Hesed ve-'Emet

by

Dr. Charles Bryant-Abraham

Dr.Charles Bryant-Abraham is a widely-published scholar of Biblical Hebrew, Imperial and middle Aramaic, Syriac, Koinè Greek, and Ecclesiastical Latin. As a fellow of the AMI Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Research, Jerusalem, he has taught internationally in German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, and English. Charles, his wife Lu Ellen, and their sons, Daniel Isaac, and Joshua Jedidiah, divide their time between Jerusalem and San Diego, California.

For information on seminars of the AMI Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Research, Jerusalem, Israel, for information on Bibles for the Former Soviet Union Project, and for correspondence courses and publications write:
P. O. Box 8017, Jerusalem 91080, Israel or FAX: 011 972 2 563 5426.

In the Restoration we will see the disciplined practed of hesed become an ingrained, intuitive trait of humankind. It is then that we will see the eternally true message of the Gospels become an indelible fact upon the planet earth, in the Kingdom of God.

The Hebrew language speaks of "cutting (into)" and of "breaking (out of)" a brit, "covenant/relationship." But the inner content of relationship is the practice of hèsed, "loving-kindness." Between human beings it is the mutual/reciprocal exchange of acts of loving-kindness that constitutes the Aristotelian ideal friendship, but it is specifically that unique transdenominational relationship which will usher in the Restoration. It is the practice of acts of loving-kindness that tends the orchard producing the fruits of the Spirit. Paul described the harvest of loving kindness in his letter to the Celtic believers in Western Central Anatolia: "But the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," and he urges, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."1

In the history of the Protestant Reformation it was Martin Luther who first taught that God’s love (hèsed/loving kindness) flows "downward" through each and every child of God and outward into the world. Medieval scholasticism had produced a plethora of tomes on the theme of imitatio Dei, "the imitation of God." But few were those sufficiently literate to digest these scholastic exercises. In the Restoration, however, literacy is a given and biblical literacy an imperative. When we read the Pentateuchal attributes of God, we comprehend a standard of conduct for our own interpersonal relationships: "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving transgression and sin."2 The Hebrew original of "abundant in goodness and truth" is rab hèsed ve-emet, literally: "Great [of] loving kindness and truth," and its inalienable corollary is forgiveness. God is our highest Paradigm of hèsed ve-emet, the Biblical Hebrew original of "relationship and truth."

One child of God should find it the most natural, the least artificial thing in the world to tell another child of God: "I love you now, and I will love you forever." Such is not a declaration of sentimental gush, rooted in a momentary romantic emotion. It is an ethical affirmation with this profound significance: "God’s loving kindness flows through me to you and will always flow through me to you; I understand that and accept the responsibility." Spiritual, not erotic, the strength of such a love cannot compromise the love for any other, for to love one child of God with this intense divine love is to love all. The measure of love is giving3, for indeed it is God’s loving kindness that flows forth through the lover into the surrounding world. We read: " ‘Master, which is the great commandment in the law?’ Jesus said unto him, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ "4

Why string together these two commandments and rate them first? Is it not patently evident when humankind is so finite, so limited that we cannot conceive of the Mind that put together existence, much less love such a Mind with all the heart, with all the soul and with all the mind? How then are we to comply with the great commandment? Jesus clearly teaches us that we reciprocate our Father’s loving kindness towards us, His divine relationship with us, through allowing His hèsed, His acts of loving-kindness, to flow through us out into the external world. We can only love our Creator with that kind of intensity through loving just as intensely His creation, our fellow man. We express the existential meaning of His divine relationship with us through the Godliness of our relationships with others, and it is insufficient to talk abstractly, to philosophize, about relationship. We must actualize it in concrete deeds of hèsed, "loving-kindness," even as Paul wrote: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not hèsed, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."5 We will yet see in the Restoration the disciplined practice of hèsed become an ingrained, intuitive trait of humankind. It is then that we will see the eternally true message of the Gospel become an indelible fact upon the planet earth, in the Kingdom of God.

An Insistence on Truth

Equally in the Restoration, the divine dynamic of hèsed will be indissolubly linked to an unrelenting insistence upon emet, "truth." It is the Restoration, reflecting man’s deepest yearnings for Godliness upon earth, that, in the Third Millennium, will bring us full-circle in the long and often lamentable history of Christendom to finally become a species characteristically rab hèsed ve-’emet, truly worthy to be called "children of God."

We now come to shift our focus onto a consideration of "truth." What exactly do we have in mind when we affirm that Relationship and Truth are the Keys to the Restoration?

