A Theology of
Complementarities
Jewish-Christian Dialogue:
Principles and Perspectives
This
book presents a comprehensive, detailed
analysis of the interrelationships between Judaism and Christianity.
The
author views the differences between the two religions’ approaches as
rendering them not mutually contradictory, but antinomically linked. In other words, we can see the positions of
Judaism and Christianity as actually incorporating each other’s
assumptions.
In
practical terms, this means that Judaism and Christianity are each capable of
seeing in the other not a repudiation, but a distinctive confirmation of their
respective positions.
In
particular, the author shows that it is in the immediate interests of
Christianity to support and preserve Judaism in its traditional forms, and that
missionary activity directed toward Jews harms not only
We
can apply the ideas set forth in this book as a model and a cornerstone for
building positive relations between the Jewish and Christian communities.
Dialogue among religious
traditions is valuable under any circumstances.
Even if we do not discover for ourselves in the course of the dialogue a
broader perspective, we shall have at least more clearly elucidated our own position.
Any
religion can be contrasted with any other, irrespective of how closely related
or far removed they are, and the comparison will prove useful for both. This is as true of radically different
religions as it is of religions that derive from a common source, and are
better viewed as two different movements within the same religion. For example, when we compare Christianity
with Hinduism we can contrast the idea of “Incarnation” with the
idea of “avatar”; by comparing Orthodox Christianity and
Catholicism, we can better convey the essence of Eucharistic unity. Yet even while we compare religions in
general, the comparison of Judaism and Christianity distinguishes itself by its
enigmatic intelligibility. We would be
completely justified in saying that the kind of relationship that obtains
between Judaism and Christianity exists in no other case, whether between
faiths closely related or far removed.
The polemic literature
clearly shows that in the course of their development, Jews and Christians have
distanced themselves further and further from one another, each honing some of
their own positions, while dulling others.
Claiming to be the spiritual heirs of the same ancestor, ancient
In this case, however, we are
referring not only to the alternative mutual repulsion so often encountered
(reformation and counterreformation are just one example). It is significant in the case of Judaism and
Christianity that the watershed between these religions is determined not
merely by how close – and also how far apart – their respective
approaches are, but by their very definitions of “approach,” as
such.
In his book The Two Types of Faith Martin Buber
writes: “There are two, and in the end only two, types of faith. …
Both can be understood from the simple data of our life: the one from
the fact that I trust someone, without being able to offer sufficient reasons
for my trust in him; the other from the fact that, likewise without being able
to give a sufficient reason, I acknowledge a thing to be true. …
The first of the two types of faith has its classic example in
In
other words, Buber compares the fundamentally Jewish variety of direct, pre‑reflexive
faith with the Hellenized, theological strain.
Specifically, he writes: “If we consider the Synoptic and
Johannine dialogues with the disciples as two stages along one road, we
immediately see what was gained and lost in the course of it. The gain was the
most sublime of all theologies; it was procured at the expense of the plain,
concrete and situation-bound dialogicism of the original man of the Bible, who
found eternity, not in the super-temporal spirit, but in the depth of the
actual moment. The Jesus of the genuine tradition still belongs to that, but
the Jesus of theology does no longer.”
(Martin Buber, ibid., pg. 34)
In the course of his
investigation, Buber essentially demonstrates that in the case of Judaism and
Christianity, we are dealing not with two faiths, but with two forms of the
same faith. This is an extremely
important and valuable observation.
Notwithstanding the virulent,
bilateral attacks exchanged by Christians and Jews over the centuries, we must
note not only that both faiths are founded on one source, the Tanakh –
that is, on the same “written Torah” – but that the oral
expressions of both faiths bear likewise a close affinity.
As Christian author Hans Ucko
has perspicaciously observed: “The Christian Church has its origin in the
Jewish world and speaks almost the same language. It will always be said of the church as it
was once said to Peter: ‘Certainly you are also one of them, for your
accent betrays you’ (Matt. 26:73).
And the church has often denied its origin and heritage, much the same
way Peter did.” (Hans Ucko, Common
Roots, New Horizons: Learning about Christian Faith from Dialogue with Jews,
Geneva, WCC Publications, 1994)
Naturally, the main
difference between the Jewish and Christian positions has its roots in how each
regards the Nazarene Preacher. The
Christian’s religious foundation is his faith in Jesus, whereas in the
eyes of the Jew, Jesus has, at best, no authority whatsoever.
The question of Jesus’
persona and of how Jews regard him will be examined later in this book, for it
is a fundamental issue. If for the time
being, however, we shall avoid “personal” matters, and instead deal
only with the actual content of the religious teachings themselves (for it is
precisely in that connection that many a lance are usually broken), identifying
just what distinguishes Judaism from Christianity becomes hardly a simple
affair.
As we will try to show,
Judaism (using its own terminology) is well acquainted with the Christian ideas
that seem to radically distinguish Judaism from Christianity: the doctrines of
the Trinity and Incarnation.
The Kabbalah actually identifies in God ten sefirot, which transform into
God’s five countenances, partzufim,
two of which it calls the Father and the Son.
It also acknowledges that a righteous individual is, essentially, the
Almighty Himself dwelling here on earth.
The issue of the role of the righteous will be
addressed separately, but as for the ten sefirot
and the five partzufim, it is important to note that Judaism,
while investigating the vital essence of these divine countenances,
consistently declines to make a rationalistic value judgment regarding their
status. The question with which
Christianity essentially begins is entirely inappropriate for a Jew to pose,
namely, how are we to correlate these identities, these names of God, given
through direct religious experience?
Judaism avoids the question of the formal-logical correlation between
the unity of God on the one hand, and His ten sefirot and five partzufim on
the other.
