Just Say No to Polytheism: Why it is Important to Believe in a Singular Non-Physical Deity (Part III)

Part I, II

My intention is far from picking on Christianity, even pagan Christianity. My real interest and the reason why I am writing this are those Jews who have the hypocrisy to attack Christianity while holding on to doctrines that are equally as problematic as the Trinity or the Incarnation. There is no way easier to have yourself thrown out of the Jewish community, whether it is the Haredi community or the most liberal Reform community than to imply an openness to the Trinity. If this was more than just politics, we would expect equal thoroughness in going after certain other doctrines. These problematic doctrines are closely related to the Jewish mystical tradition, particularly that of Kabbalah. This is not to say that all mysticism or all Kabbalah is bad; statements have to be taken one by one and judged before the bar of monotheism and those that fail must be cast aside.

The early mystical text Shiur Koma (Song of Ascent) was listed by Maimonides as an idolatrous book because it offers measurements of God’s body. For our purpose, it is not enough to reinterpret Shiur Koma as a mystical allegory that is not meant to be taken literally. Our apologist would still have to explain how Shiur Koma serves to spread monotheist ideas more than it does to give people the idea that God has some sort of body, even an elevated preternatural one. If this person really believed that Shiur Koma was just an allegory he would have the good grace to recognize that, as with any explanation that requires more explaining than the thing it is trying to explain, it should be dropped. Thus we can assume that any Jew who actively supports Shiur Koma is either an open or closeted corporalist, thus a pagan, or is demonstrably lacking in proper monotheistic zeal. One way or another, such a person should not be allowed to hold any position of respect and authority within the Jewish community. Just as we would not allow someone who believed that God, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, possessed a human body.

There is a whole body of early medieval Jewish mystical literature known as Merkavah texts. These texts deal with ascents into the heavenly realms by the use of various mystical names. They are premised on the notion of the heavens as a realm that can be traversed and that one can even reach the inner sanctum where God “dwells.” While one can reinterpret this as something innocuous, there is no doubting the inescapable premise that the divine realms are a place that can be conquered through the right secret knowledge. The moment you allow this you turn Judaism from a rational ethical religion to a magical and hence a pagan religion.

Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed is often blamed for the mass apostasy in Spain. The Guide was quite popular in Spain, but so was the Zohar, a body of mystical texts attributed to Rabbi Shimon b. Yochai and is the main source for the concept of Sephirot. Now I ask you what is more likely to get people to sincerely convert to Christianity, a book like the Guide that takes one of the most hard-line stances imaginable against God being in any way physical or a book like the Zohar that suggests that God might have different parts to him? This is ultimately the same sort of territory opened up by the Trinity. Abraham Abulafia made the argument that the belief in Sephirot was worse than the Trinity as the Christians only had three persons in their godhead and not ten. It is not for nothing that early modern Christian Hebraists were so interested in the Zohar and the concept of Sephirot. If you accept Sephirot than you have no intellectual reason to reject the Trinity. In fact, the Trinity can easily be worked into the Sephirot. God the Father could be the three highest Sephirot, Keter, Chochma, and Binah. The Holy Spirit could be six of the lower Sephirot. Jesus would then be the Sephira of Malchut. Malchut is special because it is the one Sephira that directly interacts with the physical world, a Kabbalistic version of the Incarnation. So what sort of person would support a book like the Zohar? Someone whose primary concern is not defending strict monotheism.

Zoheric concepts are developed into some of their worst features in the thought of Isaac Luria. Luria postulated an elaborate creation story in which the divine vessels were damaged in the very act of creation, leaving human beings with the task of tikkun olam, healing the world. At the heart of this theology are the notions that God is in some sense “imperfect” and in “need” of human aid to make himself perfect once again and that human beings have the power to affect the divine.

