One concern that keeps showing up is the need to make Judaism relevant for today’s world. Judaism is committed to 16th century Rabbi Yosef Karo’s book Shulchan Aruch (Set Table) that regulates every aspect of Jewish life. The grip of this book on Jewish life is so strong that challenging it is perceived as questioning Judaism itself. It therefore takes courage to publicly call for a kind of revolution in Halacha (Jewish Law).
Menachem Nabet is one among quite a few young Orthodox Jews who challenge many traditional concepts that freeze Jewish life. As an Orthodox social media activist, whose posts and blogs attract thousands of people, Nabet is a Yeshiva (seminary) student whose influence must be reckoned with.
In a post a few years back, Nabet challenged the Jewish way of reading the Bible only through the eyes of medieval sages like Rashi, which detaches the text from the places, events and cultures that shaped it. Reading the Bible through traditional lenses, justified as it was, turns its heroes into imagined, mythical figures. Jews, stressed Nabet, have left the Scriptures wide open to the textual criticism of secular scholars, many of whom were reacting to the traditional religious interpretations.
Further, by blocking direct access to the biblical text, Jews are crippling the value of their own sacred tradition. It is the direct reading of the Bible that can enable Jews to “approach our religious existence in more original, meaningful, real and honest way…In contrast to the efforts of secular biblical scholars, we must bring God back to the center…and try and get rid of the ever-present attempts to find hidden, egoistic and political meanings behind the stories.”
However, he emphasized that this does not mean everyone can interpret the Bible as he or she pleases. Such an approach turns the sacred into the banal, which in turn leads to abandoning the absolute nature of the Torah.
Responding to the many questions his post elicited, Nabet clarified that his objective is not to demean the Bible. “My intention,” he write in a Facebook post, “is that Judaism is mature enough not to be shackled to the petty questions of ‘true or false.’ Instead, [my approach] invites us to a much higher, independent place whose origin is in a living tradition rather than a dead letter…The calling…to study the Bible itself [will enable us] to go out from the dead to the living letter.”
It looked to me as if the phraseology Nebet used was taken from the Apostle Paul’s statement in Corinthians 3:16, “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” So, I asked this Yeshiva student if there is any Jewish parallel to Paul’s idea of the letter that kills.
“I took the idea of dead letter from the New Testament,” he said. “I do not know of any parallel in our Jewish sources.”
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2 responses to “Is ‘the Letter Kills, but the Spirit Gives Life’ a Jewish Idea?”
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So it is a Jewish idea. Rabbinic Judaism and its developments are a reaction to its rejection by the Lord. Christianity suffered the same rejection when it was Romanised but has since gone through reformation. Islam has no intention of going through reformation so Muslims are locked into a confrontation with divine providence.
Judaism has responded to reform on many occasions from the golden calf incident through to Ezra’s reforms and the Maccabees. It still has to come to terms with the fact that God gave the law to convict of sin not to make one righteous. The house needs cleaned before it can be decorated. Israel received the law on behalf of all humanity. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Judaism needs to acknowledge that salvation came through her Messiah Jesus Christ. He is the Passover Lamb given by God to take away the sins of the world, and in whom we can become righteous.
Thank you for your article. I found this sentence interesting, “It is the direct reading of the Bible that can enable Jews to “approach our religious existence in more original, meaningful, real and honest way…”
This sentence interested me for it is in reading the Bible that God reveals Himself to us. Exodus 23:20-23, where God speaks of His Angel, in whom is God’s name, who forgives our transgressions, and our need to obey Him, has helped me to understand God giving His Son, in whom is God’s name, who shed His blood for our transgressions, and our need to come to Him. Truly God’s love for us draws us to Him.