INTRODUCTION

ONE OF THE most pervasive conditions of modern life is empirical pluralism. Social, cultural, and religious diversities pursue us relentlessly today. The Emancipation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries moved most Western Jews out of their insulated ghettoes, granted them citizenship, and welcomed their participation in their mainstream national cultures, thus inevitably increasing their contact with their non-Jewish neighbours. In Europe and America, this meant closer, more harmonious, and more frequent interaction with Christians and Christianity. Even Jewish statehood, born out of the deep desire to free the Jewish people from subordination to non-Jews, willy-nilly has brought about unprecedented requirements for Jewish interaction with Christians and Christianity. Israel now assumes sovereign responsibility for the welfare and rights of more than 140,000 individual Christian citizens as well as numerous churches. And as the visits to Israel of Popes John Paul II in 2000 and Benedict XVI in 2009 have demonstrated, Israelis now must interact with Church officials to find respectful relations and common ground. This is true not only in the realm of realpolitik, but also in the religious domain, as the Chief Rabbinate meets regularly with high-level Vatican and Protestant clergy from abroad to discuss issues of mutual spiritual and practical concern.

Of course Jews and Christians met in medieval times also, but modernity saturates us with pluralistic interaction of a frequency, intensity, and quality not experienced in the past. The contemporary forces for social diversity are inescapable, and avoiding the religious other is impossible for a modern Jew— of any stripe.

The European Enlightenment created a vast secular space for the citizens of the new world. Since the French Revolution Jews and Christians have been meeting, speaking, and co-operating with each other in the offices of their professions, the corridors of government, the lecture halls of universities, and the public areas of their cities primarily as fraternal secularists. They have been pluralists who all too often were willing to trade their religious identities for the dream of social equality and mutual dignity. ‘Be a Jew in the home and a man on the street’ became the watchword for many Enlightenment Jews.

OUR FRIEND and colleague Raphael Jospe has presented a moving case in support of a non-relativistic religious pluralism. He seeks to ground that admirable stance in the sources of Judaism. We are not convinced by his arguments and we will show why this is the case.

It is important to be clear on matters of terminology. By ‘relativism’ we understand (following the American Heritage Dictionary) the view that holds that ‘conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them’. By ‘religious pluralism’ we understand the normative (as opposed to simply descriptive) claim that different religions make equally correct truth-claims, that they are equally acceptable. Assuming that he accepts these definitions, it is obvious that it would be hard for Jospe to defend religious pluralism without also adopting the relativistic stance that no one religion teaches truth—that in terms of truth and falsity there is no reason to prefer Judaism over Islam or Christianity, or over African, Native American, or South-East Asian religions as well. Jospe's thesis is that ‘the Jewish concept of the chosen people is not externally directed, implying that Jews in fact are better than other people; rather, chosenness is internally directed, challenging Jews to become better people’. We agree with this statement, but it also reflects much of what separates us and why we think that his argument either proves nothing that anyone would disagree with or must fail. He bases his discussion on the centrality of the Jewish people, moving from the people to their Torah. In a very real sense this move makes his argument for him. It is no challenge to show that biblical and many rabbinic expositions of the doctrine of election do not imply that Jews are in any inherent fashion superior to non-Jews. After all, God created all humanity in the divine image and can hardly be uninterested in the fate and spiritual and physical wellbeing of non-Jews. Since, on many readings (such as those of Isaiah and Maimonides3) distinctions between Jew and non-Jew will melt away in the messianic era, the notion of election poses a fairly small challenge to Jospe's pluralism.

THE QUESTION OF OTHER RELIGIONS

SINCE JEWS inevitably interact with adherents of other religions, it is inevitable that halakhists (experts in Jewish law) have had to judge what Jews are required to do in their various dealings with those adherents of other religions. Halakhists have also had to judge whether or not the adherents of these other religions are practising what Judaism teaches ought or ought not to be practised by all human beings. In fact, whether other religions teach their adherents to live up to these standards largely determines the way halakhists judge how Jews should treat adherents of those religions. In this essay I examine how Maimonides advocates that Jews should treat Christians. Since Maimonides is the most theological of all the halakhists and the one most interested in the ideas that underlie religious praxis, I will also examine how informed he is about the ideas underlying the non-Jewish practices he approves or disapproves of.

