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the wicked restore the pledge, give back
what he has robbed, walk in the statutes
of life . . . he shall surely live . . . None of
the sins he has committed shall be remem-
bered against him."
Baptism emphasizes the paralysis of the
human will helpless without God combat-
ting Satan. The covenant circumcision
focuses on the competence of the human
being to exercise control over his life. To the
sulking Cain, depressed over his act of
fratricide, the Torah counsels, "Sin
crouches at the door but you may rule over
it."
Salvation is not for Jews alone. In
Judaism those who do not believe our way
or pray our way are not threatened with
divine anathema. In rabbinic literature,
Heaven and earth are called to witness
that "whether they be gentile or Jew, man
or woman, slave or free man, the Divine
Presence rests on each one according to his
deeds." (Yalkut Shimeoni, Tanya Debe Eli-
jah). The people of Nineveh (in the Book of
Jonah) are spared because of their deeds,
not their conversion to Judaism; because
of their turning from evil ways, not their ac-
ceptance of the Sabbath and festivals.
Jews do not seek to convert the world to
Judaism but convert the world to
righteousness, justice and peace.
Sam and Peggy must be given to under-
stand that circumcision is not baptism.
They are not knife or water alternatives,
but ritualized dramas of values, affecting
their relationships to God, world, neighbor
and self. Baptism depends upon belief in
a specific divine person who walked the
face of the earth. In Judaism there is no
such incarnate divine beings whether
clothed as patriarchs, priests or prophets.
There is no Jewish beatification or canon-
ization of saints, no apothesis of blood and
flesh heroes, no doctrine of infallibility.
The heroes of Israel are magnificent but
not so special they they are to be obeyed
without question.
FAMILY TIES
Peggy spoke warmly of the Jewish fami-
ly. Family is one of the consistent praises
of Jewish life that rabbis hear from non-
Jews. The primacy of family is not irrele-
vant to the horizontal theological frame of
Judaism. The family and its friends are
rooted in a tradition which does not toler-
ate the schism of love between humans and
that between humans and God. Nowhere
in Jewish religious literature could one find
even remotely the approach to the family
as Jesus expresses in the gospel in Luke
and Matthew. "If any man come to me and
hate not his father and mother and wife
and children and brother and sisters — yea
and his own life also, he cannot be my disci-
ple" (Luke 14:26). In Judaism, Jews come
to God through their families and friends,
not through the sacrifice of their relation-
ship nor the sacrifice of self. Divinity
yields its character not through the sub-
traction of humanity, nor through the
elimination of the self, but through the love
and care of human others and self. Jesus
declares, "For I have not come to bring
peace on earth but a sword. For I have
come to set a man against his father and
a daughter against her mother, and a
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."
For Jesus the believer is confronted with
a hard, exclusive disjunctive. Either
heaven or earth, either Christ or family,
either Jesus or self. "He who loves father
or mother more than me is not worthy of
me." (Matthew 10:34). In Christianity one
cannot come to the Father except through
the son. In Judaism, one cannot come to
the Father except through the earthly sons
and daughters of one's human family.
These are not easy instructions for
Peggy and Sam to hear. But it is impor-
tant that the differences in their birth
traditions not be trivialized. The theo-
logical differences between Christianity and
Judaism are likely to cast cultural and
moral penumbra larger than they may have
imagined. They may come to understand
that genuine tolerance does not entail in-
discriminate adoption of all faiths and that
openness does not mean to reduce all tradi-
tions to sameness.
They may come to recognize conversa-
tion as not discrediting the other's faith
but as flowing from an awareness of the
profound dissonance between religious
cultures. Their resolve to hold incompati-
ble traditions in one household would not
only distort the uniqueness of each faith
civilization but compromises their own in-
tegrity. With the best of intentions, Peggy
and Sam thought to offer their offspring
the best of religion. But, to paraphrase
Santayana, such is the attempt of those
who would speak in general without using
any language in particular. Judaism and
Christianity are particular languages, with
preciously unique syntaxes, which when
thrown together produce a babble of
tongues.
Sam and Peggy have important deci-
sions to be made. If they build their lives
on the narrow edge of the Judeo-Christian
hyphen they offer their children the fate of
Disraeli. He became the British Prime
Minister of Queen Victoria, was converted
to Christianity by his father and yet held
pridefully the glories of his Jewish ances-
try. Queen Victoria is reported to have
asked him, "What are you, Disraeli? Which
testament is yours?" He replied with
sadness, "I am, dear Queen, the blank page
between the Old and the New Testament."
Hopefully, Sam and Peggy will learn to
recognize and respect the uniqueness and
difference of the Jewish and Christian
outlook and not lead their children to in-
herit the blank page of the testaments. For
all the commonality between Christianity
and Judaism, the hyphen between the
cross and the Star of David is no sign of
identity.
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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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