Face of a Dog

...the gemarrah in tractate Sotah "Dor acharon dor pnai' hakelev"  The final generation will have the face of a dog.

And Mashiach will make the face of the dog beautiful!

Instead of just opposing and resisting the redemption of Israel the leaders of the nations will be turned to the support of the redemption of Israel, in accordance with the words of the prophets of Israel.  But does this include the 'dog-god' of Egypt too?  For:

It basically revolves around the fact that all the gods of Egypt were destroyed except for Baal Tzafon (the god of the north which supposedly trapped Israel between Pharoah's army and the sea) which according to the Vilna Gaon in his haggadah had the face of a dog. When we offered up the sheep god as a Pesach sacrifice we were rebelling against the world power of Egypt and its god for the month of Nissan, the sheep. The final false Egyptian god would need to wait to the final generation, our generation, for its destruction. => http://yearsofawe.blogspot.com/2005/04/face-of-dog.html

Now all such "gods" are no elohim.  The power of the north will be made to "give up".  Does this mean that any such power will actually be redeemed in the process of Israel's redemption?  Another question,  Can this creation be redeemed at all, as opposed to being replaced, if there is no redemption of any kind of any fallen power in this creation?

Knowledge management - Wikipedia

[

Knowledge management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices } routines, physical, mental, computer, etc. {"Best Practice is an idea that asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc." _-_ technique a way of accomplishing a task that is not immediately obvious. (plural: techniques)}

used in an organization to identify

create,

represent,

distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences.

{Insight can be used with several related meanings:

• a piece of information
• the act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively
• the power of acute observation and deduction, penetration, discernment, perception
• introspection
• In AI: an extended understanding of a subject resulting from identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context, or scenario.

An insight that manifests itself suddenly, such as understanding how to solve a difficult problem, is called with a German word Aha-Erlebnis. The term was coined by the German psychologist and theoretical linguist Karl Bühler. It is also known as an epiphany.}

{experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment.

The concept of experience generally refers to know-how or procedural knowledge, rather than propositional knowledge. Philosophers dub knowledge based on experience "empirical knowledge" or "a posteriori knowledge".

The interrogation of experience has a long tradition in continental philosophy. The German term Erfahrung, often translated into English as "experience" has a slightly different implication, connoting the coherency of life's experiences.

A person with considerable experience in a certain field can gain a reputation as an expert.

Certain religious traditions (such as types of Buddhism, Surat Shabd Yoga and mysticism) and educational paradigms with, for example, the conditioning of boot camps, stress the experiential nature of human epistemology. This stands in contrast to alternatives: traditions of dogma, logic or reasoning. Activities such as tourism, extreme sports and recreational drug use also tend to stress the importance of experience.}

Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge,

either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizational processes or practice. I.E. 'knowledge' is situated.

An established discipline since 1995, KM includes courses taught in the fields of business administration, information systems, management, and library and information sciences ^[1]. More recently, other fields, to include those focused on information and media, computer science, public health, and public policy, also have started contributing to KM research. Many large companies and non-profit organizations have resources dedicated to internal KM efforts, often as a part of their 'Business Strategy', 'Information Technology', or 'Human Resource Management' departments ^[2]. Several consulting companies also exist that provide strategy and advice regarding KM to these organizations.

KM efforts typically focus on organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, and continuous improvement of the organisation. KM efforts overlap with Organizational Learning, and may be distinguished from by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as a strategic asset and a focus on encouraging the exchange of knowledge. KM efforts can help individuals and groups to share valuable organisational insights, to reduce redundant work, to avoid reinventing the wheel per se, to reduce training time for new employees, to retain intellectual capital as employees turnover in an organisation, and to adapt to changing environments and markets ^{[3] [4]}.

Contents [hide] 1 History and research 1.1 Dimensions 1.2 Strategies 1.3 Motivations 1.4 Technologies 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

[edit] History and research

KM efforts have a long history, to include on-the-job discussions, formal apprenticeship, discussion forums, corporate libraries, professional training and mentoring programs. More recently, with increased use of computers in the second half of the 20th century, specific adaptations of technologies such as knowledge bases, expert systems, knowledge repositories, group decision support systems, and computer supported cooperative work have been introduced to further enhance the such efforts ^[5][6].

A broad range of thoughts on the KM discipline exists with no unanimous agreement; approaches vary by author and school. As the discipline matures, academic debates have increased regarding both the theory and practice of KM, to include the following perspectives:

• Techno-centric with a focus on technology, ideally those that enhance knowledge sharing and creation
• Organisational with a focus on how an organisation can be designed to facilitate knowledge processes best
• Ecological with a focus on the interaction of people, identity, knowledge, and environmental factors as a complex adaptive system akin to a natural ecosystem

Regardless of the school of thought, core components of KM include People, Processes, Technology (or) Culture, Structure, Technology, depending on the specific perspective ^[7]. Different KM schools of thought include various lenses through which KM can be viewed and explained, to include:

• community of practice ^{[8] [9]}
• social network analysis ^{[10] [11]}
• intellectual capital ^{[12] [13]}
• information theory ^{[14] [15]}
• complexity science ^{[16] [17]}
• constructivism ^{[18] [19]}

[edit] Dimensions

Different frameworks for distinguishing between knowledge exist. One proposed framework for categorising the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge represents internalised knowledge that an individual may not be consciously aware of how he or she accomplishes particular tasks. At the opposite end of the spectrum, explicit knowledge represents knowledge that the individual holds consciously in mental focus, in a form that can easily be communicated to others.^{[20] [21]}

Early research suggested that a successful KM effort needs to convert internalised tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge in order to share it, but the same effort must also permit individuals to internalise and make personally meaningful any codified knowledge retrieved from the KM effort. Subsequent research into KM suggested that a distinction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge represented an oversimplification and that the notion of explicit knowledge is self-contradictory. Specifically, for knowledge to be made explicit, it must be translated into information (i.e., symbols outside of our heads).^[22]

A second proposed framework for categorising the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between embedded knowledge of a system outside of a human individual (e.g., an information system may have knowledge embedded into its design) and embodied knowledge representing a learned capability of a human body’s nervous and endocrine systems ^[23].

