THE POLLUTION THAT IS ANGER

 

trash-dump fire, similar to the Hinnom Valley

 

 

`You heard that it was said to the ancients: Thou shalt not kill, and whoever may kill shall be in danger of the Second Court;

²² but I -- I say to you, that every one who is angry at his brother shall be in danger of the Second Court, and whoever may say to his brother, Empty fellow! shall be in danger of the Sanhedrim, and whoever may say, Naval! shall be in danger of the Hinnom Valley’s Great Trash-dump Fire.

²³ `If, therefore, you bring your Qorban to the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you,

²⁴ leave there your Qorban before the altar, and go -- first be reconciled to your brother, and then having come bring your Qorban.

²⁵ `Be agreeing with your opponent-at-law quickly, while you are still on the way to court with him, so that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and to prison you be cast;

²⁶ Indeed I say to you, you may not come forth thence till that you pay the last penny.’ (Matthew 5)

 

The above translation is based on Young’s Literal Translation, but modified by terms explained in the Real Yeshua blog’s invaluable posts on Yeshua’s Teachings on Anger. I will try to summarise these here.

            The opening sentence shows the audience that what follows is a completion of the old Torah’s commandment against murder. Whoever commits murder will deserve to be judged by the higher Beth Din, of 26 judges (the Lower had three judges).

            BUT I SAY – this initiates the New Torah’s completion of the old: the reinterpretation in the key of inwardness which, if it is followed, will make its followers more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees. Three stages of anger are discussed.

            Simple anger at one’s brother/neighbour is the equivalent of murder. Why? Because it opens a Pandora’s Box and can lead to murder. To a scriptural Jewish audience this would have called to mind humanity’s first murder, and would thus have identified the present discourse as a commentary on the story of Cain and Abel.

            If one calls one’s brother/neighbour raka – an empty fellow, useless, of no value – one is contradicting the Creator, who has created him in His own image, and thus committing a blasphemy, to be judged by the Sanhedrin, the highest Court.

            If one calls one’s brother/neighbour naval, one likens him to the naval who in Isaiah and in the Psalms says ‘There is no God’ and therefore denies that God does tov (all that is good, beautiful and healthful for Creation). This is the ultimate blasphemy, and means that he who utters it deserves to be thrown on the burning, stinking trash dump in the Gey-Hinnom, the Hinnom Valley outside Jerusalem – but which also functions as a metaphor for the destination of those rejected by God at the Last Judgement.

            These three points are an increasing emphasis on the importance of one’s inward condition and attitude towards one’s neighbour. Nothing is trivial, says Yeshua. A tiny mustard-seed can become a great bush. Simple anger, if untended or even fed, can end in murder, blasphemy and denial of God and His love. 

 

Now comes a further step, an image not readily understood by modern readers unfamiliar with the customs of Yeshua’s time and place. 

            A qorban is an offering, of which there were many kinds, and the rules for them were multiple and complicated. The bringing of qorbanot to the Temple was a form of drawing near to God, and for repairing one’s relation to Him. It was a regular part of Jewish life. To bring a qorban, a Jewish man had first to go to the Temple’s double gates (where he could see and smell the Hinnom Valley) and have it examined. The he had to go the ritual-bath complex and be purified by immersion supervised by priests. Following that he had to pass through the Court of the Gentiles, pass the Beautiful Gate, cross the Court of Women, pass the Nicanor Gate and enter the Court of Israel. Here he would wait until he was called by a priest; and when he was, he would finally bring his qorban to the altar and perform his part of the ritual.

            So that when Yeshua talks of remembering ‘at the altar’ that one’s relation to one’s brother was still polluted by an offence of anger (whether the brother is aware of this or not), and then leaving one’s qorban there, at the very altar itself, and going back through all those steps to go and find one’s brother and repair one’s offence against him, before finally coming back through all those stages again and actually offering one’s qorban – this is extreme. At the very last minute. 

           But it is crucial. Why? Because, says the Law, God cannot accept your qorban, your offering, and thus cannot grant you His forgiveness, unless you genuinely regret your offence and have obtained the victim’s forgiveness.