While books like Shiur Koma, Merkavah texts, Zohar and the Lurianic corpus are held in high esteem by most in the Haredi world, the group that has done the most to popularize such texts has been Chabad. This makes Chabad a logical target for someone like me who believes that such books, for all intents and purposes, advocate paganism. In addition, Chabad has its own sacred text, Tanya, which features many of the same problems as these other texts. So what do we assume about our Rabbi Eli Brackman, the Chabad rabbi at Oxford mentioned previously? If his interests are really in the realm of ethical monotheism than he would be spending his time trying to pass along the philosophy of Saadiah Gaon, Judah Ha-Levi and Maimonides. He would not be spending his time with Tanya. For that matter why, considering that Chabad has more and more become not just a side issue for Chabad Jews but the central issue of their Judaism, is Rabbi Brackman identifying himself with Chabad? Now Rabbi Brackman has denied having any polytheist intent; this leaves the conclusion that either Rabbi Brackman is just a closeted pagan or that he fails to appreciate the gravity of the situation, a common failing of so-called monotheists.

In conclusion, I admit that I have not offered a thorough discussion of Jewish mysticism nor do I claim to be an expert in the field. This is a more formal version of the challenge that I touched upon earlier and I hope that this could the start of future dialogue. My challenge to Rabbi Brackman or anyone else who wishes to defend Kabbalah in general and Chabad specifically is not whether they can offer acceptable interpretations of the texts in question but whether these texts offer something to ethical monotheism that can justify tolerating them in light of the very obvious heterodox lines of thought inherent to them.

Just Say No to Polytheism: Why it is Important to Believe in a Singular Non-Physical Deity (Part II)

Part I

What should be clear from what I said previously is that the struggle between monotheism and polytheism is more than just about how many gods you believe in. This is about whether God is simply some super-powerful being who will punish us if we do not obey his arbitrary commands or whether God is the righteous being whom all ethical beings should seek to align their actions with. Without this, we are left making abstract distinctions that are incomprehensible to anyone not well versed in theology. For example, what is the difference between the pagan who believes in minor gods and the one God who is above all and the monotheist who believes in angels and one God? Particularly when one of the most common Hebrew words for God, “Elohim,” is used in the Bible to refer to both angels and God. Nor is it much help to talk about idolatry. It is hardly obvious what the difference is between Christians kissing a crucifix, Jews kissing a Torah scroll and the ancient Israelites bowing to the Golden Calf. (This issue of the Golden Calf received a modern twist during the recent economic downturn when a group of Christians went to pray at the Wall Street Bronze Bull.)

When judging people or ideologies we need to ask ourselves not just whether they call themselves monotheists or whether they fulfill some abstract theological qualification but whether what they say furthers or hinders the monotheist understanding of God as a righteous being. This creates a third category of people, those who, while they themselves may not be pagans, preach doctrines that only serve to further belief in the pagan model. While such people are not guilty of paganism, they are guilty of lacking the proper zeal for monotheism. Furthermore, this lack of zeal can be taken as grounds to suspect covert pagan belief.

I strongly object to the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity not just because it crosses some highly technical theological line but because it can only serve the interests of the pagan model. Christianity from its own perspective is meant as an improvement of the Old Testament. This means that Christianity should have fewer problematic statements than the Old Testament and get rid of anthropomorphic statements about God’s hand or body. Christianity, as exemplified in the Nicene Creed, takes a step backward by introducing such concepts as God in a human body or there being “three” parts to God. This view of God can only serve to further a pagan model. For example, at a popular level, medieval Catholicism was a magical religion that was supposed to grant power to those who practiced its rituals. Admittedly medieval Judaism had its magical elements too, but it had nothing to compare to the adoration of the Eucharist and tales of Eucharist miracles.

Nothing that I say here should be taken as an attack on non-Trinitarian Christians. So, if any Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons are reading this, you are in the clear. I also have no problem with Christians like C. S. Lewis, for whom the Trinity was a passing issue to be explained when challenged in monotheistic terms. I admit that it is possible to have a monotheist Incarnation and Trinity. One could say that God is one, but that from a human perspective there is sometimes a misapprehension that he is three and that when talking about God it is sometimes useful to play to this human misapprehension and talk about God as if he were, heaven forbid, three persons. From a monotheistic perspective, it is theoretically possible that a human being could reach such an understanding of the divine and be so successful in helping other people to live according to God’s intention that we could say, after a manner of speaking, that people saw God when they looked at this person. Christians believe that Jesus was such a person and I have no theological objections to such a claim.

