March 2022 Webinar Q&A and Resources

Written By David Klein

If you missed the March Webinar on "Paul Philip Levertoff — Jewish Scholar, Anglican Priest, Chasidic Mystic: A Conversation with Ephraim Radner and Richard Harvey", you can now watch it on our website or our YouTube channel.

There is never enough time for Q&A, so we are providing additional interaction with our March panelists below. We also want to provide you with some resources to complement our webinar about Paul Philip Levertoff:

Question: What can we learn from Levertoff about a healthy approach to kabbalah for Jewish and gentile believers in Jesus?

Ephraim Radner:
Levertoff did three important things: he studied Kabbala with depth and precision -- he was a serious and responsible scholar. His study was informed by and seemed to come out of a deep experiential sympathy for the religious life of prayer in which he had been raised (the "Chabad" tradition as we say today) -- so, his scholarship was, in a way, secondary to his lived delight in Hassidic prayer and reflection, which was so imbued in Kabbala, and this kept his thinking from being primarily conceptual but tied to the actual life of God as he knew it (and came to know it in Yeshua, the Messiah). Finally, his main goal was not expand the scholarly apparatus/details around Kabbala, but to glean or distill from it illuminations about this life of God in Yeshua. And something like his Hebrew-Christian liturgy of the Meal of the King is the fruit of this distillation, aimed at building up the practical, embodied life of the people of God. It was not individualistically oriented, in the way that much contemporary "spirituality" is.

Having said this, as I noted in my brief remarks, Levertoff's writings are themselves rather difficult to follow -- and even here he is condensing and in that sense simplifying much Kabbalistic material, which is, in its own right and to those not immersed in its experiential shape over time, quite baffling and confusing. This last reality is danger for many contemporary Jewish/Jewish-Christan/Gentile-Christian readers of Kabbala: its intricacies and speculations take over, ensnare attention in ways that can draw a reader into a realm of quite personal reflection that disengages him or her from the concrete clarities of Scripture -- "clarities" that are, after all, big enough to hold our attention for eternity! We are not all Levertoff's and should not try to be.

But here we get to the key thing, in my mind: Torah (and for the follower of Yeshua, all of Scripture) is an ocean of wonder and delight. Kabbala, rightly understood, is an exploration of Torah, not something other than it, and once it becomes its own "discipline" with its own rules and figures and concepts and so on, it flies out of orbit from its source and purpose, which is to indwell the Scripture more fully. Contemporary "New Age" uses of Kabbala are extreme examples of such "flying out of the orbit"! But there are less extreme ones that are also problematic.

Hence, engaging Kabbala is not for everyone! It suits certain personalities, intellects, devotional styles; -- but not others; and no one should think that it is a necessity, at the level of divine revelation. But -- this is my view -- Kabbala does contain much that is "holy", in the sense of the artifacts of sanctified meditation and witness, like any other collection of religious literature written by the followers of God. Still, not everyone is snared by the witness of Augustine or John of the Cross or Edith Stein. WE are all friends of Yeshua, and thus friends of His friends; yet who we spend time with, among this great company, must reflect our own callings and spirits.

Hence: my advice is this -- rather vague, I realize, but still I hope somewhat useful:

  • Know the purpose of Kabbala and bear it always in mind and use it as a benchmark of accountability: does it (and my study of/reflection on Kabbala) lead me into the Scriptures more and more, or lead me out, or keep me on the edges of it?

  • Apprentice oneself to a "master", as it were. If not Levertoff, there are others one can and should read who know the Kabbala responsibly and can help lead one through its mazes. (People have their different views on "who" in this regard. One wants a scholar who is also a good communicator; one does not want a popularizing guru. Daniel Matt? He has his own spiritual ideas, but seems pretty well grounded.)

  • Related to this, try to engage Kabbala, not as a "philosophy", system or "spiritual key", but as a set of practical tools by which to know the God of Israel more clearly. Here, sites like Chabad itself can be helpful.

  • And, of course, understand what the specific fruit of any engagement with Kabbala might be: coming to know Yehsua/Jesus more deeply. This goes back to (1.) above: the Word is given in His flesh, His life and death and resurrection, His Spirit, and in His body, the Church. Levertoff understood this well: his book "Love in the Age of the Messiah" is a bit hard to follow here and there, but ultimately the Messiah himself shines out from the pages. And the pages are always fundamentally a commendation of the Scriptures and the Gospel. And, as I noted, his communion liturgy, with its specific prayers and order, reflected this light in a way completely congruent with Torah and Scripture. Wonderful!