 

            And finally, another metaphor. If you are on the way to court with your neighbour who has lodged a complaint against you, you are well advised to obtain his forgiveness before you get there. Otherwise you will have to face the full legal consequences to the limit of the penalty; whereas if you obtain his forgiveness before you get to court, he can and will cancel the complaint.

 

Both these great images emphasise the point of Yeshua’s sermon on the sin of Anger or Ira: it is the root of all violence and thus, as the later Church called it, a capital sin, a sin that is truly Deadly.

 

SALT AND LIGHT

 

Humeis este to halas tès gès: ean de to halas mōranthèi en tini halisthèsetai? eis ouden ischuei eti ei mè blèthen exō kai katapateisthai hupo tōn anthrōpōn (Matthew 5:13-16)

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt becomes flat, insipid, in what will it be salted? It will be good for nothing except be thrown outside and trampled under foot by people.

In this passage of the Sermon Yeshua gives his talmidim two metaphors of compliment and responsibility that describe them and their function: salt and light. They are the salt of the land, and/or the light of the world. Let us think about those elements and their contexts.

 

Salt was not only that which gave food flavour, it was also the only known and reliable preservation agent for food. As such, it reduced the dependence on seasons and, as late as the 19^th century, sailing-ships carried barrels of salted meat for months, sometimes years, of the sailors’ rations. So that when the disciples are compared to salt, they are shown to be essential: essential for life’s flavour, essential for its preservation. 

    They give flavour to life. Life without faith, without God, is tasteless, meaningless, and flat. With God, meaning springs up everywhere, hours and days are tart, are savoury, are nourishing. Human beings are made to enjoy strong flavours, lively experiences, powerful emotions. 

    They preserve, also. Those who spread the eu-angelion, the good and authoritative message, are essential for preserving it and its values in the community. They preserve nourishment against moments of drought, of famine, of darkness, of need: at such times, the community can count on them for spiritual food.

    Moreover, they are the salt of the earth. The Greek word Gè is not the planet but the soil, the land, the country, where people live, move, and have their being; where men carry on their activity, where children are born and the dead are buried. The ‘real world’.

   We don’t usually think of Christians, of those that follow Yeshua, as being those that give savour, spice, to life; so it is useful and interesting here to be invited to do so. But at once, the talmidim are given a warning. Because when salt itself goes flat, when it loses its saltiness, when it can no longer keep food edible, what’s the use of it? Throw it out into the street, walk all over it. 

    How could a disciple of Yeshua lose his flavour? By losing the intensity of his commitment. ‘The excellence of every art,’ wrote Keats, ‘lies in its intensity.’ If they become lukewarm, if they put God on the back burner, they are not redeemable transgressors: they are simply useless, and good only to be thrown out and walked upon.

Humeis este to phōs to kosmou. ou dunatai polis krubènai epanō orous keimenè

You are the light of the world. A city that lies on a mountain cannot be hidden.

Oude kaiousin luchnon kai titheasin auton hupo ton modion all’epi tèn luchnian kai lampei pasin tois en tè oikia

 

Neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel tub, but on a lamp-stand; and it gives light unto all that are in the house.

 

But this is not all. They are compared also to light. ‘You are the light of – not of the Gè but of the Kosmos.’ Not of the earth, but of the world. The Gè is the earth in the sense of solid belonging; the Kosmos is the world in the sense of space. And this space (which was originally the universe, the cosmos as we still call it) is dark by default, unless and until light arrives, is lit. The world’s light is of course the sun; and by calling his pupils the ‘light of the world’, Yeshua is comparing them to the sun, and to whatever source brings light. Essentially, light is brought by fire. The sun is fire: daylight comes from its fire. The light of the moon is reflected fire. And when men learned how to make fire, they could light up the night. At first with a bonfire; later with a wick steeped in, and fed by, a flammable material like oil.

     If the disciples are likened to light, that implies a world of darkness. Not an optimistic view. The world is a dark room. But when a man of God[1] comes into it, he lights it up like a well-trimmed oil lamp. ‘I,’ implies Yeshua, ‘am lighting you up like oil lamps: you will lighten the dark places that for the inhabitable world.’ More than that, now that I have lit you, you will continue to light yourselves. And as lamps lighting the world’s habitats, you will enable people to see: to see the point, the meaning, the path, the direction, the sense, the purpose, of life. 

