What would he really do?

Christians ask this question all the time - What Would Jesus Do? But I don't think it means what people think it means. Or rather, they say it/ask it, meaning one thing, but they're taking the person out of context. They want to say he would turn the other cheek or wash someone's feet, or something like that. What they really mean is, what would I do if I were Jesus?

Because if they really thought about who Jesus was, they'd have to start with the first order of business, which is that he was a Jewish person. That being the case, any answer to that question would need to be a Jewish answer. As in, he would be doing the Jewish thing of that time, whatever that was, plus that he was being himself. He was both for the community, and for promoting himself and his own beliefs. He was, perhaps, the first Marketing professional of the Common Era, and he had a cohort of followers to further his interests, or so it would seem, if they weren't furthering their own. It was all politics, really.

But basically, Jesus was a Jewish guy, talking to Jewish people. So what would he have done? Rested on the Sabbath, studied Torah, and celebrated Passover. All of these things that Jesus did do.

It's just been brought to my attention that Jesus in fact wore Tzitzit. Amy Jill Levine points out in "the Misunderstood Jew," that this is alluded to in the Gospels. But since Christians hardly know what tzitzit are, nevermind what they are for or why they would be significant, nobody really cares. The "fringe of his garment" I always took to mean just basically the edge of it. And nobody is going to explain this to you, because, to them, it's not important. Any allusion to actually following Jewish practice would be taken as some kind of aberrant blasphemy. So it's silenced and suppressed.

AJL is correct, the Jewishness of Jesus is a scandal, as far as the Church is concerned. Because if Christians knew how Jewish Jesus was, and how Jewish were his teachings, they wouldn't be Christian.