At the synagogue where I belong, Shaarey Zedek Congregation in suburban Detroit, Rabbi Aaron Starr sermonized on Shavuot that there no longer is a Covenant between the Jews and their God. A YouTube video of his sermon is here.
He quoted Richard Rubenstein, author of Beyond Auschwitz, who wrote: "I believe the greatest single challenge to modern Judaism arises out of the question of God and the death camps. I believe that our problem is how to speak of religion in an age of no God."
He also quoted Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, who wrote: "What then happened to the covenant? I submit that its authority was broken."The latter link leads to an article by Eisenberg at The Times of Israel on the subject of "Are we teaching our children that God broke our Covenant?" From that article:
A more complete discussion of his Shavuot remarks is here.
[Starr] began by recounting the story of a broken marriage, then concluding that such is the relationship between the Lord of Hosts and present day Judaism. ...
Rabbi Starr’s position is that by allowing Hitler and his Nazis to kill and maim millions of our co-religionists, the Lord of Hosts broke that covenant.However, The Times article has a longer quote from Rabbi Greenberg than in The American Thinker article:
What then happened to the covenant? I submit that its authority was broken but the Jewish people, released from its obligations, chose voluntarily to take it on again… The Jewish people was so in love with the dream of redemption that it volunteered to carry on its mission.Eisenberg continues:
Shavuot, as anyone reading these words will know, is the holiday celebrating God’s gift of His Torah and the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Children of Israel at Sinai.
...
I believe that Aaron Starr and modern rabbis who share similar views have misdefined the Covenant. Who ever opined that our covenant with The Holy One can be summed up as, “He keeps us from being killed by Hitler and, and in return, we follow His rules?”
A far better definition of the Covenant is embedded in non-Reform versions of Judaism’s most consequential prayer, the Sh’ma.
“Hear, Oh Israel,” it begins. “The Lord is God, the Lord is One.” Two paragraphs later, it quotes from The Torah, to state:
If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the LORD your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil— I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill.
Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For the LORD’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is assigning to you.
These verses are not included in some Reform sidurim.Eisenberg reasons from this that because Jews are still being blessed, the covenant (at least from God to the Jews) is still being honored. In that regard, Eisenberg claims that Jews have been blessed to be genetically superior to other races, writing:
Following God’s rules meant that basically smart people were marrying and having children with other basically smart people. The genetic gifts which followed made our forbearers particularly skilled at conducting trade, composing symphonies, making scientific discoveries and (in the current age) writing software code and engaging in private equity. It may not be grass for our cattle, but the parallels are there.Setting aside the superior race argument made by Eisenberg, what I find interesting is that neither Rabbi Starr nor Eisenberg seem to consider whether the Jewish people broke their side of the bargain.
Although I can't find the specific verses from the Torah quoted by Eisenberg, they appear to follow some of the blessings and cursings set out in Deuteronomy 7 and 8, and 28-30. The gist of those verses is that if Israel does not forsake their God and follow His commandments, He will bless them in various ways, including militarily, with economic prosperity, and fecundity. But if Israel does not do so, and follows after other gods, then Israel will be cursed in about every way imaginable, including, but not limited to, invasion by foreigners that will take the people prisoner and scatter Israel among all people (the Diasporas). For instance, in Deuteronomy 28, we read:
15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:
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62 And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God.
63 And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.
64 And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.
65 And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:
66 And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:
67 In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.Israel suffered three historic Diasporas: (1) the taking of the Ten Tribes from the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians, which tribes disappeared into the mists of time; (2) the invasion of the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity; and (3) the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by the Romans and the subsequent sale of captured Jews into slavery all across the Empire. All of these are arguably due to the Jews following after other gods.
The invasion and captivity of the Kingdom of Israel was specifically a consequence of idol worship. (See 2 Kings 17:6-23).
According the Jeremiah, Judah saw what Israel had done and, figuratively speaking, said, "Here, hold my beer," and went beyond Israel in its rejection of God and His commandments, and embracing wickedness. (See Jeremiah 3:6-11; see also Ezekiel 22:1-12 (cataloging Judah's sins)). Babylon invaded with the consequence that much of the population of Judah was removed to Babylon, while others fled to live as refugees in places such as Egypt. As we know, after 70 years of captivity, the Jews (i.e., members of the tribes of Judah and Levi) in Babylon were allowed to return to Judah to rebuild the temple and, eventually, the city walls. However, this was not a whole scale return, because large numbers of Jews continued to live in the Middle-East, including communities that have survived up until recently.
Finally, we have the Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and subsequent diaspora. While most of use are aware of the Babylonian siege and its consequences, fewer of us are aware of the parallels in Roman siege. Turning back to Deuteronomy 28, we read:
49 The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;The Old Testament chronicles the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 589 B.C., including the shortage of food which led to cannibalism, and so we associate the foregoing section of Deuteronomy with the siege of 589 B.C. But many prophecies have a dual nature, covering or alluding to more than one instance. Such is the case here, because the siege of 70 A.D. also involved an alien people coming swift as an eagle, which laid siege to Jerusalem, destroying the city. Josephus, in his history, indicated that the siege was just before the passover festival, so Jerusalem was overflowing with people there to celebrate the holy day. Thus, Jerusalem's food stores were already overtaxed. In addition, the Jewish Zealots that had control of the City destroyed the remaining food stocks. This led to at least one account of cannibalism. Josephus contends that 1.1 million (mostly Jews) were killed in the siege or resulting slaughter once the Romans gained entry to the City. Nearly 100,000 were sold into slavery. Josephus also described the thoroughness of the destruction of the City:
50 A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the bold, nor shew favour to the young:
51 And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.
52 And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:
54 So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:
55 So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.
Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done), [Titus] Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as they were of the greatest eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison [in the Upper City], as were the towers [the three forts] also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall [surrounding Jerusalem], it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind.
And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judaea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change. For the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste. Nor had anyone who had known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again. But though he [a foreigner] were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it.Thus, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. also fulfills God's curse pronounced in Deuteronomy.
And the idolatry? Well, there is the obvious fact that they rejected Christ, their Messiah. But it also necessary to understand why the Jews rejected Christ. Certainly there was jealousy and fear that Christ would undermine the authority of the Sanhedrin, and (somewhat ironically considering what happened nearly 50 years later) endanger their relationship with Rome. But more significantly, and you see Christ attack this over and over in the Gospels, is that the Jews rejected Christ because they had stopped worshiping God and, instead, worshiped the Law.
So, yes, I would agree that the Covenant was broken, but not by God.
Christ has offered and continues to offer a new covenant to his disciples. So the lesson for us is to consider is whether we are worshiping a Christian version of the Law, or if we are worshiping God.
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