Descendants of Abraham Part V: Judah (No. 212E)

The Holocaust

Many secular Jews today consider themselves either atheistic or agnostic. Those in the State of Israel take the view that their country has survived for nearly 60 years in a supremely hostile environment due to their own efforts and a particularly effective military force; in other words, by a not-unjustified pride in their own power, but without acknowledging God’s undoubted help and protection during their many battles for survival.

This is a rather dangerous position to take, as even the Gentile Assyrians were to discover (Isa. 10:12ff.). They were punished by God for exalting themselves and their own abilities without reference to their Creator and the fact that they were merely a tool in His hands. At any time, God may choose to remove His protection from individuals or from a nation, including the State of Israel, because of an arrogant attitude on their part.
The secular Jewish rejection of the God of their fathers is perhaps understandable considering the number of deaths in the concentration camps both immediately before and during the Second World War in Europe. Many faithful Torah-observant Jews in those camps prayed to God for deliverance and even marched into the crematoria praising Him; many asked where God was at a time like that and how He could allow them to suffer as horrifically as they did if they were His chosen people. As a result of what they’d witnessed, many who survived these death camps simply deserted their faith altogether.
Judah and his brothers sold their half-brother Joseph into slavery in ca.1727 BCE. About 3664 years later, Judah itself was sent into captivity in the Third Reich and brother Joseph (basically modern America and the British Commonwealth) was instrumental in rescuing their remnant from the death camps. For more information, see the Holocaust Revealed website at:

http://www.ccg.org/_domain/holocaustrevealed.org
The Jews had been sent like lambs to the slaughter, to be ‘holocausted’ in their millions in the crematoria like so many animals of the burnt offering (cf. Lev. 1:13) which, although an unfortunate analogy, is nevertheless fitting. The Jewish adults and children were literally made to pass through the fire, as their forebears had unwisely done with their own children during the worship of pagan gods centuries earlier (2Chr. 28:3). In order not to compare these more recent events with the burnt offerings of the sacrifices, the term Holocaust is not used in some modern Hebrew texts; instead, it is often referred to as the Shoah or Calamity.

Rabbi Kushner had this to say on the subject:

It is nearly impossible for non-Jews to appreciate the meaning of the scar that the Holocaust, and the centuries of persecution leading up to it, have left in the Jewish soul. I don’t know of any other people that wakes up virtually on a daily basis wondering if the world will let them live. … But after the Nazi experience, Jews understand that no matter how economically successful or socially integrated we are, we can never feel totally secure. …
This, I suspect, is why so many of us react so defensively when Israel is criticized: because we are always afraid that criticism will lead to a withdrawal of approval of Israel’s right to exist at all … It is not hypersensitivity on our part to notice that no other country is called on continually to justify its right to exist. (Does anyone call for the dismantling of Pakistan and giving the land back to the tens of millions of Hindus who were displaced when a Moslem state was created there in 1947?) (op. cit., pp. 247-9).
Earlier in his book Rabbi Kushner dealt with the age-old question, Why does God permit evil?

Sometimes bad things happen to good people because laws of Nature can’t tell a good person from a bad one, and sometimes they happen because God will not interfere to take away our human freedom, no matter how destructively we intend to use it.

Even something as monstrous as the Holocaust comes to be seen as Man’s doing, not God’s. “Why did God let it happen?” Because God determined at the outset that He would not compromise our human freedom to choose between good and evil, no matter how atrociously we misused it. If we didn’t learn from history, from experience, from the voice of conscience, we would go on hurting and killing each other. ‘Couldn’t God have made an exception to that rule in this one case, to save so many millions of lives?’ … would that mean He should also have intervened to stop Stalin and Pol Pot from killing millions of people in Russia and Cambodia? … on what grounds would God suspend the rules in one case and not in others? For me, the Holocaust is not a theological issue: “Why didn’t God stop it?” For me, it is a psychological issue: “How could human beings have so grossly misused their freedom to decide how to treat each other?” It does not challenge my faith in God. If anything, it makes it harder for me to believe in man without God (ibid., pp. 162-3; emphasis added).
Hence, despite the understandably horrific memories and intense grief engendered by the Holocaust (or Calamity), there are those who demonstrate a certain dignity in being able to be more understanding, if not forgiving, about this most unpleasant episode in Jewish history.
God’s displeasure with Judah

