“How odd of God to choose the Jews.”
Jackson
Snyder, March 20, 2005
INCOMPLETE
Just
started this one, However there are some good Talmud portions below.
“How odd of God to choose the Jews.”
That famous couplet was written
by British journalist William Norman Ewer (1885-1976). Yet, in the beginning, “God” didn’t exactly
choose “the Jews” at all. The word “Jew”
is a contraction of “Yahudim,” which means, “those of Yahweh.” The very name of this religious group implies
that if there was any choosing to have been done, the Jews chose first
and named themselves after Yahweh prior to a time when he might’ve chosen them.
The fact of the matter is that G-d didn’t
choose the Jews – He chose the Israelites, the race of people who sprang
from Adam in Eden, a family-nation of Syrians (Aramaeans), the progeny of Jacob, son of
Isaac, son of Abram, the latter a Syrian man who was born outside his
own country, in south Babylon, at Ur (Genesis
11:28). It was to this one man, Abram, that
the Almighty made the eternal promise, saying –
Genesis
22:16-18. “I have sworn … because you
have … not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you,
and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the
sand on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their
enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless
themselves, because you (Abram) have obeyed my voice.”
Abram’s descendants through Isaac then Jacob
would be a source of blessing to all the nations for all the generations
for all of history. Why? Because one man, Abram, was obedient to keep
covenant with Yahweh, and ever since, through years as the sands of the
seashore, some Jacobite has remained true.
Today, those of Abram’s blood who
remain in covenant with Yahweh continue to thrive on earth, despite
every attempt the devil has made to wipe them all out. Furthermore, many new children have been born
to Abram though he’s been dead for thirty-five hundred years. Those who have covenanted with Abram’s
god have become his children despite what blood nurtured them in the womb.
This is the meaning of the prophecy,
“descendants as sands of the sea and stars of the sky” – there’re earthly
descendants numerous as the sand upon shoreline through Abram’s bloodline
– and there’re those counted as descendants not because of
Abram’s blood, but because of the blood of one of Abram’s descendants. Though the sands of the sea can be numbered,
the descendants of Abram born of His spirit are as the stars in heaven,
uncountable.
In our day, we have the benefit of spying
salvation history from the end to the beginning. We recognized how privileged we are to be
grafted in with so much instruction that’s accumulated through centuries of
faith. But despite our favor, Yahweh
tells his people they must remember the humble and detested origin from whence
they came.
When the Israelite brought his offering before
the priest as his part in covenant with Yahweh, he must say aloud, “A wandering
Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in
number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous” (Deuteronomy
26:5).
From a humble beginning, the two houses of
Israel comprising Jew and Gentile, sands and stars, have become a huge
consortium of kings and priests all over the face of the earth and in
heaven. We can see now that G-d’s choice
of Israel wasn’t so odd after all, as we consider a story from the Talmud
that’s almost as well known as the couplet I first quoted. Listen:
When Yahweh revealed Himself to give the
Torah, He revealed Himself not only to the Covenant of Israel but to all
other nations as well. First Yahweh
went to the Children of Esau. He asked
them: “Will you accept the Torah?” They
said right to His face: “What is written in it?” He said: “You shall not murder.” They replied: “Master of the Universe, this
goes against our grain. Our father, whose
‘hands are the hands of Esau’ (Genesis 27:22), led us to rely only on the
sword, because his father (Isaac) told him, ‘by your sword shall
you live’ (Genesis 27:40). Therefore, we cannot accept Your Torah.”
He then went to the children of Ammon and
Moab, and asked them: “Will you accept the Torah?” They said right to His face: “What is written
in it?” He said: "You shall not
commit adultery.” They replied: “Master
of the Universe, our very origin is in adultery, for it is written, ‘And so
were the daughters of Lot with child by their father’ (Genesis
19:36). Therefore, we cannot accept Your Torah.”
