This has been a question that has been burning in my mind for a long time. When I read the Hebrew Bible (known also as the Old Testament by Christians), I am struck by how much it admonishes Israel. I do not think I have encountered any religious text that is as admonishing to its audience as the Bible. (Hashem is also shown as very loving and caring and protective; often among the very verses that admonish Israel Hashem announces how He will bring triumph and glory and honor and fabulous success to Israel. But this is not the aspect of Hashem I am concerned with here.)
As a Jew, how do you feel when you read such portions (whether personally or publically)? How is this attitude incorporated in your theology?
Background: I was going to make my sig “And they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people lightly, saying: ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 8:11, courtesy of the Hebrew/English Bible at Mechon-Mamre). But then I read the context it is in, and I realized I simply could not use that quote. Hashem directed this quote to the false prophets of Israel. In reading more of Jeremiah, I was struck by how angry Hashem was. If I were a Jew, I would have probably broke down and cried. And, actually, every time I come across any portion where Hashem is angry, a great fear and dread wells up within me. I excuse myself by saying that this may not apply to me (which is false since I do believe in the Hebrew Bible); but if I was in a covenant with Hashem, I would find myself struck dumb and in despair when I encountered such portions.
Ever since, I have wondered how Jews incorporate an angry Hashem, how they feel when Hashem is angry - how this is dealt with, basically, by Jews and Judaism.
WRS/Thû - “Reshis chokhmah, yiras Hashem” (Tehillim 111:10)/“The beginning of wisdom, is fear of Hashem” (Psalm 111:10).
I will not dare to speak for Jews, but let me point out one aspect. Amos was the first prophet whose writings have come down to us, and his style set the tone for what followed. And what he did was to take the classic prophetic stance of describing the offenses for which the God of Israel was angry with the Moabites, the Ammonites, and all the rest of the neighboring peoples – and then, startlingly, do the same thing about the Israelites and the Judahites.
As this whole thing evolved, the Israelites came to see themselves as collectively the favorite child of a perfectionist Father – while they were His collective favorite, He also held them to a higher standard, as an example to the others.
Well, the fact that our ancestors have sinned is historical fact. No amount of wishing on my part will change that. As such, when I read such passages, I try to learn from them so as to avoid some of the mistakes that were made.
An interesting sidenote to this topic is that there are many Jewish commentators who subscribe to the position that God does not have emotions in the way that you and I do. God does not become “angry” or “glad” or any of the other emotions that you and I have.
“Ah, Zev,” you will say to me, “what about all those passages in the Bible where it says that God was angry at so-and-so?”
The answer lies in the famous dictum that the Torah of dibrah Torah k’loshen b’nei adam – The Torah was written in the manner that men can understand it (anthropomorphicly – did I spell that word right?). For example, the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) talks of the “right hand of God.” Yet, all Jewish commentators clearly state that God has no hand, right or any other. So what then is “the right hand of God?” It’s either a metaphor or a way of expressing His relationship with the subject.
So, too, when God is “angry.” When the Bible says that God is angry at the people in Noah’s generation, at Bilaam, at Moses, at the Children of Israel, etc., it’s not that God is actually “angry.” Rather it’s a way to express to us in our own terms the relationship of God to the subject of the sentence.
Jews only believe that the actual wording of the Torah (the Pentatuch) is a direct revelation from God. The prophets, however, while Divinely inspired, are not the “direct word of God.”
IOW, when God gave a prophesy to Isaiah (or Jeremiah, or whomever – Moses excepted) and told them to preach unto Israel, God only gave them the concept of what they are to preach. The actual words and metaphors used (swords to plowshares, etc.) are the words of the prophet, not of God Himself. So, very often, the prophets will use words like “angry,” “wroth” or “happy” but mean it only in an anthropomorphic sense.
You’re exactly right. God isn’t mad at you or anyone else, now. In order to see this, one must get outside of the jewish box, and see “the mystery” of the apostle Paul’s revelation.
**" To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." ** (2 Cor 5:19) (KJV)
The reason for this is found in the next two verses:
**
" Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." ** (2 Cor 5:20-21)(KJV)
God put the sins of the whole world on his Son, Jesus Christ. Romans 3:25 says that God set forth Christ "to be a propitiation (an intrument of peace) through faith in his blood…"
The blood of Christ has made God to be reconciled to, and at peace with the world. The problem is, the world, by and large, won’t believe this, and therefore will not reconcile themselves to God.
Cute, but irrelevant. It’s very nice you believe that way, but it really has no bearing on jewish philosophy. Because, get this, Christians aren’t Jewish. Completely different religion with only very tangental relationships.
If you want to witness, please start your own thread.
Where do you get the idea from my post that I think Christians are Jewish? Quite the contrary. However, there’s a lot of them that think they are, so my post is not “irrelevant.” I encounter a lot of Christians–I’m a pastor–who believe they are “spiritual jews,” because they have been taught that the body of Christ is one and same as “spiritual Israel.” Because of this they are led to believe that they are under the ordinances of the Jewish law. My purpose is to point out, by scripture, that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal. 3:28), and that noone is justified by observing the law (practicing religion), but rather by “the faith of Christ” (Romans 3:20-22; Gal. 2:16). “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” (Gal. 2:21)
By the way, the rules of this particular part of the SD message board allow witnessing.
You’re allowed to start your own threads for witnessing or to express a religious opinion when asked but you’re also supposed to respect thread topics and recognize when only a specific group is being solicited.
I guess I’m used to assuming Hashem has passions (even though, strangely, the religion I grew up with was careful not to attribute anything human to Him).
