“Gay Rights” Confused With “Human Rights”

by Rabbi CohenRabbi Cohen 

[ Human  Rights Speech: Geneva: HRC - http://bcove.me/qs3211sh ]

This speech by US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is an excellent representation of the confusion present in the ethical discussion regarding “Gay Rights.” The issue of the “human rights” of LGTB persons is a different topic from the “rightfulness of” birth-gender abrogation by choice, itself. I support “gay rights” as the struggle to insure the human rights of no person of any disposition are breached; but as an adherent to the authority of the Scriptures to define sound ethics, I cannot find room within the Scripturally-defined zone of rightful human conduct to approve the specific conduct inherent in birth-gender abrogation by choice.

It may be informative to point out that the recently deceased dean of Harvard Divinity School, the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, “came out” as a person with homosexual predispositions – but acknowledged also that he could not find in his understanding of The Scriptures ethical approbation to act upon those dispositions. The path he found or chose to resolve this conflict was to live in celibacy: others personally known to me, not guess work or rumor, but specific persons known to me, have chosen to turn away from homosexual conduct into heterosexual life. These are polar examples of resolution – there are paths leading to these choices, and I will not do LTGB people the disservice of reducing them in so brief a space as this. There are many gender-related dispositions humans must tame rather than simply follow: and society expects them to do so.

The idea that, simply because a person claims to feel a certain inclination, he or she must be given the freedom to act upon it, does not really stand up to close scrutiny. Merely name-calling persons not giving such approval – labeling them “phobes” (people with fears so irrational as to constitute mental illness) does not really obtain as an argument. A referee in a formal debate would invalidate such a tactic as “ad hominem” (attacking the person, not the idea the person is advocating) and would demand a return from name-calling to actual discussion of ideas.

Just because there is a constituency desiring a certain thing, does not automatically place a demand upon the rest of society to approve that desire. If the rest of the world of humans interacting with their sexual natures must practice restraint, selectivity, and self-denial – how successful a public relations campaign we have witnessed, having across the last forty years created an ethos demanding of us all, under penalty of being labeled medieval at best, and psychopathic at worst, that we approve a zone of behavior many across the eons have believed is a violation of the order of creation, or a sin against the will of a Creator?

May men and women of all nations not have an opinion any longer than something is simply wrong?

The human rights of LGTB should be as sacrosanct as any others. But there is no “human right” of mandatory universal approval. We should not be able to slander (publicly name-call) people into acquiescence to matters of morality with which they sincerely disagree.

We can be for Gay Rights – and against gay conduct.

That is not contradictory: it successfully “renders unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God, what is God’s.”

At least, in this one rabbi’s opinion.

 

