An “Authoritative” Rabbi Bans Kosher Jesus
by 01/23/2012
An “Authoritative” Rabbi Bans Kosher Jesus
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
By right I ought to thank Rabbi Immanuel Schochet for banning my book Kosher Jesus which further propelled it up the international bestseller lists, even in pre-publication. Bizarrely writing of his own views as “authoritative”, Rabbi Schochet declared the book heretical, banned anyone from reading it, banned me from speaking about it, banned others from hosting me, and refused to offer a single reason or explanation as to why (if only he could have at least told them it was still OK to buy it!).
This dictatorial edict follows a growing wave of religious fanaticism hitting the world Jewish community all at once with right-wing reactionaries seeking to impose their primitive dogmatism on those who believe Judaism can be orthodox yet informed, Torah-based yet educated, true to Halakhic sources yet fearless in the marketplace of ideas. The Jewish community is not Iran and Rabbis are not the Revolutionary Guard. Let Khomeini burn books and condemn authors. Jews are the people of the book rather than the people who ban books. We Jews have all too much experience with the medieval practice of outlawing books and Rabbi Schochet’s attack deserves to be pasted on a wall of Meah Shearim rather than mailed, as it was, to Chabad emissaries around the world.
Kosher Jesus is a work of scholarship which Publisher’s Weekly just reviewed as an “informed and cogent primer on Jesus of Nazareth…. a brave stab at re-evaluating Jesus through an intensive look at the New Testament and historical documents… and a well-researched analysis that will certainly reopen intrafaith and interfaith dialogue.” It goes back to the original gospel source materials to uncover the real story of Jesus and portray him for whom he was prior to later Christian editors significantly modifying the story to accommodate the Romans. Jesus was, as many, especially Hyam Maccoby, have argued before me, a Torah-observant Jew whose mission it was to restore Jewish observance fully among his brethren and fight Roman persecution and paganism. For doing so he was turned over by the Roman collaborator, High Priest Caiaphas, who owed his office to the Romans, and was murdered by the Roman prefect Pontias Pilate. Jesus was a martyr for his people who never claimed to be divine, who never changed the Torah, and who would be scandalized to see his teachings – nearly all of which Kosher Jesus traces back to their earlier Jewish sources – misused to persecute his people. It was Paul, who never met Jesus, who later deified him and said he came to get rid of Torah practice.
Far from this theory being heretical, as Schochet libelously claims, it is expressly conveyed by Rabbi Jacob Emden one of the greatest Rabbis of the past thousand years, who wrote in 1757:
Therefore, you must realize – and accept the truth from him who speaks it – that we see clearly here that the Nazarene and his Apostles did not wish to destroy the Torah from Israel, God forbid; for it is written so in Matthew (5:17-19), the Nazarene having said, “Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Torah. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. I tell you this: So long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Torah until all is accomplished. If any man therefore sets aside even the least of the Torah’s commandments, and teaches others to do the same, he will have the lowest place in the Kingdom of Heaven, whereas anyone who keeps the Torah, and teaches others so, will stand high in the Kingdom of Heaven.” This is also recorded in Luke 16:17. It is therefore exceedingly clear that the Nazarene never dreamed of nullifying the Torah.”
Michael Scobak, the Director of Education for the orthodox Jewish anti-missionary group Jews for Judaism, similarly notes in his pamphlet The Da Vinci Code: A Jewish Perspective:
“The Torah-positive stance taken by Jesus was maintained after his death by his disciples based in Jerusalem under the leadership of his brother James… What a stunning example of history being written by the victors! For all intents and purposes, Christianity as we know it today is an invention of Paul.”
But in reality the battle over my book is about something far bigger than me. Rabbi Schochet came of age when Christians were seen primarily as proselytizers and enemies of our people. Today, however, they are the State of Israel’s most reliable allies and stalwart friends. Still, there are Jews who are not convinced and seek to undermine the relationship between Jews and evangelicals. That is the principal purpose of Schochet’s attack, resting as it does on the belief that any Jew who seeks to educate Christians about the Jewishness of Jesus must have gone over to the other side. No matter how much someone like Glenn Beck – who beautifully endorsed my book – or Pastor John Hagee supports Israel, fringe Jewish critics will accuse them of ulterior motives. I disagree. Jewish evangelical support for Israel is real.
The information contained in Kosher Jesus grants Jewish readers an immunity to missionary efforts at proselatizing but is written primarily for my Christian brothers and sisters – whose praise the book has justly earned – who hunger to learn more about the Jewishness of Jesus, even as they disagree profoundly with my conclusions that Jesus never claimed to divine, cannot be the Jewish Messiah, and insisted on the eternity of Torah law.
And why shouldn’t Judaism get the credit it deserves for the values it has disseminated to the world through Christianity. We gave the world G-d. Today his name is Jesus Christ. We gave the world the Sabbath. Today it’s called Sunday. We gave the world the Ten Commandments. Today it is called morality. And we gave the world the Biblical insistence that all humans are created equally in the image of G-d. Today it’s called democracy. Virtually all Jewish ideas that have shaped the world have been taken from our people without attribution, so that Judaism is treated today as a discarded relic with little contemporary relevance.
It’s time these universal Jewish ideas that have so influenced the world be traced back to their original source. It’s time that the Jewishness of Jesus be rediscovered by Christians. And it’s time for the wisdom of Judaism to brighten the world so that the Jews to live up to their ancient Biblical mandate as a light unto the nations.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium and received the American Jewish Press Associations’ Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary as well as the National Fatherhood Award for his national TV Show Shalom in the Home. The international best-selling author of 27 books, his newest work Kosher Jesus will be published on February 1st. Follow him Twitter @RabbiShmuley.