Episode 77: Rabbi David Stern Part 2
When Jews and Christians engage in interfaith dialogue, the most common questions asked are about Jesus. Jesus was Jewish, Jewish people respect Jesus, but Christians believe Jesus is the divine son of God. These views on Jesus are a point of departure between the two faiths. So how can you can be totally faithful to your religion and still understand and respect another? Listen to George's conversation with Rabbi David Stern today on Good God.
Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.
George Mason: Christians and Jews worship the same God, share parts of the same Bible, and in fact claim Jesus in different ways. We'll be talking with Rabbi David Stern about some of those similarities and differences on Good God. Stay tuned!
George Mason: Welcome to Good God: Conversations That Matter About Faith and Public Life. I'm George Mason, your host, and I'm thrilled to have back on the program with us today Rabbi David Stern, my good friend and the senior rabbi of Temple Emmanuel.
George Mason: David, we got started in some fascinating conversation in the last episode, and I think it'd be fun to turn it to the theological just now.
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: We've talked about the sociological somewhat, we've talked about religious liberty, and the place of our religious communities in society, and how we are trying to navigate identity versus relevance.
David Stern: Yeah, yep.
George Mason: Those sorts of things. This has always been true in our Biblical tradition and in our communities over time as we've tried to be faithful, but we both share a part of the Christian Bible; the Hebrew Bible being, of course, our Old Testament. Let's just talk about some of these things that we have both in common and different from one another so that people can realize, instead of making grand conclusions, I might say-
David Stern: Yep.
George Mason: About the Old Testament, "God is this, and Jews believe that."
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: "They're legalists and we're full of grace," and you know, typical things that we talk about.
David Stern: Right, right, right.
George Mason: The Hebrew Bible is what we call the Old Testament. When you hear us use language of "Old Testament", what happens in your mind?
David Stern: In a way, it's become such sort of lingua franca-
George Mason: Yeah.
David Stern: In the English language and in the American context, that it doesn't really disturb that much. We don't encourage that language in our own community-
George Mason: Of course.
David Stern: Because, as you well know, the notion of Old Testament implies the existence of a New and superseding testament...
George Mason: This is a very important word, supersession, which is to say that after Jesus, Christians came along and became the real Israel because the old Israel, Jews who persist in the Old Israel are really part of what failed.
David Stern: Correct.
George Mason: And therefore, the new community was brought to pass, and we are it.
David Stern: Right. Would you want the old Rice Krispies or the new Rice Krispies?
George Mason: Exactly.
David Stern: As I like to say.
George Mason: Right, right.
David Stern: It ends up being, of course, reverse definition. So, we always say, "Well, what Christians call the Old Testament, we call..."
George Mason: Yes!
David Stern: Right?
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: And Hebrew Bible is sometimes used, as you've pointed out. Hebrew Bible is a little confusing sometimes when people are reading it in English, and how is that the Hebrew Bible?
George Mason: Exactly.
David Stern: Meaning, bible of the Hebrews as opposed to Bible currently being read in the Hebrew language.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: The sort of internal Jewish communal word for it is Tanakh, which comes from a Hebrew acronym which names the three sections: Torah, Prophets and Writings. But that's an example of a Jew living in a non-Jewish world, even as it comes to how Jewish things are labeled.
George Mason: Yes, yes. We have the problem historically, therefore, of needing to figure out, we have language of Old Testament and New Testament; how do we have a vital spiritual community that is connected to the Hebrew tradition, and ongoing connected to a vital living Jewish faith, without being supersessionist? This is part of our big challenge, and we have failed through generations of this over and over again, and it is yet an important thing for us to make.
George Mason: The challenge, I think, is flipped for you, right? And that is: what do we make of the presence of Christians as people who claim that they are linked up to our tradition, but they seem to be very different in the way that they express their faith?
George Mason: How do you wrestle with that theologically?
David Stern: I think that the first... I'll give you a sociological answer first, and then the theological answer. I think sociologically, the first thing that each of us is responsible for is making sure that our folks don't fall into some easy, lazy denigration of the other... or even if it's not denigration, a sort of making the other a monolith, you know.
George Mason: Yes.
