Christianity In Jewish Terms

PREFACE

Over the past few decades there has been a dramatic and unprecedented shift in Jewish and Christian relations. Throughout the nearly two millennia of Jewish exile, Christian theologians and clerics have tended to characterize Judaism as a failed religion or, at best, a religion that prepared the way for Christianity and that is completed in and replaced by Christianity. In the four decades since the Holocaust, however, Christianity has changed dramatically. Both individual theologians and, then, an increasing number of official church bodies, both Catholic and Protestant, have made public statements of their remorse about Christian mistreatment of Jews and Judaism over the last two millennia. These statements have declared, furthermore, that Christian theologies, liturgies, and Bible teachings can and must be reformed so that they acknowledge God’s enduring covenant with the Jewish people and celebrate the contribution of Judaism to world civilization and to Christian faith itself.

Most Jews have experienced the profound social consequences of this change in Christian beliefs, but few Jews are aware of the religious sources of the change, and even fewer seek to assess its impact on Jewish life today and in the future. The Jewish authors and editors of this book believe it is high time to acknowledge these recent changes in Christianity and to examine their implications for Jewish life in the Western world. In this volume, we begin the process of examination by taking a careful second look at Christian religious belief—as it has been since the early centuries of the Christian era and as it has become in the last few decades.

We believe that living as a minority in a still largely Christian America—and Christian West—Jews need to learn the languages and beliefs of their neighbors. They need to understand the meaning of what their Christian neighbors are saying: about what modern society should become, and about the place of the Jewish people itself in that society. Jews need to learn ways of judging what forms of Christianity are friendly to them and what forms are not, and what forms of Christian belief merit their public support, and what forms do not. They need, as well, to acknowledge the efforts of those Christians who have sacrificed aspects of their work and of their lives to combat Christian anti-Judaism and to promote forms of Christian practice that are friendly to Jewish life and belief. Jews need to know enough about Christian belief to be able to explain their own Jewish goals and ideals for society in terms their Christian neighbors will understand.

For the past hundreds of years, when Jews have been taught about Christian belief, it has been primarily in non-Jewish terms. During the years of their residence in Christian Europe, Jews learned about Christianity only through the untranslated terms of a Christianity that separated itself from its Jewish roots. Then, during the years that followed Emancipation, Jews learned about Christianity through the equally non-Jewish terms of secular European thought. This was often the most difficult kind of learning, since secular European thought often treated Christianity as a universal religion, as opposed to the particularity or “tribalism” of Judaism. We believe it is time for Jews to learn about Christianity in Jewish terms: to rediscover the basic categories of rabbinic Judaism and to hear what the basic categories of Christian belief sound like when they are taught in terms of this rabbinic Judaism. To hear Christianity in our terms is truly to understand it, perhaps for the first time.

If Christianity is changing in these years after the Holocaust, Judaism is changing as well. During the past two hundred years, Judaism has suffered from an increasing inner division that has separated the realms of science and reason on the one hand from those of faith and tradition on the other. It is as if the Jewish religion itself spoke of an unbridgeable gulf between the human and the divine. The editors of this volume, however, are animated by a different vision. The Judaism of the Bible, Talmud, and other classical Jewish sources has always emphasized the partnership of humanity and God. In this volume, the editors have therefore gathered together essays that help rediscover the power of the classical sources of Judaism to heal the divisions from which we suffer today: between human reason and Jewish faith, as well as between Judaism and Christianity.

The central ten chapters of this volume address our two main concerns: how to renew our understanding of Judaism today from out of the sacred texts and, then, how to understand Christianity in terms of this Judaism. Each chapter, consisting of three essays, treats a key theological concept in Judaism and Christianity. In the first essay, a Jewish scholar teaches about a particular area of Jewish theological tradition and then offers ways for Jews to understand a corresponding set of Christian beliefs. In the second essay, another Jewish thinker describes from his or her own perspective another way to understand both the Jewish and the Christian beliefs. In the third essay, a Christian scholar responds to the first essay and answers the questions: “Do I recognize my Christianity in what has been written? What is the significance of Judaism for my understanding of Christianity?”

This is a bold undertaking: to be open to thinking seriously about Christianity, let alone about God and religion in a new way! How do we avoid the pitfalls that have characterized efforts at Jewish and Christian understanding in the past? In Chapter 1, one of our editors offers lessons in “what to seek and what to avoid in Jewish–Christian dialogue.” In light of the tragic history of Jewish–Christian relations in the past, why should we risk this endeavor at all? In Chapter 2, a Jewish historian notes both the negative and positive aspects of Jewish and Christian interaction from the first century through modern times. In Chapter 3, a Jewish and a Christian theologian offer responses to the most challenging question of all: “And now, after the Shoah, do we still dare to promote such a dialogue? How can Jews and Christians speak about each other’s religion and about God?” While creating this volume, the authors and editors themselves have wrestled with these same questions, and in the process have gained new understanding and insight. In the Epilogue, one Christian scholar evaluates the impact of Judaism on Christian belief today, and the book’s editors then reflect on the impact of this project on their own expectations of the future of Judaism and of Jewish–Christian relations.

The publication of this book marks only the beginning of an effort that may engage us for years to come, an effort to encourage Jews to rediscover the revered place of Judaism among the great religions of the world. This is also an effort to help Jews relearn the vocabulary of their own faith and then, within this vocabulary, to help them recognize and understand the main tenets of their neighbors’ faiths. At the same time, our goal is to acknowledge and aid the complementary efforts of Christian scholars and leaders to teach Christians the main tenets of Judaism and, thereby, to rediscover the significance of Judaism as both a source of Christianity and a dialogue partner in the ultimate work of redeeming a troubled world.

In September 2000, we published a public statement in the New York Times and other newspapers. The statement is a brief explanation of how we believe Jews should begin to learn about Christianity and to understand Christianity in Jewish terms. This volume of essays is a scholarly extension of that statement, which appears here just after the acknowledgments. This volume has also stimulated the preparation of a study guide, which is being prepared by the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies for the use of synagogue, church, and student groups who would like to make the issues addressed in this book the subject of ongoing discussion.

The Jewish and Christian scholars and theologians who have contributed to this project are among the most revered and influential contributors to religious thought today. We are profoundly grateful to them. They have taken considerable time from demanding work schedules to meet this volume’s exacting publication requirements—the first of which was to enter boldly into a form of theological exchange that may have no precedent! The energy, efficiency, and depth of their responses are testimony both to their generosity and, we believe, to the urgency of this endeavor.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For years, the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies (ICJS) has played a leading role in fostering Jewish–Christian understanding. We are deeply grateful to the ICJS for helping sponsor this book project and the activities of publication and discussion that accompany it. We are indebted, in particular, to Charles Obrecht, board chairman of ICJS; Rev. Dr. Christopher Leighton, executive director of the ICJS; Dr. Rosann Catalano, ICJS Roman Catholic scholar; and Rabbi Joel Zaiman, ICJS board member and spiritual leader of Congregation Chizuk Amuno. We wish to thank the Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation, Inc.; the David and Barbara B. Hirschhorn Foundation, Inc.; the Hoffberger Family Fund; the Harvey M. Meyerhoff Fund; and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation for their ongoing support of this project. This book was also made possible, in part, by funds granted by the Charles H. Revson Foundation. The statements made and the views expressed, however, are solely the responsibility of the authors. Finally, we want to thank all of our editors and support staff at Westview Press, in particular Sarah Warner, the editor for this book.We owe a particular debt of gratitude to David Toole, whose editorial work was above and beyond the call of duty.

ABBREVIATIONS

New Testament

Rabbinic Sources

Tractates