The Christians I would have a problem with would be those who took the Trinity in a pagan direction. Those who operate with the pagan model are pagans and should be treated as such. I would even object, though, to a Christian who insisted on elaborating on the Trinity and making it the focus of his religion even if this Christian, when pressed, would claim that they believed in the monotheist understanding of the Trinity that I suggested. Such a person is clearly lacking in zeal for true monotheism in that, not only does he not try to stamp out ideas that could lead to people following paganism, he actively spreads them. In the end, I would not even be certain that I could believe him; it is possible that he is lying about what he truly believes in order to make himself acceptable in the eyes of monotheists. This would particularly be a concern because if he really was a monotheist in his heart he would have no purpose in pushing Trinitarian ideas in the first place.

Just Say No to Polytheism: Why it is Important to Believe in a Singular Non-Physical Deity (Part I)

A recent post of mine made passing mention of my concerns regarding Chabad, whether or not they were monotheists or if their brand of theism crossed a line into Trinitarian territory. I would like to elaborate on this issue. I do not view myself as being anti-Chabad per se. Most of my objections to Chabad apply in one form or another to Haredim in general. Monotheism, the belief in one God, is at the center of Jewish belief. We need to consider what that means and why it is important. I would argue that the belief in the oneness of God is intimately connected to what type of relationship one has to God; does one relate to God in the hope of gaining some sort of benefit, earthly riches, and eternal life, or does one seek to form a relationship with God because they believe in God’s goodness and wish to further his project in this world? The one person is interested in God for his own self-interest, the other because he believes in the cause.

To describe a model of paganism, traditional pagan religion worshiped its gods as a means to an end. One does the necessary rituals and receives the necessary rain and fertility from your particular version of Father Sky and Mother Earth. If one desires victory over the enemy, there is a god of war to turn to. There is nothing ethical or particularly spiritual about such actions. They are means to ends, no different from the day to day human interactions that are necessary to gain the essentials of life. There is nothing ethical or spiritual about talking to my boss in the hope of a raise or to lobby a politician. The fact that polytheism recognized many gods furthers this mercenary relationship with the divine. If there are many gods then these gods can be played against each other. Children learn very quickly that their parents have different opinions and that they can be played against each other. If the gods are like human beings then they can equally be played. They can be flattered by one who knows their temperament. If the gods are in some sense physical then they must, after some fashion, have physical needs even if those physical needs are nothing more than to be praised and flattered. This is the essence of magic, that one can extend the amoral relations that define day-to-day human interactions to the divine and the supernatural. (Admittedly, this model fails to completely account for paganism in practice. There can be monotheists in pagan guise, such as Socrates, and pagans in the guise of monotheists.)

The Abrahamic Revolution is not just that God is one but that he is a righteous God. This one God has no rivals to play against him. As a non-physical being, he has no need for anything and nothing that anyone does can benefit or harm him. This is one of the hardest concepts in theology to come to terms with; there is no way to bargain with God, there is nothing to bargain with. This vision of God is most clearly articulated in the Prophets where God is the righteous protector of widows and orphans, who cannot be appeased with the mere burnt flesh of bulls and goats. (See the Prophets by Abraham J. Heschel.) This is a God who is willing to strike down his own temple and let his name be a mockery among the nations of the world because Israel failed to live up to the calling of being his nation.

As Maimonides argues in the Guide to the Perplexed, the Bible serves as a way to transition people from a pagan mode of thinking toward the ethical rationalism necessary in comprehending the will of the monotheistic deity. As such, one is going to find in the Bible things that on the surface seem to be part of the pagan model. For example, the Bible commands the use of animal sacrifice, part of the pagan model. A pagan god would have physical needs that could be satisfied through a sacrifice. At the very least the god could be honored by sacrifice. The monotheistic God has no need for sacrifice but allows them as a concession to human weakness. While the Bible makes the pretense of allowing and even mandating animal sacrifice, it robs animal sacrifice of its theological value and justification, leaving animal sacrifice as a hollow edifice to be undermined by the prophets.

