Source: https://secondexodus.com/eternal-israel/return-of-the-prodigal-sons/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:22:42+00:00

Document:
When the State of Israel was born again after three thousand years on May 14, 1948, in every Jewish neighborhood worldwide there had been dancing in the streets that lasted all night. But, as always in Jewish history, joy and sorrow came together. Many American Jews had experienced the Holocaust as witnesses who did not do all they could. Some tried to purge their memories and move on.
In Moses’ time, if the people Israel did what God wanted, God gave them what they wanted in this life, but if they did not they would perish. The second telling of the Shma, Deut 11:13–20, made it explicit. God repeated it in the Book of Leviticus.
If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall last to the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last to the time for sowing; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land securely. And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid; and I will remove evil beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. And I will have regard for you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and will confirm my covenant with you. And you shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. And I will make my abode among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; and I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect. Lev 26:3–13.
God’s words in this Torah passage are remarkable. “I will make my abode among you” Lev 26:11. “And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people” Lev 26:12.
But God’s major covenants, the Torah and the New and Eternal Covenant, are two-way streets. He warned his people Israel.
If you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror; consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it; I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies; those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like brass; and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit. Then if you walk contrary to me, and will not listen to me, I will bring more plagues upon you, sevenfold as many as your sins. And I will let loose the wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, so that your ways shall become desolate. And if by this discipline you are not turned to me, but walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant; and if you gather within your cities I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and shall deliver your bread again by weight; and you shall eat, and not be satisfied. And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and chastise you myself sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. And I will lay your cities waste, and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing odors. And I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you; and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Lev 26:14–33.
This passage reminds us of the eternal election, including the covenant between the pieces. It also reminds some Jews of the shoah.
As the centuries passed, God’s emphasis began to change. King David wrote, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” Ps 51:17. It led straight to Isaiah’s great prophecy of God’s Mashiakh: “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed” Is 53:3–5.
Perhaps Elie Wiesel and Rabbi Hertzberg remembered the days of Antiochus IV’s prohibition against Judaism, when the Greeks could not understand men who would die for God. But Wiesel and Hertzberg could not accept that God would take on human nature and die for them. Mosaic Judaism knew about atoning sacrifice and the todah sacrifice, but Rabbinic Judaism did not want to see redemptive suffering that led straight to Rabbi Yeshua. By its close associations with Rabbi Yeshua’s crucifixion and Resurrection that had alarmed Michael Wyschogrod, Elie Wiesel, Rabbi Hertzberg and Richard Rubenstein, the Holocaust had been a grave theological challenge to Judaism.
Elie Wiesel, Rabbi Hertzberg and Richard Rubenstein were not men at the outer edges of Judaism. They were highly respected Jewish authorities, men at the center. The Shma, Judaism’s central prayer, told them that they would be rewarded for good behavior. They did not see anything that they had done to warrant this. They did not see. Isaiah’s ancient prophecy that they would remain blind remained alive in their hearts Is 6:9–12. They were so resistant that they would blame God rather than themselves! God broke the covenant? The Jews were more compassionate than God himself? God really died? Wiesel’s outcry, “Praised be Thy Holy Name, Thou Who hast chosen us to be butchered on Thine altar?” had it exactly backward.
Wiesel did not think of a Jew two thousand years ago who was butchered on a Cross to redeem us all. He did not remember Rabbi Yeshua‘s prophecy, “For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation” Lk 19:43–44.
You did not know the time of your visitation! Rabbi Yeshua had taught his followers redemptive suffering. The evidence warranted belief. The Jews who had followed him were baptized into his Final Sacrifice Rom 6:3–4. But the Jews who did not follow him did not take shelter in his Final Sacrifice, an echo of Israel in Egypt when God passed over the Jews who obeyed regarding the sacrificed lamb’s body and blood Ex 12:7, 13, while any Jews who did not obey lost their firstborn Ex 12:12. The eternal election originally involved a covenant in the flesh Gen 17:11–14. The Jewish nation, still driven by its eternal election but refusing to follow Rabbi Yeshua participated in the flesh in Rabbi Yeshua‘s Final Sacrifice.
Rabbi Yeshua‘s shlikhim referred to the deuterocanonicals in their own writing. Rabbi Paul urged us to follow the Septuagint heroes who accepted torture and death to rise to a better life: “Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life” Heb 11:35. It came from the martyrdom of the seven brothers, 2 Mac 7:1–41, in which the heroic mother urged her youngest son, “Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers” 2 Mac 7:29. This mother taught her sons the lesson of redemptive suffering that Rabbi Yeshua taught us all on the Cross. It appears nowhere in the Tanakh, but the many Jews who followed Rabbi Yeshua, who read Hebrews and remembered Maccabees in the Septuagint, knew, were baptized into Rabbi Yeshua‘s Final Sacrifice Rom 6:3–4 and found their Passover during the Holocaust.
Rabbi Yeshua was giving many signs. His “No sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” Mt 12:39 set the Sign of Jonah apart: Repent or die.
And Rabbi Yeshua made sure the Jews of his own time knew that the Sign of Jonah was intended for them. “And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” Jon 1:17. Rabbi Yeshua planned that “three days and three nights” to alert the Jews: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” Mt 12:40.
“This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the men of Nineveh, so will the Son of man be to this generation. The queen of the South will arise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here” Lk 11:29–32.
In Rabbi Yeshua‘s time the Sign of Jonah had a more important meaning for repent or die. He told the chief priests and elders, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it” Mt 21:43.
The many Jews who followed Rabbi Yeshua found the eternal Temple Jn 2:21; Mt 26:26. The others who did not follow Lk 19:44 in AD 70 on the Ninth of Av lost the only Temple they knew. It was the death of Mosaic Judaism with its Torah sacrifices, the heart of Judaism up to that time, and the transition to Rabbinic Judaism.
As part of the Catholic Mass of Ordination a deacon lies prostrate on the Church floor before the sanctuary because for that moment of ordination a bow to Rabbi Yeshua is not enough. He lies prostrate because he is expressing love, highest of all the virtues, and humility, highest of the capital virtues, making himself as low as humanly possible, before becoming a priest for Rabbi Yeshua.
St. Augustine was not only an eminent Church Father but also a Doctor of the Church, strong evidence that the full inclusion of the Jews has been the common teaching of the Church since Rabbi Yeshua‘s public revelation.
After two thousand years, Rabbi Yeshua’s prophecy that the times of the Gentiles would be complete was fulfilled in June 10, 1967, when the Six-Day War ended in victory for all of Jerusalem! A case could be made for dating the fulfillment June 7, when the cry went forth, Har Habayit Beyadenu! Har Habayit Beyadenu! But there was probably some cleanup to be done, finding and removing holdouts, so Second Exodus dates it from the time of the ceasefire. It really doesn’t matter. June 1967 is time enough.
