Parables Taught by a Rabbi

 Sadly, this semester's blog posts are going to be very different from last semester. This is mostly due to my not being in the Physical Settings class that has a field study every other weekend. Instead, I'm just having a lot of class time, a lot of reading, and a field study here and there to emphasis what we're learning in class. All that being said, I've had four field studies over the last week and a half – three of them just since this Thursday. I didn't go see anything too new or eye opening, but I am taking a lot of Jewish based classes this semester and I'd be lying if I didn't say it was fascinating and vastly different from Western thought.

So, about a week ago, my Parables class went to “The Inn of the Good Samaritan”. I was in no way excited about the field study. I've been sick off and on since the semester started, I had plenty of other more productive things to do on campus, and I didn't feel like I had any need to visit the site of a fictional story. I mean to say that I know Jesus told the story – I do believe that – but it's just a parable. It's not like it really happened. However, when Jesus told the parable, it's likely that he was referring to an actual inn along the Ascent of Adumim (remember me posting about that a few months ago? If you don't, look up the Ascent of Annihilation post) that his audience would have known. The Ascent of Adumim was an often traveled path from Jericho to Jerusalem, so it's plausible that there was an inn along the highway. Of course, when we got to the museum, it was full of mosaics from the Byzantine period and, if you've seen one mosaic, you've seen them all, in my opinion. So, that was about as uninteresting as I expected it to be. After looking in the mini museum of boredom, our professor, Rabbi Moshe Silbershien, had us sit outside, around him, while we talked about the parable – the sitting outside is very reminiscent of typical Rabbincal teaching. And that was far more interesting (no idea why we had to go to the museum to talk about it, when it could have been done in the classroom).

Um.... the structure of this blog may be a little strange. I'm going to structure in Rabbinic style, which will probably seem a little all over the place. The way that Rabbis teach and write is that they begin with one subject and, every time they read something that makes them think of something else, they talk about that something else and eventually come back to their original point. I have to deal with it in 3 out of my 5 classes, so I'm going to subject all of you to it :) It may not bother most people, but for us OCD structured folks it's a night mare. So, I bring to you the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37):

Luke 10:25 - On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

While some Christian commentaries try to make this “expert in the law” a very negative pronouncement, it really wasn't. Jews test each other all the time! That's basically what their Talmud is. The books that keep the interpretation of the Torah are lists of Rabbis that had differing opinions. They're always debating scripture. We tend to read this and think, “How dare that man confront Jesus with such an attitude!” But... that's not how it is at all. The unfortunate thing about reading as opposed to being there, is that it is very difficult to connote tone in text.

Luke 10:26 - “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you red it?”

This man asks Jesus, a Rabbi, a question and Jesus replies with a question. This is a very Socratic and a very Rabbinic way of teaching.

Luke 10:27 – He answered: “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'”

So, Jesus asks him what the greatest commandment is and he replies with two commandments. Why is this? Well, there are only two commandments in all of the Torah that begin with “and you shall love,” and it's very common in Judaic thought to bring verses together via word association. These commandments are possibly listed together, therefore, because it was a traditional Rabbinic teaching, or because Jesus was the first Rabbi to bring these two verses together and the man is sucking up to Jesus by repeating Jesus' teaching. It can't really be proved, either way.

Luke 10:28-29 - “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

The question here is, why did the man need to justify himself? In fact, why did the man even ask Jesus the question about the greatest commandment if he already knew the correct answer? Well, maybe it's because he wanted to justify why he asked the question, or maybe he wanted to show off and find holes within the commandments. Maybe he asked Jesus the question to set him up for this next question so that the man could give his own knowledge of Torah and look good in front of the crowd.

Luke 10:30 – In reply, Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

Jesus immediately starts replying to the man, with a parable. Which, again, is very typical of Rabbinical teaching.

So, here Jesus illustrates a man that is walking down the Ascent of Adumim. It's possible that Jesus has in mind II Chronicles 28:8-15, in which the Judahites were taken captive by the people of Samaria and they were reminded of their common ancestry. So the Samaritans then clothed the people of Judah, healed them, and brought them to Jericho, where they presumably walked back to Judah. And here, Jesus is talking about a Judaic man who is naked and beaten on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. I don't think this is just a coincidence. I think that Jesus is pretty blatantly referring to the verses in Chronicles. Remember, everything in Judaic commentary and teaching is based on association.