David Stern: For a Jew to reduce Christianity to a bumper sticker, or vice versa.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: I think that's the first thing we're responsible for, is to just consistently bring people into this complexity of theological relationship, and not let them see us settling for that kind of lazy stuff.
George Mason: Yes, mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Stern: And that's been part of the joy of this relationship for me, is that we never settle for the lazy stuff.
David Stern: For me, I see Christianity as a development from Judaism that, like all developments, has to, to some extent, reject its forebear. It has to! Otherwise, it doesn't distinguish itself.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: And historians will argue over who does the distinguishing, and exactly in which generation that happens, and...
George Mason: Yes, of course.
David Stern: How that develops, and you know a lot more about that than I do, but I'm not offended by that rejection, because I see the rejection as necessary to the development of this faith community that has brought tremendous gifts to the world.
George Mason: Yes.
David Stern: You and I have sometimes differed, and we haven't talked about it recently...
George Mason: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Stern: You and I have sometimes differed about whether there can be these simultaneous truths, or whether there is an ultimate truth and we'll find out in the great by-and-by, right?
George Mason: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Stern: But in the meantime, we should be humble enough to tolerate each other's truth claim.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: Right? So, those are two sort of different epistemological stances. One is, there is an absolute truth, but we are human beings and we only have partial access to it, so we should therefore act humbly.
George Mason: Yes.
David Stern: The other is that they may not be exclusive truth claims because they're by definition partial...
George Mason: Yes, mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Stern: Either of those, it seems to me, is a path to mutual growth and mutual understanding.
George Mason: Sure. As long as the claim to absolute truth doesn't require that you have mine, not yours.
David Stern: Correct.
George Mason: Right? You know?
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: It's still what we would call an eschatological truth.
David Stern: Correct!
George Mason: That is to say, yet to be revealed.
David Stern: Yes.
George Mason: And so, we're working toward that. And that has to do with, I think, this sense that comes from monotheism generally and that is, reality is whole. You know, ultimately.
David Stern: Yes.
George Mason: Our experience of it is partial.
David Stern: Correct.
George Mason: But there is a wholeness that we can depend upon and that we believe is part of our vision of a broken world that is being promised to be healed in the end.
David Stern: I agree, and for me, and I'm not trying to speak for all, certainly not for all Jews or all Rabbis, or probably for my own whole family, but the...
David Stern: To me, the existence of God in and of itself, to me, says... It gives me the blessing of uncertainty. Or, it's my certainty that God exists, and because God is the only supreme, and God is the only unified and unifier, my faith in God means that by definition, I don't know. Because I'm not God.
George Mason: Yes.
David Stern: Right? So, you can see how diametrically opposed positions could come from the same conviction. Right?
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: Some could say, "Because God exists, I have certainty about every sub-proposition."
George Mason: Mm-hmm (affirmative), right.
David Stern: My position would be that, because I believe in a God who is greater than any human being or any collection of human beings, because God exists, all sub-propositions are, to me, uncertain.
George Mason: Well, let's root this back in the Biblical tradition, all right? Let's go to the burning bush, all right?
David Stern: Yep.
George Mason: Here, God calls to Moses out of the bush, and Moses wants to know, "Who are you?"
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: God retains subjectivity, and the power of God's own name in delivering the Tetragrammaton, that, "I am who I am, I am that I am, I will be who I will be..."
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: All of these sort of forms of the verb...
David Stern: Yep!
George Mason: But this sort of, behind that, seems to me to be this idea of, "I'm going to retain the right of my knowledge of myself, and you don't need to know more than That I Am."
David Stern: "And what I tell you to do."
George Mason: "And what I tell you to do," exactly!
David Stern: Yeah.
George Mason: So, there seems to be a history of this saying the name of God, that comes out of that, right?
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: That it's presumptuous for us to say the name of God, and-
David Stern: Some level of Divine Mystery is always retained.
George Mason: Right. So, if that's true, because the ultimate truth and subjectivity is with God and not with us, then for us to claim certainty about things, about God, about the world, is again, presumptuous.
David Stern: That would be my take, and I think that the... and you could root that anywhere. Not anywhere, but you could root that... It's one of the many parallels between the burning bush and the revelation at Sinai. Right? What does it mean that the people are kept at a distance? What does it mean that this happens in thunder and cloud?
