Jewish Responses to Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Look Ahead to the Twenty-First Century.

How have Jews responded to Christian efforts to transform anti-Jewish positions?

A retrospective glance at the twentieth century reveals one of the most devastating, challenging, and promising eras in Jewish history. Zionism, the Holocaust, the development of American Judaism, and Jewish feminism all mark events of dramatic significance. Often overlooked, however, is the emergence of a new, post-Holocaust relationship between Jews and Christians. Ever since the Vatican's Nostra Aetate (1964), Christian theologians of varying denominations have tried to advance new nonsupersessionist theological perspectives on Judaism. From efforts to situate Jesus in his Jewish context (Van Buren, Ruether) to the attempt to redefine the Christian notion of missionary work (Baum) and recent efforts to retell the Christian canonical narrative in a way that regrafts Christianity onto the election narrative of the Jewish people (Soulen, Bader-Saye), Christian theologians have been and continue to be engaged in constructive efforts to transform former anti-Jewish positions. How have Jews responded to this inv itation? How can Jews respond?

The first Jewish respondents were post-Holocaust theologians who, sobered by the harrowing events of the Holocaust, swore to begin a new era of human cooperation and community. One of the most well-known of these respondents is Irving Greenberg. Convinced that the Holocaust issued the call for a new era of human responsibility over and above any expectation for providential involvement, Greenberg has argued that post-Holocaust Judaism had to seek power--the essence of its continued vitality. "Jews could not depend on waiting for the Messiah.[ldots] They had to reassert the value of life by taking power. To restore the image of God in the individual Jew, they had to create a society and an army and a political structure that could truly preserve the infinite value of the human" (Visions, 15). Now, no longer victimized, a powerful Judaism can establish a dynamic relationship with Christianity. Furthermore, capable of the corruption that comes along with power, Jews must establish a relation with Christians as well as with other secular powers, for only a moral balance of power among post-Holocaust elements in society can guard against any given group's effort to dominate. Jewish-Christian relations can and must be forged as a product of a new and necessary wave in human self-assertion.

Perhaps the most inspirational of Jewish thinkers to engage in Jewish Christian relations was Abraham Joshua Heschel. In a famous piece entitled, "No Religion Is An Island," Heschel asserts that as human beings we are all "accountable to God"; we all stand before God, humbled in our finitude. No religious life, creed, or ruling can elevate an individual from the condition of her finitude. Religions are pathways to standing before G-d. No tradition's revelation is the complete truth--revelation is always an "accommodation to the capacity of man.[ldots] Religion is a means, not the end. It becomes idolatrous when regarded as an end in itself. Over and above all being stands the Creator and Lord of history, He who transcends all" (No Religion, 15, 13). Our differences in mind, as human beings we can and must stand together in our faith and in our humility and celebrate each other's pathways to building a kingdom of God. "In this aeon diversity of religions is the will of God" (No Religion, 15).

Advancing beyond centuries of Jewish-Christian polemics, Greenberg and Heschel revolutionized Jewish attitudes toward Christianity. Still, we must move beyond their particular programs. Greenberg's call for continued Jewish life is an understandable response to the Holocaust. Nonetheless, fruitful and meaningful Jewish-Christian relations cannot be predicated on a sharing of power. As Martin Buber knew, the quest for power detracts from and does not nourish an initiative toward community. Heschel's focus on human finitude and humility before God provides a more promising basis for Jewish-Christian relations. Unfortunately, Heschel's theological position is untenable for Orthodox Jews. His assertion that the Jewish and Christian revelation are both equally valid, but only partial expressions of a single truth, sponsors a relativism that Orthodox Jews (and traditionalist Christians) cannot accept. Traditionalists in both religions want to be able to maintain claims to exclusivity. If Heschel is correct about r evelation, the traditionalist Jew or Christian has no good reason for being a Jew or Christian: both expressions of revelation are equally valid because both are equally partial.

To be fully successful, Jewish-Christian dialogue must potentially include traditionalists and liberals alike. Is there a way to appropriate Heschel's attention to humility as the basis of Jewish-Christian relations without falling prey to Heschel's relativism? The answer to this question is yes. To demonstrate it, however, we must attend to the efforts at Jewish-Christian dialogue proposed by three other Jewish thinkers: Joseph Soloveitchik, David Novak, and, finally, Franz Rosenzweig.

Soloveitchik's "Confrontation"

Perhaps the most famous Orthodox Jewish proponent of Jewish-Christian dialogue was the late, revered Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. In an well-known article entitled "Confrontation," Soloveitchik proposes a nonrelativistic model for Jewish-Christian relations. Arguing, he claims, from a biblical perspective, Soloveitchik asserts that confrontation is the essence of human life. Placed on this earth, we have been given the opportunity and responsibility to confront the world around us, both nature and other people. Confrontation with our world spawns our human development, enables us to rise to our potential. The biblical Adam presents a picture of our confrontation with nature. Unlike the animals, biblical Adam distinguishes himself from his world. While such differentiation engenders fear, this fear prompts Adam to want to control and master this world. Confronted man learns how to delve into his own resources in order to subdue the world and master it. He knows, says Soloveitchik, "his great capacity for facing and dominating the non-human order" ("Confrontation," 12).