Christianity, too, has its own prerationalist
stratum. Thus, there is not a single
word in the Gospels about the Trinity; only certain divine names are mentioned
– “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy
Spirit.” However, Christianity as
a religion began with an attempt to analyze rationally how it could logically
integrate these names. Christianity has
described every imaginable kind of interrelationship, and formulated its own
orthodox view, while contrasting it with a host of heretical views, and
expressing its own opinion of them.
First, the concepts of dynamism and modalism were formulated. Paul of Samosat (third century), an adherent
of the first of those two, thus taught that God is one, and that the Son and
the Spirit are therefore not entities in their own right, but merely forces of
the one God. Sabellius (fourth century),
herald of modalism, taught that the entities of the Trinity are merely various
forms of the manifestation of the one God.
The doctrine of the Trinity (which employed the
dialectic of the neo-platonic trinity, “one – mind –
soul”) was formulated in a polemic with subordinationism,
first introduced by Arius. The doctrine
of the Trinity, formulated early on in its familiar guise by Tertullian and
Athanasius the Great, was further developed by the Cappadocians Gregory the
Theologian, Vesalius the Great, and Gregory of Nisus. They taught of the
unified divinity of all members of the Trinity, including the Spirit. The orthodox approach later had to
disassociate itself from tritheism, according to which a general essence can
exist only in three distinct creatures.
Thus, the first thing Christians would do, were they
to acknowledge the Zohar as their own
source, would be to explain how these divine countenances and divine names are
to be understood – that is, how they are to be formally-logically
correlated with one another – attributively or intrinsically,
hierarchically or equipollently, and so on.
Realizing this, many Jewish philosophers, e.g., Abulafia (thirteenth
century) and R. Eliyahu b. Eliezer of Candia (fourteenth century), criticized
the kabbalists for their proximity to Christianity, while Christian kabbalists,
e.g., Piko della Mirandola (fifteenth century), likewise saw in the Kabbalah a
confirmation of Christian viewpoints.
We see, however, that Judaism, too, allows us to make
certain subdistinctions within God. What
Judaism actually forbids is the profound rationalization of such
distinctions. We will be told that the
Jewish “Quinity” is something “entirely different” from
the Christian Trinity, but exactly what that difference is would be difficult
to say. A consistent elucidation of the
question of whether the sefirot are
to be understood as divine attributes, or, rather, as His
“countenances,” can be found only among secular scholars –
Gershom Scholem, for example, and Moshe Idel, but not, in any case, among the
kabbalists themselves – at least not those of the New Era.
It is true that in popular literature the sefirot are sometimes called
“attributes” of the Almighty, but here the difference is that the
cultic attitude toward them does not at all befit such
“attributes.” Most
demonstrative in this regard is the thinking of R. Eliyahu b. Eliezer of
Candia, a Jewish philosopher of the fourteenth century, quoted in one of Moshe
Idel’s studies, as follows:
“There are those who identify the ten sefirot with the Most Holy Himself.
Others consider the sefirot not
God, but merely qualities (attributes) which are inherent in Him, and which
render Him archetypal. Still others
maintain that these sefirot are
neither the Almighty Himself, nor His attributes, but only something that lies
between the Almighty and all of His creation… Those who say that the sefirot are the Almighty Himself follow in the path of the
Christians… Those who say that the
sefirot are divine attributes follow
in the path of the Ishmaelites… Except that for the Ishmaelites, three such
attributes – wisdom, strength, and will – are sufficient, whereas
the others have carried it still further…
Those who have chosen for themselves the third approach, uniting the
kabbalistic path with that of philosophy, are on the true path.” (Moshe Idel, Divine Attributes and Sefirot in
Jewish Theology, Sara A. Heller Wilensky and Moshe Idel, eds.,
Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989, pp. 87–111)
Rather than adopt this third
approach, however, which their religious spirit found unsatisfying, the Jews
preferred simply to avoid such questions, thus totally repudiating any
association between “faith” and “theory.”
What is behind that refusal,
however, we can demonstrate with particular clarity in connection with yet
another Christian doctrine that is unacceptable to Judaism in the extreme
– the doctrine of “Incarnation.”
3. Negative Theology and Pantheism
The concept of Incarnation is
fundamental to any comparison of Judaism and Christianity. In fact, that idea holds what is well-nigh
the very Evangelic core of Christianity.
Judaism, however, denies any possibility of associating the Almighty
with any earthly object whatsoever, and sees in the Christian doctrine of
anthropomorphization just a typical case
of “participatory idolatry”, so-called; that is, a cult in which
worshipping the God of Israel is combined with the worship of forces created by
Him.
Indeed, this divergence is of
primary importance. We shall later
examine separately the question of how the Jewish and Christian approaches are
linked in their head-on collision regarding Incarnation. There is, however, one particular aspect of
this question that illuminates with exceptional clarity the uniqueness of
Judaism and Christianity as two alternative hermeneutic approaches.
Paradoxical as it may seem,
it is precisely in the comparison of Jewish and Christian attitudes regarding
the idea of Incarnation, more than in any other issue, that we can observe how profoundly
the two faiths are linked, even to the extent that they actually comprise a
pair.
R.
Moses b. Maimon (Maimonides) expresses as
follows the logic of what is seemingly the classical Jewish approach to the
impossibility of a God incarnate:
“The difference between Him and His creatures is not merely
quantitative, but absolute [as between two individuals of two different
classes]: I mean to say that all must understand that our wisdom and His, or
our power and His do not differ quantitatively or qualitatively, or in a
similar manner; for two things, of which the one is strong and the other weak,
are necessarily similar, belong to the same class, and can be included in one
definition. … Anything predicated
of God is totally different from our attributes; no definition can comprehend
both.” (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, chap. 35)
Obviously,
this kind of “negative theology” (as it is sometimes called)
emasculates the living God, rendering him inaccessible to humans. At the same time, according to Jewish
mysticism it is frequently quite difficult to infiltrate the boundary between
the Creator and creation, between Adam
Kadmon,* formed inside God Himself, and Adam
ha-Rishon, created in His likeness.
