Medieval Tone Colors View of Mosaic Law

In last week’s “On Faith” column, the Rev. Rick Rzeszewski wrote of a tragic incident in the career of the “Great Wallendas” when one link in their human pyramid could not bear his share of the load. In the resulting collapse, several members of the team were killed or injured. Rzeszewski highlighted this as a metaphor for life: Since each person on the pyramid had to execute his task perfectly, an ambition beyond human attainment, the family was inevitably ripe for a fall.

Taking a theological turn, this incident became the hinge of what appears on the surface as an innocent comparison between Judaism and Christianity. On closer examination, it reveals a polemic against the Mosaic Law, an invidious contrast between the two faiths.

Devoting three paragraphs to demonstrating the superiority of the “New” Covenant over the “Old,” the author in effect presented Judaism as the religious equivalent of the Wallendas’ athleticism. While never naming the faith of Judaism outright, he proposed its weakness lies in instructing adherents that they must be perfect.

When God at Mount Sinai demanded that His people live up to His “holy standard of sinless perfection,” Jews were as doomed as the Wallendas, the writer proclaimed. After all, if it is perfection or nothing, then we are all balancing without a safety net. By affirming that we are not perfect but forgiven, Christianity is a welcome antidote to this extreme and unrealizable position, he maintained.

It is the Jews, according to the writer, who wrongly “continue to walk on the high wire of holiness” and “build their perfect pyramids.” What was particularly offensive was his resort to the egregious expression “pernicious lie” to smear Judaism’s signal belief: that living in conformity to the commandments and in dedication to righteousness engenders God’s approval. A “pernicious lie”?

I am not unaware of the church’s premise that the New Covenant has superseded the Old. Paul voiced it forthrightly: “If justification were through the Law, then Christ died in vain.”

My teacher in inter-testamental studies wrote that many Christians have long believed that “Christianity is a pure religion which chanced to emerge from the tangled web of pathetic legalism called Judaism.” Judaism has been scorned as a faith that failed to grasp that its own task was completed, blindly and willfully refusing its obligation to become absorbed into Christianity, the mature fulfillment of its stunted growth.

Granted, this is the church’s classic position. But do explosive terms such as “pernicious” and “lie” contribute to the civil discourse so needed in this benighted world? Is this the vocabulary we should employ in inter-faith relations?

To scorn my faith as founded on an evil falsehood is to draw from the lexicon of bitterness that has poisoned multitudes toward Judaism over the dark centuries. Of course, the reverend believes that he is in exclusive possession of truth and that therefore the tenets of my faith are false. But to castigate Judaism in such unsparing and denunciatory vocabulary is lamentable. This is the language of enemies.

Judaism does not, contrary to the views of Rzeszewski, call Jews to perfection. It acknowledges over and again that we are flesh and blood and hence will never attain that state. The Torah is not intended for perfect people, nor is its purpose to produce perfect beings. It explicitly states that God alone is perfect and therefore I am not to feel shame or experience guilt for not being so. Judaism summons us to strive to be better today than yesterday, and to be better tomorrow than today. Better, not perfect.

Rzeszewski concludes by glorifying Christianity as “a way of grace that gives us the desire to do what is right and offers forgiveness that catches us when we fall.” Surely, this is the message of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. In this, Christianity learned well from its parent.

The reverend avers that Judaism’s blueprint for salvation, namely “live right, follow the rules and hope we will get in good with God,” is a pernicious lie. I demur in the name of 4,000 years of Jewish beliefs, and I pray we may elevate the content and tone of our discussions beyond pejorative antagonisms and toward respect and civility, moving from the medieval to a new millennium.

On Faith is a forum for Orange County clergy and others to offer their views on religious topics of general interest. Submissions, which will be published at the discretion of The Times and are subject to editing, should be delivered to Orange County religion page editor Jack Robinson at 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Submissions also may be faxed to (714) 966-7711 or e-mailed to jack.robinson@latimes.com.