Is all of Torah Epitomized in Love; are the Gospels? What Do We Do?

Author’s Note: I texted my brother the other night, “I’m fucked up over the Israel-Hamas-Gaza terrible thing.” I am drafting a follow up to my post on 10/13/23 that warned of the war and ethnic cleansing of Gazans. The post in process is one about identities, politics, progressivism, and accountability. This post is not that. jPK readers, we’re resuming a familiar treatment of today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, through a Jewish lens. I think today’s assigned text and this essay comes at time when we need to slow down and pay attention.

Noting my own shortcomings, I’ve not developed the wisdom to know what to say and when to say it. I’ve been in dialogue with peace and justice groups in virtual meetings and emails to share action alerts and support each other. If I had a bima or an alter to stand behind, I’d want to be leading the spiritual care for a mixed audience of atheists, humanists, and religious people. For now, my platform is this newsletter, and it’s been a space of study and not of spiritual care. Though, at the core of me, Adam, is the desire to provide such care. I don’t know what I’d tell you if we were in some sort of practice together, but it may look something like the following.

Shalom, salaam, peace. is possible!

Jewish Liberation, Christian Understanding

I tagged this Substack (jPK), “Reading Christian texts with Jewish context.” The idea to launch this newsletter was to find an outlet for the sort of study of the gospel accounts that I’ve taken to speaking on in Christian settings. I followed Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish woman, who’s made a career of academic work in a school of divinity that primarily serves mainline Protestantism, a prolific authorship that is directed toward Christian audiences, and her public-facing scholarship that engages Christian clergy. I see AJ Levine as a sort of mentor whom I’ve never met, and I am keen to characterize her project as a project of liberation—the liberation of Jewish people in Christian spaces.

By liberation, I mean that I see her work as setting free the Hebrew Bible and its grounding for Jewish identity from its service to Christian communities as proof text and prophecy for Jesus, who they called the Christ.

In this project of liberation the goal is to restore the autonomy of the text in its primary setting: Judaism in its diverse expressions. I’m unsure if autonomy is the best word here, but I’m attempting to capture the idea that the “Law and the Prophets,” as referred to by the anonymous author of Matthew’s Gospel in today’s assigned reading from the Revised Common Lectionary, is self-governed by the interpretive communities within Judaism, and these readings are authoritative for these Jewish interpretive communities, even when—especially when—they conflict with Christian interpretation and application for the very same texts.

It simply is the case that a common assertion voiced by Christians is that Jesus is correcting a misunderstanding of the Scriptures held by “the Pharisees”—a term that we see deployed broadly as referring to any religious leaders with whom someone disagrees, but in the end, is implicitly connected with Jews and Judaism. I’m not sure to what extent the label is implied rather than explicit, but the claim that Jesus is addressing the Pharisees’ ignorance fuels supersessionist thinking, or is a condition of it, and situates Jesus as the authority over the text. I argue that using the Hebrew Bible as proof text for Jesus robs the text of its autonomy, insofar as we understand autonomy to be something that is free from external control. Rather than view the Law and the Prophets as something that informed the Gospel authors, too often the view suggested is that the Gospels inform how the Hebrew Bible is to be read.

This is not to say that Christian interpretive communities have no authority over the text; it is to say that Jewish interpretations cannot be wrong, from the standpoint of Christian exegesis. Rather, the Jewish interpretive tradition is autonomous and authoritative for Jews, while Christians have a beautiful tradition of negotiating the Scriptures of Israel to develop a separate religious identity that emerges from its Jewish roots—and yes, Christian interpretive communities may apply their own standards of authority, but this authority does not supersede nor binds the Jewish understanding.

Today’s text from Matthew quotes Torah nearly verbatim and presents us with maybe the most clear alignment possible between the Torah and the Gospels. With all the front-loading of context, maybe we find in this moment exactly what we need: a reduction of all the Law and the Prophets to simple commandments that epitomize them. Exegetical work aside, we see two traditions in unambiguous support of these central values: Love of self and love of the other.