Pantheism, however, pervades this approach.
(*A
glossary of principal terms, abbreviations, and personalities appears at the
end of this volume.)
Christianity,
therefore, while consistently differentiating between the Everlasting Creator
and His ephemeral creation, has always criticized Judaism for these two
“extremes.” In Christian
theology the interrelationship between the Creator and creation are profoundly
and meticulously thought out – and, moreover, in such a manner that it is
equally impossible to confuse them, as it is impossible to radically
differentiate them.
To
suppose, however, that in this situation, the “perspicuous”
Christian position stands in stark opposition to Jewish “unintelligibility,”
is to not fully understand the essence of the problem.
Actually,
having declared Jesus a true God and a true man, Christianity easily
distinguished and contrasted the mountain world, in which the Son is born
as the Father, and the valley world, in which a man is created as
God. By introducing an
Intermediary-God-Man belonging to both worlds, Christianity was able to
distance itself from both pantheism and dualism – but only at the expense
of concentrating the entire problem within Christology. In Christology – that is, in the
doctrine of Christ’s dual nature – the problem is fissured in quite
the same way as it is in Judaism with regard to the world at large. All these paradoxes came to light only in the
20th century, in the theology
of the correlation between the knowingly inconsistent “Christology from
above” and ”Christology from below,” which contradict each
other just as the Guide and the Zohar do.
Even
after delineating the boundaries of the paradox, and arriving, thanks to that,
at extremely clear definitions, Christianity still did not itself resolve the
paradox. Nor, for that matter, could it
have, for it has no notion of how, in actuality, the views of the Guide
are related to the Zohar, or of how “Christology from above”
is related to “Christology from below.”
That
is on the one hand. But on the other
hand, by declaring both the Guide and the Zohar its fundamental
sources of equal merit, while remaining nonetheless a united community, the
Jewish world has not simply reached an impasse; rather, it actually represents
a different solution to the same problem.
The Jewish world harbors within itself both of these antinomic positions
in their primordial, unsullied purity, feeling no need to seek any sensible
compromise between them.
In
its time, the feud raged ferociously. At
one point, the “Aristotelian” Maimonides even sentenced the
“anthropomorphist” Raavad to losing his “share
in the World to Come.”
(Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 3:7.)
Subsequent
generations, however, will reprint the works of both with equal gratitude. Subsequent generations will deem both Maimonides’
Guide and Raavad’s Critical Glosses equally deserving of a
place in Jewish heritage. By considering
both of these approaches as belonging to one tradition, Judaism is doing for
“objective reality” the exact same thing that Christianity does for
“rational thought,” namely, linking worlds, realizing the
“analogy of reality,” but not conceiving it. Judaism has been existentialist since time
immemorial; it prefers to deal with religious reality in all its fundamental,
primordial antinomy, rather than dealing with it in well-rounded intellectual
solutions.
Regarding
this peculiarity of Judaism, R. Joseph B. Soloveichik writes: “Judaism accepts a dialectic consisting only of
thesis and antithesis. The third
Hegelian state, that of synthesis, or reconciliation, is missing. The conflict is final and almost
absolute. Only G-d knows how to
reconcile; we don't.” (Rabbi J. B. Soloveichik,
“Majesty and Humility”, in Catharsis
[selected articles], Tradition 17:2, Spring,
1978, pp. 25–37)
We
see, then, that even on the very most ideologically divergent issues, Judaism
and Christianity represent not so much two mutually exclusive positions as they
do two paired, corresponding forms of the same faith.
Thus, whatever the realm we
are dealing with, we find that the religious conceptions of Jews and Christians
will always have common points of intersection, and that the differences
between Judaism and Christianity will constantly elude us.
Why, then, do we distinguish
between Judaism and Christianity as instantaneously and unambiguously as we
distinguish, say, between man and woman?
What compels the overwhelming majority of people to consider Judaism and
Christianity distant religions, completely unrelated, and incapable of coming to
any agreement?
In his book The Two Types of Faith, as we recall,
Martin Buber gives a rather convincing answer to this question. The faith of the Jew is direct, while the
faith of the Christian is imbued with – indeed, driven by –
theological inquiry. The former puts his
trust in someone, the latter in something.
We feel obliged to conclude
that at the heart of the distinction between Judaism and Christianity lies not
so much religious truth itself, as the means by which such truth is
formulated. The Christian method is
philosophical: it proceeds to the
details by way of the basic idea.
Judaism, in contrast, is philological – any and all propositions
are predicated on the letter of Scripture.
Every truth, no matter how general, derives in Judaism from a text, and
has its roots in the details.
A Christian reading and
interpreting Scripture proceeds from some doctrine of a general nature (the
Trinity, Incarnation, God’s plan for salvation, and the like). Distinct words and details acquire meaning only
in light of a thoroughly intellectualized general concept, whereas Judaism, in
principle, has no such predefined idea.
By appealing to its Source, it imparts meaning not merely to every
letter, but even to the peculiarities of the writing – the dimensions and
thickness of the letters. Numerous
interpretations derive even from the graphical form of the script.
For example, the Torah begins
with the letter bet, which is closed
from above, from below, and from behind, but open at the front. The Sages explain this as indicating that a
person should investigate, in the first instance, only things connected with
this world as it has existed since the Creation. We should not, however, attempt to penetrate
into what existed before the creation of the world, nor, likewise, into that
which now exists “above” and “below” it.
