The Rabbi as a Surrogate Priest

By Stuart Dauermann

"There are many aspects to this task of rabbinic training, but four closely related questions rise to the surface as requiring primary attention. The first is a question of description: What ought to be the functions performed by a messianic Jewish rabbi? The second is a question of legitimacy: What similarities exist between the functions performed by messianic Jewish rabbis and rabbis in the wider Jewish context such that the rabbinate in both contexts may legitimately be seen to be variations on the same theme, and the messianic Jewish rabbinate therefore legitimately a rabbinate? The third is a question of differentiation: How and why are the functions performed by a messianic Jewish rabbi contextually particularistic and therefore different from those performed byChristian clergy? In other words, how is a messianic rabbi more than just a Protestant Pastor with switched labels? The fourth is a question of biblicity: Is there biblical justification or precedent for the proposed paradigm of the rabbi as a surrogate priest?
Each of these questions emerges from messianic Judaism's interaction with different but overlapping audiences. The question of description is addressed primarily to the messianic Jewish context. The question of legitimacy is addressed primarily to the wider Jewish world. The question of differentiation is addressed primarily to the church world. The question of biblicity is addressed both to the messianic Jewish context and the church world. And in all cases, looking over our shoulder is the general public."
--from the Prologue

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: May 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781498276580

Stuart Dauermann

Stuart Dauermann is Director of Interfaithfulness. He specializes in developing new paradigms and tools to assist those navigating the intersection of the Christian and Jewish worlds, with special attention to the intermarried. Having participated in both the missions and congregational worlds, he is now engaged in serving a network of havurot, especially for Jews and intermarrieds.

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The Rabbi as a Surrogate Priest

Stuart Dauermann

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THE RABBI AS A SURROGATE PRIEST

Copyright © 2009 Stuart Dauermann. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf & Stock, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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isbn 13: 978-1-55635-511-0

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Dauermann, Stuart

The rabbi as a surrogate priest / Stuart Dauermann.

xii + 458 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references.

isbn 13: 978-1-55635-511-0

eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-7658-0

1. Rabbis—Office. 2. Judaism—Functionaries. 3. Priests, Jewish—Biblical teaching. 4. Leadership—Religious aspects—Judaism. I. Title.

bm652.5 d238 2009

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Prologue: The Rabbi as a Surrogate Priest—A Crucial Paradigm for Understanding the Rabbi’s Role

Part One: A Biblical Perspective on the Priesthood

Chapter 1: Israel in the Older Testament as a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation

Chapter 2: Exploring How Evangelical Exegesis of the Newer Testament Negates or Ignores the Identity of Israel as a Kingdom of Priests

Chapter 3: The Functions Performed by Priests in the Older Testament and the Second Temple Period

Part Two: A Historical Perspective on the Rabbi’s Role

Chapter 4: The Historical Development of the Rabbi’s Role in the Land of Israel and Babylon

Chapter 5: The Historical Development of the Rabbi’s Role in the European Diaspora

Chapter 6: The Historical Development of the Rabbi’s Role in the American Context: Focusing on Seminaries and Curricula

Chapter 7: The Historical Development of the Rabbi’s Role in the American Context: Focusing on Catalytic Factors and Changing Paradigms

Chapter 8: Reporting on Jewish Community Responses to the Paradigm of the Rabbi as a Surrogate Priest

Chapter 9: Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

Epilogue: The Rabbi as a Surrogate Priest: A Useful Tether for Rabbinic Role Definition

Appendix A: A Heuristic Taxonomy of Materials from the Older Testament Concerning Priests and Levites with Special Reference to Their Functions

Appendix B: Transcription of Written Survey Results: Congregation Ohavei Tzion, West Hilldale, Connecticut, Conducted May 7, 2003

Appendix C: Transcription of Digital Recording of Interviews with Seventeen Members of Knesset Tzion Messianic Jewish Congregation Millstream, Connecticut, Conducted May 8, 2003

Appendix D: Transcription of Interviews with Thirteen Members of Temple Hakodesh (Reform), La Piñata, California, Conducted June 3, 2003

Appendix E: Contrasting Messianic Jewish Theology and the Evangelical Consensus, Deriving Implications for the Rabbi Functioning as a Surrogate Priest

Appendix F: Comparing Messianic Jewish Hermeneutics with R. Daniel Shaw’s and Charles E. Van Engen’s Communicating God’s Word in a Complex World: God’s Truth or Hocus Pocus? (2003)

Appendix G: An Address: What Time Is It?

Works Cited

This work is dedicated to two life mentors:

Rachmiel Frydland and Arthur Glasser

To Rachmiel Frydland, who humbly called himself just a Polish peasant, but who was for so many rabbi, friend, mentor, and conscience, that we might never forget the righteous souls who perished in the Holocaust that he survived, and that we might come to know and value the holy books, the holy ways, and the holy Messiah that were the fabric of his life. May this research contribute to replicating his character in many others, even as he bore the imprint of his Messiah. His memory is for a blessing, a signpost of the Kingdom that has no end.

