The Bible has a special attitude towards Jews. The Holy Scriptures call them the people of God. And the text of the Book of Books itself was written in the bosom of this culture. Prophets, patriarchs, great kings, apostles, even Jesus Christ himself all belong to the Jewish race.
The most important shrines are located in Israel. And that is why it is surprising that Christianity, which has swept the whole world, is so unpopular in its homeland.
Why don't Jews believe in Christianity? Are there any exceptions among them? How do Jewish Christians who recognize the New Testament live today?
Jews do not believe in Christianity, Judaism has a different view of sin, the role of the Messiah, relations with enemies
Since then, the chosenness of the Jews by God has been one of the cross-cutting thoughts in the Holy Scriptures. The entire Old Testament, and the New Testament as well, is about events in the life of the people of Israel. Great kings, prophets, apostles, and the Messiah himself are descendants of Abraham and Jacob.
For many years, the Jews remained the guardians of the Word of God, they were opposed to the pagan peoples and waited for the fulfillment of the great prophecy - the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus is the Messiah for Christians, but not for Jews. This is one of the main differences between their religions
But it is difficult to clearly determine what the mission of God’s chosen people is. This is especially difficult to do when applied to today's Jews. They do not recognize the Bible, which means, from a Christian’s point of view, they can only have a nominal chosenness of God.
Are the old dogmas still relevant today, or has the status of the Jews become obsolete when Christianity became a universal religion? There is debate about this, but more often than not, biblical interpreters deny modern Jews their special role.
Christianity and Judaism have a common foundation - the Old Testament (Tanakh among the Jews).
The scriptures in the two traditions are different: there are differences in the texts and in the structure of the book, but in general the basis of the religions is the same.
The main contradiction between Christianity and Judaism rests on the New Testament. Jews don't recognize him. How did this happen?
The central prophecy of the Old Testament is the coming of the Messiah. In Russian, Messiah means “anointed one.” The Jews' attitude towards him is appropriate: this is a king, a leader, some grandiose person who will come with the first important mission - to save the Jews.
He will free them from the oppression of other backgammon. And secondly, the coming of the Messiah will give impetus to great favorable changes in the world:
“And all the nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will no longer learn to fight.”
(Isa. 2:4)
But it is not only the attitude towards the Messiah that is the cause of disagreement between Christians and Jews. There are others:
- human sinfulness from birth. Christianity believes that man, being the heir of Adam, is already born in sin. To redeem him, he must be baptized. But the Jews believe that only a person himself can decide whether to sin or not. What happened to his ancestors before him is their business and cannot influence his descendants. From birth everyone is innocent;
Jews, unlike Christians, believe that man is sinless from birth.
- salvation is only through accepting Christ. Christianity claims that only the Savior can provide redemption for man. The Jews believe that each person is capable of being saved by his own actions if he leads a righteous life;
- forgiveness of all sins. Christianity involves forgiveness of any sin. Judaism believes that God has the right to forgive only those sins that offend Him personally. As for bad deeds that are directed against other living beings, it is not within His authority to give forgiveness for this. To get rid of a sin that is directed against another, it is necessary to do good to him and achieve forgiveness;
- divinity of Jesus Christ. For the Jews, Christ is not only not the Messiah, but also not God, and not the son of God. And his teaching itself is a fallacy. It is close to traditional Judaism, but still different;
- dealing with bad people. Christianity calls for patience and not to fight, not to do evil. Judaism looks at this differently and allows, in order to protect its interests, for example, life or health, not to endure bullying, but to respond with an appropriate countermeasure. Enemies must be treated fairly - according to their deeds.
One of the misconceptions is that a believer in Judaism must necessarily be a Jew.
Judaism
one of the most ancient religions in the world
This is not true at all. Judaism is the same religion where the main thing is a person’s relationship with God and others, and not his nationality.
See also the article Religion of Armenians
However, the above contradictions do not allow us to put an equal sign between Christianity and Judaism.
It couldn't be otherwise
Let's start with what Christ Himself said: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword, for I came to divide a man with his father, and a daughter with her mother, and a daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law” (Matthew 10:34-35), — thereby warning that the attitude towards His personality will be contradictory. He also said very important words: “And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me” (Matthew 11:6). The Savior predicted that His teaching would not be understood and accepted, that they would slander Him. So, in fact, it happened: we read about this repeatedly on the pages of the New Testament. However, it cannot be said that the majority of Jews did not accept Christ. Then a split occurred in society, precisely because many followed Him and recognized Him as the Messiah.
