justice – eyebeleave

Judaism and Christianity: A common heritage

Chagall jacobs dream

A very good friend of mine (CA) lent me a great book about Judaism, entitled “What is a Jew?” and aimed at providing an introduction to a broad variety of aspects of what it means to be Jewish. The book is structured in the form of questions and answers and its tone exudes warmth and a desire to share rather than to impose or indoctrinate. Even before I started reading the book, I was looking forward to learning more about Judaism, both because of a desire to have a better understanding of the religion of several friends of mine, and because of the heightened insistence on a rediscovery of Judaism made by the Catholic Church since Vatican II.

John Paul II was famously the first pope to visit a synagogue, during which visit he spoke with clarity and warmth about the relationship between Christianity and Judaism:

“The Jewish religion is not ‘extrinsic’ to us, but in a certain way is ‘intrinsic’ to our own religion. […] With Judaism, therefore, we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers, and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.”

Benedict XVI went on to maintain very strong relationships with Judaism, both acknowledging the Church’s past wrongs and expressing its gratitude and debt to the Jewish people:

“Abraham, father of the people of Israel, father of faith, has become the source of blessing, for in him ‘all the families of the earth shall call themselves blessed.’ The task of the Chosen People is therefore to make a gift of their God – the one true God – to every other people. In reality, as Christians we are the inheritors of their faith in the one God. Our gratitude therefore must be extended to our Jewish brothers and sisters who, despite the hardships of their own history, have held on to faith in this God right up to the present and who witness to it…”

Finally, Pope Francis has not only continued along the direction indicated by his predecessors, but has also benefitted from close personal friendships with the Jewish community. An example of this is the book – “On Heaven and Earth” that he co-authored with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, who also accompanied him on his recent visit to Israel and who has been a frequent visitor at the Vatican. Pope Francis has also reiterated, in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, the brotherly relationship that his predecessors have stressed:

“We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom 11:16-18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word. Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. […] While it is true that certain Christian beliefs are unacceptable to Judaism, and that the Church cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah, there exists as well a rich complementarity which allows us to read the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures together and to help one another to mine the riches of God’s word. We can also share many ethical convictions and a common concern for justice and the development of peoples.” (§247-9)

Against this background I was particularly pleased to see the relationship between Christianity and Judaism described by Rabbi Morris Kertzer in “What is a Jew?” as follows:

“[The] German dramatist, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, caught the essence of this common heritage [of Judaism and Christianity] in a play called Nathan, the Wise. One of the most memorable scenes depicts a meeting between a friar and the Jew Nathan. Moved by the beauty of Nathan’s character, the friar exclaims, “Nathan! Nathan! You are a Christian!” His friend replies, “We are of one mind, for that which makes me, in your eyes, a Christian, makes you, in my eyes, a Jew!”” (pp. 279)

I have to say that this paragraph from the last pages of the book very much rang true for me and expressed with accuracy the feeling I had as I made my way through the whole book. To give you a sense of what triggered such a recognition of what I believe to be very much mine in Rabbi Kertzer’s description of Judaism, I will share a number of excerpts from it next.

To begin with, the mystical tradition in Judaism, and its propensity to expressing itself by means of short stories reminded me immediately of the stories told about the Desert Fathers (and also about Zen kōans and the stories of the Sufi Mullah Nasrudin):

““Rabbi,” one of the disciples complained, “some of the congregants are gossiping in the midst of prayer!” “How wonderful are your people, O God,” The rabbi retorted. “Even in the midst of gossip, they devote a few moments to prayer!”

