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© 2015 John D. Brey.

The term "Jew" doesn't speak simply (or even primarily) of an ethnicity or a tribe. It's a word that firstly signifies something outside of biology or ethnicity. To suggest that the concept of being a "Jew" belongs primarily to the natural born sons of Abraham misses what’s most characteristic of the Abrahamic covenant. To suggest that God has "chosen" a race of people based on natural-birth (phallic-posterity) would be to glorify that particular flesh in a manner that would make Judaism the last great pagan faith --- the last great phallic cult.

DB, Compuserve: The Religion Forum.

The Hebrews had for idols, not metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as worldly. Their religion is in essence inseparable from such idolatry, because of their notion of the "elect (chosen) people."

Simone Weil, quoted in Elliot R. Wolfson's, Giving Beyond the Gift.

The term "Jew" is not primarily a signifier of Abraham's physical posterity, but rather, those born to Abraham through the covenant of circumcision (which can be read to symbolize “opposition" [R. Hirsch] to phallic progeny). Nevertheless, and importantly, Israel is not replaced by the Church. Therefore, “Israel-after-the-flesh” is as legitimate today as it ever was.

It appears that something about the "flesh" is legitimate for Israel in a way it's not for the Church. Which is to say that for the Church, circumcision implies the virgin birth of a Messiah whose offspring will be born apart from copulation and phallic-sex. This suggests that they'll have to be reborn, born-again, since they are, every one of them, born initially through the flesh. But if the Messianic family represented by the Church is born through a non-copulative non-phallic form of spiritual-rebirth (a birth circumcised from phallic-sex), then that would seem to eliminate the need for the sign (circumcision) of the arrival of the Aeon (the “Church”) only symbolized in ritual-circumcision?

In orthodox Christian theology the Church never replaces or displaces Israel. The promises to Israel are intact even after Jesus' body is not. Israel is never displaced by the Church. The legitimacy of Israel as a nation and people of God is never denied, displaced, or replaced, by Christian orthodoxy.

This creates a giant paradox since it suggests that the physical progeny of Abraham do in fact attain some sort of "spiritual" legitimacy in their very flesh and blood that doesn't exist for any Christian. The Christian is born-again to receive salvation from the flesh ------ whereas it would appear that “Israel-after-the-flesh” doesn't need to be “born-again” since whatever it is they receive according to the covenant they receive in the "flesh."

Jesus was in the flesh of the Jewish people prior to the incarnation such that his existence in the flesh of the Jew was the glory of Jewish flesh. But since Israel-after-the-flesh has now delivered that precious payload, it seems like the fleshly part of the covenant has fulfilled its mission and could now be disbanded. But no. There’s no legitimate Christian teaching that disbands, or suggests that Israel's covenant to God is rescinded, or replaced, by the Church. Orthodoxy believes and teaches that Israel is distinct from the Church and legitimate as an entity outside the Church.

Jews often suggest that Christians should practice their own personal faith and leave Jews alone to practice theirs. But it seems there should be a universal God and thus a universal understanding of God that’s not subject to contradiction and or incompatible distinctions. ----- If Jesus is God, then Jew’s rejection of Jesus appears to be a rejection of God?

But there's the giant problem that in Christian orthodoxy, and most particularly Premillennial Dispensationalism, the risen Jesus will return to "Rapture" the Church at which time the promises to Israel concerning their elevation to the head of nations, from which they will rule the world, becomes a reality. In this Christian orthodoxy, the Church is something like a "heavenly Israel" whose kingdom is not directly of this world (the "Rapture" takes them out of this world). So they don't displace Israel and the "earthly" covenants to the fleshly Israel who will rule the fleshly world in the Kingdom age.

The problem is that if Israel exists as a viable spiritual entity after the "Rapture" of the Church, and they do, then they must exist as such now. Secondly, Premillennial Dispensationalism teaches that after the Rapture of the Church, the Body of Christ (made up of "Christians") is totally complete such that after the Rapture, believing that Jesus is the Messiah doesn't make anyone a Christian. They remain Jew or Gentile even if they accept that Jesus is the Messiah. No one is “born-again” after the Rapture or Resurrection of the Church.

The whole idea of being "born-again" is 100% Christian. Jews aren't "born-again" in a literal sense like Christians. Not now and not ever. (Although if a Jewish person is a member of the Body of Christ, and many are, then they must be born-again, at which time their revealed existence as members of the body of Christ transcends their Jewish identity . . . but only their personal identity, not the identity of Israel as a legitimate body).
 