Jews believe in the chosenness of their people; their teaching is based on the Tanakh and Talmud
So what do most Jews believe? Their religion, Judaism, is one of the most ancient in the world. It is older than Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, but younger than, for example, Hinduism.
Judaism is one of the first monotheistic religions. This means that its adherents revered the One God. At the time of the emergence of Judaism, the most common form was polytheism. In the Judeo-Christian tradition it is usually called paganism.
Talmud - a multi-volume commentary on the Jewish scripture Tanakh
Judaism is not just a set of covenants about man's relationship with God. This is a collection of rules for all occasions. It contains recommendations about government, family life, political relations, food culture and a lot of other advice, rules and morals.
There are two main written sources in Judaism:
- Tanakh is the Old Testament, which differs slightly from the Christian one in its set of writings and individual passages.
- The Talmud is a multi-volume commentary on the Tanakh, which deeply studies the rules of life of a righteous Jew.
An important distinctive feature of Judaism is the idea that the Jewish people are chosen by God. This is such an ancient and established teaching that apostolic activity could not shake it.
However, this is not surprising, because the apostles and Jesus Christ respected the Jewish tradition.
Christ through the eyes of his contemporaries
How did contemporaries see Christ? For many, He was a traveling rabbi with disciples. The Jews formed a different idea of the Messiah. This was supposed to be an earthly king who would build them a paradise on earth, provide for everyone, free them from Roman slavery, and subjugate other nations. For them, the Messiah was, first of all, a ruler, a national leader who would solve, first of all, the problems of earthly existence. His spiritual mission was in the background.
The Lord said: “My kingdom is not of this world; If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight for Me, so that I would not be betrayed to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). He spoke these words in response to Pontius Pilate’s question: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Hearing them, Pilate changed his attitude towards Christ and realized that he was not dealing with some political figure. However, many Jews did not realize this and were disappointed. They were waiting for an earthly savior, not a heavenly one who saves humanity from sin. They wanted relief from earthly problems and difficulties. This leads to the next question: did they need a Savior?
In the Middle Ages, Europeans forced Jews to convert to Christianity.
But not all Jews are Jews. There are those who profess Christianity. There are few of them, since the Torah forbids Jews to follow other people's customs, and this prohibition is firmly rooted in Jewish culture.
Marranos
these are Jews who, under duress, were forced to be baptized and profess Christianity
However, since the Middle Ages, Jews have adopted Christianity en masse. This was not a voluntary initiative. They took this step under pressure. For example, in 1492 in Spain, the authorities created an edict on the expulsion of Jews. This is how the Marranos appeared.
The Marranos were Jews who, under duress and threat of expulsion from Spain and Portugal, were forced to be baptized and profess Christianity. But this cannot be called a sincere act.
The Marranos often remained loyal to the Jewish tradition and practiced it secretly.
In fact, even sincere acceptance of Christianity did not save the Marranos from persecution by the Inquisition. They remained in an oppressed position for a long time.
Secret meeting of the Marranos during the Inquisition. Painting of Moses Maimon
Aron Golovchiner
Rabbi of Obninsk
Aron Golovchiner. Photo from personal archive
— In Judaism, there is a term “child who was captured” - this is what they say about children who, for some reason, could not receive a classical Jewish upbringing and who, perhaps, do not even realize that they are Jews. This does not in any way cancel their Jewishness, because we define it not only by observance, but also by the presence of a Jewish soul, which we get from our mother.
So if a person who was raised outside the Jewish tradition comes to the synagogue, our task is to arouse interest in him and show that he is losing a lot by not turning to his roots. That he has a very great value - the Jewish soul - which he simply does not use.
There are Jews who were brought up in a more secular environment and for some reason independently came to Christianity. Yes, 100–200 years ago there was a lot of anti-Jewish propaganda in the world. We know that many people accepted Orthodoxy in those days not for spiritual reasons, but to escape death or to make their lives easier: to be able to enter universities, to make a political career. And we cannot condemn these people.
