The Called Out: Judaism

A. The followers of Judaism believe that there is one God, and from him we have nature and spirit. Nature and spirit must become one and life must become hallowed for God’s kingdom to become complete. To do this, God has elected to have man’s help in the hallowing of life. To cultivate man’s help, God has placed specific laws in the Torah in order to improve social fabric. The hallowing of life occurs through the Law. The Jews find meaning in God, because he is involved with all forms of nature and has sway over it. At the birth of Judaism, men of other civilizations would assign a god for each aspect of nature. The Jews believed there was only one God. This idea was revolutionary at the time. Unlike Greek gods, which saw nature as unworthy, the Jewish God viewed it as one of His good creations. Moreover, Judaism was radically different from the Hindu view—God as the world. The Jews saw a dualism with God and the world. God is separate from nature, but his divine hand is at work in it at all times. The reason God elects to work through nature is that he wants to have an intimate relationship with Man. This is why Jews find meaning in creations of God, because he works through them. Judaism is viewed as a material religion, because matter is a salient feature of the faith. The Jews believe nature can host the divine; therefore nature has a role in salvation. Humans play a role in the hallowing of life. Jews believe humanity is responsible for helping God ready nature for salvation. This must be done by Man’s freewill. This freewill becomes apparent when we look at the history of the Jews. This is based on their decisions to either move in the direction of God—in which God rewards them—or away from God—which results in suffering. A shift away from God warrants a lesson to be taught. The Jews invest a great amount of attention to their history because they believe God consistently has an active hand in their lives. God stands above them like a loving parent, disciplining them when needed. Man looks up at God in awe, as a child respects and looks for guidance from a father. According to the Jews, God gave man the power to change society for the better. The revolutionary idea that a king is equal to a peasant in the eyes of God showed how vulnerable anyone can be. Jews believe that God is wrathful at times to societies that allow their social fabric to become tainted. A good example is when Moses led the Jews out of Israel; God covered their path by bringing the Red Sea on the Pharaoh’s army. These themes of revolution and social upheaval force leaders to respect God’s word and his people for that matter. God doesn’t hide the fact that he wants man’s help in the hallowing of life. To the Jew, God has watched over them closely and is intimately involved in their story.

Genesis Rabbah 1:1 illustrates a king wanting to build an empire. The king does not grab a hammer and nail himself. He hires a craftsman to help him with his work. The craftsman does not build this empire by his own imagining. He looks at the blueprints the king has given him. The king can be interpreted as God trying to build his Kingdom, while the craftsman is humanity trying to help him complete it. The blueprints parallel the Torah because they lay down the Laws and foundation for what it takes to complete the kingdom. The craftsman has only one person to look at for guidance in the project and that is the king. Along the way, the craftsman may make mistakes or may deviate from the blueprint. In this case, the king will have to remind the craftsman that he was hired (created) by the king. This king is also intimately involved with the craftsman, because if he is not, the craftsman may feel neglected or overwhelmed by the project and quit.

B. God called out Abraham and told him he would be the Father of the Jews, and his son Isaac was the seed for an upcoming society. Abraham and his wife soon had Isaac and he was perfect. The boy was so perfect that Abraham loved him more than anything in the world. To be chosen required Abraham to experience a radical sacrifice. God revealed to Abraham that he wanted him to offer his perfect and only son as a sacrifice. Abraham was confused and disturbed, but he reluctantly left with Isaac and grimly walked to the mountain. When they arrived, Abraham was ready to burn Isaac. God, seeing Abraham’s devotion to him and his willingness to destroy all he loved for Him, called for him to stop and take a lamb instead. By calling out to Abraham, the Father of the Jews, he chose a people to serve him and lead the world in redemption. Isaiah thought the Jews answered God’s call and He established a covenant with them. It expressed that they were chosen to shoulder the suffering, which would have been experienced by more people if the world had heard the same call as Abraham. God has put the Jews through many trials, such as slavery, emanate extinction, and occupation. The story of the Jews has been one filled with suffering and sadness. Through this suffering new ideals of justice have been born unto the world. Through constant exodus, the Jews preached a prophetic principal that deduced a king’s power to that of peasant in the eyes of God. This idea of equality revolutionized the Western world; in that people no longer felt the need to submit to kings that are corrupt or exploitive and a revolutionary spirit was spread. God would not put up with uncompassionate governments. The Jews were chosen to fix the fabric that held society together. Ever since Abraham, the Jews have felt the suffering and awe he felt as he was about to light Isaac on fire. Through this suffering they found meaning, and forever changed the social fabric by reducing kings to men of God.

