S ; 1111 I 6 t is A I :Tv ILI 4V‘‘,.ko* NEW ENCOUNTER from pate 65 Greenberg says would be more likely to happen were the two religions clos- er in style. "Judaism is a covenant based on family and biology. Christianity is a covenant rooted in faith alone ... God wants both religions to operate in a parallel fashion," he says, sitting for an interview in his living room, beneath an oil painting of olive trees in the Judean Hills, just hours before the start of Rosh Hashanah (there's simply no space for visitors to sit in his office). Islam, the newest of the Abrahamic faiths, is likewise meant by God to fur- ther extend Judaism's central tenants of ethical monotheism to additional peo- ple. However, says Rabbi Greenberab the hatred spread today by funda- mentalist Islam is such that it constitutes "idola- try," the cardinal violation of God's covenant with humanity. "If you preach death it's idolatrous. God does not abrogate covenants [witness the rebirth of an independent Jewish state in the land promised Abraham, he says], but human actions ,, can. Rabbi Greenberg also con- tends that Jesus was not so much a false messiah, as main- stream Judaism has steadfastly declared for some 2,000 years, as he was a "failed" messiah — a cat- egory- into which Rabbi Greenberg also places Bar Kokhba, leader of a failed Jewish revolt against 1st cen- tury Roman rule and the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. "Jews deemed Jesus to be a false messiah out of defensiveness," Rabbi Greenberg explains, 'A failed messiah is someone who teaches correct values — Judaism's highest being that redemption lies in the ultimate tri- umph of life over death, that God is good and the source of infinite good- ness, that God wants us to strive toward doing good rather than doing evil — but who, in the end, falls short of convincing the rest of us to follow in his footsteps. A false messiah is someone who teaches that death will triumph, that oppressing others is acceptable, that it is okay to sin and to act criminally. Shabbetai Zevi is an example of a false messiah." (Zevi was a 17th-century figure that inspired widespread mes- sianic fervor among Jews until, under the threat of death, he willingly con- verted to Islam, gaining a pension from a Turkish sultan in the process.) "When Christians speak of the Second Coming, they are tacitly admitting that a complete transforma- tion of the world did not occur during Jesus' lifetime, and in that sense, he also failed," he notes. To be called a "failed messiah," Rabbi Greenberg emphasizes, is anything but demean- ing. Rather, it is the highest of compli- ments, given the importance of the messianic vision in Jewish thought. "To do so much good to even be thought of by some as a ' 11/12 2004 66 question of Jesus' standing as a messi- ah. Nonetheless, those interviewed for this article say Rabbi Greenberg's will- ingness to even tackle the subject is an example of his intellectual honesty and drive to understand others. "I'm very impressed and apprecia- tive of the fact that Yitz is grappling seriously with the key element in understanding Jesus, whether he is or is not the messiah of Israel," says Eugene J. Fisher, the American Roman Catholic Church's top staff person on interfaith matters. "Not that we agree with his conclu- sion, but at least we're on the same page ... He's what every community needs — someone able to confront his own community while staying within it." The Rev. Christopher M. Leighton, a Presbyterian who serves as executive director of Baltimore's Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies, calls Rabbi Greenberg "quite a towering fig- ure in the field. He speaks with an authority that distinguishes him from the vast majority of people who speak about such things in platitudes. "His fundamental insight is that the way you deal with diversity within your own ranks is how you deal with diversity beyond your own borders ... What I so \ admire about Yitz is the restlessness of his own spirit that refuses to let him stay comfortably ensconced in any one safe place. As for Rabbi Greenberg's conclu- sions about Jesus, Rev. Leighton adds: "I think it's a very legitimate distinc- tion, and in some measure it rings true ... My own view is that the Christian tradition has always acknowledged that what Jesus did was inaugurate a process of redemption and that we still await the consummation of that redemption. Therefore the claim that Jesus failed is, I think, a Jewish render- ing of the Christian understanding [although] the category of messiah is used by Jews and Christians in such disparate ways." For all his apparent radicalism, Rabbi Greenberg is hardly the first prominent Jewish thinker to grant Christianity religious legitimacy. Moses Maimonides, the leading intel- lectual figure of medieval Judaism, known also as the Rambam, wrote of a 3 ) messi- ah speaks of the rarest of individuals. So prized is this vision that even the appearance of a false messiah may be considered "healthy," adds Rabbi Greenberg, despite the risks that accompany such events. An age that fails to spawn even a false messiah, he explains, is an age in which Jews have become so complacent as to no longer take seriously, or to have lost all hope in, the promise of redemption that is at Judaism's core. Christian Reaction Christian theologians, needless to say, differ with Rabbi Greenberg on the special connection between Judaism and Christianity evidenced by the Tat- ter's acceptance of the Hebrew Bible as revelation (he was, however, also harshly critical of what he saw as the New Testament's gross misinterpreta- tions of Jewish thought). More to the point, the German- Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, who died in 1929, articulated a two- covenant theory linking Judaism and Christianity to the divine plan that Rabbi Greenberg echoes. Jewish Reaction Still, Rabbi Greenberg is clearly a chal- lenge to the reigning Jewish consensus on Christianity's validity. He says he is well aware of that and does not take lightly the upset he causes some. At times, he says, he worries that his work provides those Jews who are only too happy to assimilate with a rationale for their own inclination toward religious relativism. He also frets that Christians bent on convert- ing Jews will twist his words to claim that if both faiths are equally valid, it must be okay for Jews to believe that Jesus was the messiah — the position espoused by Messianic Jews but utterly rejected by normative Judaism. "I'm not about syncretism [the attempted combination of different systems of religious belief]. Jews are meant to practice Judaism. That's their covenant," says Rabbi Greenberg. You have to distinguish between plu- ralism and relativism." But if Christianity is also a covenantal religion, what about the lit- eral truth of individual Christian beliefs — say, Jesus' resurrection? Rabbi Greenberg responds by saying whether the resurrection did or did not actually happen is essentially irrel- evant for Jews. "Jews do not have a stake in proving that the resurrection did not happen. It happened for Christians, not for Jews. Each religion has its own internal logic and lan- guage" that often make no sense to outsiders, he says. And what about Christianity's theo- logical culpability in the Holocaust? Rabbi Greenberg in no way excuses the centuries of Christian anti- Semitism that preceded the Holocaust. But he also notes the strides various Christian churches have taken in recent decades to officially condemn past anti-Semitic beliefs and behavior, including teaching that Christianity has replaced Judaism as God's solely favored community. The Holocaust's depth of depravity