According to Soloveitchik, however, a fully developed life also involves the confrontation between one human being and another. While the person who confronts nature may develop associations with others for the shared purpose of controlling the outside world, such associations do not afford true confrontations between persons. A mere "coordination of interests," says Soloveitchik, "does not spell an existential union.[ldots]In spite of our sociability and outer-directed nature, we remain strangers to each other" ("Confrontation," 16). True confrontation between persons requires first a recognition of the mutual estrangement implicit within a mere coordination of interests and then the subsequent revelation of God's covenant which alone constitutes the basis for a community of truly confronted persons. For Soloveitchik, true confrontation with other persons is possible only within the covenant or faith community.

Soloveitchik's program for Jewish-Christian relations derives from this analysis. It is worth noting that Soloveitchik does not reference Jewish law on this issue, for as David Novak says, "there are no specific halakhic impediments to serious talk with non-Jews" (J-C Dialogue, 23). The Jew, says Soloveitchik, experiences both levels of confrontation. She confronts the outside world, seeking to master nature -- and she confronts others through the covenant faith-community uniquely afforded her through the covenant God made with the Jews at Sinai. Of these two types of confrontation, the Jew shares the first with all humanity and yet experiences the other only within the context of her faith-community. The Jew is "burdened with a two-fold task[ldots]the problem of a 'double confrontation'. We think of ourselves as human beings, sharing the destiny of Adam in his general encounter with nature and as members of a covenant community[ldots]" ("Confrontation," 17). Jews must participate in both types of confrontat ion, and yet it is only in the confrontation with nature where we can meet with non-Jews in a common conversation about our efforts to control our world and our resources. The curtain of conversation falls when we engage as Jews in the confrontation unique to our covenant community. This confrontation is untranslatable to others and is not discussible. The specific content of revelation cannot be a topic of conversation between Jews and non-Jews. Soloveitchik says,

It is important that the religious or theological logos should not be employed as the medium of communication between two faith communities.[ldots] The confrontation should not occur at a theological, but at a mundane human level.[ldots] Our common interests lie not in the realm of faith, but in that of the secular orders. ("Confrontation," 24)

Jewish-Christian dialogue is possible only so far as Jews and Christians deny their Jewish or Christian identities in the name of a shared "secular humanity" in order to speak together regarding "all fields of constructive human endeavor" ("Confrontation," 26).

A useful effort to present a nonrelativistic program for Jewish-Christian dialogue, Soloveitchik's model nonetheless suffers from a fundamental contradiction highlighted by David Novak in his Jewish-Christian Dialogue. According to Novak, while Soloveitchik correctly critiques the enlightenment-based claim that Jews can, as Jews, fully participate in the conversation with humanity without sacrificing any of their Judaism, [1] he is incorrect to expect Jews to fully bracket their Judaism when dealing with the non-Jewish world, embracing it only when comfortably situated within the covenant community environment. As Novak correctly points out, neither the Jew nor the Christian can interchangeably assume a faith-position and then a nonfaith position. The Christian is always a Christian and the Jew always a Jew, regardless of their conversation partners. A Jewish-Christian dialogue relegated to the secular realm is a contradiction in terms.

A New Model for Jewish-Christian Theological Dialogue

Soloveitchik has presented a model for Jewish-Christians relations within terms acceptable to Orthodox Jews. Given the contradiction implicit within his model, our question remains: can we assert a model that is both acceptable to Orthodox Jews but rooted in Heschel's human finitude? To do so, we must retain Soloveitchik's prohibition against a dialogue concerning the contents of revelation; however, we must also find a way to overcome the contradiction in Soloveitchik's proposal.

The model for Jewish-Christian theological dialogue that I am going to assert will use the form and conditions proposed by David Novak in his Jewish-Christian Dialogue; however, my model will depart from Novak's regarding the content of the conversation. Accordingly, we must become familiar with Novak's model.

For Novak, Jewish-Christian theological dialogue must adhere to two conditions: (1) It must (to secure against Soloveitchik's contradictory flaw) derive out of the believers' respective theological belief systems; and (2) like Soloveitchik's model, the dialogue may not discuss either tradition's particular experience of revelation. As we saw, it was on the grounds of this second condition that Soloveitchik denied the possibility of a theological dialogue between Jews and Christians. For Soloveitchik, the condition of human life prior to and in the moment of first receiving revelation is not a theological but a strictly anthropological reality. For Novak, this is not the case.