From the beginning, our Father had led his people Israel to see their resurrection as the resurrection of the whole house of Israel Ezek 37:11. Now, at last, we can see what it was all about. Hebrew Scripture understands the individual to be part of his tribe, and ultimately part of the Jewish nation. Only Rabbi Yeshua‘s Final Sacrifice could bring about the resurrection of the twelve tribes of the whole house of Israel. God’s people Israel, with their eternal election as his “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” Acts 1:8 could reach their own resurrection only in King Mashiakh, “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews” Jn 19:19, through the Church that he instituted, the church of the twelve tribes, the universal church.
Rabbi Yeshua has already prepared ten of the tribes by merging them into the Gentile populations, through which they entered the new Israel. Now, in our own time, he is preparing to lead the remaining tribes into the new Israel, so that all twelve might participate in the resurrection of the Church, and ascend with it to the marriage supper of the Lamb Rev 19:9.
Lamenting over Jerusalem, Rabbi Yeshua declared, “For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Mt 23:39. We recall the Passover, the first Todah Sacrifice, a perpetual sacrifice-feast for when the Jewish nation was saved by the body and blood of a sacrificed lamb. Rabbi Yeshua‘s Final Sacrifice transformed it into the marriage supper of the Lamb on earth. He releasing us through the law of the goel from the original sin that had closed paradise Gen 3:24, opened the kingdom of heaven Lk 23:43 to man, and through his command, “Do this in remembrance of me” Lk 22:19, gave us the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the true marriage supper of the Lamb on earth. Then the angel in heaven told Rabbi Yokhanan, “Write this: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’” Rev 19:9. The marriage supper of the Lamb on earth is our invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven, and the virtuous of all Israel will be at table.
Since the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, the dialogue with the Jews has overwhelmingly been with the Conservative and Reform branches. Since they have most of the financial, political and cultural influence, the dialogue has been helpful in social areas such as the eradication of Jewish anti-Christianity and Christian anti-Semitism. But a dialogue between the eternal Catholic Church and Jewish relativist movements of recent origin can at times take on an air of unreality.
Some liberal rabbis from time to time hurl the charge that Rabbi Yokhanan‘s Gospel, and therefore Christianity itself, is inherently anti-Semitic. “Let us reason together” Is 1:18. Rabbi Yokhanan‘s Gospel is a text written by a religious Jew to persuade other religious Jews that an extraordinary rabbi of their time was God’s Mashiakh foretold in Hebrew Scripture Jn 20:31. If disputes among Jews are signs of anti-Semitism, what shall we say of the Talmud?
Often the complaint is that the Gospels depict the Jewish authorities of that time as sinful. “And many such things you do” Mk 7:13 They often cite, “We have no king but Caesar” Jn 19:15, but not, “They have rejected me from being king over them” 1 Sam 8:7, even though 1 Sam 8:7 and Jn 19:15 confirm one another. Hebrew Scripture depicts King David as an adulterer, a deceiver and a murderer 2 Sam 11:4, 10–13, 14. The psalmist tells us that the Israelites “sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood” Ps 106:37–38. Isaiah declared, “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged” Is 1:4. If we place on one side of a balance scale the Masoretic text of Hebrew Scripture, and on the other side the four canonical Gospels, which depicts Israel as more sinful?
Cardinal Walter Kasper, speaking for the Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews, said in an interview in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Seraon February 7, 2008, “I must say that I don’t understand why Jews cannot accept that we can make use of our freedom to formulate our prayers.” Liberal Jews who protest against the Good Friday liturgy in its extraordinary form, prayed once a year in a relatively small number of churches, would never rescind the birkat ha minim, the twelfth prayer of the Amidah which observant Jews pray in the synagogue three times every day.
The proposition that reflection on the Crucifixion still incites Christians to violence received a comprehensive test in 2004 when Mel Gibson released his epic, The Passion of the Christ. 1:55 In the months before its release, press accounts were filled to the brim with dark predictions that it would trigger a tidal wave of anti-Semitism. Had any of these reporters ever set foot in a Catholic parish church and seen the life-size crucifix above and behind the altar? Did they notice the Stations of the Cross, prayed by most Catholics each year on Good Friday and by some devout Catholics every morning? Mel Gibson’s movie had simply brought the Stations of the Cross to the silver screen.
Jeremy Lott writes, “The Passion was an astounding commercial success. Following the film’s release on Ash Wednesday of February 2004, ticket sales for the first extended weekend topped $83 million in the United States alone. By the time the movie finished its run in theaters, it had earned more than $370 million domestically and $241 million in foreign box offices—a total of $611 million worldwide, give or take several hundred thousand dollars.”20 During the days and weeks afterward, the liberal media, massively committed to the anti-Semitism template, searched high and low for incidents of anti-Semitism that could somehow be traced to the movie.
They found one. Rev. Maurice Gordon, pastor of the tiny 100-member Lovingway United Pentecostal Church in Denver, Colorado, had put up on his marquee: “Jews killed the Lord Jesus.” The Anti-Defamation League pounced. The media pounced. Then came the response. Two hundred Christian protesters showed up. Crushing criticism came from across the Christian spectrum, from Catholics, from evangelicals, from mainstream Protestants. The pastor hurried to change his marquee: “I am deeply sorry for offending the Jewish people, whom I love. Brother Gordon.” It was not enough. Pastor Gordon announced his resignation within a month.
Hillel Halkin writes, “The American Jewish community is rapidly polarizing into more and more assimilated Jews, on the one hand, and more and more Jewish Jews on the other. The broad ethnic middle has fallen out of it.” Father Neuhaus adds, “Halkin emphasizes that only the Orthodox are holding their own. They are 10 percent of American Jewry, 20 percent of American Jews under 18, and barely 1 percent of them intermarry.”21 The Judaism that has survived is the Judaism that will survive.
Jews often talk about Christian missionary work in their midst as if it posed a mortal danger without realizing how self-demeaning this anxiety is. Are there really so many Jews who are ready to run to the baptismal fount with the first knock of a Christian missionary on their door? One doubts it—but if it’s true, it’s a sad comment not on the predatoriness of Christianity, but on the weakness of contemporary Judaism and Jewish identity. Jews must have little confidence in themselves indeed if they have to live in fear of Christian soul snatchers.
The time has come when relaxed and self-confident Jews can dialogue with Catholics who have a genuine appreciation of Judaism.
The great Jewish tradition of disputation has deep roots in the Oral Law. The rabbinic schools of Hillel and Shammai constantly disputed over the Mosaic Law. The Mishna is filled with disputations; one rabbi interprets the Law this way, and another that way, blended to resolve inconsistencies. It was an invigorating way to grow in understanding of the Torah.
Rabbi Jacob Neusner in June 2007 began a delightful article in the Jewish Daily Forward, “I made up an imaginary conversation with Jesus and wound up debating the real-life Bishop of Rome, the pope.”24 But he soon became serious.
First, St. John XXIII signaled the desire of Catholic Christianity to bring about a reconciliation between Jews and Christians in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and he expressed respect for Judaism.
