By now everyone knows of the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to rectify certain ancient wrongs it has perpetrated against the Jewish people. The Roman Catholic Ecumenical Council, called to discuss various internal problems in Christianity, was presented with a proposal concerning the Jews. In the schema on Christian unity, Chapter 4 (reproduced on p. 3) urged that the Church retract the old charge of deicide of which Christians had accused Jews for ages. It asked that the Jews be absolved of guilt for killing the central figure of the Christian religion. This proposal, as we also know, was not voted upon; it may possibly be brought up for consideration again next September. My purpose is to analyze not the Catholic action as such, but rather the reactions of certain Jews, perhaps very many of them. And it is concerning these reactions, which in many cases are quite disturbing, and in some cases outrageous and scandalous, that I wish to register a complaint, and to offer several suggestions. The complaint is that we have over-acted, occasionally to the point of compromising our principles and our dignity. And my suggestions are that we be cautious; that we exercise our critical faculties; that we not be overwhelmed by the torrent of publicity; that we strive for a historical perspective; and, above all, that we judge men and events not by the shifting standards and ephemeral moods of the moment, but by authentic Jewish criteria—the eternal value of Torah and Tradition. We Jews are a grateful people. The very name “Jew” implies gratitude: it comes from “Judah”, and that name—in Hebrew, Yehudah—was given to her son by Leah because “this time shall I thank the Lord” (Gen. 29:35). It is this element of gratefulness that has made Jews so loyal, throughout these many years of our dispersion, to those countries which have offered us safety and freedom. It accounts as well for the many lasting contributions we have made to the science and the literature, the finances …

Because of the recent surge of interest in dialogue between the various faith communities, and because of certain partly misleading press reports, we feel it necessary to restate the attitude of our groups, representing the bulk of organized Orthodox Jewry in America, to the question of intercommunal dialogue. We represent a peculiar religious community that has survived the most adverse vicissitudes in recorded history. Through national exile, social change, political suppression, and attempted genocide, we have remained alive to bear witness to the event at Sinai at which we were charged with the obligation to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). As the former, we have endeavored to bring other peoples to God; our means have always been indirect – neither those of coercion nor even proselytization. As the latter, we have always strived to maintain our national identity and aspirations intact, and have resisted the inroads of assimilation, with greater or lesser success. During most of the years of our exile we have had little opportunity to pay conscious attention to our priestly function toward the other nations. Whatever influence we have had in introducing the world to ethical monotheism and to the universal precepts of Torah has been the result of example, of which we were often unaware, and of divine providence, which is inscrutable. We have usually had to devote our energies to safeguarding the integrity of our national identity and historic faith against those who sought to diminish and destroy them – both by hate and by love, by condemnation and by commendation. As Orthodox Jews, we are committed to these same verities and loyalties today. The blessings of freedom and opportunity which we experience in the democratic countries of the Western world – and for which we are eternally grateful to Heaven – bring with them the danger that that which we preserved in adversity will be dissipated in prosperity. We consider it our historic mission…

Dr. Jacob Agus’ advocacy of “The Case for Dialogues” (NJM September 1966) is a welcome relief from the torrent of saccharine and slightly breathless propaganda to which we have been subjected these last several years by the professional “dialogicians” who have taken it upon themselves to represent “the Jewish side” in addressing the Christian community. Dr. Agus’ presentation is calm, reasoned, and persuasive — albeit, in my opinion, his thesis is fundamentally and even dangerously wrong. To a large extent, we have become the willing victims of semantic legerdemain. I confess to being bewildered at the sudden urgency with which “dialogue” is being pressed upon us, and wonder in what essential ways it is different from intelligent conversation which we have carried on in the past. I suspect that for some people, to whom we shall return later in this article, the word is not much more than a linguistic disguise for the old "good will” activities which I thought we had hopefully outgrown. Yet words have fashions and fates, and the recent prominence given to “dialogue” in the writings of Martin Buber, and the recommendation of “fraternal dialogues” in the Vatican schema, have made it an acceptable “in” term. "EVERYTHING IS RISKED" Certainly this is not the sense that Dr. Agus seeks to convey in his article. Were it nothing more than the old, vacuous, superficial camaraderie with a face-lifting, it would merit neither the determined opposition nor even the worried attention given to it by those of us who dissent from the popular trend. I prefer to think that by "dialogue” its serious proponents mean more than polite interfaith conversation or interreligious scholarly colloquia, both of which have not been lacking in the past. Dialogue means a two-way logos, the encounter of the most intimate and cherished commitments. Dialogue is a total engagement of two personalities, a no-holds-barred confrontation in which everything is risked, no predetermined results assured, and …