A third proposed framework for categorising the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between the exploratory creation of "new knowledge" (i.e., innovation) vs. the transfer or exploitation of "established knowledge" within a group, organisation, or community. Collaborative environments such as communities of practice or the use of social computing tools can be used for both knowledge creation and transfer ^[24].

[edit] Strategies

Knowledge may be accessed at three stages: before, during, or after KM-related activities. Different organisations have tried various knowledge capture incentives, including making content submission mandatory and incorporating rewards into performance measurement plans. Considerable controversy exists over whether incentives work or not in this field and no consensus has emerged.

One strategy to KM involves actively managing knowledge. In such an instance, individuals strive to explicitly encode their knowledge into a shared knowledge repository, such as a database, as well as retrieving knowledge they need that other individuals have provided to the repository ^[25].

Another strategy to KM involves individuals making knowledge requests of experts associated with a particular subject on an ad hoc basis. In such an instance, expert individual(s) can provide their insights to the particular person or people needing this ^[26].

[edit] Motivations

A number of claims exist as to the motivations leading organisations to undertake a KM effort ^{[27] [28]}. Typical considerations driving a KM effort include:

• Making available increased knowledge content in the development and provision of products and services
• Achieving shorter new product development cycles
• Facilitating and managing innovation and organisational learning
• Leveraging the expertise of people across the organisation
• Increasing network connectivity between internal and external individuals
• Managing business environments and allowing employees to obtain relevant insights and ideas appropriate to their work
• Solving intractable or wicked problems
• Managing intellectual capital and intellectual assets in the workforce (such as the expertise and know-how possessed by key individuals)

Debate exists whether KM is more than a passing fad, though increasing amount of research in this field may hopefully help to answer this question, as well as create consensus on what elements of KM help determine the success or failure of such efforts ^{[29] [30]}.

[edit] Technologies

Early KM technologies included online corporate yellow pages as expertise locators and document management systems. Combined with the early development of collaborative technologies (in particular Lotus Notes), KM technologies expanded in the mid-1990s. Subsequent KM efforts leveraged semantic technologies for search and retrieval and the development of e-learning tools for communities of practice ^{[31] [32]}.

More recently, development of social computing tools (such as blogs and wikis) have allowed more unstructured, self-governing or ecosystem approaches to the transfer, capture and creation of knowledge, including the development of new forms of communities, networks, or matrixed organisations. However such tools for the most part are still based on text and code, and thus represent explicit knowledge transfer. These tools face challenges in distilling meaningful re-usable knowledge and ensuring that their content is transmissible through diverse channels ^{[33] [34]}.

[edit] See also

Chief knowledge officer Competitive intelligence Complexity theory and organizations Computer supported cooperative work Collective intelligence Enterprise content management Enterprise social software Knowledge base Knowledge economy Knowledge ecosystems Knowledge management software

Knowledge market Knowledge representation Knowledge-based theory of the firm Metaknowledge Ontology Organisational memory Sensemaking Semantic web Social network Value network analysis

[edit] References

1. ^ http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=374117
2. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=889992
3. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=239247
4. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=559300
5. ^ http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~tefko/Courses/610/Lectures/McInerney_KM_intro_general_10_02.ppt
6. ^ http://www.unc.edu/~sunnyliu/inls258/Introduction_to_Knowledge_Management.html
7. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=958768
8. ^ http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/2855.html
9. ^ http://www.crito.uci.edu/noah/HOIT/HOIT%20Papers/TeacherBridge.pdf
10. ^ http://www.ischool.washington.edu/mcdonald/ecscw03/papers/groth-ecscw03-ws.pdf
11. ^ http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~i385q/archive/sharma_social_networks.ppt
12. ^ http://choo.fis.toronto.edu/OUP/default.html
13. ^ http://www.ndu.edu/sdcfp/reports/2007Reports/IBM07%20.doc
14. ^ http://iakm.kent.edu/programs/information-use/iu-curriculum.html
15. ^ http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~clairemc/KM_dynamic_nature.pdf
16. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=984600
17. ^ http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/06/21/complex_systems_management_when_linear.htm
18. ^ http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/wyssusek02sociopragmatic.html
19. ^ http://ejite.isu.edu/Volume2No1/nanjappa.pdf
20. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=991169
21. ^ http://web.njit.edu/~jerry/CIS-677/Articles/Alavi-MISQ-2001.pdf
22. ^ http://www.business.mcmaster.ca/mktg/nbontis//ic/publications/KPMSerenkoBontis.pdf
23. ^ http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/8/5/387
24. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=961043
25. ^ http://www.cs.fiu.edu/~chens/PDF/IRI00_Rathau.pdf
26. ^ http://www.cognitive-edge.com/articledetails.php?articleid=13
27. ^ http://tecom.cox.smu.edu/abasu/itom6032/kmlect.pdf
28. ^ http://eceb.gmu.edu/pubs/Kerschberg_NASA_IST.ppt
29. ^ http://InformationR.net/ir/8-1/paper144.html
30. ^ http://myweb.whitman.syr.edu/yogesh/papers/WhyKMSFail.pdf
31. ^ http://elvis.slis.indiana.edu/irpub/HT/2001/pdf53.pdf
32. ^ http://outreach.lib.uic.edu/www/issues/issue12_6/capozzi/
33. ^ http://www.systems-thinking.org/kmgmt/kmgmt.htm
34. ^ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=755904

[edit] External links

• Knowledge Management at the Open Directory Project

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management"

from: http://www.azamra.org/TempleSecrets/Introduction.htm

The different areas of the Temple correspond to the different orders of existing beings

I will now begin to explain the design of the Temple in detail, area by area, corner by corner. [First, a number of general principles governing the overall design.] The entire design of the Temple is based on a great secret that stands at the very summit of the universe. I have already told you how this House emerged from the intensity of blissful tranquility that came about when the two great lights [Tiferet and Malchut] were joined as one. It was then that there appeared in the lower light [Malchut] the Sanctuary [Heichal] and its chambers and the other glorious buildings from which all the King's servants and officers receive their portions, each in his proper place with no disorder and no exceptions.

