I have been thinking about the uniqueness of this forum. I know of no other place where Jewish men of reputation in a thriving community are willing to sit down with non-Jews to discuss their divergent concepts regarding God's revelation. I am distinctly honored to be invited to share my own heartfelt convictions.
It is obvious that no one could impose his thinking upon this assembly. I assure you I have no desire to do so. You are thoroughly capable of thinking for yourselves. I do not want you to feel a need for unscrewing your heads and placing them under your chairs while I speak. My approach will be rational. It will be in love and deep respect for every one of you. If you cannot conscientiously agree with what I say, I would never ask you to violate your conscience. I will love you whether or not you concur with what I say. As long as these are sharing sessions, I will come. When they become manipulative, I will be conspicuous by my absence.
Today I am to address myself to a two-part question, the first part being the grounds on which I assume the Messiah was to be a person. Before zeroing in on that directly, I would like to suggest a few thoughts for your consideration by way of background.
History will bear out that the ancient Jews all believed in a personal Messiah. There was no idea that the Scriptures taught anything else. Gradually, men who lived in a land exposed to persecution and overthrow by foreign powers began to sigh for a leader who could free their nation from oppression. It was an easy step to expect the Messiah to be a conquering hero, one who would set up an earthly kingdom. It is my personal opinion that this presupposition militated against the Jews' acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. I state this without desire to criticize. It is simply my commentary on what transpired. I believe that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies in the haftarah, but it is obvious that He did not meet the popular image that had been conjured up in the public mind. It was easy for the Jews to reject Him as Messiah on this ground.
As a kind of parenthetical observation, let me remind you that scholarly Judaism always has had difficulty with the prophecies. Some of these portrayed the Messiah as a ruler, upon whose shoulders the government would rest. Others affirmed He would be a suffering servant, "smitten for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities," as expressed by Isaiah. In an attempt to reconcile this apparent contradiction, many rabbis developed the theory of a twofold Messiah, one in a state of poverty and suffering, the other in glory and splendor.
This view postulated that one would be born as Messiah ben Joseph, of the tribe of Ephraim. He would fight against Gog and be slain by Armillus. The other would be Messiah ben David, of the tribe of Judah. He would overcome and kill Armillus, resurrect the first Messiah, assemble all Israel to Palestine, and rule all nations with a rod of iron from Jerusalem. I suspect this expedience was adopted because of a mistaken view of the nature of the heavenly kingdom, which never was intended to be a kingdom of this world. An earthly monarchy requires an earthly monarch, and one who conceives of an earthly kingdom must invent an earthly king.
My purpose in mentioning this is neither to analyze or to criticize. It is simply to show that the position I occupy as to the personality of the Messiah is in harmony with ancient Judaism. It is the modern Jew who has departed from the traditional view. It is one of the anomalies of our meeting that many of the Jews here present have forsaken the very basis of primitive Judaism, while I am a firm defender of it. What a switch it is that, on the grounds of the faith of your fathers, I am the Jew and you are the non-Jew!
Let me again affirm that all of the ancient Jews held the concept of a personal Messiah, coming with power and in the glory of God. Even those later rabbis who sought to harmonize what they considered irreconcilable prophetic statements did not abandon the idea of a personal Messiah, but came up with two persons instead of one.
The pseudo-Messiahs, who have periodically risen and obtained such a following, are a testimony to the Jewish belief in, and a yearning for, a personal Messiah. Just as there can be no counterfeit without the genuine coin, so there could be no false Messiah without at least a concept of a genuine Messiah. If false Messiahs have been accepted because they are persons, this is indicative that the Messsiah expected on the ground of prophetic revelation is conceived of as a person.
Beginning with Coziba, who changed his name to Bar Cocheba, there have been more than two dozen false Messiahs. Simon Bar Cocheba is a good example of how the Jewish people have been willing to follow a man. When Emperor Hadrian undertook to Romanize Judea in the year 132, a revolution was sparked, and this projected Coziba into a position of leadership at once. He proclaimed himself to be the "Star" mentioned by Balaam (Numbers 24:17). He declared that he was sent from Heaven to overthrow Roman tyranny and restore the liberty and glory of the nation. Akiba ben Joseph, one of the most influential rabbis of that day, declared that Bar Cocheba, which means "Son of the Star," was the Messiah and King of the Jews. Almost half a million Jews rallied to his call. They defeated the Romans under Finnius Rufus, capturing more than fifty towns.
