David Stern's Critic on Bauch's book Dear Udi and friends, This is a copy of David Stern's critic of Baruch Maoz'' book "Judaism is not Jewish." I am still in deep correspondance with Baruch Maoz on the slander and distortion that he has written about me in his book. I have not published yet all the copy of the correspondance because I am waiting to see what he will be willing to do to reslove the issues and repent and change the book and write a letter of retraction and appology. God be with you and give you a wonderful year for 5764, Joseph Shulam ON BARUCH MAOZ’S BOOK JUDAISM IS NOT JEWISH David H. Stern, September 6, 2003 [1751 words] Since this is not meant to be a complete review of Baruch Maoz’s book, I will deal briefly with only four topics: (1) how he has chosen the book’s title (foolishly), (2) how he handles theological ideas (dishonestly), (3) how he handles facts (carelessly), and (4) how he argues for the book’s main point (unconvincingly). The most bothersome thing about this bothersome book is its title. I know that book titles are marketing devices aimed at increasing sales and therefore are sometimes intended to shock, but Baruch’s choice of this title reflects a severe sense of alienation from the real world or a Humpty-Dumpty attitude toward words, or both. Every Jew has to answer for himself the question, “What is a Jew?” Growing up in Reform Judaism, our tenth-grade teacher used a book offering four possible answers: a religious group, a race, a nation or a nationality (defined as a nation in a cultural rather than political sense). He also offered the possibility that rather than being any one of these, we are partly all of them, and used such terms as “civilization,” “community” and “people” to describe such an amalgam. The idea was that we teenage Jews needed to reach our own conclusions. Most of us agreed that all these elements were necessary for any satisfactory and realistic definition of “Jew.” But Baruch Maoz does not see this. Nor does he see that the public, both Jews and non-Jews, in fact define Judaism. Nor does he see that non-Messianic Judaism (or, as he calls it, rabbinic Judaism) contributes materially to the complex of meanings evoked by the word “Judaism.” Nor does he see that various Jews may come up with various definitions which may not be consistent with each other, and yet they all remain Jews by one or more of these definitions. Nor does he see that history and society at large determine how words are used. Instead, like Humpty-Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, he thinks words can mean whatever he wants them to mean, without a care for what others do in fact mean by them. He doesn’t even do us the courtesy of defining “Judaism” or indicating what his sources are for the meaning he attempts to foist on the rest of us. Only thus can he state what is so obviously and obnoxiously false, that Judaism is not Jewish. He could make a case that some of rabbinic Judaism is contrary to Scripture. He could make a case that being Jewish without knowing Messiah Yeshua is not enough to save. He could make a case that some adherents of Judaism are infected by pride -- and he does make all of these claims at various points in the book, with varying degrees of cogency. However, these same points can be made about any religion – Christianity included. The claim that Judaism is not Jewish is a complete non-starter – unless the title is only an awkward attempt to sound cute and attract attention. But if that was his purpose, he should have called his book Christianity is not Christian and gotten even more attention. Making Judaism the whipping-boy is exactly what antisemites in the Church have done throughout history. Therefore this book title is an insult – but not mainly to his intended audience, the Messianic movement, of whom he says he is making “a friendly critique,” as he puts it in his subtitle. Rather, it is a provocation to non-Messianic Jews. Why should he want to do this? As the Hebrew expression has it, Mah lo v’lahem, “what is it between him and them?” – why should he want to provoke them when he has stated that his purpose is to correct errors of Messianic believers, not of non-Messianic Jews? I just don’t get it. It opens him and Jewish believers generally to a charge of antisemitism from non-Messianic Jews. Does he need this? Do we? I’m already halfway through this article, and I’ve only dealt with the title. Obviously, I won’t have space to handle this book’s many inaccuracies and misconstructions. Rather, by examining in some detail a couple of typical ones, I will try to show how serious are the errors and misuses of materials that Baruch makes; and I feel safest in pointing out his intellectual dishonesty when he deals with me and what I have written. On page 110, he writes, “David Stern … insists, ‘the Torah is in force and is to be observed’ (Messianic Jewish Manifesto, … p. 102). In his Jewish New Testament he translates Hebrews 7:12 as ‘there must of necessity be a transformation of Torah’ and explains in his Manifesto, ‘A transformation of Torah does not imply its abolition’ only that it is ‘adjusted’. David further argues in his Manifesto, p. 160, that the dietary laws are still in force and that ‘nothing in Galatians 2:11-14 can be construed to imply that the Jewish dietary law shall not be