Luke 10:31-32 – A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

These two men were walking down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Meaning, they were walking from the temple in Jerusalem to Jericho. Some people have said that the Priest and the Levite avoided the man because they thought him to be dead, and it would have made them unclean to touch him. But this is nonsense. If they just came from the temple, then they were done with work and would no longer have to worry about being clean! Plus, it was Jewish law that if you saw a dead man and there was no one to take care of the body than you had to bury it right there – even if you were a priest. Bodies had to be buried within 24 hours of their death, or it was considered highly shameful and disrespectful. When we take that into context, then it seems that they were avoiding responsibility of taking care of him. I mean, they so wanted to avoid the man that they were walking on the other side of the road. I've been down that road... and to be on the other side would mean to be across a small canyon/dry riverbed. It's not like walking on the other side of a sidewalk to allow someone to walk by.

Luke 10:33-34 – But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.

So, side note, when we arrived at the museum we were handed these nifty little pamphlets with illustrations and stories about the place. But I have to tell you, the people that wrote the pamphlet have got to be idiots. I'll rewrite what they said so that you can pick out what's wrong with it before I tell you what's wrong with it:

“It was undoubtedly Jesus's intention to reproach the Jews' religious leaders – the priests and Levites who presided over the Temple – in the framework of his general opposition to the clerical establishment. But why did he choose to contrast a Samaritan with a priest and Levite, as if there were no decent ordinary Jews who would perform a benevolent deed? What necessitated his choice of a Samartian to voice his opposition to the religious authorities? It should be noted that when he traversed Samaria the Samaritans refused to offer him hospitality (Luke 9:51-53). This suggests that the parable, at least in its Hebrew original did not mention a Samaritan.”

Here are some of the problems that I find with that. First of all, we don't even know if there was an original Hebrew copy of Luke. It's likely it was originally written in Greek. Second of all, the purpose of a parable is to shock people. It's to make them think outside the box.

So let's give some background knowledge. In the Old Testament, Samaritans were just people from the area of Samaria (2 Kings 17:29). But, of course, those Samaritans were uprooted and exiled during the Assyrian conquest of Israel – which included Samaria. The New Testament Samaritan origin began during the Hellenistic period (4^th century BC), when Shechem was rebuilt after it's long period of desolation. There isn't a whole lot of knowledge on why Shechem was rebuilt. Some people think that, with Alexander the Great's influence on the rest of the land, a group of religious zealots decided to make a fresh start in an untouched area. Which makes sense, as a temple was erected on Mount Gerizim, right above Shechem. The people that built it – Samaritans – likely saw this to be a true temple, as Jerusalem was being overrun with secular practices and would have seemed impure to them. On the other hand, the Jews would have felt that their temple could be the only true one because the Torah names it as the only one. Coincidentally, the Samaritan Bible is made up of the five books of Moses (the first five books of the Bible) but the mountain for the temple is changed from Mount Zion to Mount Gerizim. Either way, John Hyrcanus destroyed the temple on Mount Gerizim in 128 BC. But tensions did not stop here. The Samaritans continued to attempt to desecrate Jewish holy places and festivals and disrupt their life as much as possible. It's no wonder, by the time we get to the second temple period of Jesus' time, that tensions are running quite high between the two groups. In fact, they hated each other so much that often Jews would travel around Samaria, rather than through it, when traveling.

All that to say, if parables are supposed to be shocking statements that make you think outside of the box, wouldn't it be extremely shocking for Jesus to use a Samaritan in light of good things while speaking to a group of Jews? I think so. It would have been like saying a modern day Palestinian saved the life of an Israeli Jew.

Another question the Rabbi asked us is: What is the importance of the trinity of Priest, Levite, and Samaritan? The person that wrote the pamphlet was convinced that it read Priest, Levite, and Israelite in the “original Hebrew”. But that isn't seen anywhere in scripture. If you know anything about Jews, you know that they can't talk about anything without referencing scripture. If that's the case, then were else is Priest, Levite, and Samaritan written to which Jesus may have been referring to?Rabbi Moshe pointed us to Psalms 115:9-11 and 118:2-4, which both list the House of Aaron, Israel, and those who fear God. Well, the priests come from the house of Aaron, but no Levites are mentioned and there is no direct reference to Samaritans. How about in Psalms 135:19-21? Here, the house of Aaron, the Levites, and those who fear the Lord. Who are these God fearers? Could these be Samaritans? From what we know about them, they worship the God of the Jews but have some different theological opinions. Also, often Gentiles in the area wished to worship God but didn't want to go through the rituals of becoming a Jew, and they were often called God fearers. So it's possible that Jesus is referring to these psalms when telling the parable of the good Samaritan and his audience, a group of practicing Jews, would have known these psalms while he was telling the story.