Judaism takes for granted
that a translation of the Torah must not be understood as an equivalent text,
but only as a commentary. In fact, any
edition of the Torah accompanied by the classical commentaries will invariably
include an Aramaic translation of the Torah – the translation of
Onkelos. That translation serves only
one purpose – to promote the best possible understanding of how that
particular sage understood any given word or phrase of the Torah.
The Christian attitude is
quite the opposite. Christianity has
preserved even its primary source – the Gospels – not in the
original, but only in translation. The Christian
community, as a basic tenet, neglected the actual words of their Teacher,
preferring the “general sense” of those words set down in Ancient
Greek – a language more suited to the task.
In its exegesis,
Christianity’s starting point is the general, abruptly revealed sense
(“birth from above” – John 3:3 ff.), whereas Judaism’s
starting point is a unique letter (entrusted to human descendants of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob).
For a Christian, the sense
can even stand in direct opposition to the letter of Scripture. In fact, many words of the Gospels are
understood in just this manner. For
example, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth
for tooth.’ But I tell you: Do not
resist an evil person” (Matt. 5:38–39).
Judaism is well acquainted
with this same principle, known as lifnim
mi-shurat ha-din (“beyond the boundary of the law”), and also
with its paradoxical nature: a command
to do more than the Law requires
cannot itself be the Law in the full
sense. Yet Judaism finds the origin of
even this principle in a letter, in the text of the Tanakh. “Rabba bar bar Hanna’s porters broke one of his barrels of wine. He
claimed their cloaks. They went and informed Rav. Rav
said to Rabba, ‘Give them back their cloaks.’ Rabba
asked, ‘Is this the law?’
He responded, ‘Yes, [as it
is written,] That thou mayest walk
in the way of good men (Prov.
2:20). He gave them back their cloaks.
They said to Rav, ‘We are
poor, we have worked all day, we are hungry, and we have nothing.’ Rav
said to Rabba, ‘Give them their salary!’ He
asked, ‘Is this the law?’
Rav said, ‘Yes, [as it is
written, (ibid.)] and keep the
paths of the righteous.’ ”
(Bava Metzia 83a)
Thus, even an informal
attitude toward the Law, striving to do more than what is required, seeks
“formal” confirmation in the words of the Holy Scriptures –
in Solomon’s Proverbs (2:20). A
different version derives this principle from the words, “You shall teach
them the statutes and the laws, and shall show them the way in which they must
walk, and the work that they must perform” (Exod. 18:20).
This attitude toward texts,
so pervasive in Judaism, differs radically from the Christian approach. The Christian world understands the
well-known pronouncement of Jesus, “Sabbath for man and not man for the Sabbath,” as
promulgating some general idea of a human being’s intrinsic worth,
whereas an analogous statement in the Talmud is of an entirely different
character. The idea of the
Shabbat’s practical utility derives from an actual verse in Scripture. “Said R. Jonathan b. Joseph: ‘For it is holy unto you’ (Lev.
18:5) – It (the Shabbat) is given to you, and not you to it” (Yoma
85).
How does a Christian know
that there exists a “
These two approaches –
the “old” philological and the new “philosophical”
– at times marvelously intersect in the Gospels. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount we
read: “Until heaven and earth disappear, not one iota, not the least stroke
of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is
accomplished” (Matt. 5:8).
It is obvious that with this
statement Jesus is preaching, clearly and unambiguously, the characteristically
Jewish version of the primacy of the Written Torah. We are forbidden to eliminate from the Torah
not merely one law, or one word, but even a single letter. The “totality” finds its
fulfillment in every stroke, in every yod
– the smallest of all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. At the same time, it is both noteworthy and
characteristic that the source preserved by the Christians – the Gospels
– mentions not the letter yod
itself, but only its translation: the Greek letter iota is used. Christians prefer translation, even to the
extent of but a single letter! And
where? In the very utterance least
amenable, it would seem, to such translation!
This is, of course, not a
misunderstanding, but an internal religious necessity. The Aramaic originals are long gone, while
the Greek translations and paraphrasing survived precisely because the
translation – that is, at this point just the “general”
interpretation – was much closer to the spirit of the new religion than
was the “literalist” original.
By giving preference to
translation over original, Christianity postulates an idea diametrically
opposed to that expressed by Jesus the Jew.
For Christians, the “totality” lies notoriously beyond the
text; the “entire Torah” of Christians is, in one sense or another,
an abstraction. (Nonetheless, we do find
preserved in Christian doctrine, naturally, also the purely religious
core.) Christians, convinced that the
meaning of the Torah is contained not in individual “strokes” or
iotas, but in its “universal content,” translate the Bible from one
language to the next without the slightest hesitation, on the presumption that
doing so does not change its “essence,” in any case. The Greek “iota” put into the
mouth of Jesus of the Gospels in place of the Jewish yod is thus profoundly symbolic.
Furthermore, a disparaging
attitude toward the Jewish conception could be observed among Christians in every
time and place. Quite typical in this
regard is the letter of Erasmus of Rotterdam (written March 15, 1518), in which
he dissuades a friend from studying Hebrew.
“I would like you to spend more time studying Greek instead of
those Jewish studies of yours… I
consider these people and their histories – cold to the extreme –
to be merely confounding the issue.
Talmud, Kabbalah, tetragrammaton – these are just meaningless
terms. I would sooner prefer to see
Christ infected with the ideas of Duns Scotus, than with all this
nonsense.” (Per
Malcolm V. Hay in Thy
Brother’s Blood: The Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism, New York: Hart
Publ. Co., 1975.)
This distinction is
pervasive, and essentially unique. It is
the key to all other differences, which in this context can hardly be
considered “differences,” but, rather, complementary hermeneutic
approaches.