One of the most common notions of "truth" could better be called "ideological conformity." Here the definition of truthfulness resides in how closely a statement adheres to a given political agenda. This notion of truth is generally labeled "doctrinal truth," and it typifies the mindless sloganeering of any autocratic system from medieval feudalism to twentieth century fascism and communism. Correspondence to reality is not at issue here; its heart is the furtherance of a political campaign. At its most Machiavellian pragmatic, it is one of the tools of power politics, be it used by Byzantium, Berlin, or Beijing.

Yet, it need not be nefarious, only pragmatic. Consider the extensive example of Thomas Cahill’s best seller, How the Irish Saved Civilization. Cahill draws together admirably a succinct presentation of much classical and traditional Irish reading. His data are accurate, but he omits accentuation of one all-important fact. When the Irish were saving civilization, they were not "Western Christians." They practiced Early Celtic Christianity, which has been described as the closest to Judaism of all historic forms of Christianity. As does the Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church still today, Early Celtic Christianity cultivated Johannine theology, and there is mounting circumstantial evidence that the Gospel was first brought to Celtic lands by Jewish Christians (Nazarenes). It is a fact of Irish history that the Emerald Isle had become a Christian land at least two centuries before the arrival of St. Patrick, who seems to have initiated the process of "Paulinization," and is consequently credited as having first "Christianized" Ireland. Early Celtic Christianity encouraged the clergy to marry, and leadership was often vested in dynasties of married Abbots who functioned at the monasteries–actually centralized communities of Christian families–in much the same role as clan chiefs. There is so much Cahill could have brought out in his book, and the fact that he didn’t betrays a man less interested in historic accuracy than in reinforcing the doctrinal truths of post-Counter Reformation Ireland.

A parallel misuse of "doctrinal truth" lodges in the artificial separation of "religious truth" and "scientific truth." The sciences constitute one of the most sublime of theological studies, for it is through the sciences that we are permitted access to learn of the divine processes of "God’s Godding." It is in man’s abuse of his modest scientific insights, as in all else, that the curse emerges to vanquish the blessing.

We would only point out at this moment that it was the steady accumulation of "doctrinal truth" upon "doctrinal truth" that eventuated in the depletion of Christianity’s Hebraic roots: "But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little, that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken."5 We, dedicated to the Restoration, are intent on reclaiming as our own that original spiritual heritage.

2) A second definition of "truth" is frequently encountered in the Islamic world.6 "Truth" in this usage of the word is also typical of colonialized/imperialist societies, such as British East Africa or in the interactions between slave and master. Here, "truth" is essentially definable as that which must be said to maximize interpersonal rapport. Strategic operations against Israel in every Arab war of extermination have been severely hampered by the psycho-dynamics of this pan-Islamic idea of "truth." Arab intelligence reports from the field were consistently skewed to meet the optimistic expectations of the end receiver of the data, rather than reflecting the actual state of military affairs. Arab losses might have been less significant if their field reports had explained the military reality from the Israeli perspective: "For the Lord hath driven out from before you great nations and strong; but as for you, no man hath been able to stand before you unto this day. One man of you shall chase a thousand; for the Lord your God, He it is that fighteth for you, as He hath promised you."7

3) A third frequently encountered, though less common, definition of "truth" hinges on the use of metaphorical or allegorical language to express generalized observations or expected probabilities. Jesus, through the parables, often chose this teaching modality to imprint a more lasting impression on his audience. This device of oral literature is termed in Hebrew mashal (pl.: meshalim) and includes the use of simile, metaphor, and poetic imagery. The Proverbs of Solomon are entitled in the Masoretic text, Mishlei Shlomo ("the Meshalim of Solomon"). There are generally two great problems with metaphorically communicated "truisms:" 1) the disinclination to admit of limitations in its use and a concomitant failing to ferret out the "false analogy"; 2) the tendency to take the metaphor literally. The Jewish literary genres of Midrash (exegesis)8 and of the ‘Aggadot (legends of biblical events and personalities) cultivate metaphorical imagery to its highest development and have consistently been faulted for exaggerations. Take for example the ‘aggadah of God holding Mt. Sinai over the heads of the children of Israel while threatening them to accept the Ten Commandments or have Him drop the mountain down onto them. The "truism" communicated is that had the people not freely chosen to accept the ethical responsibility imposed by the Decalogue, they would have disappeared from the stage of world history, even from the moment of Sinai. It is the tendency to read the ‘aggadot literally that has occasioned their disparagement by many Jewish thinkers and social critics, as we find even in the Epistles: 1) ". . .neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies";9 2) ". . .but reject profane and old wives’ fables. . .";10 3) "And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall turn toward fables";11 4) ". . .not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men, that turn from the truth";12 5) "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables. . ."13

The ‘aggadot constitute a vast and beautiful folk literature composed in Mishnaic Hebrew and Palestinian Aramaic. Yet attacks against the tendency of naive or simple minds to read the tales literally continued unabated throughout Medieval Jewish philosophy and into the Haskalah, "Enlightenment" period preceding the modern era. It should be noted that the problem of misreading metaphorical language is equally represented throughout the history of Christian preaching in the abuse that has far too often been made of Jesus’ parables and the teachings of Paul, abuse in the justification of "man’s inhumanity to man," e.g., the preaching of apartheid by the Dutch Reformed Churches of the former South Africa.

