Jewish sources on Jewish-Christian relations

TEXT 1: Ezekiel 18:2

"Parents eat sour grapes and their children’s teeth are blunted"? As I live—declares the Lord God—this proverb shall no longer be current among you in Israel.

TEXT 2: A Proposed Declaration: "The Synagogue and the Christian People"

From Samuel Sandmel, We Jews and You Christians (Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1967)

The Synagogue views the Christian people as among its offspring. It acknowledges that Christian people have laudably spread the message of the Synagogue among people and in areas of the world beyond where the Synagogue had penetrated. The Christian people have adapted that message to their own character and their own ways of thinking and speaking, and they have both preserved much which is familiar to the Synagogue and also created much which is not. Man, in his weakness, has been incapable of maintaining unbroken unity. Neither the Synagogue nor the church has been free from division, and a by-product of such division has been irreligious hatred, bitter recrimination, and persecution, both within and without. Since hatred, recrimination, and persecution are irreligious, the Synagogue laments all such manifestations within its past, and respecting the present and the future repudiates them as inauthentic manifestations of the spirit of Judaism. The Synagogue holds that its message must spread not by power or by might, but only by the Spirit of God and in the love of mankind.

The Synagogue is aware that Christian assemblies, lamenting and disavowing the Christian persecution of the Jews, have spoken in recent times in the same vein. The Synagogue welcomes these pioneer utterances.

All men are wont to remember grievances out of which attitudes of vindictiveness arise; therefore the Synagogue reminds its loyal sons of the biblical injunction (Leviticus 19:18): "Thou shalt not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The Synagogue cannot, and does not, hold innocent Christians of our day responsible for the persecutions of the past, nor all Christians responsible, in the present or the future, for the misdeeds which may come from some.

The Synagogue continues to look forward to that day when all men, of all countries, colors, and beliefs, will become spiritually united. Since all universals are attained only through particulars, the Synagogue is committed to the perpetuation of itself against all forms of dissolution. It understands "the election of Israel" as imposing on it a heavier obligation to God, not as an unseemly preferment. It welcomes into its midst all those who voluntarily wish to enter. It does not seek to dissolve the institutions of its offspring, nor does it cherish, as a proximate or remote goal, the abandon-ment by Christians of their Christian loyalties. Rather, it desires that its offspring attain and maintain the spiritual heights which they often nobly expressed.

The Synagogue envisages the unity of mankind in a lofty spiritual bond, enabling men both to preserve the institutions which they hold sacred and to transcend them.

TEXT 3: From "Toward a Process of Healing" by Rabbi Leon Klenicki

in Jewish Scholars Look at Christianity (Stimulus Foundation/Paulist Press, 1991)

The dialogical responsibility is for a subject, a person, and not for an object. We are responsible and respon-sive to the other as a spiritual entity, a subject of faith, a child of God. It is a perception of mutuality for a fellow you, respectful of the integrity of the other, in which the I confirms the thou in the right of his existence and the goal of his becoming, in all his wholeness. Recogni-tion is an invitation to be part of a community of faith, despite differences, in awareness of God’s presence. Recognition is to perceive the other’s meaning as a person. This is basic in human relationships, and very specially so in Jewish perception of the Christian as a person of God and partner in the search for the kingdom and its establishment in the universe. It is essentially a process of understanding and recognition of a joint human communion. Once we cease to regard the other as merely an object of observation and begin to regard him/her as an independent other, then we have the beginning of the I-Thou relationship.

Recognizing Christianity is a first step toward under-standing it vocation. That is not easy for Jews because of the trauma of past experiences but indispensable on our existential road. We are not alone in the universe, no solitary islands of belief nut peninsulas linked to the eternal and to one another; and there is much to learn in our respective covenantal experience of God.

