THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

Fr. Rafiq Khoury, “The Palestinian People as a Theological Issue”

Mr. Moussa Abou Ramadan, “The Palestinian Minority in the State of Israel”

Rabbi Michael Marmur, “Jewish Pluralism: Responses to the Challenge of Modernity”

The Second Colloquium of Jesuits in Jewish-Christian Dialogue

David Neuhaus, S.J.

The 34^th General Congregation’s Decree 5 had called for the expansion of the Jesuit apostolate of the Jerusalem community of the Pontifical Biblical Institute to explore “programs in interreligious dialogue among Jews, Christians and Muslims, along with their continuing work of Biblical and spiritual renewal.” The Great Jubilee of 2000 was seen as a fitting occasion to give this decree special expression. I was asked by Tom Fitzpatrick, superior of the house, and by Tom Michel, Secretary for Interreligious Dialogue, to prepare three of these events: the Second Colloquium of Jesuits in Jewish-Christian Dialogue, a session for scholastics titled “The Vitality of Contemporary Judaism” and another session for scholastics titled “The Vitality of Contemporary Islam.” In this volume, we present the talks delivered at the Colloquium held on 27 June - 2 July 2000. As most of the papers were transcribed from tapes of oral presentations, we take responsibility for any errors or misstatements.

The Colloquium on Jewish-Christian Dialogue followed a first meeting of Jesuits involved in the dialogue, held in Krakow, Poland, in December 1998. Whereas that meeting had focused on the history of anti-Semitism and the influence of the Holocaust on the dialogue as well as on the Jesuit role in the history of Jewish-Christian relations, the Jerusalem meeting took as its theme “The Significance of the State of Israel for Contemporary Judaism and for the Jewish-Christian Dialogue.”

The intention was to hear contemporary Jewish thinkers and activists reflect on the challenges to the Jewish religious tradition presented by the State of Israel. Judaism as we know it developed as the religion of a consistently minority Jewish community after the first and second centuries. The establishment of a state and the creation of a Jewish majority in Israel have stood at center stage in the life of the Jewish community this century. These events have powerfully impacted Jewish self-identity and, by extension, the dialogue between Jews and Christians. Since Palestinian Christians and Muslims are an inescapable part of interreligious dialogue in Israel, we also invited representatives of these communities to present their own views on the challenge of ethnic and religious pluralism for Jews in Israel.

33 Jesuits (11 from Western Europe, 10 from North America, 3 from Eastern Europe, 2 from the Near East, 3 from Asia, 2 from Australia, 1 from Latin America), 19 of whom had been at the Krakow meeting, participated in the Jerusalem colloquium. The days of the colloquium were spent listening to Jews reflect on this theme and discussing among ourselves the implications of the presentation for our own involvement in the dialogue. Each session consisted of an address by a local speaker, a period of discussion with the speaker, and then a session of reflection among ourselves after the speaker had left. This format facilitated different levels of exchange and encouraged active participation by all.

The Colloquium was opened by addresses of welcome. The first was delivered by Rabbi David Rosen, Director of the Anti-Defamation League Israel Office, who is also president of the International Council of Christians and Jews and had formerly served as Chief Rabbi of Ireland. Fr. Thomas Michel, Secretary for Interreligious Dialogue of the Society, read an address from Father General, in which Fr. Kolvenbach encouraged the participants “to take up this demanding and emotionally intense topic.” Fr. Arij Roest Crollius of the Center for Judaic Studies at the Gregorian University, Rome also offered a word of welcome.

The opening session was followed by an opening Mass at the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem celebrated by the Patriarch, His Beatitude Michel Sabbah. Patriarch Sabbah enunciated the perspective of the local Church, almost entirely Palestinian in composition, concerning Jewish-Christian dialogue. The Patriarch spoke of the mystery of Jerusalem lived by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and reviewed elements of the history of the Holy City and the way that followers of these religions have related to one another down through the centuries. He stated his conviction that “God wanted this land to be a land of dialogue among religions,” but noted the difficulty for all of achieving objectivity in their assessments of social and political realities. His Beatitude expressed concern that in countries of the West, Jewish-Christian dialogue is too often used to legitimate the political situation in Israel and Palestine.

The first working day of the colloquium began with a session held at the Shalom Hartman Institute, an institution for the formation of Jewish educators and a vibrant center of study of intra-Jewish and interreligious dialogue. Rabbi David Hartman, founder and head of the Institute, delivered a keynote address in which he stressed that the main challenge to contemporary Christians is the recognition of the vitality of the Jewish people as a nation reborn on their own land and within their own state. He dwelt on the relationship between Zionism and Judaism, focusing on the ways in which Jewish life in Israel needs to reformulate Jewish self-identity, the Jewish tradition and Jewish relationships with others. In a passionate conclusion Hartman insisted that Christian theologians “make (the State of) Israel the theological challenge, and not Auschwitz.”

That afternoon, Rabbi René-Samuel Sirat, UNESCO Chair for the Reciprocal Knowledge of the Religions of the Book and Peace Education, former Chief-Rabbi of France, and veteran participant in interreligious dialogue, addressed the colloquium. Commenting on various points raised in the medieval Jewish classic, the Kuzari by Rabbi Judah HaLevi, Sirat posited the Jewish return to Jerusalem as the peak of Jewish history, ending with a profound prayer for peace in Jerusalem.

The next day was devoted to the theme, “The Challenge of Modernity for Contemporary Judaism in Israel.” The morning session centered on a presentation by Prof. Aviezer Ravitzky, Professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew University and a leading activist in Meimad, the moderate religious party. Ravitzky focused on the messianic theme in Judaism and in modern Zionism. His highly informative presentation outlined the diametrically opposed religious attitudes to the State of Israel, showing the great diversity within Judaism in regard to the reality of a modern state.

In the afternoon we were addressed by Prof. Naomi Chazan, member of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and Deputy Speaker for the liberal and left-leaning Meretz Party. Chazan, a Professor of Political Science at Hebrew University, spoke with great warmth and humor and detailed the wrenching dilemmas of the mix of religion and politics in the State of Israel. She made an impassioned plea for the separation of religion and state, recognizing though that this would necessarily entail a fundamental reformulation of central Zionist foundational narratives relating to Jewish identity and history.

The following day concentrated on “The Challenge of Peace and Justice for Contemporary Judaism in Israel.” The morning session was addressed by Ms. Sharon Blass, an Orthodox Jew from the West Bank settlement of Newe Tzuf, wife of the local rabbi and mother of eight children. She had been spokesperson for the Judea, Samaria and Gaza Council, the most important organization representing the Settler Movement. In this capacity she had acted as spokesperson for the settlers at the Madrid Conference between Israelis and Arabs in 1991. Ms. Blass was unapologetic in her defense of what the settlers consider their God-given right to settle anywhere in the biblical Land of Israel. She presented with great logic and precision the religious thinking of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and his son Rabbi Yehuda Zwi Kook who the settlers regard as founders of their ideology of religious attachment to the whole Land of Israel.

That afternoon, Dr. Veronika Cohen of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and her husband, Dr. Yisrael Elliot Cohen of the Center for Research and Documentation of East European Jewry and the Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism addressed the participants. The Cohens are firmly committed Orthodox Jewish peace activists. Yisrael introduced the issue of the search for justice and peace in the Jewish tradition, and then Veronika read sections from the autobiographical account of her own peace activities in dialogue with Palestinians. Profoundly impressive was her narrative of the loneliness of a committed peace activist within the Jewish religious community.

The final day of discussions was devoted to the theme“The Challenge of Pluralism for Contemporary Judaism in Israel.” The morning session was divided into two presentations, one by a Christian Palestinian and the other by a Muslim Palestinian. Msgr. Rafiq Khoury, Responsible for Religious Education in the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, an accomplished theologian and author, and editor of the local theological review, Al-Liqa’ (The Encounter), addressed the group first. . Msgr. Khoury’s presentation was thought-provoking and challenging for all involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue in the West. He said: “Jewish-Christian dialogue …cannot be formulated without including the Palestinians and their historical experiences in the past and the present. Taking the Palestinian reality into account helps the dialogue not to become an ideology in the service of a political project.”

The next speaker was Mr. Moussa Abou-Ramadan of the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa and the University of Aix-en-Provence / Marseille III. Mr. Abou-Ramadan focused on the legal aspects of discrimination against “non-Jews” in the state of Israel. The basis of his presentation was the problematic claim that the State of Israel is both Jewish and democratic.

The final presentation was given that afternoon by Reform Rabbi Michael Marmur, Dean of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. The Rabbi approached the problem of pluralism among Jews as arising from the diverse responses among Jews to the challenges posed by modernity. His presentation outlined the broad sweep of the historical context of intra-Jewish relations in the state of Israel today.