Second, the Second Vatican Council began the work of formulating a Catholic theology of Judaism and other religions, an enterprise realized for Christianity in St. John Paul II’s Crossing the Threshold of Hope.
The resurgence of the ancient tradition of disputation is an exciting event in salvation history. We may pray that Rabbi Neusner‘s interest in the renewal of the theological dialogue, as well as Pope Benedict XVI’s interest in preparing for the great events of salvation history that are unfolding before our eyes, will all be realized in God’s time.
Rabbi Neusner remains respectful of Rabbi Yeshua as the Son of God even while disagreeing with him. God often teaches us through the tradition of disputation. “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?” Ezek 18:25. Rabbi Yeshua did the same. “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die’; but you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is Corban’ (that is, given to God) then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition which you hand on. And many such things you do” Mk 7:10–13.” Rabbi Neusner dialogues respectfully with Rabbi Yeshua at this level.
Rabbi Yeshua had revealed his divinity to the whole Jewish nation. We have seen the overwhelming evidence that warranted belief in Rabbi Yeshua as God’s Mashiakh, and that the Jewish nation refused to accept the obvious. Yet Pope Benedict XVI holds Rabbi Jacob Neusner, the author of A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, in high regard. Rabbi Neusner’s frame of reference is the Jewish hagada, which does not contemplate the arrival on earth of a divine person. Faithful to the hagada, he speaks of eternal Israel as God’s revelation to Moses, not its completion by Rabbi Yeshua.29 But Rabbi Neusner has read Catholic theology as well as Jewish theology, and takes Rabbi Yeshua seriously. Let us briefly join Pope Benedict XVI in looking at Rabbi Neusner’s concerns about Rabbi Yeshua’s influence on two of the commandments.
Rabbi Neusner‘s concern for the Sabbath Commandment is not about the disciples’ right to pluck the ears of wheat Mt 12:1. “He [Jesus] and his disciples may do on the Sabbath what they do because they stand in the place of the priests in the Temple.”30 Rather, he sees the Sabbath as not merely a negative, “you shall not do any work” Ex 20:10, but rather a positive command to rest, thereby imitating God who rested on the seventh day Gen 2:3. Rabbi Neusner says that the Sabbath “makes eternal Israel what it is, the people that, like God in creating the world, rest from creation on the Seventh Day.”31 The consequence of Rabbi Yeshua’s centrality in Israel’s daily life, he believes, is the loss of Jewish identity.
Rabbi Neusner recognizes that Torah students were often called by their teachers to leave home and family, wife and children, to devote themselves exclusively to the Torah. “The Torah then takes the place of genealogy, and the master of Torah gains a new lineage.”38 We may reply, “But, Rabbi Neusner, are you not saying what Rabbi Yeshua said, that the supernatural family is higher than the natural family?” He said, “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother” Mt 12:50. Pope Benedict XVI’s reply reflects the wider context of Rabbi Yeshua‘s message: “Now, when we read the Torah together with the entire Old Testament canon … we realize very clearly a point that is already substantially present in the Torah itself. That is, Israel does not exist simply for itself … it exists to be a light to the nations.”39 Rabbi Yeshua said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jn 8:12.
A fitting summary of this particular strand of the conversation between Rabbi Neusner and Pope Benedict XVI.
What, then, should be the foundation of Jewish-Christian engagement? Neusner finds it unthinkable that Jews and Christians should have nothing to say to each other. “There is more to Judaism in its meeting with Christianity,” he argues, “than a mere no.” He is right.… But the most fruitful dialogue should not, contra Neusner, focus on the nuts and bolts of our relation to Jesus but rather on what traditional Jews and Christians have in common.
Rabbi Soloveichik again disagrees with Rabbi Neusner’s approach.
This is the heart of the agreement between Neusner and Benedict. Both agree that Jesus’ words can only be interpreted as asserting his divinity.43 … The pope writes that Neusner gives Matthew a “Christological” interpretation, in that he understands Jesus is not just rejecting Judaism but rather equating himself with the divine.
Rabbi Soloveichik gets right to his point by quoting C.S. Lewis.
Let us briefly take up the invited discussion of Rabbi Yeshua’s teaching from Rabbi Soloveichik’s perspective. Rabbi Soloveichik asserts that once a man declares solemnly that he is the Son of God, he can only be the Son or God or C.S. Lewis’ alternative, a madman or worse.
Rabbi Soloveichik and those who share his viewpoint bear the burden of explaining persuasively how a madman or worse could teach moral lessons so consistent with the Torah’s moral lessons and, without earthly power or possessions, two thousand years later, with no religious police to enforce conformity, be loved and adored by a billion Christians worldwide.
Catholics know that Rabbi Yeshua‘s Resurrection is the evidence par excellence that He is the Son of God 1 Cor 15:14. But the rabbis deny the Resurrection Mt 28:13, so here we focus on what they are more likely to accept: Today, among the world’s educated adults, perhaps one in ten thousand has heard of the false messiahs Shimon bar Kokhba and Shabbatai Zvi. The rabbis put Rabbi Yeshua in the same category, but all the world’s educated adults have heard of Jesus of Nazareth. He split all history in two. In all the world’s history no one else’s birthday is so widely and joyfully celebrated.
And, while they are at it, perhaps they will explain how his mother, the humble virgin Mary of Nazareth, could also be loved and revered by more than a billion Catholics while Livia Drusilla, the most powerful woman of her day, is dust in a forgotten grave. Even the tzadikim did not so honor their mothers. We know Moses’ mother only as Jochebed Ex 6:20; Num 26:59, and Aristotle’s mother only as Phaestis. We would expect the Son of God to honor his mother as the gevira. Would a madman or worse do so?
Now that we have met Rabbi Soloveichik, and at least briefly met Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, and before we move on, I would like to introduce you to a conversation between them on Atheism, Fundamentalism, and the Future of Faith. 1:13:46 It is simply a joy to see two knowledgeable rabbis talking with one another: During the last 15 minutes of their conversation in particular Rabbi Sacks really gets going on the future of faith.
Faith in Europe has power. You have a national church, an established church. Virtually every European country has an established church. So in Europe faith is nationalized. … Margaret Thatcher … believed that privatization in Europe was the best thing. When religion came to America it was privatized. You don’t have an established church. You have a principled opposition to established church. You have no Archbishop of Canterbury. The end result is you have free competition, some of it quite free indeed! I switch on the television and what do I find? I get sounds! Oy gevalt, you will not find that in Europe.
America is the perfect proof that if you want to make religion strong deprive it of power and let it fight for influence. That is why America remains the most religious country in the western world. It is one of the most religious countries in the world, full stop! In a survey done in 2009 it turned out that more people on average in America go to a house of worship once a week than do so in the theocratic republic of Iran. Not many people know this. 40 percent of Americans say they go to church once a week and only 39 percent in Iran. Because in Europe Christianity was established it had immense power but very little influence. In America, as Alexis de Tocqueville had noted, it had no power at all but its influence was immense.