observed’. Indeed, ‘when the Jewish people become obedient and cease to break the covenant, God will fulfill his promise to bless them as a nation’ (Manifesto, p. 100).” From this he concludes I am saying that “not conversion is here called for, or faith in Jesus, but an observance of the Torah,” and claims this is in contrast to Hebrews 7:18-22. His dealing with my three texts from Manifesto and the one from the Jewish New Testament is a typical example of how Baruch (1) intentionally chooses and manicures texts to serve his predetermined purpose without taking the context into account, especially if the context contradicts that purpose, and (2) assigns his own meanings to the texts he thus cites, thus obliterating the intended meaning of the writer (me). In this case, the cited portion of Hebrews 7:12 carefully excludes the rest of the verse, which supports my interpretation, not his. The verse in its entirety reads, “For if the system of cohanim [priests] is transformed, there must of necessity occur a transformation of Torah.” Here the writer of Hebrews is showing that in order for Yeshua to be our cohen gadol [high priest], there has to be a change in the part of the Torah which specifies that the high priest must come from the tribe of Levi, since Yeshua is from a different tribe, Judah. It does not require the total abolition of the Torah. One cannot prove from Hebrews that the Torah has been abolished. Moreover, Baruch’s conclusion contradicts both Yeshua’s statement in Matthew 5:17-20 that he did not come to abolish the Torah and Paul’s in Galatians 3:15 ff., showing that a later covenant cannot cancel an earlier one. On the contrary, the writer of Hebrews, in the immediately preceding verse (7:11), refers to the giving of the Torah by the same Greek word (nenomothetetai) as he uses twenty-three verses later at 8:6, where he asserts, in contrast to Baruch, that the New Covenant itself “has been given as Torah.” (This translation rather than the more usual “has been established” is defended in Manifesto and in greater detail in the Jewish New Testament Commentary discussion of that verse. Likewise, in these two books I show that Galatians 2:11-14 does not cancel the biblical food laws; rather it ranks their importance in the New Covenant framework as less than the importance of undisturbed fellowship among believers. But Baruch ignores all this – it does not support his claims about what I “insist.” If the New Covenant makes itself part of Torah, I cannot imagine Baruch would say that it is not to be obeyed on the ground that Torah is no longer in force! Just as the U. S. constitution is not abolished by being amended, neither is the constitution of the Jewish people received at Sinai abolished by being amended. I make this very point – and once again Baruch ignores it – on page 102 of Manifesto in the second half of the very sentence he quotes! Even Jewish disobedience to the Mosaic Covenant does not break it, because Scripture cannot be broken – disobedience does not obligate God to abolish it. All of this is clear as spring water in Manifesto, but Baruch chooses not to deal with what I wrote there. This strikes me as an intentionally illegitimate and unfair use of my words. Not only in matters of exegesis and theology is Baruch careless, but also in matters of fact. Consider the mistakes in only six pages of his book (pp. 321-326). He tells us that the Hebrew Christian/Messianic Jewish Alliance of America was formed in 1930 (p. 321), in 1915 (p. 322; this is correct), and in 1986 (p. 325); in the last place he says it has “daughter alliances in 16 other countries,” whereas in fact it has none. He dates the formation of the Young Hebrew Christian Alliance to 1967 (p. 324) and 1965 (p. 325 – here as the Young Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, a name actually adopted in the 1970’s). He gives the maiden name of Manny Brotman’s wife Sandra Sheskin as “Sheila Shishkin” (p. 325). On this same page he says the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations was founded “in the mid-1970’s”; on the next page he correctly dates its founding to 1979. Turning to what seems to be Baruch’s main point in this book: for 400 pages he mind-numbingly batters us with his opinion that Messianic Judaism insists that obedience to rabbinic traditions is a matter of biblical necessity, required by God of Jewish believers. As one spokesman for Messianic Judaism, I can say with absolute conviction that I insist on no such thing. Nor do I do so in any of my books. In Manifesto (pp. 140-145) I address the question, “Should Messianic Jews keep the Torah as understood in Orthodox Judaism?” and offer five possible answers: (1) “Absolute Yes,” (2) “It is Desirable,” (3) “It is Indifferent,” (4) “It is Undesirable,” and (5) “Absolutely Not.” Most Messianic Jews hold to the middle of the spectrum, positions (2), (3) and (4). Very, very few profess (1), and it is unfair to tar the whole movement with this view – a red herring. As for me, I do not press for one answer or another but invite the reader to think about the question – as my Reform Jewish teacher encouraged us to think about the definition of “Jew.” More thinking and less shouting – that’s what I would ask from Baruch and from all of us Jewish followers of Yeshua, whether we call ourselves Jewish Christians or Messianic Jews.