The Rabbis Come Around

Mesora magazine brought two videos and an article to my attention regarding the rabbinic view of Jesus and Christianity.



Orthodox Rabbinic Statement on Christianity

Here is an excerpt of the most imporant section:

3. As did Maimonides and Yehudah Halevi,[1] we acknowledge that Christianity is neither an accident nor an error, but the willed divine outcome and gift to the nations. In separating Judaism and Christianity, G-d willed a separation between partners with significant theological differences, not a separation between enemies. Rabbi Jacob Emden wrote that “Jesus brought a double goodness to the world. On the one hand he strengthened the Torah of Moses majestically… and not one of our Sages spoke out more emphatically concerning the immutability of the Torah. On the other hand he removed idols from the nations and obligated them in the seven commandments of Noah so that they would not behave like animals of the field, and instilled them firmly with moral traits…..Christians are congregations that work for the sake of heaven who are destined to endure, whose intent is for the sake of heaven and whose reward will not denied.”[2] Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch taught us that Christians “have accepted the Jewish Bible of the Old Testament as a book of Divine revelation. They profess their belief in the G-d of Heaven and Earth as proclaimed in the Bible and they acknowledge the sovereignty of Divine Providence.”[3] Now that the Catholic Church has acknowledged the eternal Covenant between G-d and Israel, we Jews can acknowledge the ongoing constructive validity of Christianity as our partner in world redemption, without any fear that this will be exploited for missionary purposes. As stated by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s Bilateral Commission with the Holy See under the leadership of Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, “We are no longer enemies, but unequivocal partners in articulating the essential moral values for the survival and welfare of humanity”.[4] Neither of us can achieve G-d’s mission in this world alone.

4. Both Jews and Christians have a common covenantal mission to perfect the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty, so that all humanity will call on His name and abominations will be removed from the earth. We understand the hesitation of both sides to affirm this truth and we call on our communities to overcome these fears in order to establish a relationship of trust and respect. Rabbi Hirsch also taught that the Talmud puts Christians “with regard to the duties between man and man on exactly the same level as Jews. They have a claim to the benefit of all the duties not only of justice but also of active human brotherly love.” In the past relations between Christians and Jews were often seen through the adversarial relationship of Esau and Jacob, yet Rabbi Naftali Zvi Berliner (Netziv) already understood at the end of the 19th century that Jews and Christians are destined by G-d to be loving partners: “In the future when the children of Esau are moved by pure spirit to recognize the people of Israel and their virtues, then we will also be moved to recognize that Esau is our brother.”[5]

5. We Jews and Christians have more in common than what divides us: the ethical monotheism of Abraham; the relationship with the One Creator of Heaven and Earth, Who loves and cares for all of us; Jewish Sacred Scriptures; a belief in a binding tradition; and the values of life, family, compassionate righteousness, justice, inalienable freedom, universal love and ultimate world peace. Rabbi Moses Rivkis (Be’er Hagoleh) confirms this and wrote that “the Sages made reference only to the idolator of their day who did not believe in the creation of the world, the Exodus, G-d’s miraculous deeds and the divinely given law. In contrast, the people among whom we are scattered believe in all these essentials of religion.”[6]

 The article sounds like a good start. The rabbinic view of Christianity in this statement is more positive than it has been in the past. I appreciate how Rabbi Cohen says that he considers the church to be partners and not enemies.

One of the terms is a bit anachronistic. Rabbinic literature uses Esau as a symbol for the Roman Empire, and as a result as a symbol for Christianity. This term should have been updated to reflect the fact that Protestant Christianity, and even Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is not a product of the Roman Empire in the way that Roman Catholicism is.

Point 5 has a lot of theological weight, and it a bit misleading. According to this statement, the true crime of idolatry is to rob God of his supremacy in creating the world. This makes atheism a much worse crime than any sort of polytheism or henotheism. Trinitarianism, under this view, should be a much, much lesser crime for a Jew than atheism. You would think that this means it is more acceptable for a Jew to be a Christian than an atheist, but you would be wrong.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin himself states that any Jew who believes in Jesus is automatically excommunicated as  a heretic. Worldwide, Jews who believe in Jesus are treated as worse outcasts than Jews who oppose Israel or even militant Jewish atheists.

This whole statement has one glaring, unstated assumption. That is; to be a Christian is to be a gentile. Not all Christians are gentiles. A few hundred thousand are Jews. What about Christians born to a Jewish mother? Are such people to be embraced, at least to the extent that secular Jews are? I doubt it.

This is a good start, but we are not finished until the rabbis of Israel come around the way Asher Meza did, and accept that Messianic Jews are not heretics, and are to be embraced as full-fledged Jews in every sense.