SQUEEZING

 The Jewish fellow had a burning question for which he needed to know the answer: "Can I go swimming on the Sabbath?" He was so obsessed with knowing the answer that he wrote to an authoritative Jewish website to learn the answer. The answer was amazing. Read on.

According to the Mishnah, (the authoritative collection of material embodying the oral tradition of Jewish law) the obedient Jew cannot go swimming on the Sabbath and it defines swimming as "lifting both feet from the ground and floating on or treading water." 

The Talmud (the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law) says that the reason for that decree is because swimming could lead to building some sort of flotation device to help someone learn to swim which is forbidden on the Sabbath. 

But wait--the prohibition not only applies to swimming in a body of water similar to a lake or pond, it also includes a man-made pool of water, if, when a person swims in it, he's likely to cause some water to overflow the pool, which will then run into rivulets and pools, resembling a pond or lake. There have been many an argument over what constitutes a "rimmed" pool which would, therefore, keep water from overflowing. An unrimmed pool would not be able to do so.

In addition, there are other considerations: Since swimming implies the wearing of a swim suit, this apparel might lead to violating the prohibition  of squeezing  out water from it. But that's not the only thing to be concerned about--if it's extremely hot, a person would be allowed to immerse himself in a rimless pool (it must contain cool water) without swimming if there's no squeezing of the swim suit afterwards. 

But what if, for medical reasons, the questioner has to swim on the Sabbath? The answer was in three parts: "Consult your rabbi and if he approves, use a private pool and take the necessary precautions so prevent  squeezing." 

During Christ's earthly ministry, He confronted the same thing (Matthew tells us in 15:1-20).
The angry religious leaders said that Jesus and his disciples had violated the “traditions of the elders” as if those traditions were authoritative and could be sinned against. These traditions were still in oral form in Jesus’ day, but were written down a two centuries later in what. became the Mishnah.

 What was going on in Jesus' day and what's still going on today is that the traditions of men had been and continue to be elevated to the status of Scripture, so that a person could be guilty of violating them. Many groups today have their “biblical” views, and to violate them means facing anger, criticism or expulsion from the group. 

What we often don't see is that, Jesus, knowing of these traditions of the elders deliberately broke them and allowed or instructed His students to do so. This infuriated the religious leaders. 

Sound familiar?

It's a very serious matter to replace the true meaning of the Word of God with traditions. Traditions can be helpful, but they can crowd out the basic biblical standards. We don't have to look far to see that the attitude of these teachers appear in our churches. 

So many traditions have grown up over the centuries that many of them are regarded as sacred. They remain untouchable, unquestioned. We can become more concerned that people might violate our man-made rules for the running of the church, the institutions of baptism and communion, or the set of rules that our particular group follows in the name of being spiritual, than we are about righteousness. We can spend far more time getting physically ready for church than we do preparing the heart. If we aren't careful, these traditions quickly achieve biblical status, and we might even forget what the Word of God actually says about some of those things we do. 

Dr. Allen Ross writes a note of caution: "Before we come down too hard on the Pharisees for focusing on externals and outer show, we need only to remind ourselves that week in and week out we spend far more time getting the outer body ready for church than we do the heart."

That Jewish questioner, what about him? He's trying to bear an unbearable yoke (cf. Acts 15), now learning that he must not only be concerned with swimming of the Sabbath, but also with man-made pools, rimmed or unrimmed, sloshing water, not squeezing water out of a swim suit, what his rabbi decides, and potential medical reasons for swimming.

Yet, Christ's invitation echoes through the ages, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest."