By Roy B. Blizzard
We are continuing our study of the Mishnah and teachings of Jesus. Anyone who has ever focused on the teachings of Jesus in any depth is aware that he was a product of the religious milieu that emerged in the first century of this present era. The four gospels preserve for us the largest and the best corpus of material relating to the ideas and methods of teaching of the rabbis of that period.
As we compare the words of Jesus with the other rabbis of his day, we can begin to understand where some of the ideas originated, the way they were thinking, the themes upon which they were teaching. We have been studying from Order Nezikin in the tractate known as Pirket Avot, or Chapters of the Fathers. We left off with Chapter 2, Mishnah 9.
You may remember in Mishnah 8 of Chapter 2 that we were talking about Rabbi ben Zakki. R. ben Zakki was a most interesting figure in history just prior to the destruction of the Temple. R. ben Zakki realized that the end for the city of Jerusalem and for the Jewish cause was near. He contrived a plan and was carried out of the city of Jerusalem in a coffin as dead. He was carried by the disciples and into the camp of Vespascian, the Roman Emporer, and proceeded to prophesy Vespascian's victory. He requested from Vespascian that he be allowed to leave the city of Jerusalem prior to its destruction with his disciples. Vespascian granted him special privileges, and he was allowed to go to Yavneh and start an academy.
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the Sanhedrin was transferred from Jerusalem to Yavneh and remained there until it was transferred to the north into Galilee.
R ben Zakki was the one who, after the destruction of the Temple, formulated the direction that Judaism would take in the future by concluding that the study of Torah, the offering of prayers, and the doing of acts of tzedekah took the place of, and even superseded, the sacrifices in the Temple.
In Mishnah 8, Rabbi ben Zakki talked about five of his disciples, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Rabbi Joshua ben Chananiah, Rabbi Jose the Priest, Rabbi Shimon ben Nathaniel, and Rabbi Elazar ben Arach. He said something about each of them. Hyrcanus was a cemented cistern that does not lose a drop. Happy is the woman that bore Joshua ben Chananiah. Rabbi Jose is a pious man. Nathaniel is the fear of sin, and Rabbi Elazar ben Arach is a spring flowing with ever-sustained strength.
He went on to say that if all these sages were in one scale of a balance and Eliezer Hyrcanus was in the other scale, he would outweigh them all. Why did he say that? What were they talking about? Their spiritual might, wisdom, the depth of their understanding of God and the things of God.
Again he went on to say that, if all the sages of Israel were in one scale of a balance and Hyrcanus was with them, and Elazar Arach was in the other scale, he would outweight them all. What was it about Arach that made him so unique? Perhaps Mishnah 9 will give us the answer. R Zakki said, "Go forth and see which is the right way whereunto a man should cleave." R Eliezer said, "A good eye." Do you remember the "good eye"? It means tzedakah. It means to be generous.
Without a doubt, the response of the rabbis reflects something of the manner of their way of life, the way they lived for life. R. Joshua said, "A good friend." R. Jose said, "A good neighbor." R. Shimon said, "One who foresees the ultimate consequences of an action."
R. Elazar ben Arach said, "A good heart." R. ben Zakki commended the words of Arach above all of the others for he stated that, "In his words were all of the others included."
If a person has a good heart, all of the other things are going to be included. This theme of the good heart is a recurring theme, both in the Psalms and in the words of Jesus as we shall see as we continue.
R. ben Zakki said to his disciples, "Go forth and see which is the evil road that a man should shun." Eliezer said, "An evil eye." R. Jose said, "An evil neighbor." R. Shimon said, "One that borrows and does not repay, for he who borrows from man is as one who borrows from the Omnipresent, blessed be He." As it is said, "The wicked borroweth and payeth not again, but the righteous dealeth and giveth (Psalm 37)." Who are the righteous of Psalm 37.
In the sermon on the mount, recorded in Matthew 5 and following, Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth." Where did Jesus get that idea? Who are the meek? What does it mean to be meek? If we did not know that Jesus was a rabbi, speaking Hebrew, using rabbinic methods in his teaching, hinting back at something that has already been said or written, and that his listeners basically have all of this material memorized, we would not understand.
Meek, to us, basically means some kind of a "Casper Milquetoast" sort of character. Or, it could mean humble, or weak. Jesus is quoting from Psalm 37:11. The meek shall inherit the earth. Notice in Psalm 37, "The arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the consistently righteous." The wicked borrows and pays not again, but the uncompromisingly righteous deals kindly and gives. Again, we see this idea of tzedakah, of generosity rising to the fore.
Who will inherit the earth? The uncompromisingly righteous. Who deals kindly and gives? The uncompromisingly righteous. Who shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever? The uncompromisingly righteous. Who are the meek? The uncompromisingly righteous. It has nothing to do with weakness or even humility.
R. Elazar said, "A wicked heart," and again was commended above the others, for in his words were included the others. Once again, we are reminded of the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." In Matthew 15:18, "…those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and they defile the man, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, etc. These are the things that defile the man."
