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NESTOR KOMER:
A Mennonite Preacher Discovers Torah
I grew up in a typical suburban family in the 'fifties
and 'sixties with very little to no religious influences. In
the turmoil of my high school days I got involved in a
"discussion group" organized by the pastor of the Mennonite
Brotherhood, the denomination to which my mother nominally
belonged (my father was born Jewish but he intentionally
assimilated and denied any religious inclination). This was
my first serious confrontation with what is commonly known
as "the Bible." It fascinated me and this confrontation led
to an increasingly religious outlook on life, so much so
that I decided to become a minister of religion and planned
to study theology. "Religion" in this context was
Christianity of course and my story is probably typical for
a great many pastors in Protestant denominations who are
active in their calling today.
What "went wrong" with me? Why am I today a Torah
observant Jew? The answer to this obvious question lies in
my continuing study of theology. In almost all Christian
theological seminaries and faculties beginning students are
required to learn Hebrew in order to be able to read the
"Old Testament" in the original language. This study struck
a resonant chord in me, quite in contrast to my fellow
students. To them the Hebrew exam at the end of the first
year of the curriculum was a major obstacle dreaded by many.
Not for me: I took to the holy tongue like a fish to water.
When in a later stage we were taught "Exegesis of the Old
Testament", I noticed that virtually everybody was content
to study the texts IN TRANSLATION, totally relying on
various Christian commentaries in German, English or French.
Hebrew seemed all but forgotten! I was extremely
dissatisfied with this state of affairs and began to have
grave suspicions about the reliability of these Christian
commentaries. Of course, in those days I believed in Jesus
as my personal Lord and Savior and I was involved with
Evangelical movements like Campus Crusade For Christ and
Youth For Christ. I was convinced that I was saved and even
"spoke in tongues", that is, I uttered unintelligible sounds
when in religious ecstasy, sounds which other "brothers" or
"sisters" claimed to understand. All the standard
Evangelical explanations of the "Old Testament" were
available to me. If I had only been able to set aside any
rational thought, I would today be a "born again Christian"
like I was in those days.
However, I was not able to swallow the missionary
"explanations" and continued to feel bothered with glaring
contradictions between Christian theology and the plain
meaning of the Hebrew texts contained in the "Old
Testament". A small example: the Torah charges the Jewish
nation with eternal commandments like observance of Shabbat
and the Festivals. The New Testament is quite clear that
these observances are, at best, not very important. In the
world of the New Testament the one and only important issue
is whether or not you believe that a certain Jewish
carpenter was an incarnation of the Almighty God and that
that man died a horrible death as a price that God demands
as a ransom for your soul. In the shadow of that one crucial
issue, ALL OTHER THINGS become utterly unimportant. Most
notably, a believer in this man Jesus is supposed to become
automatically a perfect human being incapable of sin. No
divine code of conduct is really needed anymore: Jesus does
it all! In the Torah, by contrast, we find very detailed
"instructions for life" which are meant, by the words of the
Torah itself, to bring a Jew nearer to his Maker and to
perfect him or her in the service of God. There is no trace
of the philosophies of the New Testament to be found in the
Torah. It became crystal clear to me that the "Old
Testament" and the New Testament are utterly incompatible.
Yet, only the New Testament contained the life story of that
man in whom I had put all my trust: Jesus. And, yet again,
the Christians, too, believe that the Torah was given to the
Jewish nation on Mount Sinai. The apostle Paul is attributed
saying that the Torah is "good, perfect and holy"! What was
going on??
I soon discovered that the Christian theologians had
"solved" this glaring contradiction by re-interpreting the
"Old Testament" so radically that it becomes, in fact, a
totally different document altogether! The "law" (Christian
parlance for "Torah") is there to convict of sin. All those
marvelous ideas like Shabbat, tzedakah (social justice),
teshuvah (return to God) etc. etc. are to Christians only a
devious trap that God, heaven forbid, has set for the nation
that He calls His peculiar treasure among the nations, to
cause them to stumble and lose their eternal soul! The Torah
means nothing in reality to Christians: it is completely
subject to any twisted explanation whenever the message of
the Gospel of Jesus seems to demand that.
However, the Christians confess that "Jesus is the
Messiah ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES"!! What other Scriptures
do they mean than the Hebrew Scriptures, the Torah, Nevi'im
(Prophets) and Kethuvim (Writings)? Well, I seemed to have
found the solution to this riddle. All I had to do was learn
those Scriptures, Tanach, FIRST and check the Christian
claim. Only, how to go about learning the "Old Testament"
without Christian commentaries which already presuppose
belief in Jesus as a key to understand the "Old Testament"?
