How does it stand with the people Israel in the new year 5770?
As James Kugel (a Harvard scholar of the Hebrew Bible) explained in a lecture at my synagogue earlier this year on Israel’s Independence Day, for most of Jewish history independence was an alien idea. Except for a few decades of the Davidic kingdom, the Jewish commonwealth always paid tribute to the surrounding powers—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, or Rome. Israel still faces an existential threat, but this should not obscure the fact that the position of the Jewish people today is at least strong as ever before. Jews who have kept the faith in Israel as well as in the Diaspora have reason to look happily toward the new year.
Israel’s detractors, including defeatists in the American Jewish left, tell a tale of woe in support of one-sided Israeli concessions to Palestinian opponents whose main interest in gaining territory appears to be to fire more rockets at Israeli cities. In the absence of a permanent peace settlement, they say, Israelis will eventually abandon the country in despair, its economy will collapse under the weight of military expenditures, and the higher Arab birthrate will turn Israel into an apartheid island in a Muslim sea. But this gloomy view is wrong.
Israeli fertility, at nearly 3 children per woman, is by far the highest in the industrial world. It has stabilized at a high level, moreover, while the fertility of its Muslim neighbors is in free fall.
Total Fertility, Israel and Selected Muslim Countries
Source: United Nations
No data exist for West Bank demographics, for the Palestine Authority has invented more than a million “refugees” who do not exist, either because they never were born or because they have emigrated. It is a fair supposition that the West Bank birthrate also is in free fall. For poor countries, a sudden transition from ten-person to four-person families implies a coming social catastrophe in which a smaller base of young people will have to support a huge aging population. No nation in the world has suffered this kind of demographic shock, and the prognosis for political stability in such countries is not good. Israel, by contrast, has the healthiest population pyramid in the industrial world.
Fears that immigration to Israel would dry up or even reverse, moreover, seem fanciful in light of the recently available 2008 data. Net immigration to Israel has recovered and is rising.
Net Immigration to Israel (Migrants Per 1,000 Population)
Source: Government of Israel
Israelis come to Israel, stay, and raise families because they love life. Some time ago I constructed (in my Spengler column at Asia Times Online) a “Love of Life” index, which consists of a simple comparison of the fertility rate vs. the suicide rate. People who love life have babies; people who don’t kill themselves. In fact, there is a statistically significant relationship between the two variables (the higher the fertility rate, the lower the suicide rate among the industrial nations).
“Love of Life” Index: Fertility Rate vs. Suicide Rate for Industrial Countries
Source: United Nations
Israel lies in a region of its own. Only Greece has a lower suicide rate, but Greece also has a fertility rate of only 1.3. Why the Jews love life and hate death more than other peoples can be argued. Goethe’s devil said it best, perhaps, in his exchange with Faust, as I reported in a recent study of Goethe’s tragedy and the Book of Job (“Hast Thou Considered My Servant Faust?,” First Things, August/September 2009). Life as such, with its messy birth, fears, uncertainties, and painful death, doesn’t really appeal to human beings: “It was made for a god,” as Mephistopheles said. What makes life enjoyable is the sanctification of life, and the Jews, whose religion consists of bringing what is holy into the smallest acts of everyday life, seem to like life the best.
Contrary to what Israel’s detractors foreign as well as homegrown have claimed, time is on Israel’s side. The population data suggest that its Muslim adversaries (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde) are going from infancy to senescence without passing through maturity. They are going directly from the rigid world of traditional society to the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that so appeal to the infertile young people of Iran. Israel’s economy is a source of astonishment, a high-tech miracle that draws more private-equity investment than all of Europe.
None of this can erase the fact that Israel is under existential threat, above all from Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza. But Israel has always been under existential threat. There were a couple of years, immediately after the late Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel and while Iran and Iraq were at war with each other, in which the Jewish State could breathe easier, but the threat never really diminished. There is something about living on the land bridge between Europe, Africa, and Asia that creates insecurity.
Earlier this month I visited Australia to assist the United Israel Appeal in fundraising. No Jew can go to Australia without thinking that if Moses had led us there, they would never have found us. God evidently did not want to ensconce us in peaceful obscurity, but to put us in the line of fire, where we could perform our mission as a light unto the nations.
Israel’s military position seemed all the more uncertain for the Obama administration’s unexpected demand that Israel freeze all “settlement” construction, including apartments in Israel’s capital city. In doing so the White House betrayed the Bush administration’s quid pro quo with former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, which gave Israel flexibility in West Bank settlements in return for its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. That President Obama did this while publicly embracing the Arab myth of Israel’s founding (that the Jews were imposed on the region as a result of the Holocaust), and while pursuing dialogue with Iran to the point of humiliation, made this all the worse.