The Temple consists of three main areas after the emergence of the channels and highways extending from the great stone that I mentioned at the beginning.

These three areas are the places of the three orders of created beings that exist in the world.

The first order includes all the "external" creations, the creatures of this world, from the largest to the smallest without exception.

The second consists of all the angels at their appointed posts ready to carry out the service of the King.

The third consists of the souls of the Children of Israel, the holy seed, a unique people on earth. - messianic neshamaot

The corresponding places in the Temple are:

(1) the main Sanctuary building (Heichal) together with the Holy of Holies (Dvir) and Vestibule (Ulam): this is the innermost part of the Temple [the place of the souls]; messianic neshamaot

(2) The Temple Courtyards, i.e. the Upper [or Inner] Courtyard and the Lower [or Outer] Courtyard [the place of the angels];

(3) the rest of the Temple Mount [the place of the creatures of this world].

You must understand that the angels require two kinds of sustenance, one for their own subsistence and a second to hand on to the creatures over which they are

appointed. For if they did not receive, what would they have to give? If you are familiar with the ways of wisdom you will see that even though I have divided these areas into three, they are actually four:

(1) The main Temple building (Heichal);

(2) the Upper [Inner] Courtyard;

(3) the Lower [Outer] Courtyard;

(4) the Temple Mount.

These are the places of the inhabitants of the four worlds, Atzilut [Emanation], Beriyah [Creation], Yetzirah [Formation] and Asiyah [Action]. [The Temple building, place of the souls, corresponds to Atzilut; the Inner Courtyard, place of the captains of the angels, corresponds to Beriyah; the Outer Courtyard, place of the angelic hosts, corresponds to Yetzirah, while the rest of Temple Mount corresponds to Asiyah.] In addition, the Temple building (Heichal) is divided into two. For within the Heichal proper is the Holy of Holies (Dvir) corresponding to the cusp of the Yud, which is always connected to the Yud and never moves from it.

Souls of Israel = regenerate souls < Temple mount = Asiyah = Kingdom = all souls, so also the souls of not yet fully regenerate souls...

commissioned and going

It is the end of November 2008 and I have set out on the mission with the message with which I have been commissioned. Here are some high points:

• The battle with Amelek is the battle with Gog and Magog. It is the battle with the religion of Adam and cHavah's mind choosing to trust in itself as being capable of self-relization of its supposed source in eternal divinity.
• There is only one other interpretation of adamic existence and ultimately of the existence of a Creation and that is that it is not Adam and cHavah who mediate the existence belonging to eternal divinity to Creation but another than they.
• This is because eternal divinity must be mediated to Creation - otherwise Creation is not Creation but only divinity itself. Only if Creation were eternal itself, if it had no beginning nor end would it be in no need of eternal divinity being mediated to it. Religion says that it is, the only question is how. Efforts are made to try to say that Creation is sustained in existence without any mediation of the existence of eternal divinity to it, but these attempts are vain and can only result in some kind of idea that an existence for Creation could be created that could stand on its own, if only for a time. This is a notion of dualism, that there could be some power independent of God. It is false.
• Panentheism is the theological idea that G-d is in everything. This idea can easily degenerate into pantheism, th idea that G-d is everything and everything is G-d. This is the conclusion of all non-Jewish religion. There will be religious Jews whose religion is non-Jewish in the end. Some of these will claim that it is Jews or at least religious Jews who mediate eternal divinity to Creation. They simply deny that it is only the Jewish Messiah who mediates eternal divinity to Creation in his own person alone, and who claims the Jewish family as his own flesh eternally.
• All self-centered views of covenant hope will end in pantheism. They will manifest to not begin with the receiving of the revelation of hope through the word of the promise or work of Mashiach, the word of the justification of Israel.
  

Kendall Soulen #3

http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/sites/partners/ccjr/soulen03.htm

Israel's Eternal Covenant and the Universality of Christ

If Jews are Saved by Their Eternal Covenant

Essential material!

Kendall Soulen #2 "MJ"

http://derek4messiah.wordpress.com/2006/12/24/christian-theology-and-israel-part-2/

God is doing more in the world than just forgiving sin. The forgiveness of sin is crucial, but not the highpoint of God’s work. Soulen makes this point well by saying that “Redemption is for the sake of Consummation, not Consummation for the sake of Redemption” (p.175). In other words, the salvation that was made available in Yeshua’s death and resurrection is not the end of God’s work. It is the turning point (Soulen says this also on p.175), but not the final goal. God has so much more to do with us and with creation than simply forgive sin. All has not been accomplished. Messiah has not ended the place of Israel or God’s work through Israel and the nations. He has taken it on the last and greatest part of what God is going to do.

Note: If redemption is itself corporate then this statement is inapplicable...

God’s work is national and corporate, but the individual needs to join in. Soulen and others rightly criticize standard Christian theology for being too much about individuals. The Bible, they rightly point out, deals with people as nations and families. I think it would be fair to say, Yeshua did not die on the cross for you and me, but for all Israel and the nations. We need to see our place not just as saved individuals, but part of the people of God. Those who are “saved” but have nothing to do with God’s communities (churches, synagogues) are out of fellowship with God and must change or answer to God who forms communities.

But here is my big point, though God works with nations and families, individuals must join in. Let me use as my example circumcision. In Gen 17, God says his covenant with Israel is unconditional, but in order to be part of the covenant, each individual Jewish male must be circumcised (women are assumed to join in through their father/husband). God is doing something with the nation of Israel, but if you want to be part of it, you have to join through circumcision.