To Arthur F. Glasser, like Abraham, a friend of God, and also an outspoken friend of the Jewish people during into the tenth decade of his still vigorous life. Arthur proves himself a friend to people of widely divergent viewpoints while always remaining true to his own convictions. He models fidelity to his God, to his marriage, to his calling and to the nations of the world. He sets a peerless example in productivity, intelligence, kindness, and faithfulness that serve as a beacon for all who have been privileged to know him and to call him friend.

Acknowledgments

This work would not have been possible without the trust and generosity of the G. Robert and Susan C. Chenoweth Foundation. The Chenoweths are the kind of people for whom the only thanks needed is the effectiveness of this research as an instrument of the glorification of God in the Messianic Jewish context. Special thanks are due as well to Arthur Glasser, who believed I had what it took to do such research before the thought ever occurred to me.

To my mentors and friends on the faculty of the School of Intercultural Studies goes my gratitude not only for their assistance but also their example and supportive friendship, especially the members of my Doctoral Committee, Charles Van Engen (mentor), J. Robert (Bobby) Clinton, and R. Daniel Shaw. Certain friends in particular have especially undertaken to encourage me through this long process. Of special note are Jude Tiersma-Watson, Nick and Leona Venditti, Betsy Glanville, and Thérese Esposito of the Fuller Seminary community, and Randy Northrup, therapist and friend. Thanks are due as well to Dave Anderson who long ago sought to demystify the dissertation process by wisely saying, Stuart, it’s only a paper.

To Molly Hurley of Teknigrammaton Graphics, my thanks for help with illustrations, including those that wound up on the cutting room floor. To Gari-Anne Patzwald, Research Librarian of the School of Intercultural Studies, my admiration for her meticulous attention to detail which has contributed incalculably to the quality of this work. Any mistakes that remain are surely my responsibility alone.

My wife Naomi and children Chaim, Jonathan, and Abigail deserve this degree as much as I, for they too sacrificed for its completion. To them and to all I have named and failed to name, my grateful thanks.

Above all, blessed be the God of Israel, who has given of his wisdom to flesh and blood.

prologue

The Rabbi as a Surrogate Priest—A Crucial Paradigm for Understanding the Rabbi’s Role

On July 31, 2002, the delegates of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC) voted to ratify this definition of Messianic Judaism:

Basic Statement

Messianic Judaism is a movement of Jewish congregations and congregation-like groupings committed to Yeshua the Messiah that embrace the covenantal responsibility of Jewish life and identity rooted in Torah, expressed in tradition, renewed and applied in the context of the New Covenant.

Expanded Statement

Jewish life is life in a concrete, historical community. Thus, Messianic Jewish groupings must be fully part of the Jewish people, sharing its history and its covenantal responsibility as a people chosen by God. At the same time, faith in Yeshua also has a crucial communal dimension. This faith unites Messianic Judaism and the Gentile Christian Church, which is the assembly of the faithful from the nations who are joined to Israel through the Messiah. Together Messianic Judaism and the Gentile Church constitute the one Body of Messiah, a community of Jews and Gentiles who in their ongoing distinction and mutual blessing anticipate the shalom of the world to come.

For a Messianic Jewish grouping (1) to fulfill the covenantal responsibility incumbent upon all Jews, (2) to bear witness to Yeshua within the people of Israel, and (3) to serve as an authentic and effective representative of the Jewish people within the body of Messiah, it must place a priority on integration with the wider Jewish world. Such integration must then be followed by a vital corporate relationship with the Gentile Christian Church.

The Messianic Jewish way of life involves an attempt to fulfill Israel’s covenantal responsibility embodied in the Torah within a New Covenant context. Messianic Jewish halakhah is rooted in Scripture (Tanakh and the New Covenant writings), which is of unique sanctity and authority. However, it also draws upon Jewish tradition, especially those practices and concepts that have won near-universal acceptance by devout Jews through the centuries. Furthermore, like most other branches of Judaism, Messianic Judaism recognizes that halakhah must be dynamic as well as faithful, for it involves the application of the Torah to a wide variety of changing situations and circumstances.

Messianic Judaism embraces the fullness of New Covenant realities available through Yeshua, and seeks to express them in forms drawn from Jewish experience and accessible to Jewish people (Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations 2002:n.p.).¹

This document situates Messianic Judaism in Jewish space. From this perspective, which is a growing one in the UMJC, Messianic Jews see ourselves not as a Jewish-style evangelicalism, but rather as a Judaism that honors Yeshua as Messiah. As a rabbi and trainer/educator of rabbis within the UMJC, I am charged with the task of orienting and equipping rabbis who will function in a manner appropriate to this definitional statement.