The presentations were all followed by a lively question-answer period in which all the speakers engaged in forthright and courageous dialogue with the participants. A highlight of the colloquium was the discussion sessions in which the Jesuits reconvened alone to thrash out among themselves issues raised by the speakers. These sessions displayed both the great diversity of opinions within the group (often connected with the diversity of contexts in which the Jesuit participants live and work), as well as the establishment of an open dialogue among Jesuits on these issues.

The session ended with a eucharistic celebration in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This was a time to give thanks for what the participants had learned and shared. It was also a time to hope that the learning and sharing would continue as Jesuits continue the journey towards deeper dialogue with their Jewish brothers and sisters.

ADDRESS TO THE PARTICIPANTS:

Second Colloquium of Jesuits in Jewish-Christian Dialogue

Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J.

I greet you at the opening of the second colloquium of Jesuits involved in Jewish-Christian relations. It is now almost two years since the first international Congress was held in Krakow, Poland. Just as the deliberations of the first congress were shaped by the silent witness to inhumanity of the nearby death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, so also the Jerusalem venue of your second congress underlines the importance of the theme you are about to study: “The Significance of the State of Israel for Contemporary Judaism and Jewish-Christian Dialogue.”

The program of the colloquium indicates that you will be meeting with and hearing from a wide variety of approaches to the self-understanding of modern Judaism. The challenges of modernity, peace with justice, and pluralism in the state of Israel are key issues which demand reflection and clarification by Israeli Jews and their co-believers around the world. They are the basic foundations of societal relations which conscientious people expect to find in all modern societies. The opportunity to learn how Israeli Jews are seeking to meet the demands of modernity, to construct a lasting peace which necessarily requires the establishment of justice for all, and to respond to the complex intercultural and interreligious problems involved in creating a truly pluralistic nation will not only enable you to learn more deeply about the spiritual and human resources of the Jewish tradition, but will enrich Jewish-Christian dialogue considered within its contemporary context.

I am happy to see that in the program, time has been devoted to hearing the views of the minority peoples in Israel, Palestinian Muslims and our fellow Christians. In every modern state, the just and equal treatment of minorities must always remain a basic indicator of the extent to which that nation has realized its ideals and put into practice its declared values. The plight of Palestinian Christians as a “minority within a minority” which has led so many to leave their homeland and seek a better life elsewhere must not be ignored in your discussions.

I applaud your willingness to take on this demanding and emotionally intense topic. My prayers will be with you during these days that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will grant you the wisdom and fellow-feeling necessary to evaluate and integrate the great amount of serious input to which you will be exposed. I pray that you emerge from this colloquium with a deeper understanding of modern Judaism, of the meaning of the state of Israel for contemporary Jewish thought, and of the challenges posed to interreligious dialogue today by the demands of modernity, the quest for peace, the requirements of justice, and the preconditions for achieving genuine mutual appreciation. Nothing less is to be expected among God-fearing believers who share a long religious tradition in common to the extent they can greet one another as elder and younger brother. Peace be with you all!

WELCOME TO JERUSALEM

Rabbi David Rosen

I am delighted to be able to offer this word of welcome for a number of reasons. First of all, it is an honor to be able to address your illustrious gathering. I feel not only honored but also delighted because of my personal associations with your community. In fact, I can say that some of my best friends are Jesuits. In fact, with the two gentlemen on either side of me (Arij Roest Crollius and Tom Michel) I go back quite a way. With Tom, when he used to be at the Holy See’s Council for Interreligious Dialogue, I used to enjoy exchanging views here and there. With Arij, we had a wonderful collaboration a few years back, which was very historic, and fits in with David Neuhaus’ kind introduction to me, and I will link that up in a moment.

It was a very historic moment, just after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel. Some of you know that I was honored to be one of the negotiators. We had here, just then, a very impressive Jewish-Christian conference. This conference was historic for many reasons. It was probably the largest and most diverse gathering of Christian leaders that Jerusalem has ever seen. We were honored with the presence of five cardinals, among them Cardinal Ratzinger and Cardinal Martini, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the leaders and moderators of various Protestant denominations. It was historic in terms of its content, historic also in a way that at that time we may not have appreciated.

I suffered bit at that time because of the concerted opposition from the ultra-Orthodox community here in Israel and from its rabbinic leadership, which put pressure upon mainstream rabbinic leadership not to participate in this gathering, even though the main participants were Orthodox rabbis. What that reflected was where my colleagues in the official Orthodox rabbinate were at that particular moment. It is only now that we can see how far we have come since that event and how significant that event was.

Even though there was an attempt to undermine this event, I think it was the beginning of new thinking within the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate, which is some distance behind us Orthodox rabbis in the Western world (and we might be a way behind our non-Orthodox colleagues). Those more rooted in their particularity find it more difficult to affirm universality. I think the challenge is to find a balance between the two, but where one is firmly entrenched it is often at the expense of the other.

This conference, to which Arij made such an important contribution, is directly connected with what David mentioned, the enormously important historic event of John Paul II’s visit to the Holy Land, for which I think, we must all, in our different ways, give much thanks to the Almighty, for its incredible success on so many different levels. I am particularly concerned here with its connection to your deliberations, that is, its impact on Catholic-Jewish relations and Christian-Jewish relations at large.

We need to remember that the large majority of Israelis, even those who describe themselves as secular, do not live within a Christian world. They never meet modern Christians - more than 90% of modern Israelis never encounter modern Christians. When they travel abroad they meet non-Jews as non-Jews and not as modern Christians. Therefore, the overwhelming images of Christians are culled from the pre-modern past. Sometimes that past is not so far away. The perception of Christianity in modern Israeli society is fundamentally negative. Therefore, the work that I am involved in here, in the Anti-Defamation League, is not only focused on the importance of developing dialogue in order to fight prejudice and bigotry and to promote a common ethical agenda, but is also born out of a religious and theological conviction that God is saying something to us in this relationship between Jews and Christians. Thus there is, I believe, a religious imperative for each of us to deepen that relationship in order to understand what God is saying to us.

This understanding of mine comes out of my privileged position of being involved in this work over a period of time. It grows out of a life in which I have never felt threatened. Even when I was rabbi in South Africa and I was attacked, I knew that this was because of my political positions and that it was not my Jewishness that was under siege. Therefore, if you like, I had the luxury to develop this relationship. In the years that I have known David Neuhaus we have been involved in a number of activities together which have allowed me to develop my understanding of the nature of this relationship. But, for the majority of my colleagues, it is not obvious. There are question marks about why we should encounter Christians on the assumption that the past has been overwhelmingly negative. It has been amazing to see the impact of the papal visit when John Paul II came here. It marked my colleagues and certainly marked Israeli society at large.

There are two metaphors I like to use. One is of having had our ears boxed throughout the centuries. Our ears have been boxed by many factors, but not least of all by the Christian teaching of contempt. Our ears have been boxed so often that our hearing has been damaged. Even though a new tune is being sung and sounded, it is very difficult to be able to hear it. You require a healing atmosphere for those eardrums to be healed in order to hear the new sound. But in fact, we are neither in a Christian context nor in a healing context, when one thinks of the regional conflict. Most of us are damaged in terms of our hearing.

But that is the great power of the visual image. Because even if we cannot hear, our sight is not damaged and we can see images which, because of our impaired hearing, cannot be otherwise internalized. I think that this was important also in 1986 in the Papal visit to the Synagogue in Rome. Many of the things that John Paul said, he had said before, but people had not heard them because they had not “seen” them. The power of the visual image is enormous and this was especially so on this papal visit. Images of the Pope at Yad Va-Shem and his profound solidarity with Jewish suffering, in the sense that this is his own suffering, underlined the stories of his relationships with those he had saved. The image of the Pope at the Western Wall in reverence of Jewish tradition, his sense of identification with it, this too was very powerful. The power of these images came across far beyond my own expectations.

Here I come to the second metaphor that I want to use. This metaphor is one which depicts the relations between Jews and Christians as a garden which for centuries has been overrun by brambles and thorns and even lurking monsters. In the course of the last 35 years we have transformed this garden into a glorious garden filled with beautiful vegetation and delight in terms of the new era of relationships. But it is a walled garden with big doors. Therefore most Jews still think that behind those doors there is still an overgrown garden, full of brambles and undergrowth and in which lurk those monsters. The papal visit enabled those doors to be opened and gave Israeli Jewish society a vision of that garden. Hearing the references to the “dearly beloved older brother,” “the covenant never abrogated”, which for those of us who labor in the garden is not new, but which most Israeli Jews had never heard before, one should realize that this came as an extreme revelation to most Israeli Jews.

Since that historic meeting in 1994, and now, after the papal visit, the participation of establishment Orthodox rabbis in interfaith dialogue meetings is almost taken as given. I have just come from a Palestinian-Israeli, Christian-Muslim-Jewish dialogue in Milan with official participation of the Waqf, of the Patriarchate and one of the Chief Rabbis. Then there is another congress organized by the United Nations in which the other Chief Rabbi will participate. In September there is a congress sponsored by San Egidio in which the first of the Chief Rabbis, Bakshi-Doron, will again participate. The Rabbi of Haifa has become a regular participant in the dialogue.