To understand how Maimonides judges Christianity and the normative implications of that judgement, we need to ask some basic questions. These initial questions, though, must be asked about any religion other than Judaism, since Christianity is neither the only other religion Jews have had to deal with, nor is it even the first of those other religions. Thus Maimonides’ rulings about Christianity always deal with it in comparison to Islam and to ‘paganism’ (which Maimonides seems to think is all of a piece). Islam and Christianity are, For Maimonides, the two other rival religions his contemporary Jews must still take seriously, just as paganism was the rival religion Jews had to take seriously before the rise of either Christianity or Islam, even if paganism per se is no longer encountered by Jews. And we shall see in due course that the question of whether paganism is still present in Christianity or Islam is of great concern to Maimonides when differentiating between these two other religions and their adherents. It makes all the difference in the world to Jews whether another religion is ‘pagan’ or not. All paganism, whether involving the worship of a plurality of gods (polytheism) or the use of images in worship (idolatry), is to be combated in every way. But are all non-Jewish religions polytheistic and are all their adherents idolaters?

RELIGIOUS EXCLUSIVISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

HISTORICAL religions cover a broad spectrum of beliefs about the world and about God that are represented in symbols, myths, and practices. In this spectrum, each religion presents a unique world picture, incompatible with the others. Every religion, at least in its traditional garb, is exclusive—it claims to be the only true religion, presenting the most accurate picture of God and of reality. My main thesis is that religious exclusivism is a hard position to defend philosophically and that a pluralistic thesis that advocates the inner value of different religions is logically preferable. With respect to Judaism, however, pluralism entails a conceptual revolution within the tradition.

The motivation for religious exclusivism is clear. First, through this approach, believers convey their absolute commitment to their religion and their faith. For many, exclusivism conveys acceptance of their religion's sole and absolute authority, interpreted to mean that all other religions have no share in the truth. Exclusivism, then, reflects the believers’ religious pathos.

Second, exclusivism appears as ‘coherent and rational’, and believers who fail to endorse it appear to express doubts about the validity of their faith. This claim relies on two assumptions: (1)my faith is valid and (2)my faith is incompatible with all others. Hence other faiths are invalid. The second assumption is the crucial one for this argument, for without it the conclusion would be redundant, and believers could sustain the validity of their own faith without necessarily negating the validity of others. The incompatibility of various religions relates to two constitutive aspects: their factual and metaphysical beliefs about the world and about God and their system of practical obligations. This crucial assumption, then, compels the conclusion that not all religions can be true, implying the dismissal of interreligious pluralism as a valid possibility. Third, every religion offers a way to salvation attainable only through God's true revelation. Salvation as the purpose of religion, then, compels religious exclusivism. These justifications of religious exclusivism suggest that it conveys the beliefs of the faithful more successfully, in addition to possessing a sound theoretical foundation.

THE genesis of this book took place when twenty-five scholars of Jewish philosophy, history, education, and halakhah (Jewish law) met at the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania in June 2005. They came from the United States, Israel, Canada, and Europe to discuss the theological challenges that inform Jewish attitudes to other religions and how Jewish thought and experience could serve as guides to contemporary life in which Jews interact with non-Jews. The conference was an initiative of the Elijah Interfaith Institute, headed by Alon Goshen-Gottstein, and grew out of the recognition that recent advances in interfaith work required serious progress in Jewish theology if it was to have contemporary credibility. A preliminary conference at Boston College in Brighton, Massachusetts was hosted by Ruth Langer, one of the contributors to this volume. The vision and commitment developed from that meeting found expression in the Scranton conference, hosted by Marc Shapiro, Professor of Jewish Studies at Scranton. The conference proved an occasion for rich and variegated reflection on Jewish relations with non-Jews, Judaism's norms regarding other religions, and the nature of Jewish uniqueness and identity. Because of the remarkable quality of the conference discourse, Alon Goshen-Gottstein and I realized that many of its fruits should be shared on a broader level to stimulate continuing reflection of the issues. We hope this volume achieves this objective.

The conference title, ‘Towards a Contemporary Jewish Theology of World Religions’, set the agenda for the project. Because of traditional Judaism's focus on halakhah and modern Jewish scholarship's emphasis on historical analysis, Jews have not yet turned their attention to a systematic—or even a nonsystematic, but sufficiently nuanced—body of thought regarding contemporary religious ‘Otherness’ and how Jews can appropriately understand and recognize other religions. Today's world differs radically from the biblical, talmudic, and medieval eras. Traditional precedents for this enquiry need to be supplemented and sometimes even supplanted. The Emancipation brought Jews into the mainstream of non-Jewish and secular societies, so that Jews today live, work, and interact with non-Jews—particularly Christians and Muslims— on a level fundamentally different from that of previous periods. Christianity and Christians no longer pose the threats to Judaism and the Jewish people that they once did, while some interpretations of Islam and many Muslims today see Judaism, Jews, and Israel as enemies.

