beliefs are challenged, even
if we are exclusively using the text. In those cases, we cannot expect
to never offend others. However, we need to use discretion in how we
present our points and how we speak to others, and ensure that we are
intending no personal disrespect.
***2. Avoid an "us" vs "them" mentality, and avoid thoughts of personal superiority***
After
recognizing that the text supports obedience to the law and after
encountering many who are unwilling to understand the text in that way,
it might be easy for some to begin feeling as if they are "above" those
other people. Likewise, we can categorize other people's beliefs as
"religion", while claiming that we do not believe in a "religion", but
have superior beliefs that somehow do not deserve that categorization.
In
my time of learning/relearning the commandments and seeking to obey
them, I have repeatedly changed my beliefs or my understandings of
commands, or otherwise have had to change my current course of action
when realizing it was problematic by the standard of the commandments.
Oftentimes, I personally encountered much resistance and rationalization
internally, especially when acting upon these realizations was
inconvenient at the time. I know that I am susceptible to thoughts and
feelings which are similar to the thoughts and feelings others have that
they allow to prevent them from obeying at all. Some seem to have felt
certain ways that incline them to ignore the Torah all together, and
those feelings are not an impossibility for us to feel as well. By
recognizing that I can feel that way too, and by being willing to do
personal introspection, I feel I have been much more able to truly obey
and to be willing to reconsider whether my obedience is truly according
to the text.
While it is certainly good to associate
with people who believe similarly to you and who support you, getting
into an "us" vs "them" mentality, and simply assuming we are inherently
superior, or simply assuming that a certain label is inherently
superior, can rapidly lead to limiting ourselves and limiting our
capabilities, and therefore result in limiting our obedience and
limiting our understanding.
**3. Continue to be open minded, and differentiate between what the text says and what we are inferring from it***
I
don't know how many times I have seen people become open minded long
enough to change their theological beliefs ONCE, only to then become
extremely resolute and completely closed off to any further
development. The idea of continuing to be open minded can be a tough
one to mentally grasp, because the notion of "open-mindedness" often
leads to thoughts of extremes. On the one hand, one can imagine someone
who is completely closed off to changing their beliefs, in that the
person will only believe what a specific pastor says or what that person
was raised with, no matter what the text says. On the other hand, the
idea of an "open minded" person can elicit thoughts of one who is
indecisive about everything, or has no convictions whatsoever.
Ultimately,
I think a practical application of open mindedness might involve
occasional deliberate review of what we believe and what reasons we have
for our beliefs, and whether those reasons are legitimate, or whether
they can be understood in different ways. This is especially the case
after we have been challenged by others or presented with new ideas. We
should be open to "alternatives" and alternative understandings of
passages. There is a difference between "the" understanding of a
passage and "an" understanding of a passage. Also, there is a
difference between personally feeling a certain way about a belief and
presuming to be inclined by God to feel a certain way about a belief.
Alternatives
are not always apparent without the input of other people who come from
their own individual sets of experiences, so being open to what other
people have to say about things and how they understand things can be
very helpful. This does not mean that we need to believe other people
without evidence, but we need to be open to understanding where the text
is ambiguous, or where the text might not say exactly what we believe
(that is, where we are making inferences). For example, I used to be
insistent upon certain messianic beliefs, and when a certain individual
in my group (from the past) began to explore alternative theories and
alternative understandings, I just dismissed what he had to say and
didn't even let his concerns be heard. When I think about that past
response now, I feel that I did him, myself, and the group a disservice.
Furthermore,
we need to exercise discipline in determining whether a belief is truly
textually based, or simply based upon inference from the text. This
can be somewhat of a fine-line as well, but being willing to see when a
passage is "possibly" supporting a specific belief as opposed to "only"
supporting that specific belief can be very helpful in continuing to
develop our understanding of what is truly commanded.