Thus, standard Christian theology has not been wrong to emphasize the need of each individual to come to faith in Messiah and secure Messiah’s sacrifice for forgiveness. We as individuals must join in to God’s blessing of Israel and the nations. If you want to be part of it, you have to do something.

Note: Faith in the corporate redemption of Israel, if one is a Gentile, "joins one in." Disbelief, if one is a Gentile, leaves one not "joined in." If one is a Jew, hope and faith in the corporate redemption of Israel is not as black and white. It can exist in a living, life giving form before one even hears of Yehoshua, or hears aright of him...

Go To:

http://derek4messiah.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/christian-theology-and-israel-part-3/

derek4messiah's ideas on the "ongoing redemption" centered in the nation of Israel.

"We're not gnostics."

Acts 2:36

KJV
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

JFB commentary
Therefore—that is, to sum up all.
let all the house of Israel—for in this first discourse the appeal is formally made to the whole house of Israel, as the then existing Kingdom of God.
know assuredly—by indisputable facts, fulfilled predictions, and the seal of the Holy Ghost set upon all.
that God hath made—for Peter's object was to show them that, instead of interfering with the arrangements of the God of Israel, these events were His own high movements.
this same Jesus, whom ye have crucified—"The sting is at the close" [BENGEL]. To prove to them merely that Jesus was the Messiah might have left them all unchanged in heart. But to convince them that He whom they had crucified had been by the right hand of God exalted, and constituted the "LORD" whom David in spirit adored, to whom every knee shall bow, and the CHRIST of God, was to bring them to "look on Him whom they had pierced and mourn for Him."

VERSES 34, 35
34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool.

PNT
34 For. Peter now shows that David had foretold the exaltation of Christ.
David . . . saith. See Ps 110:1. Jesus quotes the same passage and applies it to himself (Mt 23:32.).
The LORD. God, the Father.
My Lord. Christ.
Sit thou on my right hand. See Ac 2:33. "To sit at the right hand" implies participation in the Supreme Government.
35 Until I make, etc. When the work of the Mediator is ended and all conquered to Christ, then all power is given up to the Father. See 1Co 15:23-28.
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know, etc. This is the grand climax, the conclusion to which the whole discourse had been directed.

Psalms 110:1 JPS
A Psalm of David. The LORD saith unto my lord: 'Sit thou at My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.'

"Rashi sites the opinion of the rabbis that Hashem addressed these words to the Patriarch Abraham... Sforno says that this psalm is dedicated to the future King Messiah. He is on God's right hand nad the ministering angels are on the left. The armies of Gog and Magog will attack, but Hashem will subdue them until they come crawling to the feet of the Messiah."
ArtScroll/Psalms 110

In the rabbinic tradition the word adon is here read as 'master'.

"Abraham was universally recognized as master of the world, because he taught everyone that God alone is the true Master." ibid.

It is in this sense that all of Peter's audience could have clearly understood his meaning concerning Yehoshua being made by God both adon/master and Messiah. It is not only that Yehoshua would have been made 'master' by God in the sense that Abraham was made 'master' by God, actually fulfilling the promise of Abraham's role. It is also that Peter would have been showing the meaning of David's prophetic saying could only have been fulfilled by one who fulfilled the promise of Abraham's role being raised from the life of this world into life in God's eternal realm to be seated at God's right hand and from there to commence his rule through the actions of God over the nations.

Edom and The Church

http://www.apuritansmind.com/William%20Ames/WilliamAmesChurchMysticallyConsidered.htm

