By Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg

According to the Wall Street Journal a new book, whose size makes it so attractive, has become popular in England. It’s called “The 100 Minute Bible,” has only sixty pages, each page designed to be read in less than 2 minutes. There are other books like it, including “The Light Speed Bible,” and “The Bible in 90 Days,” all attempting to make the Bible easier to read by removing verses that seem outdated or meaningless. In all of these Bibles—which I have not seen—I strongly suspect that they all leave out a verse that on the surface adds nothing to our knowledge. Indeed, tradition tells us that Menasheh, King of Judea, sought to remove it from the Bible for that very reason!

For all that Menasheh was the son of Hizkiyahu, a most righteous king, and reigned for 55 years, the Talmud tells us that he turned against God and ridiculed the Torah. In a sense, he tried to write his own “100 Minute Bible” by leaving out verses that he claimed had no meaning. And, according to the Talmud, the first verse he offered up for ridicule was one of the concluding verses of Parshat Vayishlah, where the Torah, which is careful with every word, spends next 43 verses telling us the lineage of Esau, with verses like: “And these are the generations of Esau…These are the names of Esau’s son, Eliphaz the son of Adah, the wife of Esau, … And the sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho and Gatam and Kenaz. And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau’s son.” To which King Menashe said, “Did Moses have nothing to write in the Torah other than such useless trivia as Lotam’s sister was Timnah and Timnah was a concubine of Eliphaz? Who needs such information? What purpose can it possibly serve?”

But the rabbis tell us that Menasheh was not only wrong in principle, but in practice, by finding an actual lesson in this verse. The rabbis tell us that this concubine Timnah was no ordinary woman, she was the product of a royal family. And she sought to convert to Judaism and in the words of the Talmud: “She came to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for that purpose. V’lo kibluha – but they refused to accept her. She thereupon went and became a concubine of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, saying, “It is better to be a maid servant to this nation than to be a princess to any other nation.” From this union, perhaps not coincidentally, came Amalek, the archenemy of the Jewish people. And the Talmud concludes this story by telling us that Amalek became our eternal enemy as a punishment for our having rejected their ancestor. The rabbis of old understood that this seemingly insignificant verse contained a most important lesson: Be careful when you reject someone. It might come back to haunt you!

I think about this lesson in the context of two recent statements by nationally recognized Jewish leaders, one by Abraham Foxman, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League and the other by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the leader of the Union for Reform Judaism. Both were addressing a national gathering of their respective organizations and chose to speak about the greatest threat that is confronting us as Jews in America. What is the threat? Evangelical Christians! Mr. Foxman described them as having “built infrastructures throughout the country intending to Christianize all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries to the movies to recoding studios to the playing fields and locker rooms of professional, collegiate and amateur sports, from the military to SpongeBob Squarepants.”

Rabbi Yoffie went a step further; during a Shabbos morning sermon he delivered at the Biennial Convention of the Union of Reform Judaism, he referred to those on the religious right as “zealots,” guilty of “blasphemy” and “bigotry.” In speaking to the delegates about the Christian Evangelical approach to homosexuals, he described it as “hateful rhetoric that fuels the fires of anti-gay bigotry,” and compared it to what Adolf Hitler did when he came to power in 1933.

I have long been on the record—at least in my synagogue—with a different view of Christian Evangelicals, one that I recognize that many Jews dispute. Even if I am wrong in my more positive assessment—meaning that I am wrong to note what marvelous friends the Evangelicals have been to Israel, how they lobby for Israel, how they send millions of dollars to help resettlement in Israel, how they kept going on pilgrimages to Israel when many Jews were too afraid to go; even if Bibi Netanyahu was wrong when he said that the Evangelicals are the best friends Israel has in the world; even if I am wrong in seeing the Evangelicals’ commitment to the Jews, the Jewish people and the Jewish state as stemming from their accepting at face value the promise God made to Abraham when he said, “Those who bless you shall be blessed and those who curse you shall be cursed.”

Even with all that, we ought to question: whether they are as bad as Abraham Foxman and Rabbi Yoffie make them out to be? In demonizing them, might we by our rejection be creating another Amalek?

