A Reflection on "Let's Get Biblical!"
Rabbi Tovia Singer's Lecture Series

By Arthur F. Glasser

Arthur F. Glasser, a Gentile Christian, is Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Theology and East Asian Studies as well as Faculty Coordinator of Judaic Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, School of World Mission, Pasadena CA.

Dr. Glasser's remarks are edited from a paper given at the 1997 meeting of the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism of North America.

This essay is intended to be a reflective essay, not a point by point response to Rabbi Singer. Links are given to other pages on this website where detailed responses are provided.


Introduction

I am sure that by now you have all heard of Rabbi Tovia Singer, the director of Outreach Judaism, a national organization "dedicated to countering the efforts of Christian groups and cults that specifically target Jews for conversion." His full-page advertisements appear from time to time in various Jewish magazines, such as Moment, The Jerusalem Report, etc.

About a year ago I was asked whether I was acquainted with the substance of Rabbi Singer's audio cassette series, designed to "help Jews understand why Judaism does not accept the Christian Messiah." At the time, I was somewhat aware of the existence of these tapes, but knew nothing of their content. Then last fall, several of our students, Gentile as well as Jewish, inquired whether I might meet with them on a one-on-one basis to discuss their substance. After some discussion we agreed to listen to the tapes in sequence privately, and then meet weekly to share our reactions. It was while doing this that I learned of Rabbi Singer's widespread public lectures throughout the country.

First: The Rabbi

I have not had the opportunity to meet Rabbi Singer personally. However, through his tapes and via some of the phone calls that our students have had with him, I think we can rightly judge that he is in his thirties, an Orthodox Jew, warm, humorous and personable. His lectures come across as those of a popularizer, rather than of a tough-minded intellectual. All that he says is replete with overtones of sincerity, intense loyalty to his people, and not a little derision of those who have been taken in by the pious though fraudulent convictions of evangelicals. He is genuinely pained over the losses that the Jewish community is experiencing over the growing numbers of Jewish people who are encountering Y'shua, the living Messiah, through the witness of His Jewish and Gentile followers.

The Rabbi's presuppositions readily surface, although they are not all clearly articulated. What makes his lectures fascinating is that he accepts the Tanakh as the inspired and utterly trustworthy Word of God. This means that we are listening to the way in which our biblical faith in Y'shua is understood and evaluated by an Orthodox Jew. Rabbi Singer dismisses the contentions of liberal scholars with a measure of contempt. So far as he is concerned, Moses wrote the Torah (the Pentateuch), Daniel wrote Daniel, and there was only one Isaiah. On this basis evangelicals can "search the Scriptures" with him.

In this connection I found his method of handling the Scriptures most problematic. As I sought to follow along with his examination of any particular text, what impressed me was his possession of an assured infallible understanding of each infallible text that allowed for no alternative opinion. The way in which he answered questions from the floor seemed only to warrant the repetition of what he had earlier said, rather than to invite open discussion. I want to be fair. His problem is that time is not on his side. His lectures are crowded with too much material, and it is presented in too breathless a fashion. I must presume that were we not in that particular lecture hall type of context, we might find him amenable to friendly interaction.

The Rabbi does not pay too much attention to orderliness of presentation. Once a position has been affirmed, with a few asides as to how Christians deliberately play free and loose with what Jews know the biblical text really means, the Rabbi is hurrying on to the next point in his presentation. I can imagine that the Jewish people who largely make up his audiences are not overly irritated with his rapid movement from text to text. This may be because what he seeks to share with them is interesting, and comes across as something "brand new." One wonders whether they have any real acquaintance with the Messianic passages he uses. Admittedly, not every evangelical is at home in these passages either. Biblical illiteracy is a common disease today.

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Rabbi Singer does not feel constrained to give his hearers anything approximating an Orthodox portrayal of the Messiah. Again and again he states that a particular passage or cluster of chapters in the Tanakh is Messianic, and refers to the future. Occasionally he intimates that a certain detail or specific event is yet to take place, but without establishing any basic framework or eschatological sequence that might be helpful to his people in their understanding of its relevance. Many religious people are concerned about the future and its biblical certainties. I think his silence on the sequence of prophetic utterances is unfortunate. Only toward the end of these lectures does he give a brief and tantalizing list of achievements associated with the coming of the Messiah, but his list is not adequately developed.

As I listened to his tapes, lecture after lecture, and sought to grasp their import, I was repelled by the sheer negativism of his presentations. All he wanted to do was to prove that Y'shua was not the Messiah. But in a very real sense, even this negativism is secondary to his primary burden. He is genuinely burdened for his people and particularly for the religious training of their children, and doubtless groans when he learns that even one Jewish person has left the community of the faithful to follow Y'shua.

Once the Rabbi has made a brief comment on this or that detail in a phrase, the whole sentence or its larger context are summarily dismissed, and he is on to his next point, generally another text in another part of the Tanakh. One can readily surmise the reaction of his hearers to the cumulative impact of this preaching style. I imagine them saying: "We never imagined those Christians would believe such nonsense. Look how they leave out parts of God's Word, deliberately falsify what is left, and yet--fools that they are--they confidently contend that what they have left is the Word of God! How absurd for a Jew to fall for any such stuff!" Somehow, I find myself impressed more by the mood the Rabbi creates than by the insights that he seeks to give to Scripture. We should not underestimate this.

Rabbi Singer does not openly denounce Y'shua. He only attacks what he thinks Y'shua's followers in their ignorance and bigotry and falsifications have said about Him through their misunderstanding of the Tanakh and even the "Christian" Scriptures. Even so, this left me wondering. After all, there was a basic though silent question always at hand, and I cannot but believe that it had its own way of intruding into the consciousness of his hearers. But it was never addressed, and had I been present at one of the lectures I might have tried to break through the Rabbi's relentless polemic with the question of questions: "Just who is this Y'shua of Nazareth you so constantly yet only indirectly attack?" But the Rabbi never made himself vulnerable on this crucial issue. He drew back from giving any clearly crafted statement as to who Y'shua is. And this did not strengthen his cause. After all, Y'shua claimed to be the Messiah--and most Jewish people know this. He also made staggering claims about Himself that infuriated the Pharisees again and again. Furthermore He predicted his rejection by His people, His crucifixion and His resurrection. In His day many Jewish people who knew Him "heard Him gladly." They personally took Him to heart and became His disciples. Hence I cannot but believe that the intelligent Jewish people who make up the Rabbi's audiences will not grow somewhat suspicious of the Rabbi's constant barrage of sweeping denials.

But let me sound a caution. I would be derelict if I were to stop abruptly at this point. Indeed, there is another side to the Rabbi's lectures and this warrants our closest attention. We can learn something from these lectures. Indeed, if I may judge from the quality of much of the literature in current use by evangelicals, I feel we can all profit from further study of the Messianic passages in the Tanakh and their use in the New Testament. And we need to know how informed Orthodox rabbis handle this biblical material. It is essential that we all gain a clearer understanding of the substance of the instruction our Lord gave to His Jewish disciples when "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27). We would be failing in our ministry to our brothers and sisters in the Messianic Movement and those in Gentile churches if we not do this. Why? Because the Rabbi again and again reminds us that it is the faithful and loving witness of non-Jewish believers in Y'shua that is proving effective in leading Jewish people to faith in our Lord. And we want to help them become even more effective in their witness. Furthermore, the witness of Jewish believers is increasingly being blessed by God, but not as yet to the degree we pray for. Of course, we look forward to the day when their witness will be as "life from the dead" to the whole world (Romans 11:1-15, 23-27). But let us move on.



Continue: ("Reflections on Tovia Singer" Page 2/6)



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