This suggests that two Aeons are operating side-by-side (Israel and the Church) suggesting that neither of the two has a monopoly on monotheistic truth.

The kabbalah of the sages (to include Nachmanides) speaks of a "heavenly Israel" distinct from earthly Israel. It’s suggested that both of these Israel's are currently in exile and will simultaneously (or nearly so) be freed from their current bondage and will go into the Kingdom Age together (in some kabbalistic texts as "husband" and "wife" ---Tiferet and Malkuth).
 

In Jewish kabbalah, specifically that related to the Sefirotic Tree, Tiferet is the groom, and Malkuth the bride. The significance of this lies in the fact that Malkuth is the only Sefirot that doesn't have a link to more than one other Sefirot.

Ironically, Yesod, the ninth Sefirot, mediates between Malkuth and all the other Sefirot. If, in kabbalistic thought, Tiferet is the groom, and Malkuth the bride, then Yesod mediates between the union of Tiferet (groom) and Malkuth (bride).

But in kabbalistic thought, Yesod, is the "phallus" on the anthropomophic Sefirotic Tree. The only way Tiferet (the divine husband) and Malkuth (the earthly bride) can unite is through the phallus (Yesod). Ergo, the earthly husband and bride consummate their union through the phallus on their wedding night. ------ But circumcision was originally and seminally a wedding ritual. The husband is ritually-emasculated on the very night he would presumably need that organ to consummate the union with his bride.

In Judaism, circumcision is a "chok": a mysteriously irrational decree that will not be fully understood until the whole world (not just Jew and Christians) acknowledge that Messiah has arrived.

From a Christian perspective, Jesus is Yesod. He could have united the divine realm and the human realm through the "flesh" that was designed and created by the serpent in the Garden . . . or he could allow himself to be cut-off (remembering he's Yesod) in which case it would appear that the heavenly (divine) groom and the earthly bride are SOL . . . since the mediator of their union has been cut off.

But Paul spoke of a great Mystery incorporated into the idea that unknown to Lucifer, and all the divine realm, to include the human realm (all realms outside of the Godhead itself), God has preordained (but hidden from Creation) a means for the groom and the bride to unite apart from the phallus. Since Jesus represents God's phallus (Yesod) . . . i.e. the means through which He (God) unites directly with Israel (as her groom), Lucifer could assume that by cutting off Jesus -- Yesod (Messiah) -- God would forfeit His ability to consummate a union with Israel, in which case Lucifer would not have to fear the birth of a newfangled "creature" (2 Cor. 5:17) conceived through a direct union of God and Israel.

Part and parcel of the mystery was that the cutting off of the phallus (ritualized in Jewish circumcision) would in itself, the cutting off, actualize the new means of creating a union absent the phallus. . . That's what Paul was so excited about that he couldn't contain himself. He realized that when Satan signed off on Jesus' death, he inadvertently activated a Mystery unforeseen in the Tanakh, but engraved there beneath the veil of the visible narrative. Prior to Jesus' death circumcision had no perfect one-to-one relationship to any spiritual actuality. And it would have remained that way for all eternity . . . i.e., a sign with no actual significance beyond the mitzvah where it's enacted. Which is how it's talked about in the Tanakh and how it's practiced by Israel (as an everlasting chok [decree]).

But when Satan saw to Jesus' death, he "unveiled" and activated a Mystery whose existence transcends this current world order . . . since the key to the Mystery was not contained in the sign[s] of the Mystery.  

Brit milah existed --- prior to the death of Jesus of Nazareth --- as an everlasting chok . . . a sign with no direct symbolic significance outside the mitzvah through which it's performed. The "significance" of the “sign” of circumcision was dependent on whether or not Satan would cut off Yesod. The answer to that question was not written into the Creation. It was the one event that God Himself didn’t foreordain as a certainty. God literally held His breath until Satan crucified Jesus of Nazareth, at which time He exhaled the World to Come.

This suggests three distinct Aeons revolve around the cross of Christ. Prior to the cross Israel practiced circumcision as an everlasting chok (an irrational decree). Their obedience to the ritual was absolutely the full import of the ritual. It had no significance outside of the fact that Israel obediently practiced the ritual. Israel's willingness to practice a ritual with absolutely no symbolic import exemplifies a transcended faith that typifies the greatness of Israel.

And God needed Israel to have that sort of transcendent faith for His plan to succeed. For if God "veiled" something unknown to Creation without a "sign" signifying that it was indeed a possibility within the mind of God, a possibility engraved in the very act of Creation, then God would not be capable of employing the hidden thing since without proof that it was indeed a foreknown possibility from the start (Deut. 32; Isa. 48), it could appear that having lost out to Satan, God pulled a fast one and changed the rules in order to defeat Satan after Satan had in fact defeated him.