There are many other names as well, and so now I have many colleagues in this area and no longer feel alone. Once I used to be alone but now participation in interfaith dialogue has become normative and, I think, this is a real testimony to where we are now. Many of you here have made your own special contribution to this project which reached a climax with the papal visit and which has contributed enormously to the Jewish-Catholic dialogue.

Now I have almost taken up all my time without addressing my real mandate but I hope my words have been of some value. Now let me briefly address the mandate. If I were to describe the ultimate significance of the papal visit, I would say that it was the state receptions. They were not as powerful in their image value as the visit to Yad Va-Shem and the Western Well, but the Church has been dealing with the significance of the Jews, of Judaism and of the Shoah for the past 35 years, since Nostra Aetate.

This was, however, the first-ever papal visit to the State of Israel. It was very different from the visit by Paul VI in 1964, which was seen in retrospect by many Israelis as a slap in the face. Thus, what this visit signified was the transformation of the Church’s attitude regarding the Jewish state and the relationship of the people to the Land. Political Zionism was something very much opposed by the Holy See in the initial stages. Semi-official publications like your own Civiltà Cattolica, continued to rail against Zionism right into the 1950s. The transformation underlines the fact that there is no problem with the return of the Jews to their Land and establishing in it their independent life. For us, this was the end of our long Exile, which itself was not a sign of being cursed but rather a progression through survival and testimony of God’s unlimited love, which sustained us until we returned to the Land. I do not need to tell you that the Land is a central category in Jewish self-understanding. The normative context for the survival of the People is right here in the Land.

There were those Jews from the right wing and from the left wing (for lack of better terms) who opposed the return to the Land, but I would say that these positions have been triumphed over by Zionism. The Reform Movement has its world center in Israel and the ultra-Orthodox cannot even survive without funding from the Israeli state and have had to get involved in the political process here, signifying a triumph of Zionism.

This week, here in Israel, we read from the Book of Numbers, the passage dealing with the spies and the fact that the majority of the spies rejected the Land. But the two exceptions to the rejection, Joshua and Caleb, try to convince the people otherwise and say: “The Land is very good indeed”. The rabbis connect this with the first time the expression “very good indeed” appears for the first time, and that is, of course, in the Book of Genesis, in the Creation narrative. This leads the rabbis to speak of the intrinsic goodness of Creation and of the Land for the People. There is the midrash which states that when God placed Adam and Eve in the world, He said to them: “Take care of My creation. Do not pollute it and destroy it.” Therefore it is up to us human beings to ensure that the goodness expresses itself and does not become a vehicle for pollution and destruction.

That was the challenge here in Israel, a challenge in which, to a certain degree, we failed. Unfortunately, a certain type of religious Zionism has fallen into the trap of what you call “prophetic dispensationalism,” the understanding that everything that happens falls under a divine mandate. This meant that some see all political events as mandated by God and are thus blinded to seeing the other as neighbor. That is what happened in the wake of the Six Day War and subsequently with the drive, especially among religious Zionists, to found the settler movement. Imbued with the positive value of the Land, they turned a means into an end in order to justify the unjustifiable. That is the challenge with which we have had to contend. Emerging from the crucible, we have discovered the positive value of the Land but we are sorely distressed by its abuse as it has become an end in itself.

This has led to a number of reactions including the founding of the religious peace movement. I myself was privileged to participate in the founding of an organization called Rabbis for Human Rights, where we continue to address the issue of human rights’ abuses in the Territories where there is the Palestinian population. The flack I get about this is less because I care about Arab human rights and more because I work with Conservative and Reform rabbis. Finally, we are moving into a new era. The carpet is being pulled out from under the feet of our religious nationalist maximalists. Territorial compromise is an inevitability. The peace process will inexorably triumph, either with largesse, finesse and good will, or it will take a little longer, with additional pain, and God-forbid, more bloodshed. Paradoxically, it will be the compromise over the Land which will restore the healthy role of the Land in the Jewish spiritual economy. This will enable the Land to be a noble means and not be a destructive end.

A Word of Welcome

Arij Roest Crollius, S.J.

This word under the heading of welcome to Jerusalem is in the name of the preparatory group - Tom Michel, David Neuhaus and the undersigned. There are three realities I would like to mention to characterize this colloquium: the place, the timing and the perspective.

The place, ha-makom, is Jerusalem, reality and vision. Encounter of the monotheistic, historic religions. Challenge, promise and dream of justice, of peace.

The timing, 2000, for the Catholic Church and for many others is Jubilee. In the wake of the pilgrimage of John-Paul II. The pilgrimage was not a journey to the past, but an encounter with today’s realities, the reality of the peoples living in this country and in this region. Jubilee also means a call to justice.

The perspective is the new millennium. The hesitant perception of standing on the brink of a new era. Different civilizations. A new global society. The process of globalization is tugging at the very roots of our corporate and personal identities. We may end up with more pluralism than we care for.

The program of these days follows upon the recommendations of the first congress in Krakow. Krakow took place under the sign of a purification of memory. This program has been conceived in the light of the challenges of peace and justice here and now. In order to assist and guide us in this adventure a number of qualified persons have been invited, spearheaded by Rabbi David Rosen.

I would like to say a special word of gratitude and appreciation to David Neuhaus for the impressive program he has placed before us. I also offer a vote of thanks to the entire staff of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem and particularly to its superior, Father Tom Fitzpatrick. We look forward to a fruitful and pleasant stay in this house.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

FOR CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM

AND FOR JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

Rabbi David Hartman

I am delighted to address this meeting of Jesuits. My claim to fame is that I studied with the Jesuits at Fordham. I studied with such Jesuits as Hildebrand, Quentin Lauer, and my own teacher, who changed my life, Robert C. Pollock. Those were very important years, from 1955 to 1960. When I was told that a group of Jesuits wanted to come to Jerusalem, I felt like I was renewing old ties.

I gave the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Memorial Lecture just before I had to prepare this lecture. Cardinal George in Chicago asked me to respond to the question: Why is Israel so important for the Jews? Oh my God, I responded, I just got a call to talk on that same issue, and I immediately shifted my talk to the theme: The theological significance of Israel. This talk was then published in pamphlet form.

Most of my theological and philosophical thinking has dealt with the transformation of Judaism and the Jewish people in the light of the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and its impact not only on Jewish-Christian but also on Jewish-Muslim dialogue. When the Pope was in Jerusalem and I was asked to respond to the visit on Israeli television, the thing everyone was concerned about was what the Pope would say when he went to Yad Va-Shem. I said that that was a totally mistaken perception of the significance of the visit. I felt that this did not interest me, confessions of guilt do not create good futures. They imprison you in the past. The important thing for me in Jewish-Christian encounter is not what Christianity thinks about the Holocaust, I find that a very painful subject. I remember when I was at Fordham, I asked Robert C. Pollock what he thought about this experience. He responded, “David, you have to think about the crucifixion.” I said to him, “Robert, that does not satisfy me.” Not only does that answer not satisfy me, it terrifies me. If Christianity needs the crucified Jew in order to think about the crucified God, then I think Christianity ought to change its fundamental theology.

For me the importance of the Pope’s visit was that he walked in Jerusalem. He walked through the streets of Jerusalem or rode in his car, and he saw people walking, eating, driving their cars. For me that was the most significant moment. To acknowledge the return of a living people to its Biblical foundations, that for me was a transformative moment in Christian theology.

In Augustine’s City of God (Book 18), the whole problematic of how you deal with the Jewish people is discussed. This was central for Augustine and for the Church Fathers who were dealing with foundational memories. How you deal with foundational memories, how you remember and change them, is central. When people try to define themselves initially they tend to make enormously triumphalist claims. Early Christianity, in the light of the whole Roman world, had to see itself not as a new religion, because new religions were suspect in the ancient world. Thus we find a great debate in early Christianity: are we something new, or are we a continuation of Judaism?

Christians rightly understood that they would have no credibility if they did not make the claim that they were an ancient religion with Biblical roots. Early Christianity thus saw itself as the New Israel, the deepest realization of the message of Judaism. It was then important to show the prophetic foundations of the Christian claim. Therefore, Augustine writes that it is crucial to do two things with the Jewish people: a) they have to suffer because they did not accept the new dispensation and message in Jesus, and b) they have to be alive because they have to be a witness to the Bible. They are the living witness to the Bible and if Jews are not around, we lose that witness. That witness is crucial for the Christian claim. Thus the Jews were treated terribly throughout the Middle Ages, but they were not killed. They were even protected by the Church because they were needed to bear witness to the Biblical foundations of Christianity.