That Israel is a military mini-superpower is not in question. During the past week, Israel’s power and potential independence from its main patron, the United States, underwent its first drill—a drill, that is, rather than the real thing. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, made an unannounced trip to Moscow September 7—secret would be the wrong word, for his government made sure the press found out later—which produced a minor panic in Washington. Four billion dollars in American aid locks Israel into American weapons purchases. That’s about 2 percent of Israel’s GDP, not insignificant, but not a decisive sum for a country whose economy grew by 4.2 percent last year.
Contrary to the assertions of self-styled foreign-policy realists, it well may be the case that America benefits more from its relationship with Israel, by far the most powerful force in the region, than Israel benefits from the United States. Netanyahu’s talks with the Russians—whatever the may have entailed—seem to have prompted some scrambling in Washington, including the sudden shift in American support for anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe, a longstanding annoyance to the Russians. Without guessing as to the precise content of some sensitive diplomacy, it is not unreasonable to speculate that Israel may have called Obama’s bluff. The president of the United States does not want to wake up one morning and see on CNN that Israel, Russia, and India have agreed to jointly develop a new fighter.
Perhaps the most encouraging change is occurring slowly and almost imperceptibly in the Jewish people itself. Israel was founded by strident secularists with little support from Europe’s Orthodox rabbinate, which for the most part failed to foresee the dimensions of the Nazi threat. Israeli nationhood and Jewish religious faith seemed forever separated a generation ago. But a great shift has occurred in the past generation. The Torah-observant community in the Diaspora has established close ties with the State of Israel, while secular Jews have fallen away. The great rift between secular and religious continues to be the bane of Israeli life, but the trend, at least, is in the right direction. The modern Orthodox are raising three or four children per family, and the Haredi seven or eight. And while modern Orthodoxy is already secure in the mainstream of Western society, the Haredi are increasingly engaging the modern world.
As America loses its secular Jews to intermarriage and apathy, Jewish nationhood and Jewish faith well may converge over the next generation. And that, as my grandmother would have said, is good for the Jews—and for Christians as well.
David Goldman is associate editor of First Things.
Comments:
Furthermore this has merit even from the Christian perspective. Jews were the nation from which Christ came. Before Christ they were certainly the only light unto the gentiles other then "subtle hints"(which is another cup of tea). Even after words they provided an example to gentiles. They even helped remind Christians to be more Christlike. To say they have no purpose now is more then we know; God has not abandoned His People, though we don't know what exactly His purposes are. Moreover it is also said that Christians are grafted in so if that is "Christianities function" it is certainly the function of the Jews. Finally it does say, "Be not arrogant unto the elder children". Or in other words have a little patience as you have a lot to be grateful for.
All of this assumes Christians are right and by extension that others are wrong when there is contradiction. As everyone assumes they are right there is nothing wrong with that. But there is no reason to find it odd that a Jew assumes the same and no reason to make a fuss. We all have to live with each other.
For me, Jews embody faithfulness. At any time, in any part of the world, they suffer hate and persecution, but have the courage to stand by God through any storm, after any injustice. Jews remain God's chosen people. As an orthodox Catholic, I often feel closer to observant Jews than I do to Protestants. They are spiritual forefathers who guide my path and share my love of God's law.
One reason Israel will always be important to America is because the suffering of Jews is a reliable measure of troubles among us all.
I asked a simple question based on the words of Jesus Himself—Matthew 5: 14-16. I did not say the Jews have no purpose now, nor did I say they don’t remain “chosen” by God, nor did I intend to make a fuss, and I know I have much to be grateful for.
Just a question, that's all.
—from Romans 11
1I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! . .
7What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, 8as it is written:
"God gave them a spirit of stupor,
eyes so that they could not see
and ears so that they could not hear, . .
11Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. . .
25I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. . .
28As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, 29for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.. . .
Covenant theologians will even argue that the church is the replacement for Israel as God's covenant people. Dispensationalists, if I remember correctly, suggest that perhaps both Israel and the church are parallel institutions.
Mr. Goldman might say something such as: The Christians are to be a light to all nations except the Jews, who already have the light. The Christians are led to the Father through the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ, out of all the other tribes of the world, except for the Jews, who are already with the Father and always have been and therefore need neither sacrifice of Jesus for their redemption, nor the resurrection and power of Jesus for their transformation and eternal life.
