Originally posted [http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/resources/articles/Brill.htm here]
''Rabbi Dr. Alan Brill teaches at Yeshiva University and Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and is also the Founder and Director of Kavvanah: Center for Jewish Thought. He is the author of a forthcoming monograph on Orthodox approaches to other religions. The following is a summary and sample of it. Omitted are chapters on encountering Easter religions, a phenomenology of common techniques, and the implications for this paper of Rabbi Soloveitchik's dialectic position. This paper was commissioned by the World Jewish Congress for the "World Symposium of Catholic Cardinals and Jewish Leaders," January 19-20, 2004 in New York City.''
In this paper, I present a range of traditional sources bearing on the encounter between Judaism and other religions. These have been selected with an aim of highlighting the widest array of opinions, for the purpose of beginning discussion; this is not designed to be either a complete anthology of relevant sources, or a definitive word on the meaning of these texts. These selections will, I believe, clarify the wisdom of Alon Goshen-Gottstein’s recent assertion that the entry of Orthodox Jews to the Jewish-Christian dialogue "has expanded the boundaries of the conversation and introduced new dimensions."[1]
In this paper, I present a range of traditional sources bearing on ==Key difference in the encounter between Judaism and other religions. These have been selected with an aim of highlighting in the widest array of opinions, for the purpose of beginning discussion; this is not designed to be either a complete anthology of relevant sources, or a definitive word on the meaning of these texts. These selections will, I believe, clarify the wisdom of Alon Goshen-Gottstein’s recent assertion that the entry of Orthodox Jews to the Jewish-Christian dialogue "has expanded the boundaries of the conversation and introduced new dimensions."[1]20th Century==
These traditional opinions highlight a key difference between the conceptualization of encounter in the 20th Century, and the way prior generations viewed the question of Christianity. In particular, while contemporary Jews have seen themselves as members of the Jewish community, and conceptualized their dialogue partners as members of a corresponding Christian community, prior generations took a theological rather than sociological approach, examining the role of Christianity, as a religion, within the theological constructs of Judaism.
In line with my reading of the texts, I emphatically reject the contention that encounter is only possible as a consequence of our modern existence and that we relate as Jews to non-Jews. The difference between our era of encounter and the medieval period is not essential, but only the passing of time.
==Contemporary encounter is limited, theology and doctrine more important==
I further believe that the conception of encounter held by many other contemporary Jewish thinkers – is much too limited. Discussions between communities are valuable – and a pleasant departure from much of our interactions as peoples over the centuries. But as a believing Jew by commitment, and a theologian by temperament and profession, I believe that the potential encounter in the realm of ideas – that of theology and doctrine – is much more interesting personally, and, in my opinion, potentially of much more profound importance.
Just as earlier generations of Orthodox thinkers were influenced by their cultures-- the Jewish encounter with other religions has the potential to influence future Jewish thinking. Not from any process of explicit trading of principles – the committee-work of joint statements has no place in the making of real theologies – but rather from expanding our own awareness of the ways in which the Divine can be experienced and the ineffable aspects of faith can be formulated.
==Doctrine to serve as meeting place of encounter==
To be specific: I am interested in the questions of how other religions experience God, revelation, ethics, and redemption. I am also interested in the textual questions of doctrine. Many of the challenges facing contemporary theologians are shared between Jews and Christians today. I want doctrine to serve as meeting place of encounter with our globalization.
Does Judaism have a theology of non-Jews? The answer is emphatically yes. Or perhaps, too emphatically yes, since, absent definitive councils and statements from the magisterium, Judaism hosts theologies, in the plural, rather than any singular doctrine. Accordingly, there is room to remodel or reconstruct theologies, guided by text, community and interpretation. Yet, though authentic Jewish theologies of non-Jews are rooted in the past, they must also make room for what academic scholarship and personal encounter teaches us about the true doctrinal and phenomenological nature of the other.
==An authentic Jewish theological position==
I am not working with non-rabbinic theologies of Buber, Rosenzweig, and Baeck, but the Talmudic thought of medievals and moderns such as Yehudah Halevi, Yakov Emden, and S. R. Hirsch. To me, an authentic Jewish theological position must meet the criterion of textuality, of being true to the sources. As did the medieval thinkers before me, I insist that a theology fits the rubrics of the Tanakh and the Talmud – the same criteria of the medieval thinkers.