Michael Wyschogrod, insisting that Jews refresh their religion from its original sources, sees the election primarily in terms of Abram’s response to God’s command, lekh lekha Gen 12:1, and in the Abrahamic covenant Gen 12:1–4; 17:7–14. Wyschogrod declares boldly that Israel’s exclusive election is the central principle of the Hebrew Bible.
Second Exodus observes that the election was exclusive to ancient Israel only until the time of the Mashiakh. After the land of Israel was torn in two and the “ten lost tribes” were lost, God’s promise of resurrection was already evident in Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones Ezek 37:7–12 and its astonishing fulfillment at the moment of the Mashiakh’s Final Sacrifice on the Cross Mt 27:52–53. Rabbi Yeshua even repeated the Father’s direction to his twelve desert nomad tribes. Our Father had said, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” Gen 12:1. The risen Rabbi Yeshua commanded, “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” Acts 1:8.
Wyschogrod argues that God has a special love for Israel above his love for everyone else. But God does not change Mal 3:6. If he loved his people Israel more before Rabbi Yeshua’s earthly sojourn, he loves them more now. After the Roman Empire’s crucifixion of the Jews, two thousand years without the Temple, and even after the Holocaust, that is a hard saying. Catholics follow Rabbi Kefa: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” Acts 10:34–35.
Wyschogrod disdains the idea that God loves us all equally. “Undifferentiated love, love that is dispensed equally to all, must be love that does not meet the individual in his individuality but sees him as a member of a species, whether that species be the working class, the poor, those created in the image of God, or what not.”48 Catholics, however, see that even a human father may have one son who is strong, another who is wise, and a third who is neither, and still love all his sons as they are with equal intensity. If it is true of finite man, how much more is it true for God’s infinite love. “With God all things are possible” Mt 19:26.
Wyschogrod sees God as afire with passionate love for Israel. If we, God’s image and likeness, are intensely personal, then God must be intensely personal. We see his intense personality in the Scriptures. “The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle” Ps 24:8, invites us to a robust personal relationship. Our Father bargained with Abraham Gen 18:24–32, revealed himself to Moses, and sent his Son to redeem his covenant family. Rabbi Yeshua‘s “Father, the hour has come” Jn 17:1–26 prayer revealed his awesomely personal love for us.
Catholics reply, “God’s promise is indeed a guarantee of fulfillment, but man’s acceptance of the fulfillment is not guaranteed. ‘You did not know the time of your visitation’” Lk 19:44.
But Holy Mother Church has never taught, and never will teach, that a man can become God. It is exactly the opposite. God sent his Son to briefly live with us as a man like us in all things but sin. But did the God of Israel have a Son? “Behold, the man has become like one of us” Gen 3:22. If so, did he live eternally with the Father? “When he established the heavens, I was there … when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman” Prov 8:27–30.
This remarkable observation leads straight into a reflection that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” Jn 3:16. Rabbi Paul told us, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” Rom 6:3–4. Our Father sees in every baptized soul his beloved Son’s most heroic sacrifice reflected back to him. And what of those who are not baptized? We recall that, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” Gen 1:27. Every human soul has God’s image imprinted on it. God loves us all for reflecting his image back to him.
But many Jews have sensed that the Holocaust is Biblical in its impact on Jewish history. Consciously or not, many see in it a Crucifixion of the Jews, with the Catholic Church, protecting all she could, recalling Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in King Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, with a fourth “[Tanakh:] “like a divine being” Dan 3:25. Perhaps Daniel’s prophesy of a Roman Church together with it reminded them of the Catholic Church, with God’s amazing return of the Land of Israel to his people only three years later.
Here we need to introduce two important distinctions. First, the Catholic Church has no objection to a Hebrew Catholic observing the mitzvot provided he understands that they are not salvific for him. A Hebrew Catholic may eat kosher because he has done so since childhood and enjoys the memories that kosher cuisine brings back for him. But if he eats kosher because he believes that God requires it for salvation, he has lost confidence in Rabbi Yeshua’s Final Sacrifice.
The second distinction is that a Hebrew Catholic may never witness against Rabbi Yeshua. We sometimes see a Hebrew Catholic wearing the kipa and talit as part of his observance. The kipa, head covering, is a sign of respect for God. It gives the appearance of an Orthodox Jew, a man who does not believe Rabbi Yeshua was God’s Mashiakh.
More important, God ordained the talit, specifically the tzitzit which are an integral part of it, as a sign of our fidelity to God’s commandments in the Torah. “And it shall be to you a tassel to look upon and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them … So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God” Num 15:39–40. Hebrew Catholics who wear the kipa, and especially the kipa and talit, can complete their witness by wearing a prominent pectoral crucifix.
Rabbi Yeshua’s Parable of the Prodigal Son Lk 15:11–32 is perhaps the most universal of all his thirty parables. So many of us become prodigal sons during some time in our lives. Yet the parable applies with particular clarity to the Jewish nation.
The man who had two sons is Rabbi Yeshua himself. Many followed him, but the Jewish nation did not follow, and they soon parted ways. The Jewish nation had all the spiritual and financial riches that the Father had given over the centuries, but soon squandered them and became poor, persecuted and driven from place to place. Its spiritual famine, and eventual crucifixion at Auschwitz, transformed the Jewish nation. Perishing with hunger, it would begin its journey home.
The Holy Father also showed in Dives in Misericordia § 5 how God’s justice and love become visible as mercy, and through the Parable of the Prodigal Son how our sins caused Rabbi Yeshua’s suffering on the Cross.
God clothed himself and Moses together in a talit, and called himself Adonai Elohim el rakhum [Lord God merciful] Ex 34:6. In Rabbi Yeshua‘s parable we hear, “But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” Lk 15:20. Rabbi Yeshua has seen his prodigal sons a long way off, and through his Church after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council has reached out to them. We can envision it in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting The Creation of Adam. All that remains is for his prodigal sons to reach out to him.
Reflecting on Melchizedek we ask, “Did Judaism lead to the Catholic Church? Or did the Catholic Church, existing in a mysterious way since the beginning of time, bless and start Judaism as the beginning of God’s revelation to man?” We are one in salvation history: Jerusalem on High comes for us both Rom 11:15, or not at all.
“Salvation is from the Jews” Jn 4:22 “for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” Rom 11:29. Holy Mother Church teaches § 121: “The Old Covenant has never been revoked.” § 674 “The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by all Israel.” “For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree” Rom 11:24.
The people Israel, the ten tribes who merged into the local populations, have in God’s providence recognized their Mashiakh and become the people of the new Israel. We await the Jews, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
Why is Rabbi Yeshua so insistent on waiting for the Judahites? They are his family. They had been his family from the beginning as prodigal sons. “I showed myself their Master” Jer 31:32, in the sense of a husband. He told his betrothed, “But you trusted in your beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and lavished your harlotries on any passer-by. You took some of your garments, and made for yourself gaily decked shrines, and on them played the harlot” Ezek 16:15–16.