The Text(s): Matthew, also Deuteronomy and Leviticus

Matthew 22:34-46

34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him: 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Setting Up the Debate

The context matters, we cannot take these verses in isolation. Listen to how the author sets the scene: “When the Pharisees heard that he [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees…” This tells us that we’re in a debate about the Law because it is on the points of the Law that would frame the disagreements between the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Jesus movement. This discourse is appropriate to the historical period. The Pharisees were the only Second Temple Judaism sect to survive the Temple’s destruction by Rome, and so, writing the Gospels post 70 CE, contemporaneous with the development of later-Rabbinic Judaism by the post-Temple Pharisees we see the Gospels treating the Pharisees as foil to their, the Gospels, messianic proclamation.

Unless you’re new here—in which case, welcome!—you know that I’ve taken pains to frame a significant portion of the Pharisaic debates as exactly that: debates. And these debates are not only common to the first century context, they form the heart of Jewish discourse. Preserving debates in the Gospels between Jesus and the Pharisees is no more strange than the disagreements preserved in the debates of the rabbinic writings, by way of the Talmud.

What I recognize immediately in this scene is that the Pharisees are struck by the conversation with the Sadducees. Jesus had just before this scene debated the Sadducees about resurrection. The Sadducees themselves were opponents of the Pharisees, and on the topic of resurrection, Jesus and the Pharisees would be in agreement. Modern readers may find it interesting that the Pharisees and Jesus agree on many points. (Aside: I love this description of the Pharisees: “Pharisees were in a sense blue-collar Jews who adhered to the tenets developed after the destruction of the Temple; that is, such things as individual prayer and assembly in synagogues” (Jewish Virtual Library)). I’ve suggested that it could be the close alignment with some Pharisaic views and the teachings of the Jesus movement that explains why the evangelists portrayed these factions as having vehement disagreement between them. The gospels are seeking to win followers to their apocalyptic messiah, and whereas the Pharisees agreed with bodily resurrection, they disagreed that Jesus was the Davidic messiah.

“Hear, Oh Israel”

Jesus quotes two Torah commandments in Matthew 22:37-39. The first commandment, to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind, is found in Deuteronomy 6:5. The second commandment, to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is found in Leviticus 19:18.

In Jewish tradition, these two commandments are considered to be the most important commandments in all of Torah. Together, they are referred to as the Shema, the Hebrew word for “hear.” The Shema is a central—the most central?—prayer in Judaism. The daily liturgy for Jews instructs that the Shema is spoken twice daily, one in the morning and again at night. The prayer begins, Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elehenu, Adonai echad: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. I recited this prayer at night over the cribs of each of our three kids.

The following are the two verses from which the Shema is formed—and quoted in Matthew 22.

Deuteronomy 6:5:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

Leviticus 19:18

“You shall not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”

Taken together, we see that the Shema is not just about our relationship with God, but also about our relationship with each other. When we love God with all our heart, soul, and might, we are naturally drawn to love and care for our neighbors as well.

Rabbinic Writings about the Shema

I mentioned the inner-Jewish discourse and legal debates preserved in the Gospels match other preserved legal debates, namely, those in the Talmud. On this topic, the Talmud is decisive. These writings teach that the Shema is the essence of the Torah. The Talmud says, “The whole Torah is included in the following verse: ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary’” (Shabbat 31a). In addition to this Talmud tractate, the priestly instruction guide, legal interpretation of Leviticus, and supplement to the Talmud, Sifra, states, “He who loves his neighbor as himself has fulfilled the whole Torah.” (Sifra 9:5)

Consider the tight alignment here. What does the evangelist have Jesus say?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love, Seriously

The Shema is an assertion. It is bold. It is declarative. Hear, Oh Israel! It is an announcement meant to alert all Jewish people. The most important commandment. All of Torah. What more can be said in its support?! It is central.

The Gospels preserve and present this core of Torah to their mixed Jewish-Gentile audience. As those from “the Nations,” ta ethné, the gentiles, who are joining the apocalyptic sect, the Jesus movement, what does Matthew’s author think that they should know about Jesus’ interpretation of the Law? It is the Shema. It is to love Gd with all your heart, soul, and mid, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Do you know how hard that is? To center all of Torah, all of what Jesus’ followers would consider the two most important commandments: Love of self and love of other. On all that we can disagree about, I see no other interpretation available to us here other than to affirm the only thing we can definitely agree on: Love.