where the issues of both polytheism and the worship of “graven images” stand between us? The more significant question here, however, regards Christianity, which stands upon an ancient claim to be the “New Israel.” There is no question that Christianity has historically served as the much broader mouthpiece for proclaiming Israel's prophetic message, including the values and literary treasures of what Christendom calls the “Old Testament.” Many of these values are echoed in Christian Scripture, including the Sermon on the Mount and other key texts. Christianity, being so directly based on Hebrew Scripture, is less entirely “other” to us than any other tradition. The church certainly considers itself “Israel” in its liturgical use of the Psalms, for example, where “Israel” is clearly taken to refer to Christendom as the “people of God.” Jews and Christians are indeed sibling communities, fellow heirs to the same legacy of ancient Israel. One of those heirs insisted that ethnic, mostly biological, descent from Israel was key to that heritage, while the other did not. But both created new ways of “being religious” in the early centuries of the Common Era. When the first Christians were mostly Jews, the emerging rabbis referred to the Nazarene faith as minut, a “sectarian” version of Judaism, rather than as another religion. But Christianity is also the tradition with which we have such a uniquely long and tortured historical past. Early Christian rivalry with rabbinic teaching, evidenced already in the gospels, set us up as the villains of Christianity's sacred story. This ancient rivalry was reinforced by later Christian insecurity in the face of Israel's stubborn survival, causing the churches to be major instigators of anti-Semitism throughout history, ranging from Crusades to blood libel to pogrom to Holocaust. Many thoughtful Christians, including the wing of the Catholic Church that most fully accepted Vatican II, have come to understand and acknowledge this fully.40 Christian contrition for the church's role in the demonization and persecution of Jews, and particularly for the Holocaust, touches me deeply. While we Jews should never place ourselves in the role of judge (“Was that statement by the pope sufficient? Did he mention Auschwitz enough times?”), we should also not have to bear the burden of willingness to forgive. The gulf of historic pain that divides our two Israels is ancient and real, not to be overcome in the course of a single generation.
We two Israels will best build trust by sharing the work we need to do. Humanity's need for our shared message is too urgent, and we have far too long been distracted from sharing it. “The day is short, the work is great” is more true in our day than ever before in human history. Our work today lies in spreading the message of Ben Azzai's teaching, reconceived for an age of open borders and environmental crisis, as far and wide as we are able, welcoming cooperation with and help from all who want to join in that work. We understand that when we say: “Every person bears the image of God,” Christians may prefer to say: “Every person contains the presence of Christ.” We will learn to translate and continue the dialogue; the work is too important to be derailed by such differences of language and symbol.
Of course, “Israel” too can be seen as symbol as well as historical reality. Just as “God” or “the blessed Holy One” stands in for all that my monist soul means by the underlying oneness of being, and “Torah” represents the silence that both transcends and fills all language, so too “Israel” gestures beyond itself toward that broader representation of humanity. This point is made beautifully by a Hasidic rereading of an argument that originates in the exegesis of Jewish law. An ancient Midrash opens with a list of thirteen hermeneutical principles by which Torah is to be interpreted. One of these reads as follows: “Anything that belonged to a particular category and then became exceptional to that category did so in order not only to teach about itself but also to instruct