David Stern: The subsequent Rabbinic interpreters argue about how much of the 10 Commandments the people actually heard directly, and how much was moderated by Moses.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: That, to me, is part of the beauty and excitement of the tradition, is that recognition. Because that allows for ongoing discovery, and it insists on ongoing humility. I think we get... where we get tripped up, is when we take, when we translate what might be our faith in the certainty of God's existence into faith in the certainty of our own positions.
George Mason: Yeah, yeah. Well, and we know, in our own experiences of preachers, that there is what we say, and there is what people hear.
David Stern: Right. Right!
George Mason: And are you going to claim that there is an objective word here, that once spoken, is fixed? Or, is it not dynamic in such a way that it meets people in different places, and when they report on what they have heard, it doesn't come out always the same?
David Stern: Game of telephone!
George Mason: It's absolutely remarkable, isn't it?
David Stern: Yeah.
George Mason: I mean, sometimes you get this experience, I'm sure; afterward, you're greeting people, and, you know, "What you said about this really meant..."
George Mason: Don't believe I said that! I'm really, really struggling to remember how it might be that you're... It's just different!
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: Anyway, I think that there's some part of that, that significance there, that we don't know fully what we're saying in an absolute sense, but there is this dynamic of the word that is alive. And so, it doesn't disturb me that there are different reports of that at Sinai. Or, for example, at Jesus' baptism.
David Stern: Hm.
George Mason: Or on the Mount of Transfiguration.
David Stern: Or contrasting gospels!
George Mason: Or contrasting gospels. But there are reports, "There was a voice from Heaven," you know. And in one case, it was heard by everyone; in another, by the Disciples; in another, just by Jesus, you know? Well, what was it? You know? Well...
David Stern: Yes. Well, and what that demands of us, then... because we then have to be ready to answer the question.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: "Well, David or George, if I'm not coming to you for certainty..."
George Mason: Yes.
David Stern: "Why am I coming?"
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: "If I'm not coming to you to teach me the bright, clear line of this tradition... I don't need to come to church for multivocality."
George Mason: What you do have to come to church for, or to synagogue, is you need to be able to come to gain the capacity to live with uncertainty with confidence and faith and courage in the course of this life, right?
David Stern: And a community that supports you on that path!
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: That you're not walking that path alone.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: And to be open to the wisdom that comes from humility, and the discovery that comes from curiosity. Because that's the other thing about certainty; certainty precludes curiosity!
George Mason: Right! It just shuts down. "So, why do I need to learn more?"
David Stern: Right!
George Mason: "Because I already know."
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: And that's a really dangerous thing. Whether you are a minister, a rabbi, a politician, a scholar, once you know, then you think you have the power to act upon that in a way that loses humility and doesn't make room for growth and change still.
George Mason: Well, let's pick this up after the break, because I want to go back to the whole idea of truth, and then relate it to Jesus, as well, which is one of the most important questions between Jews and Christians, because we both have Jesus in common and we have differences.
David Stern: Beautiful.
George Mason: All right. We'll be right back.
David Stern: Thank you.
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George Mason: We're back with David Stern. David, we have together been in dialogues before audiences in all sorts of places; here at Wilshire, at Temple, at a community college, at different places, right? And it's always interesting to me that we come up against a moment when people want to ask questions, and we always have to get to the difference we have over Jesus.
David Stern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
George Mason: Sometimes, the question is simple and straightforward as someone in the Jewish community saying, "Do you think I'm going to Hell because I don't believe in Jesus?"
David Stern: Mm-hmm (affirmative), right.
George Mason: There is an important thing to say, and that is, you know, we have Jesus in common in the sense that He was always a Jew, never a Christian.
David Stern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
George Mason: That seems so obvious, but we lose that along the way. And yet, we divide over the significance of who He is and His role in our traditions. Jesus said, in one of the most challenging passages, I think, for Jewish and Christian relationships, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
George Mason: And this has been taken by Christians through the years to have been a point of departure. We've talked earlier about truth being provisional and all of that; here is Jesus saying, "I am the truth," you know.