Rabbi Yeshua was a Judahite. During his incarnate life with the Judahites, he called himself the bridegroom. The Judahites who followed him were his immediate family. “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother” Mt 12:50.
Judahites sat with him at table and ate the first Bread of Life with him Mt 26:26. They are his bikurim, his first-fruits. He who was “first-born from the dead” Col 1:18 wills to have them with him at the wedding feast in heaven. But he can host the wedding feast with them at table only when “his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” Rev 19:7–8.
This national Jewish rejection of Rabbi Yeshua is in fact Judaism’s testament to the truth of the Catechism § 674: “The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by all Israel.” Jews across the spectrum from Orthodox to Reform, who agree on nothing else, agree on rejection of Christianity.
Just as there has been a national Jewish rejection, so there will one day be a national Jewish acceptance of Rabbi Yeshua as God’s Mashiakh. Rom 11:15. This is the proof that the Church’s rapprochement with the Jews is no man-made decision but part of God’s mighty providence.
Before it was the City of Jesus the Redeemer, Jerusalem was the historic site of the biblical revelation of God, the meeting place, as it were, of heaven and earth, in which more than in any other place the word of God was brought to men. Christians honor her with a religious and intent concern because there the words of Christ so often resounded, there the great events of the Redemption were accomplished: the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord. In the City of Jerusalem the first Christian community sprang up and remained throughout the centuries of continual ecclesial presence despite difficulties. Jews ardently love her and in every age venerate her memory, abundant as she is in many remains and monuments from the time of David who chose her as the capital, and of Solomon who built the Temple there.
On April 2, 2005, St. John Paul II passed into eternity. Rabbi Toaff, then retired, came to the Vatican’s Clementine Hall to pay his respects as the Jews of Rome filled to overflowing the Tempio Maggiore and the smaller synagogues. Rabbi Toaff was one of the only two living persons mentioned in St. John Paul II‘s will.
There is not much time. On April 24, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, during his Papal Inauguration Mass homily, declared, “With great affection I also greet … my brothers and sisters of the Jewish people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted in God’s irrevocable promises.”75 Jewish leaders were again present, also for the first time at a papal inauguration.
[The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council] affirmed the Church’s conviction that, in the mystery of the divine election, the beginnings of her faith are already to be found in Abraham, Moses and the Prophets. On the basis of this spiritual patrimony and the teaching of the Gospel, it called for greater mutual understanding and esteem between Christians and Jews and deplored all manifestations of hatred, persecution and anti-Semitism. At the very beginning of my Pontificate, I wish to assure you that the Church remains firmly committed, in her catechesis and in every aspect of her life, to implementing this decisive teaching.
In the years following the Council, my predecessors Pope Paul VI and, in a particular way, St. John Paul II, took significant steps towards improving relations with the Jewish people. It is my intention to continue on this path.
Jewish leaders greatly appreciated this visit by a German pope to a German synagogue, and presented him with the shofar.
I wish to reaffirm that I intend to continue with great vigor on the path towards improved relations and friendship with the Jewish People, following the decisive lead given by St. John Paul II.
The number 12, which evidently refers to the 12 tribes of Israel, reveals the meaning of the prophetic-symbolic action implied in the new initiative of founding the holy people again. After the downfall of the system of the 12 tribes, Israel awaited the reconstruction of this system as a sign of the arrival of the eschatological time (this can be read in the conclusion of the Book of Ezekiel 37:15–19; 39:23–29; 40–48).
In choosing the twelve, introducing them into a communion of life with him and making them sharers in the same mission of announcing the Kingdom with words and deeds (cf. Mark 6:7–13; Matthew 10:5–8; Luke 9:1–6; 6:13), Jesus wants to say that the definitive time has arrived; the time for rebuilding God’s people, the people of the 12 tribes, which is now converted into a universal people, his Church.
The place where we are standing is a place of memory, it is the place of the Shoah. The past is never simply the past. It always has something to say to us; it tells us the paths to take and the paths not to take.
My visit to the United States offers me the occasion to extend a warm and heartfelt greeting to my Jewish brothers and sisters in this country and throughout the world. A greeting that is all the more spiritually intense because the great feast of Pesakh is approaching. ‘This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever’ (Exodus 12:14). While the Christian celebration of Easter differs in many ways from your celebration of Pesakh, we understand and experience it in continuation with the biblical narrative of the mighty works which the Lord accomplished for his people.
Good will and concern. Catholics understand Jewish concern. Some Jews, still believing that Rabbi Yeshua was “a madman or worse” and that Pope Pius XII was cold and aloof, or unable to face their own silence in that terrifying Dies Irae 7:42 (Day of Wrath) blamed the Church for the Holocaust. But there is also good will. Our awareness of one another, asleep for twenty centuries, has now awakened. Rabbi Yeshua‘s genius in the continuity of salvation history is becoming much more visible. Many Jews saw in Pope Pius XII, St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, the Church transformed from persecutor to protector.
Moses gazed upon the Promised Land from afar, at the end of his earthly pilgrimage. His example reminds us that we too are part of the ageless pilgrimage of God’s people through history. In the footsteps of the prophets, the apostles and the saints, we are called to walk with the Lord, to carry on his mission, to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s universal love and mercy. We are called to welcome the coming of Christ’s Kingdom by our charity, our service to the poor, and our efforts to be a leaven of reconciliation, forgiveness and peace in the world around us. We know that, like Moses, we may not see the complete fulfilment of God’s plan in our lifetime. Yet we trust that, by doing our small part, in fidelity to the vocation each of us has received, we will help to make straight the paths of the Lord and welcome the dawn of his Kingdom.
This passage from the Book of the prophet Isaiah furnishes the two simple words which solemnly express the profound significance of this revered place: yad – “memorial”; shem – “name.” I have come to stand in silence before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews killed in the horrific tragedy of the Shoah. They lost their lives, but they will never lose their names: these are indelibly etched in the hearts of their loved ones, their surviving fellow prisoners, and all those determined never to allow such an atrocity to disgrace mankind again. Most of all, their names are forever fixed in the memory of Almighty God.
Jews in the Holy Father‘s audience surely recognized his allusion, “Forever fixed in the memory of Almighty God,” to the Book of Life, which gave immortality through eternal remembrance.
to the soul that seeks him” (Lam 3:25)!
This is the message that I wish to leave with you today, at the conclusion of my pilgrimage to the Holy Land. May hope rise up ever anew, by God’s grace, in the hearts of all the people dwelling in these lands! May it take root in your hearts, abide in your families and communities, and inspire in each of you an ever more faithful witness to the Prince of Peace!
The teaching of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council has represented for Catholics a clear landmark to which constant reference is made in our attitude and our relations with the Jewish people, marking a new and significant stage. The Council gave a strong impetus to our irrevocable commitment to pursue the path of dialogue, fraternity and friendship, a journey which has been deepened and developed in the last forty years, through important steps and significant gestures.