בוויכוח המתנהל בציבור היום, נהפך מושג "הדיאלוג" לסיסמה פוליטית-חברתית, וכמעט שקיפח את משמעותו המקורית. תומכי תנועת הדיאלוגים אינם יכולים להבין את התנגדותם של שלומי אמוני ישראל אל מה שנראה בעיניהם של שוחרי הדיאלוג כסתם דו-שיח נימוסי ותרבותי. אולם דא עקא, שאם נתרוקן רעיון הדיאלוג מתוכנו האמיתי, אין צורך בו כלל וכלל; ואם עמד בו תוכנו – הריהו מלא סכנות נסתרות, ואף גובל במעשה הבלות.״דיאלוג״ – מונח שנתחדש בבית-מדרשו של מארטין בובר וקיפל .דחיפה חדשה די הכנסייה הקאתולית – אינו סתם שיחת-חולין בין חברים שרוצים לגלות רצון טוב איש לרעהו. על שיחות-חולין מעין אלו לא קרא אדם תגר מעולם – ומעולם גם לא הוכיח מישהו שיש בהן איזו תועלת קיימת. בארצות-הברית יש לנו ניסיון בן כמה שנים של "גוד ויל" בין יהודים ונוצרים, ומצאנו שיצא שכרו בהפסדו, הפסד שבשטחיות איומה המכסה טפחיים מן האמת הדתית ואינה מגלה אפילו משהו מן ההבנה וההתבוננות הדדית.ובכן, מהי משמעותו האמיתית של הדיאלוג ז הדיאלוג הוא עימות (קונפרונטציה) אידיאולוגי של שני אישים, שכל אחד מהם מאמין באמת בדיעותיו שלו. בעימות זה כל צד מעמיד את ה״לוגום" שלו מול של חברו, עד ששניהם פועלים זה על זה ומושפעים זה מזה – וסופו של מאורע זה מי ישורנו. כמעט מן הנמנע שלא יחול שינוי, פחות או יותר חשוב ויסודי, כעמדתו של כל אחד מן הצדדים עם גמר הדיאלוג. הווי אומר, דיאלוג אינו סתם שיחה או חילוף רעיונות בעלמא. בדיאלוג אני מעמיד את כל השיטה והאמונה שלי (על נושא הדיאלוג) במיבחן. וכן ערבה הצד שכנגדי; וכתוצאת הפעולה ההדדית הזאת אני צפה לשינוי-ערכין, שמכוחו אתעלה זאתרומם להשגה יותר נשגבה באמת. העימות הזה דורש מירווח אישי ביני לבין הדיעה או האמונה שלי, כדי שעל-ידי כך אוכל לדון בה, כשהיא עומדת מול זו של עמיתי.מכאן שהדיאלוג משמש מכשיר נאמן לבירור הרעיונות ולזיכוך המושגים – בתנאי שהצדדים המשתתפים בדיאלוג יכולים להגיע לאותו מירווזז, שהוא חיוני לכל תהליך הדיאלוג. ברם, אם מושגים אלה, העומדים למיבחן בדיאלוג, הם חלק מעצם נשמתי ואישיותי עד שאי-אפשר לי לקיים מירווח זה ביני לבינם, הרי כל העימות הוא יגיעת שווא, שכן על-ידי הדיאלוג ביטלתי רעייוגותיי כליל והם עתה נטולי חשיבות בשבילי. לפיכך, אם המדובר הוא בשיטה פוליטית או כלכלית, במושג פילוסופי או אמנותי, אף-על-פי שהם חביבים עלי…