He then went to the children of Ishmael, and
asked them: “Will you accept the
Torah?” They said right to His face:
“What is written in it?” He said: “You
shall not steal.” They replied: “Master
of the Universe, it is in our nature to live off what we steal and what is
gotten by assault. Of our ancestor
Ishmael it is written, ‘And he shall be a wild-ass of a man, and every man’s
hand against him’ (Genesis 16:12). Therefore, we cannot accept Your Torah.”
There was not a single nation among the
nations to whom Yahweh did not go, speak, knock on its door, asking whether it
would be willing to accept the Torah. As
it is said, “All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O Yah, for they have
heard the words of thy mouth” (Psalms 138:4).
At long last He came to Israel and asked
them: “Will you accept the Torah?” They said, “All that Yahweh has said we
will do; whatever we are commanded”
(Exodus 24:7). So Israel accepted the Torah, with all its
explanations and details as well as the seven commandments that the children of
Noah had not been able to observe and had cast off.[1]
Perhaps
now we can understand better why an anonymous someone added a second couplet to
Ewer’s first:
How odd of God to choose the Jews.
Not odd of God. Goyim annoy’im.
Goyim of course refers to all non-Jews – like the Ammonites, Moabites
and all the other “ites.” Obviously,
this codicil was added by a Jewish mother.
We know that, though Jews are in some sense “chosen people,” they also
annoyed him far more than any other group of people in the world except the
Israelites, if the Bible is to be the judge of the matter. For we know if we go back before the Jews
existed anywhere except in the mind of the creator, that Yahweh chose
particular men and women to know him by name and come into covenant with him.
We spoke of Abram, who became Abraham, the father of many nations, but
before him was a righteous man named Noah, who built a big boat and saved
creation and Adam’s race from extinction.
Noah was a righteous man to who
Genesis 6: 7. So the Lord said, "I will blot out man
whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping
things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."
8. But
Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
9.
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in
his generation; Noah walked with God. a
With respect G-d's commandments, all of
humanity is divided into two general classifications: the Children of Israel
and the Children of Noah.
The Children of Israel are the Jews,
the descendants of the Patriarch Jacob. They are commanded to fulfill the 613
commandments of the Torah.
The Children of Noah are the Gentiles,
comprising the seventy nations of the world. They are commanded concerning the
Seven Universal Laws, also known as the Seven Laws of the Children of Noah or
the Seven Noachide
Laws.
These Seven Universal Laws pertain to:
Avodah Zarah: Prohibition on idolatry.
Birchat HaShem: Prohibition on
blasphemy and cursing the Name of G-d.
Shefichat Damim: Prohibition on murder.
Gezel: Prohibition on robbery and
theft.
Gilui Arayot: Prohibition on immorality
and forbidden sexual relations.
Ever Min HaChay: Prohibition on
removing and eating a limb from a live animal.
Dinim: Requirement to establish a
justice system and courts of law to enforce the other 6 laws.
Men and women are equal in their
responsibility to observe the Seven Universal Laws.
When a Gentile resolves to fulfill the
Seven Universal Laws, his or her soul is elevated. This person becomes one of
the "Chasidei Umot Haolam" (Pious Ones of the Nations) and receives a
share of the World to Come. The Torah calls one who accepts the yoke of
fulfilling the Seven Universal Laws a "Ger Toshav" (a Proselyte of the
Gate).
This person is permitted to live in the
land of Israel and to enter to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and to offer
sacrifices to the G-d of Israel.
“‘I Am the
Lord Thy God’ (Ex 20.2). Why were the Ten Commandments not said at the
beginning of the Torah? They give a parable. To what may this be compared? To
the following: A king who entered a province said to the people: May I be your
king? But the people said to him: Have you done anything good for us that you
should rule over us? What did he do then? He built the city wall for them, he
brought in the water supply for them, and he fought their battles. Then when he
said to them: May I be your king? They said to him: Yes, yes. Likewise, God. He
brought the Israelites out of Egypt, divided the sea for them, sent down the
manna for them, brought up the well for them, brought the quails for them. He
fought for them the battle with Amalek. Then He said to them: I am to be your
king. And they said to Him: Yes, yes.”[2]
(Mekilta: Bahodesh 5)
Of Hashem's successive attempts to give
the Torah, it is written,
"Hashem came to Sinai - having
shone forth to them at Seir [with
the children of Esau] and having
appeared at Mt. Paran [with the
children of Ishmael], finally approaching
the holy myriads [the
children of Israel] - from His right
hand He presented the fiery
Torah to them (Devarim 33:2)."
However,
the Talmud adds another aspect of our acceptance of the Torah:
"And they stood under the mountain
(Shemot 19:17)." Rav Avdimi
bar Chama said: The verse implies that the Holy One held up
the
mountain over them, like an inverted
cask and said to them: If you
accept My Torah, it is well; if not,
your grave will be right here!
(Gemara Shabbat 88a)
In our
current, ultra-sensitive political environment, some folks have taken the
couplet as anti-Semitic. A funny Jewish rejoinder I have heard is, "Not
odd of God. / Goyim annoy 'im."
How---
of Christ(?) to save the slave / knave(?)
The
following is from www.catholic.com/thisrock/2002/0209bt.asp
I've
never thought the original is anti-Semitic. It seems to me simply a cute, rhyming
formulation of what the Old Testament itself says about God's election of the
Jews. In Deuteronomy, God is explicit about the fact that he did not make the
Jews his chosen people because of special qualities but because of his love and
his promises to the Patriarchs:
"It
was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set
his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples; but it
is because the LORD loves you, and is keeping the oath which he swore to your
fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you
from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt" (Deut.
7:7-8).
There
is a lot of oddness connected with God. Sometimes this perplexes people. At
various points in their lives, people may become suddenly aware of how
something about God or what he has done is profoundly odd, more so than they
previously realized.
This
especially happens during the course of conversions. If someone is becoming a
Catholic after living with a different set of beliefs, the oddness of certain
things in the apostolic deposit leaps out at him. Because humans are
uncomfortable with odd claims, these at first are a stumbling block to faith.
It is
the job of apologetics to clear them away. This is done either by pointing out
(1) that they are not actually as odd as it first seemed, (2) that there is
direct evidence for them, or (3) that there is indirect evidence for them
(i.e., they're part of the package with Catholicism, and there is good evidence
that Catholicism is true).
Even
once apologetics has done its job, the person may still feel discomfort. When
the human mind encounters an unexpectedly odd idea-even after the mind has
accepted the truth of the concept-it needs to live with the idea for a while
before it gets comfortable. People need to have an item as part of their mental
furniture for a time before they become confident.
Those
who have accepted the Catholic faith-especially those who have grown up in
it-should bear this in mind when dealing with converts. To better appreciate
how unexpected or unforeseeable some of the things God chooses to do can be, it
may be helpful to review a few of them:
First,
God makes stuff out of nothing. This is really amazing. If he wanted, he could
have just stayed alone, an eternal communion of infinite Persons, needing
nothing besides himself for his infinite beatitude. Yet he chose to make
stuff-things that by definition have to be tiny and trivial compared to his
incomparable Reality. And since there wasn't anything around yet to make them
out of, he just said, "Let there be . . . " and there was.
The
oddness doesn't stop there. When God chose to make our universe, he decided to
have the vast, overwhelming majority of it be nothing but empty space. All
matter and energy is spread so thin in the universe that it is next to nothing
compared to the overall volume of the cosmos.
And
God keeps making empty space. If current astronomical theories are correct, not
only is the universe expanding, but its rate of expansion is accelerating, with
volumes and volumes of new empty space being created at growth rate that far
outstrips the speed of light (which means that the visible part of the universe
is a bright tiny speck in a vast darkness). Even the solid things that God made
are themselves mostly empty space, the distances between atoms and their
constituent elements being comparable in scale to the distances between stars
and planets.
Most
of the objects in the universe not only are not alive, there is no possibility
they will ever have life or come in contact with living things. Even if there
turn out to be inhabited planets out there, the great majority of the universe
is and always will be lifeless.
In the
one spot where we know that God made life-Earth-he made the vast majority of
living creatures (all except our own species) unintelligent, nonrational
beings. And if current ideas about the history of the earth are correct, he
made humans very late in the game, with billions of prior years of earth
history before he put us on the scene, despite the fact that all terrestrial
creation was building up to our arrival.
