Yaakov Emden is an exemplar of a traditionalist pulpit rabbi and talmudist in Hamburg responding to the Eighteenth century Enlightenment and ideals of tolerance all around him. He stretches the traditional inclusivist position into universal directions.

<blockquote>We should consider Christians and Moslems as instruments for the fulfillment of the prophecy that the knowledge of God will one day spread throughout the earth. Whereas the nations before them worshipped idols, denied God's existence, and thus did not recognize God's power or retribution, the rise of Christianity and Islam served to spread among the nations, to the furthest ends of the earth, the knowledge that there is One God who rules the world, who rewards and punishes and reveals Himself to man. Indeed, Christian scholars have not only won acceptance among the nations for the revelation of the Written Torah but have also defended God's Oral Law. For when, in their hostility to the Torah, ruthless persons in their own midst sought to abrogate and uproot the Talmud, others from among them arose to defend it and to repulse the attempts. (Commentary to Pirkey Avot, 4:13)</blockquote>

Emden’s position is less overtly messianic than Halevi’s – and, consequently, apparently more positive about Christians and Muslims in the present world. Other religions share our God (who commands on Sinai and rewards and punishes) and acknowledge our scripture; accordingly, they have become our allies in this world. Emden's abstraction of the concept of Mosaic Torah as the acceptance of Scripture, allows him to view Christians and Moslems as sharing our devotion to Torah even if they do not accept the laws.

And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great; become a blessing. (Genesis 12:2)

<blockquote>The people of Abraham, in private and in public, follow one calling: to become a blessing. They dedicate themselves to the Divine purpose of bringing happiness to the world by serving as model for all nations and to restore mankind to the pure spiritual status that Adam had possessed. God will grant His blessing of the renewal of life and the awakening and enlightenment of the nations, and the name of the People of Abraham shall shine forth. (Commentary on Genesis, ad loc.)</blockquote>

The prophetic call of Jews as “light unto the nation” plays a central role throughout Hirsch’s theology. It is not only a tool by which to interpret non-Jewish religions, but serves as a consistent trope in his interpretations of the mitzvoth. Jews are to be role models, spreading the enlightenment of experienced, non-intellectual knowledge of God to all. Hirsch bases this theology on his direct readings of the words of scripture mediated by the thirteenth-century commentary of Rabbi David Kimkhi, who had already explained the verses as teaching that the goal of Judaism is to be a Light unto the Nations.[11]

R. Ovadiah Seforno was a rabbi, rabbinic scholar, exegete, and philosopher in Renaissance Italy. He is noted for teaching Torah to gentiles, and dedicating his theological work, Light of the Nations, to King Henry of England. He suggests that Christians share with Jews this universal relationship with God and all humanity is the chosen people. However, after the Fall of Adam when humanity turned towards materialism, then Jews and the pious of the other nations are more special. He uniquely proffers only a quantitative difference between Judaism and the other faiths.

<blockquote>“And now if you will diligently listen to my voice and observe My covenant, you shall be consecrated (segulah) to Me from all the nations, for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation unto Me.” (Exodus 19:5-6) </blockquote>

“You shall be consecrated to Me”: Humanity as a whole is more precious to Me than the lower forms of existence, since man is the central figure in creation. As our Sages taught: “Beloved is man who was created in the Divine image.” (Avot 3:14) However, the difference between [Jews and non-Jews] in the hierarchy of the universe is that, although “the entire earth belongs to Me,” and the righteous of the nations are precious to Me without a doubt, [nevertheless] “you shall be a kingdom of priests unto Me.” This is your distinction: You shall be a kingdom of priests to teach all of humanity that they all shall call upon the name of God to serve Him with a common accord (Zephaniah 3:9). It also states, “And you shall be called the priests of God,” (Isaiah 61:6) and “For out of Zion shall the Torah come forth.” (Isaiah 2:3)

<blockquote>“Although You love the nations, all of the holy one's are in your hand; they are subdued beneath Your feet, for he brought Your word.” (Deut. 33:3)</blockquote>