There are many aspects to this task of rabbinic training, but four closely related questions rise to the surface as requiring primary attention. The first is a question of description: What ought to be the functions performed by a Messianic Jewish rabbi? The second is a question of legitimacy: What similarities exist between the functions performed by Messianic Jewish rabbis and rabbis in the wider Jewish context such that the rabbinate in both contexts may legitimately be seen to be variations on the same theme, and the Messianic Jewish rabbinate therefore legitimately a rabbinate? The third is a question of differentiation: How and why are the functions performed by a Messianic Jewish rabbi contextually particularistic and therefore different from those performed by Christian clergy? In other words, how is a Messianic rabbi more than just a Protestant Pastor with switched labels? The fourth is a question of biblicity: Is there biblical justification or precedent for the proposed paradigm of the rabbi as a surrogate priest?

Each of these questions emerges from Messianic Judaism’s interaction with different but overlapping audiences. The question of description is addressed primarily to the Messianic Jewish context. The question of legitimacy is addressed primarily to the wider Jewish world. The question of differentiation is addressed primarily to the church world. The question of biblicity is addressed both to the Messianic Jewish context and the church world. And in all cases, looking over our shoulder is the general public.

At this stage in its development, the UMJC and the wider Messianic Jewish Movement of which it is a part, remains a biblicist movement. It is also a movement in flux, moving from old paradigms and approaches to new ones.² In recent years there has been within the movement an acceleration of interest in maturing as a Judaism, and in strengthening ties with the wider Jewish community. For many, such transitional change creates uneasiness. In this intensely biblicist movement, such uneasiness may be stilled when one succeeds in demonstrating the biblical precedent for the contemplated changes. As a leader in the Messianic Jewish Movement, I am responsible to do what I can to still this uneasiness through providing such a precedent.

Accordingly, the dissertation will demonstrate that the rabbinical functions being described here, Jewishly legitimate, and ecclesiologically and theologically necessary, are at the root based on biblical precursors: the functions performed by the priests and Levites, especially as presented in the Tanakh, or Older Testament. Furthermore, this relationship between the functions performed by rabbis and those formerly performed by priests/Levites will be shown to be not simply coincidental, but rather the consequence of a process of conscious usurpation and replacement by the Pharisees, the proto-rabbis who shaped what is today broadly termed Rabbinic Judaism. Accordingly, this dissertation explores the biblical priesthood as a paradigm for understanding and describing the rabbinic role and the parameters of its development.

In this research, the roles of priests and Levites will be substantially conflated. Christoph Barth provides a justification for this practice.

Participation in a common ministry, and membership in a common tribe, meant that the distinction between priests and Levites could sometimes be disregarded. Thus, the terms the priests, the Levites, the levitical priests, and the tribe of Levi could be used as equivalents in Josh. 3 and 6, and Deuteronomy could stress the facts that the Levites give the blessing (10:8) and teach the law (27:9, 10, 14; 31:9–13). The priests might be higher than the Levites, but the link between them also received emphasis. When the temple replaced the tabernacle and there was no further need to carry the tent and its equipment, the Levites were to stand every morning, thanking and praising the Lord, and likewise at evening, and whenever burnt offerings are offered (1 Ch. 23:24–32 RSV) (1991:156, 157).

This is not to say that the priests and Levites were the same. Although all priests were Levites, not all Levites were priests, and there were differences in their functions.³ The usage of the terms priest/priests/priesthood here may be compared with the usage of the term torah in the wider Jewish world. In Jewish life, the term torah has a narrow and wider application: narrowly, the Pentateuch, more widely, the entire body of Jewish sacred instruction including but not limited to the entire Older Testament and the Oral Tradition. Similarly, in this dissertation, the terms priest/priests/priesthood will be used more broadly than the narrower and more precise definition would require. As in Barth‘s observation, the boundary between the functions of priests and Levites in this dissertation is permeable, and the terms conflated.

Especially since the publication of Thomas Kuhn‘s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), the terms paradigm and paradigm shift have become household words. The terms have ramified with many permutations of meaning since that time. For the sake of the dissertation, I am thinking of the etymological root of the term paradigm, paradeiknynai meaning to show side by side, compare.⁴ Setting the priesthood and the rabbinate side by side enables one to see strong parallels between the two offices. As the similarities become apparent, so the features of each are revealed in sharper relief. To change the metaphor, I am advocating seeing the priesthood as a paradigmatic lens through which one sees the rabbinate in an entirely new light. With new light, comes new vision and understanding. Hence, my goal is to explore the biblical priesthood as a paradigm of the rabbinate, shedding new light on the rabbinate, enabling one to better see the rabbinic role, and through seeing it in a new light, to better understand both the whole and its parts.

