Correspondence
Letter to R. Zeilingold about Whether Judaism Is the Only True Religion (1966)
Dear Rabbi Zeilingold: As I told you over the telephone, I genuinely regret my inability to fly out to St. Paul to lecture to your congregation. However, I am pleased to be able to be of assistance to you in any other way. The question which you have been called upon to treat at the symposium in your community, "Is Judaism The Only True Religion?״ is a thorny one, and one which requires a good deal of preparation. My own preliminary feeling on this question could best be summarized as follows: First, we must be clear as to what is meant by ״religion." The term, as generally used, comprehends two concepts or interpretations of experience which, while they differ one from the other, are not necessarily in opposition. Christianity, for instance, sees in religion primarily a dogmatic structure, a system of articles of faith rather than merely "works," by which the Christian usually means ethical deeds. There is, however, a second dimension to religion usually ignored by non-Jews: that of the "mitzvot maasiyot," the practical commandments or observances which, cumulatively, spell out Halakhah, or the Jewish "way." (The concept of "Mitzvah," as Jews understand it, is largely alien to the Christian.) There are some Jewish thinkers today in Israel, as there were in Germany during the beginning of the Enlightenment, who maintain that Judaism is primarily a religion of law rather than of dogma or ideas. I think that by now, however, we have become disabused of this error. It is fair to say that Judaism is, in toto, both a "way" of life which requires certain patterns of behavior both ritually and ethically, and at the same time requires of its communicants the affirmation of certain abstract propositions, such as: the existence of God, His unity, "Torah min ha-shamayim," the chosenness of Israel, etc.Now, the problem of the exclusive truth of Judaism must be discussed in this framework.From the point of view of the practical observances, the question would have to be answere…
