What exactly would draw me to walk out of my village to spend a day walking 10 miles, listening to a teacher speak on matters of spirituality, and then walking back? After I had listened to that teacher what would I remember? What would I tell others? What would make me go a second time to hear this teacher?
The words of Jesus found in Matthew 5.21-32 illustrate so well what I would have heard, repeated, and remembered. It would have made me go back for more because I would have known that it was so different from the norm, so different that I would have had to judge it to be authentic or really, really fake.
Before this teacher appeared on the scene, I would have spent many days listening to the rabbis at the synagogue expound on the God of my fathers. I would have listened to their really lengthy, but well-studied lessons about the Law passed on to us by all of our ancestors. I would have heard of all of the traditions surrounding particular issues that were problematic in my society. I would have heard the names of all the enlightened rabbis that had spoken on the subject because the Talmud would have been drilled into my psyche and reinforced every week of my life. I probably would have wondered, like many, including my heroes of the past, the Maccabees, if a messiah would really come to establish a new Godly empire, and if so, when.
But, then I know my friends would have told me, "You've got to go hear this man. He's not anything like you have ever heard before. Really. Go see him!"
So, I would have ventured out to hear Jesus. And, I would have heard Jesus say, "ηκουσατε οτι ερρεθη τοις αρχαιοις" (you have heard it said to our ancestors). I would have tuned out his voice at that point. "Blah, blah, blah... I thought this was going to be different. That's because I would have heard synagogue lessons like the following from the Talmud.
Tractate Kethuboth: Folio 2a, Chapter 1
Mishnah [oral tradition, actual] : The saying is, "A maiden is married on the 4th day of the week and is a widow on the 5th day," because twice in the week the courts of justice sit in the towns, the 2nd and 5th days of the week. If a husband has a claim as to the virginity of his bride, and he marries after the first day of the week, he has to wait until early on the morning of the 5th day of the week to go to the court of justice.
Gemara [rabbinical explanation of the Mishnah above]:
Kethuboth 2a - [paraphrase]
If a man marries on the 1st day of the week, he can go to the court of justice on the 2nd day to present his evidence for his wife not being a virgin. But if the man marries after the 1st day of the week, he has to wait until the 5th day to present his evidence. In the meantime, he is supposed to feed his new bride unless she is sick or is in her menstrual cycle. Feeding her until the 5th day doesn't constitute marriage while he is waiting for the 5th day. Appropriate rabbis were cited.)
Kethuboth 2b, paragraph 2 - [actual, but partial, with rabbinical footnotes (fn)]
And with regard to divorce, it is not so (fn: An accident does not invalidate a divorce). Accordingly, Raba holds that an accident is no plea in regard to divorce (fn: literally, "there is no accident with divorce). Whence does Raba get this rule? Shall I say from what we have learned: behold this is your bill of divorce if I don't return from now until 12 months (fn: These words the husband says to the wife. "From now until 12 months" means "within 12 months") and he died within 12 months, there is no divorce (fn: It is not the equivalent of a writ of divorce, that is, the divorce does not take effect). If he died, there is no divorce (fn: because there can be no divorce after death),but if he became ill (fn: And he could not return within 12 months due to his illness), there is a divorce (fn: Which proves that we do not admit a plea of force majeure to invalidate a writ of divorce).... Perhaps our teachers are excluded from this (fn: From the view of our teachers. If this is the object of the Mishna of Cit. 76b, Raba cannot deduce from this Mishnah that if the husband became ill, the divorce took effect. Also in the mishnah quoted by Rabbi Ahai). For it has been taught: Our teachers allowed her to be married again (fn: "our teachers" regard her as divorced {against the Mishnah}and allow her to marry again without "halizah" {the ceremony of a brother taking off a shoe}. If she is regarded as a widow and she has no children, she requires halizah before she can remarry). And we said, "Who are 'our teachers?'" Rab Judah said that Samuel said that the court allowed the oil of the heathen. They (fn: The members of the Court of Justice) hold like Rabbi Jose who said, "The date of the document shows it."....
"Yeah, I've heard enough of what was said to the ancestors," I would have thought.