If one looks at the concept of reward and punishment in the Bible one sees a similar pattern. The concept of reward and punishment is there, even physical non-gnosis reward. The monotheistic God is capable of bringing miracles about and affecting the world to the benefit or detriment of individuals. That being said, this is an incidental belief for the monotheistic religion. The rewards and punishments in the Bible are overwhelmingly about one’s descendants or about the people as a whole, not about personal gain. As Maimonides explains, the rewards and punishments in the Bible are consequential. If the Israelites pursue an understanding of God they will pursue rational solutions to their problems and be successful as a state. Alternatively, if the Israelites pursue the magical solutions offered by paganism, the state will fall.

(To be continued …)

Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (Sort of): One Converso’s View of Jesus

Last year I did a series of posts on Jewish views on Jesus. Here, in an article by David Graizbord, is a view of Jesus, by an early seventeenth century converso, liable to perplex both Jews and Christians. Espiritu Santo was born a Jew in Marrakesh but converted first to Islam and then to Christianity. He was living in Spain when the Inquisition picked him up on charges of sorcery, crypto-Islam and crypto-Judaism. According to Espiritu Santo:

… the one who had come [namely, Jesus] was [a Messiah] of the tribe of Joseph; and that the messiah of the tribe of David [sic] had yet to come, and that he [the defendant] would go to heaven [if he was burned], and that when Jesus [sic] came to judge the living and the dead, the first he would absolve would be the Jews, because Christ is the son of God, and he is below the Father at [the Father’s] right hand, and that only the Father is a true God, because even though there is a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit, only one God shall judge – and that is the Father. The Son is [merely] a prophet [of God], as when a master sends his servant; and the old Law of Moses is written and adorned with diamonds … and it is written by the hand of God, adonai, God of Israel … and that in the Law of Jesus Christ there are many images, and that, there not being more than one true God, he did not believe in the [images], neither in the crosses, and that he [the defendant] was a Jew, of the stock of Aaron the priest, and that [earlier] when God had inspired him to turn to the holy Catholic faith, the reason that he had converted to it was that he understood that it and the Law of Moses were one; but afterwards, having recognized that they are opposed, he wished to keep the Law of Moses … because there is no more than one God, who is a pearl and a diamond that cannot be cut.
(David Graizbord “Historical Contextualization of Sephardi Apostates and Self Styled Missionaries of the Seventeenth Century.” Jewish History 19(2005): pg. 300.)

So here we have a Jew who believed that Jesus was a messiah, just not the Messiah, and that he was part of a Trinity, though an Arian Trinity. He believed that Jesus came to save people from sin just not the same sorts of sins that the inquisitors had in mind. He converted to Christianity even though he still believed in Mosaic Law and was prepared to die for that belief. So where does this Espiritu Santo fit in?

Shabbos at the Oxford Chabad

I spent Shabbos at the Chabad at Oxford and was hosted by Rabbi Eli Brackman. Since I regularly go to the Chabad at Ohio State, I figured that it would make for a fun comparison. Small Jewish world, Rabbi Brackman knows Rabbi Zalman Deitsch of Ohio State. (I wonder if they are, even now, exchanging notes on me. “So who exactly is this Chinn guy and what is his deal?”) There was a guest speaker, Dr. Aharon Giamani of Bar Ilan University in Israel. Dr. Giamani’s field, which he spoke to us about, is in the history of Yemenite Jewry. I was fortunate to be able to speak to him over Shabbos and I am grateful to him for allowing me to hold the conversation in my rather poor conversational Hebrew.