Our closeness and spiritual fraternity find in the Holy Bible in Hebrew Sifre Kodesh or “Book of Holiness” their most stable and lasting foundation, which constantly reminds us of our common roots, our history and the rich spiritual patrimony that we share.
Pope Benedict XVI in the same address also mentioned “several possible areas of cooperation and witness,” and emphasized three in particular based on the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments require that we recognize the one Lord, against the temptation to construct other idols, to make golden calves,” adding, “in our world there are many who do not know God or who consider him superfluous” and “other new gods have been fabricated to whom man bows down.
Second, he upheld the sanctity of life.
Bearing witness together to the supreme value of life against all selfishness, is an important contribution to a new world where justice and peace reign, a world marked by that shalom which the lawgivers, the prophets and the sages of Israel longed to see.
Third, he upheld the sanctity of the family.
In which the personal and reciprocal, faithful and definitive Yes of man and woman makes room for the future, for the authentic humanity of each, and makes them open, at the same time, to the gift of new life.
As Moses taught in the Shma (cf. Deut 6:5; Lev 19:34) and as Jesus reaffirms in the Gospel (cf. Mk 12:19–31), all of the Commandments are summed up in the love of God and loving-kindness towards one’s neighbor.” And, “On this path we can walk together, aware of the differences that exist between us, but also aware of the fact that when we succeed in uniting our hearts and our hands in response to the Lord’s call, his light comes closer and shines on all the peoples of the world.
Pope Francis on April 27, 2015, met at the Vatican with Riccardo Di Segni, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, on issues arising from immigration to Europe. Rabbi Di Segni is well known for his very cautious attitude toward interreligious dialogue and insistence on mutually recognized limits, but the meeting was cordial.
On December 10, 2015, Holy Mother Church published The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable, to enrich and intensify the theological dimension of the Jewish-Catholic dialogue.
On January 17, 2016, Pope Francis went to the Tempio Maggiore di Roma, the Great Synagogue of Rome, making it the first synagogue to be visited by three popes! He had a history of good relationships with the Jewish community in Argentina before becoming pope. The Holy Father Addressed the Great Synagogue of Rome.
Now, after two thousand years, only three years after the Nazis destroyed Israel-in-Exile, God has restored the land of Israel as the public face of the Jewish nation, implicitly calling the Diaspora, Jews dispersed outside the Holy Land, to make aliyah (Hebrew: “ascend”), to come home to Israel. “And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me”; if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your first-born son’” Ex 4:22–23. In the Jewish Canon of Sacred Scripture, the very last words are viya’al, “Let him go up” 2 Chron 36:23, from the same alh root as aliyah.
Moreover, in Israel, during the past half-century, the descendants of Ishmael have gone forth and multiplied while the descendants of Isaac have not. During the 1950s the state of Israel had ten descendants of Isaac for every descendant of Ishmael. Today there are four.86 And Israel is surrounded by Ishmaelites who grow more strong and bold as the years pass. But, in the twenty-first century, as Torah observant Jews in Israel continue to multiply while liberal Jews continue their population decline, Israel is becoming a Torah observant nation. We are watching the forces of good and evil gather for a titanic battle.
We can watch Rabbi Yeshua’s careful preparation of his Church for the ingrafting. At the steeple top, the Jewish nation has seen Nostra Aetate § 4, The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable, and the synagogue visits by St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. At street level, in the pews, it sees the Association of Hebrew Catholics (AHC), begun by the late Father Elias Friedman, O.C.D., a Carmelite priest who lived at Stella Maris Monastery on the slopes of Mt. Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Father Elias’ classic book, Jewish Identity, and his conversations with David Moss, president of the AHC, set forth his vision of the original people of the Abrahamic election now gathering in the Church.
Rabbi Paul reminds us, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” Col 1:19–20. Thousands of years after the original sin separated our first parents and all their progeny from God, Rabbi Yeshua reconciled the world to himself on the Cross 2 Cor 5:19.
Catechism § 674 reminds us, “The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by all Israel.” Two thousand years ago Jews in the streets saw Rabbi Yeshua “full of grace and truth” Jn 1:14 and multitudes followed him. In our time he seeks to reconcile his chosen people inside the Church with those who are still outside. The Association of Hebrew Catholics participates in the ingrafting by working to make visible the presence of the new Israel as in its earliest days, in obedience to his command, “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” Acts 1:8. May Rabbi Yeshua’s image and likeness draw all men to his sacramental presence.
Roy Schoeman tells us, “Before 1967, there were only a few thousand Messianic Jews in the U.S., and at most four or five Messianic Jewish synagogues. By the mid-1970s, Time magazine placed the number of Messianic Jews in the U.S. at over 50,000; by 1993 this number had grown to 160,000 in the U.S. and about 350,000 worldwide (1989 estimate). This compares to a total of 5.3 million Jews in the U.S. in 2001, of whom about 420,000 are orthodox (or strictly observant). There are currently over 400 Messianic synagogues worldwide, with at least 150 in the U.S.”87 By 2006, Schoeman cited a figure of 200,000 Messianic Jews in the United States.88 By 2013, a Pew survey, “How many Jews are there in the United States, showed “Jews by religion” as 4.2 million while “Jewish background – Christian” showed 1.6 million.
Rabbi Yeshua told us, “Elijah has already come” Mt 17:12 in the person of Rabbi Yokhanan HaMatbil. We may believe that Rabbi Yeshua’s “two witnesses,” Enoch and Elijah, have come in our time, not in the flesh but in the spirit, teaching that the Old Testament and the New Testament are inseparably bound together as the Book of Life.
“Next year in Jerusalem” can be Jerusalem rebuilt by the Mashiakh, Jerusalem on High. Driven by an emerging sense that Rabbi Yeshua is God’s Mashiakh but held back by a sense that entering the Catholic Church would mean the disappearance of their Jewish national identity, many Jews are joining Messianic Jewish congregations.
Why would the Holy Spirit lead the Jews initially to Messianic Judaism, rather than straight into the Catholic Church? Entry into Messianic Judaism makes a Jew’s “recognition” of God’s Mashiakh visible. The Messianic Jewish congregations consist of Jews who have recognized Rabbi Yeshua as God’s Mashiakh.
By contrast, when a Jew is baptized into the Catholic Church, no central registry records his Jewish origin. His entry into the Catholic Church is real, but invisible to all who are looking for the fulfillment of Rabbi Paul‘s prophecy. Unless he serves as an active witness to his Jewish origins, his entry into the Church does not encourage other Jews who might sense a call but hesitate, chagrined at the thought of losing their lifelong Jewish identity.
Messianic Jews see themselves as spiritual descendants of the first Jewish Christians. Their understanding of Holy Communion is purely symbolic because most congregations go from first century Judaism directly to the 1500s with hardly any recognition of the first three-quarters of Christian history. For this reason, Messianic Judaism has no concept of apostolic succession, which is necessary for a valid consecration.
