National Jewish Scholars Project

Overview

During the past five years, the ICJS has brought together a distinguished group of Jewish scholars from across North America. These scholars have insisted that the challenges of living in a religiously plural world de-mand creative responses from the Jewish community as well as from Christians. They have worked long and hard to develop the learning resources to advance new understandings of the Jewish-Christian encounter. Rabbi Mark Loeb, Senior Rabbi, Beth El Congregation, and one of the founding members of ICJS board, framed the challenge this way: "This generation of Jews is in urgent need of learning about Jewish religious ideas and how they shape our self-understanding. They also need to recognize how other religions make different use of the basic religious categories, which, ironically, often derive from our heritage. For Jews living in America, there is an inescapable educational challenge: to discover the distinctive character of Judaism and its relation to Chris-tianity. In participating in such learning, Jews will deepen their understanding of their faith, learn to feel more secure in who they are, and be capable of bringing their Jewish tradition to the most pressing moral and social issues of the day."

In the coming years, the ICJS will utilize three ground-breaking educational resources to initiate new learning in selected cities across the country. First, the document Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity provides a landmark for new and searching conversation between Christians and Jews. Second, the scholarship that will sustain this inquiry is embedded in a collection of essays entitled, Christianity in Jewish Terms (Westview Press, 2000). This book models a level of theological exchange that redefines new possibilities for learning that enables Christians and Jews to explore the distinctive wisdom of their own traditions while gaining new insights into the traditions of the other. Third, twenty eminent Jewish and Christian educators from across the country have authored a book that addresses some of the most pressing and confounding questions facing the relationship between our two com-munities. Together these new resources open up fresh vistas for educational experiences that the ICJS will move into a variety of settings over the next few years. You can track these developments and enter into the study by periodically visiting the ICJS Web site.

To appreciate the magnitude of this educational ven-ture, we have highlighted some excerpts from the concluding chapter of Christianity in Jewish Terms. The five scholars at the heart of this project have each commented on the significance of the Jewish-Christian encounter in the years to come, and their comments underscore the monumental stakes of this endeavor.

David Sandmel, ICJS Jewish Scholar:

That Jews and Christians are talking to one another and learning from each other is not new. What is new is that we actively seek each other out for shared goals: toler-ance and respect, certainly, but also deepening our own religious experience and self-understanding. More than an intellectual endeavor, this dialogue may also lay the foundation for a new kind of creative cooperation between traditions within the changing religious environ-ment of contemporary society.

David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jew-ish Studies, University of Toronto:

An increasing number of Jews, however, now realize that looking to secularity as the source of our success means making it our god. But, since secularity has no need for Judaism, it has no need for what makes Jews Jewish in the first place. As such, it is a recipe for our dis-appearance -- either with a bang or a whimper. This is why more and more Jews are turning inward to the religious content of the Jewish tradition to justify their continued identity. And, while some of these returning Jews look at Christianity and Christians as an ancient foe, others are beginning to realize that Christians are facing very similar challenges as those facing us, and for the same reasons. In this age of secularism, both Christians and Jews must learn how to sing the song of the Lord God of Israel in the strange land, the new exile (galut), of contemporary society. Our relationship is therefore more than "inter-religious" in the usual sense of that term. For better or for worse, we have never really been without each other. And, now, we need each other in new and surprising ways.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Professor of Bible, The Divinity School, University of Chicago:

Dialogue between Jews and Christians makes sense, for we share some of the most significant aspects of our existence. As monotheists, we see the world as a dia-logue between God and humanity. Both our religions are "religious humanisms" that embrace the significance of human beings as "the image of God" and that seek to understand who and what we are supposed to be. We are biblically based religions that "triangulate" our lived experience with a sacred scripture and with a long tradition. We have much to learn by looking at how we each have done this over our long histories. Jews have excelled at communal text study and the practice of everyday law. Christians have, over hundreds of years, achieved great sophistication in theological reflection. Stimulated by the other, we can all increase the scope of our own understanding.

Michael Signer, Abrams Professor of Jewish Thought and Culture, University of Notre Dame:

We will begin this dialogue with a different framework than previous conversations. Both communities will face each other with the idea that we are groups of people who have spent our histories trying to live by the words, deeds, and message of the Hebrew Bible. Each commu-nity has found its unique way to live out that message. Over the centuries, both communities have enjoyed the teaching of brilliant minds and the actions of ordinary people. We need to share these experiences and teachings with one another. We will admit from the very beginning that there are elements in each tradition that the other side can never fully comprehend. We will enjoy the fact that we are different from one another. We understand that the sweetness of agreement and the disappointment of disagreement are part of a relationship of caring about one another and the world that the Creator has put in our trust. There is no compromise in this encounter because there is no victory for one com-munity or the other. There is only life together. It will be a life of ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ of community and alienation, and of continued searching. We do not need to know every-thing that awaits us on the road ahead. The mystery of surprise will surely bring greater joy than the pessimism that growth and understanding are beyond our grasp.

Peter Ochs, Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Jewish Studies, University of Virginia:

Together we can celebrate what is most sacred, pre-cious, and singular in our scriptural faiths. Such dialogue will benefit us, and the world around us. Jews are about to discover how much that world needs us: how much the secular world needs to rehear the Teachings that we carry with us as a blessing to the nations and how much Christians and Muslims have to gain from studying those Teachings with us. Discovering that need, Jews are bound to rediscover their place among the nations. With the self-respect and sense of responsibility that comes from this rediscovery, Jews are also bound to re-experience the majesty and preciousness of their own religious heritage. We will find that the social and political influence of this heritage grows even stronger when we work closely with like-minded Christians on issues of shared concern. And we should be warmed to see how this shared work deepens and sweetens the religious lives of both dialogue partners.

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