As the title of this Prologue reveals, I believe this work to be crucial because this is a pivotal and transitionary time for the Messianic Jewish Movement. The four-year process of defining Messianic Judaism of which the definitional statement at the head of this chapter is but a small fruit, has created both excitement and concern in the movement. It is one thing to speak of ourselves being proponents of Messianic Judaism, with the Jewish community being our primary community of reference; it is quite another thing to understand and define the implications of that identity. In such times of change, many are apt to reflexively reach for the reassurance of old mission-based and evangelical paradigms. For this reason, this research derives its impetus from the need currently facing the Messianic Jewish Movement to seize the day and do all that is necessary to develop congregations that are credible Jewish communities honoring and embodying Yeshua as Messiah.⁵

My own biography and career reflect Messianic Judaism’s current journey. Raised in a religiously indifferent but ethnically aware Jewish home, I came to faith in Yeshua while a teenager in college. While at first I assimilated into the Christian world which had received me, I soon came to realize that my Jewish identity and that of other Jews who believed in Yeshua was a God-given reality that needed to be more deeply understood, acknowledged, addressed and nurtured. For twenty-two years subsequently I functioned in the Jewish mission world, but found that in that world, although Jewish identity was highlighted and even marketed, there was something missing. As one friend said upon hearing a mission team from one of these organizations, These people capitalize on their Jewishness without investing in it. Precisely.

I can no longer tolerate objectifying the Jewish people as a target audience. Not only are the Jewish people, a people, they are my people. In the mission world, it seems to me that although the Jewish people are the target of evangelistic efforts, the real audience is more often than not the mailing list of the mission. The Jewish people then become a means to the end of satisfying the mailing list that the job is getting done. I do not and cannot live there anymore.

Instead, I have come to see the Jewish community as my people, and not only genetically. Contrary to the extractionist model, which is perfectly happy seeing Jews enfolded in churches and assimilated into church culture, I now believe this to be wrong and contrary to the will of God. Against the neo-Platonic assumptions which judge spiritual salvation to be of such surpassing value as to render cultural assimilation at best a secondary concern, I view the latter to be both wrong and divinely proscribed.

In my teaching, I express this conviction in a principle I term The Mordecai Mandate which may be stated as follows:

Even though God is at work in history toward this end, we are not exempt from doing all we can to preserve Jewish community continuity. Failure to do so will bring harm to ourselves and the Jewish people for which we are culpable before God. Therefore, any approach to outreach that disrupts or destroys Jewish communal cohesion is wrong, as is passivity about Jewish community survival.

The Mordecai Mandate derives its name from Mordecai’s charge to Esther in Esther 4:13–14:

Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?

History and scripture bear multiple testimony to God’s activity in preserving Jewish continuity. Aside from the rebirth of the State after almost two millennia of dispersion, and the preservation of the Jewish people despite the violence-ridden scourge of anti-Semitism, campaigns of forced conversion, assimilation, and genocide, most recently the Holocaust, Scripture’s testimony is clear and multiple that God intends to preserve the Jews as a people (see for example Jer. 33:14–26). Therefore, any approach to the Jewish people that undermines this communal preservation is at variance with the will of God.

This being the case, it is not only morally wrong, but biblically and theologically inappropriate for any Jewish person to imagine that the plight of other Jews is not their problem. As Mordecai points out, the peril that visits some Jews imperils all Jews, regardless of their social position. No Jew can say, It’s not my problem. Similarly, no Christian—or Christian organization—can rightly justify pursuing a program of ministry to the Jews that negates the responsibility to preserve Jewish community cohesion. God wills that the Jews should remain a distinct people, and his glory is diminished and will despised when this is ignored or thwarted (see Isa. 43:20c–21).⁶

I also believe and teach that with respect to the Jewish people, the Great Commission and the Mordecai Mandate are coordinated desiderata, which must be pursued in tandem. For Messianic Judaism, it is not only right that we do all we can to preserve Jewish community cohesion, we must also do all we can to effectively commend our faith in Messiah to our fellow Jews. Extractionist models, which tolerate and/or pursue removal of Jews from the web of the Jewish community, and assimilationist models, that facilitate the incorporation of Jews into churches, obviously destroy Jewish communal cohesion. Such approaches also fail to form substantial congregations of Jews who honor Yeshua, instead picking off stragglers from the Jewish flock. Such approaches are unworthy of those claiming to follow The Good Shepherd.

What the Messianic Jewish Movement needs is a leadership model that aids in commending and communicating Messianic Judaism as a Jewish option, that assists in the formation of magnetic Jewish congregations that honor Yeshua, while in all ways preserving and nurturing Jewish community cohesion. At the very least, this means that we need rabbis who are truly rabbis.