“Can you tell me, Rabbi, why the wicked are always looking for companions while the righteous are not?” “The answer is simple: The wicked walk in darkness, so are anxious for company. Good people walk in the light of God; they don’t mind walking alone.”” (pp. 21-22)

Next, I was struck by a repeated insistence on orthopraxy, which has a strong tradition in Christianity too:

“Jews are urged to put their religion into action. “Talking is not the main thing; action is,” goes a talmudic maxim, and action includes not just activity within the confines of the Jewish world, but working for the welfare of the larger society in which we live. We call this tikkun olam, meaning the “reparation of world.”” (pp. 30)

And Rabbi Kertzer goes on to recounting the same story about the building of the Tower of Babel that Pope Francis reflects on in his above-mentioned book, and then to presenting a synthesis of principles that resonate very strongly with Christianity too:

“The Rabbis used telling parables to illustrate this point. Why did the Tower of Babel crumble? Because the leaders of the project were more interested in the work than in the workers. When a brick fell to earth, they would pause to bewail its loss; when a worker fell they would urge the others to keep on building. The brick was more important than the human being. So God destroyed the imposing edifice. […]

Basic to Judaism are these fundamental principles, which are also basic to democracy: 1) God recognizes no distinction among us on the basis of creed, color, gender, or class; all of us are equal in God’s sight. 2) We are all our brother’s and sister’s keepers; we bear responsibility for our neighbors’ failings as well as for their needs. 3) All of us, being made in God’s image, have infinite capacity for doing good; therefore the job of society is to evoke the best that is in each of us. 4) Freedom is to be prized above all things; the very first words of the Ten Commandments depict God as the Great Liberator: “I am the Eternal your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”” (pp. 31)

A couple of questions later, Kertzer then sets out an understanding of Scripture that could have come from the Vatican II dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum:

“[M]ost Jews look upon the accounts of miracles as inspiring literature, rather than as actual historical events. That is to say, we do not necessarily accept older interpretations of their significance, since an important lesson for the fifth century may be unimportant in the face of today’s spiritual questions; but we do use these tales as sources of inspiration ourselves, trying to draw religious lessons from the text, even the text of an event that may not be literally true. God did not create the world in precisely six days, just as the biblical text insists, but we can learn lessons for our lives from such stories as the Garden of Eden or the Tower of Babel.” (pp. 45)

On the subject of death and the Kaddish prayer, the book presents a profoundly beautiful reflection by Rabbi Steinberg:

“It is easier for me to let go of life with all its treasures, because these things are not and never have been mine. They belong to the Universe and the God who stands behind it. True, I have been privileged to enjoy them for an hour but they were always a loan to be recalled.

And I let go of them the more easily because I know that as parts of the divine economy they will not be lost. The sunset, the bird’s song, the baby’s smile, the thunder of music, the surge of great poetry, the dreams of the heart, and my own being—all these I can well trust to the God who made them. There is a poignancy and regret about giving them up, but no anxiety. When they slip from my hands they will pass to hands better, stronger, and wiser than mine.

Life is dear; let us then hold it tight while yet we may. But we must hold it loosely also! It is at once infinitely precious and yet a thing lightly to be surrendered. Because of God, we clasp the world, but with relaxed hands; we embrace it, but with open arms.” (pp. 67)

The juxtaposition of an enjoyment of the beauty of the universe and a detachment from it leads to an experiencing of everything in relationship with and gratitude to God:

“Because of its innate trust in both God and God’s world, Judaism affirms the value of life and life’s pleasures. It is therefore a religion that urges us to pay attention to the wonderful universe about us. To help us do so, it provides blessings for all of life’s bounties: seeing a rainbow; experiencing a thunderstorm; observing the first blossoms of springtime; putting on new clothes; even eating our first garden produce, as each crop ripens year after year.” (pp. 85)

That the above relationship with God is not simply an individual matter is shown clearly through the concept of minyan, which also reminded me of Jesus’ promise of his presence where “two or three” are gathered together in his name:

“Personal prayer between the individual and God may take place anywhere, any time, and with no one present but God and the individual worshiper. Public services, however, have traditionally required what is known as a minyan, that is, the presence of at least ten adult worshipers. […] Behind the idea of a minimum number is the notion that Jewish spirituality is in some sense communal. We all received the Torah together on Mount Sinai. We are all part of the people Israel.” (pp. 86)

Kertzer then goes on to presenting a simultaneous openness to diversity and faithfulness to God, that has echoes in the Church’s desire for “unity in diversity”:

“Our experience with diverse cultures has enriched our religion in many ways. Above all, perhaps, has been our hospitality to differences. Every question of Jewish law contains both an austere interpretation and a liberal one, and the Rabbis ruled that “both opinions are the word of the living God.” […] One famous rabbinic aphorism pictures God as saying, in effect, “As long as Jews do My will, they need not believe in Me.” That is an exaggeration, of course. Judaism does teach some beliefs, among them the firm conviction that God is real: a real presence in the lives of men and women, children and adults. We can know that reality as surely as we know the beauty of love, the satisfaction of faithfulness, or the buoyancy of hope.” (pp. 108)

In more specific terms, the three pillars of the Jewish faith are presented next, and unity among them is declared:

“We believe, then, in God: a personal God whose ways may be beyond our comprehension, but whose reality makes the difference between a world that has purpose and one that is meaningless.

We believe all human beings are made in God’s image; our role in the universe is thus uniquely important, and despite the failings that spring from our mortality, we are endowed with infinite potential for goodness and greatness.

We believe too that human beings actualize their potential as part of a community. The people Israel is such a community, harking back to Sinai, existing despite all odds from then until now, and still the source of satisfaction for Jews who wish to pursue a life of purpose grounded in the age-old wisdom we call Torah.

And we believe in Torah, therefore, as a continuing source of revelation.

It has been said that you can sum up Jewish belief in these three words, God, Torah, Israel. As the mystics used to say, “God, Torah, and Israel are all one.” If we lose our faith in any one of them, the others quickly perish. […]

In antiquity, it was common for scholars to distill the essence of religion in a simple formula. Thus, Hillel, the great Rabbi and scholar of the first century B.C.E., was asked to sum up Judaism while the questioner stood on one foot! Hillel replied: “Certainly! What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is all there is in the Torah. All the rest is mere commentary. I suggest you study the commentary.”” (pp. 109)

The transcendence of God, the universal access to following Him and its being rooted in a putting into practice of His qualities brings the exposition of the Jewish faith to completion:

“Jews believe in the existence of a God who cannot be accurately conceived, described, or pictured. But God is a real presence in the universe at large; and the lives of each of us in particular. We believe also that we most genuinely show God honor when we imitate the qualities that are godly: As God is merciful, so we must be compassionate; as God is just, so we must deal justly with out neighbor; as God is slow to anger, so we must be tolerant in our judgment.” (pp. 110)

“It is the recognition of the reality of God, and the basic moral virtues, such as kindliness, justice, and integrity, that we regard as eternal verities. But we claim no monopoly on these verities, for we recognize that every great religious faith has discovered them. That is what Rabbi Meir meant some eighteen centuries ago, when he said that a non-Jew who follows the Torah is as good as our high priest.” (pp. 113)

Finally, Kertzer also speaks very powerfully about the necessity of remembering the horrors of the Shoah:

“[T]he moral reason [to remember the Shoah] may be the most important one. When the mass murderer Adolf Eichmann was on trial, the Israelis informed the world that the motive behind the judicial proceedings was not vengeance but the moral education of contemporary women and men. The striking thing about Eichmann was precisely that he was so ordinary, a living symbol of what historian Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” Contemplating the events of the Nazi era, we came to see that the sin of omission on the part of the decent peoples of the world was the sin of silence, the refusal to believe that a highly enlightened people like the Germans could permit themselves to be led by a madman into acts of national depravity that culminated in the events of Auschwitz and the other death camps. We had to learn to readjust our vision and take evil seriously once again.” (pp. 161)

Not only is it essential to pursue the doing of good, but so is a taking seriously of evil and a standing up to it, since omission and silence too are grave sins – insights that are of acute relevance today and that were at the time of the Shoah also shared by Christians. The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose anniversary of being murdered in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945 was yesterday, said:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:
God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.”