At their core, these texts all reflect the Classical philosophical tradition, which, in Islamic translation, inspired the very first formal Jewish theologies of the Gaonic period. Philosophy distinguishes between the essence and the attribute. Recognition of the essential creates the possibility of tolerance and respect, the acknowledgement that we share a common, universal focus, in which the differences between us are only secondary attributes.
==Reject the solution of meeting as secular people==
In order to come to terms with the current clash of civilizations and the increasing tensions between forces of globalization and those of tradition, we need to view the conflict as a moral challenge that cannot be considered as resolved through a survival of the fittest or through demonologizing the other sides.[3] Religion offers an essential means of providing dignity, sanctity, and spirituality to meet these new challenges. I reject the solution of meeting as secular people; I want doctrine to serve as meeting place of encounter with our globalization. In the current age, no longer do people shelve their religion in encountering others. Facing others in a post-secular age, therefore, means that we must choose the moderate positions in our own tradition as a basis for discussion.
I stress the potential of tolerance and respect of difference because the question at the core of contemporary Christian theological discussion of the other – the question of salvation -- plays a relatively minor role in the texts that follow. Remember, however, that behind silence on the topic of salvation is the Talmudic, and therefore universally accepted, dictum that “the righteous of all nations have a share in the World to Come.”
==How I categorize the sources==
The sources we will be examining need to be categorized in multiple dimensions; to divide them simply between “pro-dialogue” and “anti-dialogue” would be to erase their richness.
The most obvious of these dimensions is that which categorizes positions as exclusivist, inclusivist, or universalist/pluralistic.[4]
===Exclusivist===
Let me explain. For the exclusivist, one's own community, tradition, and encounter with God is the one and only exclusive truth; all other claims on encountering God are a priori false. The pluralist takes the opposite tack, accepting that no one tradition can claim to possess the singular truth. In between is the inclusivist who acknowledges that there are many communities with their own traditions and truths, but maintains the importance of his own way of seeing thing as culminating, subsuming, or perfecting all other truths.
===Inclusivist===
For the inclusivist, other religions are explained by his own religion. He acknowledges a world outside his own, but relies on his own worldview to make it comprehensible and give it meaning. He speaks the language of his own theology, and uses its vocabulary to describe outsiders.
In this, he differs from the pluralist, who will address others in their own language. The pluralist can be criticized for trying stepping outside his own religious language rather than pushing its boundaries, but can be admired for naming others in their own terms.
===Universalist/Pluralist===
The pluralist accepts that truth is not in the possession of any one tradition, understanding religion as a way of approaching, rather than defining and naming, God. He accepts his limitations in understanding the wider world and believes God is present and active within the world.
For the exclusivist, the other religions are simply false. There is no broader, outside world whose claims need to be harmonized and addressed; there is only the realm of the “other side.” While this position may be at odds with ethical (and therefore universal) sensitivities, it plays a powerful sociological role for groups who feel embattled and threatened by the majority culture.
==Roots within tradition Judaism==
Each of these three positions has a different root within the origins of Judaism. The exclusivist model is true to certain Rabbinic strands honed on the anvil of exile. The inclusivist model draws from other Rabbinic strands, and is strongly rooted in Biblical sources, particularly messianic texts such as Isaiah. The pluralist view has some Biblical roots, and also emerges from the theological elaboration of the consequences of Creation.
I am using models of theological positions. Some figures will have their statements divided between several categories. Others will be subdivided in the same category, since each of the three categories can be further subdivided into historical-mission, metaphysical, and humanist, these subdivisions will be explained in the course of presenting the texts.[5]
==Biblical and Talmudic Premises==
Before examining the particular sources at hand, I would like to provide an abbreviated overview of the views toward non-Jews to be found within the Tanakh and the Rabbinic corpus.