However, when a Messianic Jew reads his Bible more deeply he is apt to notice strong reasons to believe that it is exactly what Rabbi Yeshua says it is. Let us look at two examples.
Rabbi Yeshua taught us, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” Jn 6:53–54. His words for “Truly, truly,” were “Amen, amen.” Rabbi Yokhanan directly transferred them from Hebrew into his original Greek, “Amen, amen.” This Hebrew word amen means “Have faith!” Or “Believe!” Jews, Catholics, and the sola Scriptura faith communities always use this Hebrew and Aramaic word amen as a solemn affirmation of truth.
All the major sola Scriptura faith communities recognize that Rabbi Yeshua used this phrase to emphasize that baptism is necessary for man’s eternal life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” All the major sola Scriptura faith communities accept it. Rabbi Yokhanan quotes Rabbi Yeshua using this phrase, “Truly, truly, I say to you,” 25 times in 25 different verses. All the major sola Scriptura faith communities accept all the others as true. Gnaw on it.
Jews remember that from the time God gave the Oral Law to the time it was written down there was an unbroken line of authoritative interpretation. They see that the Catholic Church too from its earliest origins has had a structure for authoritative interpretation of the inspired Scriptures, with a line of apostolic succession that the Church Fathers affirm has crossed the centuries intact to every Catholic bishop, priest and deacon today.
By contrast, Messianic Judaism only began in the twentieth century. The early congregations called themselves Hebrew Christian, with the adjective Hebrew modifying the noun Christian. Christians with added Jewish identity. During the 1960s, when Christianity came under severe attack, the same congregations began to call themselves Messianic Jews, with the adjective Messianic modifying the noun Jews. Jews with added Christian identity. Many Jews see this uncertain identity and lack of authoritative Scripture interpretation as shifting sand, a weak foundation for their pilgrim journey to the Cross.
Messianic Jewish congregations emphasize sola Scriptura, Scripture alone, as God’s authority for man. But Judaism has never believed in sola Scriptura. Jews know that God gave Moses an Oral Law comparable in authority to the Written Torah. The Oral Law was eventually written down as the Mishna. What would any Orthodox rabbi say today if we left him with his Tanakh, Hebrew Scriptures, but took away his Mishna, his Gemara, his sacred interpretations written by Rashi and Maimonides and Ramban, and his Shulkhan Arukh? He would insist that they are all essential; without them he cannot apply the halakha. Every Orthodox rabbi has a well worn Tanakh, but when asked to give an interpretation turns first to the Shulkhan Arukh.
Jews see that Catholics too have a sacred tradition of oral teaching, from Rabbi Yeshua to his shlikhim to others who taught others. Every Catholic priest has a well worn copy of the Holy Scriptures, but when asked to give an interpretation he turns first to the halakha of the redemption, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Vatican documents. We receive Rabbi Yeshua whole and entire in the halakha of the Redemption, “I am the Halakha” Jn 14:6.
Messianic Jews who reject the Oral Law stand opposed to Moses who brought it down from God. Messianic Jews who reject Rabbi Paul‘s frequent Scriptural references to the sacred tradition of Christian teaching “either by word of mouth or by letter” 2 Thess 2:15 contradict their non-Scriptural exclusion of the Sacred Tradition of Apostolic Teaching.
The Jewish sages and scholars include Shimon Ha-Tzadik, Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi Shammai, Rabbi Yokhanan ben Zakai, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi, Rashi, Maimonides, Ramban, Radak, Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, the Vilna Gaon, and so many more.
Messianic Judaism has not produced a single theologian of comparable stature, widely studied in the great Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant seminaries and universities.
The children of a Jewish mother are Jews. Rabbi Yeshua’s words from the Cross, “Woman, behold your son,” made the Blessed Virgin Mary the New Eve, the Jewish mother of all living.
The Jews are coming home.
Each Jew who comes into the Catholic Church brings his witness. Many live quiet lives, perhaps helping with a parish Seder now and then, mainly there to greet those who come in after them. Some, in the light of the great Jewish tradition of sages across the centuries, write beautiful meditations on Melchizedek, on Moses, on the Psalms, on the Mishna and more, as reflections of the Mashiakh. Devout Catholics from every background will know what Rabbi Kefa and Rabbi Paul knew, and thereby abide more deeply in Rabbi Yeshua that he might abide more deeply in us. “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” Lk 24:44.
Each year, during Advent, Holy Mother Church prays in Aramaic, Maranà thà, “Our Lord, come!” 1 Cor 16:22. We do not know the day or the hour, but we may believe that he is coming soon. And the last book of the Catholic Canon of Sacred Scripture ends with the prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus!” Rev 22:20. Amen.
1 Dennis Prager, “God, the Holocaust and a Pastor,” Townhall.com, May 28, 2008.
2 Elie Wiesel, “Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future,” Judaism, Vol. 16, no. 3, Copyright © 1967 by the American Jewish Congress, p. 282.
3 Harry James Cargas, Harry James Cargas in Conversation with Elie Wiesel, (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), pp. 56-57.
4 Elie Wiesel, “60 Years After the Holocaust,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Section J (“Perspective”), Sunday January 30, 2005, p. 6.
5 Elie Wiesel, “Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future,” Judaism, Vol. 16, no. 3, Copyright © 1967 by the American Jewish Congress, p. 282.
6 Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, A Jew in America (San Francisco: Harper, 2002), excerpted in the New Jersey Jewish Standard, June 8, 2001, p. 7.
7 Richard Lowell Rubenstein, After Auschwitz (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), pp. 224-225.
8 Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Hill & Wang, 1960), pp. 72-74.
9 Waltraud Herbstrith, Edith Stein: The Untold Story of the Philosopher and Mystic Who Lost Her Life in the Death Camps of Auschwitz, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), pp. 168-69. Edith Stein’s Carmelite name was Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She may be called today either St. Edith Stein or St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
10 Waltraud Herbstrith, Edith Stein: The Untold Story of the Philosopher and Mystic Who Lost Her Life in the Death Camps of Auschwitz, p. 180.
11 St. Augustine, The City of God, Bk. 20, Ch. 29.
12 Pope Benedict XVI, The Apostles (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2010), p. 12.
13 Father Richard John Neuhaus, “Salvation is From the Jews,” First Things, November 2001.
14 Father Richard John Neuhaus, “Salvation is From the Jews,” First Things, November 2001.
15 Father Richard John Neuhaus, “Salvation is From the Jews,” First Things, November 2001.
16 Father Richard John Neuhaus, “Salvation is From the Jews,” First Things, November 2001.
17 USCCB, A Note on Ambiguities Contained in Reflections on Covenant and Mission.
18 Quoted in Father Richard John Neuhaus, American Babylon, (Philadelphia: Basic Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2009), p. 170.
