We have here a little Jesus and the Temple stuff . . . fascinating
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Shavuah Tov.

Dear Richard,

Jesus Himself said He is Lord of the Sabbath and greater than the
Temple. Matthew 12:5-8.

I have problems with your post, you seem to be saying that His
contrast against the religious authorities is not particularly
important, as though He were a rabbi among rabbis, disagreeing over
minhagim (customs which vary among communities on how the Law is
practiced) and matters of rabbinic detail.

The issue is about authority, as I read it. I agree that Galilee was
thought suspect but the point is that the halachic authorities were in
Jerusalem, they were the ones who sat on Moses' seat and no-one had the
authority to stand independently, let alone lead others to oneself away
from the tradition. That would still now be the issue. From the rabbinic
side of the argument Jesus had no authority at all, hence the miracles
would be some kind of witchcraft as He was a renegade and a heretic in
their eyes, and God Who had given His authority into the tradition would
not be the cause of the signs and wonders of a heretic. That explanation
continues in the Talmud about the miracles which continued within the
Church. Matthew was a Jew, had there been little importance in the clash
between Jesus and the religious authorities he would not have had cause to
write so much about it, nor in fact would there have been much of a Jewish
problem with Jesus to write about.

I am aware that many Jews today do take the view that there was not
much of a Jewish problem with Jesus but then they go on to say there was a
christological development of such proportions that the Gentiles made a
god and a religion out of him, the Christian texts written far after the
event with their `bad Jews versus good Jesus message' being a result of
that development. It depends on how one is reading the Gospels, if as
Scripture then we take them as one integral whole which cannot be played
down, accepting their message that Jesus is absolutely distinct from the
Judaism around Him and was confronted by the Rabbonim for that reason.

On Jesus' side of the argument it would be impossible for Him to
violate the Sabbath or anything in Torah, His observance being on an
infinitely higher level of purity than ours. It reminds me of that mystery
we have in Parshas Tetzaveh (Exodus 28:8) where we learn that the Kohanim
are commanded to wear shatnez (the mixture of linen and wool) in the
Temple, when outside of the Temple shatnez is so strictly forbidden by the
same Torah that it is said if a man were to pray wearing shatnez his
prayers will be rejected for forty days. Shatnez is a chok (a law beyond
any human rationale) so its reverse in the Temple is also a chok but I
learned an explanation in Chassidus that the negative forces usual with
shatnez in all ordinary places were nullified in the intense holiness of
the Temple. If Jesus is greater than the Temple then perhaps we have a
hint here of how the Law relates to Him in practice, and that being the
case it is not so amazing that He would clash with the Rabbonim when what
is truly amazing is His condescension to be subject to the Law in anything
at all.

Therefore what makes sense to me is this: there is a hierarchy of
principles within the Law, including the Sabbath laws, as we know. As the
laws for Temple service supercede the laws for life outside the Temple,
and the laws for Temple service on the Sabbath supercede the laws for
ordinary life outside the Temple on the Sabbath, so does the Lord of the
Sabbath supercede even the laws of the Temple on the Sabbath, as He
Himself says.

sarah