===The Tanakh===
The Tanakh demands that Jews have no foreign gods, and points out the foolishness and abomination of heathen practices. Nonetheless, gentiles are generally allowed to worship gods. For example, in the book of Ruth, Orpah is not chastised for returning to her father’s god. Isaiah offers us a universalistic vision of God’s dominion over the world, while envisioning the Jewish people as chosen by God. Zephaniah and Zechariah offer an eschatological vision of all people serving one God.[6]
===The Talmud===
The Talmud has a tractate entitled Avodah Zarah, literally “foreign worship,” but the focus is more about the “other” – gentiles, pagans and foreigners – than about the cults of antiquity and their religious content or significance. There is a distrust of gentiles as an ethnic other; so much so that one should avoid even receiving a haircut from a gentile. Greco-Roman religion is the subject of disrespect and disdain from the Talmudic Sages, who suggest obscene variations on the names of the ancient deities.[7]
As Robert Goldenberg summarized his study of ancient Jewish attitudes toward non-Jews, "Neither Jewish monotheism nor Jewish ‘universalism’ necessarily entailed that the one true God could only be reached through Israel's covenant with Him."[8]
===The interpretive tradition===
Medieval Jewish philosophy understood the Biblical and rabbinic texts as teaching an articulated doctrine of God's uniqueness. This monotheism allowed them to treat the first cause of philosophy, Christian Trinitarians, and all other people of faith as having one essential unique God, even though they might have an incorrect view of the attributes of God. The question within traditional texts is how to articulate the strengths and defects of the other positions. And how will the correct doctrine be known?
==Inclusive Position== ===Inclusive Position #1: Historical-mission===
This variation on inclusivism maintains that Judaism has a messianic mission to spread the doctrine of monotheism throughout the world. The monotheistic religions of the other nations both reflect the success of the mission until now, and play a role in the mission’s continued advance toward the messianic age. This approach’s focus on the global, historical mission means that questions of individual salvation are not addressed.
====Rabbi Yehudah Halevi====
Yehuda Halevi lived in the twelfth century, heir to Spanish philosophical and poetic traditions. He wrote a defense of Judaism, called the Treatise in Defense of a Despised Tradition, popularly known as The Kuzari. The work has been popular over the centuries and is still read today by students seeking a guide to basics of Jewish theology.
While I dealt with Yehudah Halevi, some of the same sentiments are found in Maimonides' writings, embedded within a more theologically contradictory halakhic grid. The complexity of Maimonides' position is beyond the scope of this paper.
====Rabbi Yaakov Emden====
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.
Emden also offers a unique model of a Rabbinic Jew reading the New Testament as part of the Jewish mission.
S.R. ====Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch====
Samson Raphael Hirsch was the Frankfort pulpit Rabbi and ideologue behind the Neo-Orthodox philosophy of remaining Torah-true while accepting the cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual mores of the wider culture. Our example here of this ideology is his acceptance of Western civil society provided that the Jewish religion serves as a light unto the nations.
<blockquote>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>
<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>
It is also worth noting that Hirsch’s approach is practically devoid of metaphysics. There is no talk of roots and branches, but rather of models and influences. These traits make him a useful starting point for contemporary Jewish theologies without metaphysics.
====Rav Kook====
Rav Abraham Isaac Kook was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the Zionist return to the land of Israel. His writings embrace modernism by offering a vision of the restored land of Israel, at once evolutionary and Hegelian while at the same time mystical and messianic. His influence is widespread and influential as a Zionist dream of renewal of religious Judaism.
The Historical inclusivist approach enables Judaism to respect and appreciate Islam and Christianity on its own terms, if not on theirs. Like its metaphysical variation, it transforms the millennia of Diaspora into part of the redemptive progress of history, with all that entails for remembering and feeling the pains accumulated along the way.
===Inclusive Position #2 - Metaphysical hierarchical===
In this second variation of the inclusive approach, non-Jewish religion finds its place not as part of a historical progression, but in the metaphysical realm. Other religions will be seen not as means of bringing individuals or nations to God (the historical approach) but as binding themselves to metaphysical realms just as Israel is bound to God. The drama we see here on Earth is just a manifestation or epiphenomenon of the metaphysical situation.
====Rabbi Yosef Gikkitila====
Rabbi Yosef Gikkitila, one of the foremost Kabbalists of the thirteenth century, was the author of the classic introduction to Jewish theosophy, Gates of Light. The ability to differentiate attributes of God into a vertical hierarchy allows him to differentiate religions.
This position looks neither ahead to the future conclusion of history nor up to the supernal realm. Rather, it understands other religions by looking around in the present and back to the past: We are all children of Adam, created in the image of God and in relation with God. Lacking eschatology and metaphysics, this position proved particularly popular in the latter part of the 20th century.
====Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno====
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.
For Seforno, all humanity is beloved by God and chosen from amongst all creation. As Zephaniah has prophecied, the nations will in messianic times all call upon God. The distinction between Israel and the nations is the presence – or absence – of the Sinai revelation. All have the image of God, but the Sinai experience is only for Jews – there are two aspects to our lives. The universal and the particular; The image of God and our commitment to Bible as understood by Rabbinic literature, Torah study, ritual law, and peoplehood.