The Church Mystically Considered The application of the work of God in the church. The Church Mystically Considered by Dr. William Ames So much for the application of redemption considered in itself. Now we take up the matter of the subject to which and the way in which it is applied. 1. The subject is the church. Eph. 5:25-27, Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify her, being purified by him with the -washing of water through the word, that he might make her glorious to himself, that is, a church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but rather holy and blameless. Therefore, election, redemption, vocation, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification properly pertain to the same subject, i.e., to the individual men who make up the church. John 17:9—10, Those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine; Rom. 8:29, 30, For those whom he foreknew he also predestined. 2. The church is both the subject and an effect of redemption. For it is not first actually a church and later joined in union and communion with Christ; it is the church of Christ because it is united to Christ. 3. And this is the reason why we can neither explain nor understand the nature of the church unless we first perceive and explain the things which have to do with the application of Christ. 4. The elect, before they are grafted into Christ, are in themselves not of the church except in terms of that potentiality which in its own time will surely become actual because of God's intention and transaction with Christ. This remote potentiality in which all men are involved will certainly be made actual for the elect by God's determination. 5. Therefore, the orthodox who define the church as a company of the elect mean either those who are called according to election or the church not only as it exists now but also as it will exist hereafter. 6. The church is first of all constituted by calling, whence both its name and definition. 7. The church is indeed the company of men who are called. 1 Cor. 1:24 and 10:32, Those who are called, both Jews and Greeks ... to Jews, to Greeks, and to the church of God. Because the end of calling is faith and the work of faith is a grafting into Christ, and this union brings with it communion with Christ, the church can be defined at once as a company of believers, a company of those who are in Christ, and a company of those who have communion with him. 8. Faith looks to Christ and through Christ to God; likewise the church which exists by faith looks to Christ as its head and through Christ to God. Therefore, the church is called the Body of Christ, Col. 1:24; the Church of God, 1 Cor. 10:32; the Kingdom of Christ, Col. 1:13; and the Kingdom of God, Rom. 14:17. 9. It is called a Company because it consists of a multitude joined in fellowship or a community of many (not a single person who is called), thus Eph. 4:16 where it is named a Body joined and made up of diverse members. Hence it is often called in Scripture a House, family, city, kingdom, or flock. 10. This company is limited to men because the good angels, although in a way they belong to the church because of their union with Christ and the saving grace communicated by him, are not the same as the members of the redeemed church. 11. The form or constituting cause of this church must be something found alike in all those who are called. This can only be a relationship, and the only relationship which has this power is that which comes from a primary and intimate affection toward Christ. In man this comes only by faith. Faith, therefore, is the form of the church. 12. Inasmuch as faith is in each believer individually it is the form of those that are called. But seen collectively in all, faith is the form of the company of those that are called, or the church. 13. The same believing men, on the one hand, are individuals called by God; on the other, they are collectively the company which is the church of God. 14. Therefore, all the promises of God containing essential blessings which are made to the church in Scripture belong to each believer. 15. The relationship is so intimate that not only is Christ the church's and the church Christ's, Song of Sol. 2:16, but Christ is in the church and the church in him, John 15:4; 1 John 3:24. Therefore, the church is mystically called Christ, 1 Cor. 12:12, and the Fullness of Christ, Eph. 1:23. 16. The church is metaphorically called the bride and Christ the bridegroom; the church a city and Christ the king; the church a house and Christ the householder; the church the branches and Christ the vine; and finally the church a body and Christ the head. 17. But these comparisons signify not only the union and communion between Christ and the church but also the relation showing Christ to be the beginning of all honor, life, power, and perfection in the church. 18. This church is mystically one, not in a generic sense, but as a unique species or individual — for it has no species in the true sense. 19. It can, therefore, be called catholic, not as catholic signifies a genus of something general, but as it describes something uniquely universal (as when we speak of the world). This is so because it embraces believers of all nations, of all places, and of all times. 20. No part of the church can truly be called catholic unless it professes the faith of the catholic church. Thus the ancient authorities called not only that part of the church at Rome catholic but other churches as well. Our church at Franeker may rightly be called catholic since it professes the faith which belongs to the catholic church. 21. The church is divided according to the degree of communion it has with Christ. In this sense it is called either militant or triumphant. 22. The church militant is that which knows only of a communion begun and so still struggles with enemies in the battlefield of this world. 1 Cor. 13:9, 12, We know in part and prophesy in part. For we see through a glass darkly; 2 Cor. 10:4, The weapons of our warfare; Eph. 6:12, 13, We wrestle . . . Therefore take the whole armor of God. 23. The church triumphant is that which is already perfected. Eph. 4:13, Until we all come ... to a perfect man, to the measure of the full stature of Christ; 1 Cor. 15:46, Afterwards comes that which is perfect. 24. The militant church is both invisible and visible (that is, to outward sight or sense). 25. This distinction is not a division of genus into species, as if there were one church visible and another invisible, or of the whole into the members, as if one part of the church were visible and another invisible. It relates to phases of the same subject: Invisibility is a condition or mode of the church having to do with its essential and internal form; visibility is a condition or mode of the church having to do with its accidental or outward form. 26. The essential form is invisible both because it is a relation which cannot be perceived by the senses and also because it is spiritual, and so farther removed from sense perception than many other relations. 27. The accidental form is visible because it is an outward profession of inward faith, easily perceived by sense. 28. The visible profession is the manifest communion of the saints which they have with Christ and among themselves. 29. Their acts of the communion with Christ are those by which they present themselves to God in Christ to receive his blessings and to glorify him for those blessings. 30. Their acts of communion among themselves are all those in which they strive to do good to each other. These acts are especially those which directly further their communion with God in Christ. 31. Many acts of this kind are to be performed towards those who are not yet members of the church, for they ought to be judged as belonging to it potentially. 32. The church visible in itself, in comparative relation to others, is divided into the church hidden and manifest. 33. The manifest church is found where a greater number of saints exist and profession is freer and more public. 34. The hidden church is found where the number is fewer and profession less open. This is likely to occur in time of heresies, persecutions, or godless morality. 35. In the same way, the church is more pure or less pure as profession is more or less perfect. 36. Profession depends not only upon confession and the preaching of the word, but also upon the receiving of it and devout obedience to it. 37. Although the church is subject to changes of this kind and may relinquish any part of the world, yet from its gathering it never has totally failed nor shall it fail to the end of the world. 38. For Christ must always have his kingdom in the midst of his enemies until he makes his enemies his footstool. 39. The church never wholly ceases to be visible. Although sometimes there is scarcely a church pure enough to offer the same pure worship at all points, yet the church is still somehow visible in the very midst of the impurity of worship and profession.

