Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Whenever I read the Lubavitcher website, it seems as if we are reliving history. The Lubavitcher character assassination of Shmuley Boteach reminds me of how the 17th century Dutch Jewish community treated one of its heretical spirits and his name was Uriel da Costa (1585-1640).

Uriel was born in Portugal to a family of converses (people who were forcibly converted to Catholicism) in the 16th century. After studying at Coimbra, he became interested in Judaism. His family fled Portugal and settled in Amsterdam, where he had hoped the Jewish community would welcome his return.

Or, so he thought . . .

Uriel found the practices of rabbinic Judaism at odds with the ethical message of Tanakh, which he felt were too rigid and mechanical. In 1624, he published one of his controversial books, “Examination of the Traditions of the Pharisees Compared with the Written Law,” which created shockwaves throughout the Amsterdam Jewish and Christian community. The Dutch officials burned Uriel’s controversial book, and he was fined for undermining the foundations of religious faith. Although the Dutch people were reasonably tolerant toward the Jews, the Jewish community feared Uriel might endanger their welfare, so the Jewish community decided to excommunicate Uriel da Costa. Using him as a scapegoat meant the Jews of Amsterdam could remain in safety.

Uriel was expendable.

Although Uriel felt strong about his religious principles, he finally decided to acquiesce to the Orthodox Jewish authorities of his time. If his readmission meant that he would, “become an ape, to live among apes,” he would do so, “Monkey see, monkey do.”

However, Uriel soon became disillusioned with Mosaic Law altogether, and felt that all religions were “human inventions.” By 1640, the Jewish community decided to discipline Uriel. They gave him 39 lashes in the synagogue. They placed a large door over him, and the Jewish community literally walked over him, treating him as though he was dead.

But he soon would be.

After when he returned home, he wrote his autobiography and committed suicide.

Uriel da Costa is a tragic story about how the Jewish community alienated one of its rebellious spirits. Young Benedict de Spinoza made sure that when he wrote his famous works, he instructed his followers to publish them posthumously. Had there been a JTS or a Hebrew Union College in Amsterdam, both of these men would have found a home for their idiosyncratic ideas of theology. Unfortunately, they lived in a rather draconian period of Jewish history, a time when people preferred to burn books and ideas, rather than confront them with better ideas.

When I read about the Chabad reactions to Shmuley Boteach’s controversial, “Kosher Jesus,” I shudder to think what the Jews of Crown Heights would do if they were living in the 17th century. Although they cannot “walk over him,” as they literally did with Uriel da Costa, they are verbally dismembering him before the entire Jewish and Christian world to watch in disbelief.

Check out some of the comments any of you can find on:

http://collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=18125&alias=shmuley-boteach-blasts-collive [1]

Anyone peering from the outside might think Shmuley Boteach is a modern-day “heretic.” The term “heresy,” derives from the Greek αἵρεσις (heresis), which originally meant “choice.” In other words, heresy is another way of saying, “freedom of thought.” Religious communities typically chastise these rebellious spirits in their effort to censor ideas they find potentially “subversive” and “dangerous.” Continue Reading

“I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights.” —(Gen. 7:4)

Forty is a portentous number, for it represents the fullness of time. In general, it is usually a round number or estimation more so than an actual precise chronological measurement of time. As the medium of purification in the Torah, water has a unique power in that it can dissolve all the sundry forms it encompasses. In the realm of ritual, the waters of purification determine a new status, hence a new creation. Rabbinic literature develops this concept concerning the various laws pertaining to ritual purification and conversion.

In the Mishnah, for example, the waters of the mikvah (a “ritual bath”) must contain 40 se’ah (approximately 120 gallons) of water—the amount that is necessary to completely cover the human body as it undergoes ritual purification.[1] Ritual immersion represents a symbolic death for the person undergoing ritual. Upon arising, s/he becomes like a new person, as indicated by the Talmudic dictum, “Anyone who has become a proselyte is likened to a newborn baby.”[2]

Ritual immersion always introduces a change in status. For a priest, immersion enables him to eat from the priestly tithes; for the leper, immersion terminates his ceremonially impure status and facilitates his reintegrate to the community. In the same manner, the Flood lasted for 40 days and 40 nights and served as a means of purifying and purging the world of the violence that had infected it.[3]

Throughout the Tanakh and much of early rabbinic tradition, the number 40 is also associated with dramatic change, upheaval,[4] judgment [5] , hardship, affliction and censure, temptation and punishment, probation, [6] purification, forgiveness,[7] wisdom,[8] redemptive rescuing (as evidenced here) and finally, revelation.[9] The Jewish mystical tradition also sees a profound relationship among all these seemingly disparate nuances associated with the number.

On a psychological level, the number 40 seems to suggest that it is only when we are most broken and humbled we become spiritually open and receptive to God’s revelation and promise of renewal. From a Jungian perspective, 40 also corresponds to the period of life commonly known as midlife, when one often experiences turbulent changes as one comes to grips with mortality and the meaning of human existence. At midlife, that is when we start asking the great questions-even now as we wade our way through the current economic deluge our country is experiencing. Use this time to rediscover the real “You.” Continue Reading