To be precise, Church
tradition and theology are abstract concepts, representing a certain external,
comprehensive, conceptual view of the Bible.
The Oral Torah, on the other hand, is not so much a single concept, not
so much an external position, as it is the direct continuation of the Written
Torah. The Kabbalah is not a theological
system; it is, in the best case, a schematicized parable. In other words, it is still the same,
original text (or context) of Scripture.
Christianity is related to Judaism not merely in the manner that any one
religion relates to any other, but, rather, in the manner that one sense organ
relates to another – eyesight to hearing, for example – and in the
manner that philosophy relates to philology, and theology to parable.
Philosophy and myth, theology
and parable have no lowest common denominator, contrary to what Christians have
believed all these centuries (and from which belief they drew their feelings of
superiority over the Jews). This
incongruity can be expressed either in the language of perception, or in the
language of parable, but these languages must remain distinct, and that is
clearly indicative for the definition of “parable.”
One scholar (the
Russian-Orthodox S.S. Averintsev, as it happens) writes: “The parable is
a dialectic-allegoric genre, close to the fable in its basic features. In contrast to the fable, however, the
parable form cannot occur in isolation, and arises only in a certain context,
in which connection it permits the absence of a developed topical motion, and
can be reduced to a mere comparison, which preserves, however, its particular
symbolic tension.”
A Christian defines
“parable” in a rather proximate, “general” manner. Thus, in the Dictionary of Biblical Theology
we read: “A parable must be understood as a game of symbols – that
is, images – taken from earthly realities, so as to designate through
them the realities of divine revelation (Sacred History, Kingdom, etc.) and
requiring in most instances a profound elucidation.”
But how does Judaism define
“parable”? With the aid of
the very thing itself. “A
parable,” Judaism teaches, “is a candle worth mere pennies, but which,
when lit, can be used to find a lost gold ring, or a thoroughly priceless
hidden treasure.”
The rivalry of philosophy and
philology as two distinct methods manifests itself primarily in the analysis of
philosophical texts. Translating one or
another of Plato’s dialogues or Aristotle’s treatises mires down in
the dilemma of how to transmit the text most correctly. Should we begin with the meaning of a
particular word, and from it derive the meaning of the passage, or vice versa
– begin with the general meaning, and from it derive an understanding of
the sense in which particular words are being used?
It is not difficult to see
that this hermeneutic problem, first brought to light by Friedrich E.D. Schleiermacher, is the equivalent of the well-known hermeneutic
circle of
This principle pervades all
of Christian theology, and European thought, in general, distinctly manifesting
itself, for example, in the theory of Thomas Aquinas’ “Analogy of
Being,” according to which the concept of “being” can be,
depending on the circumstances, either substantive or accidental. In all events, the doctrine of the dual
nature of Christ that we examined earlier fully recalls the logic of the
hermeneutic circle.
Note also that we are
examining the logic of the hermeneutic circle within the bipartite structure of
the Christian Bible, namely, its subdivision into two primary components
– the “Old” and the “New” Testaments. We shall yet return to this point, but for
now, we should merely note a certain principle that has manifested itself quite
unexpectedly and graphically, it seems, in the field of quantum theory, in the
Bohrian concept of complementarity. Let
me describe briefly in what it consists.
Classical physics has
established that the laws of corpuscularity form one class of laws, describing
the transport of energy accompanied by the transport of matter, while the laws
of waves are an entirely different class of laws, describing the transport of
energy not accompanied by the transport of matter. We cannot combine these laws into a unified,
general theory, because nowhere in place or time do they intersect. The classical theory always maintained that
objects that behave according to the laws of corpuscularity never intersect
with objects that behave according to the laws of waves. Then along came Niels Bohr, proclaiming that
in microcosm there is a different reality, that in quantum physics objects
always possess both wave-like and corpuscular properties. (As is well known, this peculiarity is most
distinctly discernible in electrons.)
A paradox that was considered
for centuries a matter of theoretical speculation and faith suddenly looms
before us as scientific fact. For if,
indeed, an electron can be simultaneously both a wave and a particle, then
existence, all the more, can be at once both substantive and accidental, and
the Son of God can be, simultaneously, both God and
And the Bible – the
Book of Books – can be, simultaneously, both a “New” and an
“Old” Testament.
By including in the canon of
their holy scriptures both the Jewish Tanakh and their own New Testament, the
Christians have created a bipartite source – the Bible.
Upon reflection, we see that
adopting this approach was a non-trivial decision. Why was it necessary for the church fathers
to leave, within the structure of its own sacred text, the sacred text of
another community overtly inimical to Christianity? After all, the rift between the Jews and the
Christians occurred very early.
Moreover, bishop Marcion
of Sinope (second century), who at one time wielded enormous
influence, maintained that Jesus is not the son of the Jewish God, but of the
universal God, and that the Old Testament had likewise been dictated by Satan,
and ought to be discarded. After meeting
with Marcion, however, apostolic father Polycarp of Smyrna called Marcion
himself, and not the Jews, “Satan’s firstborn.”
The temptation to eliminate
the books of the “Old Testament” from the Christian canon
manifested itself later, as well. It is
sufficient in this connection to mention Adolf von Harnack, a prominent liberal
theologian of the first half of the 20th century, who wrote in his monograph devoted
to Marcion: “To reject the Old Testament in the second century was an
error that the great church rightly declined; to retain it in the sixteenth
century was a fate from which the Reformation could not yet withdraw; but to
preserve it since the nineteenth century as a canonical document in
Protestantism is the result of a religious and churchly paralysis.” (Quoted per Lev Shestov in Speculation and Revelation, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1982.)