“Although you love the nations.” With this You make known that all of humanity is precious to You. As the Rabbis taught, “Beloved is man, who was created in the Divine image.” Nevertheless, “all holy ones are in your hand.” You declare that all holy ones -- the holy myriads who received the fiery religion are in your hand as silver in [the hand] of the refiner. “They are subdued” - they are broken, like one who has been reproved and prays with a broken spirit. “Beneath Your feet” - that is, at your footstool, Mount Sinai. “He brought Your word.” That is Torah which Moses commanded. They said to God, “Moses brought us your word, the Torah which You commanded us to heed.”

The rewarded saints observed by the narrator of the epic have reached their non-Jewish paradise through intellectual reasoning. The righteous of the nations – a category mentioned but not explicated in the Talmud – are here given form in this description of paradise. For Immanuel of Rome, paradise can be reached through a universal path consisting of self-discovery and intellectual discovery. The various forms of traditional religion, each with its own particular ethnicity, theology, and approach to naming God, pale before the universal truth.

<blockquote>These are the pious among the gentile state

who by their intellect and wisdom have become great…

whist they with their intelligence searched out who formed them, and who was the Creator,

And as they passed the Faiths of all other under examination…

But they chose of all beliefs views such as seemed to them right,

Upon which men versed in conscience had no cause to fight…

And when men boastfully would attach a name to God, our hearts trembled, it shook our frame to think that each and every people should give Him some definite name.</blockquote>

We, however say, Be His name whatsoever, we believe in the First Existence, the True One, whom we never from our life can ever sever. (Immanuel ben Solomon, Tophet and Eden, trans. Hermann Gollancz [London: University of London Press, 1921].)

For the Rabbis – or at least some of them – Divine prophecy was self-evidently too powerful to be bound by human categories of Jew or non-Jew. While this is not a multi-covenant theology, this strand of Rabbinic thought paves the way for such a possibility.

<blockquote>The prophet Elijah said: I call heaven and earth to bear witness that anyone -- Jew or gentile, man or woman, slave or handmaid -- if his deeds are worthy, the Divine Spirit will rest upon him. (Tanna Debai Eliyahu 9:1)</blockquote>

When the Holy one Blessed be He, revealed himself to give the Torah to Israel, he revealed himself not only to Israel but to all the other nations. (Sifrei Devarim 343)

While we earlier emphasized Hirsch’s inclusivist vision within his Jewish theology, Hirsch also sees a universal loving God who accepts the upright of all peoples. Their own ethical laws have been their own formulations of revelation, the Noahide laws, and providence.

<blockquote>Judaism does not say, "There is no salvation outside of me." Although disparaged because of its alleged particularism, the Jewish religion actually teaches that the upright of all peoples are headed toward the highest goal.</blockquote>

<blockquote>In particular, they have been at pains to stress that, while in other respects their views and ways of life may differ from those of Judaism, the peoples in whose midst the Jews are now living have accepted the Jewish Bible of the Old Testament as a book of Divine revelation. They profess their belief in the God of heaven and earth as proclaimed in the bible and they acknowledge the sovereignty of Divine Providence in both this life and the next. Their acceptance of the practical duties incumbent upon all men by the Will of God distinguishes these nations from the heathen and idolatrous nations of the Talmudic era. (Principles of Education, "Talmudic Judaism and Society,” 225-7)</blockquote>

<blockquote>The Torah calls Israel a treasured nation. However, this does not imply, as some have mistakenly assumed, that Israel has a monopoly on God's love and favor. On the contrary, Israel's most cherished ideal is that of the universal brotherhood of mankind. (Nineteen Letters of Ben Uzziel, tr. Bernard Drachman [New York, 1942], p. 15.)</blockquote>

For Hirsch, there is one true and loving God over all humanity and we are all part of one brotherhood. He does not seek to define these terms based on narrow Rabbinic parameters but on the acceptance of the practical duties of mankind.

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