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In our first video together, Rabbi Blum and I got to talk about the power of the Torah and its significance for the Jewish community. In this next video, the two of us get to sit together

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and talk about Jesus in his Jewish context. Listen , as we understand more from Rabbi Blum, what Jesus means to him and how Jesus may have been drawing from his own Jewish background. Rabbi. Thank

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you again for meeting with me and um just looking forward to our conversations uh in our conversation before you mentioned um that your title of rabbi uh means means teacher. Um And I feel like I've already learned

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so much from you and some of the conversations that , that we've been having. Um And a lot of that has to do with understanding more of this longer history of how we've understood Jesus and his context

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as, as Christians. Uh I grew up kind of viewing the whole new Testament as this just Christian thing. It was all Christian uh and in having these conversations and doing some reading on my own,

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I'm realizing how much of the Jewish context that Jesus was living in uh influenced who he was and how he lived, uh even the things that he, he emphasized. And I feel that growing up in

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the church, we don't talk about any of those Jewish traditions or uh the, the impact that uh Jesus is growing up as a part of a Jewish community would have had on him. Um So one

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of the things that uh that I remember and, you know, have heard from um Jewish New Testament scholar, Amy Gil Levine uh is, you know , Jesus doesn't need a negative example to look good

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that he can stand on his own. Uh And yet, um so much of I, I feel like Christian interpretations of Jesus has to do with setting him aside or apart from his Jewish context uh as

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, as some sort of improved or some sort of um speaking against his, his tradition. Um One of the things that Amy Gil Levine has has produced is a book on the Pharisees uh an edited edition

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um scholarly book. Uh And in the back, she has a essay on preaching about the Pharisees preaching and teaching about the Pharisees. And um she lifts up the fact that um for so long Christians have

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talked about the Pharisees as this negative example to Jesus and how Jesus is always criticizing the Pharisees uh and how instead of perpetually um portraying this whole group as , as negative. Uh She encourages Christians to think

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about other ways to see the Pharisees to see the positive role that they played in, helping persons from the Jewish community retain a sense of identity amidst Roman occupation. Um And to help with the continuity of

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, of the tradition after the temple was destroyed. Uh And also to lift up key figures like Paul identifying as a pharisee or gel uh or Joseph of Arimathea. Um lifting up positive examples because, you

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know, as, as, as people of faith , we aren't supposed to uh train people to view everyone from a particular group as a negative stereotype. That's not what we want our Children to, to

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learn from us. And yet when we use the word Pharisees, we often have this one image and , and it's all negative and um rather than seeing each person in their own complexity and seeing that a

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number of Pharisees were also part of the followers of , of, of Jesus. Um But I, I raised this because one, I think some of our, our, our viewers might, this might

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be new to them. Um But also by way of saying, I, I I'd love to hear from you how, how the word pharisee even sounds to you today. Uh Because I, I assume

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it might have some negative connotations by the way Christians have, have treated that word. Um But yeah , I would just love to hear your, your take on that. Thank you so much. I

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really appreciate it deeply, your perspectives and your willingness to want to share and have a conversation and hopefully stoke the curiosity of others who may be watching and who want to have their own journey and investigation about

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where they are with the context of the beauties of our traditions. Pharisee is a, is a word uh that is embedded within rabbinic Judaism and the prevailing uh academic scholarship. We're not gonna go down that

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road, but really up until about 30 or 35 years ago, many people, scholarss believed that rabbis came directly out of the pharisee or the pharisee tradition that there were different sects within Judaism. They were

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all competing for legitimacy and authority. And with the Romans as the occupiers, as you said, who ultimately destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 ce, which is the common era, which may

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also be understood as ad or Anno domin, which again, we can talk about that or not just that there's different ways to see the same thing like uh I, I'm a big believer in there's lots

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of different paths to certain certain things that are just are. Um but Pharisees were one of those sects and they were um trying to find a way especially after the destruction of the temple to continue Judaism with

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the destruction of the temple. Much of the ways that Jewish people manifested a relationship with God were uh were no longer available, whether it was bringing sacrifices to a central location into Jerusalem, whether singing uh

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prayers or Psalms, whether offering blessings, whether having pilgrimages because their our festivals were originally uh pilgrimage festivals from various regions in the area to Jerusalem. So the Pharisees were seen as a group of people who

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helped to, if you will to use a modern term modernized Judaism and allow Judaism to not only survive but to thrive in a world where there wasn't God's home, which was the temple or the Holy of

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Holies. Uh That was, of course, uh as you're asking me a question, uh Pharisee became a negative attribute by uh perhaps those compiling the New Testament to recognize strangely enough, or ironically enough,

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the old order or the people who were in charge or ensconced in things who didn't see the vision of perhaps the disruptor or the entrepreneur uh that Jesus was . And it's interesting because in our tradition, the

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Pharisees were exactly the ones who were thinking about a new way forward after the destruction and the trauma of , of uh what was so, it's interesting, I was actually speaking at a church a number of