Due to a conversation about Jewish philosophy with one of the Chabad people about, I was presented with the tenth chapter Sha'ar ha-Yichud ve'ha'Emunah in the Tanya, the foundational text of Chabad thought. The essential point of this chapter is that God is one with the sephirot. The analogy used is that of the relationship between the sun and the rays of light it gives off. This may be the medievalist in me, but when I hear the analogy of the unity of the sun and sunlight I think of the classical apology for the Trinity that uses this same analogy. I raised this issue with Rabbi Brackman and he was remarkably non-pulsed about it. He agreed that there was a parallel here and that it was probably written like that on purpose. Rabbi Brackman went on to argue that the difference would be that the Tanya does not take any of this literally. Rabbi Brackman went on point out the basic tenant of Chabad theology that God literally includes everything and that individuality is simply an illusion. I had a similar experience with another Lubavitch person a few years ago who, when I asked him what the difference between the Chabad belief that human souls are literally part of God and the Christians doctrine of the Incarnation beyond the fact that Chabad would multiply the problem billions of times over by turning every human being into their own Jesus Christ. My Lubavitch friend responded that he did not know, but that anyway it was not a problem.

If we are going to go with the classical understandings of Jewish thought as found in Saadiah Gaon, the Kuzari, Maimonides and medieval Jewish anti-Christian polemics, the rejection of the Trinity and the Incarnation are critical parts of Judaism. A Judaism in which one cannot give a coherent reason for rejecting the Trinity and the Incarnation is one in which Jews might as well start lining up to the baptismal font. Yet we have Chabad rabbis nonchalantly throwing around arguments that are almost identical. Put it this way, if what Chabad believes about the nature of God and him being one unified entity with the sephirot and all human souls is not heresy then I do not know of any coherent argument against the acceptance of a classical Christian understanding of the Trinity and the Incarnation that will hold water for more than five minutes.

I know people who have or are in middle of converting to Judaism. Last I checked, unless you can give a straightforward NO to the question of whether you believe in the Trinity or the Incarnation with no equivocations or scholastic discourses, you will not be accepted for conversion. This applies equally to the most conservative Satmar court as it does to the Reform movement, making this one of the few things that the entire spectrum of Judaism actually agrees on. Prof. David Berger wishes to argue that Chabad is heresy because of the messianic beliefs held by many in the movement. In truth, it goes much further, into the fundamental doctrines of the movement found in Tanya.

The Lubavitchers that I know, I like and respect for the most part. Considering that I have been living outside of a major Jewish community, dealing with Lubavitch is sort of a practical necessity. I find the implications of Berger’s proposed ban too frightening to seriously consider. That being said, I must admit that it is a real problem.

Shabbos did not end here in the southern part of England until a quarter to eleven at night, so much for doing something on Saturday night. It must strange trying to raise children in such a situation. “Alright kids, go to bed now. Shabbos will be over when you get up in the morning.”

Amazing Grace: Eighteenth Century Evangelical Protestantism in its Proper Context

A few years ago I was privileged to attend Rabbi Aryeh Klapper’s Summer Beit Midrash program in Cambridge MA. It is a combination of a traditional yeshiva and a think tank on matters of Jewish law. Rabbi Klapper encourages his students, at least in the narrow theoretical framework of his program, to come up with creative approaches to Jewish law based on a critical analysis of textual sources. Each summer is devoted to one specific topic. During my summer with him we dealt with the issue of divorce and the legitimacy of the argument that a marriage was entered into on false premises and if one of the parties had known the truth they would not have agreed to wed. A topic that he did in a subsequent summer was on the status of Christianity in Judaism, particularly Christian holy places and Christian hymns. One of issues that he had his fellows write on was whether it is permissible to sing Amazing Grace. The fellows had to do some research into the back story of the song. It was written by John Newton, an ex slave ship captain turned Anglican preacher and abolitionist. Another issue that his fellows had to confront is what does the word “grace” mean in the context of the song. Take the hymns famous opening stanza:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

From a Jewish perspective there does not seem to be anything wrong with these words nor with any of the subsequent stanzas. There is no mention of Jesus or the Trinity. The problem begins once you have to define what grace means. If grace simply refers to a general sense of mercy or favor, which is how most people think of the word, then there is not a problem. The problem is that we are dealing with an Evangelical Protestant and in Evangelical Protestantism grace means something very specific. There are the saved, who have been granted grace as a free gift from heaven, and the unsaved, who do not have grace and are therefore condemned. One cannot earn grace. Grace is simply something granted by heaven to an elect few. Grace, understood in these terms, becomes a highly problematic issue, one that most Jews could not accept.