The demon of distance

A couple of weeks ago, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi lead another of the “courtyard of the gentiles” events, aimed at providing a space for dialogue between non-believers and Catholics. This time it took place in Budapest and Cardinal Ravasi’s address focused on the fundamental Christian principles, from which its understanding of morality, economy and society derives.

These principles include those of the person (created in the image of God and intrinsically being in relationship with others), of autonomy (of the civil and religious spheres, following Jesus’ words: “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” (Matthew 22:21)), of solidarity and of truth (that precedes and exceeds us and that we inhabit rather than possess¹). Each of these four principles is insightfully presented and analyzed by Ravasi and I would recommend anyone to read his talk in full (at the time of writing this post, only available in Italian). Here, however, I would like to focus only on the principle of solidarity, which Ravasi further differentiates into its aspects of justice and love.

The starting point of the principle of solidarity in Christianity, like that of the other three principles too, is the incarnation: “And the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), as a result of which there is a link between faith and history, between religion and political and social life. Cardinal Ravasi also emphasized this point during his brief opening remarks of the entire event, where he pointed out that, while in Eastern religions saints tend to be depicted with closed eyes (indicating an interiority of focus), in Christian art saints are typically shown with their eyes wide open – projecting out into the world around them. What is needed, Ravasi concludes, is both an interiority and a having one’s eyes open to see the great political, economic, social and cultural problems of the world.

In this context, the principle of solidarity in Christianity has its roots already in the Genesis account of creation, where

“the fact of all of us being human is expressed by the noun “Adam,” which in Hebrew is ha-’adam,² with the article (ha-) that simply means “the human.” is used to refer to humanity. Therefore there is in all of us a shared “adamness.” Solidarity is, therefore, structural to our fundamental anthropological reality. Religion expresses this anthropological unity using two terms that are two moral categories: justice and love. Faith takes solidarity, which is also at the basis of lay philanthropy, but goes beyond it. In fact, staying with John’s Gospel, during the last evening of his earthly life Jesus says a wonderful phrase: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13).”

To illustrate the two aspects of solidarity – justice and love, Ravasi takes advantage not only of Christian tradition, but also makes reference to Eastern thought, in the spirit of inter-religious dialogue.

To present the essence of justice, Ravasi quotes the 4th century saint, Ambrose of Milan:

“The earth was created as a common good for all, for the rich and for the poor. Why, then, O rich, do you usurp an exclusive right to the soil? When you help the poor, you, rich, don’t give them from your own, but you return to them their own. In fact, you alone use the common property, given for the use of all. The earth belongs to all, not only to the rich, therefore when you help the poor you give them back their due, instead of providing them with a gift of your own.” (On Naboth)

Turning to the second aspect of solidarity – love, Ravasi takes advantage of the following Tibetan parable, showing that religious cultures, that are undoubtedly diverse, do at their bases have touch-points and contacts:

“A man, walking through the desert, spots something strange in the distance. Fear starts welling up in him, since, in the absolute solitude of the steppe, such an obscure and mysterious reality – maybe an animal, a dangerous wild beast – can’t but unsettle. Moving ahead, the traveller discovers that he is not approaching a beast, but a person instead. But his fear does not pass. If anything, it grows, thinking that the person could be a robber. Nonetheless, he has no choice but to proceed, until arriving in the presence of the other. At this moment, the traveller lifts his gaze and, to his surprise, exclaims: “It is my brother, whom I haven’t seen for many years!””

Ravasi concludes his reflection on solidarity by noting that “distance generates fears and demons; one has to get close to the other to overcome fears, no matter how understandable they may be. Refusing to get to know the other and to encounter the other is the same as saying no to the love that springs from solidarity and that dissolves terror and generates a true society.”

Personally, I have found Cardinal Ravasi’s reflection highly compelling and enlightening, both due to its deep roots in Scripture and its open and broad perspective that is equally at ease with drawing on the rich sources of Christianity as it is to benefit from the insights of other religions, even in matters as fundamental and core to Christianity as its understanding of love. Specifically, I have also found the Tibetan parable to be a great reminder to attempt closeness with all, instead of remaining at a distance and being put off by distorted, prejudice-filled, blurry perception.

