Out Of The Mouths Of Babes...
By Gerald A. Honigman (04/12/06)
This year’s first seder for Passover is tonight, April 12th on the West’s Gregorian calendar.
Jews have been celebrating this holiday for over three thousand years, most of man’s recorded history.
Christianity’s Last Supper was a Passover seder, the wine and the matzoh becoming essential elements in its own Holy Communion ritual.
Indeed, many holidays converge at this time of the year–Passover, Easter, Holocaust Memorial Day, Israel Independence Day–just to name a few.
This article was created as a result of incidents related to several of these holidays, and it will likely upset at least some of my Christian friends. For this I am truly sorry. But since this has all been eating at me for quite some time, here it goes anyway…
We Jews are definitely a peculiar people–to say the least.
The ancient Romans had lots to say about this–especially since the Jews insisted on taking on their mighty imperial conqueror repeatedly for their freedom and independence.
Tacitus was one of the most important of the ancient Roman historians. He wrote extensively about the Jews and their “strange ways.” Let’s look at a few excerpts from Volume II, Book V of his main writings, The Works Of Tacitus :
The Egyptians worship various animals and images, the work of men’s hands; the Jews acknowledge one God only and conceive of him by the mind alone (incorporeal…a pure Spirit), condemning, as impious, all who, with perishable materials, wrought into the human shape, form representations of the Deity. That being, they say, is above all…in consequence, they allow no resemblance of him in their city, let alone their temples. In this way, they do not flatter their kings, nor show their respect for their Caesars.
Indeed.
What other people in recorded history deliberately exposed the sins and human frailties of their kings and greatest men? David and Moses would have been turned into gods in any of the societies surrounding ancient Judaea and Israel. But the Jews bent over backwards to show the distance between G_d and men…no matter how great the latter. Imagine, for example, what would have become of Nathan the Prophet if he did unto a Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, or Roman king or Caesar what he did unto David?
I remember, as a child growing up in Philadelphia, answering the door one day and being told by a stranger that I was going to Hell because I didn‘t accept the changes Christianity made to the Jewish concept of G_d. And this was in a city with hundreds of thousands of Jews in the area. Imagine what it’s like for the lone Jewish family out yonder ways…
You see, others besides Romans couldn’t handle those above peculiarities quoted from Tacitus either. Read them again carefully and see the main problem Jews have with Christian theology. And for this they–who introduced the very concept of G_d to the world–have been labeled unbelievers and worse and slaughtered as a result.
Twenty years ago, as a new teacher in Florida, I invited my principal to my middle daughter’s baby naming ceremony at our synagogue. Not only did “Mac” constantly insist on calling the synagogue a church, but he lectured me about G-d-killing Jews as well…his “thank you,” I guess, for the extended invitation. We’ll come back to this a bit later.
This article is not being written to challenge anyone’s religious beliefs or to rehash the age-old Judaeo-Christian dispute.
As a Jew, my religious tradition teaches that G_d truly loves all of His children. In fact, it’s easier for a righteous non-Jew to gain Heavenly acceptance than for the Jew.
The so-called “exclusivity” of the Jewish faith is, in actuality, more true of Christianity than of Judaism. No where does the latter claim that if you’re not a Jew, G_d rejects you. Now think about what traditional Christianity has taught about similar matters over the millennia.
Not that long ago, Mel Gibson produced his widely popular screen version of the age-old passion play. When many of us voiced concerns that Gibson–who relied on some especially crude anti-Semitic sources for the script of his movie–would simply add fuel to the fire of traditional Jew-hatred, we were too often told that we were being paranoid.
While I have admittedly not seen and won’t see “The Passion of Christ,” I have closely analyzed its topic through a scholar’s eyes while doing doctoral studies and frequently later on as well.
Let’s just say that what Gibson and others claim as “historical truth” is, at the very least, debatable.
Again, Jews, obviously, have theological differences with their Christian neighbors. Hopefully these can be discussed without fear of inquisitions, the Auto de Fe, public disputations, forced conversions, massacres, and worse which accompanied those differences in the past.
Why is it, for example, that events in the Hebrew Bible, a.k.a. “Old Testament,” can be discussed and debated, but those in the New Testament are apparently off limits to any fair and objective study? I think I know the answer, unfortunately. The disgrace surrounding the deliberate deception and suppression–for decades, until very recently–of information related to the Dead Sea Scrolls by a monopoly of Catholic priests and scholars is but another manifestation of this.
Among other things, after the conversion of Constantine, the version of Joshua/Jesus’ life one reads about today in the New Testament had to get its stamp of approval at the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. by Rome itself…Jesus’ very executioners and the conquerors of the Jews who paid a big toll themselves for that conquest. If one needs another reminder, listen again to Tacitus in that same above source:
Vespasian succeeded to the command…The peace of Italy restored…It inflamed his resentment that the Jews were the only nation that had not yet submitted.
Rome was killing and crucifying all whom they deemed a potential problem. Their own records testify to this. Thousands of dead Jews before the two major revolts. Pontius Pilate–who later got turned into the good guy–had been recalled to Rome for his excessive cruelties.
But, after Constantine’s conversion, whom do you think was going to be saddled with blame once Rome became Christian itself and had say over which doctrines were to become officially accepted as Christian doctrine? There were, indeed, potential rival gospels telling a far different story.
