A remarkable
opinion piece by Joel Alperson and carried by JTA includes this observation:
I've collected the mission statements of the largest 17 Jewish federations in North America, and not one mentions "God," "Torah" or "Judaism." Nor do the mission statements of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization, Hillel, the National Council of Jewish Women, The Wexner Heritage Foundation, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, Hadassah and the Jewish National Fund. Of all the organizations I looked into, only United Jewish Communities mentions but one of the three words, Torah, in its mission statement.
Some surely will be quick to say that the above organizations were not created to convey religious concepts. That is precisely my point: How can we say these organizations are Jewish and at the same time don't need to mention God, Torah or Judaism?
This fits with everything I know about Jewish communal leadership but the results of Alperson's having sifted through all those mission statements -- and found just one lonely reference to God, Torah, or Judaism! -- still represents a startling piece of information, reflecting a massive desertion from the very purpose of Jewish existence.
That's the simple lesson from the
Rabbi Manis Friedman affair, which, if you haven't looked into it, you're probably better off. What on earth was he thinking? It will blow over quickly, but what a bad day for Chabad. And what a strange day when I find mysel
f agreeing with the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman. What was
Moment magazine, a very mainstream publication, thinking in publishing Rabbi Friedman? Yet the funny thing is that I know from his admirers, among whom my wife counts herself, that he's a riveting and illuminating speaker.
This is why I often feel like Don Quixote trying to remind Jews of our mission as a Kingdom of Priests. Sigh.
Recently a particularly thoughtful commenter on this blog mentioned in passing that he identifies as a Noachide, that is, a Gentile believer in Torah. I was so interested to hear this that I wrote to him and asked for his story, which he graciously provided. I am copying it below. It's truly a privilege for me to have such a person among my readers.
But first a note of introduction. A few weeks back I startled some Jewish readers by saying that
Judaism in its classical sources is a missionary religion. Not that Jews are enjoined to convert Gentiles to Judaism, but rather to draw them to the primordial Torah religion of Noachism. This is assumed to be the faith practiced by Noah and bequeathed to humanity.
In this model, which the Talmud details in tractate Sanhedrin, Jews follow the moral and ritual Mosaic code, while Gentiles follow the Noachide code. But the model of spiritual reality revealed in the Torah is a gift given to both Jews and Gentiles.
Maimonides makes it very clear in his Mishneh Torah that Jews are commanded to use whatever means are at our disposal to encourage (that's putting it mildly) non-Jews in this Noachide path (Laws of Kings 6:10). Yes, Judaism is an aggressively missionary religion, if not in current practice then in theory.
That having been said, I'll introduce you to my reader and friend, Brian Beckman:
I'm a physicist, and was brought up as a very conservative, traditional Catholic. The church changed dramatically in my youth. From my point of view, it wasn't wrenching, because I didn't change. That left me without an emotional connection to God, but also free to pursue a more durable, intellectual connection.
Jay Michaelson has an interesting column in the
Forward about the flood of recent books by Jews seeking to
argue with Jesus and Christianity:
[T]hese past few years have seen a small mountain of Jesus books arrive on my desk, most of them not worthy of review. Screeds about how Jesus got Judaism wrong, or how Christians got Jesus wrong, or how much better we are than they are...
Kindly he attributes this literary trend, such as it is, in part to me:
Surely, some of the Jesus fad is due to the success of David Klinghoffer's 2005 book, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus. (Answer: We're the chosen people -- a nation, not universalists.) But I think a lot of it is also due to our increased confidence as an assimilated minority in the United States. Where once we could have been tortured or burned for not accepting Christ, now we can publish books criticizing him.
I appreciate the reference, and the second point -- about Christian America's remarkable openness to disagreement -- is correct. But I would slightly modify Jay's answer to the question posed by the title of my book.
Judaism's universal message is a big part of the reason Judaism stands stubbornly apart from Christianity.
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