Interview with a Chasidic Jew

The following is an assignment for a class I'm taking on missions. This week's topic was religious/cultural differences, so part of the assignment was visiting a mosque, temple or synagogue and also doing an interview with a follower of a major world religion different from mine. I don't know if anyone cares to read this, but this is the "interview" I conducted with a Chasidic Jew (orthodox fundamentalist) here in Spokane last night. 

            During my visit to the synagogue Chabad of Spokane I dialogued for about 25 minutes with Mosheh (Moses in the Hebrew pronunciation) about Judaism. Mosheh is either the rabbi’s assistant or perhaps training to be a rabbi. I was a bit unsure of his exact place in the community other than the fact that he was there by the rabbi’s request to set up chairs and pray his own prayers there in the rabbi’s absence. Mosheh is a Chasidic Jew in the only fundamentalist Jewish community in Spokane. He is probably 35-40 years of age, married and has children. Because the Friday evening service was canceled I offered to help Mosheh set up chairs for the Sabbath morning service so I could get a chance to interview him. I did not pose the conversation as an interview and I used no pen and paper. I simply told Mosheh that I wanted to expose myself to Judaism as it is my root heritage as a Christian, and I let him talk. He was very open and friendly and was also very knowledgeable of Christian theology.

            The most interesting thing Mosheh said early in the interview was that some of the visitors (along with Buddhists, evangelicals, unitarians, hindus and others) they receive are what they call Noahides, which are gentiles who are not Jewish converts, but are followers of the 7 mandates to gentiles given to Noah after the flood. These are the things God expects, and therefore that Jews expect, of non-Jews in order to be considered decent citizens of humanity. Mosheh did not address the after-life destination of Noahides or gentiles in general.

            For Mosheh, and that community, the Law is a very real, very heavy set of requirements that governs every aspect of their daily lives. As fundamentalists they believe the Law means what it says (in this way he said that they are the "evangelicals" of Judaism) do not drive on Sabbath and they keep the kosher laws, etc. Their view of themselves as law-keepers and the rest of the world as non-law keepers is a “to each his own” sort of attitude. "It's not for everyone," Mosheh said. God did not give the Law to gentiles, therefore gentiles should not be expected to act like Jews at all, so there is no anti-gentile mentality among these particular Jews.

             Mosheh grew up Jewish and went through the Jewish rites at the proper ages. I asked him about conversion, since he mentioned there was a formal, proper conversion process. This was very interesting. He said that the Law (he did not give reference, so I suspect this is Mishna or Talmud) teaches rabbis to discourage converts. Not only is there several years of education (and circumcision if necessary) that are part of the process, but also Mosheh said “If you went to this rabbi here and told him that you wanted to convert, he would probably tell you to forget about it and come back in a year. He’d tell you to go away and live in a Jewish community for a few years. The Law is so complex and difficult to follow, who would want to burden themselves with all this law?!” Did you catch that last statement? Think about that one for a bit.

            Regarding the Messiah, obviously Mosheh informed me that the Jews are “still waiting.” Interestingly, he did say, however, that it was possible that the Messiah could come and the Jews could be wrong. He left room for them to be in error. Therefore, a running joke exists among the Jews that when the Messiah arrives the first question they will ask Him is “Is this your first visit?” About Jesus and the Jews’ idea of Messiah, Mosheh said, “There are some real differences between your guy and our guy. Not to say that He didn’t do some amazing things, but he didn’t do everything we were told he was supposed to do.” When asked to clarify, he said that among the things Jesus didn’t accomplish that he should have are world peace and rebuilding the temple. Let that simmer a bit...more to follow.

            Throughout this conversation the dominant theme that colored the whole conversation was law. Mosheh’s comment about who would want to burden themselves under so much law was very telling, and very eye-opening. It reminded me of Paul’s comment about Judaizers burdening people with Law when Christ had set them free. Although Mosheh was clearly a very passionate Jew, and I’m sure enjoyed being a devote Jew, what lacked was the effect of the radical love of God through Christ’ substitutionary atonement. Mosheh’s life revolved around trying to keep the Law. It very much seemed like religion in the dark. No light. No real answered prayer.  At one point he said, “The Law is very difficult to keep.” My un-verbalized thought was, “Very difficult? Try impossible, which is why God had to do it for you.”

            The other thing Mosheh said that was fascinating was in regard to the things Jesus did not accomplish while he was here. After reading both Old and New Testaments it is clear that the Jews, for the most part, did not grasp the concept of two advents from the prophecy they had. It was there, but did not become explicit until the New Testament’s further revelation on the old prophecies. It is here that Jews and evangelicals agree: Jesus, while He was here on earth, did not accomplish everything the prophets said He would. But not because Jesus is not the Messiah, but because He is coming back to accomplish the rest (1000 years of peace and rebuilding the temple).  I wish I was in a position where I could communicate to Jews the liberty that comes from following Christ, being liberated from the law, which only arouses sin and not life.