For me, even if certain Augustine scholars feel proud of him, I am not moved. As a modern thinker, I am not happy with that Christian understanding of Judaism. I am not here to be a witness to Christian claims. As I often say to Christian theologians who come to Israel, “If you want to talk to me because you want to discover your Christian foundations, find another person! If you want to talk to me because you want to build a new future, then I am happy to meet you.” I am not here to be a witness to your original claims. I am here so that you can build an honest, authentic, moral future. We are your burden. At the degree to which Judaism is confronted at a significant level, does Christianity have a future. Without that you are morally bankrupt, in my view. Therefore the Pope’s visit was a profound religious experience. What he said was: homelessness is no longer a category of self-understanding in the Christian perception of the Jewish people. The Jews are no more a homeless people; they do not carry the sin of the rejection of Jesus. They have returned home.

When Christian pilgrims would come to Jerusalem, they used to read Robert Wilkin’s very important work on the Promised Land. They would visit the site of the destruction of the Temple. For them it symbolized the end of the Law and the emergence of a new way of understanding God and relating to God. It was a spiritual experience to see destruction. When Emperor Julian wanted to restore civic Roman religion, he saw the only way to weaken Christianity which, according to him, was crippling the whole Roman national structure, was to rebuild the Temple. In that way the foundations of the Christian claim would be undermined.

I always have this fantasy: What would have happened had he succeeded? What if he had rebuilt the Temple (especially in light of the craziness going on now)? You see the Mosque on the Temple Mount and that too is part of a legacy of triumphalism. You even look at the Old City and you get claustrophobia. Each one is trying to squeeze the other out. Each one needs the other for the foundation of one’s own self-understanding. Jerusalem is a symbol of affirmation through negation. I am because I reject you. I am because I have inherited you.

That is fundamentally what Jerusalem symbolized in its pilgrimage wars throughout history. It was not a city of peace but rather a city of triumphalist claims. Since God is One, those who mediate claims must be one and therefore there is an exclusive truth which mediates the whole spiritual drama of history. This is the fundamental assertion that defines Islam and defines Christianity. Judaism could not assert itself although it made some of those claims as well (read Maimonides and my books on Maimonides). Maimonides makes the claim (and Rosenzweig picks it up) that Christianity is in the midst of history and the Jews are at the end of history. We are the fulfillment of history and you are on your way towards Judaism.

I came on aliyah to Israel. What moved me to come here? I had been a rabbi for 18-19 years and had a nice life in North America. I was in Montreal before I came. I was successful, I was making a good living. I taught philosophy at McGill. I was building a vital Jewish community in Montreal, Canada. I was considered one of the Golden Boys of Orthodoxy. I was a strange golden boy, though, learned but too open. Fordham had been a transformative experience for me. I found that after meeting Jesuits and after meeting Robert C. Pollock, I prayed better. I prayed in a better way, and I prayed for my teachers at the Yeshiva. That experience shattered all my truth claims.

I allowed experience into my theological thinking. I no longer said: I have theological thinking so what is my experience or what can I allow myself to experience or feel? Here I was with a serious Catholic intellectual community. I felt very comfortable wearing my kippah (skullcap) there. People asked why I went there. I responded that I went there because in that milieu I did not have to apologize for using the word ‘God.’ Charles Taylor, a dear friend, a philosopher in Canada, would always use some technical term to refer to God. I said to him: “Chuck, why do you not just say ‘God’?” “David,” he replied, “you know I spent so many years at Oxford. There it is not an acceptable term. Significant Other, Transcendent Principle. Part of my own religious crisis was that I allowed reality to touch me without first asking: “What do my theological categories allow?” Reality was embraced. I could not deny what I experienced for five years at Fordham. For me it was religiously transformative. Those walks with Pollock for hours around the Fordham campus were totally transformative.

One of the students, a lovely young Catholic woman, said to me, “I told my mother that there is this young rabbi who is studying in our class.” Her mother’s response was, “A Pharisee?” I did not understand what she meant so I started reading the New Testament. Who were these Pharisees? Then I discovered that I had a new identity. What the student discovered was that she had to forget her categories of Pharisees, legalism etc. and had to meet a living Jew who was not embarrassed to be a witness to his Jewishness. It was not easy for many of them (generally, I am not an easy person to swallow).

I too did not perceive the Catholic Church from reading Karl Rahner or others, but perceived it through my living experience at Fordham. This was the influence of Pollock on myself, through his teaching of American philosophy. James and Dewey were transformative for me because they allowed experience to shape one’s self-understanding of the world. The German thinkers like Hegel put the world together through concepts. This is the tragedy even of European existentialism, which develops a philosophy of the concrete which makes the concrete abstract. It is extremely important to forget our categories and allow reality into our thinking.

Your visit in Israel means just that too. Do not visit the Holy Places. That is not what Israel is about. Visit the maternity ward at the Sha’arei Tsedek Hospital. See living Jewish babies being born. Go to the restaurants in Emek Refa’im. They are eating all the time! They are eating, just eating, bearing witness to the hungers of the body. That is what Jerusalem is about, the return of the body to Jewish spirituality. Eating is a very important part of it all. You have to see what happens at a supermarket on Friday, just before Shabbat. You would think that there was a hunger going on. The amounts of food being bought and the line-up are amazing religious experiences.

The Jews are a hungry people. I learned that as a rabbi. After the fast of the Day of Atonement, I thought that people would leave in quiet contrition after spending twenty-four hours in prayer. There was instead a stampede, as though they had not eaten for a month. When somebody wants to convert to Judaism, one of the conditions is to accept the Jewish people as one’s own people. “Your people are my people; your God is my God,” as Ruth said. The most important theological challenge in conversion to Judaism is to embrace the history of the Jewish people. I used to say to potential converts: “Come to my synagogue on Shabbat and go to the kiddush (the reception after the prayer) and see how they eat. Then, if you still want to join the Jewish people, I am ready to accept you.”

I say this to you because you get it wrong if you want to visit the Chief-Rabbi or see the Western Wall; that is not what Jerusalem is about. Jerusalem is about the rebirth of a people. Jerusalem is about a decision of Zionism not to wait for the Messiah. I have written extensively on how I see Zionism as, on one level, a revolt against Jewish tradition and, on another level, as a renewal of Biblical covenantal theology. That dialectic is fundamental for the understanding of Israel. You will then see in what way this dialectic affects the future of the Jewish-Christian dialogue.

The fundamental category of my thinking is covenantal. In covenant we see a major change in God’s self-understanding of Himself. (I always have difficult in the modern world speaking of God because I do not know how to refer to God in a non-gender language). In the beginning of the Biblical story, God is really moved by what He thinks that He can do. He is very impressed with the fact that He can create a universe. “And God saw that it was good.” That is like a celebration of God’s achievement. As you read Genesis 1, you get the feeling of a self-satisfied God. You do not have a tragic moment there. He says, and it is. Nothing inhibits His will. Reality expresses His will totally. He is totally powerful.

But He made one mistake, He created human-beings, that was His great, tragic downfall. He said: “I am going to create humans in my image because I want them to mediate the world for Me.” This is very important in the creation story, the individual mediates God in the world. The individual is the incarnate God. This changes as we move to the Book of Exodus where Israel as a community becomes the incarnate God. Israel is the incarnate God when God moves from the cosmic God to the God of history and the drama moves from the individual to the nation. Israel was born when history becomes a central concern of God. In the beginning God creates the Garden of Eden, thinking that He has innocent people for whom He can create the conditions of their life. God thinks, “I will give them everything and I just want them to acknowledge Me. But do not eat from this Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because I do not want you to be too sophisticated.”

God is in love with innocence. The Tree of Knowledge would make you reflective, analytical, self-aware and you see that Adam and Eve become self-conscious of their bodies and sexuality in the first act of rebellion. Therefore God banishes them from the Garden of Eden. He does not banish the idea, though, that He could create the conditions of history that somehow mediate His will. God is on a very deep ego-trip in the beginning. There is a certain psychological narcissism on the part of God (excuse the metaphor), and as He seeks to be Omnipotent He rages.

As much as He celebrated and enjoyed the creation of the world, He celebrates its destruction too. The generation of the Flood is the testimony to the failure of human beings to be like God wants them to be. God does not know what to do about the situation. The children of the mighty are fornicating with the children of the earth! What is going on? This is not what I had in mind! When it is not what I had in mind, the only way I can deal with it is to destroy it. The strangest verse in the Bible is the one following Noah’s exit from the Ark, as he makes a sacrifice, and God smelling the sacrifice is moved by it. Then God makes a promise: “No longer will I curse the earth because of man.” God discovers something, “The passion of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” This statement of primary narcissism is the foundation of the human condition. This is the reality of the human. It takes a long while to break out of the “I” in order to see the other.