He might elaborate along these lines: all tribes and ethnic groups are dying, and neither deserve nor can expect salvation as groups, except for the Jews and "the [new] tribe of the Christians" who will be joined to the Father. What Paul wrote is for the Christians' "self-understanding"; that is, while it is true for Christians and from their perspective and for their position, it is not true for Jews, from their perspective and for their position.
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"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" —Jesus
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is
" 'the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone.' Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." —St. Peter, a Jew
The short answer is yes, 2.7 reflects Jewish fertility in Israel.
For more detail, go to http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/04/is-israeli-demography-changing.html
Rabbi Chaim Frazer
As for "legalism", one can find legalism whichever sect one chooses and indeed some earlier posts seem to have a little bit of such in them so I should think making to much of a fuss is rather uncouth.
In any case the main point is that Mr. Goldman is the author and he can hardly be expected to do otherwise then believe what he in fact believes. The practice of taking someone else's religion to be an insult to one's own is unchivalrous. If we expect the right to "bear witness", bristling when others do so as well just will not do.
Furthermore, you didn't give an argument to Mr. Goldman. All you really said was "T'aint so". "T'aint so" is an uninteresting way to express disagreement and not usually helpful.
Finally, we have spent two thousand years quarreling over who was right(our side usually had an embarrassing advantage by the way). So I rather think it might be helpful to take a try at being nice. There have been plenty of columnists to give the Christian point of view. We don't have to change our opinions. But we can say "T'aint so" less often, or at least more gracefully.
As for Marcus' question about being a light unto the nations: As Michael Wyschogrod explains it, a principal difference separating Jews from Christians is that the Jews believe that the Divine Presence dwells in and among the Jewish people, while Christians concentrate this into a single Jew. Expect a major essay on the topic in our forthcoming issue, and subscribe.
thank you for your article (and indeed for all your articles)! –
Just a couple of thoughts…
First: If James Kugel had said that “for most of Jewish history independence was an alien *reality* ”, then he would have been quite right; however, in saying that “for most of Jewish history independence was an alien *idea* ”, then he is surely wrong. Jewish national independence is an idea that has been at the very heart of Jewish thought and aspiration since the times of the Bible. The Torah itself seems to be – amongst other things – a religious-national constitution, intended to regulate all aspects of an autonomous Jewish state in the Land of Israel (as Moses says: “Now this is the commandment… which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the Land into which you go to possess it: that thou might fear the Lord thy God, to keep all His statutes and commandments” [Deut, 6:1-2]). This is followed up by a strong halachic tradition – dating from the earliest times until the present – which stresses the importance of Jewish autonomy in the Land of Israel, paradigmatically expressed by Nachmanides (1194-1270): “[W]e have been commanded to take possession of the Land which was given to our forefathers… by God…; and [we have been commanded] not to leave it in the hands of any gentile nation, nor [to leave it] desolate. And this [is the intent] of His saying to them: ‘And you shall take possession of the Land and settle in it, for to you have I given the Land to inherit it, and you shall inherit the Land’ (Numbers 33:53-4).” (Mitzvot She’shachach Otan haRav, Asseh, No. 4). And besides this, the Jewish prayer book is replete with the hope and prayer that the Jewish people will not merely *return* to the Land, but will *establish an independent state* therein. Three times daily, since Talmudic times, Jews have prayed for the re-establishment of an independent Jewish monarchy in the Land of Israel: “And in Your mercy may You return to Jerusalem, Your city, and may You dwell in it as You have said; and build it soon in our days, an everlasting building; and speedily establish in it the throne of Your servant David”. It can hardly be said that “for most of Jewish history independence was an alien idea”!
Secondly: In your comment you follow Michael Wyschogrod in saying that “a principal difference separating Jews from Christians is that the Jews believe that the Divine Presence dwells in and among the Jewish people, while Christians concentrate this into a single Jew” – but, though this is a very pithy formulation, it sees to approach the matter from a rather unhelpful angle. After all – though I am no expert on these matters – it is surely not qua *Jew* that Christians believe that the Divine Presence is concentrated in Jesus (if, indeed, they do believe that), but rather, qua *God become man*! So, the disagreement is rather misrepresented when expressed as though it is a debate about ‘in how much of the Jewish people’ the Divine Presence dwells! In any case, is it quite true that “Jews believe that the Divine Presence dwells in and among the Jewish people”? Certainly that is true, if it is not meant exclusively; but it sounds as though you are saying that Jews believe the Divine Presence to dwell *only* in and amongst the Jewish people – and that is surely not true. Even if – as the Kabbalists have it – ‘Kingship’ is identified with the ‘Divine Presence’ which is identified with ‘The Congregation of Israel’, what about: “[T]he whole world is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3)? And anyway, is there really anything of which it could be said that Jews – as a whole and without exception – believe it (even if we limited ourselves to only the central thinkers and authorities through the ages)?