    And light shows: a city (a place full of light in the evening) that moreover lies on a hill or mountain can’t be hidden. Nor should it be: there follows a hypothetical and ridiculous negative. If people light a lamp, they do not put it under a nine-gallon tub; they put it on a lamp-stand so that it lights up the house. 

     There is a subtle difference in the negatives of the two metaphors. Salt can lose its saltiness: if the supply is not maintained and renewed, it just naturally goes off and is useless. In the case of light, he might have used the same image: if a lamp is not periodically fed with oil it will go out and the room be plunged back into night. And indeed he did use that image, in the parable of the foolish girls going to the wedding. Here, though, he uses a more peculiar one: an idiot lighting a lamp and putting it, deliberately, under an upturned bowl or vat. This is hard to grasp: why would anyone do that? The only thing I can think of is, out of a crazy desire to protect and preserve it. But the point is clear: if you have the faith that creates light, don’t hide it but let it shine and be useful to all. 

Outōs lampsatō to phōs humōn emprosthen tōn anthrōpōn hopōs idōsin humōn ta kala erga kai doxasōsin ton patera humōn ton en tois ouranois

 

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your lovely deeds, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

     And the next sentence makes it clear: let it shine in front of, in full view of, people, so that they may see your kala erga, the beautiful things you do; and since they know you do them out of faith, their reaction will be, not to praise you but to glorify your father in heaven.

     So when combined, the salt and light images tell the talmidim that their faith must remain tasty and lively to be useful, and that it must be out in the open, creating beautiful actions.

     Again, we need to interpret this in the light of the new Torah, the Torah of inwardness, the fulfilled Torah. It culminates in the kala erga, but it emphasises the inward and spiritual work that needs to be done in order that such beautiful deeds may be produced. This work consists, first, of prayer, because that is what keeps faith lively and full of flavour; and secondly of courage, to put it on a lamp-stand and let it shine in front of all kinds of people who may neither like nor think they want it, but who may be helped by your actions and won over by your transparent faith and end up praising the Author of that faith.   

 

---

[1] I know. But the disciples were all men.

GETTING CLOBBERED AND SUMMING UP

Egyptian Christians cleaning up after their chapel was looted and burned in 2013

"Fortunate are you, when they reproach you and persecute you and say all wickedness about you, lying, because of me. Be joyful and rejoice exceedingly, because your reward is great in heaven; for so did they reproach the prophets before you."

Makarioi este hotan oneidōsin humas kai diōxōsin kai eipōsin pan ponèron kath’umōn pseudomenoi heneken emou. Chairete kai agalliasthe, hoti ho mismos humōn polus en tois ouranois: outōs gar ediōxan tous prophètas tous pro humōn.

 

This final Beatitude elaborates the previous one, and confirms the movement away from character traits towards events and behaviour. The fortunate are no longer ‘they’ but ‘you’; and the persecution is made more specific. Meanings of the verb diōkō can range from ‘pursue’ as a deer in the hunt, via ‘prosecute’ in the courts to ‘persecute’, so that the place where the lies and the reproaches are uttered may well be the courts, where followers of the Meshiach might be charged with blasphemy in a Jewish tribunal or with nonconformity in a Roman one.

 

It may, now, be time to put the nine Beatitudes together and consider them as one Torah, or teaching. (Note that it is given to his disciples, not to the multitude.) The first element is the ninefold anaphora of makarioi. It translates the Hebrew ashrei which, because it opens in anaphora (from Psalm  84:5-6) the central daily Jewish prayer, has given to that prayer its name. As so often, Yeshua’s teaching is very close to the Book of Psalms.

