The Kingdom of Heaven Through the Ages
by
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New Jewish kings arose who walked less and less with God. They became despots and in their ambition expanded Judah at the expense of their neighbors. The lesson the kings had learned from the Maccabean victory was that if a battle was successful, it was justified. Judah eventually became as large as the first Judah, the Kingdom of David.
It was at this time that three
new religious/political parties formed to succeed the Chasids, previously the
only religious/political party. They were called, Sadducees, Pharisees and
Essenes each having a different philosophy. Although all three parties were
against the new imperialism, they could not agree on what to do about it. They watched in silence as the new Judah
expanded its borders with the support of the am ha-arres, the people of the
land, and became powerful among its neighbors. The decline in piety that came about with this new secularism alarmed
Jews of all parties as they saw the vision of Malchut Shamayim, the Kingdom of
Heaven, diminish more and more.
Perhaps they thought of the Chasids of generations earlier and how under the threat of secularism in their time, they had drawn closer and closer to God. For the Chasids, Judaism and loyalty to God were one and the same. One would have expected the godly Jews to be sympathetic to any return to God movement and apparently they were. But when such a movement arose and didn't fit their own vision of how the am ha-arres should return to the fold, they did little to support it. Each of the parties assumed the mantle of spokesperson for God’s will and for God’s righteousness, but in keeping with their separate sectarian interests.
The Sadducees, powerful party of
the aristocrats and members of the priestly class, believed that God's will was
for the am ha-arres to do t’shuva through the practice of ritual as
prescribed in Torah and naturally
presided over by their own priestly members.
The Pharisees also wanted the am
ha-arres to do t’shuva,
but they separated themselves from them, since most of them were non-unobservant.
Like the Sadducees, the Pharisees also believed God's will was revealed through
Torah,
but through a Torah that needed interpretation. Ruach ha-Kodesh, the Holy Spirit of God, would dwell in those who followed their interpretations and kept God's laws. Among the Pharisees were some who believed that the observance of Mitzvoth, the commandments, of Torah was more important than the morality, justice and mercy described in it. Losing sight of the essence of Torah, this group of Pharisees became legalistic.
The Essenes, called the Holy Ones and the Sons of Aaron and of Zadok,
also wanted the am ha-arres
to do t’shuva, to return to God. They believed that their own especially
meticulous observance of Jewish ritual and law, for them, the essence of Judaism,
would bring them back. They withdrew into the desert, away from the other
groups, away from the am ha-arres, away from the temple priests and away
from a Jewish royalty that had turned from God. There, in piety and repentance,
they observed and adhered strictly to ritual and law, which they believed would
hasten the coming of several (!) messiahs.
Half a century before the Messiah was associated with Jesus of Nazareth,
the Essenes looked to the coming of the Messiah of Israel, a military leader,
the Messiah of Aaron, greater in importance than the military leader and most
importantly, The Prophet, the chosen one of God, also knows as God’s Elect.
Like the Chasids, the Essenes also believed that there would be a war
between the Forces of Good and the Forces of Evil. In a Final Battle, the military leader, the Messiah of Israel,
would rise up, the dead would be resurrected and God would judge the world. The
wicked would be punished, the just rewarded with eternal life and Malchut
Shamayim, the hope of the Chasids that never died, would come about. They believed, as did the Chasids, that the
coming of the Kingdom would be hastened by their joining with the Forces of
Good.
Today, when the ram’s horn is sounded at the Jewish New Year, it is said
that each Jew hears it differently. So, too, was the cry, “Malchut Shamayim!”
heard differently then, by many Jews. For the Essenes, it was the clarion call
for the Final Battle. The coming of the messiah would usher in the Kingdom of
Heaven, its arrival hastened by their adherence to their special way of life.