This hymn, and the story behind it, plays an important role in a recent film, appropriately titled Amazing Grace. The film focuses on someone whom John Newton mentored both as a Christian and as an abolitionist, William Wilberforce. It was Wilberforce, a close friend of William Pitt the younger, who led the fight in the British Parliament to ban slavery, a struggle that took decades and took an incredible physical and emotional toll on him.

In a sense the film also has its struggle with how to understand grace and to place it within its Evangelical context. It would have been very easy and tempting for the filmmakers to have turned William Wilberforce into a modern liberal. He was a social crusader for all the “right” things; in addition to his opposition against slavery, he pushed for free education and fought against cruelty to animals. He was a gentlemen botanist, who took an active interest in studying the natural world. The film, though, does not pull any punches when it comes to Wilberforce’s evangelical beliefs and places it at the front and center of his struggle against slavery.

The film does a wonderful job at capturing the mindset of eighteenth century radical Protestantism, which Wilberforce is an example of. We are at the dawning of a new age of enlightenment in which mankind shall gain knowledge that would have astounded earlier generations. Since one is taking part in this new era of enlightenment it is only natural that one takes an interest in, one, the natural sciences and, two, in the creation of a new and more just society. The reason for all of this is that, through grace, one has come to know Jesus and accept him as the one and only true savior. It is Jesus who is revealing all of this new knowledge to mankind and it is Jesus who is opening the eyes of all believers and is guiding them to create a new godly society worthy of his grace. The kingdom of God is coming and everyone has best be ready. Slavery is not just a bad thing it is an affront to God and it is holding back his kingdom. Slaveholders are not just sinners they are enemies of God and are going straight to Hell. Fighting slavery is not just a fine moral thing it is a necessity in order to achieve the salvation of a person’s immortal soul. This is not modern liberalism. On the other hand, though, this is not modern Evangelical Christianity. Modern Evangelical Christianity is as much of a product of modernity as modern secularism. Eighteenth century Evangelical Christianity is something that existed in its own time and place and most be understood on its own terms. It had the luxury of the naive optimism of not fully appreciating the consequences of what they were about to unleash.

Now, as moderns, we know that in the end Wilberforce’s brand of social activism will create modern secular liberalism. We know that Wilberforce’s brand of nature study is going to lead to modern secular science. We as moderns can appreciate how all this could so easily turn into modern secularism. All one has to do is take away the parts about Jesus, the kingdom of God and all stuff about hellfire and the salvation of one’s immortal soul. We understand how easily eighteenth century natural theology could be stripped of its religious moorings and become secular naturalism once one is willing to contemplate the possibility that nature does not require a metaphysical first cause. It would be so tempting to turn the people in the film into moderns, to have them be aware of where things were heading and make them more like us. Thankfully the filmmakers resisted this temptation and kept everyone in period not just in costume but in thought as well.

What we have here is a film that is not only an exquisite piece of work in terms of its acting, writing and costumes. This film is an example of responsible historical thinking. While the film takes its fictional liberties, something that is necessary given the demands of trying to create an engaging coherent film that is less than two hours, the film remains true to the spirit of the times. It neatly captures the mindset of eighteenth century England, how its distinct brand of religious fundamentalism came oppose slavery and eventually brought it down. It is willing to face up to what grace truly meant to those who first sang Amazing Grace.

Toward Formulating a Jewish View of Jesus (Part I)

A question that I am often asked by Christians is how do Jews view Jesus? This is a rather difficult question to answer. Not because the question itself is so difficult, but because this is one of those questions that is not really about the given question, but is about larger issues; to answer such a question one most first come to terms with the very framework from which it arose.

