Abstract
Today’s positive relationship with Christians and Christianity challenges the voices of particularism in Jewish tradition. To discern how contemporary Jewish leaders are guiding their communities to think about the place of Jews within the larger human community, this article analyzes commentaries on a selection of Rosh Hashanah prayers from recently published prayer books commonly used in North American congregations. These prayers’ traditional texts themselves engage in a dialectic between universalism and particularism. The commentaries’ responses range along a spectrum, from an embrace of universalism by Reform Jews, to an advocacy also, but not exclusively, for particularism, among the orthodox.
Highlights
As a Jewish participant in dialogue, let me state at the outset that I find both challenges troubling
In its December 2015 document “Gifts and Calling,”[2] reflecting on the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate 4, the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews affirms that the Church, through the New Covenant, fulfills the universal aspect of God’s initial call to Abraham; this, in turn, makes the Church dependent on Israel
It takes as its data set the commentaries printed in recent and widely used American liturgies for the fall “High Holy Days,” Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, both days of unusually high synagogue attendance
Summary
Is this contrast between Jewish particularism and Christian universalism a stereotype, or is there substance to it? Malka Z. Kasper and Koch’s universalist/particularist contrast verges on a moral judgment that claims, “The Church is generous; Israel is selfish—but should not be because she too participates in the Abrahamic covenant.”[16] In neither case are these categories expressing theological understandings about the truth of other religion’s teachings. This point is more a discussion of spreading the Abrahamic truth. These particular commentaries, though, are relatively rare and little consulted
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