In our time, when there is no such strong discrimination regarding nationality, many questions are raised by the fact that people, instead of exploring their own culture, go somewhere for unknown reasons. Of course, in Russia - speaking from an advertising point of view - the Orthodox Church is represented more widely than Judaism. And many Jews who do not live in a Jewish environment go to an Orthodox church. Some - for moral peace, and others - in the hope of a real miracle.
Then the question arises: why don’t you go to your people, to the synagogue? After all, they will also tell you what you can do in the most difficult situations.
This question is also philosophical. After all, Judaism is not just a religion, but also a way of life, and perhaps this scares off many. As far as I understand, although I am not an expert, in Christianity you can eat anything, go anywhere, you just need to do minimal things related to religion that do not change your life much. In Judaism everything is different; it requires a person to comply with a large number of norms. Most of the commandments in Judaism are not abstract, but quite specific: this piece of meat can be eaten, but this piece cannot be eaten. From the perspective of Judaism, G-d has given us instructions on exactly how to live in this world, and we must follow them.
It doesn’t matter whether you came to the Orthodox Church yourself or your parents took you there, for Judaism there is nothing irreversible in this. We don’t have a baptism ceremony, a person simply says: “Yes, I was wrong or my parents were wrong - but I want to return to the path that my ancestors left me.” Because any Jew is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the very tradition that has been going on for 3000 years and has reached us. We perfectly understand African Americans who are trying to find their ancestors and even go to the places where they are from, but for some reason this does not always work for Jews.
People are ready to engage in any culture, but are absolutely indifferent to their roots, this is surprising.
For those who are shy, I can say the following. Now there are many different types of communities, and most of them are quite open - although there are also those where a person “from the street” will be greeted with great fear. But in most cases, if you go to the synagogue, no one there will check your documents. Try to overcome your embarrassment. There is a principle described in the teachings of the fathers: a shy person cannot learn. Because if a person wants to learn, then, even if he is shy, he must find the strength to ask a question that interests him.
There is no religion with as long a spiritual experience as Judaism. I will not talk about the advantages of the philosophy of Judaism, because it is a religion that values the most direct contact without an intermediary. Prayers are all addressed directly to G‑d, and I can tell you that, in my experience, G‑d does answer.
Among other things, the feeling that you are doing the right thing, that the souls of your ancestors are looking at you, is really important. You can cook unleavened porridge, eat it all your life - and most of your life will also be similar to this porridge. And Judaism is like a spice that gives fullness of sensations, makes life brighter and richer and turns any porridge into a very tasty dish.
Andrey Kuraev
Deacon
Andrey Kuraev. Photo: Mark Nakoykher
— According to my data, among Jews living in Russia, religious identification is distributed equally: a third of Jews consider themselves secular people who have nothing to do with religion, a third profess Judaism, a third consider themselves Christians. It is very difficult for the latter, because in the Jewish environment they are not always treated equally, especially if they count on help from Jewish organizations or on moving to Israel.
In addition, in the Orthodox environment, an Orthodox Jew is not considered equal. This is hate based on nationality, which is very common in the church environment.
For example, when I recommended that Patriarch Alexy II hire, promote or reward someone, the first thing he asked was: “Isn’t he a Jew?”
Of course, the world of Orthodoxy is diverse, there are different strata, circles, and parishes. There are parishes in Moscow where the Jewish intelligentsia constitutes, if not the majority, then a very significant part of the parishioners, and there is no hatred or inequality there. So it all comes down to finding the right social circle.
In my opinion, Orthodoxy for Jews is a kind of search for truth. If we consider the situation before the twentieth century, the motive of many people of that period was obvious. Yes, there were Jews who were baptized under pressure, but often this was a search for freedom. When all these endless rules of Shabbat and kashrut stood in my throat, then the adoption of Christianity was truly perceived as a breath of freedom. Undoubtedly, this motive, but in a completely different context, was also present among that stream of Jewish intelligentsia who were baptized in the Soviet years.
At that time, the motive for accepting Orthodoxy could have been atheism and the inhumanity of Soviet propaganda. Christianity, at least in some sense, at least intellectually, opened the boundaries of Soviet officialdom, and behind them was someone very important, wise and beautiful.
As Alexander Men believed, Christianity is the key to the cultural treasury of humanity, at least of Europe. And in this sense, the adoption of Orthodoxy is a form of emigration from Soviet reality, away from the Pravda newspaper.