Also, this verse within the parable, specifically, is very reminiscent of the story in Chronicles, where the Samaritans bandage the wounds of the Judeans and put them on donkeys for their way home.

Luke 10:35-36 – The next day he took out two silver coins (the equivalent of two day's wages) and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

Again, Jesus opens with a question, tells the parable, and ends with a question. I find it interesting that Jesus is illustrating what a neighbor when the export of the law asked who is a neighbor.

Luke 10:37 – The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him” Jesus told him, “go and do likewise.”

I also found it interesting that instead of saying, “The Samaritan” the man says “the one...”, and Jesus uses this as a way to show the man how to be a neighbor instead of nit-picking about who a neighbor is.

Um... I have no answer to what the parable is about or what it all means. Why are there references to II Chronicles? Why did Jesus use the Priest, Levite, and “God-fearers” trinity? I think when we bring these things in, there is a much deeper meaning beyond the Golden Rule of treat others as you wish to be treated. I don't know... I'm still working on what I think about it.

Back at JUC

So I've been back in Jerusalem for a week now. My room is great. It's large, it's right by the boiler so it's always warm/hot while the rest of the school is freezing, it's right across from the dining room and bathroom – no more walking down four flights of stares for me! - everyone gets their own closet and desk. I really like it. And I made a fort out of my bed by sleeping on the bottom bunk and hanging blankets around it. Now I have a private place I can go to :) I have three roommates, which will be interesting as I've only been living with one person since I got to college, but I'm open to a new learning experience.

One of my roommates has been with me since day one. She goes to CIU with me back in the states and we go to the same church at home, we had the same flight here to Israel, she did the practicum with me in Bethlehem, and now we live together. She's a little messy and unorganized, which would usually make me really anxious, but we get along well... so I can't complain too much. The other two girls get along really well. They talk a lot and go out a lot and are slightly more concerned with personal appearance than I think we are, but that's okay. They're sweet and they prefer to hang out with guys than girls, which is how I am. And at least it wasn't the three of them getting along, with me on my own. It could be a lot worse.

Over all, I can tell it's going to be a better semester. There are nerds here! I'm not the only one! It's like a little blessing from God. So I've made friends with a few guys, I still get along with some of the grad students from last semester... I haven't connected with most of the girls, but they aren't as immature as some people from last semester. So there is hope. The only problem is that the girls don't feel like they connect with the guys so they just want to form a strong sisterhood and do girl's night. Which is not and has never been my thing. I don't even know what girl's do on nights like that. I want guy's night! I want video games and Indiana Jones! But I also don't want to push them away. So... we'll see. It's just frustrating to see them split off like that in the first week.

Picking out classes was an interesting adventure. I really wanted to leave Wednesdays open to work at the school in Bethlehem, but that wasn't possible. And I was originally going to take a class called Cultural Backgrounds that would have gone into Old Testament Ancient Near Eastern culture, but there was a five day trip at the end of the semester. Last summer, I really wanted to take that class because the field study at the end meant living with Bedouins and learning how to slaughter and cook a goat in the desert – which is totally my style. But, having been to Egypt last semester... I was so tired by the end of the semester that it was hard to fully appreciate the trip. And, I have a lot of things happening within the first month of me being home. It would just be a lot less stressful if I didn't go on the trip. Unfortunately, there's no way to take the class and not go on the trip. So I prayed about it, in case God wanted me to go even though I didn't – that happens a lot, and I visited all the classes that are offered that I was interested in to see if I felt lead in any direction. Praise God! I did not feel lead to take Cultural Backgrounds. So, my class list is Hebrew II, Jewish Thought and Practice, Parables, Second Temple Period History, Field Education, and I'm auditing History of the Church in the East.

When I walked into Parables and Jewish Thought and met the Rabbi that taught them, I knew that's where I should be. I'll be learning the Parables of Jesus from a Rabbi, and then looking at the Torah through the eyes of the Jews. It's fascinating. I'm having a very Jewish semester with these two and Hebrew. I'm starting to see connections between the language and Semitic though. For instance, the Hebrew language involves taking a root word and either adding a suffix or prefix to change tense, possession, person, etc. The Jewish way of looking at the Torah is the same way. They take a verse and see 70 interpretations. When we see a “problem” in the Biblical text, we assume that it's just not important or doesn't further God's redemptive purpose. But when Jews see a “problem” in the text, it's a big alert sign for them and they believe God wants them to search out the answer and interpret it. For Christians, the Bible is the inspired word of God for all generations. Jews see it as the inspired word of God and God knew that each verse would have to be interpreted differently for each generation and wrote it purposefully as such. Which feels unstable to me. So... I'm excited for my classes.