Finally,
keep in mind that the source of many beliefs is simply tradition, and
we need to be willing to recognize when that is the case. The most
difficult traditions to address can be the ones that we do not even
realize are traditions (see my
"The Torah Does Not Command a Temple" article as an example). While something being a tradition does not
automatically preclude it from being reasonable, by recognizing
something as a tradition, we can allow ourselves to be more open to
potential alternatives, and therefore be willing to accept evidence for
such an alternative in the case that legitimate evidence comes along.
***4.
If we let ourselves, we can find supposed "evidence" for our beliefs in
almost anything, and we filter our experiences through those beliefs***
A
while back, I read an Internet news article about a church building
that partially collapsed while people were inside it. The pastor, or
someone else, explained that no one being seriously injured was due to
God protecting their congregation. In the comments below the news
article, someone asserted that the reason for the structural failure was
because God was punishing their church due to its denomination. Two
different people effectively arrived at polar-opposite interpretations
of a single event. They were both likely being unconsciously driven to
interpret the world through their beliefs.
We naturally
use and develop beliefs in order to survive in the world. Generalizing
and categorizing are very natural unconscious processes that help us
make sense of what's going on around us, and extends from the very basic
to the very complex. People have different backgrounds and
experiences, and they develop their understanding of the world starting
from a very young age. These generalizations and beliefs are built upon
in order for us to live. We do similarly whenever we get into matters
of God and theology.
In dealing with theological
beliefs, we can effectively blind ourselves to the text because we hold
certain beliefs. If people believe that there are three gods, it
doesn't matter if they read passages which say, "YHWH is one", or "God
is not a man", or "there is none beside Him". There will almost always
be an explanation if they want there to be one. These justifications
for that belief can even manifest in what might be deemed hallucination,
in that one might mentally reword a passage to fit with their beliefs,
and not even recognize that this has occurred.
Postman and Bruner's
expectancy experiment involving playing cards demonstrates a similar
phenomenon. In this, participants were asked to identify playing cards
as they were shown them. To complicate things, cards with mismatched
colors and suits were displayed at times, such as with black hearts and
red spades. Many participants actually reported visual hallucinations,
such as both red and black appearing on the same card when in reality
only one color was present. For some, it was very difficult for them to
ever recognize what was truly going on with the cards. This experiment
shows in simple form what types of things can go on when we inevitably
interpret incoming information through our beliefs, whether they are
beliefs about playing card suits or beliefs about what the "bible"
teaches.
We must be mindful of ourselves when we can,
and try to assess whether we are doing the same thing. This is
certainly easier said than done. We can go along for years simply
believing with certainty that the text teaches a specific doctrine, then
at some point we can realize that it says something completely
different. A relevant example is likely to be the matter of the
importance of the Torah. For many of us, we read some of the same
passages over and over and never even recognized they were teaching to
obey the Torah until much later. When that time came, it was as if the
whole biblical text changed. However, it wasn't the biblical text
itself that changed, obviously, but it was our belief that changed, and
therefore how we filtered that incoming information changed.
While
I experienced that specific change many years back, it wasn't until the
past year or so that I experienced a similar change in recognizing how
the rituals of the Torah are to be performed at the
Tent of Appointment,
rather than at a temple. Before, I had read many passages in the Torah
and just mentally substituted "temple", never even noticing how the
commanded holy place of the Torah is the Tabernacle, and how many of the
rituals say over and over that they are required to be done at the
"tent".
Once again, being mindful to there being
potential alternatives is a relevant practice to keep ourselves and our
beliefs in check. We should be aware of our tendency to automatically
presume that things support us, and should be critical of what we
consider to be "evidence". We should do our best to keep our beliefs
from interfering with honest readings of the text, as well as from
interfering with our interpretation of external events (as "signs" or
otherwise).
In regard to others, it is certainly
possible for people to change their beliefs or to be able to recognize
something as evidence which is contrary to their past beliefs. This
will depend to some degree on a person's openness, both to the presenter
and the presentation. As it was said by someone I met many years ago,
"You must change their paradigm."