I know people who in everyday life tried to adhere to Jewish traditions, being Orthodox, but I don’t know the degree of their organization. The same Alexander Men dreamed that a Jewish Orthodox Church would appear in the world, where Orthodoxy would be combined with the observance of the Jewish calendar, holidays, and certain rituals. So that, having become a Christian, one does not completely remove the Jewish national identity. Unfortunately, there is no such thing yet.
Most children who are baptized in childhood, no matter what nationality, then spend their lives without regard to the church. If an Orthodox Jew decides to change Christianity to Judaism, he can then return to Christianity. Orthodoxy believes that the doors of repentance are open to everyone.
Today, Jews in Russia often follow Orthodox traditions, but do not forget their Jewish roots
Today in Russia there are also Jews who have converted to Christianity. Mainly Orthodoxy. Since there are now no legal restrictions for Jewish Jews, we can conclude that this is a voluntary adoption of Orthodoxy.
Sociologists study this issue in great detail. Researchers Ts. Gitelman, V. Shapiro, V. Chervyakov note that the interest of Russian Jews in Judaism is gradually declining. But by 2000, the number of people who sympathized with Christianity remained stable at around 13.7%.
60%
Russian Jews surveyed in 2007 participated in the life of Orthodoxy
Approximately 60% of Jews surveyed in 2007 reported attending Orthodox churches and participating in rituals. There are many more of them than those who, living in Russia, participate in Jewish rituals.
According to some assumptions, there are as many Orthodox Jews in Russia as there are Orthodox Jews in Israel. However, there are no studies on this topic.
Elena Nosenko-Stein, in an article for the Ethnographic Review, cites the position of some Russian Jews in relation to Orthodoxy and Judaism:
“I was baptized because I needed it internally - I mean to have a religious experience. And the fact that I became Orthodox was a pure coincidence; we simply didn’t know any other way then. I don’t rule out that if I knew a good, smart rabbi, I would convert to Judaism.”
Semyon Z, 58 years old, psychologist, (Moscow)
“I have been baptized since I was nine years old, I often go to church, I pray both in church and at home, I observe holidays and fasts - if possible. I have a goddaughter - Russian, we are very friends. But I don’t go to the synagogue, because I think it’s incompatible to go to two churches. But I don’t want people here at Hillel to know that I’m Orthodox. …I’ve never been to a synagogue. I feel kind of inferior.”
Elena K., 20 years old, music teacher (St. Petersburg)
“I am a believer and so is my mother, she baptized us all, all three of us. Dad was not against it because there was no synagogue. ... I came to the synagogue recently, when I came to Hesed, I learned about the synagogue. I really liked the way they sang, I had never heard anything like this before. But they don’t have Christ, like in the Russian church. I go to church sometimes.”
Nina E., 61 years old, pensioner (St. Petersburg)
“Yes, I have been baptized since childhood. That is, of course, I grew up when it was almost forbidden, but even then I felt that there was something above us, there was some kind of higher power. I read a lot on the history of religion, about the Russian Church, about the schism. I feel good in church, I baptized both of my daughters, and they baptized their children.”
When asked if a Jew could be a Christian, she said: “Why not? A Jew, like any person, can choose which religion to follow. My husband, he is a purebred Jew, he is not a very religious person, but he sometimes comes to church with me. Why not?
Anna P., 57 years old, psychologist (Moscow)
It can be concluded that Jews today are greatly influenced by the external environment. They participate in Orthodox rites and baptize children. But at the same time, this is more often a tribute to the environment than a spiritual impulse. For Jews, Jewish culture remains an important part of life, which they combine with the Orthodox tradition.
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Who needs a Savior?
A dying man needs a Savior. Jews did not consider themselves that way. Their understanding of their relationship with God was distorted. They believed that through Abraham they entered into a Covenant with Him, the Lord gave them commandments, they fulfill these commandments, for which God is obliged to save them - automatically. Question: why is Christ needed with this approach? Why did the Pharisees need Him, who considered themselves saints because they fulfilled the Law as accurately and completely as possible? They developed a complex system of norms, rules and various rituals that had to be performed in order to be saved.
These people were confident that everything was fine with them spiritually, and they did not need any Messiah to resolve spiritual issues. Pride, malice, and envy towards Christ arose because the Jews considered themselves holy and saved. Christ convicted them of various vices, which they could not accept.