AN IMPULSE to compose concluding reflections arose as I reviewed the chapters in their final form. After reading them, I felt a profound sense of gratitude for all the project's collaborators—the contributors and especially Eugene Korn, whose initiative and drive were the necessary condition for this volume to take shape. I also realized what a rich collection we have produced and how much we have accomplished intellectually, religiously, and spiritually by bringing the contributors together and completing this project. More precisely, it was the high quality of the essays that led me to reflect on whether we can articulate conclusions emerging from our project, beyond the individual contributions. It is not in the nature of this type of project to have conclusions, but I can point to where the discussion has moved forward, how it has been reframed, and how it has opened up new perspectives. I think it is best to offer such reflections personally—in the first person singular. Reflections and impressions are subjective, relating always to a previous point of reference associated with an individual. Identifying core themes and revisiting discussions as rich as ours are both intuitive and selective and rely on the reviewer's personal choices. While my colleagues may agree with some or most of what follows, each one would probably offer his or her concluding reflections and highlight different dimensions of the project. What follows is therefore my way of saying thank you to all my collaborators and of acknowledging where my thinking has moved forward, and how a synthetic view of our project allows me to continue thinking about the issues that initially drove this project.

WORLD RELIGIONS AND THE RELIGIOUS OTHER: TWO PROJECT FORMULATIONS

When the project was originally conceived, it was entitled ‘Towards a Jewish Theology of the Religious Other’, as Meir Sendor reminds us in his quote and subsequent challenge of a key sentence from the mission statement of the Scranton conference. The title of this volume refers not to the ‘religious Other’, but to ‘world religions’. We have learned that there are two different discourses that flow from each of these conceptualizations.

ARECENT article in The Boston Globe highlighting the struggle within the Muslim community worldwide to promote tolerance of other religions described Saudi scholar Hasan al-Malki, as ‘one of the country's most daring voices for moderation and tolerance’. Al-Malki encouraged Muslim tolerance of other faiths on the basis of precedent: ‘The prophet sat with Jews. He treated non-Muslims as though they were Muslims. This is the real Islam.’ Jews experienced at interfaith dialogue can appreciate Al-Malki's concern to find precedent within his tradition for tolerant be haviour. We might also smile at his charming expression, that tolerance of others means treating ‘non-Muslims as though they were Muslims’: a statement for a newspaper, not a technical theological formulation. He is expressing inclusiveness, however overstated, and he conveys a poetically concise and warm-hearted hospitality. We ourselves might be wary, on several counts, of defining tolerance in terms of treating non-Jews as though they were Jews. Even so, we might give thought to the underlying attitudes and perspectives that drive Jewish interfaith initiatives, and ask ourselves whether we, too, ever get free of such parochialism, and whether we should.

A recent scholarly work of significant value to interfaith understanding between Jews and Christians, and to which several participants in this volume contributed, is entitled Christianity in Jewish Terms. The title itself is noteworthy for its precision. Co-editor David Novak warns in his introduction that ‘participants in Jewish–Christian dialogue must be careful to avoid five negative conditions’, among which he includes syncretism’ and ‘relativism’. While many contributors to the volume invest great care in offering comparisons of Jewish and Christian doctrine and practice that avoid these pitfalls, a careful analysis of several otherwise thoughtful articles demonstrates that syncretism and relativism are not at all easy to filter out, and both can operate surreptitiously in even the most vigilant approaches to other religions. The results can be a subtle example of treating non-Jews as though they were Jews, or treating Jews as though they were non-Jews. What is so dangerous about syncretism and relativism in our relations with those of other religions?

In this regard, the mission statement of the conference that gave rise to the present volume deserves careful consideration. We were told that ‘a fresh examination of these issues, from a more neutral historical vantage point, is a deep need of the Jewish religion and of the Jewish community’.