As it turns out, however, the
dialectical connection between the two Testaments is precisely what is so
remarkable and valuable in the Bible.
The Bible, by its very
structure, is a divided, introspective text.
The Bible is a source that reaches beyond its own boundaries,
continually forcing the human mind to reconcile two competing sources, and
compelling us to engage in perpetual dialogue.
The Bible is therefore not only an infinite source, but also an
“intelligent” source, internally self-sufficient with respect to
intelligibility, but at the same time fostering dialogical thought as something
innate in the human mind since time immemorial.
The idea of not one, but two testaments,
of something both special and universal, of joining the two into one unified
testament – these are what enabled Christianity to reach beyond its own
boundaries, and give rise to a non-traditional, secular world. It is in the adoption of a dual source that
we first see the “genius of Christianity,” which imparted a general
direction to all future development of civilization, based on the Christian
faith.
Seemingly, we must carry this
idea to its logical conclusion, and proclaim that true religion was predestined
to be bipartite, engaged in its own internal dialogue; that the true Testament
is providentially represented by the coexistence of two Testaments; and that it
is the calling of a genuine, speculative world view to be binocular in the same
way that human eyesight is.
However, it is also important
to point out that a theology of complementarities must itself be represented on
a concrete religious plane by two complementary theologies: Christian “philosophy,” which proposes
a theology based on the joining of two Testaments, should find its complement
in the “folk-traditional” Jewish interpretation of the same
conflict.
How, then, are these two
religions practically and theologically related? On the essentially theological level, what
form does the theology of complementarities take?
For centuries, Replacement
theology (i.e., the belief that the Church had replaced
The “Old” and
“New” Testaments were perceived not dialogically, but merely as two
phases of the same Testament. The Church
declared the Almighty’s covenant with the Jews null and void. The Jews were expected to give up practicing
the commandments entrusted to them, and cease to exist as an independent
religious community, by assimilating into the new “spiritual
Nevertheless, even in that
dark period when the Jews began to experience overt persecution at the hands of
the Christians, one could also hear entirely positive words, such as the
following, written by Pope Gregory on April 6, 1233, in a letter to the
bishops of France: “Although the Jews’ lack of faith must be
condemned, their connection with the Christian world is beneficial all the
same, and in a well-known sense even necessary, for they too are the image of
our Savior, and were made by the Creator of all humanity. Heaven forefend,
therefore, that the Jews would be destroyed by His own creatures, especially
those who believe in Christ… for the Jews’ forefathers were friends
of God, and their descendants must be preserved.” (Quoted per Malcolm V. Hay, Thy Brother’s Blood: The Roots of
Christian Anti-Semitism, New York:
Hart Publ. Co., 1975.)
In the post-war period, after
the Christian world became – willingly or unwillingly –
participants in the Holocaust, the Church suddenly had new motives to
fundamentally re-examine its attitude toward Judaism.
In all events, over the past
decades the Christian world has been actively examining the theological aspect
of Judaeo-Christian relations.
There has been an increased
understanding in the post-war Christian, western world that Christianity needs
Judaism “alive and well,” that not only do the Jews have their own
path, different from that of Christians, but that the
“differentness” of that path actually guarantees the viability of
Christianity itself, and that the two Testaments can truly coexist. Increasingly, the Church has come to sense
that both religions benefit when each maintains its relative uniqueness, and
both lose when they are reduced to a single “Christian common
denominator.”
Catholic-American theologian John Pawlikowsky writes in this
regard: “At this moment of
religious history it is necessary for Christians to affirm that Judaism
continues to play a unique and distinctive role of its own in the overall
process of human salvation…
Authentic dialogue between Judaism and Christianity, and meaningful theological
reflection on their relationship, must begin with the clear acknowledgement of
their differences.” (John Pawlikowski, Jesus and the Theology of Israel,
Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1989)
This new tendency became most
evident after the Second Vatican Council in 1965 and its attendant declaration Nostra Aetate, after Pope John XXIII
wailed bitterly to the Creator:
“We acknowledge now that many centuries of blindness have covered
our eyes so that we no longer see the beauty of Thy Chosen People and no longer
recognize in its face our own firstborn brethren.” (Quoted per W. Frieke in The Court-Martial of Jesus, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990.)
Since then, the Christian
world has abandoned its so-called Replacement theology, and has begun to work
out a genuine theology of complementarity – the complementarity of the
two Testaments and the two communities, Jewish and Christian. Thus, in the “Epistle of the French
Episcopate” (1969) we read:
“The original testament has not turned old under the influence of
the new. It remains the latter’s
root and source, foundation and covenant…
It must be accepted and acknowledged, first and foremost, on its own
terms. The “Elucidations” to
the Nostra Aetate declaration of 1985
speak openly of a “partnership of communities.” Pope John Paul II made a significant
contribution to the advancement of Jewish-Christian relations when he visited
the Great Synagogue of Rome on April 13, 1986.
The
In a declaration of the
Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish Relations, we read:
“Supersessionism … prompted Christians over the centuries to speak
of Jesus as an opponent of Judaism. This is historically incorrect. Jewish
worship, ethics, and practice shaped Jesus’ life and teachings. The
scriptures of his people inspired and nurtured him. Christian preaching and
teaching today must describe Jesus’ earthly life as engaged in the
ongoing Jewish quest to live out God’s covenant in everyday life.” (Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish
Relations, A Sacred Obligation: Rethinking Christian Faith in
Relationship to Judaism and the Jewish People, Sept. 1, 2002)
Many theologians –
Catholic (
Roy Eckhardt is of a very similar opinion. In his book Elder and Younger Brothers, he writes: “If indeed there is
any real meaning in God’s having uniquely revealed Himself in Jesus of
Nazareth, it must be noted that the secret of this divine act does not, in
principle, surpass in its greatness those sacred acts through which the
original choosing of
Anglican James Parks in turn
taught of two principally different acts of revelation that nonetheless
complement each other: Sinai and
Here the position of Schoneveld, a Protestant, is logical
and interesting. In his article “
Many point to the paradoxical
nature of the associations between
Naturally, acknowledging the
validity of the covenant with
As we know, through the
efforts of Christian Zionists the International Christian Embassy has been
operating in
While we cannot call
Christian Zionism a mass phenomenon, a rather wide circle of believers shares
its ideals. In this connection, we might
quote the words of Martin Luther King in his book This I Believe: “When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews
– this is God's own truth.