And yes, First Things is an ecumenical magazine rather than a Christian magazine as such, although most of its content is Christian -- quite properly so, as there are more Christians than Jews. There are several Jewish board members of the Institute for Religion and Public Life which publishes FT, by the way, including the distinguished rabbi and Jewish scholar David Novak, also a regular contributor.
*********************
Mr. Goldman,
You are, I believe, mistaken on two counts. First, Christians do not believe Jesus was a Jew indwelt by the “Divine Presence” but rather that Jesus was “truly God.” See The Creed of Chalcedon below:
"We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood;
truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body;
consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood;
in all things like unto us, without sin;
begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood;
one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;
the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ;
as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us."
Second, Christians believe that the “Divine Presence,” that is God Himself, indwells the Christian people corporately. See the passage below from St. Paul’s letter to the Church at Ephesus:
"One in Christ
11Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."
"A principal difference separating Jews from Christians is that the Jews believe that the Divine Presence dwells in and among the Jewish people, while Christians concentrate this into a single Jew."
This seems silly. The NT makes it clear that Christians are also to be the "light of the world." And I suspect that even the proudest Jews would also admit that some Jews are more of a light than others.
And yes, "alien idea" was a poor choice of words: it was an aspiration always if not reality. I asked Kugel why the Davidic Kingdom should not be normative for Judaism even if was by simple measurement an unusual period in our history, and he of course allowed that there is no reason it should not be.
Although analogically -- and ethically -- they can be very similar, the similarities end there. Christ is too polarizing for Spengler's approach to be constructive. Christ's very binary statements allow for ambiguity of any sort when He is offered, or speaks, specifically. This was illustrated earlier last month with an attempt to bridge this divide, when David Layman produced a bombshell on this website. A piece that delved into shaky Criticism and ambiguous philosophy to perhaps "make room" for both Messiahs. The many lucid responses to that shaky attempt quickly drew attention to the obvious -- that without fundamentally deconstructing Christianity, there can be no workable synthesis or syncretistic touchstone that can bridge the traditional gap.
These are two very different religions in their systematics, with fundamentally different metaphysical structures. Aside from those sort of analogical "light to the world" mission statements, the similarities just aren't there structurally.
In terms of chasing "First Things", yes the Christians and Jews can work together. There are many, _many_ cultural issues that we can absolutely close ranks on, but that can't continue to the absorption of one religion into the other. The differences are real -- tautological -- and they need to be forthrightly acknowledged and respected.
I don't understand this sentiment. Given the awful treatment they have received, I would think that Jewish would want nothing more than to have their own society completely separate and out of the way of the rest of the world. I would certainly want this if I were a member of a persecuted group.
I ask in order to learn. Thank you, if you chose to respond. Also, thank you for the great article.
What would be your definition of "God's chosen people," of the people alive today?
(1) Is it all about a Jewish blood-line? Are a good majority of the Jews alive today of a Jewish blood-line?
(2) What about people who "convert in" to Judaism, and practice the religion/faith? Would you consider these people to be a part of "God's chosen."
(3) What about a very diluted blood-line? Exodus speaks of the children of Israel leaving Egypt as a "mixed multitude." The implication being that the blood-line was already being diluted.
It seems that God's intention in the Old Testament Scriptures, is to nurture a people that would worship Him. I'm sure blood-line is somehow significant, but it inevitably get's diluted. It seems to me that the heart of the matter is the faithfulness that God so desires.
(4) So, are "God's chosen people" today, those that practice the Jewish faith, and it has very little to do with blood-line?
(5) And then there are the Christian perspectives on this. That's another matter for another time.
Thank you.
"Mr. Goldman,
"I ask in order to learn. Thank you, if you chose to respond. Also, thank you for the great article."
"What would be your definition of "God's chosen people," of the people alive today?"
I am not David Goldman, but I'll take a crack at answering your questions from the perspective of an Orthodox Rabbi.
The Hebrew term is "Am Segulah", which means a "singled out people", which we interpret as singled out for the service of G-d.
Who constitute that people? The descendants of the sons of Jacob (through the maternal line), plus those that have converted to their faith and been naturalized into their people and their descendants (also through the maternal line).. Conversion is a legal process, akin to naturalization, in which the convert accepts the Commandments and promises to observe them, just as a naturalized American citizen accepts the Constitution and the laws based on it, and promises to follow them.