My Concrete Box - Yep, I'm a Hobo

Going back to Bethlehem was, interesting. I'm not really sure what I expected. I had kind of moved on from the worrisome thoughts that I had before, about culture and my worldview perspective, and I was looking forward with being done with everything so that I could go back home. Not that being in the states was the most amazing thing ever. I just really appreciated being surrounded by people that love and support me, and who already know me. I don't have to explain myself to them, introduce my life to them, learn how to trust them... we did that a long time ago and now we're all family. I missed that a lot.

When the wife of the family that I had been living with came and picked me up from Jerusalem (there's a boarder crossing between Jeru. and Bethlehem, so the airport taxis won't go there) she informed me that I would no longer be staying with them. Apparently, they had moved into a new house that was quite a bit smaller and one of their teacher's had left during break. So there was an empty teacher's apartment available, and they decided that I could live there. They have a couple of apartments on the top floor of elementary school where all the single female teachers live. Which sounded all nice and generous, but it meant having to buy my own groceries (when they knew full well I had saved up very little money... by little, I mean none because I was never able to find a summer job), the apartments had no heating, no hot water, and my room had no electricity. So when I walked into my apartment room the only thing in there was a bed... with some blankets. There was no light, no dresser, not even a table to put my stuff on. I sat down on the bed and unpacked in the cold dark room while crying. It was a pathetic site. Oh, and the blinds on the windows that were supposed to be electric, weren't. So I had to learn a fun and difficult trick to open and close them. Thankfully, the other girls came back from wherever they were, and gave me a lamp to use. So, the main ceiling lamps didn't work, but the plugs did. I turned my suitcase over and used it as a table and made the best out of the situation. Showering, however, meant heating up pots, pans, and kettles of water and filling up a bath tub so that I could take a full hot bath. It took two hours, but it was worth it. However miserable the situation was, I was determined to make the best out of it. I was only going to be there for two and half weeks anyways.

My roommate, who lived in the room next to me, was a 60ish year old woman from Arkansas. She had come to the West Bank to learn about Palestinians and to see how bad they really had it there. There's no good way to explain Susan. She's older, has a southern accent, and never quite smiling. Her favorite phrase is, “Really?!” As if what we're talking about couldn't have really happened or existed. Everything was unbelievable to her. For instance, I was telling some of the other girls how I had bought a bunch of skirts at Good Will before coming to Israel. One of the girls is from my hometown and knows the area pretty well. So I was telling her how I went to the Buckhead Good Will, which is in the nicest area of Atlanta. Susan's response: “You got those here?! Really?!” My response, “No Susan... no... I got them in Atlanta...” I was desperately trying not to sound too sarcastic. “Oh, I thought you got them here...” Does Buckhead or Atlanta sound like somewhere in the West Bank or Israel? Or, Susan and the other teachers were going to get a taxi for the day and go to the Dead Sea, En-gedi, and Jericho. The problem with this is that if they were going to go swimming, it would inappropriate for them to do it in front of their Palestinian male taxi driver. Susan's thoughts on the matter: “Really?! Well why not? We're just going swimming.” Keep in mind that she had been there almost 3 ½ weeks and somehow she never picked up on how men and women aren't really supposed to spend time together in the first place, let alone go swimming. The real kicker was that you could remind her of cultural standards and ways that things worked several times and she never seemed to grasp the concept. For instance, one way to get a hot shower in the apartments is to wait for a decently warm day – has to be warm and not cloudy all day – and then around two or three you can get a hot shower. All the water tanks are on the roof and they can warm up during the day when it's nice outside. The problem is that this only lasts for one 5-10 minute shower per apartment. We had told her that several times. One glorious afternoon, I decided to run up to the apartment as soon as class was over and take a shower. Sure enough, Susan had gotten in there half an hour before me and taken a shower. I felt like crying, but sucked it up and took a cold one anyways. She just happened to be right outside the bathroom, when I came out all sad and dejected and frustrated, and she asked if there was warm water because she had just taken a nice hot shower. I proceeded to tell her, again, that you can only get one hot shower a day on the solar power. What did she say to that? “Really?! Because I only took a five minute shower. I wasn't in there that long, it was real short.” I had run the water for 10 minutes and then took a cold shower because there was no hot water. My skin was purple and blue! Crazy woman! She laughed and smiled and said that we would just have to alternate days, so I was allowed to take one the next day. Of course, the next day was cloudy, windy, and gross. There was no hot water. So the next day I decided to run up and take one before she could. It was my goal of the whole day. But, the end of the day came, and she had gotten in there before me, again. She told me, again, that maybe if I ran the water for a few minutes it would warm up. Keep in mind, just two days earlier, I told her it wasn't possible. Here she was, laughing and smiling about it, again, trying to tell me I may be able to get a warm shower. I thought about heating up water to take a bath and just lay in it's warmth for an hour or so to calm down, but the stove had run out of gas so there wasn't a good way to heat up water. For the last week she was there, she kept trying to make jokes about the hot water and talk about how she couldn't believe that it only lasted for one shower when her showers were so short. Needless to say, when she left, it was awkward and uncomfortable.