While R. Kushner and others may not blame God, the chronic persecution of the Jews and the Holocaust itself may actually have been direct punishment from God (for, at the very least, He did allow it to happen). However, this should not be construed as His hatred for or abandonment of the Jewish people. Quite the contrary, in fact, as God says through His prophets and in the Writings that He chastens those whom He loves, as any loving parent chastises his son for the son’s ultimate benefit, irrespective of how harsh that punishment may appear at the time.

To quote the words that Jesus Christ gave to the angel assigned to the Church at Ephesus in Asia Minor, “Nevertheless, I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love” (Rev. 2:4). He could just as easily be speaking to Judah or the Jews today, as they also have left their first love – Eloah, the One True God –

and have suffered for it.

God is clear that He doesn’t only want our ‘hands’, i.e. merely following the letter of the Law as many adherents to Judaism do. More importantly, He requires our ‘hearts and minds’ as exemplified by adherence to the spirit of the Law. Among the called of God, the Holy Spirit is presently conducting ‘a campaign to win hearts and minds’, with far greater meaning than the present clichéd military term. However, it won’t do so by loud insistence. We are told rather that it will be as a still, small voice behind us saying, “This is the way; walk you in it” (Isa. 30:21).
For all Judah, Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, should have been a time for reflection and re-evaluation along with Godly repentance. However, this fast wasn’t actually being observed on the correct day according to the original Temple calendar anyway. (See the papers God's Calendar (No. 156) and The New Moons (No. 125).) The correct days for worship do seem to matter to God and His Messiah, and there are definite consequences for devising one’s own agenda, as King Jeroboam of Israel was to discover when he commissioned a festival one month later than the God-ordained Feast of Tabernacles; his whole house or heritage was later cut off (see 1Kgs. 12:32-33 and 13:33-34).
Maybe as a result of the postponements of His ordained Holy Days and Sabbaths and non-observance of the New Moons for centuries past, God has postponed the deliverance and salvation of Judah … until these Last Days, when He will once again have mercy upon them.
When God tells us to keep the Sabbath holy, which includes not speaking idle gossip, He means just that. It’s not a matter of simply observing the Sabbath as a duty or weekly ritual; instead, it is the spirit in which it is kept that most pleases God, as He says quite plainly.

Isaiah 58:13-14 "If you turn back your foot from the sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; ¹⁴ then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken." (RSV)

Neither does He want people exchanging financial advice and business ideas on the Sabbath like modern-day equivalents of the money-changers in the Temple. That task can be done on any other day of the week. Jesus, or Yehoshua ben Yoseph, adhered to this injunction when he forcibly drove the money-changers and other Sabbath-breakers from the Temple precinct (Jn. 2:13-17). The same could apply in many Synagogues today where a good deal of worldly business is conducted on the Sabbath.
The Qur’an also forbids trading on the Sabbath yet on both Friday and Sabbath on the Temple Mount to this very day money-changers charge people access to the Al Aksah mosque in direct violation of the Koran and the Scriptures.
The undoubted money-making ability of the Jews today was evident much earlier in their history, when the Patriarch Judah suggested to his brothers that they sell Joseph into captivity rather than kill him (Gen. 37:26-28). It may have been to save Joseph’s life, however, financial gain seems to have played a large part in Judah’s motivation and thinking … and perhaps still does, although they are far from alone in that in today’s world, where materialism and love of money hold unprecedented sway. Through His prophets, God promises that our idols of silver and gold –the riches and possessions that have become our little gods – will be thrown to the bats and moles at the culmination of this age, when they are finally recognised as being of so little real value (Isa. 2:20).
Jesus, or Yehoshua, had a great deal to say on the subject of money and riches.

Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (RSV)

Mark 10:17-25 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher [didaskalos, SGD 1320; or Rabbi], what must I do to inherit eternal life?" ¹⁸ And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: 'Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'" ²⁰ And he said to him, "Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth." ²¹ And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." ²² At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. ²³ And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!" ²⁴ And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (RSV)
Rabbi Saul/Paul of Tarsus, who apparently studied under Gamaliel the Elder, was also certain that love of money was a primary cause of people separating themselves from God and forsaking their Faith.
1Timothy 6:6-11 There is great gain in godliness with contentment; ⁷ for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; ⁸ but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. ⁹ But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs. ¹¹ But as for you, man of God, shun all this; aim at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. (RSV)
Similarly, the pseudepigraphical work called The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (R.H. Charles, SPCK, London, 1917; translated from Armenian), which was supposedly written in the second century BCE and was therefore contemporary with the Dead Sea Scrolls, contains some incisive observations and warnings. The Testaments are based upon the supposed deathbed comments of the sons of Jacob to their children. Of particular relevance here are those made by the Patriarch Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and his first wife Leah. (Known interpolations have been removed from the text.)
XVII. And now I command you, my children, not to love money, nor to gaze upon the beauty of women; because for the sake of money and beauty I was led astray to Bathshua the Canaanite.

XVIII. 2. Beware, therefore, my children, of fornication, and the love of money, and hearken to Judah your father.

3. For these things withdraw you from the law of God,

And blind the inclination of the soul,

And teach arrogance,

And suffer not a man to have compassion upon his neighbour.

4. They rob his soul of all goodness,

And oppress him with toils and troubles,

And devour his flesh.

5 And he hindereth the sacrifices of God;

He hearkeneth not to a prophet when he speaketh,

And resenteth the words of godliness.

XIX. My children, the love of money leadeth to idolatry; because, when led astray through money, men name as gods those who are not gods, and it causeth him who hath it to fall into madness. 2. For the sake of money I lost my children, and had not my repentance, and the prayers of my father been accepted, I should have died childless. 3. But the God of my fathers had mercy on me, because I did it in ignorance. 4. And the prince of deceit blinded me, and I sinned as a man and as flesh, being corrupted through sins.

XXVI. Observe, therefore, my children, all the law of the Lord, for there is hope for all them who hold fast unto His ways.

There is an obvious theme here, and the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes had this to say on the same subject:

Ecclesiastes 5:10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money; nor he who loves wealth, with gain: this also is vanity. (RSV)

However, Rabbi Kushner then ties this issue to the perennial problem of latent anti-Semitism often arising from envy.

If some Jews are loud and aggressive or guilty of unethical business practices (as are lots of gentiles), one is entitled to dislike them as individuals but has no right to extend that dislike to innocent members of the larger group. Antisemitism, like all racial and religious prejudice, is a sign that something is wrong with the hater, not with his victim (op. cit., p. 262).

Jewish advocacy

The Patriarch Judah showed great compassion and impressive verbal skills as the advocate for his half-brother Benjamin (Gen. 44:16-34), so much so that he melted Joseph’s heart in Egypt. Judah nobly took upon himself the role of protector, and his Christ-like act of intercession on behalf of his brother probably bound the two so closely that, at the break-up of the Kingdom following Solomon’s death, Benjamin became allied with Judah (along with half the tribe of Levi) rather than with his full-brother Joseph’s tribe. It was obviously God’s doing as part of His unfolding plan.