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years ago and uh about Judaism and about ways that we can begin to understand each other. And the , the, the pastor, the minister who was a friend of mine, they had uh a reading

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from The New Testament and it was all about the negativity of the Pharisees and it was just happened to be and he actually stopped the reading and he said , oh, let's let's have a conversation because the

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inheritance of Pharisee to rabbi to Judaism is unfortunately a clear path for many in a negative way. Uh scholarship nowadays sees that there are many ways that rabbis developed, perhaps influenced some by the Pharisees. But

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they didn't morph into, they didn't morph into rabbis from Pharisees. So there's a, as you said , a very um complex and rich tradition in the ancient, near east, in the common era in

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the first century to uh to bring people who are thinking about how to make sense of a disrupted reality , how to make sense of a world that they don't recognize. And Christianity is certainly an important integral

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part of that as are the different other voices within Judaism. Yeah. So much was happening in that first century um with uh the destruction of the temple and uh and Jewish revolts and uh so much was

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happening within the Jewish community and multiple Jewish communities, as you said, that, you know, different sects, different, different groups. Um And I think it's really important that um that as Christians,

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we understand this larger complex history uh in which Jesus uh grew up and was situated and in which the Writers of the New Testament were reflecting and trying to make sense of years after Jesus uh had had been

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been crucified by the, the Roman Empire. Um And I wanna say crucified by the Roman Empire because uh unfortunately, uh Christians have interpreted the role of , of Jewish leaders as being uh instigators in jesus'

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death. Uh Amy J Levine talks about as a kid being accused of being uh uh someone who killed God. Um And um the image of Christ killer uh has been uh just a terrible um way of

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spreading hate throughout Christian history. Um fueling anti Judaism uh and anti Semitism. Um And uh I'm just , I'm, I'm grieving the ways that Christians have um taken this complex history and have, have,

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have narrowed it down in a way that's been so hurtful. Um But there's been, there was lots going on. Jesus didn't die at the hands of , of his, his Jewish brothers and sisters,

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but at the hands of the Roman Roman Empire. Um but there's a lot of this history uh and how that was interpreted uh that I was totally unaware of, um, you know, reading the things

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that we hear when we're, you know, leading up to Lent and Easter um about, uh the community saying, you know, let his blood be upon us and our Children, these things that I

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didn't hear as being anti Jewish or used in anti Jewish ways, uh have had just such devastating effects on Jewish communities for centuries. Um And how I had no idea about that any of that history until

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fairly recently based on our conversations, learning more about the history of anti Judaism, uh and anti Semitism . Um And so I think that's really important as we study The New Testament as, as Christians for

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us to kind of uncover um how so many verses and passages and ideas have been weaponized in such hurtful ways. Um I, I know this is a very, uh probably, I don't know, controversial

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question but uh how do you take, uh Jesus , what, what's kind of your understanding when you hear people talk about Jesus? Uh you know, it seems like people have used his name uh and

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have done terrible things uh against, against uh Jewish communities. Um But is there some way that you've been able to identify with this person who grew up as a, in a Jewish community and uh you

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know, suffered the fate of a, of a , of a, of a martyr against the state . Uh I mean, are there, are there ways that you've been able to reclaim some sort of

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sense of uh common ground with this person that grew up in a Jewish community 2000 years ago for sure . And Doctor Helsel, I really appreciate this candor and this conversation quite a bit. I think Jesus

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was doing what Judaism teaches, which is to ask important questions and to not accept the status quo is the status quo for sure. And I think it is very important to realize that uh when there are

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uh the Romans who are occupying and impacting life, then things change because it is not the role of the people who seem to be in charge, but the role of the people who are controlling them for

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sure. So, uh while we don't believe that Jesus is divine, uh I think admiring many of his teachings, lifting up the teachings, uh which are certainly steeped as you said in Judaism, are

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, are, it's very inspirational and to be able to have that conversation beyond the conversation of the results of how and what uh not accepting Jesus as Savior has happened. Uh to be able to, to

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not have that conversation, but rather to have the conversation of the teachings and the wisdom of Jesus. And how in fact, much of what he has offered can be traced into not only Jewish scripture into

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Torah or even rabbinic literature, but even into our prayers that we say today of how we see how he is riffing and using and, and appreciating. I think it's an incredible way of bringing people Christians

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and Jews together to be able to respect not only what has happened, what has been, but what is and to be able to carefully without the baggage . And that's the hard part, but to be

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able to carefully navigate all of that uh with the great scholars uh who are writing about this in both the Jewish and the Christian worlds. I think that there, that is to me the most fertile ground

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for positive transformation, what might be diplomatically called interfaith relationships or Jewish Christian dialogue. To me, it's a way of assuring or at least helping the world stand on firm foundation and averting the tragic, tragic

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violence that we are inheritors of. But we have the power as our traditions, teach us to stop that and to not stand idly by while that occurs . Well, thank you so much. I really