Michael Wyschogrod - Kendall Soulen #1

return to religion-online Michael Wyschogrod and God’s First Love by Kendall Soulen Kendall Soulen teaches at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. This article appeared in The Christian Century, July 27, 2004 pp. 22-27. Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation; used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. I first read Michael Wyschogrod when I was in graduate school. The experience was electrifying. As I sat in the library finishing his essay "Israel, the Church, and Election," I remember being overcome by an almost physical sense of discovery, as though I had bumped into a hitherto invisible rock. What I had just read was undoubtedly the most unapologetic statement of Jewish faith I had ever encountered. Yet instantly I knew that Wyschogrod had helped me to see something in Paul that his Christian commentators had not. It was the theological relevance of the distinction between gentile and Jew. Of course, the distinction was not wholly unfamiliar to me; far from it. I was accustomed to writers who treated the distinction as a useful bit of historical, sociological or religious description. Above all, I was familiar with the traditional Christian view that held that since Christ’s coming the distinction between Jew and gentile had lost whatever theological significance it may once have had. This, after all, was Paul’s own view, at least according to his commentators. But Wyschogrod treated the difference differently. For Wyschogrod, the distinction was the indelible mark of an irrevocable divine choice: God’s choice to enter history as the God of Israel. The distinction therefore mattered not only in the past, but also in the present and future. What is more, Wyschogrod treated the distinction as something that mattered not just to Jews, but also to Christians. He addressed Christians not merely as Christians but quite specifically as gentile Christians. With a shock of discovery, I realized that in this respect Wyschogrod was closer to Paul than were his Christian interpreters. Born in Berlin in 1928, Wyschogrod emigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1939. He grew up in Brooklyn, where he received a Talmudic education at Orthodox Jewish schools. After studying at the City College of New York and Columbia University, he had a distinguished career as a professor of philosophy at several colleges in New York and at the University of Houston, a post he retired from in 2002. Wyschogrod is best known for his book The Body of Faith, a comprehensive interpretation of Judaism. But over the years his primary mode of literary activity has been the short essay, of which he has published several score. Whatever the topic at hand, Wyschogrod’s thought orbits a single center of gravity: God’s free yet irrevocable love for the people Israel, and in connection with Israel, for the world as a whole. A major theme for Wyschogrod is that God’s election of Israel is based solely on God’s unalterable love and hence cannot be abrogated from the human side. "Now it is the proclamation of biblical faith that God chose this people and loves it as no other, unto the end of time." God did not choose Israel because it was superior in any way to other peoples; indeed, in some respects it may even possess slightly more negative characteristics than other groups. Nor is God’s election conditional upon Israel’s obedience to the commands that God imposes on Israel as the expression of God’s will for Israel’s conduct. God’s election brings with it God’s command and the threat of severe punishment should Israel fail to live up to its election. Yet in spite of the fact that the Jewish people have struggled endlessly against their election, with the most disastrous consequences for themselves and for the rest of humankind, the divine election remains unaffected because it is an unconditional one, based solely on God’s love. Ultimately, God’s anger is a passing phase that can only temporarily obscure God’s overwhelming love for Israel. Israel can be confident of its election and of God’s special love for it amid all the families of the earth. But these affirmations lead to difficult questions. Why should God be a God of election at all? Why should God love one people as no other? Wyschogrod’s understanding of God’s freedom prohibits him from arguing that God had to be a God of election, since this could be shown only by submitting God to a higher principle of justice or rationality. Yet it is possible, as a way of expressing praise, to seek reasons for what God has done, in order to display God’s will as the basis for human gratitude. MY NOTES HERE: Had Adam chosen to obey and not to eat of the forbidden fruit would there still have been an Israel? Would have all Adam somehow have been 'Israel'? {This is what some Gentile Christian theologies seem to be saying in their own unarticulated way, insomuch that they seem to be saying that the rectification provided by the death and resurrection of Messiah restored Adam to a pre-fallen justification before God. But their thought not being articulted in this way is also not thought through in relation to these questions.} Would there still have been the need for a priesthood of the firstborn? This question asks another question. Would the choice not to eat have brought the immediate end to this order of creation and the onset of the World To Come? Or would there have been a further preparation needed, even then? Would each of Adam's offspring have had to go through their own experience with the temptation to eat the forbidden fruit? And if so, would have Adam - Father and Mother had a role of priesthood in that situation? This opens up a roomful of questions... Wyschogrod notes that it is common to distinguish between two kinds of love, agape and eros. Agape is charity in the purest sense, without superiority or condescension, while eros is sensual love, in which desire and jealousy are possible. The distinction corresponds to some degree to that between soul and body Agape is disinterested and impartial, without regard to persons, while eros is interested love, concerned with this person rather than that and desirous of the body of the other. Wyschogrod notes that God’s love for the human creature is usually said to resemble agape rather than eros. As agape, God’s love cannot exclude. For Wyschogrod, this account of agape is doubly suspect. It is untrue to the human condition because it overlooks the fact that genuine human charity can be truly directed to particular persons only when it concerns itself with their particular identities. What is more, this account of love is untrue to the character of God’s love as depicted by the Bible. It fails to see that the glory and dignity of the biblical God consists in God’s freedom to engage humanity in a human way. That is to say, God has chosen in favor of genuine encounter with the human creature in his or her individuality. For this reason, God’s love is not undifferentiated, having the same quality toward all God’s children. Precisely because God is so deeply concerned with human creation, God loves it with a differentiated love, and it comes about that there are those whom God loves especially, with whom, one can only say, God has fallen in love. MY NOTES HERE: It is precisely when the meaning of this concept is not defined through the Good News of Yehoshua HaMashiach of Israel that it is possible to end up with a theology that says that God loves Israel in this differentiated way - but only first, only first in a timeline of leading the way for the same thing to happen to Ishmael and to Esau. Adam is not removed as the eternal head of Adam in this theology by the Son of Adam being united to Israel as his bride, that is, as the body of Adam, the daughter of Adam, now his body. There would be no need for the grafting in of all the nations into the redeemed body of Adam in such a theology. They would simply be redeemed by being loved as Israel was first loved, one after another. [I am not saying that this "God has fallen in love" theology does have to become this kind of theology. I am only saying that it can become or allow this kind of theology when it is not clarified by the Good News of the corporeal salvation of Israel.] In this connection there is clearly the need for clarification concerning the nature