 

Secondly, each example of the makarioi’s fortunate condition is a reward, mostly for enduring what seems unfortunate in an earthly human context – with the exception of being pure in heart. In this way they form part of the central Christian paradox: the last shall be first. The Meshiach and his teaching deliberately disrupt and overturn a great deal of received wisdom. So far from being the new King David, arriving with an army to liberate Israel from Rome by chasing out the occupiers, this unlikely Saviour is an itinerant rabbi in Galil-haGoyim, ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’, not really thoroughly Jewish at all, who wanders around with a dozen talmidim, ‘disciples’, pupils, and whose teaching is as disconcerting as it is paradoxical. How can he be the Meshiach? How can he liberate Israel? Well, his idea is that Israel needs liberating from sin more than from Rome; and that such liberation applies as much to the ‘nations’, the Goyim, as to the Chosen People. 

 

The makarioi themselves fall into two categories. There are those who have certain characteristics, and there are those to whom certain things happen. The first are the poor in spirit, the gentle, the caring, the peacemakers, and the pure in heart; the second are those who mourn, those who hunger for justice, and those who are persecuted, especially those persecuted because of Him. The former are cited as examples of a way to be and to live; the latter are cited to show that the miseries of humanity are seen and recompensed by the Father.

 

A picture emerges. The new Torah shows the new Chosen as being not of a tribe but of a kind: not warlords, not brave fighters, not conquerors, not even prophets: they are simple in the best sense, one-fold, not multiple; their love for, and obedience to, the Father is uncomplicated and unquestioning; they care for and help the unfortunate, not sentimentally but effectively; they heal the wounds of conflict in their surroundings; and they avoid what, and whom, they know to be evil. Very simple, and un-glamorous. Yet as such, they will be – they are -- Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven; and they will see God, they will rule in Heaven. And when things go pear-shaped, when their loved ones die or when they are pursued, persecuted, prosecuted, and sometimes tortured and executed, they will be given consolation, they will receive a Paraclete, a Spirit to defend them, they will be granted joy and in turn astonish those who see them. And they pray, constantly, like the Meshiach Himself. 

 

One does, finally, see St Jerome’s point. For such people, in such a relation to their loving Father, ashrei, makarioi, may perhaps indeed be translated as ‘Blessed’. 

Samuel Palmer, 'Coming from Evening Church' (1830)

FACING STONES, CLAWS, AND TEETH

 

Fortunate are they who are persecuted because of righteousness, because theirs is the kingship of the heavens.

Makarioi hoi dediōgmenoi heneken dikaiosunès, hoti autōn estin hè basileia tōn ouranōn.

 

Interestingly, the second part of this sentence is an exact copy of that in the first Beatitude: the kingship of heaven there belonged to the beggars in spirit, here to those who are persecuted for their righteous, or just, behaviour. So either these two share the heavenly reign, or they are the same people; or, conceivably, there is poetry and hyperbole at work here. For later on, in Matthew 14:19, he says of the little children that “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”.

 

There is no confusion about the words. Basileia means ‘kingdom’ in the sense of the office, not the geography – so ‘kingship, dominion, reign’. The heaven, or heavens, is/are the seat of divinity. So if this basileia is variously attributed to the poor in sprit, the righteous victims of persecution, and ‘such as’ little children, it is the thought, not the words, that needs to be teased out. Let us try to imagine that it might refer to the same people. Who would they be?

 

We have seen that the ptōchoi tōi pneumati are likely to be those who in their love for the Father tend to be simple, uncomplicated; and in fact the expression that instinctively occurred to me was ‘as children’ who trust their parent without complication. So the first and the third indications of who is referred to here agree.

But what about the persecution?

 

Why are they being persecuted? hekenen dikaiosunès: for the sake of – the translations say ‘righteousness’ but the noun can also mean ‘justice’ of ‘(the things of) the law’. They are being persecuted (the verb can also mean ‘prosecuted’) for the sake of, because of, justice – being just, being righteous. They practice that which, in an earlier Beatitude, people hungered and thirsted for. And for doing so, they are persecuted. By whom? The answer is not given, but there are plenty of examples in the New Testament (and in the Old, for that matter). It might be the religious authorities, the Scribes and Pharisees, the High Priests, who after all were on the way to persecuting Him for the very same reason; it might be the Romans, whose persecution of Christians reached a paroxysm under Diocletian and Galerius (303-311 AD), but who persecuted them for nonconformity to new Romanising edicts: among the Christians themselves, such nonconformity may well have been considered ‘righteous’.