Of course, then I was able to move into her room which had working blinds, electricity, a full bath and shower all to myself, and her mattress had a heating pad! Did you know they make those? Woman was complaining about being cold all the time while she had a mattress heating pad! Anyways, my last week there was really great. My room was great, I had hot showers, I get along well with the other teachers, and I fell in love with the second grade class. I mean, they were still loud, unruly, and sticky. But I started to really see their personalities and who they were.

Of course, they did have their issues. Here's something I wrote during one of my lunch breaks:

When I was in high school, I drew stick figures on fire, blowing their brains out, or stabbing themselves in the chest because being surrounded by so many shallow and ignorant people made me feel like I was losing my mind.

Something weird about the Middle East? They don't have dust bins here. They use snow shovels, instead. 

If it hardly sprinkles outside for ten minutes, then obviously that means that a flood is coming and everyone is going to die. [Okay, slight sarcasm. But it did rain lightly for a few minutes, it's stopped now, and all the kids are saying they can't go outside because it rained.] 

It's amazing how many kids don't do their work. They're just going to have to do it later, anyways. And by later I mean during their break. So they're deciding to not do work during class work time, so that they can talk when they aren't supposed to and get yelled at for it, and then lose their free time anyways. I don't get it! 

And why would anyone come to school without paper, pencil, or eraser? They end up asking for them every ten minutes or so. You would think that being so worried about it at school means that you may think about it outside of school. But second graders have the attention span of goldfish. 

Sometimes they think they're the only ones in the room and interrupt people, call out, and get mad when they know an answer and don't get called on. Sometimes they think they're the most important person to exist and everything they don't like is unfair to them – like writing three sentences or being disciplined for talking out during class. But sometimes they think no one can see them and that if they aren't listening to you then it excuses them from having to follow the rules. So they do things like walk around the room and talk or purposefully continue talking even when you're staring at them and asking them to be quiet. 

It also amazes me how many kids laugh or smile when they get in trouble. Are we manipulative from birth? Just shows me that even at such a young age, God's word is written on our hearts and we know when we do wrong. Because they know they're breaking the rules, they just don't care. I understand that they're children and haven't matured, but I don't remember ever being quite so disrespectful and my parents say I really wasn't that bad. Is it a cultural thing, then?
On a side note, the fifth graders are reading The Giver. In the book, each family is only given two children. This baffled all the kids in the class. Most of them have up to five siblings and Arab culture is to have lots of kids. What really amazed me is when one of the girls asked, “But what if God gives them more children?” You could really see them struggle with the concept of a world that had no war, but everything they do is constrained and they have no freedom. I just love that they thought about God in the context of a fiction novel, because it's so much a part of their life that it's hard for them to separate it.

So, living there had it's ups and downs. Some days were great and others I was really homesick. Over all though, I loved the women I worked with. They're an amazing group of Godly women. I also really got attached to their church and Bible study that the school supervisor runs. If I didn't have to leave the community there, I wouldn't have. Don't get me wrong, I was excited to come back to JUC and learn and take classes. But Jerusalem is such a tense city because of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and Bethlehem is so laid back. I felt such a sense of freedom there, and Jerusalem just feels like a constant struggle. I also wasn't excited about getting reintegrated into a new social setting. I didn't talk about it too much last semester, but I really struggled with the group of kids that were here. First of all, I felt like most of them were kids and they were focused on social drama, puppy love, and politics. Which isn't something I resonate with at all. So I felt almost ostracized, which is difficult in a small school of 60 or so people where there's no where that you can be on your own. And, realistically, I knew that this semester couldn't be the same. But it was a fear.