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`My Lunch With Jesus'

In the following book excerpt,
rabbi engages in conversation
with ep iscopal p riest.

RABBI LAWRENCE KUSHNER

Special to the Jewish News

IV

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agreed we were ready to write about
Jesus. This is what I wrote to R. 25 years
ago and shared with him over our lunch.

hat little I know about
Jesus I learned from one
The Rabbi's Letter
man.
R. was the one who
"I am wary of Jesus. Not because of
first helped me, over a quarter century
anything he taught or even because of
ago,
aao
anything his disciples taught about him.
b understand about how God might
really become a person. He and I were
(Although some of the things John said
then young clergymen; he was the
about me and my people ought to be
Episcopal priest and I was the rabbi in a
forever banned from public reading by
small New England town. We were cau-
any person who thinks loving people is
tiously fascinated by each other's faith.
important.)
We visited each other's
"Whether they were
place of prayer; we visited
mistaken or merely pre-
each other's home. At a
mature, the idea that
Sabbath service, I even
God should at last take
invited R. to help me with
the form of a human
the reading of the Torah
being, that the yearning
scroll.
God and humanity
That Christmas Eve, as
share for one another
our family was about to
should be focused in the
order out for Chinese
mythos of one person is
food (they were the only
a very compelling vision:
place open), the kitchen
Word become flesh.
doorbell rang. Through
"For millennia we
the window, I could see a Rabbi Lawrence Kushner:
Jews had tried to make
car, with its headlights
"Truth be told: Neither tra- it work in the other
on, idling in the drive-
direction, from the bot-
dition has yet succeeded."
way.
tom up. Raising our-
I opened the door; it
selves to the ideal of
was R. He was wearing his collar — a
Torah's teaching. Judaism seeks to raise
priest ready for the holy night — fac-
ordinary people to the realization of
ing a rabbi in a sweatshirt about to
holiness, transforming flesh into word.
pick up an order of take-out food.
"Then came Christianity, teaching
"R., my God, what are you doing
that Jesus represented an attempt to
here? It's Christmas Eve. Aren't you
understand the yearning from the
supposed to be in church?"
other direction.
"Oh, yes," he said, "We're just on
"Truth be told: Neither tradition has
yet succeeded.
our way over there now." (The man is
making a social call on Yom Kippur!)
"I am wary of Jesus because of histo-
He was holding a wrapped gift.
ry and what so many of those who
"This was under our tree and it had
said they believed in him have done to
your name on it. But I figured that
my people. Christianity, you could say,
since you might not have known to
has ruined Jesus for me. Somehow
look, I'd drop it off in person."
through the ages the suffering of Jesus
Our friendship led us to a standing
has become confused with the suffer-
monthly lunch date. We decided to
ing of the Jewish people, my people.
"That is the key to my problem
write each other a one-page essay on the
same topic. We figured it might be a
with him. His death has even become
causally linked with some denial on
personal way to learn of another reli-
my part. And this in turn has been
gion in greater depth. The topics were
predictable: God, Bible, Israel, salvation.
used as a justification for my suffering.
"In this way Jesus means for me not
The only rule we set for ourselves was
the one who suffered for the world's
that we had to be completely candid and
honest. By the sixth or seventh topic, we
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