This arrangement had been ratified and given permanence earlier by David (of Judah) and King Saul’s son Jonathan (of Benjamin), as recorded in 1Samuel 20:42. The name Benjamin means son of the right hand, so it seems he and his descendants were always destined to be the right-hand man of Judah. It is ironic that they were predominantly left handed-people and were almost destroyed for their perversity. The right also means the South, as the ‘front’ is always facing the East in Hebrew. It is interesting that the royal city of Jerusalem was apparently located within the historical boundary of the tribe of Benjamin rather than Judah, as might be expected. Also, Joseph may have had the primacy in Egypt, but it seems Judah is to have the ascendancy in Jerusalem (metaphorically referred to as Egypt).
Justice must be done and done correctly and the perversion of justice by Judah or the other tribes will be punished, in the same way the Talmud perverts the Laws of God and will be destroyed.
The basic purpose of advocacy was supposed to be the defence of the innocent and needy (Ps. 82:2-4) or to try and mitigate the sentence of a guilty person; it was assuredly not to get the guilty off on a legal technicality. It is not incumbent upon any lawyer to search out and exploit legal loopholes or defend the indefensible, to the detriment of a nation’s system of justice and of the society in general. That sort of unethical behaviour, by deliberately flouting the spirit of the law, will be punished by God in the Last Days. He says He hates injustice and the perversion of the justice system (cf. Job 8:3; 36:17). In order to be most effective, justice must also be swift and the truly guilty punished as a warning to others. The Torah is quite specific on the need for true justice for all people.
Exodus 23:6-8 "You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his suit. ⁷ Keep far from a false charge, and do not slay the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. ⁸ And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the officials, and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. (RSV)
The prophet Isaiah was aware of the situation in his time and foresaw the same thing happening in these Last Days, in line with the dual application of much of Scripture.
Isaiah 59:4 No one enters suit justly, no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. (RSV)
It would appear that truth, justice and equitable treatment are extremely important to God as such requirements of the leaders and the people are mentioned often enough in Scripture (e.g. Jer. 23:5; Ezek. 45:9).
Proverbs 21:3 To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
For without justice (tsedek, SHD 6664) there can be no righteousness (tsedek), and vice versa. And as the writer of Ecclesiastes warns and the prophet Isaiah enjoins:
Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see in a province the poor oppressed and justice and right violently taken away, do not be amazed at the matter; for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. (RSV)
Isaiah 56:1-2 Thus says the LORD: "Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed. ² Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil." (RSV)

Again, justice and righteousness here are synonymous and interchangeable.

Torah observance

It appears that Judah or Levi was assigned to be God’s scribes or lawgivers (chaqaq, SHD 2710). Some Kenites also had this task. Scribes have been referred to as Sopherim (from saphar, SHD 5608) since Ezra’s time, and were given the task of faithfully preserving Scripture down through the centuries (Pss. 60:7 and 108:8). It is recorded that the Jews and Levites were appointed custodians of the Oracles of God from the beginning (Rom. 3:1-2), however, that was only until the death of Messiah and the formation of the Churches of God from the Apostles onwards (see the paper The Oracles of God (No. 184).

It was perhaps the Jews’ and Levites’ natural abilities, with their dedication and thoroughness, which particularly fitted them for the task of transcribing the holy texts. By tradition, a detailed and reverent ritual for copying the Scriptures was required, whereby each letter was considered holy in itself, so no adjoining letters were permitted to touch; each word was to be read aloud from an original version of the text; and every letter and word were counted to ensure that none had been added or omitted, in accordance with the injunction in the Torah (Deut. 4:2).
Christians naturally owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Scribes for faithfully copying and preserving the Hebrew Scriptures (the Tanakh) for hundreds of years, so that, at the appropriate time, they might be translated into all the languages of the world, as is still being done today. They did, however, take liberties with the Scriptures but preserved those texts for a permanent record and which we know today (see for example The Companion Bible notes to the texts).

In addition, the rest of Israel seemed more inclined to water down the Laws of God, until finally deciding that these Laws had been done away with altogether and that we are solely under “grace” within the new Christian dispensation. It seems pseudo-Christianity is in such a rush to disassociate itself from everything Jewish and the Jews (even until fairly recently known as “Christ-killers”), they have forgotten that the majority of first-generation Christians were Jews or Hebrews of all twelve tribes of Israel, located both within Judaea and in the Diaspora, and who didn’t suddenly give up their keeping of Torah when they became baptised Christians. They continued to worship in their local Synagogues, although many were later expelled as Jesus/Yehoshua said they would be (Jn. 16:2; cf. also Jn. 9:22), perhaps for mentioning the “heresy” that the long-awaited Messiah of their liberation had already appeared, yet had been ignominiously killed. It wasn’t the sort of information that many people wanted to know (see Acts chap. 7).

In Acts 24, Paul stated unequivocally before the Roman governor Felix and many eminent Jews that he still observed the Law.