But the story does not go so well after that either. Yet God has realized something, that He should not have wreaked this destruction. God wakes up. God is learning what the creation is about. He is allowing reality into His understanding of what He Himself has made. He has romantic images of life, and then He has to discover that it is not what He thought. God has to learn the power of human selfishness, of human sin, and how you deal with this.

The story gets worse still at the Tower of Babel. God wanted a world that was unified. The Bible begins with unity. This unity gets broken by God. Adam and Eve are one but then the enmity begins. Conflict and separation takes place. Man is one with nature and then breaks that. The world is one, the initial story being one of unity and harmony.

Harmony fails because it is not an achievement of human beings but a gift of grace. A gift of grace cannot be an effective force unless it is deeply a human achievement. This is the meaning of the election of Israel. Abraham enters into history when God realizes that he needs a human partner in history to mediate His covenantal ideal in a vision of what the world should be. “In order to mediate the Kingdom, to mediate My presence, I need a human partner.” Abraham represents the awareness of God that only by bringing the human into an active responsibility can God’s vision of being a Creator God be realized. The Creator God then discovers the idea that every parent and every teacher knows, you can not do it yourself! If the human does not collaborate with You, You cannot put the world together alone. God discovers His vulnerability. God discovers His need for human beings (to use the language of Abraham Joshua Heschel). In my language, I talk of the dependency of God. God’s interdependency, rather than His self-sufficiency, becomes a crucial ontological category.

This is the way that God of the Bible breaks with Aristotle. In Greek philosophy, God needing anything outside of Himself is a sign of imperfection. But the Biblical notion of perfection is not to be frightened of dependencies. God loves, He rages, He needs. This category of interdependency is essential to understand the Bible. Maimonides had to write a whole Guide to the Perplexed in order to make the God of Moses friendlier to the God of Aristotle. Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all caught up with the Greek notion of Perfection in medieval times, which does not fit into the Biblical story. The passion of God, the suffering of God, the loving of God, were alien to the Greek sensibility. Thus they had to develop all kinds of negative theology, which implied that the Bible must never be understood as saying exactly what it says and Biblical language goes through an enormous transformation.

Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed is meant to rewrite the significance of Biblical language. Despite the fact that I spent my entire early career studying Maimonides, I shelved the concept of the power of God due to the influence of Professor Yohanan Moffs, eminent Biblical scholar at the Jewish Theological Seminary, who insisted on the humanity of God. Shaul Lieberman, one of the greatest Talmudists of the twentieth century, said once, “The most tragic figure of the Bible is God.” God wants so much to be loved and it just does not work out. He wants so much to be proud of His creation and it just does not seem to be working.

Abraham represents the first stage of God’s self-limiting principle. The self-limiting, omnipotent God discovers the covenant. You can use Kabbalistic language of tsimtsum (God’s self-restriction) but I do not need it. The whole covenantal relationship is grounded in self-limitation. If you do not make room for the other, there is no relationship. Covenant is God making room for the other. The other emerges in a fullness in the first stages of Biblical theology.

This theme of the covenant moves on into rabbinic Judaism where it gets expanded to a new level. The new level is where revelation is no longer necessary. In the Bible, wherever there is a problem of law, Moses asks God for a solution. Revelation then proceeds as God interprets His own book, resolving questions of Law. God interprets His own Revelation, allowing for human freedom. He puts the choice of Life or Death before man and says: “Choose!” The Biblical notion of human autonomy is expressed in the moral struggle. God admits that He cannot program man to become moral. “You have to choose life!” In the rabbinic tradition, I claim, God limits Himself not only in terms of morality but even limits Himself in terms of His interpretation of His own Revelation.

You all know the famous story in Baba Metzia 59b (Talmud) of a difficult case of Jewish law. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was arguing with the rabbis and he said: “If I am right, then let the walls begin to fall.” Then, in the house of the academy the walls began to fall. The rabbis hollered at the walls: “Why are you interfering in an argument between scholars!” The walls, not knowing what to do, remained bent. Rabbi Eliezer then called on the waters to prove that he was right. Then the waters began to flow backwards. Again, the rabbis were not impressed. The waters are hinting that something is being said, that something is coming from on High saying “Rabbi Eliezer got it right; please follow him.” But the rabbis are not buying into this. Finally, Rabbi Eliezer says: “God, they are such an obdurate group, will You please tell them that I am right!” A voice was then heard saying: “The Law is with Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.” Direct revelation is heard again. But Rabbi Yehoshua stands up and in a Promethean move says, “God, Torah is not in heaven. You have written in the Torah: After the majority, you should rule. The majority does not agree with Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Sorry, You should not come into the Academy when we are learning. When we are arguing Your Torah, You stay out.”

Often, after publishing my first book, I wanted to follow everybody who bought and tell them how to read it. This is the message to God. You gave the Torah to human beings and now they have to make sense of it in terms of their own comprehension. We are not supposed to study the Torah through the mind of God but through the mind of humans. It is humans who have to mediate the word of God. “Torah is not in the heavens.”

The covenant has gone further. Humans now not only have the freedom to choose, but they also have the responsibility for creating Torah. The Oral Tradition is that we are now creators of revelation. We define what happened at Sinai. I am deeply Orthodox in the foundational moment. God said every word and Moses wrote it down. God said every word and Moses is simply the recording secretary. But that is not the issue in the long run. I do not live by what happened at Sinai. I live according to what the interpretative community explained Sinai to mean. I do not live according to what happened at Sinai, but rather according to what happens in the academies of learning today. In this Jews and Catholics are very close. We do not live by the Protestant immediacy of God’s word, but rather by the interpretative community. For you it is the Church and for us it is the living community that is learning Torah. The community is now the mediator of revelation. The interpretative community makes revelation an open-ended textured framework. It is not fixed. Orthodox Judaism was never fundamentalist. One never read the Bible to know what God wanted. What God wanted was mediated by the living interpretative community. The Pharisees created a living word of God mediated by human beings. That is the rabbinic tradition.

However, there is one thing that is still in the hands of God, that is, history. Everything concerning Israel in history was to be decided by God. Therefore the paradigmatic model was messianism. The paradigm of what was to happen to Israel in Exile was to be patterned after the Exodus from Egypt experience. Passover was to be the paradigm. The blessing of the Passover night is: “Just as You redeemed us from Egypt, so will You redeem us from our Exile.” The intervention in history would be a similar divine vertical movement into history as happened at the Exodus. Zionism decided that Exile is not a metaphysical category but a political category to be handled by human beings.

Israel’s homelessness and vulnerability in history is a human act. It is not because of sin that we are exiled. Rather we must understand Exile and homelessness as empirical facts to be understood by Realpolitik. The only way that this will change is if we enter into Realpolitik. If we want to go back to Israel, it is not sufficient to pray in the synagogue, sit on packed valises waiting for the Messiah to come and say “Next year in Jerusalem” at the Passover seder. Jews had lived with profound hope, praying for Jerusalem. They prayed for rain in Jerusalem even when they were in Poland. People would say that they were praying for rain in the wrong season. They would reply that there was rain needed for the farmers in Galilee. “But there are no farmers in Galilee!” They were praying on the basis of what the Land of Israel required even when no one was here.

Israel was always the focus of where they were. They never left Jerusalem; they never left the Land. The Land symbolized, on a very profound level, that God had elected them as a nation. Election and Land are intimately connected. The Land symbolizes the home of a people. God wants to be mediated not only in an individual but in the life of a community. “I will be sanctified in history. Therefore Israel and the Land are my witnesses.” The prophets emerge in the Land when Israel fails in its witness dimension. We are a nation, we are a people, we are not just individuals.

This is the fundamental importance of the leap of the we, not the Plotinian leap of the alone to the alone. You cannot understand Judaism unless you understand that the we is constitutive of self-understanding. God elected a people and a people stands at Sinai. A people entered the covenant. Abraham points to a people and not single individuals. This is where Christianity and Islam parted company with Judaism. For us, Abraham is the pointer to covenantal election of the people. Abraham was not the symbol of faith. Abraham was the symbol of God’s concern to be in history.

The Law is then a necessity for the polis. You cannot have collective living unless you have the Law. Law is the structure that makes possible communal living. Law is what makes the living community of Israel the witness to God in history.

The problem now seems to be that we decided to come home in a place where no one wants us. In Heschel’s Israel: An Echo of Eternity, he says that the Land is a testimony of the people who never lose faith in the Biblical self-understanding of the people. It is the Bible coming home alive again. The metaphor of the revolt constituted by Zionism in relation to traditional Judaism is like the child saying to his father: “Pa, I am tired of living in this house and I am tired of everything you stand for.” He then goes to the door, bangs on it and forgets to leave. That is modern Zionism. You bang on the door, that is Tel Aviv. We banged on the door and we forgot to leave.

The Land does not allow us to be secular. The Land forces us to live in dialogue with our Biblical foundations. The Land restores memory and makes us aware of ourselves as a nation. The Land asks us: “What are you doing here? What is your history?” Therefore the Bible is the central organizational text of the country. You cannot make sense of being here without it. How do we deal with this theologically? That is the big issue.