==Exclusive Position== ===Exclusive Position #1 – Mission===
As we have seen, for the exclusivist thinkers, Judaism is the sole path to God; those who are not Jews are at best bystanders in the Divine scheme, and at worst antagonists. This view can be found in some Talmudic texts and in many later commentators.
====Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzhak (Rashi)====
Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzhak, the great eleventh-century commentator on the Bible and Talmud is a standard in the Jewish curriculum. Because Rashi is seen as the indispensable commentator, it is difficult to overstate his influence on contemporary discourse. In traditional settings, Torah and, later, Talmud are approached first, and often exclusively, through the lens of Rashi’s commentary. He cites many of the polemical and negative rabbinic statements about gentiles or their typological equivalents in Noah, Esau, and Bilaam. Even his very first comment on the Bible contains his own gloss on the Midrash, viewing the gentiles as armed robbers. His particularism is shown in statements such as: “I ask from You that Your Shekhinah should not rest anymore on the nations of the world and we will be separate from all other nations. (Commentary to Exodus 33:16)
Ours is not the first generation of Jews bothered Rashi’s exclusionist, anti-gentile tone. Sifthei Hakhamim, by Rabbi Shabbatai Bass, a sixteenth-century commentary on Rashi, consistently reworks Rashi to impose a more ethical reading. However, the role of these comments of Rashi in the Jewish education system today remains problematic.
====Rabbi Yehudah ben Betzalel Loewe (Maharal)====
Rabbi Yehudah ben Betzalel Loewe (c. 1525-1609) was an eclectic Renaissance Jewish thinker who served as rabbi in Posen and Prague. His system, like many others in the early modern era, Jewish and non-Jewish, worked by creating binary pairs: in this case the redeemed world’s sustaining Jews and their opponents the gentiles. Maharal built his theology more on Midrash with its apocalyptic and typological themes than on Biblical or philosophic universalism. The ancient struggles of Israel with the seven wicked nations and Amalek are ever with us.
Maharal embraces separation and particularism. Where Yehudah Halevi used the metaphor of the fruit to refer to the branch religions that sprout with Judaism, Maharal gives the metaphor the opposite valence: Israel is the fruit whose connection with the other nations – the shell – only decreases with time. This opposition between Israel and the world – Edom – is real and absolute, a zero-sum game where cooperation is not conceivable.
====Zevi Yehudah Kook====
Zevi Yehudah Kook was the son of Rav Kook, he was blessed with a long life and many students. His ideology makes him the father of the settler movement and therefore influential in late twentieth-century Israeli political life.
If asked: What about the many arguments that, despite the falsity of Christian truth claims, the religion still constitutes a path to God? Like Wahabi Fundamentalism within Islam, Zevi Yehudah denies the continuous relevance of the cosmopolitan ages of synthesis, choosing instead to return to the polemical Midrash and Maharal.
Why was his position formulated at the end of the twentieth century? His theology shows the change that comes about from living in a non-Diaspora context that enables this rejection of western culture. The state of Israel can lead to a secure acceptance of the other, especially other religions, or it can also allow for a complete xenophobic rejection.\
===Exclusive Position #2 - demonic dualism===
What I am labeling the “dualistic” variety of the exclusivist position is really the counterpart to the “metaphysical” variant of inclusivism described above. Here too the real realm of action is not this world, with individual people and nations, but the metaphysical realm of primal and cosmic forces. In this schema, Israel represents cosmic good; the nations represent the primal evil. And while this trend tends to reject philosophy as universal, it should not be considered in accord with the mainstream Kabbalah of Gikkitila or Cordovero.
====Rabbi Isaac Luria====
The predominant source for these sentiments is the writings of the Kabbalist rabbi Isaac Luria who stated that gentiles do not have souls. Israel is locked into a cosmic battle of Kabbalistic redemption and earthly gentile impurity. Our continuous sins cause us to descend into the shells instead of redeeming ourselves.
While the influence of Luria on subsequent Jewish history has been overstated, his notion that non-Jews lack souls was a significant, and dangerous, innovation. It moved the exclusivity of Rashi to a new and potentially dangerous realm.
====Dualism has room for rereading====
This dualism needs to be reread from our vantage of connection to the classic texts.