By practicing a ritual without a reality, by engraving a "sign" without any significance whatsoever, into their flesh, Israel signified that they have a relationship with God that transcends the knowable world.

When Satan saw to the death of Jesus on the cross he unveiled the significance of the sign of circumcision; a significance that didn't exist prior to the death of Christ on the cross (See Isa. 48 as the portal to the Suffering-Servant in Deutero-Isaiah). This is to say that God allowed Satan to condemn himself (so that he's not “preordained” to condemnation by God) by allowing for the potential that circumcision would remain for all time a sign without a significance, a chok for ever and ever.
 

Circumcision had to truly exist (at one time) as an everlasting chok (a sign with no significance) in order that God not preordain the fall of Satan and thus confirm a damning hyper-Calvinism suggesting that not only are the Elect preordained to everlasting life, but the non-elect are predetermined to go into eternal damnation. God does preordain the Elect to everlasting life. But He doesn't preordain Satan, or anyone else, to everlasting damnation. The Elect are elected to live with God forever. But the damned are not elected to damnation. They damn themselves. And for them to have the ability to damn themselves, freely, without God's foreordination, their damnation can’t be recorded in the fabric of reality, or the narrative of the Tanakh, but nevertheless must be registered in both places as a potentiality that's dependent not on God's foreknowledge or sovereignty, but creature volition.

Brit milah is so central to all genuine faith since it’s the most remarkable sign that will ever exist. At one time it existed as an everlasting chok and was genuinely and positively that (a sign with no real significance) while also containing within all of its visual and ritual elements the ability to unveil the great crime that is the damned creature's willingness to participate in an act in which he thinks it’s impossible to receive condemnation. And without circumcision it would be impossible for God to condemn the damned.

 The damned man would kill God if he thought he could get by with it. All God has to do to reveal the damned is make it appear as though they can get by with it.

Circumcision reveals that Jesus is not God in the flesh. He's God in the death of incarnate flesh. The cross represents the epitome of Jewish monotheism. If God came in the flesh, He could not be God. So He comes in the flesh, is not God, dies, is lifted up on the spit, and retroactively, through the cross, shows that even though he wasn't God in the flesh, He was God in the flesh ---- retroactively --- after the flesh is destroyed. His willingness and ability to give his life freely (rather than having it taken from him) retroactively deifies his flesh in a manner that skirts the prohibition of incarnation. He becomes God simultaneous to his doing what no other creature can do freely: die די.

The same idea is expressed in brit milah. The Jewish sages concede that it smacks of emasculation. But then they say it’s not the death of the organ of life (pro-creation) but merely the emblem of it being put in its rightful place. But in truth, the sign of circumcision is parallel to the sign of the cross. Jesus isn't really destroyed on the cross, though he is ----- the cross is the emblem of "completion" תמים (perfection) through utter "cessation" שבת. Circumcision is opposition to the phallus entering flesh, even as the cross is opposition to God entering flesh.

Circumcision is utter opposition to the phallus, but not really . . . even as the cross is utter opposition to the concept of a God/man, but not really. In both symbols, the organ being destroyed is being made "perfect" תמים through death and destruction. After the phallus is bled properly (ritually destroyed) it's fit for use. After the God/man is bled properly (to keep Jewish monotheism intact) He's fit for worship. The cross is the proper emblem of a legitimate idolatry, even as the bled phallus is the proper flesh through which spiritual life (as opposed to spiritual death) can come (so to say).

As stated in many kabbalistic texts, Tiferet is the divine groom, and Malkuth is the earthly bride. But Yesod, which represents the "phallus" is the Sefiroth mediating between Tiferet and Malkuth. Circumcision cuts Yesod, suggesting that in Jewish symbolism, Tiferet and Malkuth unite in either a non-phallic manner, or else in a manner that destroys the phallus (bris milah) prior to it being sanctified through death and resurrection, making it thereafter fit for a sanctified purpose which births spiritual offspring no longer subject to death (mot).

Jesus didn't appear to fulfill his mission of uniting God and mankind prior to his death and destruction. But after his death he has birthed more offspring than any phallus not having been subjected to such an uncomely ordeal.

