:''Main article [[Judaism and Other Religions]]''

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.

==View on Christianity==

Rabbi Emden(1697--1776) was one of the leading Torah authorities of the past several centuries. Historians of the rabbinate have often compared. him to Maimonides, both having written on all branches of Jewish knowledge, and both having shared a pragmatic and even innovative approach. Even those who disagreed with him sought his opinion, and he is read with interest to this day. Thus, Moses Mendelssohn, founder of the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement, wrote to him as "your disciple, who thirsts for your words." Although Emden did not approve of the Hasidic movement--which had its beginnings in his time--his books are highly regarded amongst Hasidim. R. M. Sofer referred to him as a "prophet" (Halam Sofer 6:59). Thirty-one works were published during his lifetime, ten posthumously while others remain in manuscript. In his time, he was a fearless champion of Orthodox Judaism.

===Rabbi Jacob Emden's Letter (Seder Olam Rabbah Vezuta)===

But truly even according to the writers of the Gospels, a Jew is not permitted to leave his Torah, for Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians (Gal. 5) "I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, the Messiah will do you no good at all. You can take it from me that every man who receives circumcision is under obligation to keep the entire Torah." Again because of this he admonished in a letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 7) that the circumcised should not remove the marks of circumcision, nor should the uncircumcised circumcise themselves.

You, members of the Christian faith, how good and pleasant it might be if you will observe that which was commanded to you by your first teachers; how wonderful is your share if you will assist the Jews in the observance of their Torah. You will truly receive reward as if you had fulfilled it yourselves-for the one who helps others to observe is greater than one who observes but does not help others to do so--even though you only observe the Seven Commandments. I have written similarly in my pleasant work Torat Ha-Kenaot-- that the Jew who observes the Torah, but doesnt support it, is considered among the cursed; and the Gentile who does not observe the 613 commandments, but supports it, is considered among the blessed.

==Footnotes==

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