Initially secular kibbutzim took God’s name out of the Bible because they did not know how to deal with it. But how can you take His name out of the Bible? It is there! You simply have to confront the fact that God is involved in your history! What does that mean? Why was He not involved with us in Auschwitz? Did He suddenly wake up? Did He fall asleep in 1943? There is a whole dialectic between Auschwitz and rebirth that is so pregnant. How do you handle Israel and yet not ignore the Holocaust? You have to have a theology of the Holocaust if you are going to make sense religiously of returning to Israel. That is just an example of the fact that the Land itself saved the Jewish people from secularization. The establishment of the State of Israel prevents the full normal secularization of the Jewish people, holds in check the desire to be like all the nations of the world, to be at home in the world, not to be burdened by God’s elective principles. Living here does not allow that to happen.

That is why I chose to come here. As a successful rabbi in America, I realized that religion is a purely individualistic experience. The problem of the individual experience in America is the obsession with the I. But the I is not a category of Judaism. The category of Judaism is the We. The thing that restores the we is Israel. Israel gives a sense of we. The important thing in terms of Jewish-Christian relations is to understand this obsession with Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? Jerusalem is the catalyst because it has been part of our story for three thousand years. It is the return to our home. We have been mourners of Jerusalem all our life. Now we are celebrating Jerusalem. When you would visit someone who was mourning the loss of a beloved one, you would say: “May God comfort you among the mourners of Jerusalem.” When you went to a wedding, a glass would be broken symbolizing that we are still a fragmented people, not in our home. The blessings recited over the bride and groom include a phrase: “Again we will hear in Jerusalem the voice of a bride and a groom.” The bride was Israel and the groom was God.

When you are celebrating, your celebration is not complete until there is joy in the streets of Jerusalem. This was the ethos that defined our experience for two thousand years, shaped each day by the liturgy, shaped each day by our grace after meals. In the prayer, you thank God for food and then you thank Him for the Land and the covenant. You pray in every prayer that God will restore Jerusalem and return to her. The whole power of Jerusalem is not to deny my memory, not to deny my historical sense of self-understanding.

This is the problem of Yasser Arafat. I told Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian philosopher: “I do not want Arafat to tell me about 242 or other UN resolutions. I only want him to say: ‘Jews have come home.’” In their thinking we are here because of the Holocaust. That is why I fight against linking the Holocaust with the foundation of the State of Israel.

We are here a people reborn. The most powerful image is that of Ezekiel, of the bones rising up. We are a people reborn from the graves of Auschwitz. I refuse to talk to Christians who feel guilty at Yad VaShem. I will speak to you in the maternity wards of Shaarei Tsedek Hospital. Can you meet me here as a people alive again, not a wandering people bearing witness in the Augustinian sense? I do not want your pity. I do not want to take you to Yad VaShem to hear your mea culpa. You, as Jesuits, do not have to deal with Auschwitz but with Jerusalem where the Jewish people is alive. Make Israel your theological challenge, not Auschwitz.

How does Christianity deal with a Jewish people that is no longer being punished as wanderers because of their rejection of Jesus? We did not reject Jesus; we loved Moses. Get that into your heads! Anyone who says that Jesus symbolizes the fact that Moses was a passing episode, we said was a false teacher, because Moses is alive. Torah is alive! We do not feel like we are dead! I do not need inheritors. I live according to my way; you live according to yours. You have a long powerful story; live it out. You do not need me as a punching bag to define who you are. Christianity has something powerful to offer humanity and you do not need Jews to suffer in order for you to feel alive.

For me the meaning of our return to Jerusalem is not that God is going to be revealed through the exclusive truth of Judaism. Jerusalem is the symbol of God’s election of particularity, not of the universal. It is not Hegel’s concrete universal. That would be a great mistake. Israel is one story, but it is not the only story. But one must be true to one’s memory and history if one is to have an identity. Therefore the return of Judaism to Jerusalem is the affirmation of radical diversity to mediate the living God in history. It corrects the mistake of the exclusive truth idea that dominated western civilization.

Why is it so important for me to welcome you here today? It is because your voice has to be heard in the world. You must be true to your memories and your stories. The issue you have to face is: Does your story block out my story? I know my story is not the only one but I try to remain true to it, to the story I received from my mother and father. I tell it in the most vital way possible, I write books, and I talk, sometimes in a too lengthy way. I do not aim for the universal. I have no need of a Jewish theology of Christianity (that was Rosenzweig’s and Buber’s insanity). I tell the Jewish story, the story of the living covenant. Jews in Jerusalem are the elect people who have come home to correct the horrors of history. But we must understand that this is one story. The Infinite God is celebrated through richness and diversity, He needs many melodies, not just one. He needs both Shlomo Carlebach niggunim and the Mass, both Gregorian chant and Yom Kippur, circumcision of the heart and circumcision of the flesh. That is why we seem to have got it wrong in history. We must learn to celebrate each other’s joy and not be threatened by it.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

FOR CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM

AND FOR JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

Rabbi René-Samuel Sirat

I address myself to you as brothers and I would like to begin with the reading of Psalm 87.

Psalm of Korah. Psalm. Canticle.

1 With its foundations on the holy mountains,

2 Yahweh loves his city, he prefers the gates of Zion to any dwelling-place in Jacob.

3 He speaks of glory for you, city of God.

4 ‘I number Rahab and Babylon among those that acknowledge me; look at Tyre,

Philistia, Ethiopia, so and so was born there.’

5 But of Zion it will be said, ‘Every one was born there,’ her guarantee is the Most High.

6 Yahweh in his register of peoples will note against each, ‘Born there,’

7 Princes no less than native-born; all make their home in you.

It might seem surprising that a rabbi living in the Diaspora comes to Jerusalem in order to speak of the indelible link of the Jewish people to its homeland. I can certainly appeal to Philo of Alexandria, thinker of the first century, and I cite him: “It should be noted that the Jews wherever they live, in Europe or in Asia, in the towns or the villages, consider as metropolis the Holy City in which is situated the Temple of the God Most-High. They consider their respective homeland the regions that were given to them, to their fathers, their grandfathers and great grandfathers and to where their more distant ancestors were born and raised. This is true even for those who arrived in their present villages as part of the founding colonizers.” Philo bears witness to the love a Jew bears to both fatherland and motherland, to the land of his ancestors as well as the one in which he is born.

The Jewish thinker who expressed this nostalgia most profoundly and with the highest degree of pathos was undoubtedly Judah HaLevi (12^th century). In a magnificent masterpiece in which the poet proposes a philosophical and theological debate, imagining the King of the Khazars (a people living in the corner of Russia whose king converted to Judaism) consults a Christian and a Muslim philosopher and finally one from “the despised people” too, a Jew. He asks the rabbi to tell him about the fundamental principles of Judaism (cf. The Kuzari). After a long development, the rabbi insists on the link between the children of Israel and the Land of Israel.

The rabbi, interrupted by the King of the Khazars with a question, responds: “You have read how the patriarchs endeavored to live in the Land whilst it was in the hands of the pagans, how they yearned for it, and had their bones carried into it, as did Jacob and Joseph. Moses prayed to see it, and when this was denied to him, he considered this a misfortune. Thereupon it was shown to him from the summit of Pisgah, which was to him an act of grace. Persians, Indians, Greeks and the children of other nations begged to be allowed to offer up sacrifices, and to be prayed for in the Holy Temple. They spent their wealth in the place, though they believed in other laws not recognized by the Torah. They honor it to this day although the manifest Divine Presence no longer appears there. ALL NATIONS make pilgrimages to it, long for it, excepting we ourselves because we are punished and in disgrace. All the rabbis tell of its qualities but that would take too long to relate.”

The King of the Khazars said: “Let me hear a few of their observations.” The rabbi responded, “… It is better to live in the Holy Land, even in a town mostly inhabited by the heathen, than abroad in a town chiefly peopled by Israelites. He who dwells in the Holy Land is compared to someone who has a God, whilst he who dwells abroad is compared to one who has no God. Thus says David, “For they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, ‘Go serve other gods’” (1 Samuel 26:19). This means that he who dwells abroad is as if he served strange gods. …

Another saying is: “To be buried in Palestine is as if buried beneath the altar.” (I will come back to this idea that is taken from the Babylonian Talmud, in the Ketubot tractate, 111.) They praise him who is in the Land more than him who is carried to the Land dead. This is expressed thus: “He who embraces it when alive is not like him who does so after he is dead. They say concerning him who could have lived there but did not do so, and only ordered his body to be carried there after he was dead, “While you lived you made My inheritance an abomination, but in death you came to contaminate my country” (Jeremiah 2:7).