I hope that I wouldn't have left, however. Because if I had stayed, I would have listened to something very different. It would have been refreshingly simple, memorably succinct, and unbelievably sensible. I would have heard:
ηκουσατε οτι ερρεθη ου μοιχευσεις
(You have heard it was said not to have an affair in your marriage) [Exodus 20.14].εγω δε λεγω υμιν οτι πας ο βλεπων γυναικα προς το επιθυμησαι αυτην ηδη εμοιχευσεν αυτην εν τη καρδια αυτου
(I'm telling you if you study a woman to want her for yourself, you have already had an affair with her in your heart).
Now that was short and sweet. It was the 7th commandment reworded for understanding and masterfully combined with the 10th commandment about επιθυμησαι (wanting your neighbor's wife for yourself). Simply brilliant!
But there was a little more. Jesus had appealed to one's sense of reason. No mishnah, no gemara, no reference to esteemed past or present rabbis, just a simple a appeal to a person's reason.
ει δε ο οφθαλμος σου ο δεξιος σκανδαλιζει σε εξελε αυτον και
βαλε απο σου συμφερει γαρ σοι ινα αποληται εν των μελων σου και με ολον το σωμα σου βληθη εις γεενναν
(If your dominant eye is causing you trouble, remove it and dispose of it. It is much better to lose only a part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into the despicable dump of the Valley of Hinnom).
και ει η δεξια σου χαιρ σκανδαλιζει σε εκκοψον αυτην και βαλε
απο σου συμφερει γαρ σοι ινα αποληται εν των
μελων σου και με ολον το σωμα σου εις γεενναν απελθη
(And if your favored hand is causing you trouble, cut it off and dispose of it. It is much better to lose only a part of your body than for life to depart your body in the despicable dump of the Valley of Hinnom.)So logical, but also a challenge. It's not easy to end something before it grows to be much worse at a later time. Better a mistake than a downfall. But, even so, it's hard to do.
There's a really tasty morsel at this point. Jesus's term for where a person's body was to be thrown was the horrid Valley of Hinnom. The events that happened there are recorded in three places in the Old Testament (2 Kings 23.10; 2 Chronicles 28.3, 33.6; Jeremiah 7.31-32, 19.2-6, 32.35). γεενναν (gehenna) was the Greek word. In Jesus's time the Valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, was a trash dump where refuse was brought to be burned along with animal carcasses. Jesus probably had both meanings in mind when he spoke to the people on the hillside this fair day, what happened in the place in Israel's history and the current function of the place as a dump ground.
The whole point of the comparison was about the specific issue of divorce. Jesus's teaching seemed to have three applications to it. First, marriages would have no problem if the partners didn't look for love in all the wrong places. The 10th commandment told a person not επιθυμησαι (to want his neighbor's wife for his own), or covet his neighbor's wife. It was a matter of a person's heart being in the right place.
The 2015 Country Music Awards Song of the Year illustrates very well what is meant by επιθυμησαι. If the thoughts of this song are running through a man's mind when he sees another woman, then the rest of Jesus's advice about the eye and hand might apply.
Second, marriages don't usually survive if cheating is going on. So, divorce can be avoided altogether by stopping a cheating heart before a truly unconquerable problem arises. Divorce shows a heart problem. And third, that heart problem leads to actions that cause people to face dire choices after two people split on the order of the decisions made long ago at the despicable fires of γεενναν (gehenna), a place of putrid smells. An affair would indicate this black heart. One's marriage would be lost probably, one's status in the community would be lost, one's relationship with his or her children would be lost. One's integrity would be lost (linking this idea to verse 48). It was simple. Don't let it happen.
On the hillside that afternoon, I would have heard this refreshingly simple, succinct, and sensible teaching along with others. I know I would have been impressed, given the laborious, ever-so-tedious recitation of the Talmud that took place in the synagogues. I would have gone back for more occasions of this kind of teaching. I would have followed the reports of this teacher as he made his way around the countryside.
That's what I would have done. But, I have to measure that against what I am actually doing today, 2000 years removed from the time speculated about. Jesus's teachings still amaze me. They are still simple, succinct, and sensible. They form the basis for my heart condition today. I have learned that life is not about the tedium of study but about the color of my heart - black or white.
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