Understanding leads to acceptance and mutual personal confirmation as tools of God. I have to experience the Christian person as chosen by God, with a specific task and different way, another halakah. I have to under-stand Christian fervor, "imagining the real," as Buber states: "Perceiving and thinking in the mind and body of another individual." To relate religiously to Christians means to receive "an intimation of the being of the other." It implies inclusion, embracing the other, in this case the Christian person, overcoming the over-againstness of previous history. To relate religiously is
to fathom the mystery of the present Christian-Jewish interchange, called dialogue, until a new word will be developed to describe the very meaning of the present encounter.

TEXT 4: From "Themes in Christian-Jewish Relations" by Norman Solomon

in Jewish Scholars Look at Christianity (Stimulus Foundation/Paulist Press, 1991)

How do we move from pious resolutions to a changed society?

A vast educational task lies ahead, for the roots of hatred are not only deep but sacred, and the poison has spread to the language, images and stereotypes of western culture even where it is no longer Christian. Attitudes persist beyond the theologies that generated, or perhaps merely justified, them. So while scholars and theologians talk, their best ideas must find their way into the classrooms of our seminaries, universities, and teacher training colleges, and, through the newly trained clergy and teachers, inspire young minds to create a new peaceful culture and society for the generations to come.

TEXT 5: "The Final Redemption" by David Novak

(in Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Justification. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)

The final redemption will be such that "No eye but Yours, O Lord, will see what will be done for those who wait for You." Until that time, we are all travelers passing through a vale of tears until we appear before God in Zion. Jews and Christians begin at the same starting point, and both are convinced that we will meet at the all-mysterious end. Yet we cannot deny that our appointed tasks in this world are very different and must remain so because the covenant is not the same for both of us. It is God who will bring us to our unknown destination in a time pleasing to him.

That time has not yet come. In the meantime, the constitution of the Jewish-Christian dialogue might have a message for the larger body of humankind for whose peace we must all be concerned. Our dialogue might be able to show the world that the hope it needs for its very survival can only be the hope for its final redemption. Neither nature nor history nor the self can supply hope in these days. Beginning with creation and nurtured by our respective revelations, Jews and Christians can and do hope for the future. From creation and revelation comes our faith that God has not and will not abandon us or the world, that the promised redemption is surely yet to come.

Text 6: From "No Religion is an Island" by Abraham Joshua Heschel

(in Dialogue and Disputation: Readings in the Jewish Christian Encounter)

The supreme issue is today not the halakha for the Jew or the Church for the Christian but the premise underlying both religions, namely, whether there is a pathos, a divine reality concerned with the destiny of man which mysteriously impinges upon history; the supreme issue is whether we are alive or dead to the challenge and the expectation of the living God. The crisis engulfs all of us. The misery and fear of alienation from God make Jew and Christian cry together.

No religion is an island. We are involved with one another. Spiritual betrayal on the part of one of us affects the faith of all of us. Views adopted in one community have an impact on other communities.
Today religious isolationism is a myth. For all the profound differences in perspective and substance, Judaism is sooner or later affected by the intellectual, moral and spiritual events within the Christian society, and vice versa.

We fail to realize that while different exponents of faith in the world of religion continue to be wary of the ecumenical movement, there is another ecumenical movement, world-wide in extent and influence: nihilism. We must choose between interfaith and inter-nihilism. Cynicism is not parochial. Should religions insist upon the illusion of complete isolation? Should we refuse to be on speaking terms with one another and hope for each other’s failure? Or should we pray for each other’s health, and help one another in preserving one’s respective legacy, in preserving a common legacy?

What, then, is the purpose of interreligious cooperation?

It is neither to flatter not to refute one another, but to help one another; to share insight and learning, to cooperate in academic ventures on the highest scholarly level, and what is even more important to search in the wilderness for well-springs of devotion, for treasures of stillness, for the power of love and care for man. What is urgently needed are ways of helping one another in the terrible predicament of here and now by the courage to believe that the word of the Lord endures us for ever as well as here and now; to cooperate in trying to bring about a resurrection of sensitivity, a revival of con-science; to keep alive the divine sparks in our souls, to nurture openness to the spirit of the Psalms, reverence for the words of the prophets, and faithfulness to the Living God.