Such an appropriately trained and oriented rabbinate is foundational to the character, vitality and survival of Messianic Judaism. In 1972, Theodore Lenn concluded his study on Reform Judaism with this assessment, which is no less true for Messianic Judaism.

Where does the rabbi qua rabbi stand? What is his focus? What is his function? It is the rabbi, not the congregant who spells out what Reform Judaism is . . . It would appear, therefore, that unless Reform Judaism is a rabbinical responsibility, it is no one’s. The whole Movement, then, revolves around the person of the rabbi. If it is a strong, viable Movement, the rabbis have made it so. If it is a faltering Movement, if there is a crisis, the rabbis have made it so. If there is a crisis, and if this crisis is to be overcome, the rabbis will do that too (1972:387–88).

The Messianic Movement needs rabbis who are truly rabbis—and good ones at that. This dissertation is directed toward achieving that end. Messianic Judaism cannot afford to cling to a nearly expired identity of being a quaint Jewish-style evangelicalism, and of our leadership being only informally trained or Bible School/Seminary-educated missionary staff that has made a lateral move into congregational leadership. Such is not the path to credible rabbis, credible congregations, and a credible Messianic Judaism. However, as Frank Pajares says in his synopsis of Thomas Kuhn‘s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, new assumptions–’paradigms’—require the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the re-evaluation of prior facts. This is difficult and time-consuming. It is also strongly resisted by the established community (Pajares 2004). This intrinsic difficulty and accompanying resistance demands determined and focused effort toward clear and dynamic goals if we are to move forward.

If the UMJC is to overcome the familiar and comfortable gravitational pull of our sojourn on the strange but hospitable planet of Protestant evangelicalism, we will need a well-defined goal to shoot for, that we might attain escape velocity. Our Definitional Statement was a giant leap in the direction of seizing the day. This biblically based and Jewishly authentic definition of the rabbinate is another.⁷ Only by operating under such assumptions can we honor and fulfill the Mordecai Mandate and the Great Commission as it applies to our own people.

However, it will not do for this dissertation to serve only the needs of the Messianic Jewish community. To prove valid, the data presented here must serve other Judaisms⁸ besides our own, hence the title of the dissertation: The Rabbi as a Surrogate Priest, rather than The Messianic Rabbi as a Surrogate Priest.⁹

Again, it is important to remember the various audiences being addressed in this endeavor. Figure 1 illustrates who those audiences are and what tasks we must accomplish with respect to each.

Figure 1: Intended audiences and related tasks

As this diagram demonstrates, in addressing each of these audiences, certain foci predominate. This dissertation must be intelligible to the general culture, and therefore insider jargon must be kept at a minimum. In addressing the wider Jewish world, I seek to underscore the legitimacy of this model as an authentic portrayal of the rabbinate, and therefore will concentrate on Jewish sources. In respect to the church world, I must defend and differentiate those concerns unique to the Messianic Jewish Movement, and to demonstrate why the presuppositions of the evangelical exegetical consensus are unsuitable for our own theologizing. This requires an in-depth examination of evangelical Christian sources. Finally, with respect to the Messianic Jewish context, I am seeking to demonstrate the biblicity and utility of the paradigm I propose, requiring an examination of relevant biblical data.

This research grows first out of a spiritual insight I had in the mid-1980s, and then an intuition that followed within the same decade. The insight was one of those aha moments one occasionally experiences in prayer. In my case, the insight indicated that my spiritual gifts clustered around the identity of a priest, especially in the areas of helping people in their times of brokenness, facilitating worship, and teaching. Following this insight in short order was he intuition that the role of rabbi might perhaps best be understood as a form of surrogate priesthood, that is, that the rabbi’s functions are analogous to those formerly performed by Levitical priests. I sensed as well that that this understanding of the Jewish leadership role somehow embodied and implied the entire Jewish religious worldview. The rabbi functioning as a priest nurtures Jewish life, and the lived reality of Jewish religious life creates a priest-sized space for its leader-rabbis. During the ten years encompassed by this research, I have tightly adhered to the research design I first proposed in 1995. The research chronicled here convinces me of the soundness of my original intuition. I hope that readers of this work will be likewise convinced.

Chapter 1 examines the identity of Israel as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, the context for the priesthood leadership model. Chapter 2 demonstrates how standard Protestant evangelical exegesis of the Apostolic Writings has either ignored or sought to nullify Israel’s identity as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation with the result that the nature and cause of Messianic Judaism is so ill-served as to necessitate a hermeneutics of suspicion regarding evangelical Protestant exegesis and alternative theologizing from within our own context. Chapter 3 examines the priesthood as it developed in the Older Testament and Second Temple periods. Chapter 4 examines the development of the rabbinic role in Israel and Babylon from the first century to the Fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century. Chapter 5 surveys the history of the rabbinate in the European Diaspora, and Chapter 6 the historical development of the rabbi’s role in the American experience, focusing on seminaries and curricula. Chapter 7 focuses on catalytic factors and changing paradigms of the rabbinate in the contemporary American context, and Chapter 8 reports on interviews conducted to survey Jewish community responses to the paradigm of the rabbi as a surrogate priest. Chapter 9 briefly presents a summary, conclusions and recommendations arising from the dissertation as a whole. Finally, the Epilogue examines this paradigm as a useful tether for understanding the functions appropriate to the rabbinic role.

