Jews and Christians Together. A. Christian van Gorder
while the larger issues of the rabbi’s faith forever consigned the rabbi—and all non-Messianic Jews—to an eternal torment because they have failed to accept Jesus Christ as Savior.
Chapter Three
Living in a Broken World
Rich men are often lean and poor men are often fat. When the sin was sweet the repentance is not so bitter. Of two evils choose the lesser, of two women choose the third.
—Yiddish Proverbs
Inherent Evil or Goodness
Most conservative Christians assume that people are born into sin with an inherently sinful nature. In contrast, Judaism embraces a positive view of human nature, rejecting any notion of original sin. While Adam fails God according to Genesis, his actions do not consign all humanity to an eternally inherent sinful nature. Each person will be judged on their own individual merits; the actions of Adam countless years ago have no bearing on the ontological character of people born into the world today. These two distinct views about the fundamental nature of humanity may also have a dramatic effect on how people view their own moral standing in the world.
Christians and Jews both teach that God created humanity from dust (Gen 2:7). The very name “Adam” (the word for earth is Adamah [אדמה], for the red clay) reminds humanity of this earthy and mundane status. One rabbinic commentary notes God did not create Homo sapiens until the sixth day as a lesson of humility because “even the lowly insect precedes man in the order of creation.”48 At the same time, individuals are invested with the image of God, and are cherished as God’s precious creation. The Divine has placed a divine breath (neshamah [נשמה]) within all mortals. God shares with Adam the task of naming the animals as a way of involving the first human in a “shared” process of creation (Gen 2:20).
God also calls humanity to “rule” as stewards over creation (Gen 1:28–29). The Psalmist exalts that God made humanity “a little lower than God [Elohim]” (Ps 8:5–6). Although there is some debate among modern Jewish scholars about the question of whether humans have such a thing as a “soul” these questions are relatively recent in origin. For most Jews, each person has a soul that makes them responsible for their own moral actions. The soul distinguishes humanity from other animals, who cannot be said to have a sense of moral responsibility but simply live their lives out of a sense of base instinct. For most Jews, this soul, which is a gift from God, is eternal and will one day return to its creator (Eccl 12:7). Therefore, one should engage in a life of soul-searching (Heshbon ha-nefesh [חשבון הנפש]) through devoted prayer and study.
Original Sin
Jewish tradition has taught that, since humanity is created through God’s power, it is essentially good in its basic form. Genesis declares that when God created humanity that it was “very good (Gen 1:31).” It is offensive to Jews to suggest that God created humanity to be inherently evil. They see life as a holy gift from God, even if humans continue to sin. Some Christians, but not all, would also find the suggestion that humanity is created inherently evil to be offensive.
Many Jews have often recited a daily morning prayer: “O God, the soul which you have implanted in me today is a pure one—you created it, you molded it, you breathed it into me, and you will someday take it away from me.”49 This positive view of human nature contrasts dramatically with some Christian views that people are basically sinful and born with a corrupted nature in need of salvation from an eternal fire of damnation. One scholar notes that “even during Biblical times there was no Temple sacrifice that addressed original sin nor did any of the prophets refer to it. For Jews, Christianity offers a solution to a Biblical problem that simply does not exist.”50
A consequence of Jewish ideas about humanity’s goodness is the fact that most Jews have avoided anti-materialist views which saw the body as evil, calling for asceticism free from the sin-generating stains of sexuality as described by St. Augustine and others. When Jewish teachers retell the story of Adam and Eve in Eden, the moral is often that those who rebel against God do so at their own peril. Eden was a time of ideal interactions between God and humanity; it is now an aspiration. The “curse” that came to Adam was not leveled against his soul or spirit but against the nature of his toil and its subsequent difficulty.
Many conservative Christians assume that all humanity was affected by Adam’s sin in Eden (Gen. 3:17–19) because all future generations were irreparably tainted by this decision of one person. In Judaism, sin is a human action for which every individual is responsible. Sin is not an ontological condition but relates to ethical actions and individual choices. For many conservative Christians, apart from Christ, humanity is incapable of reformation or moral goodness. In contrast, Judaism teaches that every command (mitzvah [מצוה]) and the practice of every ritual leads progressively to a more moral life. Even though everyone sins (Eccl. 7:20), humans can also overcome their errors through a life of service and just action.
Considering this emphasis on individual, personal responsibility, it is ironic that one of the major critiques of Judaism extended by some is that Jews are too rooted in a communitarian sensibility when thinking about how an individual relates to God. The Jewish view of sin is rooted in intentional choices that make each of us responsible for our own actions and choices. Because individuals are made in God’s image, they brim with the potential for loving acts of kindness (gemilut chasadim [גמילות חסדים]). Any moral act imitates God’s righteous behavior. Just as God covered Adam and Eve after their sin in the Garden of Eden, so should we graciously clothe those who sin with a heart of acceptance and forgiveness. In contrast, some Christians claim that we can do no acts to please God until our basic sin-nature is transformed by Christ.
The two most familiar Hebrew words used to describe what some conservative Christians call “sin” in the Bible are the terms chet (חטא) and avon (עון). The first term speaks of a mistake (Exod 34:7); the second term might better be translated as a “transgression.” Such actions affect our relationship with God and bring dishonor to the divine name.
Obviously, both faiths recognize that evil exists in our world filled with suffering and woe. A traditional Jewish view that humanity is inherently good, however, provides a safeguard against any claim that God is responsible for human evil. God has given all of us free moral agency and a mission in life to be moral and every moment of life offers one the opportunity to practice tikkun olam (תקון עולם)—repairing the world—and to fulfill the mission of being “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (mamlechet kohanim v’goy kadosh [ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש]; Exod 19:6).
Judaism’s ritual calendar reinforces the need to repent for past mistakes and strives to be virtuous in words and actions. Whenever a person repents (teshuvah [תשובה]), they are seeking, in a life-long process, to enter God’s “gates of repentance,” which are always open to those who are sincere and open-hearted. Repentance for mistakes and moral sins is at the heart of the commemoration of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Worshippers ask a God of grace and mercy to forgive them from misdeeds (avon), for deliberate acts of rebellion (pesha [פשע], literally a “crime”), and for mistakes that may have been inadvertent (chet [חטא]).
The experience of forgiveness is also different based on the nature of a specific sin. For those sins that are bein adam l’makom (בין אדם למקום)—“between humans and God”—, such as ritual transgressions or omissions, a person prays directly to God. For sins that are bein adam l’chaveiro (בין אדם לחברו)—“between fellow humans”—however, (such as gossip, theft, etc.), the tradition is that Jews should directly entreat those they have offended before they can proceed to God in worship.
In Judaism, individual sins are usually framed within a communal context of a shared responsibility. The prophets Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah speak of the rottenness of sin in a communitarian sense (see Hos 5:1; Isa 1:15). God judged the entire people of Israel for individual acts of transgression. Such a view dramatically affects any ideas about the role of the Levitical priesthood and teachings about national atonement through sacrifice. Yet, the Bible does not create an artificial barrier between “sin”