¹ Ravasi addressed this concept of the truth several times already, e.g. see also its coverage in a previous post here.
² For more on the Genesis account and ha-’adam, see John Paul II’s “Man and Woman He Created Them,” discussed here.

Civil disobedience

One of the most common charges against “religious” people in general and Catholics in particular is that they surrender the use of their critical faculties and follow orders from their leaders like sheep. In other words: they are no trouble, they won’t break rank and are all-round model citizens.

Today I’d like to argue that this is as far from the truth as possible, and I will take advantage of the Vatican’s foreign secretary, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti’s address to the United Nations from last Monday, which in many ways tracks Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at the German Bundestag, delivered last year.

He starts by acknowledging the dangers that follow from the “financial crisis, which is worsening some humanitarian and environmental emergencies, does not seem yet to be over, and may even herald new and dangerous conflicts” and that spreading “the rule of law by every means becomes a particularly urgent task for a just, equitable and effective world governance.” Then, he fully aligns himself with the UN’s insistence on: “the unbreakable link between the rule of law and respect for human rights, […] the judicial control of laws and of executive power, […] transparency in acts of governance and the existence of public opinion capable of expressing itself freely.” Mamberti’s key point comes next though:

“The rule of law is also put at risk when it is equated with a legalistic mentality, with a formal and uncritical adherence to laws and rules, in an attitude which can even paradoxically degenerate into a means of abusing human dignity and the rights of individuals, communities and states, as happened during the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Furthermore, in the phrase “rule of law”, the concept “law” should be understood as “justice”.”

The first thing to note here is that it calls for critical thinking and, I believe, that, as far as they are rules, this warning also applies to Church teaching. Taking even the ‘rules’ that the Church presents to its members and applying them with a “legalistic mentality, with a formal and uncritical adherence” can lead to their perversion. The Church has very rightly emphasized a focus on deepening one’s relationship with Jesus during the upcoming Year of Faith, rather than talking about making oneself familiar with Church “rules.”

In case you think that this is just my own interpretation of Church teaching, as opposed to the official line, let me point to one of my favorite lines from the Catechism:

A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. (CCC, §1790)

In fact, this brings us back to Mamberti’s talk, where he affirms that justice is “proper and inalienable to the nature of every human being.” Bringing all of this together in fact puts a Catholic into a position of having to critically assess laws and being called both to strict adherence to those that are aligned with their conscience and to resistance against those that don’t. This is neither a position of blind obedience, nor one of disregard for the law, but a more complex, but far more personally and socially rewarding one, where discernment and prudence need to be exercised.

Let’s get back to Mamberti though and see what he has to say about justice:

“Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled, and it is only in this way that we can speak truly of the rule of law.”

The key here, to my mind, is that freedom is not arbitrary. You can’t just decide, with disregard for human nature and your conscience, what behavior to follow and expect that it will allow you to remain free.

Just to avoid giving the impression that this topic is in any way simple, Mamberti rightly recognizes that “[t]he question of how to recognize what is truly right and thus to serve justice when framing laws has never been simple, and today in view of the vast extent of our knowledge and our capacity, it has become still harder.” The more you know the more difficult certainty becomes, which echoes Socrates’ “The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know.” And, finally, he postulates a very clear link between a subversion of the law and the economic crisis that the world is in today:

“It is well known that, at the international level, there are interest groups present who, by means of formally legitimate procedures, are impacting on the policies of states in order to obtain multilateral norms which not only cannot serve the common good but which, under the guise of legitimacy, are in fact an abuse of norms and of international recommendations, as has been seen in the recent financial crisis.”

Even just the last 100 years have been addled with abuses of the law that were fully legal in the sense of not exhibiting procedural violations. It would be a mistake to think though that this is all in the past or that it only applies to regimes notorious for human rights abuses. Even in the “civilized West” there are attacks on the rights of peoples to express their desire for self-determination and on the practice of religious freedom. As St. Augustine said “Without justice – what else is the State but a great band of robbers?”