The King of the Khazars then said: “If this is so, then you fall short of the duty laid down in your law, by not endeavoring to reach that place, and making it your abode in life and death, although you say: ‘Have mercy on Zion because it is the house of our life’ [Blessing after the reading from the Prophets, Shabbat morning], and you believe that the Divine Presence will return there. And had it no other preference than that the Divine Presence dwelt there five hundred years, this is sufficient reason for men’s souls to retire there and find purification there, as happens near the abodes of the pious and the prophets. Is it not the ‘gate of heaven’?

All nations agree on this point. Christians believe that the souls are gathered there and then lifted up to heaven. Islam teaches that it is the place of ascent, and that prophets are caused to ascend from there to heaven, and, further, that it is the place of gathering on the day of Resurrection. Everybody turns to it in prayer and visits it in pilgrimage. Your bowing and kneeling in the direction of it is either mere appearance or thoughtless worship. Yet your first forefathers chose it as an abode in preference to their birth-place and lived there as strangers, rather than as citizens in their own country. This they did even at a time when the Divine Presence was yet visible, but the country was full of promiscuity, impurity, and idolatry. Your fathers however had no other desire than to remain in it.”

The rabbi responded: “This is a severe reproach,” (In fact, the Arabic should be translated, “You deeply embarrass me.” As you know, the Kuzari was written in Arabic), “O King of the Khazars. It is the sin that kept the divine promise with regard to the Second Temple, that is, ‘Sing and rejoice O daughter of Zion (Zachariah 2:10) from being fulfilled. Divine Providence was ready to restore everything as it had been at first, if they had all willingly consented to return. But only a part was ready to do so, whilst the majority and the aristocracy remained in Babylon, preferring dependence and slavery, and unwilling to leave their homes and their affairs. An allusion to them might be found in the enigmatic words of Solomon: ‘I sleep, but my heart wakes’ (Song of Songs 5:2-4). He designates the exile by sleep, and the continuance of prophecy among them by the wakefulness of the heart. ‘It is the voice of my beloved that knocks’ means God’s call to return...If we say, ‘Worship at His holy hill – worship at His footstool – He who restores His glory to Zion’ (Psalm 99:9.5) and other words, this is but like the chattering of the starling and the nightingale. We do not realize what we say by this sentence, nor others, as you rightly observe, O King of the Khazars.”

I would like to come back to the astonishing Talmudic text from the tractate of Ketubot, which was cited by Judah HaLevi. Judah HaLevi, in this response to the King of the Khazars, is reprimanding all those who, since the time of the Second Temple, did not fulfill this basic commandment of the return to Zion. You will remember that the point of the citation was that the Jew who lives in the Land is like one who worships God whereas the Jew who lives outside the Land is as one who has no God. Is it possible today to affirm such a statement, that the Jew who lives outside the Land of Israel is comparable to an idol worshiper? The worship of the true God can only be fully carried out on the Land of Israel. The number of laws which refer specifically to the Land make it impossible to fulfill the Law outside the Land. Remember how the expression “when you come to your Land” is repeated when God reveals the laws to Moses in the desert.

These laws refer, of course, only to Jews whereas non-Jews are only obligated to observe the seven Noahid laws: not to worship idols, not to blaspheme, not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery and incest, to submit to the jurisdiction of the tribunals and not to eat flesh from a living beast. The non-Jew is not, therefore, obligated to stay in the Holy Land. These Noahid laws can be applied everywhere and are not specific to the Holy Land.

Thus, the Jew, especially the one who is able, who does not reside in the Holy Land, is considered atheist. He is showing that he has no God as he refuses to fulfill his part of the promise made to Abraham by God and fulfilled by Abraham in relation to his God. “He believed in God and it was considered to him as a righteousness.” The Talmud adds, certainly astonished by its own audacity, that he is similar to an idol worshiper. Let us take an example. Passover, the Feast of Spring in the month of Abib, celebrates the fruits of the Holy Land. According to certain exegetes, the fulfillment of the commandments outside the Land does not constitute the fulfillment of the word of God. Thus the submission to the commandments outside of the Land has purely an educational function. The Jews, who have lived for so long outside their Land, will be able to celebrate the feasts when they eventually come back to live in their Land because they have preciously preserved the memory of the commandments throughout history. This is the essential quality of the Jew and has enabled him to survive despite the wide spread hatred, as noted by Psalm 83 which speaks of the virtue of hope.

The Land is vital to the life of the Jew, comparable only to the vitality for the life of the Jew of the Torah. It can be illustrated by the parable attributed to Rabbi Akiba. The fox advises the fish to leave the water in order to live on firm ground. The fish responds: “You pretend to be a cunning creature but I will not fall into your trap.” We too must be wary of all kinds of predators. In addition, we must feel great unease when we are out of our natural element. The vital place of the Jew is the Land of Israel and the Torah of Israel. It is not coincidental that the Bible uses an extremely rare term, morasha (heritage) in order to describe the link between the Jew and the Land on the one hand, and the link between the Jew and the Torah on the other. In Exodus 6:8 it is written: “I give you the Land as a morasha (heritage).” One of the exegetes commented: “One should not read morasha, that is, “heritage,” but rather mo’orasa (betrothed). The Land of Israel is the perpetual betrothed of the People of Israel. At the end of Deuteronomy (33:4): “Moses enjoined a law on us, Jacob comes into its morasha (inheritance).” There again the exegete comments that morasha should be read mo’orasa. Again, the Torah is the perpetual betrothed of Israel as was constantly pointed out by the prophets. In other words, the Torah of Israel, the Land of Israel and the People of Israel are one. The absolute unity of the three also represents a unity; they are synonymous.

Since you have asked me to address you, I might be so bold as to presume that my role as a Jew living in the Diaspora is not totally without interest. Similarly, the rabbis were not oblivious to the fact that we are not the only ones to love the Land. I would like to cite a commentary derived from Sifre, which is very ancient, contemporaneous with the Mishna. It is taken from the passage “This is the blessing,” the last passage of the book of Deuteronomy 33. It takes its point of origin in a verse from Jeremiah (3:19): “I give to you a land of delights, an admirable heritage.” The rabbis comment that a land of delights is one to which all the kings and all the rulers come to construct their palaces. Every king and every ruler wants to reside in the Land of Israel, saying that everything they have done for their own glory is without interest.

The Bible teaches us that Joshua vanquished 31 kings. Were there really 31 kings reigning in the Land of Israel at his time? It is explained that at that time it was a bit like in Rome today, every king had a home there without which he regarded his life as without importance. What is explained on the material level is also true on the spiritual level. Everyone who lives here in Jerusalem has his place in the sun and carries within himself a cure.

Let us remember the prayer of King Solomon on the day of the dedication of the Temple: “And the foreigner too, not belonging to Your people Israel, if he comes from a distant country for the sake of Your name and of Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm, if he comes and prays in this Temple - hear from heaven where Your home is, and grant his prayer, so that all the peoples of the earth may come to know Your name, and, like your people Israel, revere you and know that Your name is given to the Temple I have built” (2 Chronicles 6:32-33). The pagan sailors, miraculously saved from the storm, in the Book of Jonah, come to Jerusalem in order to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to the one God whom they now venerate as their own.

For the final and conclusive point of my presentation I would like to refer to André Neher, born in 1913, one of the great Jewish thinkers of our time. In the deepest part of the Jewish consciousness, nothing evokes better the theme of that which is irreplaceable than the earthly Jerusalem, the unique Holy City. Ten centuries later, Christianity founded another Eternal City at Rome. The Islamic consciousness, seven centuries later, constructed its Holy Cities at Mecca and Medina. Modern culture erected other centers at Paris, Moscow, New York and Peking. Only the Jews have refused to accept another center. They have refused to replace Jerusalem even if a city of ruins and dust. For twenty centuries, Jerusalem was the only horizon of the Wandering Jew. Every year at Passover, the Jew repeated the yearning to return until in the 19^th century Zionism translated this into a political activism. It is in this sense that a Jewish Jerusalem cannot be negotiated. But that is not to say that it is impossible to conceive of a Palestinian sovereignty over the Christian and Muslim Holy Sites. This might be the only way that Jerusalem might one day live up to its etymological meaning: City of Peace.

To conclude,

I dream of a Jerusalem which lives up to its appellation, Jerusalem, the Holy City. Yeroushalayim. Ourshalim. Al-Quds. Sanctity must exclude all manifestations of violence. This means that I can go to the market in Mahane Yehuda without fear of terrorist attacks. Christians can go unhindered to the churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Muslims can come from Ramallah or Hebron on Fridays to pray in the Mosques of the Haram al-Sharif. That one can go and pray without security checks, unfortunately necessary in the present situation.

I dream of a Jerusalem, City of Truth. Yerushalayim Ir ha-Emet. Ourshalim al-Haqq. There politicians give their word and offer guarantees which are kept and respected. There all the sons of Abraham will be recognized as such.

I dream of a Jerusalem, City of Fraternity. There all men and women will experience the links of brotherhood as they are all children of Adam.

