And from Rabbi David Novak in
First Things in “Jews, Christians, and Civil Society”:
What we Jews can learn from Christians is that (regardless of whatever else
we might be) we are first and foremost a religion. Now, unfortunately, many
Jews and many Christians have been deluded by Jewish secularists to think that
Judaism—or “Jewishness”—is not a religion because even nonreligious Jews are
considered to be part of the Jewish people. Therefore, it is argued that Jews
are an “ethnic group” for whom Jewish religion is an arbitrary form of identification.
But this is backward. Even nonreligious Jews, even atheistic Jews, are part
of the Jewish people because to be a Jew is to be a member of a community elected
by God. That is fundamentally different both from choosing one’s own society
and the mere accident of birth. It is God who makes a Jew a Jew. It is not a
human choice—neither our own, nor that of our ancestors, nor that of our enemies.
Election is a fundamentally religious event initiated by God, not man. Thus
those who repudiate their obligation to keep the commandments of the Torah—that
is, Judaism—may have left Judaism in practice, but they are still part of Judaism
by their very existence. Speaking figuratively, they have gone AWOL, but they
may not be court-martialed. Of course, we practicing Jews hope and pray that
these sons and daughters who have strayed from the covenantal home will return,
but neither our souls nor theirs would be well served if we attempted to coerce
them back into the fold.
For most Jews, election begins at birth; it thus precedes any choice on the
part of the Jew. As for those who convert to Judaism, their decision must be
conceived as a compulsion that originally comes from God alone. Their free consent
is a necessary but not sufficient condition of their being accepted as Jews.
The same is true for Christians. If baptism is indelible, and if most Christians
are baptized as infants, then most Christians become Christians like most Jews
become Jews. This is so even in the cases of Christians who are “born again”
and who are baptized as adults. Birth is, after all, the most involuntary event
possible. (Incidentally, the term “born again” appears in Greek in the New Testament
and in Hebrew in the Talmud.) It is only a modern, voluntaristic view of the
covenant as a social contract that supposes that being a Jew or being a Christian
is an individual option that is initiated or terminated by human will…
Jewish and Christian interests are thus parallel in many matters. But do we
have something more than just parallels going for us? Is there some point at
which we truly intersect?
On the theological level, as we have seen, we do intersect in the sense that
both Judaism and Christianity are the traditions of two separate communities
who are still emerging out of the same Hebrew Bible and the same Second Temple
Judaism. The recovery of that reality has been an exercise of fruitful commonality
between Jews and Christians of late, especially among our scholars. And that
scholarship has had an effect on our broader communities, too. Nevertheless,
theological intersection is limited by the agreement of both sides in the Jewish-Christian
dialogue to avoid proselytizing. That necessarily means that we cannot make
our full truth claims to each other theologically and expect the other side
to sit still and listen to what could only be perceived as conversionist rhetoric.
As such, theological dialogue between Jews and Christians can only work when
these ultimate claims are consciously bracketed. That is why many Jews and Christians
have stayed away from the dialogue. But today, truth be happily told, many Jewish
and Christian theologians have begun to speak to each other under this constraint
in good faith and with good results. Yet, at this point, our lines are still
more parallel than perpendicular. Our theological intersection is little more
than the affirmation of our common beginning.
firstthings.com/article/2007/06/002-jews-christians-and-civil-society-35
Honest discussion on all citations. Some one can agree with Cardinal Dulles and/or Rabbi David Novak, some possibly not. At least it’s a start at understanding our beliefs.
Hey you’re still up in Alaska! That’s hilarious Hosh!! Ha! Ukrainian. Who knows about these things, my mom’s parents in Ukraine were Orthodox and Catholic respectively, but mom’s maiden name is “Isaac” - not very Ukrainian sounding I guess. Who knows. Great to have you on board Hosh.