Letter 1 : Part 2

The Christian and the Pharisee: Two Outspoken Religious Leaders Debate the Road to Heaven
by R. T. Kendall, Rabbi David Rosen

(Page 2 of 2)

Now there are scholars who view the Pharisees as having been a separatist group, but our traditional view has been that these were the teachers of Jewish tradition, our rabbis and their followers. We have seen them as the heirs of the prophets of Israel and as those who maintained the devotion not only to the Written but also to the Oral Torah. Indeed the historic evidence makes it clear that one of the main distinctions between the Pharisees and Sadducees was the attitude toward the Oral Tradition. The Sadducees saw this as unnecessary expansion of the Written Torah, which they took much more literally.

But there were many other distinctions, not least of all the overwhelming focus of the Sadducees on the temple service as the key to God's favor. While the temple was of course an important institution for the Pharisees, they taught-in keeping with the prophets of Israel-that what is most important is one's personal relationship with God and one's relationship with one's neighbor, wherever one may be. As a result, after the rebellion against Rome by the Zealots, the Roman destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, and the Roman exile of large segments of the Jewish population, the Sadducees, just as the Essenes and the Zealots, all disappeared. The only group amongst those to which Josephus refers that could survive political failure, the destruction of the temple, and exile was the group that nurtured the knowledge and practice of the Written and Oral Tradition as the divine purpose of Jewish existence wherever we lived.

The bottom line is that Jewish tradition for most of the last two thousand years viewed the Pharisees as the rabbis of our heritage, heirs of the prophets and biblical tradition, the teachers of authentic Judaism as enshrined in the Talmud- the religion of the Jews as it has been practiced and known until modern times.

Therefore, in the perception of most religious Jews today, to denigrate the Pharisees is in fact to denigrate Judaism.

We now approach the big question regarding Jesus' recorded comments regarding the Pharisees.

The question is even larger because of the overwhelming parallels between Jesus' teaching and that of the Pharisees- the rabbis of the Mishnaic period (the Mishnah is the first written version of the Oral Tradition) contemporaneous with Jesus. They emphasized the paramount principles of love of God and neighbor; the importance of the individual's personal relationship with God; the values of modesty, charity, and repentance; the significance of the afterlife; that as holy as the Sabbath is, when it comes to the preservation of human life it must be transgressed. One could go on and on drawing the parallels between the teachings of the Pharisees and Jesus.

In fact, I recall that the German scholars Strack and Billerbeck documented hundreds of parallels in the Mishnah and Talmud to the sayings of Jesus in the book of Matthew alone! Virtually all the sins Jesus is recorded as having chastised the Pharisees for are condemned by the rabbis (whom we see as the Pharisees) themselves. In fact, the similarities are so great that I find it compelling to believe that Jesus himself was part and parcel of that community.

Some scholars would say that the term Pharisee was used in different ways at different times and that at Jesus' time it did apply only to a limited particularist group that later became popular and widespread.

Another interpretation raises the question as to why the Sadducees are hardly referred to in the Gospels, especially as they would have been far more likely to have been the object of Jesus' criticism-controlling the temple, power, access, and resources to the degree they did. The answer, they suggest, lies in the fact that the Gospels were written well after the Sadducees as an identifiable group ceased to function. The very survival of the Pharisees in the form of Rabbinic Judaism led to the use of their name to describe those whom Jesus was criticizing, when in fact he was berating other groups that were no longer around or no longer relevant to the religious social reality when the Gospels were written.

However, I would point out something else which appears to me to be more important in resolving this riddle. When the prophets of Israel chastise the people and say things like "O Israel, why have you forsaken God?" or "O Judah, how long will you continue to sin?" they were not for one minute suggesting that they, the prophets, were not part of Israel or Judah.

Because Christianity-especially after the conversion of Constantine-tragically, increasingly detached itself from its Jewish roots, Christians forgot that Jesus was a Jew talking overwhelmingly to Jews-good Jews and bad Jews (and most of them probably in between, like most of us!).

When Jesus criticized Pharisees, he was doing so as a rabbi addressing other rabbis, saying, "You rabbis are letting the side down! Precisely because you are rabbis, you should know better and your sin is worse."

From my traditional Jewish perspective that views the Pharisees as the teachers of Rabbinic Judaism, Jesus could not be criticizing all Pharisees-especially if he was, as I believe, part of that community. Indeed to claim that he was addressing all Pharisees would not only be incorrect in my opinion, it would also imply that Jesus was judging and stigmatizing a whole community, which would surely be in complete contradiction with the most sublime religious moral values that he preached. So I am convinced that Jesus was criticizing some Pharisees-not all Pharisees.

I consider it important for Christians to recognize this, not only because I believe that it cannot be true that Jesus stigmatized a whole community for the sins of some of them, but also because I want Christians to be aware of how we Jews today see ourselves as the continuation of the Pharisaic tradition, of normative Judaism. That is why I am offended by the pejorative use of the word Pharisee, as I would be if someone used the phrase "to Jew somebody" to mean to swindle someone.

As I have said, the sins and hypocrisy that Jesus exposes in those Pharisees are precisely exposed by other Pharisees in our rabbinic literature. One of the criticisms is of a dry legalism that is divorced from the spirit of God's commandments.

That, however, does not mean we think that we can disregard them or even treat them lightly. On the contrary, we believe that our fulfillment of these observances and their study is precisely the way of life God wants us to pursue: the way of life that gives us joy, beauty, and meaning to our existence. But obviously we have to be in consonance with their spiritual goal and purpose of making us holy.

Leviticus 19 opens with the commandment, "You shall be holy because I the Lord am Holy," and this chapter makes it clear that holiness is not only the discipline that makes us conscious of God's presence but above all is expressed in the love of God and neighbor that leads us to live with care and compassion for our fellow human beings-all created in the image of God. Thus arrogance, self-righteousness, and disdain for others; jealousy, greed, or speaking ill of others, etc., are all considered sinful ways to behave-in fact considered most un-Pharisaic ways to behave.

So all I ask, R. T., is that you might consider referring in your writings and sermons to those Pharisees or some Pharisees whom Jesus criticized and not to tar us all with the brush of individual sinners by association. Because when all Pharisees are presented as sinners, you bear false witness against me.

Yours,
David

Copyright © 2006 by R. T. Kendall and David Rosen

About the Author

Dr. R. T. Kendall served for 25 years as Minister of Westminster Chapel in London and now lives in Florida. From there, he continues his career as a popular Christian preacher and writer. His best-selling books include The Thorn in the Flesh, Total Forgiveness, and The Anointing.

Rabbi David Rosen, previously Chief Rabbi of Ireland, has for the last twenty years lived in Jerusalem where he currently holds a number of important posts, including: Director of the Department for Interreligious Affairs and Director of the Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding of the American Jewish Committee, President of the World Conference on Religion and Peace and Honorary President of the International Council of Christians and Jews.