1. This definition of Messianic Judaism is accompanied by an historical preamble by Stuart Dauermann, and an illuminating commentary by Rabbi Russ Resnik, then the General Secretary, now the Executive Director of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (Union of Messianic Congregations 2002:n.p.).

2. In recent years a number of scholarly studies on the Messianic Jewish Movement have been published. All link the emergence of Messianic Judaism to the Jewish missions movement, and through that to Protestant evangelicalism, and, in many but not all cases, dispensationalism. See Yaakov Ariel, Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America 1880–2000 (2000); Carol Harris-Shapiro, Messianic Judaism: A Rabbi’s Journey Through Religious Change in America (1999); Daniel Cohn-Sherbok, Messianic Judaism (2000); Shoshana Feher, Passing Over Easter: Constructing the Boundaries of Messianic Judaism (1998); Bruce Stokes, Messianic Judaism: Ethnicity in Revitalization (1994); and somewhat dated, but still valuable, David Rausch, Messianic Judaism: Its History, Theology and Polity (1982).

3. Again, Barth explains: Within Israel no group was better qualified for the priesthood than the Levites. Even so, not every individual Levite could be a priest. Levites served the Lord both within and outside the priesthood in the stricter sense. That ministry was both broader and narrower than the specific priestly ministry. All Levites might be called priests, and all priests Levites (Deu. 118:1–8). Only some Levites, however, were set apart for the priesthood (1991:156, 157).

4. See under paradigm in Gove et al., Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (2002:1635).

5. Although the statement needs to be unpacked, I view this priority of developing credible Jewish communities honoring and embodying Yeshua as Messiah to be the unique purpose for which the Messianic Jewish Movement was providentially raised up. In my view, no one has better articulated the theological and ecclessiologial implications of this responsibility than Mark Kinzer in his monograph The Nature of Messianic Judaism: Judaism as Genus, Messianic as Species (2000).

6. God holds us all responsible for failure to prevent harm to others. However, this especially true of those who are complicit in harm to Israel. See, for example: Zech 2:8b—For this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘After he has honored me and has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his’; Prov 24:11–12—Deliver those who are drawn toward death, And hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,’ Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds; Lev 19:16b: Don’t just stand by when your neighbor’s life is in danger; and Ps 105:12–15: When they were few in number, Indeed very few, and strangers in it. When they went from one nation to another, From one kingdom to another people He permitted no one to do them wrong; Yes, He rebuked kings for their sakes, Saying, ‘Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm.’ In this connection of course, Scripture is speaking particularly of the Jewish people (All quotations in this footnote, NKJV).

7. In this paper, we are examining a rabbinic model based on Ashkenazi practice. This is as it should be, since some eighty-five percent of American Jews are from an Ashkenazi lineage.

8. Perhaps it is Jacob Neusner who has done more than anyone else to popularize the concept of Judaisms plural. See, for example, Bruce Chilton and Jacob Neusner, Judaism in the New Testament: Practices and Beliefs (1995:1–97).

9. The second definition provided in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (2002:2302) captures the sense in which the term surrogate is used here: something that replaces or serves as a substitute for another. However, notice should be taken that I am restricting this surrogate status to a matter of functions—the kinds of things rabbis do as compared with the kinds of things priests did, especially as portrayed in the Older Testament. This research is neither alleging that the rabbinate has replaced a now obsolescent priesthood, nor is it saying that in every respect the current rabbinate is identical with the priesthood as it once was. Rather, my intention is to provide a heuristic paradigm—a lens through which one may more clearly see those functions that are intrinsic to the rabbinate when viewed as a surrogate priesthood.

Part I

A Biblical Perspective on the Priesthood

1

Israel in the Older Testament as a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation

As the priests of Israel served a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, so rabbis today serve an Israel that continues to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Both priests and rabbis are called to serve this kingdom of priests and holy nation Israel. This is their context. The task of this chapter is to explore the communal identity of the people of Israel as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation as the background and context for the priestly leadership model.

israel’s priestly call—rooted in abraham

Proper understanding of Israel’s call to be a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation requires that we heed the words of Isaiah, Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth (Isa 51:1–2).¹ It will become clear that Abraham clearly performs priestly functions. Indeed, with respect to the subsequent Levitical priesthood, it is appropriate to term Abraham a proto-priest.² Although it would be contrived to draw connections between Abraham and every function performed by priests, it is helpful to at least see how priesthood is embryonically present in Abraham in five respects, which also prove true of Israel, the priestly people, and of the Levitical priesthood itself. Abraham, Israel, and the priesthood are all chosen, in covenant relationship, are custodians of the ways of God, standing in the presence of God for the sake of others, mediating to others the knowledge of His ways.