Question: Do you know how Levertoff handled the conflicting Jewish and Christian calendars? For example, how did he handle Passover and Easter?

Richard Harvey:
Great question, especially for many of us in Yachad BeYeshua who seek to navigate through the different calendars. I don’t know of documented evidence of his celebration of the Jewish festivals, but assume he continued to do this throughout his life.

As an Anglican he observed the calendar of the liturgical year and followed the Anglo-Catholic High Church tradition with all the festivals of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. He held services in Hebrew on Friday nights for kabbalat shabbat and on Saturdays, and would preach in other churches on Sundays (see Brian Reed’s article in Messiah Journal, p26). His Meal of the Holy King service used unleavened bread at Passover time, and is steeped in Hasidic Jewish liturgy and style.

Addendum from Brian Reed:

As to Levertoff's handling of the conflicting calendars, in all the sources I came across over the last 10 years or so which either were written by Levertoff or written by others that offer biographical details, none mentioned if he celebrated many of the festivals on the Jewish calendar. Levertoff often mentioned them and elaborated on them in his journal "The Church and the Jews" as well as in some of his published works. We can say for certain, as Richard noted, that Levertoff observed his liturgy Meal of the Holy King on Shabbat at Holy Trinity Shoreditch and, for a period of time, on Sunday at St. George's Bethnal Green. The liturgy mentions using unleavened bread for the Eucharist during Passover but from my understanding all the rubrics laid out in his liturgy were not implemented but more of an ideal (there may be an Christian ecumenical side to this rubric as well in that the Orthodox church uses leavened bread for the Eucharist and the Catholic and Anglican use unleavened). Levertoff was a true Anglo-Catholic in the tradition of the Tractarians and also Bishop Charles Gore and, as noted also by Richard, he was firmly committed to this tradition (note his ornamenting of a Torah scroll at Holy Trinity with rosary beads).

Levertoff's comments on Matthew 5:17-20 in A New Commentary on Holy Scripture (ed. by Charles Gore, H.L. Goudge, & A. Guillaume) may shed some light on the discussion about his attitude toward Torah observance but, nonetheless, do not offer a concrete answer. Also, along the same lines, in the above mentioned commentary on Matt 15:20 he writes, "to eat with unwashen hands" is peculiar to Matthew. Whether it was actually said by our Lord or added by Matthew, it does not refer mainly to the 'washing of hands,' but has an ironical trend; for in 11 and 17 all the dietary laws are included, as in Mark, and declared to be ethically and religiously of no moment." (p. 165)

And also his comments on Matt 9:16-17, "The attempt of the Jewish Christians to patch the Pharisaic righteousness was completely unsuccessful; the Law passed away, and the Spirit took its place as the creator of Christian character (Gal 5:22). The Pharisaic Christians, so far from becoming the evangelists of the world, were the great hinderers of St. Paul's activity." (p.149) Cf. further his commentary on Matt 23:2-3.

Can you elaborate on your statement about the unity of the followers of Yeshua being found in unity with the people of Israel?

Question: Can you elaborate on your statement about the unity of the followers of Yeshua being found in unity with the people of Israel?

Yohanan Goldman:
G.od is One and His creative project is one, oriented on Adam who is one. Once the Humankind had separated from Him, breaking unity with Him and continuity of history with Him, HaShem chose Abraham avinu to reconquer the friendship of the Human beings ("all the families of the earth" Genesis 12:3). Showing in particular that, through Israel, He wants to live with the Human family. Our creator never gave up on His project. Which is why Yehoshou‘a came among us, in Israel, and not in another "family of the earth". The continuity of the project of G.od passes through the history of Israel. It is the will of our G.od that Israel “connect the dots” between the creative act and the salvation of the whole of creation. Israel is the witness par excellence of G.od the creator and the living memory, even the life itself of this continuity. The Lord keeps the unity of the whole humankind through the Jewish people and the great Assembly of the churches, which is the divine enlargement of the mystery of Israel (Romans 11,15-16). This is why Israel remains the source of the unity of the Body of Mashiah and, consequently, of the whole Humankind. As it is said in the office of Minha for Shabbat: You are One and your Name is One and who is like your people One nation in the world? (2 Samuel 7:23).

David Klein
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