What do Jews think of Jesus? As with most of Judaism, there is a wide spectrum of opinions. The Talmud, if we are to assume that the Yeshu that it speaks of is in fact Jesus, views him as a sorcerer and a heretic, who was justifiably executed by a Jewish court for his crimes and is now burning in excrement in hell. This view of Jesus finds its most coherent expression in an early medieval text known as Toldot Yeshu. Toldot Yeshu can be read as a Hebrew counter Gospel or even as a satire on the Gospel accounts. According to Toldot Yeshu Mary was a whore and Jesus was a bastard. In other words Toldot Yeshu is filled with the sorts of things that Christians today, unless they want to be accused of being Anti-Semitic, are not allowed to accuse Jews of believing. The fact that these accusations are grounded in Jewish sources is irrelevant; multiculturalism has nothing to do with telling the truth.

There are alternative Jewish views to this. Toldot Yeshu is hardly an authoritative source and there have been those, such of R’ Yechiel of Paris, who have denied that the Yeshu in the Talmud is Jesus. (See Hyam Maccoby, Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages.) The late fourteenth century commentator Profiat Duran referred to Jesus as a Hasid Sotah, a pious fool. Duran wrote a commentary, in Hebrew, on the New Testament, Kalyimot Hagoyim, offering a non Trinitarian reading of the New Testament and arguing that Jesus, the apostles and even Paul, for whatever faults they might have had, were good practicing Jews, who never intended to start another religion; it was their followers, who came afterward, who twisted their words and created Christianity. Moses Mendelssohn claimed to admire Jesus as a moral philosopher. This view was also shared by R’ Jacob Emden. (See Alexander Altman, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study pg. 204-05.)

Strictly speaking, from the standpoint of traditional Jewish thought, there is nothing to stop one from being a “believer” in Jesus. One can believe that Jesus was a righteous man; Judaism believes in the concept of righteous men. One can believe that Jesus performed miracles; Judaism believes that God will sometimes perform miracles, particularly if they are through the hands of a righteous person. One can even believe that Jesus was born of a virgin; a virgin birth is simply a type of miracle. In fact there is a tradition that Ben Sira was the son of Jeremiah’s daughter, born through a “virgin” birth. One can believe that Jesus was crucified; Judaism does not believe that righteous people are invulnerable. One can even believe that his death brought about some sort of atonement; there are Jewish sources that speak of God taking the righteous as atonement for sins of the world. One can believe that Jesus arouse from the dead and ascended to heaven alive; Judaism believes that Elijah the prophet and Enoch ascended to heaven alive and well as numerous other people. One can believe that Jesus sits at the “right hand” of God and is the fulfillment of Psalms 110; it is no different than saying that King David, Abraham or the Messiah sit at God’s right. Ultimately if one wants to one could say that the suffering servant passage of Isaiah 53 is about Jesus; it is no different than saying that the passage refers to Moses, Jeremiah or R’ Akiba. This may be pushing things, but, in theory, one could hold that Jesus was the Messiah provided that you define the Messiah simply as a mortal human being who is the subject of Isaiah 11; there are Jewish sources that say that this chapter refers to King Hezekiah.

There are really only three Christian beliefs that Judaism could never accept. One, that Jesus was, in some sense, God incarnate and part of some sort of Trinity. While in theory this belief might not be worse than the Kabbalistic notion of sephirot, any traditional notion of Trinity or an incarnated God is unlikely to pass through the strictures posed by the Jewish philosophical tradition, particularly as exemplified by Maimonides. From the perspective of Maimonides’ theology any discussion of divine attributes is problematic. Two, that Mosaic Law is no longer valid. Mosaic Law defines Judaism; if there is no Mosaic Law then Judaism ceases to exist. The final belief that Judaism could never accept is the idea that a belief in Jesus is somehow necessary for ones own personal salvation. Accepting such a claim would mean placing Jesus at the center of the religion and reorienting it around this singular concept.
(To be continued …)