19 Editorial: “Turning Back the Clock,” Jewish Daily Forward, February 15, 2008.
20 Jeremy Lott, in Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion, p. 129.
21 Quoted by Father Richard John Neuhaus in “While We’re At It,” First Things, June-July 2007, p. 67.
22 Hillel Halkin, “Take It As a Compliment,” New York Sun, February 12, 2008.
24 Rabbi Jacob Neusner, “The Pope and I: A Debate With Jesus is Joined by Benedict XVI” Jewish Daily Forward, June 1, 2007.
25 Rabbi Jacob Neusner, “The Pope and I: A Debate With Jesus is Joined by Benedict XVI” Jewish Daily Forward, June 1, 2007.
26 Rabbi Jacob Neusner, “The Pope and I: A Debate With Jesus is Joined by Benedict XVI” Jewish Daily Forward, June 1, 2007.
27 Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. I, (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 69-70.
28 Jesus of Nazareth, p. 44.
29 A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, p. 74, quoted in Jesus of Nazareth, p. 103.
30 A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, p. 83, quoted in Jesus of Nazareth, p. 108.
31 A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, p. 74, quoted in Jesus of Nazareth, p. 108.
32 Jesus of Nazareth, p. 111.
33 Jesus of Nazareth, p. 112.
34 Jesus of Nazareth, p. 112.
35 A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, p. 58, quoted in Jesus of Nazareth, p. 113.
36 A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, p. 59, quoted in Jesus of Nazareth, p. 114.
37 A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, p. 59, quoted in Jesus of Nazareth, p. 114.
38 A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, p. 63, quoted in Jesus of Nazareth, p. 115.
39 Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 116.
40 Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 120-121.
41 Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, “No Friend in Jesus,” First Things, January 2008, p. 31.
42 Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, “No Friend in Jesus,” First Things, January 2008, p. 32.
43 Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, “No Friend in Jesus,” First Things, January 2008, p. 30.
44 Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, “No Friend in Jesus,” First Things, January 2008, p. 30.
45 Rabbi Jacob Neusner, letter to the editor in response to Rabbi Soloveichik’s article, First Things, April 2008, p. 10.
46 Martin Buber, comments to a conference on Christian missions to Jews in 1930, published as “The Two Foci of the Jewish Soul,” in The Writings of Martin Buber, (New York City: Plume, 1974), quoted in a letter to the editor by Daniel Love Glazer in First Things, April 2008, p. 10.
47 From a conversation between Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, at Congregation Shearith Israel, New York City, “Atheism, Fundamentalism, and the Future of Faith, approximately 2014.
48 Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, “God’s First Love: The Theology of Michael Wyschogrod,” First Things, November 2009, p. 44.
49 Quoted in Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, “God’s First Love,” The Theology of Michael Wyschogrod,” First Things, November 200 p. 44.
50 Michael Wyschogrod, Abraham’s Promise: Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 2004), p. 166.
51 Michael Wyschogrod, Abraham’s Promise: Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 2004), p. 167.
52 Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik, “God’s First Love,” The Theology of Michael Wyschogrod,” First Things, November 200 p. 44.
53 Michael Wyschogrod, Abraham’s Promise: Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 2004), p. 120.
54 Desmond A. Birch, Trial Tribulation & Triumph: Before, During and After Antichrist (Goleta, CA: Queenship Publishing Co., 1996), p. 183.
55 Michael Wyschogrod, “Letter to a Friend,” Modern Theology 11 (1995): 168. Quoted in Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, p. 15.
56 Michael Wyschogrod, “Letter to a Friend,” Modern Theology 11 (1995): 169. Quoted in Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, p. 16.
57 Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002,) p. 27.
58 Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, p. 16.
59 Michael Wyschogrod, “Letter to a Friend,” 171. Quoted in Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, p. 16.
60 Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, p. 30. Levering’s endnote cites the Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, Question 103, Article 4, Reply to Objection 1, 3rd paragraph, and also, just below it, Reply to Objection 3, 3rd paragraph.
61 Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, p. 30. Levering’s endnote cites the Summa Theologica, I-II.103.4.
62 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, IV, ch. 57.
63 Pope John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, November 30, 1980, § 4. Cf. 1 Kings 8:22; Is 1:18; 51:4; Mic 7:18; Bar 2:11; Neh 9.
64 Dives in Misericordia, § 5.
65 Dives in Misericordia, § 5.
66 St. Jerome, Commentary to the Song of Songs, Homily 1.
67 St. John Chrysostom, Homily on Epistle to the Romans, Chap 11.
68 St. Augustine, City of God (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image 1958), book 20, chapter 30. Quoted in Roy Schoeman, Salvation is From the Jews (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), p. 310.
69 Michael Medved, symposium, “Why Are Jews Liberals?,” Commentary, September 2009, p. 47.
70 Michael Medved, symposium, “Why Are Jews Liberals?,” Commentary, September 2009, p. 47.
71 Michael Medved, symposium, “Why Are Jews Liberals?,” Commentary, September 2009, p. 47.
72 Rabbi Toaff became the chief rabbi of Rome in 1951.
73 The beautiful old square-domed synagogue can be seen from the Vatican across the Tiber, which flows past the synagogue’s south front.
74 L’Osservatore Romano, August 17, 1993.
75 Pope Benedict XVI, Homily for the Mass of his Inauguration, St. Peter’s Square, April 24, 2005.
76 Sandro Magister article in Chiesa, March 16, 2006.
78 Tom Hoopes, “Holy Father Reached Beyond Catholics,” National Catholic Register, April 27, 2008, p. 2.
79 David P. Goldman, “Jewish Survival in a Gentile World,” First Things, June-July 2009, p. 25.
81 Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, O.P., Archbishop of Vienna, Austria, in his address titled God’s Chosen Land, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening March 30, 2005, reported in the Jerusalem Post and the Washington Post, both March 31, 2005.
82 Pope Benedict XVI, January 18, 2008, in a private audience, to prelates from the Conference of Latin Bishops in the Arab Regions (CELRA), led by its president, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Michel Sabbah. Zenit, January 19, 2008.
83 Pope Benedict XVI, January 18, 2008, in a private audience, to prelates from the Conference of Latin Bishops in the Arab Regions (CELRA), led by its president, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Michel Sabbah. Zenit, January 19, 2008.
84 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Documents regarding “The Message of Fátima,” June 26, 2000.
85 The Israelis call these Jews who move from Israel to other countries yordim, descenders, from the same yrd root as yeridat, descent.
86 This downward slide would have been much more dramatic without the hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews who migrated to Israel escaping persecution, rather than making aliyah in the traditional sense of a free-will permanent move to the holy land.
87 Roy Schoeman, Salvation is From the Jews, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), p. 351. Conversion statistics are always estimated, as there is no central registry. These are the most widely accepted. The trend can be readily confirmed by looking in telephone company “yellow page” directories for any major city.
88 Roy Schoeman, “The Jews, the Holocaust, and the Second Coming,” The Hebrew Catholic, Spring-Summer 2006, p. 24.

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