(1) Is it all about a Jewish blood-line? Are a good majority of the Jews alive today of a Jewish blood-line?
As stated above, it is not "all about a blood-line", but it is primarily about a blood line, plus converts and their descendants.
"(2) What about people who "convert in" to Judaism, and practice the religion/faith? Would you consider that about a very diluted blood-line? Exodus speaks of the children of Israel leaving Egypt as a "mixed multitude." The implication being that the blood-line was already being diluted."
Converts are naturalized citizens, and full members of the Jewish people, as are their descendants.
Bloodlines need not be diluted if there is strict endogamy. Current DNA analyses show that the overwhelming majority of Jewish males in priestly families have the same specific quirk in the Y chromosome, indicating that they are in face descendants of a common father-in our Tradition Aaron, brother of Moses. Similar DNA analyses indicate that European (Ashkenazic) Jewry is almost entirely the descendants of 4 original mothers from about 1900-plus years ago.
Your question about the identity of the "mixed multitude" is very astute. There is no definitive conclusion as to their identity in traditional Jewish sources, but there are 3 possibilities offered:
1. Egyptians who joined them on the way out of Egypt.
2. Non-Egyptians who were also oppressed, who joined them on the way out.
3. Children of a Jewish mother and Egyptian father who joined them on the way out.
No matter which suggestion we accept, and they are not mutually exclusive, they all went through the process of preparing for and accepting the Torah with the rest of the Jewish people on Mount Sinai, which transformed the clan of Jacob's descendants into the People of Israel, and is the basis for defining the legal requirements for conversion in Jewish law.
The generation that accepted the Torah on Mount Sinai was the original founding generation of the People rather than just a family or a clan and thus constituted the original full genetic pool.
"It seems that God's intention in the Old Testament Scriptures, is to nurture a people that would worship Him. I'm sure blood-line is somehow significant, but it inevitably gets diluted. It seems to me that the heart of the matter is the faithfulness that God so desires."
From the time the G-d tells Abraham to leave his ancestral home, the burning question arises as to who will succeed him and inherit his special mission in serving G-d. There are two broad possibilities: a community of adherents (i.e. faith believers) or a community of descendants, If the latter, then which descendants?
In Genesis 11:5, the text speaks of Abram and Sarai leaving Charan with "the souls that they had made in Charan". Jewish interpreters identify these as converts to monotheism that Abram and Sarai made. These converts are never heard from again, and a community of believing faithful is the first option to be rejected.
So now we have the question of which descendants of Abraham will succeed him: a collateral descendant (such as his nephew Lot), or a direct descendant (and if so which direct descendant)? Genesis 18:17-19 gives the answer:that it will be someone from his children and his household. Combined with Genesis 15:1-4, it is clear that only a direct descendant will inherit.
Later, of course, Issac inherits rather than Yishmael, and Jacob rather than Esau. With Jacob's sons, all descendants inherit.
Your implied question of "under what circumstances might the Covenant between G-d and Israel be broken" is a very good question, and became a burning issue after the destruction of the First Temple. See Ezekiel 20:31-32 where the Jewish People in their First Exile have asked Ezekiel if with the destruction of the First Temple, they can now be free of the Covenant. The clear answer is no, not now, not ever. (The entire 44 verse chapter is quite interesting.)
Please note that with the exile of the 10 Tribes before the destruction of the First Temple, a majority of the Jewish people has been "lost " into non-Jewish societies. The last chapters of Ezekiel indicate that at least some representatives of each lost Tribe will return in Messianic times, but that Age is subject to divergent opinions among our leading authorities.
(4) So, are "God's chosen people" today, those that practice the Jewish faith, and it has very little to do with blood-line?
The same as we always were: the descendants of those who accepted the
Torah on Mount Sinai, or who converted through the proper legal processes, and the descendants of both.
In Genesis 18:19, G-d says that He knows that Abraham "will command his children and his household after him, to keep the way of the L-rd and do justice and judgment". I hesitate to read the Divine Mind, but it seems clear that G-d is stating that transmission of obligation and mission through familial lines is primary.
(5) And then there are the Christian perspectives on this. That's another matter for another time.
Agreed.
Rabbi Chaim Frazer
This is an absolutely wonderful and thorough response. I'll take a Rabbi's response over Goldman's any day! (Just kidding.) I really appreciate that you shared you knowledge and your time with me. Thank you greatly.
The Jewish blood-line is profound. When a Jew says, "It's in my blood," it means something. My Christian tradition, and my practice in particular, stands in stark contrast to what I'm learning today.
Perhaps we can talk again someday.
I thought that was Christianity's function?