Acts 24:14 But this I admit to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect [heresy: KJV], I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law or written in the prophets. (RSV)

It simply wasn’t a case of Paul believing everything in the Law but then not acting upon that belief. Quite the opposite in fact, and his statement here refutes the antinomian opinion that Paul denigrated the Law in his numerous other epistles.
In contrast to the pseudo-Christians’ willingness within just a few centuries to abrogate the Law, Judah often went to the other extreme. They had a tendency to introduce more and more man-made ordinances and restrictions, albeit with noble intent, perhaps, claiming these were part of the Oral Law given to Moses. Certain strands of Judaism also saw the need to put a fence around the Laws of God as shown, for example, by their 39 Sabbath prohibitions, few of which bear any resemblance to the original injunctions regarding the Sabbath in the Torah as given directly by the Angel of the Covenant (who became the Messiah).

Geza Vermes, in his book The Religion of Jesus the Jew (SCN Press, London, 1993), had this to say about the prohibitions.

“We have to wait until the Book of Jubilees (50.6-9) in mid-second century BC, and the statutes of the Damascus Document (10.14-12.6) half a century later, before encountering the first attempts at systematization, and until the relevant section of the Mishnah (Shab. 7.2) before receiving a detailed list of thirty-nine classes of proscribed action.” (fn. p.12)
The Mishnah was compiled about 200 CE, long after the fall of the Temple. Hence it was long after the written Torah was produced that this so-called Oral Law was codified. This making of laws more binding and unnecessarily burdensome was what Yehoshua condemned (cf. Mat. 23:1ff.). He obviously recognised the difference between the Laws he had given to Moses and those added afterwards by over-zealous, and often hypocritical, religious types.
R. Kushner gave the Jewish perspective on God’s Law or Torah and why it is still binding upon all who claim to love God and act as His servants today.

“We learn two lessons from the stories we tell about ourselves: that God loves us and that God needs us.

God shows His love for us by reaching down to bridge the immense gap between Him and us. He shows His love for us by inviting us to enter into a Covenant with Him, and by sharing with us His precious Torah. The idea that giving us laws is a sign of God’s love is one of the fundamental theological differences between Judaism and [mainstream] Christianity. … Laws are seen [by the latter] as the instrument of a harsh, restrictive, punishing God, and need to be superseded by the rule of love and forgiveness. Judaism – while admiring love and forgiveness … – sees the role of the Law totally differently. In our view, a loving parent does not show his or her love by telling a child, “Do whatever you want, and I will still love you.” That is not love but an abdication of responsibility. … Jews have understood from the beginning that ours was a religion of love because it did not leave us to find our way through life unaided. It offered advice, insight, and guidelines.” (op. cit., pp. 47-8)
He goes on to share a few thoughts that should be noted by the antinomian Christians in particular.

We tend to think of laws as restricting our freedom. … But Judaism insists that living by God’s laws is a matter not only of obedience, but of a more important kind of freedom.

It may seem strange to speak of the Torah, with its myriad regulations and prohibitions, as a source of freedom. … The freedom the Law offers is the freedom of the athlete who disciplines his body so that he is free to do things physically that you and I are incapable of. It is the freedom of being the master of appetite rather than its slave. … The freedom the Torah offers us is the freedom to say no to appetite. …
The Law does not make us sinners. The Law tries to make us strong enough to resist the many temptations to sin to which the human being is subject daily. … The second gift of the Law is the reassuring message that we and our moral choices are taken seriously at the highest level. …
But what the Jewish way of life does by imposing rules on our eating, sleeping, and working habits is to take the most common and mundane activities and invest them with deeper meaning, turning every one of them into an occasion for obeying (or disobeying) God (ibid., pp. 50-4).
This is certainly good advice for taking care of most aspects of life. It’s true that, through self-discipline and self-denial, we are able to keep the Law in its physical aspect; however, there is still the more important spiritual application that needs to be addressed.
The problem is that Judaism as a religion has corrupted the Laws of God by tradition. That practice must be stopped and Judah’s and Levi’s conduct corrected.