 

So what it amounts to is that the simple, the innocent, the poor in spirit are those who know instinctively how to react to the Father’s love, and who therefore are likely to be victims of the kind of authority that demands obedience over any other behaviour, and punishes those who obey a different lordship: ‘my basileia is not of this world’ says Yeshua to Pilatus. 

 

What we see happening at this point in the Sermon on the Mount is the movement away from the declaration of good fortune to those of a certain nature or those in a certain condition, and toward a similar declaration toward those to whom certain grim realities are happening. Yeshua is modulating toward the beginning, and in future overwhelming, pattern of opposition that He will undergo first, and that awaits His followers afterwards. We see here the seeds of the martyrs’ blessedness.

Image: Execution by wild beasts (Ziten mosaic ca. AD 200)

LOOKING BOTH WAYS IN NO MAN'S LAND

 

Fortunate those who make peace, because they shall be called sons of God.

Makarioi hoi eirènopoioi, hoti huioi theou klèthèsontai.

 

The peacemakers are not difficult to understand. The Greek word is exactly the same, composed of “peace” (hence the name “Irene”) and “makers” (the same root as “poesy” and “poet”). However, their connection with the “sons of God” is a little trickier, especially if one sticks to the Greek. If one goes through to the Hebrew, though, some clarity emerges. First of all, the original peacemaker is God. In the important Amidah prayer, the ending is “He Who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace for us and for all Israel. Now say, Amen.” This authoritative, divine making of peace makes Him the osef shalom; but it is of course not easily imitable by fallible humans. 

 

The human way of making peace is what is meant in Psalm 34:14, which says “seek peace, and ensue (pursue) it.” And “peacemakers” in that sense are rodfei shalom. And the full quotation tells how this may be done: “Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” And in the Mishnah tractate Avot, Rabbi Hillel says “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving your fellow creatures and bringing them close to the Torah.” (m.Avot 1:12) Why Aaron? In another version of Avot, Avot de Rebbe Natan, this is explained in a, for us, very useful way: “So, too, when two men had quarreled with each other, Aaron would go and sit down with one of them and say to him: “My son, mark what thy fellow is saying! He beats his breast and tears his clothing, saying, ‘Woe unto me! how shall I lift my eyes and look upon my fellow!  I am ashamed before him, for I it is who treated him foully.’ “ He would sit with him until he had removed all rancor from his heart, and then Aaron would go and sit with the other one and say to him: “My son, mark what thy fellow is saying!  He beats his breast and tears his clothing, saying, ‘Woe unto me! how shall I lift my eyes and look upon my fellow!  I am ashamed before him, for I it is who treated him foully.’ “ He would sit with him until he had removed all rancor from his heart.  And when the two men met each other, they would embrace and kiss each other.  That is why (of Aaron’s death) it is said, They wept for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel (Num. 20:29)”

 

So now we can understand much better what Yeshua meant with this fundamentally simple, but huge, saying. Those who pursue peace can make peace, and so become osei shalom; and when they make peace, as Aaron did, they shall be called “sons of God”. They will, by making peace among men, do what God does. Now, does that make them the equals of the Meshiach, who is the Son? Uncertain; but I find it significant that “they shall be called sons of God”. In other words, they will be regarded by others of their human kind as almost divine, so precious is the making of peace. 

 

In the Latin oratio that is the original for the Second Collect of Anglican Matins, God is called auctor pacis et amator, which Cranmer expanded to “author of peace and lover of concord”. God makes peace, and loves peace when humans make it. So those who do are fortunate, indeed “Blessed”. 

 

NB: for the Torah and Mishnah citations in this post, I am indebted to the website Emet haTorah at www.emethatorah.com .

 

 

SEEING ON A WINDY DAY

Fortunate are the clean in heart, because they shall see God.

Makarioi hoi katharoi tèi kardiai, hoti autoi ton theon opsontai.

