Fellowship between Christians and Jews?

A Personal Relationship

The question I received from a reader is very important:

The Christians that I work with speak of having an ongoing relationship with Yshu’ah.  I see in them that this goes well beyond “believing in him”.  I see their genuine affection for him.

We, as Orthodox Jews, are totally in love with HaShem!  We experience Him all the time!  We don’t just connect with Him by holding to all of the correct beliefs, by agreeing with and trusting in Him, and by doing what pleases Him; we also connect with Him and personally experience Him while praying throughout the day!
How can I love my Father, HaShem, with ALL my heart, ALL my soul, and ALL my resources, yet at the same time have an affectionate exchange with another deity— Yshu’ah ?

What’s the answer?  Are we to deny that Christians have a deeply spiritual relationship with “Jesus,” the one we know as Yeshua HaMashiach?  History certainly suggests otherwise.  Most of us know Christian believers whose faith is without question.  Two thousand years of Christian devotees certainly shows that many found solace for their souls in the arms of Jesus, and many gave their lives because of this relationship.  The world, Western or Eastern, is witness to the power of love from those who believed in the Christian Jesus.

But how is this possible if, as my questioner asks, Yshu’ah is another deity—a pagan, idolatrous substitute god?

The question goes right to the heart of belief paradigms.  In my opinion, there is no doubt that the Scriptures and the historical record demonstrate that the proclamation of the Trinity is the invention of philosophically minded early theologians.  This doctrine accomplished two critically important things for these theologians.  First, it distinguished Christianity from Judaism.   It created the absolute basis for a new religion that could still claim ancient validity.  It usurped the history of Israel by reading it as a precursor to the Israel of the Church.  Secondly, by elevating Jesus to divine status, it insulated their spiritual hero from the Hellenistic-Platonic dualism that viewed all material creation as essentially corrupt.  In other words, it retained the sinlessness and purity of Jesus by making him divine.  He did not experience the corruption that applied to all of creation since the Fall because he was not simply human.  He was God in the flesh.

The need to establish a separate identity from Judaism, perhaps politically expedient but certainly theologically required, and the incorporation of implicit Platonism, the true paradigm of the early Church, meant that the Trinitarian Godhead became the defining doctrine of Western, Latin Christianity.  This was not true of all Christianity, especially in the first four centuries of the common era, but the Latin view prevailed and today the Trinity basically defines Christian belief.  Jesus is God and God is three in one, whatever that may mean.

But most believers are not theologians.  They aren’t even historians.  They do not know the complexities of Hellenistic-Platonism and they do not know the history of this doctrine.  For them, personal spiritual awareness is paramount, and since they genuinely feel closer to God through Jesus, they accept without critical evaluation the Church’s paradigm about Jesus and God.  What they really know is that somehow their faith in Jesus brings them spiritual security and makes them feel as if they are closer to God, and this is sufficient.  Religion at this level is all about feelings, not thinking, and any attempt to raise issues about doctrines which they believe are the anchors of their feeling-faith calls into question the validity of their feelings which they cannot deny.  Therefore, any issue not in alignment with what the Church teaches is the basis of their feeling-faith threatens what they experience and must be summarily rejected.  It is not rejected because of a rational failure.  It is rejected because the ordinary believer accepts the interpretation of the Christian theological paradigm without question.

It is, frankly, no different then questioning the veracity of the history of Moses and Sinai for Jews.  For example, if I raise legitimate scholarly questions about the transmission of the Torah, and those questions threaten the claim that God delivered the Torah, both written and oral, to Moses at Sinai,[1] it is more than likely that my argument, no matter how academically secure, will be dismissed as a sign of my unbelief.  As Jewish scholar Shawn Zelig Aster writes:

Another very important question remains unanswered: Why would a person want to believe that God gave the Torah? Why does a person make this “leap of faith”? In my opinion, the answer to this question is personal and emotional, as is any other decision to enter into a relationship. Therefore, I doubt if the reasons that I find for making the leap of faith will help others. I can only say that in times of crisis I turn to the God of my fathers.[2]

In the end, faith is not the conclusion drawn from rational arguments and historical investigations.  It is anchored on lived experience, on feelings, that are subsequently interpreted by some religious paradigm.  The feelings are understood (cognitively explained) by the paradigm.  The paradigm does not generate the feelings.  What this means is that those who accept the Christian paradigm do not so so because it gives them a rationally sound picture of the world.  They accept the Christian paradigm because it offers an explanation of their feelings, just as traditional Jewish orthodoxy offers and explanation of perhaps the same spiritual feelings.  The difference is not how I feel about God or how He feels about me.  The difference is only that I have chosen to interpret those feelings according to a paradigm which I did not create but have come to accept.  If we want real dialogue between Judaism and Christianity, it cannot begin with paradigm interpretation.  It must begin with lived experience.  And I’m pretty sure God knows that.

My correspondent replied:

It is exactly that: a lived experience, as you say.

Christians (the ones I know) watch our careful guarding and obeying of the beloved mitzvot, and cannot understand our enjoyment of them. They don’t understand that I’m literally commanded demonstrate my love of G’d in this manner. They don’t understand that Torah explains the need to discipline our bodies and baser selves into subjection— the way a sportsman or soldier would—and then gives us the Torah dictates as the means to do so (eg Tehillim 119).  The passion of this daily walk with a HaShem is our lived experience.

For the Torah-observant Jew, that leaves a knowledge of Y’shuah as being cognitive in nature, an assent to the written account of him as being true.  It would mean that Yshu’ah must be honored for his worthiness and power as a redeemer, as were Moshe and Yehoshua—-except more so; but the daily experience of him is elusive.

As you write, the Christian equally lovingly seems to march to the voice of a different Commander. It’s sweet, admirable, obviously real, and also scary.

If it’s possible to love and honor Yshu’ah in an appropriate way, that does not detract at all from our devotion to G’d and our beloved Torah life—then I pray always that HaKadosh Baruch hu will somehow show me how to do it!

אין עוד מלבדו

[1] “As formulated by Maimonides in his eighth principle of faith, traditional Jewish belief in a divine Torah entails the notion that the biblical text in our hands today was transmitted by God to Moses, that every word of this text is equally divine and laden with meaning, and that this written text was simultaneously accompanied by an oral commentary.”  Tamar Ross, “Orthodoxy ad the Challenge of Biblical Criticism: Some Reflections on the Importance of Asking the Right Question,” in The Believer and the Modern Study of the Bible (Academic Studies Press, 2019), p. 263.

[2] Shawn Zelig Aster, “A Personal Perspective on Biblical History,” in The Believer and the Modern Study of the Bible (Academic Studies Press, 2019), p. 204.