According to Novak, the possibility of theological dialogue is rooted in the anthropological conditions of the possibility of revelation. As part of their own theological commitments, both Jews and Christians have a shared understanding of the created person and the condition of life prior to receiving the particular content spoken by God to their particular communities. This understanding does not stand outside of the theological matrix of their belief systems and provides a common ground for conversation that does not encroach upon the specifics of revelation.

I agree with what Novak takes to be the formal conditions and basis of theological dialogue between Jews and Christians. Jews and Christians may converse together regarding their common pre-revelation condition. However, I disagree with what Novak takes to be the actual content of their conversation. According to Novak, pre-revelation, Jews and Christians share a common Judeo-Christian ethic. Both traditions recognize the creator God who granted humanity the capacity for basic moral norms. These norms, says Novak, function as a kind of Kantian condition of the possibility of the reception of revelation. "Revelation's most evident precondition is morality" (J-C Dialogue, 138). Jews, Novak believes, accepted the revelation at Sinai because "they first experienced God as good and thus judged it right to respond to his commandments [ldots] their response to God's presence presupposed that they had general criteria of good and evil [ldots] (Contemporary Jewish Ethics, 44). Prior to revelation, Jews possess a rati onality of good and evil that they share with Christians. Jewish-Christian dialogue is the conversation concerning these shared moral norms.

Rosenzweig, The Lonely Man of Faith and the Absence of God

Novak's proposal for Jewish-Christian relations maintains the possibility for Orthodox involvement without succumbing to Soloveitchiks' secular-religious contradiction. The question at hand, however, is whether Jews and Christians universally agree with Novak's belief in a shared Judeo-Christian ethics as the precondition for revelation. First, while Novak may find company among many Catholics, he would have a more difficult time persuading an antinatural law Protestant theologian like Karl Barth of a shared Judeo-Christian, pre-revelation ethic. For Barth, prior to revelation, Christians are afflicted by sin, which by its very nature secures against any successful human ethical effort or awareness. [2] Second, even if one grants Novak a Judeo-Christian pre-revelation ethic, one can still question whether this shared ethic alone describes the pre-revelation condition of Jews and Christians. In what follows, I will argue that the condition of the possibility of revelation for both Jews and Christians derives n ot from a secure sense of an ordered morality but rather from a common experience of crisis in our created order -- a common sense of finitude or human limitation. Consequently, my argument will return to Heschel's appreciation for human finitude as the basis of the dialogue, but in a way that does not implicate a relativistic view of revelation. To support this view Twill examine the phenomenology of revelation offered by both Franz Rosenzweig in his The Star of Redemption as well as Joseph Soloveitchik in his The Lonely Man of Faith.

The Star of Redemption

Perhaps the greatest Jewish theologian of the twentieth century, Franz Rosenzweig was also a pioneer in the area of Jewish-Christian relations. Analyses of Rosenzweig's contribution to Jewish-Christian relations generally focus on the particular dynamic figuratively described in Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption by the symbol of the Star. Redemption, the text suggests, requires Judaism and its fire, burning as the center of the Star and Christianity as the rays, extending the fire throughout the world. Rosenzweig's Star metaphor introduces a two-covenant theory of religious dialogue. There are a number of difficulties with Rosenzweig's vision, however, depending on one's reading of the Star of Redemption. Does Rosenzweig's text privilege the role of Judaism? Would Christians recognize themselves in Rosenzweig's portrayal of them? Does the Star of Redemption facilitate or encourage dialogical exchanges between the two traditions? In the end, Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption affords a first step in Jewish-Christia n relations but has too many flaws to suffice as a contemporary model. [3]

A full appreciation of Rosenzweig's contribution to Jewish-Christian relations derives not from Rosenzweig's Star metaphor, but from his phenomenology of revelation as presented in the famous Part II, Book 2, of the Star of Redemption. Revelation for Rosenzweig is the irruptive and shocking event of God's address or call to us. More specifically, it is the event of God's act of love toward us in the form of a moral imperative or commandment to love him -- God's invitation to a life of covenant responsibility and participation. Like Novak, Rosenzweig maintains that individuals or communities arrive at revelation conditioned by their own cultural language, laws, and customs and use these tools to attempt to interpret this foreign event. Unlike Novak, however, Rosenzweig does not maintain that revelation simply confirms the world we know prior to revelation but rather disrupts it and calls it into question. Rosenzweig's phenomenology is quite clear on this point. Immediately following the event of God's shockin g and irruptive love, the beloved individual awakens to the realization that such love is unprecedented in its past. It has never given this love nor received it. Consequently, autonomous human morality is called into question and the beloved individual confesses, "I have sinned" (Star, 179). Furthermore it is this awareness of human moral limitation or the absence of God's love in my past, that for Rosenzweig functions as the precondition for a full appreciation of God's revelation. God's love is radically other than any love I have known. I must recognize its prior absence in order to begin to appreciate its radical otherness. While Novak holds that the precondition of revelation is located in a shared Judeo-Christian ethic which comes to be confirmed in later revelation, Rosenzweig holds that the precondition of revelation is the awakening to the absence of God's love in our world prior to God's unique and irruptive revelation.