of God's eternal love for Israel. It is not something that exists prior to Mashiach and then is threatened by the sin of the worshiping of the golden calf, etc, and ultimately saved by the atoning death and resurrection of Mashiach for the nation. Rather, even from the very beginning it is a love for Israel that has no other form than the gift of Mashiach. This is what has happened in God’s election of Abraham and his seed. God’s love for Abraham is more than an impartial, disinterested love, but includes an element of eros. God loves the descendants of Abraham above all the nations of the earth, and desires their response in return. That is why God reacts with wounded fury when rejected by Israel. But this brings us back to our previous question with renewed force: What of those who are not elected? Wyschogrod admits that It is painful to recognize that one is not the specially chosen child. As a result of God’s joining the redemption of the world to Israel’s election, difficult roles have fallen to Jew and to gentile. All too frequently, both have acted their respective roles poorly. Uncannily expert in the failings of the nations, often remembering only its faithfulness and rarely its unfaithfulness, turned inward by the hostility of the peoples among whom it lives, Israel tends to forget that its election is for service, that it is a sign of the infinite and unwarranted gift of God rather than any inherent superiority of the people. Israel’s record is mixed, so is that of the nations. Instead of accepting Israel’s election with humility, [the nations] rail against it, mocking the God of the Jews, gleefully pointing out the shortcomings of the people he chose, and crucifying it whenever an opportunity presents itself. Israel’s presence is a constant reminder to them that they were not chosen but that this people was, and that this people remains in their midst as a thorn in the flesh. Minute by minute, the existence of Israel mocks the pagan gods, the divine beings who rise out of the consciousness of all peoples but which are gentile gods because they are deifications of humanity and the forces of nature rather than the true, living God of Abraham. Israel and the nations each fall victim to characteristic distortions of their respective identities: Israel to vain pride in its own election, and the nations to envy of and rage at Israel. As a consequence, they place obstacles in the path of God’s plan to consummate creation through Israel’s election. Still, in the end, there is a limit to what human freedom can do. This limit consists in humanity’s inability to nullify God’s purpose: the election and redemption of Israel and through Israel of humankind as a whole. Moreover, according to Wyschogrod, the most important consolation still remains. By allowing room for God’s freedom to fall in love with Abraham, the gentiles gain a heavenly Father who is also concretely concerned with them, and not just with humanity in the abstract. In the end, the uniqueness and unsubstitutability of God’s love for Israel turns out to be the guarantee of God’s fatherhood toward all persons, elect and nonelect. The comprehensive character of God’s claim on Israel provides the necessary context for understanding Israel’s relationship to the land. Viewed apart from the reality of election, Israel’s connection to the land of Israel is largely incomprehensible. Unlike that of other peoples and nations, Israel’s memory extends back to its entrance into the land: it remembers that the land was originally possessed by others. Moreover, Israel has repeatedly experienced expulsion from the land. It has therefore learned that its existence as God’s people is not dependent on dwelling in the land. Yet for all of that, the land that God promised to Abraham’s descendants is an indispensable part of Israel’s life with God. Because God wills to have a people that is holy in every aspect of its existence, God provides a land in which it may dwell, so that even this most elementary dimension of human existence may be brought within the compass of relationship to God. But this also means, in Wyschogrod’s view, that dangers of failure are especially great whenever the Jewish people inhabits the promised land. The Divine Word is unmistakably clear concerning the Land of Israel. It is the soil which above all demands the faithfulness of the people of Israel to its election. Whenever the people of Israel have attempted to constitute a national life on this soil in disregard of its election, the soil has rejected them under the most catastrophic circumstances. That Israel possesses a right to the land cannot be doubted by those who accept the reality and trustworthiness of the God whose Word is found in the scriptures. But whether that right is rightly exercised in a particular set of circumstances is far more difficult to say. Wyschogrod is therefore unwilling to claim divine warrant for the state of Israel or for specific territorial claims in the present day. To tie the fate of Judaism to the fortunes of the state of Israel, for whose preservation and prosperity we all fervently pray, is simply unauthorized and therefore irresponsible. Along this path could lurk, God forbid, a catastrophe similar to those that was the fate of other messianic claims. In the present circumstances, therefore, Wyschogrod holds that the deepest layer of Jewish messianism calls for an attitude that combines love of the land with love for all of its inhabitants, and therefore a practical posture that eschews violence. I do not preach absolute nonviolence under all circumstances. But I preach a high degree of nonviolence, a hatred of violence, a love of the land combined with a high degree of nonviolence, a largely nonviolent Zionism, a messianic Judaism that keeps alive the living expectation of the Messiah but also the messianic repudiation of violence, a love of all human beings whether Jewish or non-Jewish, a willingness to wait and even temporarily yield territory if this will save us from bloodshed. For Wyschogrod, theologically significant conversation between Jews and Christians is possible because both Christianity and Judaism acknowledge "a movement of God toward humankind as witnessed in scripture," a movement that engages humankind in God’s election of Israel. To be sure, the two communities understand this movement in ways that unmistakably diverge, at least at certain points. Yet the gulf that results is not so wide that understanding is impossible. Indeed, Wyschogrod holds that because the two traditions share certain common premises, it is possible for "each side to summon the other to a better understanding of its own tradition." For Wyschogrod, Jewish-Christian relations concern something more important than "dialogue." They concern a common search for truth in light of the Word of God. Two topics regularly recur in Wyschogrod’s discussions of Christianity: Christology and the church, especially the church’s relation to Mosaic law. Surprisingly enough, it is in the former that Wyschogrod perceives a certain crucial convergence between Judaism and Christianity. To be sure, Wyschogrod makes clear that Christian claims on behalf of Jesus of Nazareth are problematic from the perspective of Jewish faith. The claim that Jesus was the Messiah is difficult for Jews to accept because Jesus did not perform a key messianic function: he did not usher in the messianic kingdom. More difficult by far, however, is the Christian claim that God was incarnate in Jesus. For a Jew to subscribe to this belief would mean a grave violation of the prohibition against idolatry. Nevertheless, Wyschogrod does not think that Jews are entitled to dismiss the Christian claim about God’s incarnation in Jesus out of hand. To reject the incarnation on purportedly a priori grounds would be to impose external constraints on God’s freedom, a notion fundamentally foreign to Judaism. According to Wyschogrod, there is only one condition under which Israel would be entitled to reject the church’s claims about Jesus out of hand, and that is if these claims were to imply that God had repudiated God’s promises to Israel. For that is something that Israel can safely trust that God will never do, not because God is unable, but because God honors God’s promises. The question, then, is whether the church’s Christology entails or implies the abrogation of God’s