1. The effort to achieve world community, as a voluntary pluralistic entity rather than as an imposed uniformity, raises a particularly sensitive question — one amongst many — to which each participant in the endeavor must essay his own answer. That question is: How can we understand and work together with communities of other religions and ideologies in their quest for a world community based on their own resources? This paper is an effort to formulate a Jewish response to this challenge. 2. It is a truism that Judaism has often interacted with contemporary civilizations, and cultural borrowing is a fact of history which requires no documentation. Yet with Judaism, such borrowing as did occur was largely unconscious. Deliberate imitation was explicitly proscribed. “Neither shall ye walk in their statutes” (Lev. 18:3) was taken as a general prohibition of pagan practices and became a major source of Judaism's strictures against non-Jewish ritual and mores. To speak, therefore, of cooperation with other faith communities on the basis of their own resources, poses an immediate dilemma. 3. There is an inherent danger in the whole enterprise that we have labelled “the quest for world community.” It may, if we are not on our guard, result in committing one of three fundamental errors. The first of these is the possibility that “world community” will become a euphemism for what can only be called religious and ideological imperialism, whether conscious or unconscious. If our goals are largely identical, why not adopt my methods? The second is the imposition of a kind of apologetic straitjacket on individual philosophies, frequently distorting them in the course of striving for preconceived conclusions acceptable to others. Jewish thought has too often suffered from this wilful if well-intentioned distortion. Third, one must beware of falling into the trap of a theological indifferentism which regards theological and cultic exclusiveness as retrograde and reactionary. If,…

Reading Professor Smith’s paper was a spiritually edifying experience. His breadth of vision, open-mindedness, and combination of trenchant analysis with magnanimity toward alternative approaches distinguish his essay and make it worthy of serious consideration. Professor Smith admirably identifies the ambiguous role of religion in society – both as a force for cohesion and, more often, as a source of division. History amply corroborates this thesis. In this response – which I deliberately label “A Jewish Response,” not “The Jewish Response” – I wish to focus on what I see as his central claim: the distinction between society and community, and the moral imperative incumbent upon faith-communities to transform what is merely world society into what ought to be world community. This distinction is both valid and valuable. I would only add that the question of whether faith gives rise to community (as Smith asserts), or whether community gives rise to faith (as Durkheim maintained), has deep roots in Jewish tradition. The Hebrew Bible uses two terms for collectivity: Kahal, denoting a mere assemblage of individuals, and Edah, connoting an organic entity with a metaphysical purpose. According to the medieval grammarian R. David Kimhi, Edah derives from the root Y-‘A-D, implying a calling or destiny. In this way, the biblical distinction parallels Smith’s formulation. Jewish thinkers have long debated the precedence of calling versus community. Saadia Gaon saw Israel as constituted by its spiritual vocation, whereas R. Yehudah Halevi posited that Israel began as a natural nation to which spirituality was later added. I cite these sources not out of pedantry, but to underscore the resonance of Smith’s claims within the Jewish intellectual tradition. If these ideas are present in Scripture and echoed by leading thinkers nearly a millennium ago, they surely merit our attention. Yet I must temper my agreement with caution. The noble pursuit of world community is not withou…

A new attitude seems to have crystallized in American Jewish leadership which reflects the fundamental position of Orthodoxy. Despite some protests – such as that of a writer in the American Jewish Committee’s magazine who downgraded what he called our “ramparts psychology” and the “outbreak of Jewish self-respect” – there has been, largely, a disengagement from direct contact with Vatican officials, from pleading with them for a “good” Jewish statement. The pilgrimages to Rome have noticeably decreased — to the consternation of the travel agents and the relief of traditional Jews who possessed self-respect even before the “outbreak.” There is evident a new awareness of the basic evangelical overtones and presuppositions of the draft schema on the Jews. What cleared the air was the intervention of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, whose immense learning and undisputed Halachic authority lent cogency to his position, which was brilliantly conceived and articulately expounded in the last issue of “Tradition.” Stripped of its philosophical prologomenon and exegetical epilogue (superb reading in their own right!) the essence of his article is a formulation of elegant simplicity: Theological dialogue with Christianity is an absurdity, religiously unsound and spiritually untenable; and cooperation on the socio-cultural or secular level is clearly a desideratum. While Rabbi Soloveitchik cannot in any way be held responsible for any faults the reader may find with the present exposition, these lines ought to be read in the nature of footnotes to his thesis. Theological dialogue is, by its very nature, a religious conversation, even more than a scholarly colloquim. It involves the logos, the fundamental commitment of faith. It is a profound confrontation in which everything is risked, in which the results always remain unforeseen, and from which the two partners in dialogue rarely emerge unchanged. It is because of the unique and intimate nature of the logos, the incommensurab…