David Stern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
George Mason: Now, on the positive side, you can say, "Well, what he's arguing there is that truth is personal, and that it can only be known in a kind of relational way, and a following that is a matter of discipleship and ethical path that is to be taken." But in another way, it's still challenging because it does speak to this Christian conviction that Jesus is uniquely given by God a role to lead people to the life to come.
George Mason: So, when you hear that text, and you've heard it all through your life of ministry, what comes to your mind? How do you hear it with Jewish ears? Do you hear it mostly through the resonance of people arguing for an exclusivity as Christians, or do you hear it differently as a Jew based upon what you know to be the resonance from Jewish tradition?
David Stern: I hear it mostly as rejection.
George Mason: Okay!
David Stern: As exclusion.
George Mason: All right.
David Stern: Now, I don't know... I don't quiz my Christian friends as to how important that verse is to them, whether it's defining for them.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: It doesn't feel ambiguous to me. And it feels very clearly a statement of, "I am the way, and folks have a choice as to whether they're going to follow me as the way."
George Mason: Sure, sure. So, I think that is the way it has been used, and it is also true that it comes in the Gospel of John...
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: Which is the latest gospel of the four.
David Stern: Yep, right.
George Mason: The gospel wherein the conversation is really a kind of wrestling with the fact that Jews who have believed in Jesus, and those who did not put their trust in Jesus, are having a family argument here.
David Stern: Yep! Right.
George Mason: And so, there is a justification going on for those Jews who believed in Jesus, and making a universal claim about it, where in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it's not quite as clear about that.
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: So, I'll start there, and say yes, there is a sense of exclusivity that goes along with that gospel and that has a kind of anti-Jewish feel to it.
David Stern: Right!
George Mason: On the other hand, when I read that text more deeply, what I hear is, when it says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," I hear not three things, but one; that is, "I am the true way of life." What is way in Hebrew tradition? This Haggadah.
David Stern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
George Mason: This pattern of the Commandments that says, "My way of understanding this is the true way of understanding it, and if you follow in this way-"
David Stern: This way, mm-hmm (affirmative).
George Mason: "You will experience the life that is so intended."
David Stern: Got it!
George Mason: "That God has given me this role of being able to embody this tradition in this way," and as such, He is making claims that a rabbi might make. Clearly not as deferential as one might, be He was claimed to have been, "Who is this rabbi that speaks with such authority?" Right?
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: Who does claim so much like that. So, when I hear that, I hear it still rooted in the language of a Hebrew mindset, but it has then been abstracted into a post-Jewish world, where it then becomes more about going to Heaven when you die than being part of a community that is being led to the age to come by this way of life.
George Mason: I think it's an interesting wrestling that we have to have as Christians, when we read that text; are we going to try to find the Hebraic mindset in it, or are we going to just move to the exclusive one?
David Stern: Well, and even with the best... My worry would be, I mean, you and I have talked about this. Some of it comes to how we read scripture.
George Mason: Yeah.
David Stern: I, in the Reform movement, can look at a verse from the Hebrew Bible or from the New Testament and say, "That verse reflects a certain place and a certain time, and it doesn't speak a timeless truth."
George Mason: Right! Right.
David Stern: That's how I look at that verse.
George Mason: Of course.
David Stern: Because I worry, and also, I'll push back a little bit.
George Mason: Sure.
David Stern: I don't think a rabbi would ever have made that statement.
George Mason: Okay.
David Stern: Because... the sort of having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too issue is, on the one hand, the "I am," right? As you said, that this is a path to salvation and to relationship with God through the person.
George Mason: Yes.
David Stern: And then, in the next breath, un-couple it from the person and say it's really about the way.
George Mason: Yes, right, right.
David Stern: And there's a certain tension there that isn't easy to revolve.
George Mason: Especially when you've had the "I am," which connects to... right?
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: To the tradition of...
David Stern: So, I'm not saying the language isn't, doesn't have echoes to it.
George Mason: Resonance.
David Stern: Resonance to it.
George Mason: Sure, sure, right.
David Stern: But I think that for many Jews, the issue, there specifically is the interposition of the personal.
George Mason: Right, right.
David Stern: Frankly, the statement wouldn't have its power if the "I am" were changed to "This is."
George Mason: True! True.