Then,
after man's fall into sin, God starts his program of redemption, which is
itself a marvel. But he doesn't start it by writing REPENT AND BELIEVE THE
GOSPEL in glowing letters across the sky for everyone to see. Instead, he
starts his plan small, with one guy-Abraham-from whom eventually he draws a
single nation to be the chosen people representing him.
Then, when
the time is right, he takes the amazing step of actually becoming a man! But he
doesn't just create a human nature for himself out of nothing. Instead, he
decides to enter humanity through the process of growing in the womb, being
born, and growing to adulthood. Only it isn't the usual process, because he
dispenses with having a human father and provides for a miraculous birth as
well. Once he has grown to adulthood in human form, he starts his ministry but
hides from the general public the fact that he is the promised Messiah and God
in the flesh.
And
this is not all. He reveals that though he is God, he is one of three Persons
in the Godhead, so that God is a Trinity-something we would have had no way of
deducing for ourselves by reason alone. It is something that only God could
reveal to us about himself.
He
also tells us that he is "gentle and humble in heart" (Matt. 11:29,
NIV). Who would have imagined that the Lord God, infinite Ruler and Creator of
the Universe, is humble? In fact, he's so humble that he has chosen to die as a
man-and not die peacefully in old age but allow himself to be executed, while
still a young man, as a criminal against the state. God himself, mind you!
In
doing this, he tells us, he is making satisfaction for the sins of the world,
offering his own life to his Father as a human sacrifice (the sacrifice of a
Person with a human nature)-something that has otherwise been completely
forbidden. He also has decided that, after having been so sacrificed, he is
going to return to human form by bringing himself back to life-and in a
transfigured way such that his body will be supernaturalized and able to do
many things it previously couldn't.
However,
he isn't going to stay on earth and reign in the flesh over mankind-yet.
Instead, he's going to take his glorified body back with him to heaven and wait
while his movement on earth grows. After a final conflict with the forces of
evil, which will almost destroy his movement, he will return from heaven in
bodily form, rescue his followers, and physically renovate all of heaven and
earth.
Oh,
yes—and part of that renovation will be restoring to their bodies everyone who
has ever lived, many of them now having the same kind of glorified,
transfigured body that God does. They will then be judged, the good ones going
to eternal reward, and the evil ones going to eternal suffering.
Wow!
Amazing!
You
would never guess this stuff, yet it all makes sense. When you look at it close
up (closer than we can here), it all hangs together in a logical way. And there
is good evidence for all of it.
You
can't deduce what God is going to do the same way you can deduce the laws of
mathematics. His actions are a matter of his own free choice. You also can't
predict what he's going to do based on how humans use their free will,
because-setting aside the Incarnation-he isn't human. His own essential, divine
nature is far above us, something we can't understand or predict.
As he
tells us in the book of Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts" (Is. 55:8-9).
Amen!
Some
people balk at things like the Eucharist or the Immaculate Conception or the
Assumption of Mary as if they were strange things. But when you think about it,
they are no stranger than the things we've already seen God do. They have their
own inner logic, just like the items above. There is good evidence for them as
well.
But to
balk at them on the grounds that they seem odd to a person who isn't used to
them? One wants to say, "Wait a minute! What kind of a God do you suppose
you are dealing with? This is just more of the same. It's what we'd expect a
God this unpredictable to do. All we can count on is that what God does will be
good, not that it won't be strange."
On the
other hand, to those who are impatient with converts as they come to terms with
things like the Eucharist or the Immaculate Conception, it can be helpful to say,
"Just a second: Have you considered the oddness of some of the other
things God has done?"
For
God to be odd is as it should be. Any God worth worshiping, any God that is
truly infinite, is bound to appear strange and do strange things from a limited
human vantage point. As the Catechism puts it, "Even when he reveals
himself, God remains a mystery beyond words: 'If you understood him, it would
not be God'" (CCC 230, quoting Augustine, Sermons 52:6:16 and 117:3:5).