… All men of good will exult in the fulfillment
of God's promise that his People should return in joy to rebuild their
plundered land. … And what is anti-Zionism? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a
fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of
Such is the view from the
Christian vantage point, from the perspective of rational thought. What does the picture look like from the
other, Jewish vantage point, from the perspective of objective existence?
Few Orthodox Jews today are
interested in Jewish-Christian dialogue.
In 2002, under the aegis of the religious Zionists – the most
liberal wing of traditional Judaism – a book published under the title
“The Christian Enemy” reiterated all the traditional Jewish
accusations and fears regarding Christians.
Belief in Christian benevolence is discouraged, because, in the final
analysis, the Christian has only one thing in mind: to convert Jews.
It is difficult at this time,
based on Jewish pronouncements directed toward Christians, to formulate the
same view we have just presented based on Christian pronouncements regarding
Jews. Judaism for the longest time was
on the receiving end of persecution; quite understandably, it is in no hurry to
free itself from the psychological complexes that permit it to shy away from,
rather than advance toward dialogue.
Nevertheless, such tendencies do exist.
For example, the Israeli newspaper Makor
Rishon (“Primary Source”), reflecting on the opinions of the
national-religious party, in October 2006 published an article by Mordechai
Rotenberg, calling for the establishment of a theological – not merely
political – union between Judaism and Christianity. (Makor
Rishon, Saturday, June 10, 2006, Berit
Chadashah bein Yehudim Lenotzrim [A New Covenant between Jews and
Christians].)
Let us examine this problem
within the framework of traditional Jewish ideas.
There is no doubt that in the
Jewish view, the “atom” of spiritual activity is the pair. Even the Almighty himself has dual
names: the name elokim (God), and the tetragrammaton – God’s
four-letter name that means “the Lord.” Duality pervades every level of spiritual
reality, mirroring the logic of marital relations. The first words of the Torah, bereshit bara (“In the beginning
[God] created”), are interpreted as bet
reshit bara, that is, He first made the couple, the pair, the duality. (The numerical value of the letter bet is two.)
R. Yaakov b. Asher
(“Baal ha-Turim”), in his
commentary on the Torah, explains this as follows: “The Torah begins with
the letter bet in honor of the two
worlds created by the Almighty, and in honor of the two Torahs, the Written
Torah and the Oral Torah.”
It is not only this world and
the World to Come, not only body and soul, not only husband and wife that are
parallel worlds. Duality pervades
all. “God has made even the one
corresponding to the other,” says the book of Ecclesiastes, while in Midrash Temurah we read: “The Holy
One created the entire world in pairs, one thing in place of the other, and one
thing in opposition to the other...
Without death there would be no life, but without life there could be no
death; without peace there could be no evil, but without evil there would be no
peace… Were there no paupers, the
wealthy would have no prominence, but if not for the wealthy, we would not
notice the poor. God made prettiness and
ugliness, men and women, fire and water… all this in order to proclaim
the might of the Holy One, blessed is He, Who created everything with duality
and commonality. The only exception is
the Holy One, blessed is He, Himself, for He is one, and there is none other
with Him.”
To this list, however, we
should add two other primary, fundamental oppositions: impurity presupposes the existence of purity,
and the holy presupposes the existence of the profane. As it is written, “It shall be a
statute forever throughout your generations, that ye may differentiate between
the holy and the profane, and between the clean and the unclean” (Levit.
10:8–9).
In the division of the world
into the sacred and the profane – i.e., Shabbat and the other six days of
the week, Israel and the nations – we can easily observe that
“circle” which lies at the foundation of Christian theology and
European philosophy.
By
We should note yet another
aspect of the Jewish conception of the nature of complementarity: Judaism
considers marital logic its ultimate expression.
Midrash Bereshit Rabba states that since He finished creating the world,
“the Holy One, blessed is He, sits and arranges matches: ‘So‑and‑so’s
daughter is to marry so‑and‑so.’ ”
At the same time, it is generally acknowledged that this refers not only
to the pairing of marriage partners (although that is the primary meaning), but
to the creation of every possible kind of opposites.
In other words, in the eyes
of Judaism the logic of complementarities is, above all, the logic of marital
relations. Eve was cleaved from Adam
(Gen. 2:21–23) in precisely the same manner that
It is, evidently, that men
normally incorporate both male and female natures, whereas women have only the
female component. Twentieth-century discoveries in the field of genetics
provide an especially fine example of this.
Male characteristics are determined by both X and Y chromosomes, whereas
female characteristics are determined by a dual set of X chromosomes.
Every characteristic,
essentially, of any living creature, from a paramecium’s cilia to a
mammoth’s tusks, are invariably determined by a genetic code consisting
of dual components. This means that
where these traits do not coincide, one of the genes will become dominant with
respect to the other. For example, it is
well known that the gene that determines black coloration in fur dominates over
the white gene. Thus, if the homozygotic
set of genes “AA” determines black coloring, and “aa”
white, then heterozygotic individuals with the set of genes “Aa”
will be black.