promises to Israel. Wyschogrod does not believe that this is necessarily the case. Indeed, Wyschogrod suggests that the doctrine of God’s incarnation could be understood as a kind of intensification of God’s covenant with Israel. Although the incarnation is not foreseeable on the basis of the Hebrew Bible, once the fact of the incarnation is assumed (as it is by Christians). it can be regarded as an extension of the Bible’s basic thrust. The covenant between God and Israel . . . depicts a drawing together of God and Israel. . . . [I]n some sense it can also be said to involve a certain indwelling of God in the people of Israel whose status as a holy people may be said to derive from this indwelling. Understood in this sense, the divinity of Jesus is not radically different -- though perhaps more concentrated -- than the holiness of the Jewish people. In contrast to Wyschogrod’s cautiously conciliatory tone with respect to the issue of Christology, he seems to view the church with a mixture of wonder and ambivalence. Here is a community of persons assembled from all the nations who are united not by common descent or language but by a common desire to worship the God of Abraham. What should Israel make of this astonishing phenomenon? For Wyschogrod, it is evident that Israel should approach the church with hopeful respect. The wonder is that nations not of the stock of Abraham have come within the orbit of the faith of Israel, experiencing humankind and history with Jewish categories deeply rooted in Jewish experience and sensibility. How can a Jewish theologian not perceive that something wonderful is at work here, something that must in some way be connected with the love of the God of Israel for all his children. Isaac as well as Ishmael, Jacob as well as Esau? Ultimately, however, the question of whether Israel can see in the church a sign that is fundamentally congruent with God’s plan of salvation for the world depends upon the church’s attitude toward the Jewish people. Will the nations be content to receive God’s blessings if these are attached to God’s covenant with Israel? Or will they seek to do away with the beloved child in order to usurp the favored place in the Parent’s affection? Unfortunately, on this point the phenomenon of the church threatens to turn from a reflection of God’s promise to another dark token of the nations’ rage at and envy of Israel. Traditionally, the church has not understood itself in terms of its relation to God’s ongoing covenant with the Jewish people. Instead it has proclaimed itself to be the true Israel, comprising the faithful of all nations, in relation to which the old carnal Israel existed as a temporary foreshadowing. For Wyschogrod, the acid test of Christian supersessionism -- the belief that the church has replaced Israel as the bearer of God’s election -- appears in the church’s conduct toward Jews in its own midst. i.e., toward Jews who are baptized. It is precisely at this point that the church demonstrates in an ultimate way whether it understands itself in terms of God’s covenant with the Jewish people. If the church acknowledges the permanence and centrality of Israel’s election as central to its own identity, it will expect baptized Jews to continue to affirm their Jewish identity and continue to observe Torah. But if the church truly believes that it has fundamentally superseded God’s covenant with Israel, it will prohibit baptized Jews from obeying Torah and maintaining a distinct identity within the church. In sum, Wyschogrod believes that the problem of supersessionism turns on the church’s capacity to understand its own identity in terms of the abiding religious significance of the distinction between Jew and gentile. On this crucial issue Wyschogrod carefully distinguishes between what he believes was the church’s original view and what later became its standard position. Originally, Wyschogrod argues, Christians envisioned a fellowship with two branches, the Jewish and the gentile (cf. Acts 15). They had in common their faith in Jesus, but differed in that Jews remained under the commandments of the Torah while gentiles were bound only by the Noachian laws. This understanding of Christian existence still presupposed the reality of God’s covenant with the stock of Abraham while adding to this the belief that in Jesus of Nazareth the blessings of the covenant had begun to accrue to the gentiles as gentiles, i.e., apart from circumcision and observance of the Torah. Through faith in Christ, gentiles became not Jews but associate members of Israel’s covenant. Gradually, however, this view of the church was replaced by a very different one. According to this second view, Christ’s coming meant that the difference between Jews and gentiles has been erased. As a consequence, the practice of the Torah was formally forbidden among baptized Jews, and baptized Jews typically lost their Jewish identity within two or three generations. This shift in practice, together with the judgment that it reflects regarding the significance of the corporeal body of Israel, is the heart and soul of supersessionism. Since the church did not insist that Jews retain their identity even in the church, it can be inferred that the church seriously holds that its election supersedes that of the old Israel. The church’s posture demonstrates its belief that God’s relation to the world no longer entails God’s covenant with the Jewish people. Now the church views itself as the true spiritual community that was the goal of God’s purpose all along. That Wyschogrod would seem to argue in favor of Torah observance among baptized Jews might strike some as quite incredible. It presupposes a level of concern for the Jewish Christian and for the church’s theological integrity that might appear quixotic -- to put it mildly -- in light of the historic relation of Judaism and Christianity. Yet the position flows quite inevitably from Wyschogrod’s first principles -- above all, from his understanding of Jewish identity as participation in the family of God’s irrevocable election. Writing early in his career on the case of "Brother Daniel," a Jewish convert to Christianity who sought to immigrate to Israel under the Israeli law of return, Wyschogrod explained: I would like to be understood well. I have no intention of minimizing the seriousness of apostasy, which is a break with a legacy of martyrdom that every Jew carries in his flesh. But I am not prepared to write any Jew off, whether he wears a gray flannel suit or a cassock. The God Who found Jonah in the belly of the fish and Who dwells with Israel in the midst of their impurity can find Brother Daniel on the slopes of the Carmel and bring him back, on the wings of eagles, to the Jewish fraternity. The question that Wyschogrod presses time and again is whether on this particular point the proper Jewish understanding is not the proper Christian understanding as well. To be sure, of the two views identified above regarding the church’s posture toward Jewish followers of Jesus, it is the second that has determined the church’s practice for most of its history -- a development that Wyschogrod regrets. The basis of what eventually became the church’s dominant self-understanding, he believes, is the redefinition of God’s true covenant in terms of an exclusively spiritual relation between God and the faithful. The church declares that what matters is not one’s corporeal identity as either Jew or gentile, but One’s inward spiritual identity as one who believes. In this way, the church separates membership in the church, the New Israel. from membership in a natural human family, and thereby makes the covenant open and accessible to persons from every nation. But it does so at the cost of discarding the bond that joins God’s covenant to the natural seed of Abraham, thereby casting off the carnal anchor joining God to creation. At this point, Wyschogrod believes, Judaism can no longer meet the church’s teaching with firm but respectful dissent, as it could its christological claims. By claiming to be God’s new people, the church directly assaults the trustworthiness of God’s promise to Israel and the world. From the Jewish point of view, the church’s claim is one more example of the nations’ protest against the election of the stock of Abraham, which Israel must repudiate as a rebellion against God’s word.