From these interpretations I can see how one can incorporate and tolerate a supposedly angry Hashem. Zev, I especially appreciate you including the phrase “dibrah Torah k’loshen b’nei adam” - I was not aware of this concept in Jewish theology, and it does cast a different light on what’s in Nevi’im and Ketuvim (especially, for me, Shir haShirim - I always wondered how divrei Hashem could be so earthly; turns out, these are not literally divrei Hashem but, as you put it, divrei Hashem k’loshen b’nei adam.)
Polycarp - your words remind me of an oft-stated phrase: “a light to the Gentiles.” I suppose the parts of the Bible wherein Hashem seems angry might simply be an expression of His expectations and demands, as it were*, that His People take that role seriously.
*In one work - it may be Ephraim Urbach’s (shlit"a or z"l, whichever’s applicable) The Sages - it is written that the Sages and commentators thereof were careful to use the phrase “as it were” after any anthropomorphic or anthropopathic representation or statement about Hashem, to alert the reader that the phrase is used to describe an idea but not to attribute such human emotions or features to Him. That was useful to know.
It’s Christmas where I am and I hope all our friends of other faiths (or none) have a nice, peaceful day.
I do have a question though–if Hashem cannot be considered to have human emotions as we define them, which makes sense, does He love us? And if He does not get truly angry, then why do the more Orthodox spend their lives carefully trying to adhere to ancient laws, as to diet, fabrics, etc.? If He is above love and hate and all, then why would He be impressed by humans trying to show how much they love Him? (I’m not talking about just living a generous, kind life without harming others, something which most faiths agree on already as a good thing, but about keeping kosher, etc.)
This question is pretty incoherent, I know, but I just came from a huge and yummy Christmas dinner. I’ll check back on Sunday because I know asking questions of our more devout Jewish friends here on a Saturday is pretty pointless; but I myself will be pretty busy tomorrow.
The simplest answer to your question is that while God is not a human being, subject to human emotions, human characters, etc., the way in which He can be understood as a Person with whom human beings can interact is to represent Him in human terms. Since we don’t have a history of interaction with extraterrestrial aliens with alien motivations, what we know of Persons is necessarily of human persons.
So what God feels towards human beings is representable by agapetic love, a human emotion. The divine chastisement for error is represented by human wrath. And so on. The human being whom Christians believe to have been the Second Person of the Trinity incarnate as a human being used above all the metaphor of a loving Father to represent God in His relationship with us. While that’s obviously not Jewish, it echoes passages in the Tanakh where the closeness and compassion of God are evident; God as Heavenly Father is not a concept false to Judaism.
In Judaism, we are commanded to love God, but there is no traditional concept of God “loving” us in the way that there is with Christianity. The biblical image of Israel being God’s first-born (in the sense of the first people who came to believe in Him) is fairly consistent (through multiple writers and many centuries), but God is primarily portrayed as Creator, Judge/King, and Parent.
Again, echoing zev’s earlier comments, this is viewed by most commentators (certainly modern ones) as meaning that we have no way of really understanding a transcendent God, and so we use anthropomorphic terms.
Simple example, and back to the topic: if God knows every action before it happens, how can He possibly be “angry” or “wrathful” at human error that he knows is going to occur? It’s basically not an emotion that we can begin to comprehend, but we have no words that can describe the “reactions” of a transcendent, infinite, omniscient being.
JMS, do be careful here. The belief that Judaism was “dead” and that Christianity is the “renewal” or “new” Israel is a pernicious one, and has been used through the ages by anti-semites to try to denigrate and demean Jews/Judaism. It has been used to argue that the present-day Jews are somehow “false”, that the Jewish claims to the land of Israel are non-historical, that Jewish identity and religion are non-historical.
It’s not unlike saying that blacks are “cursed” by their skin color into a subservient position.
I’m not suggesting you do this, but I’d like to encourage you to continue to stop your congregants from thinking such thoughts.
Perhaps a better way of saying what I attempted to. Thanks, Dex!!
A cautionary note for Jewish Dopers here: While what Dex says is emphatically true for the folks who are substitutionary dispensationalists, believing that God “gave up” on the Jews and called the faithful Gentiles, i.e., the Church, to replace them as His favorites, there are other viewpoints that deal with “the New Israel” concept that are nowhere near as pernicious.
E.g., God took one people and worked with them to have them serve as examples of what a people devoted to Him should be. In the fullness of time, He extended His grace to all people, as prophesied in Isaiah, bringing them into a greater and closer relationship with Him along with the faithful Jews, in one great extended family incorporating the whole human race.
I don’t want to get into the intricacies of Christian theology dealing with the Covenant with the Jews – a lot of stuff, some small amount of which actually makes sense, has been written on the subject. But it’s wise to (a) take Dex’s caution seriously, but (b) don’t overreact – what’s being said may not be what he warns of. Listen carefully, and react accordingly.
Thanks for your comments, all! (I appreciate Polycarp’s point that Amos basically set the tone for future prophets.)
This is beginning to make a bit more sense to me.
Now, if Hashem were without passions, what use are the prophetic passages admonishing Israel? Why would such fear-inducing statements be uttered? Basically: what’s their point? (I’m sorry if this has been answered before.)
Amongst Jews, what is the primary reason for obeying the commandments: fear or love of Hashem?
(One reason why I love the SDMB is because of Dopers like C K Dexter Haven and zev_steinhardt, amongst others, who can so wonderfully expound on and explain Judaism.)
I don’t know what exactly bothers you about it, though. Is it that God gets angry?