JESUS

My dearest Aaron Hershel,

 

You wrote me once about how America is different, that in America a person is free to follow whatever religion he or she chooses. And yet now you tell me how very Christian a place America is. So? Is this supposed to be news to me? Did I think that America was a nation of Jews? No. You and I both knew that when you left home for America you were leaving behind the security of a Jewish village. But you have done well in America, and our continued correspondence tells me that we did not lose a Jew when you left home.

But you cannot escape Jesus, and want to know what I think of him. You know most rabbis would not respond to your question. You want to know what I think of Jesus? To even have an opinion is to put me at the fringe of our faith. Unless of course that opinion is that Jesus is a figment of the Christian imagination.

But to be honest, I am not disinterested in this man Jesus. How can we ignore one who inspires millions? How can we ignore the most famous Jew in all the world?

There are so many opinions about him. There are those who say he is the Son of God. There are those who say he is the illegitimate son of a Jewish woman whose messianic claims were simply an attempt to have God take the place of his missing father. Others say he was a prophet, a rabbi, or a revolutionary fighting Rome.

My own opinion is this: He was a great soul whose Neshamah was open to the highest levels of Yechidah. Those who read the words of Jesus assume that he was talking about himself as a Neshamah; that when he said “I and the Father are one” he was referring to himself in the same way he might say, “I am going to the market.”

I do not believe this. The “I” that goes to the market is Neshamah. The “I” that is one with God is Yechidah. Jesus is not speaking from the perspective of Beriah, but to Beriah from the perspective of Adam Kadmon. All of his sayings should be read as an attempt to articulate the absolute unity of all things in, with, and as God. And almost every prophet that has revealed this truth has died at the hands of those it threatened most.

In Jesus’s case these are the Romans and those Jews who collaborated with them. The Jewish establishment had built for itself a world based on clear divisions: Jew and Gentile, clean and unclean, holy and unholy, permitted and forbidden. But these divisions make sense only from the perspective of Beriah. They do not exist in Adam Kadmon. Yechidah consciousness does not see the chosen and the rest; Yechidah sees only God. Jesus speaking from Yechidah threatened their entire system.

The Romans wanted only capitulation on the part of those nations it occupied. Pay your taxes and do not challenge the supremacy of Rome or the divinity of the Caesar and you will be allowed to live. But if you threaten the status quo in any way you will be mercilessly crucified. Jesus drew crowds. Jesus spoke of another kingdom, the kingdom of God not Caesar. Jesus was a threat and had to die.

So it is no surprise that the Romans crucified Jesus. Did he rise from the dead on the third day after his burial? This is one of the unprovable myths that the faithful should hold with deep humility. I do not believe he did, but I can no more prove my opinion than the pope in Rome can prove his.

Is Jesus a traitor to the Jews? I do not think so. What was his message? When asked to articulate the core mitzvot of Judaism he said: Love God and love your neighbor. Is there anything more Jewish than this? Jesus spoke to and within his people and their culture. He wanted to infuse Judaism with the insights of Yechidah, and in so doing broke many of the taboos the priests and rabbis had set in place. But his actions were no different than the actions of other prophets. They too made radical claims and dramatized their teachings with actions that outraged their contemporaries.

So, I do not find Jesus a problem. Christianity, of course, was not the religion of Jesus. Judaism was the religion of Jesus. Christianity is the religion about Jesus as Christ, the only one through whom we humans can return to God. If Jesus’s teaching of love God and love your neighbor is the heart of Judaism, the idea that one needs an intermediary between you and God is the polar opposite from Judaism.

We have spoken of this before. Teshuvah, the capacity to return to God and godliness at any moment leaves no room for a savior. Christians often wonder why we Jews have never accepted their faith. It is because we do not need their faith; it does nothing for us. Christianity solves a problem that we Jews do not have.

Christianity solves the problem of how to bridge the gap between the sinful person and a sinless God. Judaism does not posit this gap. God is never far from us. All we have to do is return to our true nature and God is here.

What more can I say of this? I am not sure what good my opinion will do you, or why it is even of interest. But, since we are talking about prophets let me add something else.

Could it be that Jesus was more open to Yechidah consciousness than most of his contemporaries? Yes. I believe he was. But he is one of many such people throughout time and across every culture. There are always those who are more open to Yechidah than the rest of us, and we need them to remind us that we are more than the separate self Neshamah reveals. But do not imagine that these people are different from you. You have the same capacity to see the world from the perspective of Yechidah.

Think of it this way. Imagine two beautiful women, identical twins, each covered in dozens of veils so that the beauty of both is concealed. Now imagine that one of the sisters begins to remove her veils. At first a few veils makes no difference, she is still impossible to see. But in time she has removed enough of the veils so that the outlines of her face can be seen. She is indeed beautiful. A few more veils and her beauty shines through more clearly. Eventually she will have so few veils left that there is no hiding her glory.

All this time her twin has stood next to her with her veils in place. As you look at the two sisters you cannot help but say the one with the fewest veils is the more beautiful of the two. Yet they are identical twins! They have an equal beauty, but one’s beauty is more apparent than the other.

Now think in terms of people. We are all filled with all five dimensions of consciousness. It is not that some of us have more of God than others. We are all manifestations of God. But some of us have worked to remove more of the veils of Neshamah that keep the glory of God hidden from the everyday world. These are people committed to the inward walking, to contemplative prayer, to isolation in God, and in them the divine shines through more clearly. These people seem more connected to God, but in fact they are only more adept at revealing the connection that each of us enjoys.

Jesus was simply a sage who devoted his life to removing the veils and living from the highest perspective of which we humans are capable. We should look to him as a guide not as a god. Christianity points to Jesus, but Jesus points to God. The former I cannot follow, but the latter is a spiritual friend of great value.

I have gone on far longer than I intended. I am very tired.

 

B’Shalom