Abraham the Proto-Priest: Chosen

³

In Torah, Abraham is the next major righteous figure mentioned after Noah and functions as a proto-priest, a primordial foreshadowing of the priestly role that will develop more fully later in the history of Israel. Abraham and Noah were each righteous in their generation, but the contrasts between them are considerable.

David Novak teaches us to distinguish between the election of Abraham and that of Noah. In the case of Noah, even before his election, his righteousness commended him in his generation. No such statement is made in Torah concerning Abraham, although Jewish tradition, due to its sensitivity to the merits of the patriarchs, speculates about this. On the contrary, in Torah, the righteous standing of Abraham is subsequent to his election (1995:115).

This phenomenon of election without any stated cause is consistent with the record of the Creation, which precedes Scripture’s portrayal of both Abraham and Noah. We are not told why God created, nor of his thoughts prior to Creation. Similarly, in speaking of his covenant relationship with Israel as reported in Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:6–8; and 10:14, Torah does not specify why God chose the people of Israel nor indeed why he chose any people at all. All we are told a posteriori is that God did in fact choose a people. Using bold rhetorical strokes Michael Wyschogrod slashes out for us a portrait of this connection between the call of Abraham and that of Israel:

This election (of Israel) is that of the seed of Abraham. A descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a Jew irrespective of what he believes or how virtuous he is . . . Nowhere does the Bible tell us why Abraham rather than someone else was chosen. The implication is that God chooses whom he wishes and that he owes no accounting to anyone for his choices.

Israel’s election is therefore a carnal election . . . If it was his decision to make Abraham his beloved servant and the descendants of Abraham his beloved people, then it is for man to accept God’s will with obedience. (Wyschogrod 1996:176)

As will be clear in the chapter to follow, these assumptions about the descendants of Abraham are not affirmed by the consensus of the evangelical exegetical tradition. But for us Jews, this is bedrock. God’s covenant with Abraham and Israel is one of election apart from any deserving on her part.

Abraham the Proto-Priest: In Covenant Relationship

From the experience of Abraham we learn that Election is primarily generic and only secondarily individual. Abraham is elected as the progenitor of a people. Every member of this people is elected by God and every member of this people is called upon to respond to his or her generic election (Novak 1995:117). The covenant into which Abraham was called was designed for a community, not simply for a man. Moreover, this community is genetic rather than volitional. People are born into this elect community, they do not become elect through their own choices. In contrast to the post-Enlightenment views of Protestantism, a Jew and I would say biblical view of Israel sees us as a people with whom God entered into covenant, rather than as a group of individuals who share a common experience of faith or enlightenment. Individual Jews derive their covenant status and obligations from their membership and participation in the covenant people of Israel; it is the identity of the group that gives identity to the individual rather than vice versa.

Eugene Borowitz expresses this nicely for us:

The individual Jew’s direct personal relationship with God is not begun by that Jew but by the historic experience of the Jewish people into which the contemporary Jew is born. (There is obviously a major difference here between Christian notions of getting faith and the Jewish sense of entering the Covenant.) Individual Jews then, are immediately involved in a dialectic not only of self and God . . . but of the self and the Jewish people in relation to that God. (1983:283–84)⁴

Abraham and his descendants are therefore chosen, called by God into covenant with Him, resulting in intimacy with Him and familiarity with His ways.

Abraham the Proto-Priest: Custodian of the Ways of God

To Abraham God revealed Himself (see, for example, Gen 12:7; 15:1–21; 17:1–22; 18:1), disclosing His will (Gen 12; 15; 17; 22; 18:17, where God decides it would not be right to hide from Abraham, His covenant man, that which he was about to do). From the beginning, God reveals and entrusts to Abraham a way of life (Gen 18:19).

This revelatory function persists in every other covenant context as well. Terrence Fretheim reminds us that even the Sinai Covenant, that very revelatory covenant, is a specific covenant within the context of the Abrahamic Covenant (1991:209). The revelation at Sinai of God’s person, of his plan and of his ways is organically part of Abraham’s covenant relationship with God and of God’s revelation of His person, His plan and His way to Abraham. More than some theological systems would allow, in Scripture the covenants are seamlessly related to one another, and the covenant partners make no apologies for referring back to earlier covenants as their basis for confidence in and expectation of God. This is especially so of the Abrahamic covenant, which may be rightly seen as the seed-bed of all later covenants.