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About the Book
Contrary to popular belief the Kingdom of Heaven,
known today as the messianic era, is neither a Jewish nor Christian concept,
but is the belief inherited from Zoroastrianism, the legacy of the Persian
religion that prevailed during Persia’s 200 year occupation of “the Land of the Jews” beginning in 540 BCE.
The book describes a period
of about three hundred years, from 160 BCE, to 130 CE, from the time the
Kingdom of Heaven was thought to be an actual Kingdom in which God would reign,
to the time Christianity separated from Judaism, both religions sharing the
same understanding of the Kingdom, if not the manner by which it will come
about.
In the book we
meet the Chasids, Galilean Jews who inadvertently set the basis for Western
justice while attempting to bring about the Kingdom by force. We then meet the
Essenes, Jewish priests of the desert who took the Kingdom to be a messianic
era brought about by a heavenly Messiah reserved for the just and righteous.
Over the years,
the Kingdom of Heaven has had different meanings for different people at
different times. In the section, Seeds of
Pre-Christianity there is a chapter on Jesus’ proclaiming the Kingdom as
actually unfolding in his time. It contains an in-depth discussion of the
messages contained in Jesus’ parables referring to the Kingdom. After Jesus
died a polarization
took place. The Kingdom came to focus
on either the violent End Times, a doctrine emphasizing the Day of Judgment,
the repercussions of which reverberate in many parts of the Judeo-Christian
world today, or on the peaceful coming of a time of peace, joy and abundance
for all humankind.
In tracing these changing concepts, we watch Jewish
Christianity’s rise and fall including the great Pharisee mission to the
gentiles of the first century BCE, intended to make Judaism a world religion.
New light is also shed on Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, on the Sanhedrin’s
relation to the Roman authorities and on the Orphic religion of Tarsus, home to
both Paul and the Stoics and its similarity to the Christology of the Christian
Church of the first century CE.
Continuing to
follow the course of the Kingdom during the time of early Christianity we see
that it becomes subordinate to the deification of Jesus, beginning with the
Gospels and culminating in the Christian belief that the Lord Jesus will
establish the Kingdom for all time at his second coming.
About the Author
Dr. Rettek has been writing fictionalized accounts
of his experiences, seemingly forever. Like Marco Polo with whom he likes to
identify, he always wanted to share the wonder and excitement he experienced in
finding himself involved in fulfilling and often bittersweet, adventures. This
time he has taken us on an unusual journey across the centuries following the
vicissitudes of The Kingdom Of Heaven throughout the ages.
It is not unusual for his interests to evolve into
literary pieces. He wrote a series of articles, for Private Practice, a
magazine for physicians, including, How I found An Old Cure For New
Problems. His interest in photography evolved into a three-act play, Valentine,
a supposal about Eugene Atget who was among the world’s greatest photographers.
Stemming from his longstanding involvement with painting, he wrote the
screenplay, Molly and the Wine Dark Sea, portraying the conflict between
the purism of art and the demands of practical reality.
He has written two fictionalized biographical
accounts, Myron’s World, a collection of short stories about a
twelve-year-old boy growing up on the Lower East Side of New York during the
Great Depression and The Calling, a book dealing with the tribulations
of a medical student wrestling with both life and the challenges of studying
medicine in a foreign land. Bring God into Your Life and Unexpected
Turnings, a group of short stories, are his most recent works.
Almost forty years of involvement with people at
their most open and vulnerable moments as a family practitioner, psychiatrist
and psychoanalyst has given him the experience that enables him to write about
people with a considerable degree of authenticity in addition to the analytical
skills he has effectively put to use in this book.
Trained by the US Air Force as a specialist in
Aerospace Medicine, Dr. Rettek’s trouble shooting assignments included bases in
the United States and Europe. When he separated from military service as
Colonel, he was in command of a Medical Service Squadron and the oldest
crewmember on flying status with prior World War II service.
He and his wife, Susan, a jewelry designer, live in
New York by the sea where they enjoy their children and grandchildren and live
each day in joyous celebration of God’s many gifts.