Nevertheless, this dualistic statement was transformed by later generations of Chabad thinkers into a historical inclusivism, in which the gentiles today are part of the messianic progress; or into a hierarchal inclusivism, in which the gentiles have greater needs to purify themselves.[17]
====Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn====
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1902-1984), the seventh leader of Chabad Hasidism, armed with a messianic sense of current era, wanted to bring Hasidism even to the gentiles of America. He does not need to rewrite the offensive text because, for him, since times have changed, the text does not apply. All gentiles are now seen as capable of appreciating the Divine light of Torah. He was also in favor of school prayer and acknowledged the Christian and civil religion of America as a necessary moral force. In some of his homilies he even invokes "in God we trust" printed on United States currency as showing that we share one God.
It was important to take the trouble to present these rereading, even though many modern Jews do not have an interest in Hasidic doctrine, in order to show that even seemingly impossible to reread texts can be reread, even by conservative thinkers.
==Universalism/Pluralistic Position == ===Universalism Position #1 -Intellectual- outside revelation===
Universalism Position #1 -Intellectual- outside revelation====Immanuel of Rome====
Immanuel of Rome was a philosophically trained poet of thirteenth-century Italy, a student of Zerachia Hen, a confrere to Dante, and an antagonist of the more traditional Rabbi Hillel of Verona. His poetry was chastised as too risqué already in his lifetime, and his imitation of Dante's Divine Comedy, called Tofet veEden was universalistic in orientation. Immanuel’s description is lacking in its engagement with Rabbinical proof texts, similar to modern non-traditional thinkers. Hence, he is not an authoritative text for traditional thought. Nevertheless, he allows us a glimpse of the forces that shaped traditional Jewish thought, in that, his thirteenth-century critic Hillel of Verona formulated an inclusive humanism that was to influence the position of Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno (discussed above). He also shows us that universalist positions are not limited to the modern era or due to post Enlightenment ideas of tolerance, liberalism, and secularism.
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].)
===Universalism Position #2 -Revelation===
As we have seen in the inclusivist position, the Bible has universal, prophetic elements. At times, these elements were emphasized and elaborated by later Jewish thinkers.
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)
====Rabbi Nathaniel ibn Fayumi ====
An example of a medieval who makes use of these themes is the twelfth-century Yemenite Nathaniel Ibn Fayumi who presents a multi-covenant theory without the need to justify or defend it. "God permitted to every people something he forbade to others... God sends a prophet to every people according to their own language." (Bustan alAql, chap. 6)[19] He simply bases himself on the Rabbinic and Maimonidean theology that prophecy is available to all.
====Rabbi Jonathan Sacks====
The current Chief Rabbi of England, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks became embroiled in controversy for stating a similar sentiment in the first edition of his work, The Dignity of Difference, writing, “In the course of history, God has spoken to mankind in many languages: through Judaism to Jews, Christianity to Christians, Islam to Muslims." He was forced to clarify the statement as, "As Jews we believe that God has made a covenant with a singular people, but that does not exclude the possibility of other peoples, cultures, and faiths finding their own relationship with God within the shared frame of Noahide law.”[20]
====Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch====
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.
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.
===Universal Position #3 - Historical-Pluralistic=== ====Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes====
Mendes (1852-1937) served as rabbi of New York’s traditional Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, in which capacity he attended the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He was the first president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and the first professor of homiletics at Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary in New York. He wrote:
Here we have an Orthodox thinker who clearly affirms a common core of all religions, which over time became encrusted and thereby lead to devolution of various faiths. In the modern age we now seek a collective activity of all humanity’s seeking to return to the original core. The Biblical vision of becoming a light unto the nations is as part of a joint effort to worship together. The eventual goal is a messianic restoration to Eden.
====Rabbi Israel Lipschutz====
Rabbi Israel Lipschutz (1782-1860) from the port city of Danzig, offers a surprising universalistic sentiment in his Mishnah commentary.