Rabbi Bruce L. Cohen

8 December 2011  New York City

A Great and Terrible Day

by Rabbi CohenRabbi Cohen 

A GREAT AND TERRIBLE DAY

“Yom Gadol V’Norah”
The Shalit Prisoner Exchange
Yesterday, the entire world changed.
It seems to me, not all that many have noticed.
The entire western world is, on October 18, 2011, entirely and forever different from the world on 17th of October of this year.
I am a Jew and an Israeli citizen. I am the father of two Jewish, Israeli sons: I am keenly aware of the pain it must have caused the family and friends of Gilad Shalit to live through the anguish of Gilad’s five years in kidnapped imprisonment. I fully and sincerely rejoice with them and the entire Israeli nation at his return. As the Naomi Shemer song “Al Kol Eyleh” muses, “ha-dvash … ha-matok” – this part is, indeed, ” the honey and the sweet.”
But Shemer also wrote of, “ha-oketz … ha-mar.” “The stinger and the bitter. Once the euphoria over Shalit’s return subsides, the following reality lingers: Israel has now reversed what was until yesterday its bedrock national security policy: “Israel does not negotiate with terrorists.”
Israel now does negotiate with terrorists: and trades at the horrifying exchange rate of 1000 to 1. A thousand to one.
The result is inevitable – and materialized nearly instantly yesterday, as soon as a newly freed Palestinian murderer got near a microphone. He said elatedly into a camera, “Our freedom fighters (the kidnappers who stole Shalit) have shown the way, by forcing the Zionist oppressor to release us against his will! I now call on all who resist the Zionist oppressor to follow in the way that the mudjahadin (holy warriors, who kidnapped Shalit) have shown us, to get all our brothers released by the Zionist oppressor!”
Translation into plain language: Palestinians should now go into high gear kidnapping Israelis, and engineer similar deals to get terrorists, murderers, kidnappers, and other high criminals set free contrary to justice, at a rate of 1000 to 1. For every Israeli kidnapped, they should get a thousand convicted murderers and conspirators to mass-murder set free.
The sweet is immensely sweet.
The bitter is unimaginably bitter.
It seems highly possible to me that Gilad Shalit will be kidnapped a second time, just to rub Israel’s nose in this defeat. They may steal him again, and again take him into hiding – and again demand more murderers be freed. They will, for certain, steal away more Israeli youths as soon, and in as great numbers, as they possibly can succeed in so doing.
The only two ways out of this for Israel will bring unimaginable international condemnation.
It is a given in law that a contract made under duress is null and void.
You cannot put a pistol to the head of someone’s child, and tell the parent, “Sign this contract selling me your home worth one million dollars for one thousand dollars” (a thousand to one  rate) – and then show up in court, claiming “a contract is a contract.” and condemn the extorted home-owner from reneging on the deal. If the signature and agreement were obtained under duress – it is a null and void contract. It is not a contract at all.
Israel should invoke international law and refuse to release one more prisoner, and re-capture and re-confine every prisoner who was taken by correct military and/or civil due process.
A kidnapper/murderer who obtains a contract by applying extortion as the means to obtain the contract has no rights – except those accorded to felons being tried for kidnapping and murder.
The second course available is the one Golda Meir took against the terrorists who killed the Israeli Olympic Athletes in the Munich Olympic Village attack: send Mossad assassination teams out to kill every single one of the duly-convicted murderers released yesterday: and convey the unofficial message that to be released by a Shalit style extortion is a certain death sentence.
Either course of action would bring the full weight of international sanction against Israel.
Abiding by this nightmarish, extortion-based deal will guarantee a wave of similar crimes.
Israel now exists in a world that is sitting by, pouring out uncondemning press reportage as if kidnapping and extortion is a fine way to do business. The world has approved the kidnapping of Israelis and the use of extortion to achieve political goals – just as long those tools are directed at – you guessed it – Jews.
I have never felt more like I am living in pre-Nazi Germany-type world than I do this morning.
I read the New York Times coverage of the Shalit Exchange – I view CNN’s coverage of it – and I remind myself of what Jabotinsky, Begin, Ben-Gurion, and many others said, all the way back to Theodor Herzl’s realization watching the French mockery of justice that convicted Captain Alfred Dreyfus, and started the modern Zionist Movement: “no one will help the Jews but the Jews. For that reason we must become “a free people in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
This morning, we all need to sing “HaTikvah” – and pray for God Almighty to rise up and make a way where there seems no way – for Jewish security and quality of life in the days to come.
May Heaven give the Israeli nation, and world-wide Jewish communities – immense wisdom for the days ahead. In this new world created just yesterday, they – and we all – are going to need it.
Rabbi Bruce Cohen
19 October 2011

Rosh HaShanah To Do List

by Rabbi CohenRabbi Cohen 

This is a practical follow-up to the blog “The Spiritual Alarm Clock Chimes” containing specifics on practice during this season of history in which Yom Teruah is being observed in most of the Jewish world as “Rosh HaShanah.”

1. How to greet people?
Feel free to say “Shanah tovah.”Shanah tovah” simply means “a good year.” It does not say “new” – that is implied. So, there is nothing wrong with wishing people “a good year.”
2. If you want to provoke interest in Atonement and lead to discussion of Two-Testament faith, or even  Yeshua as the Suffering Messiah …