***5. Be willing to say "I don't know"***
I
don't know if it is a matter of our culture or just how people operate
in general, but there seems to be an innate dissatisfaction that people
have with others saying "I don't know". This is especially the case
when dealing with leaders and teachers. If someone seeks out answers
for a question they have, they expect their leader or teacher to have an
answer for them, and if that person does not have one, they will often
find a different teacher who does.
The problem with
this mentality is that it oftentimes seems to not make any difference
whether the answer is legitimate or not. If it makes "sense" to the
individual with their limited understanding, that's all that matters.
It doesn't matter whether the answer has any foundation in the text, or
even if it is consistent with the text, so long as it makes "sense".
I
can recall a multitude of times where I have witnessed teachers,
leaders, pastors, etc, making claims or giving answers to questions that were completely baseless. This ranges from generic claims about
something being "incorrect", to thorough explanations and commentaries
about a given subject for which there is absolutely no legitimate
evidence to support it. Worst of all, these things are typically
presented as fact, or otherwise are presented such that they expect
everyone to believe it unquestioningly. Many times, this is exactly how
it is responded to: with complete acceptance.
Most
people who have been to a church of some sort have probably witnessed a
pastor or teacher taking a very small portion of a passage or verse and
then teaching an entire sermon without ever citing the text again. All
sorts of reasons and explanations and ideas are expounded upon without
having any textual support. The congregation is seemingly expected to
just believe this expounding, and it ends up being what they are
accustomed to.
Likewise, many who have read bible
commentaries critically (whether Christian, messianic, rabbinic, or
otherwise) have probably noticed that many commentators are willing to
go into extensive explanations about individual verses when they truly
have nothing they are going off but their personal theory. Despite
this, they are publishing it as fact, and even worse than this is when
translations are allowed to become inaccurate representations of the
text in order to support particular beliefs. Most will never question
this if they were already disposed to believe these sources, and they
will never realize the difference.
It seems that many
have not developed their ability to discern baseless claims from textual
fact. Likewise, many people have developed theological questions that
they expect answers for or explanations about, and the text might be
completely silent or ambiguous about the subject. This can be due to
issues of transmission of language or outright lack of mention in the
text.
As a result of all of this, there can be this
temptation for teachers of Torah to respond to these people in the way
that these people want. If people want answers from us, our inclination
might be to give them answers. However, this is a huge problem
whenever the temptation exists despite our recognition of no clear
textual answer. Saying that the text is silent on a certain issue, or
saying that the wording is ambiguous, is likely to be dissatisfactory to
many, and might lead them to seek answers elsewhere. For that reason,
we might want to provide explanations that will satisfy people, and we
might justify these explanations to ourselves by claiming that they are
"reasonable" and "supported by my 'entire reading' of the Torah".
One
prime example of this is the assertion that the food laws (clean vs
unclean) are because of health, and because God wants us to be healthy.
This is a very common claim that I witness being given, and it is
treated by some as the ultimate argument for why we shouldn't be eating
pork, etc. The assertion involves that the "reason" for the distinction
between clean and unclean is health, despite the fact that Lev 20:22-26
says that, "You shall divide between the beast, the clean to
unclean...which I divided to you...and you shall be set-apart ones to
Me...and I divided you from the peoples to be to me". This would imply
that the reason for clean and unclean is for us to be set-apart to YHWH
from all the nations, not because of health. Despite this, the "health"
assertion is taught as if it is from the text, while the textual reason
is rejected or ignored. Furthermore, the ultimate "reason" we should
be doing these things is because it is commanded by YHWH.
If
we are not willing to admit to others when we either don't know the
answer to something or when the text does not address something (such as
a "reason" for a command), we are doing both the people we are teaching
and ourselves a disservice. When our personal theories and ideas
become equated with the Torah, and therefore taught as Torah, then are we truly seeking what the Torah
says? Furthermore, when
these theories are spoken as concrete answers or as summaries of "the
teaching of the 'entire' Torah" when we have no specific passages to
back it up in its entirety, we limit our ability to recognize any
alternatives. If we have to cite "the 'entire' Torah" as a support for
something, it's probably the case that we don't have anything specific
in mind as evidence. This is also the case for when we assume we know
the "reason" for a command, in that we can assume what is "really"
intended and then ignore the text of the Torah itself by doing so. We
filter our reading of the text through our non-textual assumption. We
close ourselves off to actually understanding the Torah by doing these
things.