Hadrian then summoned his most famous general, Julius Severus, and after a long and bitter struggle the Jews were defeated. Bar Cocheba was killed at Bethar in August, 135. Half a million Jews were killed. Thousands of women and children were sold into slavery. The harsh measures of the Romans forced hundreds of thousands of Jews to flee Palestine. This was the final exile, or dispersal, which left Palestine under alien rule until the Republic of Israel was formed in 1948, the very same year that you began meeting.
Time would fail me to tell of Moses Cretensis, Ishmael Sophus, Salomo Macho, or Sabbatai Sevi, all of whom proclaimed themselves to be the Messiah, only to bring woe upon those who followed them. My point is simply that, since these men claimed to be the Messiah, it is obvious that they believed in a personal Messianic figure. Since so many regarded each in his turn as the Messiah proves that the people also regarded the Messiah as a man. This proves nothing about the deluded claims of messiahship. It does prove that I am not alone in interpreting the Messianic Scriptures as alluding to a man.
In 1590, the very learned chief rabbi of Vienna, Simon Luzzato, said of the predictions of Daniel, "The consequence of a too extended and profound investigation on the part of Jewish scholars would be that they would all become Christians; for it could not be denied that, according to Daniel's limitation of the time, the Messiah must already have appeared." I think I have never read a more revealing statement.
I would like to produce the prediction of Israel himself, that prince of God who was called Jacob originally. He became the father of twelve sons, and these became the heads of the twelve tribes. The life of Jacob was an eventful one. When he was introduced to the pharaoh of Egypt by his son Joseph, he told that monarch, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage" (Genesis 47:9).
When this aged patriarch sensed that death was approaching, with the characteristic attitude of a desert sheik he summoned his family to his bedside. Calling his sons to him he said, "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days" (49:1). With a prescience given by God, he then issued prophetic forecasts of the nature and fate of each tribe, beginning with Reuben, the eldest son. Jacob said that Judah would be especially reverenced by his brethren. He would be successful in battle against his enemies, and would earn the respect of the other tribes. His forecast begins, "Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise" (49:8). There is a play on words here, since "Judah" means praise, as you know. It was like saying, "Judah, your name is praise, and praised you will be." If you are familiar with the Jerusalem Targum, you will recall the free translation, "Judah, to thee shall all thy brethren confess, and by thy name shall all Jews be called."
For the sake of time, we will pass by the portrayal of the tribe of Judah in its three stages of development, referred to by Jacob under the symbol of a young lion, a mature lion, and an old lion. Perhaps the reference is to the tribal status in three eras, the first under judges or deliverers, the second under David, and the third under Solomon. It is interesting for me to see that, in depicting the standards of the tribes, Jewish artists portray a lion on the standard of judah. Early Jewish Christians referred to Jesus as "the lion of the tribe of judah."
What is the scepter? Whatever it was, it was not to depart from the tribe of judah until the Shiloh came. The word shebet signifies primarily "rod" or "staff." It was employed for that with which a master might beat a slave (Exodus 21:20); for a father to punish his son (Proverbs 23:13); for a farmer to beat out his grain (Isaiah 28:27); and for a shepherd to herd and mark his sheep (Leviticus 27:32).
Since a king carried a short rod or staff as a badge of authority, shebet is also translated "scepter" in passages like Psalm 45:6. Thus it came to be applied to the rulers, and then by extension to the tribes over which they ruled or presided. No doubt this stemmed from the phenomenon described in Numbers 17:2, 3. A dispute had arisen over Aaron's exclusive right to the special priesthood. God instructed the head of each tribe to take a rod and write his name upon it. The rods were collected by Moses and laid up in the tabernacle all night. The next morning it was found that Aaron's rod had budded, blossomed, and produced almonds. The right of the tribe of Levi to the priesthood was thus decided. The word for "rod" gradually began to be applied to the tribes. It came to be the symbol of tribal identity. I believe it is in that sense it is used here. The intimation is that some of the tribes would lose their identity before the Shiloh came. They would disappear or be amalgamated, but the tribe of Judah would be identifiable. A consequence of this is of tremendous significance. It follows logically that if the tribal identity of Judah can be established no longer, if the tribe itself cannot be isolated, and if Jews cannot prove their tribal relationship to it, the Shiloh must have come. If the existence of a thing, state, or condition is made contingent upon the coming of a certain person or event, it would seem that when that thing or state no longer exists, it is prima facie evidence that the other has come.
