Who said the rest is commentary

In the Tibetan tradition there are vows that a fully professed monk takes. In our own tradition, at simple vows we just profess stability, the reformation of life or conversatio , poverty, chastity, and obedience; and then we simplify it down even more when we make solemn vows to stability, the reformation of life, and obedience. I have heard it said that all of them could be summarized in the one—— conversatio , reformation of our lives. In the Jewish tradition, if you count up all the regulations in the Scriptures you come up with ; of them are negative and are positive.

Jesus, when he gets asked, cites two biblical passages, and they are not about sacrifices; and they are not about any lofty theological concepts; they are not even about any specific moral precepts. Just these two out of all , and both of them positive. The first is what we heard as our first reading today, and it comes from the Book of Deuteronomy.

And then it gives the first part of the fundamental law: Therefore: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And the second is from the Book of Leviticus: Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus was not the first or the only one to figure this out, to summarize the Law in this way. Many people point out, including Jewish scholars, that there was a great Jewish teacher who was an almost exact contemporary of Jesus named Hillel, for example, who preached very much the same thing and may have even influenced Jesus.

In the Jewish tradition there is something called targum. As understanding of biblical Hebrew was declining the rabbis would read a passage, and then paraphrase it and offer a comment. These targumim started out as a spoken thing and then gradually came to be written down in collections.

Everything else is commentary. No more and no less — it is indeed the one principle we should keep before us always, and everything else will fall into place. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account.

Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Commentary — the Mishnah, the Talmud, rabbinical exegesis — is for the nitpicking Jew. This is not, of course, what Hillel had in mind. What made him do this? Here, I think, lies the true cunning of the talmudic tale. For what Hillel really is doing is, at one and the same time, tactfully rebuking Shammai while letting the gentile know that, provocateur though he is, the insult he has received is inexcusable in Jewish terms.

Shammai, after all, cannot be expected to love a gentile who is making fun of him, nor can the gentile expect to be loved by him. What, after all, has Hillel said to win him over so quickly? On second thought, however, we realize that he has said the most appropriate thing that could have been said, and that in doing so he has made the gentile feel that Judaism is a religion that can speak to his own situation.