<blockquote>R. Elazar ben Azaryah said, "If there is no Torah there is no civilization [derech eretz: lit. way of the land.]." The word "Torah" here cannot be meant literally, since there are many ignorant people who have not learned it, and many pious among the gentiles who do not keep the Torah and yet are ethical and follow the “way of the land.” Rather, the correct interpretation seems to me to be that every people has its own Divine religion, which comprises three foundational principles, (1) belief in a revealed Torah, (2) belief in reward and punishment, and (3) belief in an afterlife. They only disagree on the interpretation of these principles. These three principles are what are called here "Torah."[22]</blockquote>
Lipschutz's offers a vision of tolerance based on a generic sense of revelation, reward, and afterlife found in all religions. Rather than approaching religions as an other, he senses a common core based on morality. If one wanted to develop an approach to non-Abrahamic faiths, then his general definitions offer a useful starting point. For him, enlightenment, karma, and reincarnation could be considered valued forms of Torah for gentiles.
====Elijah Benamozegh====
Our next thinker did actually embrace the reading of works of other faiths. Rabbi Elijah Benamozegh (1823-1900) was a preacher and essayist in nineteenth-century Italy, who incorporated the new finding of comparative religion in his Biblical commentaries and who wanted to bring Gentiles, even his Christian contemporaries, back to a true universal Monotheism based on the seven Noahide laws.
I am not formulating a Noahide theory of other religions, as Benamozegh would want, because, like most of the other cited theologians, I do not expect the non-Jew to accept or convert to the Jewish perspective. The theologies of other religions cited in this essay are solely for Jewish self-definition as an internal perspective to aid in encounter other religions.
==Do Jews and Christians worship the same God?==
Most sources would say that we do. Certainly, universalists like Rabbi Lipschutz, and inclusivists like Halevi, Kook, Hirsch, Gikkitila, Seforno and Emden, would say yes. But even an exclusivist like Maharal would give a qualified yes because we share God as the first cause of philosophy, even if we differ over revelation and redemption. It is quite possible, though, that Rashi and Luria would argue that we do not, while exclusivist dualists like Zevi Yehudah would explicitly say that we do not.
The declaration does not assume a perennialist common core but rather the same objective reality known through revelation even if we disagree with the description given by others. Since we need God in our lives – so do other people. But God remains an unknown essence, which the Jewish position mandates that He is existent, volitional, and knowing, yet incorporeal, and unified.
==Academics and pluralism==
I distinguish the faith statements from pluralistic phenomenology, which allows one to speak about universals as an academic. As a committed Orthodox Jew, attempting to be true to the texts of my faith, I am inclusivist, but in the classroom I understand pluralist perspectives.
We also need to acknowledge that those inclined to spirituality, prayer and mysticism do not have trouble comparing notes on the human elements in their experiences. They recognize the common phenomenology of spiritual techniques. Two examples will suffice. On one of my visits to a kabbalistic Yeshivah in Israel, I met an ultra-orthodox kabbalistic mediator who told me that we could learn techniques from all faiths especially Hinduism and Buddhism. According to this ultra-Orthodox Jewish mystic, everyone has partial knowledge of the technology of meditation. Or when I spoke to a group of Cardinal Lustiger’s disciples about the Kabbalah, we were able to see each other’s theological narratives about the inter-divine structures of sefirot and trinity. Even as I told them a particularist story, about how we reject incarnation and cannot know the infinite aspects of God, we recognized each other’s theologies as theologies about God. The Trinity is not a pluralistic symbol for Jews, nor will it, or should it, ever be. Nevertheless, I explained to them why it is not pluralistic for us. Instead of invoking prior ages of violence and mistrust, our socially responsible activity was to compare sefirot to the trinity.
==Conclusion==
Everyone has now encountered other faiths. Globalization hastened these trends. A Jewish theory of other religions is not about who is saved or if their God is idolatrous but understanding and working with diversity. To treat everyone as secular is totalizing and not respectful of other people. I can recognize the pious of the nations and acknowledge that non-Jews have devotion and give witness to their faiths. If we acknowledge that they are not secular acts then we can hear others through mutual testimony, narrative and questioning. There is a need not just for diversity but also to offer, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks advises, dignity to our differences.
As Jonah on his voyage confronted each religion calling out to its own god, we need to have an understanding of our daily encounters in an age of globalization. And as Jonah needed to learn that he could not dwell alone or refrain from speaking to the gentile of Nineveh, we need to learn that we have to encounter the broader world and we cannot refrain from engaging other religions in an age of globalization. Hence, we need our own theology of other religions.
==References===
[1] Alon Goshen-Gottstein, "Jewish-Christian Relations: From Historical Past to Theological Future" Ecumenism No. 146 (2002). http://www.jcrelations.net/en/displayItem.php?id=1754.
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