The staff of tribal identity would not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver go forth from between his feet, until Shiloh came. "Lawgiver" is from mehokek, as you know. It refers to a maker of statutes, a teacher of legal precepts. All of us are aware that Moses, who pronounced statutes, judgments, and commandments to the people, was of the tribe of Levi. When Israel wanted knowledge of the law they did not go to Judah. They went to the priests and Levites. No maker of statutes ever proceeded from the loins of Judah, and none was to do so until Shiloh arrived. This suggests that the Shiloh would be a teacher of commandments and that He would supersede Moses. The statutes would come from Judah and not from Levi. We can see how important the Shiloh was to be.
Let me make a positive statement, and you may feel free to examine it at your leisure. All believers in the revelation of God among the ancient Jews unqualifiedly accepted this as a Messianic prediction. The chief of the Targumists actually translated it thus. The Chaldean Version rendered it, "One having principality shall not be taken from the house of Judah, nor a scribe from his children's children, until the Messiah come, whose the kingdom is." The Jerusalem Targum renders it, "Kings shall not fail from the house of judah, nor skilful [sic] doctors of the law from their children's children, till the time when King Messiah shall come."
While I differ from the interpretation placed on some of the phraseology by the ancient Targumists, we are in absolute agreement that the reference is to the coming of the Messiah.
Please pardon this interruption. I am a visitor today and am not a Jew. I do not know what you mean by the Targums.
You are certainly welcome, and so is your question. The word targum is an Aramaic term meaning "interpretation." When Hebrew ceased to be spoken generally by the Jews in Babylon and Palestine, and was supplanted by Aramaic, the common people could not understand the Scriptures in the original. Accordingly, the scribes and teachers began to paraphrase in the Aramaic tongue, and these paraphrases were used for study and instruction the synagogues. The Targums are explanations of the meaning of Scriptures as understood in that day. But the Targumists relied upon tradition as well as the written word.
Only a small portion of the great mass of oral Targums survived. Those that did furnish us material on many parts of the Scriptures. The Jerusalem Targum, from which I quoted, is an incomplete one on the Pentateuch. It is important because it establishes the fact that the traditional and accepted view of Genesis 49:10 was that the Shiloh was to be the Messiah.
Now, what is the meaning of Shiloh? The root shalah means "to be quiet, secure, or peaceful." The Shiloh was to be the pacifier, the peacemaker. He was the one who would reconcile, mediate, and produce tranquillity. I happen to believe that the aged Jacob was permitted by Heaven to foretell the coming of Him who would be God's agent for restoring peace and harmony. This peacemaker was to come from the tribe of Judah. He was to succeed Moses as a statute-bringer. With His coming, tribal differences and distinctions would pass away.
I submit to you that the Shiloh was to be a person, not a system, organization, or ethical code of values. The patriarch was explicit. To him would the gathering of the people be. I concur with all of the Jewish interpreters of yesterday, the wise men of old, that the Shiloh was to be the Messiah, God's anointed one, bringing peace and reconciliation to a ripped-off world. I cannot see how anyone reading objectively can deduce logically that it speaks of anything but a person who was to come and achieve the divine purpose. I realize that I am reading it some twenty centuries after Jesus came, but I trust that I am not reading back into it merely my own yearnings.
The arrangement of God with your fathers was temporary. The covenant given at Mount Sinai never was intended to be universal or timeless. It was to lead and protect those who believed in monotheism until the great Lawgiver and Peacemaker should arrive. Tribal distinctions were not merely arbitrary or capricious. They were purposeful and prophetic. The standard of Judah would not disappear until the scion of David came. Moses would be eclipsed by the Messiah. The love of law would give way to the law of love. If Jacob spoke the truth, and if the Shiloh of whom he spoke was the Messiah, no Jew can be faithful to Jacob and refuse to accept the Messiah when He is identified.
What you have said today may interest a student of the Torah, which I'm not. But so far you haven't said one thing to convince me that the Messiah was Jesus, and I don't think you can.
Thank you for your statement. Bless your heart, I'd feel a lot better if you were a student of the Torah. I am sure you study your insurance manuals, for you are a successful broker. But the Torah was given to help men live, and an insurance salesman ought to be especially interested in that. But please remember that in these statements I did not set out to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. My task, based upon the prior question, was to show that the Messiah was to be a person, not a system or cultural code. If the Messiah was not to be a person, it would be absurd to point to any person as the Messiah. When Moses Mendelssohn, the "German Socrates," translated the Torah and other sections of the Bible into German in 1783, he paved the way for the Jews to rid themselves of their ghetto parochialism and enter the European community, where they imbibed the modern spirit. Unfortunately, as I view it, this first modern champion of Jewish emancipation had become the captive of German rationalism, and opened the door for modernism as well as for modern living. There is a difference between being rational and being rationalistic. The first is the correct exercise of the mental powers; the second is the exercise of a definite bias in the use of those powers.
