Saturday, January 15, 2011


'...I study the faces, marked by religious intensity and an atmosphere of reverence and an equally gracious acceptance of clumsily inept strangers in their midst'

There I saw hundreds of tzizis (fringed garment) wearing, black yarmulked men poring over texts in interactive intensity in vast study halls that would move any indolent believer to envy. To be in the crowded midst of 1,000 davven-ing (praying), talis (prayer shawl) covered men facing the ark that bears the Torah on a Friday evening Shabbat gathering at the Lubavitcher center in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is to take one’s breath away! I study the faces, marked by religious intensity and an atmosphere of reverence and an equally gracious acceptance of clumsily inept strangers in their midst.
Which raises the question, dare I say it, and it is an important one, is there some measure of God’s validation in what they are about, even in their present blindness, preparing them for the final and ultimate revelation? If so, we cannot afford to categorically dismiss and disconnect ourselves from what is godly and enduring in their synagogue life. What Jewish continuity would there be for a destiny yet to be fulfilled if this grace were not given? While at the same time, that seeming legitimization from God solidifies their resistance to us and to our message, calling for our greater patience!
Please don’t misread this as an endorsement for orthodox, Judaic life coming from some starry-eyed romantic, idealizing His people at the expense of the loss of personal faith. On the contrary, in all this challenge of quite another world, my faith and love of the Lord I serve has never been greater or stronger. He is in all this somehow, in an intersection and confluence of disparate, long-separated worlds whose time has come. I have never felt less qualified to have any part in it, yet at the same time, unspeakably privileged for even this glimpse.


- Ben Israel News/Prayer Letter (Summer 2003)

Saturday, January 8, 2011


'You can have the baptism in the Holy Spirit - and still not be living by it'


I’m a steward of the mysteries of God, and therefore I have to sound a note that is not necessarily sounded by my brothers though I applaud and acknowledge the value of many of the things that they say and that they uphold. But in that I have not made myself, and it has pleased God to fashion me as he has and to give to me the particular burdens that he has, I need to sound them.

I attended a messianic conference a few years back and was a bit irritated by one of the speakers in particular. And some of the brothers came to me and said, ‘Brother Art, we don’t understand why you’re irritated. He’s like you. He has the baptism in the Holy Spirit.’ ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, that’s odd. Why then does he condescend to inject this humor in his presentations, and this little shticklech, and little do-dads and gimmicks to make himself fetching and attractive?’ ‘Well, Art, don’t you know that he’s a little nervous and apprehensive, and he’s afraid that if he doesn’t make himself attractive that people will not receive his word?’
I’ve never forgotten that explanation, because it’s an illustration of a profound truth: You can have the baptism in the Holy Spirit - and still not be living by it. In moments of crisis, in moments of ministry, in moments of demand, in moments of fearfulness, you fall back again on your own life, your own cleverness, your own wit, your own devices. And that has not the ability to bring life. Paul said: ‘In him I move and live and have my being. For me to live is Christ.’ What is messianic life? It’s to be in Christ – moment by moment, cleaving to the Tree of Life for every necessity, a wisdom beyond our own, a knowledge beyond our own, a strength and a boldness beyond our own.
Paul said: ‘In him I move and live and have my being. For me to live is Christ.’ What is messianic life? It’s to be in Christ – moment by moment, cleaving to the Tree of Life for every necessity, a wisdom beyond our own, a knowledge beyond our own, a strength and a boldness beyond our own.

- Conference on Messianic Judaism and the Holy Spirit; Kansas City, Missouri (1977)

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