Rosenzweig's focus on the confession of sin or human finitude as the precondition for revelation provides the basis for a Jewish-Christian dialogue rooted in Heschel's human finitude which does not fall prey to Heschel's theological relativism. If revelation requires the recognition of a crisis or lack in one's own pre-revelation existence, it would appear that Jews and Christians may come together in their shared recognition of human limitation without engaging in a discourse regarding the specific content of either tradition's particular revelation. If Novak's Jews and Christians meet in their common appreciation for a Judeo-Christian ethic, Rosenzweig's meet in a common awareness of human limitation. Beyond this, Jewish-Christian dialogue also challenges Jews and Christians to work together as a quiet and humbled voice of social criticism in societies that become overly confident regarding the power of any human system or ideology. Lastly, I believe even natural law inclined Catholic theologians could agr ee with Rosenzweig's analysis of human finitude as the precondition for the full reception of revelation. Their appreciation for human rationality aside, natural law theologians nonetheless appreciate the power of original sin and the necessity of judgement as that which precedes the reception of Christian grace.

I believe that even Soloveitchik could agree with this model for Jewish-Christian dialogue. In a later work, The Lonely Man of Faith, Soloveitchik presents a portrait of revelation that differs from the view presented in "Confrontation." First, Soloveitchik corrects his earlier contradiction regarding the separation between the Jew as a Jew and the Jew as a human being. The person who confronts nature is the same as the person who confronts an other in covenant community. Though Soloveitchik continues to distinguish between these two modes of being by calling the first Adam I and the second Adam II, it is evident in the text that Adam I and Adam II are one person.

Furthermore, and more importantly, in the Lonely Man of Faith Soloveitchik presents a phenomenology of revelation that shares more in common with Rosenzweig's view than with Novak's. Like Rosenzweig, Soloveitchik's Lonely Man of Faith arrives at the full meaning of revelation only after he has experienced a crisis or tragedy within his own existence. Soloveitchik describes this crisis as the crisis between Adam I or Adam II. Adam I is much like Rosenzweig's self prior to revelation--the person who masters his world through a utilitarian ethic but who fails to realize God's presence in his world. But Adam I is also Adam II, the self who knows existential loneliness and doubts the security and certainty of his mastery of the world. It is only in the moment of this doubt and anxiety that a person becomes open to the reception of God's full revelation. Revelation, Soloveitchik says, is the event through which the "Deus absconditus emerges suddenly as the Deus revelatus" (Lonely Man of Faith, 53). But if this is the case then the precondition of revelation can only be the recognition of this deus absconditus. Only when Adam I becomes seized by the awareness of this insecurity and self-doubt, only when he calls into question the success of his mastery of the world is he prepared to receive the radical otherness of the God who alone provides the true basis for society and community. Graced by this humility and prepared for revelation, he now has something authentic and constructive to discuss with his Christian partner.

RANDI RASHKOVER is Assistant Editor of Cross Currents.

Bibliography

Cohen, Richard, A. Elevations: The Height of the Good in Rosenzweig and Levinas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Greenberg, Irving. "Judaism and Christianity: Their Respective Roles in the Strategy of Redemption." In Visions of the Other: Jewish and Christian Theologians Assess the Dialogue, ed. Eugene J. Fisher. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1994.

Heschel, Abraham Joshua. "No Religion Is an Island." In No Religion Is an Island: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Interreligious Dialogue. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1991.

Novak, David. Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Justification. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

_____. "Natural Law, Halakhah and the Covenant." In Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader, ed. Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. Newman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

Soloveitchik, Joseph B. "Confrontation." Tradition 6, no. 2 (Spring--Summer 1964).

_____. The Lonely Man of Faith. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson Inc., 1965.

Notes

(1.) For one instance of this position see Moses Mendelsohn's Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism, trans. Allan Arkush (Brandeis University Press, 1983).

(2.) For Barth's most forceful statement on this subject see his The Epistle to the Romans, trans. from the 6th ed. by Edwyn C. Hoskyns (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968).

(3.) For more detailed discussions of Rosenzweig's analysis of Jewish-Christian relations, see chapter 5, "Franz Rosenzweig's Theology of the Jewish-Christian Relationship," in David Novak, Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Justification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), and chapter 1, "Jewish Election in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig," in Richard Cohen, Elevations: The Height of the Goad in Rosenzweig and Levinas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).