… when someone says “Shanah tovah” to you on the two days of Talmudic Rosh HaShanah, you COULD answer, “Yom Teruah Mevorach.” (pronounced “yome     teh-ROO-ah    meh-vo-RAKH” … the emphasized syllables are capitalized for correct pronunciation. It means The word “mevorach” merely means “blessed.” You are wishing them a good holiday by its actual name.  [ FYI - the old Yiddish standard greeting on any holiday, "Gut Yontiff!" (goot yahn-TIFF) means simply, "A good holiday!" and also works fine for Rosh HaShanah. ]
3. Rosh HaShanah Symbols
Apples and honey are fine for holiday items because they symbolize hopes for good seasons and blessings during the cycles of holidays, among which Yom Teruah is included. But we should BE SURE to include a shofar – or image of one – at our Rosh HaShanah celebrations and meals and give it a prominent place, because it calls focus to the actual given Biblical meaning of the holiday.
Again – this can provoke conversation among those observing non-Biblical or anti-Biblical forms of Judaism, leading to … you guessed it … :-) … atonement … leading to Yeshua possibly becoming a focus of discussion.
I hope this helps you apply the teaching in the preceding blog.
So – Shanah tovah, Yom Teruah mevorach, and Gut Yontiff to all :-)
Rabbi Bruce L. Cohen
New York City
29 September 2011 – 1 Tishri 5772

THE SPIRITUAL ALARM CLOCK CHIMES

by Rabbi CohenRabbi Cohen 

THE SPIRITUAL ALARM CLOCK CHIMES

“Rosh HaShanah” is Actually “Yom Teruah”

 

Leviticus 23:24 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall you have a sabbath, a memorial by blowing of trumpets, a holy assembly.’”

 

We do not seek to be iconoclasts: we simply aspire to do what the Scriptures direct. However, in so doing, we often find ourselves shattering standard paradigms and embracing emphases not necessarily widespread among our People at present. We did not choose it, but as Kurt Vonnegut said, “So it goes.”

Throughout the world, our People will soon be observing what is commonly called, “Rosh HaShanah” – the Jewish New Year.

The Talmud states the following in TB Rosh HaShanah 2a:3-13:

“There are four new years. On the first of Nisan is the New Year for Kings and for Festivals. On the first of Elul is the new year for the tithe of cattle. R’Elezar and R’Simeon however, place this on the first of Tishri. On the first of Tishri is the new year for years, for release and Jubilee years, for planting and for the tithes of vegetables. On the first of Sh’vat is the new year for trees according to the ruling of the House of Shammai; however, Beth Hallel places it on the fifteenth of that month.”

I am sure you already see the ticklish thing for those of us adhering to Scripture as the core-standard of Judaism – how shall we put this delicately? The Scriptures directly state the Jewish New Year “for years” is on the other side of the year, in the spring month of Nisan.

Contemporary mainstream Judaism has selected a “new year for years” directly in contradiction to the Scripturally-declared new year “for years” in Exodus 12:2. Our standard, per Scripture (Deuteronomy 18 and Isaiah 8:20) is that the Scripture’s directives have final and absolute authority to define Judaism’s practices and doctrines.

It is not like the Scriptures are vague about it: “This month (Nisan) shall be for you (Israel) the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” (Exodus 12:2) The Hebrew states Nisan is to be “rosh ha-chodesh-eem” (head of the months), rishon hoo lachem l’chod’shay ha-shanah” (the first it is of the year’s months).”

So, nu? What is a God-following, Scripture-believing person to do?

We have a few choices.

We can hide from the contradiction. No – I don’t think so.

We can be completely instantaneous: we can boycott Rosh HaShanah as it is currently anti-Biblically practiced among our People due to the primacy of Talmudic influence over Scriptural influence during the past two millennia of our national religious life. Somehow, severing ourselves entirely does not seem in the spirit of our New Testament mandate not to abandon “the customs of our ancestors.” (Acts 21:18-25)

Or – we can adopt King Solomon’s paradigm in Ecclesiates 7:18 for incremental change: “it is good to grasp toward one thing while not letting go of the other. One who reveres God will come forth with all of them.”

Solomon is not advocating fear-based tolerance of compromise: he is advising engagement with the need for some changes to be incremental rather than instantaneous. As long as patience does not equal a moral compromise, we can consider such an approach.

 

The first day of Tishri is a Biblical holiday. We should observe it.

It is called, “Yom Teruah” – the Day of A Trumpet-Call.

We should mark it as such, even as we use contemporary nomenclature to allow the current Jewish world to relate to our observance of it.

It is a mandated shabbat of rest from vocational work.

We can do that.

It is the national spiritual alarm clock for the Jewish nation, signaling that Yom Kippur – the all important Day of Atonement – is a mere ten days away. In societies before electricity made instant communication possible, a span of ten days to ready oneself for the day of all days in the calendar is not really all that much time; especially since there was no instant way to affirm a calendar date as accurate. One’s locality might be “off” a day or even a few: the “isru hag” custom (to extend the holiday an extra day) in Talmudic practice evolved in great part because of this uncertainty of calendar calculation.

