Reading: Matthew 15:10-12
" Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." Then the disciples approached and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said? "
There was a small Ukrainian village in the Great Russian Empire, somewhere in an occupied area when the whole country of Poland was divided among Germany, the Habsburg Empire and the Russian Czar. After the war of 1795 a great cholera epidemics hit the territory of the River Don, and many people passed away in the small town. Elderly, kids, adults, mixed age and genders. Half of the town was Polish, the other half was Ukrainian. The Poles were Roman Catholics, hard working, decent people, the Ukrainian were Greek Catholics, hard working, decent people. Only one stranger was among them, namely the shopkeeper was Jewish. The Jew was a hard working, decent person, had settled in the town twenty years ago to open a grocery store and have some farming as well.
He was a merciful shopkeeper, most of the people bought everything on credit, they paid whenever they were able to pay something. Most of the time the shopkeeper helped the needy and the penniless to stay alive whenever hunger spread like wildfire.
However the cholera brought bitterness, pain and multiplied death into the village, and the uneducated people started to wonder that how could have happened that from every single family somebody died from the cholera, but nobody died in the family of the Jewish shopkeeper.
The many occasions during the frequent epidemics of the ancient and medieval ages when the Jews fared way better than the general population, except in the overcrowded settings, they were accused of causing the sickness. The town people did not know that way before any knowledge of bacteria, viruses and germs, the Jewish Law ordered the Jews to wash their hands always before eating and after eating, and wash the pots and the utensils before eating, after eating, and wash their clothing frequently. Also at least once a week they had to wash their whole body thoroughly and also to submerge into a pool as an extra.
In an age, not knowing much of the importance of personal and communal hygiene, the ruling was an extraordinary way to make hygiene important on a religious level as well, which became also a part of the Jewish civil law.
Some of the pious in the town said, maybe the Jews fared better during the epidemics because the Jews prayed more. Some of the vicious said, it was so, because the Jews caused the sickness in the town, by cursing the wells all around.
Some said that it would be illogical that the shopkeeper would have attacked his own customers, but the wicked said, it could have happened, because it was very possible that the shopkeeper wanted to take over their farms.
Thus one night a fearsome mob gathered in front of the store and they burnt it down together with the shopkeeper and his family of eight. However the decease did not stop and everybody died in that town, except of some older children, who were chased away from the other towns nearby, and starved to bones in the next months.
Jesus was many times accused by the scribes with this and that, occasionally also with breaking the Jewish Law, like breaking the Shabbat rules, breaking some traditions, and in this story particularly he was accused of not washing his hands according to the rules of the tradition of the elders and of making his disciples do the same.
As it is written at the beginning of chapter 15 in the Gospel of Matthew:
Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “ Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat ! ”
One thing should be made clear, that sometimes in the Gospels, it looks like that Jesus did not care much about the rules, he just acts quite randomly as he wishes. Actually it is very far from the facts because it must be obvious that although Jesus elevated the rules to the prophetic level, which means that the extraordinary might be also exceptional, still, just like his master, John the Baptist, he and his disciples strictly clung to the Holy Scriptures and the divinely ordered rules in it.
As He said it in the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter five that regarding the Law of Moses the disciples must take heed that: “ For most certainly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not even one smallest letter or one tiny pen stroke shall in any way pass away from the law, until all things are accomplished.”
Actually the two centuries before the birth of Jesus and the first two centuries after it built up a breaking process. At that time there were three major different Jewish religious schools or teaching in Judea. With major differences. The identifiable groups, according to the historian Josephus Flavius, were the Sadducees, the Gospel-famous Pharisees, and the Essenes.
The Sadducees were the priesthood around the Temple. They did believe that only the five books of Moses aka the Torah is binding, everything else is just a nice reading. Also they did not believe the existence of the Afterlife.
The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead, they believed in the Afterlife, believed in Heaven and the existence of the Angels. Around the Pharisee sages a package of teachings began to form what they called the oral version of the Mosaic books. Regarding that they taught that God gave Moses the written Torah on the Mount Sinai, but God also explained him what the written text meant, and Moses taught the forefathers not only the written books, but also the oral tradition. This tradition was taught from father to son, from grandfather to grandchild, from forefather to descendant. It is obvious the the oral tradition grew hugely in volume with time, and it became a huge web of stories, wisdom literature, rules and regulations. Eventually it evolved into the Babilonian Talmud in the 6th century, CE.
This oral tradition is the phenomenon about what Jesus said that “You have heard that it was said to the people”, however I tell You something else.
In the accusation the Pharisees used exactly the term of the “tradition of the elders (the forefathers)” which meant that they claimed that the oral tradition is as binding as the written Scriptures. The Sadducees were opposed to this view of the Pharisees, and the Jesus circle also maintained that only the written Scriptures are binding, and the oral tradition is not.
That is why he answered them that “ Why do you also disobey the commandment of God because of your tradition?”
It did not mean that washing the hands before eating is wrong as a hygienic method, but it meant that if they create thousands of more extra regulations, the procedure will not help them when they, in the same time, break the Ten Commandments, and sin against mercy, compassion, love and justice, required by God and conveyed by many Prophets as the very essential in order to enter Heaven.
Thus the Nazarene Essenes, included Jesus, opposed the Afterlife-denying-Sadducee- Priesthood, but also opposed the Sciptures-only-principle denying Pharisees. It meant that the three major religious denomination of that time they all opposed each other views.
Following the major cracking line and having a literal point Jesus rejected the accusation of the Pharisees. And Jesus was right in that regarding that the extrapolated and multiplied regulations can not be found word by word in the Books of Moses. Thus the Pharisees extended the written text with the oral tradition on a level of systematic assumptions.
Jesus again acted here on a prophetical level, saying that not washing your hands will not defile anybody. Being defiled means ritually unclean. His point is not a medical one, because the arguments were not about health and public safety, but ritual or spiritual cleanliness.
That is why “He summoned the multitude, and said to them, “Hear, and understand. That which enters into the mouth doesn’t defile the man; but that which proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.”
This point had to be explained even to his own disciples, because occasionally even they had a hard time to understand the depth of his sayings.
As it is written: “Then the disciples came, and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”
He had to almost rebuke his own disciples so Jesus said, “Do you also still not understand? Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the belly and then out of the body? But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands doesn’t defile the man.”
Ironically, we can state that washing the hands are very important and the Pharisees had a valid point too. However having a valid point is not enough when one misses the essence.
Nonetheless, from the part of Jesus, it was a prophetical action through an extreme method to share the message of God. The major rule explains it: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
So if we discipline our thoughts and our hearts and our deeds according to the written word of God, then as an extra, we are allowed to wash our hands. However, in the spiritual world, keeping only the hand-washing rules as abiding the tradition, will not help us, if in the same time, we break the Ten Commandments. Thus we should not confuse the important with the additional rules, we must focus on the Heavenly Kingdom. We can abide thousands of pages of habitual rules as an inherited cultural code from our forefathers and foremothers, detailed in small print level, if we continue to sin against love and compassion, mercy and equity.
The casuistry will not help us to enter Heaven if we helplessly lose our focus. Thus we have to pay attention to weed the wrong thoughts and the bad desires out from our hearts, in order to worship God by not breaking but by keeping the Ten Commandments. May we bless God, from the center of our hearts, with our thoughts, words and deeds, always.
AMEN