While many will likely be dissatisfied by this,
we need to be willing to recognize when we don't know something. If we
ever try to justify something by saying that it is based upon "the
Torah in general", we should seriously reevaluate ourselves. If someone
asks us about something, we can give our theories, but I would suggest
saying, "My theory is ____________, but the text doesn't plainly say
that, so it's just a theory". Otherwise, it might be best just to be
silent and be willing to admit when we are uncertain, rather than giving
people opportunities to pick up our theories as fact. Being willing to
admit that we don't know something is a matter of being honest with
ourselves and being honest with our teaching of the text. We should
keep in mind what we are truly intending to teach.
***6. Be open to God, don't be presumptuous, and stay focused on what is important***
There
are many times when I thought God was leading me a certain way, or when
I expected the future to play out a very specific way, but then it
turned out that I was wrong. This relates to the previous idea of being
open to alternatives, except these alternatives are dealing in terms of
things we witness in our lives or things that we believe to be
indicated by God to us personally. It can be very easy to narrow our
perspective or get "tunnel vision", then operate purely on presumption of what God might be indicating to us, without allowing for any alternative interpretations.
It is easy to
recognize certain experiences or feelings as being supposed "messages"
or "signs from God", especially when they are leading us to fulfill some
unconscious desire we have. Simply believing something is a sign or
indication from God does not automatically verify it as being such. For
example, people can refuse to believe the commandments of YHWH because
they feel a certain way, and they might assert that those feelings are
from God. That is not necessarily the case. People with all sorts of
variations of beliefs can claim that they have feelings from God which
confirm their beliefs, and they cannot all be right.
We
need to be open to God and also recognize our own personal motivations
and personal hesitations. We need to stay focused on what is important,
and always keep that broader perspective in mind while we are
addressing our goals. Serving YHWH and seeking to understand what He
wants needs to be our primary task, rather than entirely confining our
focus to that which we personally are wanting or working toward (even
when we might be inclined to think of it as direction from God).
******
Over
the past eight years, there have been many learnings that I have
obtained, and I think an important one is the learning that I don't have
everything figured out. I don't know what other people are thinking. I
don't necessarily know other people better than they know themselves. I
don't know with certainty the exactly correct interpretation of every
Torah command. Also, I recognize that I am not above experiencing the
same kinds of things that I might have criticized others for. There are
parts of me that have been inclined to dismiss useful information, and
there are parts of me that want to do what is convenient. These are
things that I need to continue to be mindful of.
Some
say that learning to obey the Torah is a "process". I might agree in
some sense. I disagree with the notion of people choosing to obey a few
commands while claiming to be waiting to obey other commands until
later. I think that if one believes obedience is what is required, then
they should seek to do it fully. However, I do agree that learning is a
process, and it should continue to be a process. My understandings of
how commandments should be obeyed have changed over time, and I am
certain that I will come to better understand various commandments in
the future as well.
In the current state of the
dispersion, it would seem that beliefs and understandings are likely to
continue to evolve. For some of Israel, we and our ancestors went from
Canaanite/Germanic polytheism to Christianity, then to Messianic,
Karaite, or Orthodox Judaism, and now we have moved on from that to work
to obey the Torah apart from those categories. Others of Israelite
descent are still atheists, or are still polytheists, or are still
Christians, or are still Muslims, or are still Orthodox Jews, etc. Some
will never recognize what the Torah says or believe it. However, we are
not the ones that decide that for others. We should not go about
disrespecting those who are not where we are now, or those who are where
we used to be. We also need to be open to alternatives in our own
studies, and be open to better understanding how to obey.
It's
easy to see what we think others need or how we think they could
improve, but we should bring attention to ourselves and our own beliefs
in that regard as well.