I dream of Jerusalem, City of Peace. There peace is appreciated as the most precious of resources and reflects what is lived as a day to day reality.

I dream of Jerusalem, City of Liberty. There each one feels free to live according to their conscience, as long as they do not infringe on the liberty of their neighbor. There all citizens are respected and respect one another.

I dream of Jerusalem, City of Equality. There the stranger living among you suffers no prejudice. All have the same rights. The stranger is loved like your own self, for you too were strangers in the Land of Egypt.

This is the messianic dream. This is where the lion lies down with the lamb. The lion does not become a lamb, he stays a lion but he eats grass like the lamb. This is the peace for which we must all pray.

THE CHALLENGE OF MODERNITY

FOR CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM IN ISRAEL

Prof. Aviezer Ravitzky

Messianism is a fundamental component of Judaism, but right from the outset I want to distinguish between Jewish and Christian Messianism. As you know, there is a certain sect of Hassidism, the Lubavitchers, who have made the claim that their own rabbi was the Messiah. Now some might say, what is the difference between Judaism and Christianity, it is only a difference in name. The Christians say that the Messiah was named Jesus whereas these Lubavitcher hassidim say that his name was Menahem Mendel.

I would like to make this point clear by insisting on the difference between Jewish and Christian Messianism. First of all, Jewish Messianism is future-oriented. Secondly, Jewish Messianism does not insist on the personal incarnation of a Messiah. What is more important is the idea of a Messianic age. I will now outline some fundamental characteristics of Jewish Messianism:

There is only one coming. The debate between the one and only coming of the Messiah, or two comings, a first and a second, touches not only the particular personality of Jesus. The difference here between Judaism and Christianity is deeper. If you tell a Jew that the Messiah has already come, his immediate response will be, “So why do I read in the newspaper that there are still wars in the world? Why are people still killing each other? Why is there still hunger in Biafra?” I suppose some Christians would answer: “He came in the past to redeem us spiritually; he will come again in the future to redeem us sociologically, historically and politically. He came in the past to redeem us individually, if we believe in him; he will come in the future to redeem us collectively, nationally.”

In Jewish tradition such distinctions cannot be made. In Judaism there is only one redemption because the spiritual and the socio-political redemptions are one and the same. It is inherent to Judaism that you do not distinguish between flesh and spirit. One cannot say, according to a Jewish perspective, that the Church is the Chosen People in spirit and the Jews are the Chosen People in flesh. Such distinctions between flesh and spirit are not made in Judaism. We believe that the spiritually Chosen People is also the permanent Chosen People in the flesh. Similarly, we cannot distinguish between a spiritual coming of the Messiah and the political-historical coming of the Messiah; these are one and the same.

There can be no distinction between my individual redemption and the redemption of all Jews and all humanity. Therefore a Jew cannot accept a Messiah who came and did not redeem history. I am not making a truth claim but am, rather, trying to analytically distinguish between two phenomena. This is true as well with respect to the Old and New Testaments. For Jews, there is only one Sinai. Any future interpretation or even revelation is already inherent in the one Sinai revelation. Any future revelation can never be superior to Sinai but must be consistent with the Sinai revelation. One revelation, one redemption, one creation – this is fundamental.

If you take these three most important theological concepts - creation, revelation, redemption - their unicity is underlined. There is one creation and no future creation. There is one revelation and any future revelation is not superior but rather interpretative. The Talmud can interpret the Written Torah but it cannot claim to be a new Torah or a New Testament or a new Law. The same is true with regard to Messianism; there is one coming and there is no second coming. So, you will excuse me if I am a little cynical about the claims of the Lubavitcher Hassidim because I believe it does not fit Judaism.

Once I met with the head of the Mormon University in Jerusalem. He did not want to discuss theology with me because they have made a firm commitment not to proselytize in Israel. They stick to this very honestly. Nonetheless, after some time, it became clear to him that I was not likely to be converted and so he began to talk. Finally, when it came to the Messiah, I proposed that it not be necessary to argue about whether the Messiah we were both waiting for was coming for the first time or the second time. We could simply ask him whether this was his first coming or his second coming when he finally arrived.

When it comes to some of the Lubavitchers who claim that their dead rabbi will return as the Messiah king, the question about a first or second coming is no longer sufficient. Instead we will have to ask for his name, is he named Jesus or Menahem, the name of the Lubavitcher rabbi. So I would have to reject the claim I made to the rector of the Mormon university. Seriously, I hope it is clear that we are speaking about one time, one coming of the Messiah.

There is a national emphasis to the messianic idea. The Messiah is supposed to redeem the nation, the Jewish people, and after that he will redeem humanity, the whole human race. If you stop a Jew in the street and ask him or her: “When the Messiah comes, what is he going to do?” I think that the first answer will be, “He will bring us back from Exile, he will re-establish the Davidic dynasty.” An Orthodox Jew might say that he will re-establish the Temple. What will happen after that? Then the nations of the world will also accept him, he will redeem humanity and fulfill the prophecies of the end of days, according to Isaiah, everybody will cut their swords into ploughshares, all humanity will be monotheist, etc. But all of this takes place only later. This emphasis is national and at least until 52 years ago focused predominantly on the return from the Exile of a people subjugated to the nations. The people that is in exile, spiritually and physically, is supposed to be redeemed. As a consequence of that, the world will be redeemed.

Finally, and here I am not sure that it is a very clear distinction between Christianity and Judaism, the idea of Messianism expresses some kind of discomfort with present reality. If everything were okay, one would not expect a Messiah to come. It is exactly because the newspapers are what they are, that you read what you read, that you believe that you need a change in reality. You consider this present world to be an unredeemed world. As a Jew, you consider history to be linear and not circular. History began at some definite point in the past, Creation or Exodus or Sinai - cosmologically Creation, historically Exodus and spiritually Sinai, and history is going towards a definite point in the future, the Messianic era.

In Greek philosophy, one often speaks about the circular rather than the linear development of history. The circular patterns of day-night-day or spring-summer-autumn-winter-spring or child-adult-elder-death-child are seen as the model for the unfolding of the events of history too. I do not need to tell you that for Aristotle, history does not have that much significance, what needs to be understood according to his perspective is that we are part of an eternal circle. I believe that in the Bible the development is linear.

Let me give you an interesting example, the book of Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). There is a great debate in Biblical studies regarding this book. Some argue that it was written in the Greek period and that it is not particularly Jewish. At the center of this claim is the argument that its perception of history is circular. Everyone knows the famous section where the author describes the seemingly circular progression of generation after generation. According to my previous generalizations, these exegetes should be correct. But in fact this is not the case. If you take a Greek book, the description of the cosmos as subject to the circular proceeding of history is an advantage, we take part thereby in eternity. But for the author of Qohelet, if you really believe that it is circular, then all is “vanity.” If it is circular then it is vanity, whereas the linear perspective is the correct one. This is what I want to define as the Biblical and the Jewish perspective. Messianism is the end point of this linear presentation of history.

Now I will move to the contemporary scene. It should be clear from this outline of Messianism that as soon as the Zionist movement established itself in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, the question of Messianism arose. Some people were working, by human efforts, to bring the Jewish people to the Holy Land, thus working to end our historical situation of Exile. Secondly, the plan was to settle the Jews in the Land. Thirdly, the aim was to establish a state or a kingdom, meaning political independence.

Any claim that this project is indifferent to classical Jewish Messianism is thus difficult to maintain. One the one hand, you might say that the Zionist project is illegitimate because you are trying to bring the Messiah by human effort. Instead of praying, you want to develop settlements and agriculture. On the other hand, you might say that these are the first birth pangs of the Messianic age. This approach would argue that this is not a Jewish but divine initiative and Zionism is simply a Jewish response to this divine initiative. The attempt to claim that Zionism and Messianism had nothing to do with each other was very difficult, even though there were some rabbis who made such a claim.

Those of you who are familiar with religious Zionism might be surprised to find out that the founder of religious Zionism, Rabbi Y. Reines, tried to make such a distinction between Zionism and Messianism. He claimed that Zionism had nothing to do with Messianism and therefore he could be a Zionist. If someone tried to bring the Messiah by human effort, through agriculture or construction, Reines would not follow him. The Messiah is supposed to come by our spiritual and religious efforts alone. For Reines, the Zionists were simply trying to improve the situation of the Jews. They are trying to establish the Third Commonwealth. Just as the First Commonwealth founded by Joshua and David was not a Messianic commonwealth, nor was the Second Commonwealth founded by Ezra and Nehemiah, so too are the Zionists trying to build the Third Commonwealth.

Even if they are not the same thing, Zionism and Messianism undeniably play on the same football field even if with different rules. Messianism foresees the ingathering of the exiles, Zionism sets out to bring this about. One of the clearest signs of the arrival of Messianic times is that the Land of Israel begin