Notice the vast scope of theology involved in the theme, a good heart and an evil heart. As we look at some of the statements of Jesus and other of the rabbis of his day, we see how this thought is echoed over and over again. In Mishnah 10, notice how statements are appearing in triplets. Each said three things. Let the honor of your fellowman be as precious to you as your own. Be not easily moved to wrath, and repent one day before your death. This is R. Eliezer, and the statement, "Repent one day before your death," was one of his principal themes. His students would ask, "But, Rabbi, how can we do that? One does not know when they are going to die." R. Eliezer said, "That is the point. You do not know when you are going to die; therefore, one needs to be in a continual state of repentance."
I want to say something here that I believe to be of the utmost significance to us all. Not long ago, I had a young man come up to me and ask a question relative to bible prophecy and end-time events. He wanted to know what the Jews would have to say on this particular subject. I asked him, "Are you sure you really want to know?" He looked puzzled, and I explained.
There is an interesting passage in the Mishnah in Order Moed and in Tractate Chagigah, Chapter 2, Mishnah 1. It reads, "Whoever puts his mind to these four matters, it would be better for him if he had not come into this world – what is up above, what is down below, what is out in the future, and what is in the past."
The commentary in Blackman's Mishnah continues that, "Any discussion on these four subjects is nothing more than useless speculation and idle prognostication that serve no useful academic purpose but only causes a falling away from true biblical faith."
We hear so much in Christianity today about bible prophecy, the Ark of the Covenant, the ashes of the red heifer, end-time events, that the Lord is coming soon.. Let me shock you with a statement. If you believe that the Lord is coming soon, your theology is out of kilter. Not only that, but it is a dangerous theology. Here is why. If you believe that the Lord is coming soon, i.e., sometime out in the very near future, as in that He is going to come during the Feast of Trumpets in September of 1996. He was, as some of you may recall, supposed to do that in 1988. Maybe our calculation was off a little, and He is going to do it in 1996, so I have from now until September of '96 to live the "good life." I will go out and get a new Cadillac and will not have to make the first payment for ninety days. I can do whatever I want to do because I know it is going to be during the Feast of Trumpets in '96; so, I have plenty of time to do what I want and repent just before He comes.
Do you want to know something? People were doing just that all over the country after the appearance of the book, 88 Reasons Why the Lord Will Come in '88, or some such title. People were so convinced that it was true that they actually had their animals put to sleep because they did not want them left behind – all kinds of crazy things. You see, if your theology is that the Lord is coming soon, how out of kilter one can get.
Nowhere in the Bible does it talk about the Lord coming "soon." It does say that the coming of the Son of Man in His glory is going to be as a thief in the night at a time when you think not. His coming is going to be sudden, not soon, and the injunction is, "Therefore, be ready because at a time when you think not, the Son of Man cometh."
This was the injunction also of Rabbi Eliezer. "Repent one day before you die." Since you do not know when you are going to die, you need to be in a constant state of repentance as no man knows the day or the hour, and we might add, nor the year of the Lord's coming. One needs continually to be ready.
Mishnah 11 is very short. R. Joshua said, "The evil eye," the evil inclination, and the hatred of one's fellow creatures puts a man out of the world. The 'evil eye' we know is an idiom for miserliness, or stinginess. But what about the evil inclination? Judaism has a lot to say about the evil inclination, or the yetzer hara.
In Judaism, as opposed to many Christian denominations, man is born basically good and created in the image of God. Because man was created in the image of God, he was created with free will, with the ability to choose. Man was something more than an automaton because, in order to be created in the image and likeness of God, he had to be created with the ability to choose either good or evil.
Judaism teaches that man was created with both the yetzer hatov, the good inclination, and the yetzer hara, the evil inclination. The evil inclination is that part of man that leads him to do all kinds of things that we would say were transgressions of the will of God. The good impulse controls the righteous; the evil impulse controls the wicked. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, is born with both.
The common opinion was that the evil impulse is the disposition of the human being which results from natural instincts, one of them being sexual desire. Sexual sins were declared to be governed by the evil impulse. However, since it was God who created man as he did and commanded him to "be fruitful and to multiply," the evil impulse is not essentially bad as God creates only what is good. It is evil only insofar as it is misused. As it was explained, "Is not the evil very good?" The answer is given, "Were it not for that impulse, man would not build a house, marry a wife, beget children, or conduct business affairs." So, the evil impulse, if properly controlled and channeled, is considered to be good.
We see something of this idea of the evil impulse with Paul in one of his statements when he says, "The good that I would I do not do, and the bad things I do not want to do, I find myself doing." Here is an interesting question. Upon whom would he put the blame for those bad things that he did? The devil? Did the devil make him do the bad things? Was his 'thorn in the flesh' a demon from which he needed deliverance?