 

This Beatitude seems simple. Katharos means, at bottom, simply ‘clean’ but goes on to a host of further kinds of cleanliness: ‘purified’ as in water or grain, ‘free of pollution’, ‘free of additions’. And it quickly goes on to the human, where it can mean ‘free of debt’, ‘free of defilement’, ‘honourable’ and even, as for a priest, ‘ceremonially pure’. Kardia is the heart, the seat of feelings and passions, but also the inclination, desire or purpose, and the kardia of wood is its core or pith. And opsontai is the future of horaō, which means ‘to see or behold’.

 

So just as those who are poor in spirit will inherit the earth, so those whose heart is clean, pure, free of pollution, honourable, will see God. Simple.

 

Yet the Gospel of Yochanan, John, says ‘No one has seen God at any time’. (John 1:18) Has there never been one who is pure in heart? If this were so, the Beatitude would not be a joyous promise but at worst a savage criticism and at best a Yeshuan hyperbole, like ‘If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.’ Surely this is not what is meant here.

 

I suspect that we have to ponder and probe the seeing. We know that here on earth we see ‘as through a glass, darkly’, and that sin, the lack of love, can make us blind to many things. We also know that in such a condition grace may help us: ‘I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.’ Note that we do not help ourselves: Christianity is not like Buddhism, a constant activity of scrupulous self-help to eliminate the dross, to make oneself pure. We are dependent, even for our daily bread. Only grace can make us pure, only the Spirit, the pneuma, the ruach, can make us katharoi. What we can do, what we need desperately to do, is to clear away the junk blocking the doors and windows, and to open them as wide as we can to let the pneuma (which is breath, wind, and spirit) in.

 

And when we do that, when He, that third person of the Trinity, does enter, when the wind blows where it listeth in our soul, then it brings with it the sun: the sun that is also the Son, and the glorious sun that is the emblem of the Father. And then we see God. Not with the eyes of our lurching, rebellious body, perhaps; but with the inward eye that is the bliss, not only of solitude but of faith.

 

 

 

BE VERY CAREFUL

 

Fortunate are the merciful, for they shall experience mercy in return.

Makarioi hoi eleèmones, hoti autoi eleèthèsontai.

 

The Greek text translates with eleos the Hebrew chesèd (ch as in ‘loch’), one of the three words that could become English ‘mercy’. In one sense it can mean ‘kindness’, but not, like praios, as a character trait but rather as a form of action. Chesed is taking care of someone else’s need: Jonathan protects David from Saul in an act of chesed. It is always seen as reciprocal: someone who receives chesed from another is expected to return it. 

 

So this Beatitude does not really introduce something new or unexpected, but rather reminds the audience of the way conventional relationships ought to be. It is really a form of ‘do as you would be done by’. And yet it goes beyond that also. God shows chesed to his people, both collectively, as the people of Israel whom he feeds in the wilderness, and individually in persons such as Abraham, Jacob, David and Job. For human beings it is of course impossible to return this to the Father himself; but He expects them in return to show it to others. So there may well also in this Beatitude be a sense that those who are merciful to others may receive the mercy of the Father, just as in the Lord’s Prayer those who forgive others’ debts to them may receive the forgiveness of their own debts to the Father.

 

In Psalm 85/86:11, ‘Mercy and truth are met together’, it is chesed that is joined to emet; and the ‘truth’ that is also characteristic of the Father is not so much ‘truth’ in the sense of conformity to a factual norm as ‘truth’ in the sense of faithfulness, of being ‘true’ to a loved one, one’s lord, or one’s country. So if that is joined to chesed, it means that Fidelity is joined to Care. 

 

It is both interesting and useful to pursue these words a little, because the English word ‘mercy’ has a connotation of opposition to ‘justice’ which in this case is not present. Our ‘mercy’ is usually closer to ‘compassion’, which translates the Hebrew racham/rachamim. The latter is word that does not imply as much reciprocity as does chesed: its root is linked to the Hebrew word for ‘womb’, hence the otherwise curious English term ‘the bowels of compassion’. So in the case of the fifth Beatitude, one might almost translate the text as ‘Fortunate are those who care, for they shall experience care in return’. And one should always remember that this does not refer merely, or even especially, to human interactions only, but to the very real Care and aid we children receive from our Father in heaven, and which we must pass on.