Judaism

In the book The Faith of Elvis, Billy Stanley, half-brother of Elvis, shares poignantly of the ups and downs of Elvis’ walk with the Jesus. On a more humorous side he shared this encounter between Elvis and Sammy Davis Jr.:

It was a kind of a funny thing, and also serious in a way, but one time in Las Vegas, he was talking to Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy noticed Elvis wearing both a Star of David and a cross necklace—two things that don’t normally go together because they represent two distinct religions: Judaism and Christianity.

Sammy said, “Elvis, isn’t that kind of a contradiction?”

Elvis looked at him and said, “I don’t want to miss heaven on a technicality.”

Rabbis in Israel have spent many years searching for a qualified red heifer. Finally in September of 2022, a Texas man has delivered five red heifers to four Israeli rabbis so the young cows can be slaughtered and burned to produce the ash necessary for a ritual purification prescribed in Numbers 19:2–3.

Some Jews believe the ritual is a step toward the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Some Christians believe that “third temple” will set the stage for the Antichrist.

Editor’s Note: The red heifers must be monitored for defects by the rabbis until they are three-years-old. At that time, if unblemished, they would be suitable for use as sacrifices in the red heifer ritual. The Mishnah, which is a written embodiment of Jewish oral tradition, teaches that only nine red heifers were sacrificed from the time of Tabernacle worship until the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.

In CT magazine, writer Dikkon Eberhart shares his personal testimony of progression from theological drifter to Orthodox Jew to a born-again experience with Jesus Christ:

I grew up in the Episcopal Church. But in my high teens and young twenties I drifted. At seminary in Berkeley, California, during the 1970s—I created my own religion. I called it Godianity. Certainly, I believed in the existence of God, hence the name of my religion. But I didn’t know much about that Son of God fellow, and the little I did know seemed impossibly weird.

Then something happened. I married a Jew who was an atheist. Then my wife became pregnant and nine months later, our first daughter squirmed in her mother’s arms. Here’s the sudden realization of an atheist: Such a perfect and beautiful creature must be the gift of God, not the product of some random swirl of atoms. My wife’s atheism bit the dust. Her new God belief was Jewish. My Godianity should have taken notice. “Listen up!” it ought to have heard. “You’re in trouble, too.”

That trouble came five years later. Our daughter and I were swinging in a hammock under a tree on a windy day. Normally an eager chatterer, our daughter fell silent and then said, “Daddy, I know there’s a God.” I was enchanted. “How, sweetie?” She pointed at the tree and its leaves. “You can’t see God. He’s like the wind. You can’t see the wind, but the wind makes the leaves move. You can’t see God, but you know he’s there, because he makes the people move, like the leaves.”

My heart swelled with love for this perceptive child, but then she crushed me. She continued, “Daddy, what do we believe?” Really, what she was asking was, “Mommy’s kind of Jewish. You’re kind of Christian. So what am I?” And despite my three advanced religious degrees and seminary employment, I couldn’t answer.

In that instant, I shucked my Godianity. Right away, my wife and I retreated into an urgent executive session. She was a Jew who was no longer an atheist. We resolved, we shall raise our children as Jews. And we did—as Reform Jews. Yet I still teetered on uneven ground, conscious of being an outsider. Then something else happened. During services on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, God spoke to me: “If you should desire to come to me, my door is open to you.” Right away, I knew I needed to become a Jew myself, and three years later my conversion was complete.

For some time, my wife and I had noticed something: While Reform Judaism respects Torah, many Reform Jews themselves were selective in their adherence to its strictures. But we objected. We wanted a faith that wasn’t in the habit of accommodating itself to the surrounding culture.

Across our rural road, there happened to be a small Baptist church. Some of our neighbors had invited us to visit, in case we Jews should ever want to know more about Christ. We realized that—oddly—these neighbors seemed concerned for our souls.

More than a year later, desperate for direction, I crossed the road to the church one Sunday morning. That day, the pastor was preaching from 1 Timothy. I was astonished to hear a Baptist preacher using Old Testament references within his message—and with accurate Hebrew nuance. The pastor and I began meeting each week and my wife frequented the women’s Bible study. She and I began devouring book after book, faster and faster, thrilled by each new discovery of seemingly impossible truths that were actually true.

Even as a Jew, I knew the Passion story. But it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, that story might be real—and if it were, then everything would need to change. Our Torah-based lives would be as dead and ineffectual as Godianity. Instead, we would give our souls to the personal love of the Incarnation, the God-man who dwelt among us. We realized that the Old Testament begged for the climax of the New Testament.

It took nine months, an appropriate duration for re-birth, before I committed myself to Jesus. My wife did the same three months later. Our younger two children followed soon thereafter. When God spoke to me in the synagogue all those years ago, inviting me through his open doorway, I had assumed he was summoning me into Judaism. Little did I know he was actually calling me to Christ.