I tried to understand the text "as is" and got a bit
underway. Not much, though, because Tanach isn't an easy
book.
One day I walked into the library of the university and
saw on a shelf a chumash (a Hebrew Torah edition) with
Rashi's commentary, the foremost of the Jewish Bible
scholars. I had vaguely heard of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben
Yitzchak) and imagined that his commentary must be full with
pharisaic hypocrisy, legalistic casuistics and other horrors
which I subconsciously had learned to associate with the
Jewish religion, under the influence of the New Testament.
How surprised I was when I took the book from the shelf and
started to read it (very slowly, for my understanding of
Hebrew was not very good at the time and the typical Rashi
script wasn't very helpful either!): for the first time I
read explanations of the "Old Testament" which were faithful
to the plain meaning of the text without trying to make the
text say things which are not there.
From that moment on things moved quicker than I could
believe: as a result of my study of Torah (without the
benefit of any guidance or teachers), I found out that I
much preferred to believe God than Jesus. Oh horror of
horrors! I found myself losing my Christian faith rapidly.
All the time a clear vision of God had been eclipsed by the
figure of Jesus, a man of flesh and blood. For the sake of
that man I had disregarded God's own clear message in His
own revelation to His people: the Torah which was given to
the Jewish people on Mount Sinai.
I looked around for teachers and guidance but could not
find any. The Jewish community where I lived was extremely
reluctant to get involved with this Mennonite preacher who
could not yet get himself to admit that he wasn't a
Christian anymore. I decided to break with it all. I
resigned as a preacher, left the Church that I belonged to,
gave up my theological study, sold my second-hand car and
bought an airplane ticket to Israel. I did not have anywhere
to go in Israel except for some old friends of my parents
who lived there. They took me into their home. They were
totally irreligious and were amused to meet this strange
young man who seemed on a spiritual quest for truth. What
did I do next? Oh yes, I went to pray at the Western Wall. I
had heard that God's presence never ceased to be manifest at
that place, according to ancient Jewish belief. So I went
there every day, feeling at home among the Jews praying
there, without having much of a clue as to what was going
on.
One Thursday, a man approached me: "Would you like to
spend a Shabbat with a religious family?" I jumped at the
opportunity and said: "Yes, please!" I waited until he had
written down my name and telephone number and had promised
to call me that evening to give me the details of the family
where he would put me up. Then I sprung my surprise on him:
"There is one thing you should know: I'm not Jewish." What
would the man do? Tell me that in that case all bets were
off?? Nothing of the kind! He didn't blink an eye and seemed
to ignore my remark. So, I stayed with this family over
Shabbat and enjoyed it thoroughly. The tranquillity of a
neighborhood permeated with an atmosphere of the sanctity of
Shabbat, the prayer in the shul where everybody seemed at
home: what a contrast with what I had seen in Christianity!
Here were people who managed to live a life that reflects
Torah in all its aspects! Here God mattered, not a man. Here
life mattered as much as the afterlife! I had tasted a life
that I wanted to share . I had not realized that my quest
for truth might lead to such a radical decision but when it
came that far, I was singlemindedly pursuing it.
The rest of my story is not terribly extraordinary. I was
lucky enough to find a yeshiva that was willing to take me
in, pending my full adoption into the community of Israel. A
few months later, after circumcision according to halacha
(Jewish law). I went into a mikveh as a Gentile without a
spiritual home and emerged as a Jew, co-heir to that
marvelous gift, the Torah.
How I learned in Yeshiva, how I found my wife (who
happens to be descended from a string of prominent rabbis),
how we have been blessed with three wonderful children, who
are privileged to have all those things that their father
had to look for and search out against the stream of his
environment, well, it is not different from stories that so
many born Jews who have rediscovered their own heritage can
tell. Today, Baruch HaShem, I am not different from the guy
next to me in shul. What can I say? God is good. His ways
are not like the ways of flesh and blood. He does marvelous
things. It is good to be under the wings of His presence,
the Shechinah.
"Nestor Komer" is a pseudonym, named after a ninth
century priest who converted to Judaism and defended Judaism
against his Christian ex-colleagues. The author of this
piece requested privacy because, as he put it so succinctly,
"I'm pretty much 'stam a Yid' [just a Jew]" and doesn't like
to make a big deal about his past. It must be stated that
though he modestly protests that he has far to go with his
learning, he has a worldwide reputation as a dedicated Jew
and a 'mensch'.
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