Abraham the Proto-Priest: The Man for Others

Novak, seeking philosophical consistency, contends that preceding entering into covenant, Abraham had to have anticipated some good which would have motivated him to accept its terms. The question is What anticipated good motivated him? (1995:119). Novak’s answer to that question is strongly missiological. It seems to me that the reason for Abraham’s answering the electing call of God, and thus the paradigm for all subsequent Jewish answering of it, can be seen in the promise made in the initial call itself that Abraham and his progeny will be the source of blessing for all of humankind. Accordingly, Abraham’s relationship with God is correlative to his relationship with the world (1995:120).

And just as Abraham’s relationship with God is for the sake of others, so the priesthood of the people of Israel is for the sake of the world. Abraham is a called covenant partner, an intermediary, and custodian of the ways of God on behalf of others. He functions as a proto-priest. In his representative function, Abraham clearly adumbrates the priestly role of those persons and offices called to serve as bearers of the covenant.

The call to covenant is inseparably a call to go—in Christian terms, it is a call to mission, in Jewish terms, a call to be a shaliach, an authorized emissary. That this is so is clear from the inception of God’s dealing with Abraham our father (all peoples on earth will be blessed through you). This concern for the nations is perhaps most clearly demonstrated in the dialogue between Abraham and the Lord at the Oaks of Mamre, where the Lord says,

And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him. (Gen 18:17–19, NKJV)

Novak points out that God does not say, I know about Abraham but rather, I know him. The intimacy of this language is somewhat shocking. God’s knowing Abraham is couched in marital, covenantal, even conjugal terms. This kind of knowledge is a precondition to Abraham’s being able to recognize and keep the way of the Lord. This knowing by God is of the nature of presence (1995:122). This may also be seen as true of Israel in Amos 3:2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth.

God shares a unique intimacy with Israel that is the basis for the unique claims he makes upon her. The claims are because God cares for Israel. Since these claims are made in the context of covenantal intimacy, the prophet then says in the very next verse, Can two walk together if they have not met each other? (Similarly) Israel is intimately known by God and is to act based upon her intimate experience of that knowing . . . It is a divine reaching out to embrace a human thou who then chooses to be so embraced (Novak 1995:122–23).⁵

As it was with Abraham, so must it be with Israel. Being embraced and called by God, and having reciprocated this embrace and call through obeying his commandments, must eventuate in a sense of responsibility for those surrounding us, in New Testament terms, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. All of this is but our response to God’s prior choice and call: because He first loved us.

Summary

The Older Testament portrays Abraham as an intermediary and a custodian of the revelation of God’s nature, of His plan and of a stipulated way of life, living under His commandments, an intermediary for the sake of others. In such a capacity he prefigures the priestly function which threads throughout scripture, and which characterizes Israel’s life with God as well as that of her priestly caste.

Implicit in Abram’s intimacy with God is the call to mission—the call to be a man for others. Abraham is clearly a minister of reconciliation, as in his dealings with Lot, with Abimelech, and Sodom and Gomorrah. In the latter context, he is a classic priestly intercessory intermediary, pleading for God’s mercy toward the cities of the plain. In this role, it is imperative that he be a man of obedience. As with any priest, his faithfulness—or the lack of it—has sweeping implications (see, for example, 1 Sam 2:27–36). Chosenness, holiness, and mission: this is the pattern of Abraham replicated in the experience of Israel, chosen to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And this mantle will also fall upon the shoulders of the Levitical priesthood, and ultimately the rabbinate.

Abraham’s obedience has everything to do with the God’s self-revelation, and with the progress of His plan, with the surety and pace of the fulfillment of His promises to those whom the priestly figure serves. The call to come closer always increases one’s responsibility for others. In fact, scripture demonstrates that the call inward and the sending outward are one. After all, wasn’t it the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father, who came to us to make Him known? And wasn’t he the One whom the Father sent—the Apostle (sent one, Hebrew shaliach) and High Priest of our confession—inside the holiest place, in unrivaled intimacy with God? Intimacy and ministry are not two but one. It is helpful to see how the shadow of Abraham the proto-priest falls across the career and calling of Israel.

israel’s priestly call: reflective of abraham

Abraham is God’s covenant partner, is a priestly figure. Messiah, God’s covenant bearer, is our Great High Priest. Therefore, it is no surprise that Israel, the covenant people, are chosen for priesthood as well.

Israel the Priestly Nation: Chosen

Israel’s call and election is portrayed in Exodus as a national, present reality with implications for a future plan, set in the context of and in apposition to all peoples.

Speaking of Exodus 19:5–6, Jo Bailey Wells says, "I take these verses to be pivotal for understanding Israel’s life and identity under God. The purpose of Israel’s special election is summarized in the call to be—as a nation, in the context of all peoples—priestly and holy. The concept