TEXT 7: Speech by Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau. Interreligious Meeting at the Pontifical Institute, Notre Dame, Jerusalem, March 23, 2000.

Everyone has his way of serving the Almighty, but one way is common and must be common for all mankind, all the believers of all the religions, especially the brother of the monotheistic faith. Peace, friendship, understanding, listening to one another, even though we do not agree with everything. In spite of all obstacles and differences, to overcome obstacles and differences, we have to speak, we have to listen. We are ready to go from place to place, from one continent to the other, from one century to another, offering a hand, speaking about peace.

TEXT 8: Address by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, March 23, 2000 at Yad Vashem

You have done more than anyone else to bring about the historic change in the attitude of the Church towards Jewish people, initiated by the good Pope John XXIII, and to dress the gaping wounds that festered over many bitter centuries.

And I think I can say, Your Holiness, that your coming here today, to the Tent of Remembrance at Yad Vashem, is a climax of this historic journey of healing. Here, right now, time itself has come to a standstill. This very moment holds within it two thousand years of history. And their weight is almost too much to bear.

Shortly before setting out on your pilgrimage here, you raised the flag of fraternity to full mast, setting into Church liturgy a request for forgiveness, for wrongs committed by members of your faith against others, especially against the Jewish people.

We appreciate this noble act most profoundly.

Naturally, it is impossible to overcome all the pains of the past overnight. Your Holiness has frequently commented on problems regarding past relations between Christianity and the Jews. It is our wish to continue productive dialogue on this issue, to work together to eliminate the scourge of racism and anti-Semitism.

TEXT 9: Speech by Rabbi Michael Melchior, Minister in Prime Minister’s Office Responsible for Diaspora Affairs at the Western Wall, March 26, 2000.

We welcome your coming here as the realization of a commitment of the Catholic Church to end the era of hatred, humiliation, and persecution of the Jewish People.

In the name of the Government of Israel and the Jewish people, we stand here today to call out in the loudest and clearest of voices: "No longer!"

We say: "No longer!" For today begins a new era, in which we all lift our eyes to the heavens and commit ourselves to search every ancient path and to pave bold, new highways that will bring peace to all religions and to all believers -- Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. A new era, in which Faith in God will be the symbol of peace and brotherhood among nations, justice, and concern for the suffering of every one of His creatures.

No longer. For today we commit ourselves to end the manipulation of the sanctity of Jerusalem for political gain. Jerusalem must reject hatred, struggle, and bloodshed, and be again the "City of Peace" and a source of holiness.

TEXT 10: The Stake of the Other, Jacques Derida, in Adieu

"An uneasiness with regard to the unknown" [writes Levinas] –- this non-knowledge is the element of friendship or hospitality for the transcendence of the stranger, the infinite distance of the other. For many among us the exemplary friendship between Maurice Blanchot and Emmanuel Levinas was a grace, a gift. Blanchot says: "In Emmanuel Levinas’ [work] –- where, it seems to me, philosophy in our time has never spoken in a more sober manner, putting back into question, as we must, our ways of thinking . . . -- we are called upon to become responsible for what philosophy essentially is, by welcoming, in all the radiance and infinite exigency proper to it, the idea [and relation with] the Other . . . "[R]elation to the other presupposes an infinite separation, an infinite interruption where the face appears . . . I cannot speak of interruption without recalling, like many among you, no doubt, the anxiety
of interruption I could feel in Emmanuel Levinas when, on the telephone, for example, he seemed at each moment to fear being cut off, to fear the silence or disappear-ance, the "without response," of the other, to whom he called out and held on with an "allo, allo" between each sentence, sometimes even in mid-sentence.

TEXT 11: Emmanuel Levinas, in the opening pages of Totality and Infinity

To approach the Other in discourse is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught.

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