If Jesus is Abraham's great son, the first purely spiritual (versus natural/biological) son of the Abrahamic covenant, then it's meaningful to point out that Jesus, who was unmanned on the cross, having never procreated with the organ cut-off on the cross, has birthed more sons for the Abrahamic covenant than Isaac, who merely scathed the organ that was removed from Jesus; and this though Isaac got better than a 1000 year head start on Jesus. And Jesus has performed this Solomonesque act of miraculous virility after the complete cessation שבת and destruction תמים of the organ Solomon, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all needed even to mount a weak attempt at keeping up with Jesus' downright ornery --- though castrated ----reproductive prowess.

Jewish monotheism teaches of One God, who is not flesh and blood, or any other thing, but rather a God who transcends finite or temporal things (things like a human body). Therefore, since the cross represents the destruction of a man claiming to be a God/man (a temporal thing that is also God) it keeps Jewish monotheism intact (by destroying the so-called God/man).

But that's where it gets bizarre. And this bizarreness is what keeps Judaism intact even though Jesus' death retroactively makes him the God/man (his death keeps aniconic monotheism intact . . . while his resurrection retroactively makes the dead Jesus of Nazareth God, now, but not then . . . but therefore then too).
 

Jews are not wrong for rejecting Jesus as the God/man (since to accept him as God prior to his death would be the death of Jewish monotheism). And since Jesus hasn't presented himself to the world in his resurrected form, Jews are not wrong for rejecting the Gospel to this very day. Judaism is protected from any legitimate persecution from Christians whatsoever by the fact that Jews are to this very day merely remaining true to the utterly sound principle of Jewish monotheism.

This is to say that it's both true that Jesus is God, and not true that Jesus is God. Jews are completely correct and true to say he is not God, and to reject his deity, even as Christians are completely correct to say he is God, and to accept his deity. . . . There are two seemingly antithetical "Aeons" running side-by-side through the dispensation currently underway.

Rashi: "[HASHEM] APPEARED TO HIM . . . It was the third day since his circumcision² . . .."

2.The general practice is not to visit the sick until the third day of their illness (Nachalas Yaakov; see alos Rambam, Hilchos Avel 14:5, and Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 335:1).

3. Bava Metzia 86b. We would have expected the Torah to use . . . "and Hashem appeared to Abraham," at the beginning of a passage. This verse instead refers to Abraham by a pronoun to direct our attention to the preceding passage which refers to him by name and speaks of his circumcision, and thereby indicates that God's appearing to him was related to the circumcision (Mishmeres HaKodesh).

Rashi justifies the concept that Jesus was not seen as God until the third day after the crucifixion when he is said to have risen anew from the cessation caused by the scathing. Abraham saw God three days after circumcision even as Jesus' followers saw Jesus as God, for the first time, three days after he was ritually bled on the cross (literally emasculated).

The notes to Rashi's explanation that Hashem appeared the third day after the circumcision explain why the women didn't come to Jesus' tomb until the third day after his macrocosmic circumcision. And it's too fitting that God appears to Abraham three days after he causes his creative organ to cease שבת (see Nachmanides, Lech Lecha, Genesis 17:9) such that it's now fit to birth Isaac (the new creation), even as Jesus, on the third day, is now fit to start birthing the purely spiritual offspring of the Abrahamic Covenant (the “Church”) .

In this light it could be said that Christianity is Judaism's recognition that no mediator could possibly or reliably give us a criteria for measuring, circumscribing, or knowing God, without the mediator having some sort of direct and annihilating contact with God himself. Whether Jews accept it or not, God is going to have to get down and dirty and even bloody, if he really want's to have an intimate relationship with his creatures.

Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift, argues that despite Judaism desire and attempt to place God out of reach of the finite realm, it's utterly impossible to do that without crucifying the very possibility that God even exists. You can't have a God who gains his Godliness from being completely beyond the grasp of those who might make him grasp a nail ---- since then he's no God but the utter delimiting of any form of mediate divinity.

Taken in this vein, Jewish monotheism is the complete deconstruction of God in order to construct a perfectly deconstructed God. In which case, ironically, or paradoxically, the Cross seems like the perfect emblem of this deconstructed God? . . . Which is precisely the point of saying that the Cross is the most intimate portrait of Jewish monotheism (a picture of God created from his physical corpse: the ultimate monotheistic deconstructive maneuver). The Cross is the only place left that those who reject en-fleshed deity can direct their attention to "see" the monotheistic God in the cessation which, because it's the cessation of the falsehood (en-fleshed deity) allows the human imagination to imagine God in one fleeting image -----the glory of which---- is that it’s an image of the destruction of images: the only legitimate idol: the idol-image of the destruction of idol images --- the Cross.