4) A fourth notion of "truth," the one with which we who are dedicated to the Restoration are concerned, reflects the Cartesian logic so characteristic of our information-age society. Above the sundry philosophical arguments over "the problem of truth," and beyond all epistemological questions ("How can we know that we know what we know?"), above and beyond both constellations of sophistry, it is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that has sharpened our appreciation of the limitations of "truth." Here "truth" corresponds most consistently with the Hebrew concept, emet.14 Posit an Event A, perceived by a mind/Event B, and then described by a mind/Event C. By the time of Event C, the initial occurrence of Event A has passed and all Event C can ever describe is, in fact, its perception of Event B, but never Event A. As long as Event C carefully disciplines its factual description of Event B, it meets the criterion of emet, "truth." But should Event C willfully or negligently distort its description of Event B, Biblical Hebrew designates it shèqer, "falsehood/lie/untruth." Exodus 23: 7a admonishes mi-devar sèqer tirhaq, "Keep thee far from a false matter" (literally, "From a word/event of truth-distortion distance [yourself].") It is a fact of history that Christendom ab initio has generally opted for "doctrinal truth" over and above emet. Yet it is specifically emet that John, the beloved disciple, had in mind when he wrote: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."15 We underscore the fact that Hebrew sees emet, "truth," as an event, not a state. By its very nature "doctrinal truth" is static, immutable. Its essence is "letter," not "spirit," signaled by Paul as pernicious, "for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life."16 May we not fairly ask what utility Paul, the Jew, would have found in all the Medieval scholastic deliberations on the finest points of dogma? He himself wrote: "And my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand on the wisdom of man, but on the power of God."17 Paul personally experienced an Event A, took stock of what had happened to him in an Event B, and as accurately as he could spent the rest of his life in an Event C that changed the world.

The Final Phase of Restoration

We have insisted that hèsed ve-emet, "relationship and truth," are the keys to the Restoration. We, in our generation, stand on the thresh-hold of an Event D in our struggle toward that Restoration. It would be historically correct to designate this international transdenominational movement to recover the Hebraic roots of Christianity as the Protestant Reformation Phase III, were it not for the fact that the movement, led by the Spirit, equally includes the Roman Catholic world18 and the "Churches of the East."

Now the stage is being set for the final phase of the Restoration. Moreover, today, 1) With active Christian tourism to Israel, 2) With the laudable labor of the Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, 3) With the dynamic outreach of the U.S.-based evangelical organization, Bridges for Peace, 4) With the exciting, transdenominational networking of the Restoration Foundation, 5) With ministries like The Living Word Fellowship founded by John Stevens, and yes, 6) With the international, Spirit-driven work of the AMI Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Research–all to the glory of the Father–there are ever fewer "True Christians" seeking to be "unequally yoked" to those Medieval levels of less enlightened bias, high-handedly and non-scripturally excluding the Jewish people from their rightful sonship.

Ours is the awesome calling to aggressively shoulder this responsibility and to consecrate ourselves to a re-examination of our inherited "doctrinal truths" against the light of the inspired Word of God. The neologism coined for this cardinal principle of the Restoration is doctrinal deconstructionism, sola scriptura to its inexorable conclusion. To reclaim the Hebraic roots of Christianity, it is nothing less than the debris and dogmatic incrustation of centuries that must be cleared away. If we are to permit the resplendent jewel in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to re-emerge for mankind, we cannot be dissuaded from our purpose. Almost 2,000 years of misguided dogma cannot simply be rolled back, but, as we read in the Mishnaic tractate, Pirqei Abot: "Rabbi Tarfon used to say, the day is short, the work great, the laborers are laggard, the reward is abundant and the Master of the house is urgent. He used to say, it is not incumbent on thee to complete the work, but thou art not free to evade it."19

"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness . . . Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, And uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, And sinners shall be converted unto Thee."20

Footnotes:

1. Galatians 5:22,25.

2. Exodus 34:6b-7a.

3. It is of note in Northwest Semitic linguistics that the Hebrew verb ‘âhab, "he loved," is related to the Aramaic verb yhab, "he gave." (The Aramaic verb rahém "he loved," is cognate with Hebrew rihém, "to have compassion upon," both derivative of rèhem, "womb," i.e. both the Hebrew concept of "mercy, pity, compassion," and the Aramaic concept of "love"–even of male "romantic" love–are seen to reflect the intense care and concern that a mother has for the child she carries in her womb). The semantic relation between the Hebrew verb ‘âhab, "he loved," and the Aramaic verb yhab, "he gave," has also come to light in studies of Ugaritic, Phoenician and Punic. The fact of the matter is that Indo-European languages tend to perceive reality as static (x = y or z), while Hebrew and its sister Semitic Languages see reality as dynamic (x does y or z). In the Hebraic mind "love" is not a state, but an event, an event most readily expressed in the act of giving. Cf. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15: 13).