THEOLOGY of religions is an area of reflection that has grown in prominence in recent years. Social and political changes, dating from before the Second World War, have given new urgency to relations between faiths and their practitioners. The marked increase in interfaith activity makes reflection on the status of other religions a pressing concern. The great increase in such activity has led to the identification and blossoming of this area as a distinct sub-field of theology. Regardless of the religion from whose perspective such reflection is undertaken, any contemporary theology of religions draws from perspectives articulated throughout that religion's history. Yet the field of theology of religions offers perspectives on other religions that are appropriate to contemporary social realities often radically different from those prevailing in earlier periods. This does not automatically mean that a pluralistic perspective that recognizes the other's religion is taken or that a relativistic perspective of one's own religion need be adopted, but it does mean that the challenges of religious pluralism loom large on the theological horizon. Even if the theologian rejects a pluralistic position, he or she is forced to state a position in dialogue with pluralistic theologians. Theology of religions has grown in the shadow of religious pluralism and the increase in interfaith dialogue, and hence it provides the framework for thinking through one's views of other religions with an emphasis on the challenges of religious pluralism. These include the full or partial validation of other religions and a reframing of the unique position, role, and mission of one's own religion.

The discipline of theology of religions grew initially on Christian soil. More than any other thinkers, Christians of all denominations have engaged with the issues and developed the discipline. This is as true of the work of individual theologians as it is of church documents, among which the Second Vatican Council's Nostra aetate takes pride of place. Jewish theologians and others have entered the discussion following the lead, and in many cases also the language and categories, of Christian scholars and thinkers.

THE CHALLENGE OF TOLERATION VERSUS PLURALISM: ALEXANDER ALTMANN AND AVI SAGI

IN HIS 1957 lecture before the Council of Christians and Jews in London, my teacher Alexander Altmann discussed tolerance and the Jewish tradition. In Altmann's analysis, Jews in the biblical and rabbinic periods found ways to tolerate non-Jews while rejecting internal toleration of Jewish dissent. Altmann then argued that Jews and Christians today meet on secular ground, while their theologies remain mutually exclusive. Therefore, he concluded, although theologically Jews and Christians cannot ‘tolerate’ each other's religions, they need each other for a common stand in the face of contemporary ‘virulent paganism’. Thus, while theology divides; religion, which is broader than theology, can bring the two groups together by emulating God's love.

Altmann's lecture, of course, was given prior to the radical changes in Christian–Jewish relationships since Vatican II, and could not take into account later developments. He questioned the possibility of theological toleration; half a century later, we face the question of whether we can move from mere toleration to a pluralistic acceptance of each other. Nevertheless, Altmann's perceptive distinction of internal or intra-Jewish toleration of dissent from external, interreligious toleration continues to challenge Jews involved in interreligious dialogue and promoting pluralism today, and was a problem explicitly addressed some two centuries previously by Moses Mendelssohn, on whose thought Altmann was the leading authority.

John Locke had argued that if the state cannot religiously coerce the Jew, it certainly cannot coerce dissenting Christians:

Mendelssohn inverted Locke's argument when he opposed the rabbinic ban of excommunication (ḥerem): if the Jews now enjoy external toleration by the Christians among whom they live, how can they not practise internal toleration of dissenting opinion within their own community?

NO CULTURAL encounter can be said to have contributed as much to the shaping of Judaism over the past millennium as that of Israel and Islam. Indeed, the rise of the Crescent began a crucial period in the development of Jewish civilization that has left an abiding mark on all subsequent generations in the areas of literary, legal, and intellectual activity. Historically the religion of the Quran was initially inspired by its biblical forerunner, but it gradually outgrew its parent faith. Although it was tacitly accepted, Islam's ensuing cultural ascendancy was never openly recognized by the Sages of Israel, who continued to oscillate between attitudes of refusal and receptivity towards the new religion.

In a certain sense this dialectic movement was dictated by the midrashic portrayal of the biblical Ishmael, who was later to become the traditional eponym of the Arabs in medieval Jewish literature. Ishmael is one of the few biblical figures of whom no spoken word is reported, while his name means ‘hearing’ (Heb.: yishma, ‘shall hear’, el, ‘God’). In the Midrash he is given as an example of ‘one whose name was fair but whose deeds were foul … his name implies “he hearkens to God” but he does not hearken’. This statement set the tone for subsequent Jewish perceptions of Muslim otherness: outwardly Islam has nothing to say, its religious discourse is devoid of any authenticity; yet inwardly the Islamic message is full of eloquence for one who knows how to listen.

It is perhaps because the Ishmaelites were nomads that they came to be identified in rabbinic literature with the ancestors of the Arabs, although there is no historical basis for this association. So strong was this identification by the time of Muhammad that the Muslim prophet designates Ishmael as the founder of the Arab sanctuary at Mecca and calls Jesus ‘Isa’; that is, Esau, the traditional ancestor of Christendom.