Talk:Christian-Jewish reconciliation

Previous discussions about this encyclopedia entry are archived here:

• Talk:Christian-Jewish reconciliation/Archive 1
• Talk:Christian-Jewish reconciliation/Archive 2
• Talk:Christian-Jewish reconciliation/Archive 3

Contents

1 Unitarians 2 Love Your Neighbor as Yourself 3 Traditional Catholics 4 announcing policy proposal

Unitarians

For those of us who are Unitarian-Universalists, it seems like a big omission not to mention UU views on the subject. JeMa 20:16, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

Please put it in! Also, maybe someone out there is qualified to put in Franz Rosenzweig's relevant views? Slrubenstein

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Whose idea was it to insert the statement [Note, Bertrand Russell was a self-described philosophical agnostic and a practical atheist. Of concern to Christians is the Jewish definition of "neighbor" in the context of the "Golden Rule."] into the excerpt from R' Gordis' essay? The only way I can fathom such an insertion is that whoever made it is a covert antisemite or else someone who made this "enlightened observation" without bothering to spend the time learning what the Jewish definition of "neighbor" is in that context. (Leviticus 19:18) First, the word is mistranslated as "neighbor", it actually means "companion" or more loosely, "fellow traveller", and is parallelled 16 verses later, in Leviticus 19:34, with respect to Converts to Judaism. It has, in verse 18, always been understood as "fellow human", and therefore, as an admonition to love everyone, in the words of the Alter of Slobodka: The commandment is to love others kamokha as you love yourself. Just as you love yourself instinctively, without looking for reasons, so you should love others, even without reasons (Quoted from the Stone Edition Chumash, p. 662-3) R' Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Kopitchinitz is said there to have made essentially the same observation. This is not, however, a unique-to-the-Litvaks, nor "newfangled" interpretation. To quote further back, (from the same source) Nachmanides explains that it is impossible for all but the saintliest people to feel literally the same love for others that they feel for themselves. ... It is human nature to say that we wish others well, but we want less for them than for ourselves. The Torah says no. A Jew can and should condition himself to want others to have the fullest degree of success he wants for himself. Rashi and Sifra record that R' Akiva said that this commandment is the fundamental rule of the Torah, (note: Jesus accords it second rank, and a fundamental philosophical difference between Christianity and Judaism is obviated by that fact...). Further back, this same concept is found in the Talmud, its application being attributed to a variety of rules concerning things from capital punishment to marital relations, and Hillel paraphrased it as "What is hateful to you, do not do to others."

In light of this, I vote that this callous and unstudied "comment" be removed from the article. Thoughts? Flames?

This is a valid point. I will make this edit. RK 23:13, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Traditional Catholics

I changed the blatant mischaracterization of traditional Catholicism in this article. Traditional Catholics are not schismatic; except for the Sedevacantists (who are few and far between), we recognize His Holiness Pope John Paul II. And I deleted the following slanderous sentence: "In their view, Jews still are to be held as collectively responsible for murdering God, and all Jews are still believed to be damned unless they convert to Christianity."

Even Msgr Lefebvre accepted the classical Church teaching that outsiders might be saved (though they are saved in spite of their non-Catholic religions, not because of them).--MegaSilver 23:04, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What, none of the rad-trads believe that? Jayjg | (Talk) 23:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There are definitely some traditional Catholics who believe that Jews are collectively responsible for the murder of Christ. But that is not a point of Catholicism at all, much less traditional Catholicism.

The thing is, traditional Catholics usually reject or look with skepticism upon Vatican II. One of the things Vatican II did was to expressly condemn blaming Christ's death collectively on the Jewish people. That is not our beef with Vatican II, but some people (i.e., Abraham Foxman, William F. Buckley [ironically, a traditional Catholic]) think it important that everyone seek out and destroy anything even hinting at anti-Semitism or anti-Israelism.--MegaSilver 06:00, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Um, so it's true they believe that? Why would you remove it then? Jayjg ^(talk) 15:18, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

For the third time, belief that the Jews are collectively responsible for the death of Christ is NOT a staple belief of Traditional Catholicism. There are some INDIVIDUAL Traditional Catholics (among others) who believe that, but to accuse Traditional Catholics as a whole--which the article as you want it does--is pure malice. I am a Traditional Catholic and I most certainly do not blame my Jewish friends for the death of Christ.

You are incorrect. The belief that Jews are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus is traditional Catholicism. I cannot imagine why you would claim otherwise. RK 23:13, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

If you cannot draw the distinction, please do not presume to be competent to edit this page, or anything else for that matter.--MegaSilver 00:27, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

MegaSilver, you do not need to be angry or insulting. JayJG is competant and learned in this subject. So are many others here. And we know that the traditional Catholic position is not what you would wish it to be. You need to differentiate between what most Catholics believe today, and what most Catholics have believed throughout history. If you wish to dispute this position, then it is up to you bring forth serious academic sources and primary sources which can back up your position. For instance, which scholars of Christian history believe that most Catholics have not held such beliefs, and why do they hold such views? Writing in such a fashion would only improve the article. Simply deleting the sentence that you find bothersome does not. RK 23:13, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

announcing policy proposal

This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)