 

We can ready our heads and hearts, align our actions and re-align our past deeds by redemptive action.

 

Our synagogue of Two-Testament Judaism celebrates the holiday currently called “Rosh HaShanah” by most of Judaism, declaring its nature as Yom Teruah – observing the meaning of the holiday assigned to it by Scripture. We seek to make restitution for any wrongs committed against other people, since wrongs done to people necessitate restitution to the harmed person before going to God for His forgiveness. (Matt. 5:24) Our focus is not so much on an actual “Jewish new year” as it is upon the meaning of the “alarm-reminder” of the trumpet-call pointing toward the soon-arriving day of Yom Kippur. We take up the call for spiritual introspection and restorative action as best we may.

 

Psalm 89:15 cries out, “Blessed is the people that know the teruah! They shall walk, oh, Lord, in the light of your presence.” The writer could not resist throwing in a pun (like your Rabbi is oft wont to do) two verses later: “For You are the glory of their strength! And in Your favor, our horn (keren) shall be exalted.”  The horn of warning (our shofar) – connected to the horn of blessing.

A horn is a symbol of strength – and also of abundance.

Blessed are the people who know the teruah –  for what it truly is.

May we be such a people – and may we know such a blessing.

So – Yom Teruah mevorach! – May you have a blessed Day of The Trumpet-Call! May your season of introspection be deeply meaningful and genuine – and may the atonement of Messiah Yeshua give you deep and abiding peace as we draw near to Yom Kippur this year.

 

Rabbi Bruce L. Cohen

New York City

26 September 2011 – 27 Elul 5772

 

Shavuot – Hag Symptomatic!

by Rabbi CohenRabbi Cohen 

“Nowhere in The Bible is any link made between Sinai and Shavuot.” – Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, THE JEWISH HOLIDAYS p 69 Harper Row 1985 Cambridge

Why do Two-Testament Jews practice Tikkun Leil Shavuot (all night study of Torah on Erev Shavuot)?
Ostensibly, our faith has a few bedrock stones in its foundation; and surely, Isaiah 8:20′s concept is among them: “To the Torah and the Testimony (of the Deut. 18 ratified prophets)! If they (any purveyor of allegedly sound religious ideas) do not speak in accord with that word, there is no dawn (actual inspired truth) in the them.”

Even someone as invested in Jewish practice as Rabbi Strassfeld of SAJ here in Manhattan, had to admit in the oxymoronic opening page of his Jewish Holidays book’s chapter on Shavuot – subtitled, “Revealing The Torah,” that “Nowhere in The Bible is any link made between Sinai and Shavuot.”

Strassfeld goes on to say, “The nature of Shavuot began to change after the destruction of The Temple in 70.c.e. Without The Temple, neither of the two agricultural rites of Shavuot could be observed. At some point in the rabbinic period (post 1st-century), connection began to be made with the Revelation at Sinai, which the Biblical text tells us occurred in the third month, or Sivan (Ex. 19:1).” (Strassfeld p. 71) Again – even a committed practitioner of the Matan Torah emphasis feels compelled in conscience to admit that before the removal of the 2nd Temple, there is no evidence of Jewish practice linking Shavuot observance to receiving the Torah at Sinai. That emphasis developed as an artifact of The Temple’s absence, the same way Rabban Yochanon ben Zakkai substituted good deeds for sacrifice with his out of context, partial quotation from Hosea (see Avot D’Rabbi Natan 4:5), and virtually created non-Messianic Judaism by that complete avoidance of the letter and spirit of Daniel 9:24ff and Isaiah 53.

There is, however, a significant body of Torah and Prophetic content – as well as New Testament content – on the concept of “firstfruits” and “the harvest.” Shavuot is, in the Scriptures, called Hag HaBikkurim (Feast of The Firstfruits).