Gender heredity, moreover,
has yet another nuance. The genes
responsible for female sexual characteristics are recessive; that is, they
appear only with a dual set of female genes (X and X chromosomes). The genes responsible for male sexual
characteristics are always dominant, and the combination of genes responsible
for male and female characteristics produces male offspring. But most important – a dual set of male
genes (Y and Y chromosomes) is not viable.
Gender heredity thus has its
own unique logic, different from the logic of hair color heredity and all other
genetic characteristics, in general. A man
always incorporates both male and female natures, but a woman – female
only.
The whole point of the
marital union consists in the idea that the unification of the partners occurs
even while their differences are fully preserved. Each partner, while retaining his or her own
identity, at the same time lives with his or her mate one and the same life,
and experiences the same ordeals.
Marriage partners are two sovereign, independent beings, but even so,
the feelings and thoughts and the course of development of each so parallels
those of the other that it is fully appropriate to call their existence
“marital parallelism.”
Marital synthesis differs
radically from other “classic” syntheses that come about in
accordance with Hegelian logic, with the result that a third entity comes into
existence where there were once only two.
For example, when we combine two pure substances – sodium and
chlorine, say – a third pure substance, table salt (NaCl), is formed, but
it possesses none of the characteristics of sodium, nor of chlorine; instead,
it has its own individual characteristics.
In the process of forming a new pure substance, the two pure substances
that had previously existed have now ceased to exist. In marital “synthesis,” the
partners are preserved in the capacity of isolated creatures, giving birth not
to androgynes, but always to other men and women just like them.
Marriage, as it turns out, is
for this very reason the most profound, purest “folk” analogy we
have to the “theoretical” principle of complementarity, according
to which an electron’s wave and corpuscular properties unite in
paradoxical fashion, yet they do not disappear, but remain exactly as they
were.
Returning to our topic, we
should note that according to Jewish tradition the holy can be distinguished
not only from the unholy, but also from the holy. For example, when the conclusion of Shabbat
coincides with the beginning of a festival, we recite a special prayer in
praise of God, who “distinguishes holy from holy.” On the other hand, the unholy cannot be
distinguished from the unholy. That
possibility does not exist, and cannot exist in any reasonable sense, just as a
male individual cannot have a dual set of male chromosomes.
In other words, the unholy is
always a combination of the unholy and the holy. The holy within the unholy is always
recessive, always suppressed, but it must be present nonetheless. To say of someone, “to him there is
nothing sacred” is to pass a complete, moral sentence; it is a condition that belongs not to the
category of the unholy, but to the category of the spiritually unclean, which
is the antithesis of purity.
In this sense, the unholy is
always in danger of becoming spiritually unclean. Everything depends on the manner in which the
unholy aligns itself in its interactions with the holy.
Here we should note that the
interactions among the patriarchs described in the book of Bereshit (Genesis) are wholly and entirely dedicated to this
problem. The interactions between
Abraham and
The conflicts between
brothers described in the book of Genesis reflect the game of just this
dialectic: in the battle for the right to be “holy,” the displaced
brother is essentially forced to decide which role to assume: the role of the
unholy, or the role of the unclean. (We
find the separation of “holy” from “holy” only in the
conflict between Joseph and his brothers.)
The conflict between the twin
brothers Jacob and Esau occupies a paramount position among the brotherly
conflicts just mentioned. Scripture even
traces that conflict back to the very maternal womb: “And Isaac entreated
the Lord on his wife’s behalf, because she was barren; and the Lord let
Himself be entreated of him, and Rebecca his wife conceived. And the children struggled together within
her; and she said: ‘If it be so, wherefore do I live?’ And she went to inquire of the Lord. And
the Lord said unto her: Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be
separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other
people; and the elder shall serve the younger. And when her days to be
delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. And
the first came forth ruddy, all over like a hairy mantle; and they called his
name Esau. And after that came forth his brother, and his
hand had hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob” (Gen.
25:21–26).
Jacob-Israel thus had not
merely a brother, but a brother whose natural right it was to become nothing
less than the father of the Chosen Nation.
The commentaries devote much
attention to the question of why the Almighty blessed the younger brother
Jacob. At the same time, a different question
should have preceded that one: Why did the Almighty split His election in the
first place? Why did He create twins,
rather than just one child in the usual fashion?
How are we to understand that
the one unique, chosen offspring had a twin?
What is the significance of a twin, anyway? What is the social and psychological essence
of the phenomenon of twins?
As noted by psychologists,
the relationship between twins is different from that of other brothers and
sisters. That difference is, firstly
– a powerful mutual rivalry, and secondly – an extreme mutual
interdependence. The pairing of twins
is, in a certain sense, like a marital union.
Whether they like it or not, twins feel that each is a part of the
other.
Esau and Jacob were fraternal twins, meaning that they were not further burdened with perfect physical resemblance, but even so, they fully demonstrated the identical natural qualities that being the same age engenders. American psychologist Allan Fromme writes: “As the differences in appearance, capacity, and temperament of fraternal twins begin to unfold, we begin to favor certain characteristics over others. Almost inevitably this involves some greater partiality to one of the twins. Competition between them may easily appear, but it is only with great difficulty and guilt that the child can express it. He knows how well we and the world expect him to get along with his twin. … The mutual dependence twins develop on each other is all the more difficult for them because of the veiled hostility they frequently feel for each other. Their dependency, moreover, is generally misinterpreted by the people around them. It is looked upon as loyalty and affection, when the truth of the matter is that each twin feels as though he were only half a person without the other. Although this may force them to get along and teach them to share, neither twin enjoys the independence to stand on his own two feet.” (Allan Fromme, The Parents Handbook, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956, pp. 288R