David Stern: Right? So, "This is the way, the light, and the truth," I could hear all sorts of rabbis saying that!
George Mason: Sure. But to embody it and to personalize it as-
David Stern: Is Christian distinctiveness!
George Mason: Is Christian distinctiveness, exactly right. Which takes us even to the point of saying, you know, we read scripture through Jesus altogether.
David Stern: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
George Mason: So, when we think interpretively, we do think of His embodying the fullness of God's will in his personhood, so that then he becomes... and sometimes, we can of course use Him for our own purposes and say, "Well, Jesus would want this, or would want that."
David Stern: Right, right, right.
George Mason: But it does become an interpretive principle for us, that, for example, if He forgives his enemies and says, "We should love our enemies and do good to them that hurt us," and He does so from the Cross, then we have to interpret any other claims of fighting against our enemies, and mitigate those biblically because Jesus has superseded them in a different way. Not, I mean... But in terms morally and spiritually, and we go with Jesus' words.
David Stern: Right! And I would say, to go back to the sort of hermeneutic question... Part of the unique power of Christianity is the notion of ethic drawn from personal example.
George Mason: Right, right.
David Stern: And the contrast between that and a bunch of Thou Shalt's and Thou Shalt Not's is striking.
George Mason: Yes.
David Stern: And winning.
George Mason: Yes, yes.
David Stern: And I'm not saying somebody cooked it up in a chemistry set, but... I'm definitely not saying that! But it is genius to root ethic in personal narrative, and it makes sense, then, to say, "What is this paltry verse somewhere, nested among a bunch of other verses... And here's the story."
George Mason: Right, right.
David Stern: "Here's the embodiment of the Holy in human being." How could there have been any doubt about what's going to trump what?
George Mason: Right, right. Well, and I think that goes to our claims and conviction about the incarnation of God in one human being that is the Son of God.
David Stern: Right.
George Mason: And this is another place of our disagreement, or place of departure, because we have a sense that what God did is to follow a trajectory in the course of religious history, of moving closer and closer to the world, and finally, the union of God with the world comes in one person. But it wasn't arbitrary or accidental. It has its roots in the Shekinah, and God sojourning with the people, and all these sorts of things in moving closer, and spirit and the prophets, et cetera.
George Mason: But ultimately, it's not just in one person. It is the whole... the shalom of God, the future consummation of the union of God with the world, is the aspiration that we long for. But to so focus it on one individual is part of the departure between our faiths, I think, right?
David Stern: For sure.
George Mason: Yeah.
David Stern: I mean, it is the, I think, for ancient Israel and for modern Jews... and you and I have talked about this, it is the point of separation more than anything else. Which isn't to say if there aren't all sorts of other really valuable theological distinctions that make us separate and valued each, but without question, the notion that a human being is divine...
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: And that may be clumsy language for it, but the notion that a human being is divine is sort of a deal-breaker in Jewish theology.
George Mason: Sure.
David Stern: One of the most important things you ever said to me, though, and I want to make sure to say this as addendum to that statement... 25 years ago, we were having a similar conversation, and we were talking about things that each... not just our people, but we were really talking about things that each of us might say that might hurt the other.
George Mason: Right.
David Stern: And I said that the sort of rank-and-file Jewish understanding of Jesus is that Jesus was a great teacher who brought great goodness and justice and love to the world; a great teacher; a fully human being, not divine.
David Stern: And I thought that was the most magnanimous thing in the world! And you told me how hurtful it was to hear...
George Mason: Yeah.
David Stern: And I've never lost that moment.
George Mason: Yeah.
David Stern: That our own confident proclamations, as full-hearted and sensitive as we think they are, can still cause pain and real deep religious pain to another human being.
George Mason: Hm. Interesting. Well, you know, this is an example, I think, of what we have gone through in all these years of friendship, and how it has sharpened us; it has made it better at what we do, I hope. More sensitive, more compassionate. And David, it's been a rich three decades together, working alongside, and I thank you for your friendship and for all that you do in our community, and for the cause of God in the world.
David Stern: And amen, and thank you for Good God and for all the good work you do, and I look forward to our continuing to do it together.
George Mason: Great! Thanks so much, friend.
David Stern: See you, man.
George Mason: Okay.
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