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| Mesa Falls Idaho July 2012 Credit: Jack Schuessler |
I freely admit that I am not qualified to engage in a scholarly Jewish-Christian interfaith conversation. I agree with Rabbi Heschel on this subject: "It is not an enterprise for those who are half-learned or spiritually immature. If it is not to lead to the confusion of the many, it must remain a prerogative of the few." Abraham Joshua Heschel, "No Religion Is an Island," in No Religion Is an Island: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Interreligious Dialogue, ed. Harold Kasimow and Byron L. Sherwin (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991) at 10-11 (quoted in Feldman, Egal, Catholics and Jews in the Twentieth Century. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2001, at 142) (hereafter "Heschel"). By "the few" Heschel has in mind Bible teachers who have the temperament and scholarly knowledge to be fair and respectful to the two faith traditions. I have the respect (I hope!), but I lack the training.
While we amateurs may not know enough to participate in interfaith theological exchanges, that does not mean that we need to shy away from the writings of Rabbi Heschel. One question that Heschel has helped to answer for me is, "Why study the Bible?" Here are some insights from him:
I speak as a member of a congregation whose founder was Abraham, and the name of my rabbi is Moses. Heschel at 3. ...
I speak as a person who is convinced that the fate of the Jewish people and the fate of the Hebrew Bible are intertwined. The recognition of our status as Jews, the legitimacy of our survival, is only possible in a world in which the God of Abraham is revered. Nazism in its very roots was a rebellion against the Bible, against the God of Abraham. Realizing that it was Christianity that implanted attachment to the God of Abraham and involvement with the Hebrew Bible in the hearts of Western man, Nazism resolved that it must both exterminate the Jews and eliminate Christianity, and bring about instead a revival of Teutonic paganism. Nazism has suffered a defeat, but the process of eliminating the Bible from the consciousness of the Western world goes on. It is on the issue of saving the radiance of the Hebrew Bible in the minds of man that Jews and Christians are called upon to work together. None of us can do it alone. Both of us must realize that in our age anti-Semitism is anti-Christianity and that anti-Christianity is anti-Semitism. Heschel at 4-5. ...
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Is Judaism, is Christianity, ready to face the challenge? When I speak about the radiance of the Bible in the minds of man, I do not mean its being a theme for "Information, please" but rather an openness to God's presence in the Bible, the continuous ongoing effort for a breakthrough in the soul of man, the guarding of the precarious position of being human, even a little higher than human, despite defiance and in face of despair. Heschel at 5. ...
Above all, while dogmas and forms of worship are divergent, God is the same. What unites us? A commitment to the Hebrew Bible as Holy Scripture. Faith in the Creator, the God of Abraham, commitment to many of His commandments, to justice and mercy, a sense of contrition, sensitivity to the sanctity of life and to the involvement of God in history, the conviction that without the holy the good will be defeated, prayer that history may not end before the end of days, and so much more. Heschel at 9. Is it not our duty to help one another in trying to overcome hardness of heart, in cultivating a sense of wonder and mystery, in unlocking doors to holiness in time, in opening minds to the challenge of the Hebrew Bible, in seeking to respond to the voice of the prophets? Heschel at 12.
When I was age 18 I first heard of the idea that religion is man trying to find God, while the biblical faith is God coming down to man, or as Heschel says, the "radiance of the Bible in the minds of men" becomes "an effort for a breakthrough in the soul of man ...." See also God in Search of Man, by Rabbi Heschel (New York 1955).
How do you save "the radiance of the Hebrew Bible in the minds of man"? There is no quick answer to that question. Jews and Christians must work together to answer it. Cultivate "a sense of wonder and mystery," and "respond to the voice of the prophets." That would be a good start. |
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