In the film The Matrix, Neo is a man living in the mundane. He spends his time pondering the meaning of reality and the fabled Matrix. One day, a man named Morpheus calls him out to free humanity from the Matrix, which enslaves Man’s mind in a virtual reality. Neo has the comforts of the mundane life, but is asked to sacrifice all he knows and feels to enter a foreign world. He must let go and sacrifice his life inside the Matrix to fulfill a prophecy. He does this in the form of a pill and he is taken to a cold world where humanity is enslaved and only a few, the people of Zion, are awakened. Soon, the forces require that Neo lead Zion to freedom from their enslavers. He does so with the help of his people. They suffer many casualties, even Neo himself is killed. Neo was chosen along with his people, as was Abraham, to save humanity, just as the Jews are chosen to be God’s leaders in the hallowing of nature. As God decreed to the Jews that all men are equal under Him, Neo strikes a truce with the enslavers and creates equilibrium between the rulers and the freed slaves.

C. Judaism champions the prophetic view of the redemption of the world. In the end of times, good and evil will still exist. The prophetic view allows evil to find a path to God. The apocalyptic view has an unmistakable schism between good and evil that can never be bridged. The apocalyptic camp considers the evil ones unredeemable and has themes of the world being doomed. On the side of the prophetic, the earth will be hallowed, God’s original plan for earth will be fulfilled, and His Kingdom will be complete. Apocalyptic views of nature consist of God abandoning nature and destroying it if evil has touched it. This poses a problem because it lets wickedness take control of nature. This poses the question: how powerful can God be if his creation can be stripped of him so quickly? The key to prophetic views of salvation are that people play a hand in it. God wills man’s help to prepare for the hallowing of life. There is no science to the world’s salvation; it is up to man and God. The apocalyptic view believes there to be a science to the end times and it is unalterable and unmovable. It takes man’s hand out of the equation, and it just happens. This is the main rupture Christianity has taken from Judaism. Martin Buber believes that early Christianity adapted the apocalyptic views from Iranian dualism, which has a very cyclical view of the end times.

In the film The Matrix Reloaded, Neo stands before the Architect and two doors. The first door leads to a complete reset of the Matrix, or reality. Everyone is affected by it and no one is left behind. The Architect informs Neo that the first door has been taken many other times, by his predecessors and the resetting of the Matrix is a normal, mathematically-controlled variable. This door is for the prophetic view because everyone is affected. Evil and good both receive the same ending. The next door is a path back into reality where Neo’s actions will affect the future of the Matrix. The Architect informs Neo that he will be driven by love if he chooses the second door. This door would be for the apocalyptic. Of course, Neo follows his heart and take the apocryphal path because it involves freewill, unlike the happy ending put forth by the prophetic views.

Critique:
The prophetic look at end times, as posed by Martin Buber, seems to lack the notion that man has been given undeniable freewill. As the prophetic view delves into the end times, we see a blurring of good and evil. Accordingly, evil can be led back to God, which poses a problem, because an evil person has made a choice to be evil. God puts the choice in front of man, to be good or evil; we do not draw sticks or roll dice to see which camp we belong to. We, as humans, can choose the path of good or evil. Why has God given us the choice if in the end we will all end up with him no matter what? The apocalyptic view holds freewill into account. It notes that a man has turned to evil by his own doing and at anytime can take the path back towards good. According to a Christian, if you choose evil you are damned, unless you take the path back to good. The prophetic views of end times are very accepting and show man that we can stray, but in the end, we will all be okay. There is no need for freewill if the greatest choice in our lives is void. It would make more sense in Judaism that God would hold good and evil accountable in the end. Jews should have a better understanding of God’s mercy and duality of justice because they feel they have experienced both intimately. It doesn’t make sense that God would plague Israel with a line of naïve kings, just for forgetting that He is their only king, but allow those who make a conscience choice to do evil deeds join him in the end. This is where the Christian and the Muslim worlds see the folly of the prophetic view and hold that evil will get what it deserves in the end.