Although I do not intend to delve deeply into the subject, I think it is fitting that I at least call to your mind some of the misundertandings and abuses that are current in some Christian circles today. It is popular and quite easy for us to blame our misdeeds on the devil. "The devil made me do it!" You may be surprised to learn that in Judaism, there is no concept of a devil as being a separate entity co-equal with God and warring against God. That particular theological concept is known as Dualism, and it basically creeps into both Judaism, and later into Christianity, through the Zoroastrianism of Persia from the fourth century B.C.E. and following.
In the Bible, the devil, or hasatan, the accuser, was a created being, created by God and subject to do his will. Throughout the course of biblical history until the fourth and the fifth century B.C.E., you read nothing about demons, devils, demonology. It is not until much later that these ideas and concepts began to creep into Judaism, to a degree, and to a much larger degree into Christianity. Much of what we attribute to demons is simply the yetzer hara and, if we want victory over it, we are not going to get it by going through deliverance forty-nine times.
The way to get victory over those things that afflict and hinder is by taking control and bringing it into subjection to the yetzer hatov. It necessitates repenting and turning from it. It is an action that comes from within us. Unfortunately, most people want the easy way out.
I have spent some thirty years in counseling, and I have this one lady whom I have counseled over twenty years. She has been to every psychiatrist in the area and in counseling goes on and on about her problems – this demon and that demon, and how she needs deliverance, how many time she has been through deliverance. I keep telling her that she has to take control of her life. These things are not going to happen if you do not do it. There is not any easy way out.
Someone can pray for you until you fall over in a dead faint, and nothing is going to happen until you want it to happen, until you take control. I really despair as I go around the country and see the immaturity of many of God's people. They are focusing all of their attention on the devil and deliverance, deliverance services, casting out devils.
There is something I have noticed. Wherever you see people focusing all their time and attention on the devil and on deliverance, you are going to see people who are immature in almost every other way as well. The more knowledgeable, the more mature an individual is, the more in control they are of their own lives and their own impulses. Many times, we want to attribute to a devil or to a demon something from without that is nothing more than a part of our own nature, something that is within. If we want to get the victory over it, we are going to have to take control over it. There may be instances when we need outside help, but it will be more of a professional type rather than going through some process of deliverance to be released from some demon over and over again.
Here we see an indication in the saying of Rabbi Joshua, "The evil eye," stinginess, miserliness, the evil inclination. They go together hand-in-hand with the hatred of one's fellow man and put a man out of the world – out of this world and the world to come. When we look at the nature of man, we have to look inside ourselves, at our moral fiber. We all have an inclination to do good and an inclination to do evil. A lack of moral fiber would be yielding to the evil inclination.
As long as we are on the subject, let me mention something I confront almost daily in my counseling, especially with young people, some of the things with which they are confronted today. Our young people today are having real problems with their sexuality. There is almost no place they can go for help. There is no sex education at home, almost none in the schools, and none at all in the church. We are having all kinds of problems with sexually transmitted diseases, teen-age pregnancies; but, we are afraid to talk about them, afraid to mention them in the educational system. We do not want to talk about them in the church. As a result, our young people are basically left on their own. Even the advertising we see on television or hear on the radio is so shallow as to be almost worthless.
The only answer that the church has to our young people today relative to their sexuality is abstinence. Choose abstinence because, if you do not and you are sexually active outside of marriage, that is a sin and you are going to hell. We must understand that one's sexuality is like a raging fire down inside, and especially when they are teen-agers. They are going to be thrust into all kinds of situations.
You can tell them that pre-marital sex is a sin, that they are going to hell, and it is no deterrent. They are going to do it anyway. They are going to get into certain situations when their emotions get out of control, and they are going to go ahead and do it anyway because, after all, God can forgive sin. God is in the business of forgiving sin. Once we approach the subject from the standpoint of sin, then we are in deep trouble because God forgives sins. That is what we teach.
What needs to be taught to each young person is that they were created in the image and likeness of God. They are someone and some thing special, and they need to think of themselves as being special. They have a whole future, a whole life ahead, and they need to be taught that life can be the most wonderful, joyous thing one can experience. If properly lived, life can be heaven right here on earth. However, they have to realize that because they are created in the image and likeness of God, they are sacred. Their body is sacred, and if they want to live life to the fullest, they must not abuse it – nor must they allow anyone else to abuse it.
At the same time, they need to look at themselves and understand that they are something special, that they are important, that they have a life and a future. They must also look at other prople and see them that way, too. Young people have to realize that they each have feelings, aspirations, hopes for the future and that they can destroy that future and harm that life. Or, they can be the facilitator for making their world a better place to be.
One has to ultimately ask the question, "How do I respond to this other person in a moral, ethical, responsible way so that I am a vehicle for the enhancement of the total quality of their life, rather than a vehicle for the possible destruction of it?" In other words, one's moral fiber should serve as a more powerful deterrent and a much greater motivator for doing good rather than the fear of sin and the fire of hell.
Rabbi Jose sums it up in Mishnah 12 when he says, "Let the property of thy fellow man be as dear to thee as thy own, and qualify thyself for the study of the law for the knowledge of it is an heritage of thine, and let all your deeds be done for the sake of heaven," in other words, selflessly and without ulterior, selfish motives.
