YZKCU@cunyvm.bitnet (Yaakov Kayman) (06/08/90)
As a real Jew, i.e., a believing and practicing one, I'd like to lay one matter concerning Judaism, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the other, to its deserved final rest. If you're born Christian and wish to follow Christianity, fine. No problem. Judaism believes that the righteous of ALL the Nations of the World, whose righteousness it defines in terms their keeping the Seven Noachide Commandments given by G-d to humanity, have a share in the World to Come, or "Heaven". (I will be happy to send a copy of those seven commandments to any non-Jew who requests it.) Understand, however, that Judaism is not Christianity and that Christianity is not Judaism. They aren't, never have been and never will be alike. One very major difference is that Judaism rejects in toto the concept of any man being divine, J____ included. Judaism remains Judaism *BECAUSE OF* its rejection of J____ (and because of other things, obviously), NOT IN SPITE OF that rejection. Judaism mandates the acceptance of a uniquely One G-d, Whose Oneness permits neither separation nor combination. Without this belief, one may call him/herself anything he/she wants - ANYTHING EXCEPT A BELIEVING JEW. Yaakov K. -------- Yaakov Kayman (212) 903-3666 City University of New York BITNET: YZKCU@CUNYVM "Lucky is the shepherd, and lucky his flock Internet: YZKCU@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU about whom the wolves complain"
hedrick@cs.rutgers.edu (06/08/90)
[Yaakov Kayman posted a note indicating that anyone following Jesus is by definition not a Jew, because believing that a person is divine violates a basic principle of Judaism. --clh] I read this posting with a good deal of sadness. This is the sort of discussion that has caused a good deal of grief in the past, and little enlightenment. The question I'd like to look at is: what can you reasonably expect to accomplish by protesting against the term Messianic Jew. If the concern is that something is being misrepresented, this is of course an important matter. But I don't think anyone is in any danger of believing that Judaism as a whole has accepted Christ. So probably there is no actual confusion. In my view, the real reason these discussions become highly charged is because the claim to be Jewish (or Christian, in the other examples) is tied to the claim to be legitimate heirs of the original tradition. To accept that Messianic Jews have the right to use the term Jew, you are admitting that they are part of the Jewish tradition. Since you see Christianity as denying a foundational principle of Judaism, this is of course something you can't agree to. If you didn't see that contradiction, you would be Christian yourself, and we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. The problem is, the reverse is true also. Messianic Jews believe that Christ is the fulfillment of Jewish hopes, and thus that they are Jews in the full sense. They obviously don't see Christianity as violating the dictum that God is One, or they wouldn't be Christians, and we wouldn't have the problem either. So what is comes down to is that the disagreement over the proper use of the term "Jew" is intrinsically tied to the basic disagreement, and we can no more expect to get an agreement over whether it is proper for Messianic Jews to use that term than we can expect all Jews to suddenly become Christian (or visa versa). One thing that I will say is that I think Christians may have made too little effort to explain to Jews what is meant by our basic Christological statements. We do not mean to say that Jesus is another God, but the result of the one God that we both believe in making himself visible in history. I realize that you believe God doesn't work that way. I don't expect to convince you that he does. But I'd at least like to convince you that I'm not worshipping a different God. Christian theology has a history of picking language that is intentionally paradoxical. This is because our primary problems have been with people who wanted to relax the tension by getting rid of one side or the other of the paradox. But in the process of guarding ourselves against misunderstandings within the Christian community, we have adopted language that is likely to seem odd, if not downright blasphemous, to Jews. Properly speaking, it's misleading to say that Christians see Jesus as being divine. More properly, we see him as being God. The One God. The same one you believe in. (How could it be otherwise? There's only one.) God decided to show up in his own creation. Again, I can understand your saying that this is impossible. That's fine. But it least it would be helpful to understand that we don't see Jesus as a separate god. By the way, it should not be necessary for you to tell Christians about the Noachide commandments. They are referred to in the NT. I don't know how much you know about the early history of the Church. Please recall that the original Christians were Jews. (Well, I know you don't think they were proper Jews, but you know what I mean.) Initially, many of them had envisioned Christianity as being only for Jews. Anyone who wanted to become a Christian would first have to convert to Judaism. However they eventually concluded exactly what you say, that God did not intend for the whole world to become Jewish. Instead it was decided that someone could become a Christian while remaining a Gentile, so long as they obey the Noachide commandments. (Acts 15 is a description of the discussions leading up to this. It appears that they took for granted a few of the Noachide commandments as being already implied by someone wanting to be a Christian, and so they mentioned only 4 of the 7 rules.) After this decision, the Christian church contained both Jews and Gentiles. Over time, apparently most Jewish Christians decided that it was no longer necessary to continue to be observant Jews. (Unfortunately I don't know the details of this -- as far as I know, no one does.) However as far as Christian theology is concerned, the groundwork is still there to have both Jewish and Gentile Christians. In many ways I wish this problem would go away, because it seems to me that Christian Jews create an incredible amount of friction between Christians and the Jewish community. On the other hand, given what Jesus himself said about obeying the Law, I can hardly ask them to give up being Jews. It's a problem we're going to have to learn to live with. Thus I respectfully receive your protest, and understand your upset. But I am also not sure that much can be done about it. I certainly don't expect it to result in Messianic Jews no longer calling themselves Jews. Nor do I myself consider it improper for them to do so. How could I? Like them, I also consider Christ to be the fulfillment of the hopes of the prophets. I hope this is an area in which we will respectfully agree to disagree.