Mendelssohn laid the foundation upon which Abraham Geiger advanced the reform movement while serving as rabbi in Breslau, from 1840 to 1863. A majority of you are affiliated with this school of thought, and no longer regard the Torah as a real law from God. You seek only ethical considerations, and while I am sure some of you would deny it, in the final analysis you make every man his own Torah. You no longer look for a personal Messiah, but are content to believe that peace and brotherhood will result from universal dissemination of the principles and attitudes embraced in Jewish thought. This is your "Messiah."
If you will be patient and understanding of my bluntness, I would like to say I am persuaded that you will not only resent any proof I may present that Jesus is the Messiah, but some of you will resist the very thought of a personal Messiah. Neither resentment nor resistance will change my feeling toward you, nor diminish my love for you. Dr. Marcus Bach wrote a book entitled The Will To Believe. I suppose we must take into account that the negative corollary to this is the will not to believe. I do not have a desire to impose my own convictions upon you. What I propose to do is to lay out before you the basis of my own faith. You can then examine it and determine if it is valid. The final judge for all of us is the God of glory.
If you come to believe that the promised Messiah was a person, it seems to me that you will either need to accept the claim of Jesus to be that Messiah, or surrender your hope. If Jesus is not the Messiah, there will never be another who can stake out a claim to that right. Jesus fulfilled the prophecies as no other ever did or can. Alfred Edersheim was a learned Jew who came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. In September 1883, in a preface to his volumes, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, he wrote, "Lord, to whom shall we go? The words of eternal life hast Thou!"
It seems to me it would be impossible for any person now to establish his own descent from the tribe of judah. Not one of you present can identify yourself as to your original tribal ancestry. I know that Mr. Cohen, who sits at the table, can argue from his name, which means "priest," that he must be a descendant of the tribe of Levi. But that cannot be proven in view of the fact that the conquerors of the Jews imposed upon them priests from other tribes. In some cases, the Jews themselves chose people from other tribes to minister because those of the tribe of Levi refused to mingle idolatry with service to the true and living God. The scepter has departed from Judah. Surely, then, the Shiloh has come.
Is it not strange that the first persons on earth to accept the claims of Jesus were all Jews? They had seen Him personally. They knew His life and works. Thousands of them from every walk of life pledged their allegiance to Him. Many priests, the teachers of the Torah and the arbiters of the people, embraced the faith that was first proclaimed only to Jews and by Jews. If those who knew Him best accepted Him, upon what ground can those who know Him least reject Him? Surely we cannot argue that these Jews were ignorant. They were not a mere rabble. They knew of the schools of Shammai and Hillel, taught in the temple precincts. Every synagogue was a school where the sacred teachings were inculcated. Both the promises of God and the traditions of the rabbis relating to the Messiah were freely discussed. In regarding Jesus as the Messiah, I am not anti-Jewish. Instead, I take my place with the thousands of Jews who were part of the Messianic synagogues.
It is indeed regrettable that we have allowed ourselves to be maneuvered into opposing camps. Each of us needs the insights of all the rest of us. All of us are smarter than any one of us! What do we have to lose by sitting at the same table and bending our heads together over the pages of the Torah, seeking to drink deep of the waters of life? I revere the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I accept Him as the one God. I regard every word that He addressed to your fathers as sacred. Though they may be your fathers in the flesh, they are my fathers in faith. It is because of these Scriptures that I regard Jesus as the Messiah. I have no strange volume from which to draw my conclusions. I read from the same text that you read from every Sabbath and is taught in your temple Sunday schools.
My time is expired, and I apologize for running over a little bit. But before I close, let me remind you that I have the other part of the question that was posed, which is to give my reasons for believing that the ethical values of Judaism, great as they are, can never secure peace and brotherhood in the world. In this regard it does not fall behind or show itself to be inferior to any code of human behavior on earth. In fact, I regard it as God-given. I respect it for what it has accomplished in the lives of those who have subscribed to it. I will deal with this further. Until we meet again, then, may the God who created Heaven and earth and all things therein be your shield and buckler. May He lead you beside still waters. May He lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. Shalom!