After all, all that Mr. Foxman claims about them is that they have “built infrastructures throughout the country intending to Christianize all aspects of American life.” Those “infrastructures,” by the way, are, in Mr. Foxman’s view, trying to impose their perspective on, “judicial nominees, stem cell research, same sex marriage, abortion restrictions and faith based initiative.”

That might sound pretty scary, except that Jewish organizations do the same, as do any other responsible citizens of a democratic society; indeed, it is the heart of our political system that citizens get involved and shape our future themselves! In the words of Hillel Halkin in the Jerusalem Post, “There is not one of these issues on which major Jewish organizations have not again and again fought for politically liberal positions. The Reform Movement, for example, has officially supported legislation furthering same sex marriage for years. The American Jewish Committee, The American Jewish Congress, The Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations, The National Council of Jewish Women, The Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism have all endorsed legalized abortion. Hadassah has joined other American organizations in calling on President Bush to revise restrictive Federal policies on stem cell research.”

Indeed at the very same convention that Rabbi Yoffie addressed, the Reform Movement came out against Supreme Court then-nominee, now Associate Justice Samuel Alito. When Jewish organizations took positions on all these issues, would we have accepted the claim that we were trying to “Judaize America?” So why, when Evangelicals take positions on these very same issues, do we accuse them of trying to “Christianize America?”

Further, how can we accept the comparison to Hitler, when we protest so strongly when others use Nazi analogies about us – accusing Israel of “Nazi war crimes,” of building concentration camps with its security wall, of Ariel Sharon being a Nazi. Our response is always that we accept criticism but not analogies to the Nazis. We have made it an article of faith that the Holocaust is unique and nothing can be compared to it. If we don’t like when it’s done to us, we cannot tolerate it when Jews do it to others.

Of course, as Jews or liberals or Americans, we have every right to protest when we disagree with positions held by Evangelicals and when we feel they are too close to crossing the line separating Church and State, but we must do so appropriately and civilly. The Talmud tells us exactly how to do it, telling us: “Our masters taught the left hand may always repulse, but the right hand should bring near.” The left hand – the weaker hand – is the one that rejects, rebukes, repulses. The stronger hand must be the one that, at the same time, draws near, reaches out and befriends.

In a remarkable story that for centuries has been diluted in censored versions of the Talmud, we are told of a rabbi who mixed up his right hand from his left, with consequences we bear to this day, since he did it with a man called Jesus. In Sanhedrin (107b) we are told:

When King Yannai rose up against the sages to put them to death, Simeon ben Shetah was hidden by his sister, and R. Joshua ben Perahiah (and Jesus) fled to Alexandria of Egypt. When peace came, Simeon ben Shetah wrote to R. Joshua, “From me, Jerusalem the holy city, to you, my sister Alexandria of Egypt: My husband dwells in your midst, and I abide desolate.” R. Joshua replied, “I understand. Peace upon you.” So he rose up, together with his disciple (Jesus) and came to Jerusalem. He happened to put up at a certain inn (run by a woman) where great honor was accorded him. He remarked, “What a beautiful inn.” His disciple replied, “Yes, master, but her eyes are bleary.” R. Joshua: “You wicked person! So it is with such matters that you occupy yourself!” At that, he brought forth four hundred rams’ horns and (had them sound as he) excommunicated him. Though Jesus came day after day before R. Joshua, pleading, ‘Take me back.” R. Joshua paid no attention to him. But one day as R. Joshua was reciting the Shema, (Jesus) came and stood before him. (Relenting), R. Joshua decided to take him back and motioned to him with his hand. But Jesus interpreted the gesture as a final repulse. So he went off, set up a brick, and worshiped it. Scholars question whether the story ever took place or really involved Jesus, but it does show a clear tradition within Judaism that an over-harsh rejection of Jesus led eventually to the rise of Christianity. From Timnah to Jesus … the message is clear, the message is the same. Know who your friends are and know who your enemies are, and don’t mix up the two! Friends can need rebuke, but in a manner that will maintain that friendship; enemies, too, should be rebuked in a way that lays the groundwork for coming closer to friendship. I believe Christian Evangelicals are friends, but even if they are the threat that Abraham Foxman and Eric Yoffie portray them as, let that threat be met with expressions of disagreement stated in a way that will not further alienate them.

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