A Convert's Struggle with Isaiah 53
A CONVERT'S STRUGGLE WITH ISAIAH 53
Yoana Yehudah
For
several weeks during the winter of 2007 I pored over Isaiah chapter 53, making
a concerted effort to finally come to grips with this chapter, which, more than
any other in the Tanach, is used, or shall I say abused, by Christians to
justify their belief that their messiah is in fact the long-awaited one who had
supposedly come as the “suffering servant”, died and was resurrected as the
“savior” of the world. It is therefore a
chapter that I had been careful to avoid reading
since becoming Jewish, because it was simply too painful to once again be
confronted with the brainwashing I had endured during my 55 years as a
Christian.
The
Christian claim seems so feasible and yet I knew it was, like most everything
else they teach, based on gross error. But actually tackling this issue, having
to battle against the misinformation, the years of indoctrination yet once
again in order to come to a clear understanding of this issue, just did not
seem very inviting. And so I shelved it - Isaiah 53. Until the winter of 2007.
I
instinctively knew Isaiah 53 had come back to haunt me, and something was
prodding me to come to grips with it. I took the Tanach (Hebrew Scriptures) in both my hands and
with a simple “HaShem, please help me understand chapter 53”, I proceeded to
carefully read through this passage – but alas, once more I felt totally befuddled and desperate by the time I had finished
reading it. Then I “heard” a little voice in my head, or maybe in my kishkes,
saying: “How do you expect to understand this passage if what you are doing is
reading it in isolation. You’re a Jew now. Read it as a Jew. In context!”
What
a revelation! I should have known from experience one can concoct any theory in
support of one’s theological beliefs by quoting from the Tanach single verses,
and in this case a whole chapter, in isolation and out of context– contrary
to the Hebrew Scriptures which had been written with no artificial, arbitrary
divisions into chapters or even sentences!
And
so that’s what I did during the weeks that followed – I went back as far as “chapter”
40 and read all these passages up till chapter 54 over and over again until I
felt there was a sudden change in sight – as if I had been driving in thick fog
for the longest time before it started lifting and I could see the lines on the
road and recognize some landmarks. A
quiet peace settled inside of me. …. Baruch HaShem, I was heading in the right
direction!
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