Undoubtedly, there were other accounts of what Jesus did, said, and so forth. Indeed, this subject is becoming more and more popular these days. Rome declared them all to be “heresies,” and they and their proponents were treated accordingly…eliminated. Not to mention the fact that Christians need to get their own theology straight. Did G_d plan the sacrifice of His Lamb or not? And if He did, then how are Jews or anyone else to blame?
Among other problems, the issue of the very divinity of Jesus (the real main issue which separates Jews from Christians) had surfaced.
As we have seen above, and as the Romans and others already well knew, Jews could never deify any man, Messiah or otherwise. For Jews, the Messiah–a purely Hebraic concept–was to be a mere human tool of G_d.
The issue of the Jews’ alleged role as “G_d-killer,” which Gibson felt just had to be resurrected yet again (and for which my earlier principal lectured me), has caused so much pain, suffering, and death to Jews over the centuries–paving the road to the Holocaust itself–that it’s hard to believe that this man, so sensitive to the Scots in Braveheart, felt that there was nothing better to spend his wealth on.
And again, I bring the subject of the movie up at this time because of new manifestations of its problems which I’ll get to shortly.
While I have already stated that I will never see the movie in its entirety, I’ve seen enough major clips to justify my decision. I know too well what the results of earlier staged passion plays were on Jewish communities over the ages…and those were without the benefit of the magic and the power of the modern silver screen.
The scenes where the Devil incarnate is weaving among “his children” who are frothing at the bit for Jesus’ blood are enough in themselves to convince me of the correctness of my feelings.
I don’t fear “truth.”
Jesus had his enemies and supporters…like any other leader in an occupied and oppressed nation.
Again, Rome sought out, crucified, and killed all would-be such leaders among the Jews. The modern experience of the Vichy French collaborators of the Nazis during World War II comes to mind as does the Soviets’ Polish stooges in later years. There are many other good examples as well.
But, again, the “truth” of Gibson’s Passion is, at least, debatable for those who are in serious quest of it.
Regardless of what he claimed the intent really was for the movie, it was pretty much a given what at least one of the film’s main results would be. Yet, when some of us worried, we were told we were either being too sensitive or, in fact, anti-Christian.
And now, after the fact, we are reminded how allegedly “wrong” we were for protesting since there were no major pogroms or such recorded in its wake.
No major pogroms? Perhaps…but reinforcing age-old prejudices, historical falsehoods, and hatreds which allowed those pogroms and worse in the first place?
Probably…
While there are sophisticated ways of interpreting Christianity’s beloved Gospel of John, for example, when the average person reads him allegedly quoting Jesus calling the Jews (not just Pharisees and the like) “sons of the Devil, doing your father’s deeds,” what impact can this sort of teaching have? Now recall Gibson’s scenes on the big screen, reaching untold millions, with the Devil weaving in and out amid his children.
Get the picture?
Knowing this, is it really a shock that one of the first pictures in Europe of a Jew from many centuries ago is entitled, “Aaron, Son of the Devil?”
And while there are, admittedly, other ways to interpret the sculpture, even the Renaissance artist, Michelangelo, put what could easily be viewed as Devil’s horns on Moses’ head.
Is it, thus, any stretch to next learn of numerous thousands of Jews being massacred for allegedly “poisoning Christian wells” and causing the Bubonic Plague…and countless other tragedies encountered as a result of such “religious” enlightenment?
After the famous “passion plays” throughout Europe, it was common for Christians to get drunk and then go after the “G-d Killers.” Deadly massacres and pogroms were especially common around Easter time.
While Gibson claims not to share the Holocaust-denying anti-Semitism of his father, please forgive me if–in light of all of the above–I find this hard to believe.
Given all of this and much more here untold, one could argue that the whole House of Israel has too long been the Suffering Servant of G_d…There’s more than one way to interpret Biblical passages Christians like Mel like to quote…especially since those quotes come from the Holy Scriptures of the Jews themselves.
So, that brings me up to the present. And again, the setting is at school…
With Holocaust Memorial Day fast approaching, my current gem of a principal decided to have the school as a whole do something special to commemorate this event. I normally don’t push this sort of thing, largely because too many want to hear that the Nazis were visiting Martians and also because I have worked with non-Jewish teachers to help prepare them for the task instead.
Since I was, however, now thrust into this Holocaust memorial activity, I decided to allow my mostly fourteen-year old students to ask some questions.
When one asked why the Jews were constantly subjected to this kind of stuff, I tried to delicately–but meaningfully–respond.
It was at this time that I knew that my worst fears regarding Gibson and The Passion were indeed valid ones.
In her innocence, one of my class members simply announced, “Well, Mr. Honigman, as the movie, The Passion, clearly shows, it was the Jews who killed Christ.”
Keep in mind that this was in response to our conversations about the origins and reasons for the Holocaust.
So, there it is, folks…out of the mouths of babes.
As we’ve heard for millennia, the perpetual torment of the Jew is a direct result of his alleged deicide…my principal twenty years ago, my student five days ago, and so forth.
And so, to my Christian friends, Happy Easter!
But so much for so-called Jewish paranoia as well.
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