4. Matthew 22: 33-39.

5. 1 Corinthians 13: 1.

6. The interested reader should consult Raphael Patai’s The Arab Mind, or Leon Uris’ The Haj, a book distributed to all members of the U. S. State Department stationed in the Muslim World.

7. Joshua 23: 9-10.

8. To provide our readership an insight into the exegetical functioning of Midrashic interpretation, we offer the following: Genesis 25: 22a in the KJ21 reads: "And the children struggled together within her; and she said, ‘If it be so, why am I thus?’" We transcribe the Masoretic Hebrew as: vat-tòmer ‘im-kén lammâh zeh ‘ânokhî, literally "and she said, if thus why this, I?" We transcribe the Septuagint Greek thus: ‘eipe de, ‘ei ‘outo moi mellei ginesthai, hina ti moi toutô, literally, "[she] said then, if this to me is about to occur, in order that what to me this?" We transcribe the Targum Onqelos Aramaic thus: wa-’amèreth ‘im-kén lemâh dhenân ‘ânâ’, literally, "and she said if thus, why this I?" We transcribe the Peshitta’ (Chaldaean Syriac) thus: we-’amèreth, ‘in håkhânå’ hau, lemånå’ hayå’ |enå’, literally "and she said, if thus that, why live I?" And St. Jerome’s Vulgata Latin reads: quae ait si sic mihi futurum erat quid necesse fuit concipere, literally, "which said if thus it was about to be, what need was it to conceive?" The Latin Vulgata is clearly in greatest divergence from the Hebrew. The Greek Septuagint is essentially an explanatory paraphrase, while the Aramaic Targum simply calques (places Aramaic words over) the Hebrew sentence. The Hebrew sentence seems truncated, strange, and the Syriac version supplements the implied sense by adding the verb live. Now, Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (1040 - 1105), acronym "Rashi," was one of the greatest Jewish commentators on the Bible and Talmud. In his biblical commentaries he adduces a great number of ‘aggadot and midrashim in explication of obscure verses. His commentary on Genesis 25: 22a will serve as our example of the functioning of Midrash: "You must admit that this verse calls for a Midrashic interpretation since it leaves unexplained what this struggling was about and it states that she exclaimed ‘If it be so, wherefore did I desire this?’ (i.e., she asked whether this was the normal course of child-bearing, feeling that something extraordinary was happening.) Our Rabbis explain that the word vay-yitrotsatsa [our transcription] has the meaning of running, moving quickly: whenever she passed by the doors of the Torah . . . Jacob moved convulsively in his efforts to come to birth, but whenever she passed by the gate of a pagan temple Esau moved convulsively in his efforts to come to birth. Another explanation is: they struggled with one another and quarreled as to how they should divide the two worlds as their inheritance. . ." (Rashi cited from Rev. M. Rosenbaum and Dr. A. M. Silbermann. Pentateuch, with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Rashi’s Commentary, Genesis (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company), pp. 114 - 115.

9. 1 Timothy 1:4.

10. 1 Timothy 4:7

11. 2 Timothy 4: 4.

12. Titus 1: 14.

13. 2 Peter 1: 16.

14. In Hebraic thought, both emet, "truth," and herut, "freedom," like ‘ahabah, "love,"(cf. note 3 supra) are events, not states of being.

15. John 8: 32.

16. 2 Corinthians 3: 6b.

17. 1 Corinthians 2: 4-5.

18. Cf. the eight million strong "El Shaddai" Charismatic Roman Catholic movement of the Philippines.

19. Sayings of the Fathers 2: 20-21: David de Sola PooL Book of Prayers, According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (New York: Union of Sephardic Congregations, 1992) p.241.

20. Psalm 51: la, 10-13.

Biblical citations herein are adaptations by the writer from The 2lst Century King James Version (KJ21), the use of which has been expressly authorized by Deuel Enterprises, Inc., of Gary, South Dakota. For information on the KJ21, e-mail: kj21@kj2l.com ; homepage: {\fs20 hyperlink http://www.kj2l.com ~

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