Messianic congregations could be holding ceremonies in which the congregation stands to make the statement in Numbers 26:5 with all first-born children at the bima – and perhaps donate five shekels (the amount for which they were redeemed in their pidyon ha-ben as first-born infants) to their shul or some worthy Jewish cause. We could, in accord with the commandments regarding harvest, bring a portion of our income for that year thus far to be given to the widow and orphan – as Torah commands, and which allowed Ruth (whose book is read on Shavuot) to survive long enough as a poor sojourner to become the great-grandmother of King David. We could ponder the implications of Yeshua, the Suffering Messiah risen from the dead, as what 1Cor. 15:32 calls “firstfruits” of resurrection from the dead, and Believers as what Yaacov/James 1:18 calls “firstfruits among his creations.” We could hold all-night prayer vigils, seeking outpourings like the Acts 2 outpouring in our era.

I have always believed our People have as much to learn from what Messianic Jews do NOT do in line with historic Jewish custom, as what we do.
I became an Israeli media topic because I, as a rabbi, do not keep dairy/meat separation. I do not observe it because it has nothing to do with Judaism. If, by Judaism, you mean a Jewish faith expression consonant with the standard of Isaiah 8:20, and not some post-Biblical, medieval contrivance that has been absorbed across time as definitively “Jewish” in the same way the black coats and kaftans of the arch-Orthodox now seem so quintessentially Jewish, and were actually an attempt by European Jews hundreds of years ago to blend in with standard non-Jewish fashions of that era, and be less identifiably Jewish. My picture appeared in Yediot Achronot in a two page spread, with a caption next to my face reading in Hebrew, “HaRav ochel cheeseburger!” (The rabbi eats cheeseburgers!) It went on to explain in detail why I do. There is nothing non-Jewish, or anti-Scriptural about a cheeseburger – and certainly, in chicken parmesan, there is no chicken that ever gave cow’s milk in such a way that there is danger that the cheese on the chicken contains its mother’s milk.
Shavuot is The Holiday of the Firstfruits.
Shall we not treat it as such?
Shall we not cease merely “going with the flow” of a manner of observance that cooperates with avoidance of the doings of Heaven and all their implications? The Temple is gone by Heaven’s own doing – and the sacrificial system with it. We cannot practice Shavuot as it is written in the Torah. Messiah has come and died at exactly the time Scripture said he would (Daniel 9:24ff): between Cyrus of Persia’s decree to start rebuilding of The Temple (445 b.c.e.) and that rebuilt Temple’s subsequent destruction (70 c.e.). The need for an offering on Shavuot BEGS contemplation of that reality – and “Matan Torah” reformatting avoids it entirely.
I am all for healthy observance of the Acts 21:18-24 mandates that we observe Torah and hold to the customs of our ancestors: and as rabbi of a synagogue in the capital of the Jewish world outside Israel for nearly twenty years now, I am keen to be authentic and authoritative in our Jewish observance.
However, during Passover, I do not allow the post-Biblical total focus on the Exodus to obscure The Lamb to complete invisibility. “The Pesach” actually refers to the lamb sacrificed to insure the survival of the Jewish household. The Afikomen (“I have arrived.” in Greek) ceremony now embedded nearly ubiquitously standard Passover observance, is surely an artifact of 1st and 2nd century Messianic Jewish fulfillment of the Yeshua’s commands about the Passover matzah and wine, “As often as you do this, do it henceforth in remembrance of Me.” Two-Testament Judaism needs to be diligent in regard to its stewardship of The Book (Matt. 5:19).

What does Two-Testament Judaism have to bring to observance of Shavuot?
Heaven only knows. But – the key is in The Book.
In this rabbi’s opinion – an authentic, sound, and authoritative Shavuot will not be found going along with the “Matan Torah” reformatting of the holiday, and the Tikkun Leil Shavuot, dairy and greenery purchases, and all other amplifications of that emphasis, which even the most committed of Jewish traditionalists admits “is nowhere in The Bible.” The words “nowhere in The Bible” should not describe the foundation of any of our practices in my opinion.

So – while I wish all a “Hag Sameakh” – I see Shavuot right now more as “Hag Symptomatic.” Symptomatic of a great need among our People – and in Two-Testament Jewish faith also – to stop reading past the words on the page, adopt more caution in regard to desiring to “act Jewishly” – and become erudite in the actual content of Biblical Judaism, and its expressive practices.

Let’s sit down with a nice cheeseburger, and set to work on the recovery of The Holiday of The Firstfruits for our own, and following generations? May our children’s children see a Shavuot observance in their era that cannot even remotely be described by the words, “Nowhere in The Bible.”

Rabbi Bruce Cohen
19 May 2010

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