The Jewish magazine Moment asked a number of Jewish writers, professors, rabbis, artists, and actors the following question: "What does the concept of the Messiah mean today?" Here are some of the responses:

• Amoz Oz, novelist: "He may be around the corner, but that's where he should always be …. In the Jewish tradition … sitting idly waiting for the Messiah is a sin."
• Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer: "Years ago, a popular evangelical bumper sticker read, "I found it." The Jewish version would read, "I'm still looking for it."
• Harris Lenowitz, literature professor: "Who at different times in their life hasn't had a belief … that someone, a messiah, can help them and help the world? And the messiah is the biggest answer to the biggest single question: 'Does God care about me?'"
• Lucette Lagnado, reporter: "People have stopped believing in God, in the possibility of miracles, in the mystical, and in that most mystical belief of all—the idea that somebody's going to come along and make the world all better. I think that's a sad development of the modern world."
• Deb Margolin, playwright and professor: "Most people think the Messiah has already come, but Jews are waiting. It could be anybody …. It's a very sexy idea. There's a blind date with the sacred that awaits you at any moment."
• Ruth Messinger, CEO of Jewish World Service: "The Messiah doesn't connote that some entity, deity or event will suddenly arrive and change the circumstances in our lives …. That's a notion of childhood wish fulfillment."
• Jack Dann, science fiction writer: "Twenty years ago I would have said that the idea of a messianic message was dying out in the popular culture, that it was being overtaken by a more sophisticated secularism. Obviously I was mistaken. More and more people seem to be embracing the idea that a messiah will appear to fix everything."
• Mayim Bialik, neuroscientist and actress: "The concept of a messiah is a general … notion that we are partners in making the world better, in moving the world forward. The Messiah is progress, participation, suiting up and showing up for life."
• Samuel Heilman, sociology professor: "For most Jews, the messianic idea has receded; it's not on the top of the agenda, and they don't see history as inexorably moving to that day."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Use these quotes to set up a sermon on evangelism, especially with our Jewish friends. There is a huge difference between Christianity and Judaism—Jews are still waiting for the Messiah (or some of them have given up on the Messiah), while Christians believe that the Messiah has come and is still alive. (2) You could also use these quotes to illustrate the character of Christian hope: Christ has come; Christ is alive; Christ will come again. (3) Use these quotes when preaching on Jesus as Christ and Messiah.

In his book Connecting Christ, Paul Metzger retells the story of the friendship between the Jewish writer Elie Wiesel and the French Christian writer Francois Mauriac. While in Auschwitz, Wiesel was torn from his mother and sisters and forced to watch his father get beaten to death by Nazi guards. After the war, Wiesel chose to keep silent about his traumatic experiences. But as a young writer, Wiesel had the chance to interview Mauriac, a prominent Christian writer and former leader in the French Resistance movement. Though he respected Mauriac, Wiesel arrived at Mauriac's apartment with an ulterior motive: he wanted Mauriac to help him meet the Prime Minister of France, which would have been a boost to Wiesel's emerging writing career. In a 1996 interview here's how Wiesel recounts their first meeting:

Mauriac was an old man then, but when I came to Mauriac, he agreed to see me. We met and we had a painful discussion. The problem was that [Mauriac] was in love with Jesus. He was the most decent person I ever met in that field—as a writer, as a [Christian] writer. Honest, sense of integrity, and he was in love with Jesus. He spoke only of Jesus. Whatever I would ask—Jesus.

Finally … when he said Jesus again I couldn't take it, and … I was discourteous, which I regret to this day. I said, "Mr. Mauriac … ten years or so ago, I have seen children, hundreds of Jewish children, who suffered more than Jesus did on his cross, and we do not speak about it." I felt all of a sudden so embarrassed. I closed my notebook and went to the elevator. He ran after me. He pulled me back; he sat down in his chair, and I in mine, and he began weeping. I have rarely seen an old man weep like that, and I felt like such an idiot. I felt like a criminal. This man didn't deserve that. He was really a pure man, a member of the Resistance. I didn't know what to do. We stayed there like that, he weeping and I closed in my own remorse. And then, at the end … he simply said, "You know, maybe you should talk about it?"

He took me to the elevator and embraced me. And that year, the tenth year, I began writing [Night, my novel about the Holocaust]. After it was translated from Yiddish into French, I sent it to him. We were very, very close friends until his death.

Later in his life Wiesel declared that it was Mauriac, the man "who declared himself in love with Christ," who influenced him to share his story and become a writer.

National Geographic: In God's Name is a 2007 documentary that explores the views of 12 prominent spiritual leaders. Topics include calling, the presence of God, sacrifice, doubt, and the meaning of life. One of the segments in the bonus features section of the DVD is titled "Can All Religions Co-Exist?" Six of the contributing leaders offer their thoughts—thoughts that might be useful for preachers to interact with in a sermon.

From Reverend Mark Hanson, President, Lutheran World Federation, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:

I think people of different religious beliefs must co-exist because we share two things: a common humanity and a common earth. I think one of the greatest challenges today is the relationship between unity and diversity. If we didn't have a sense of what holds us together, what unites us, a common humanity and a common earth, then our differences will become cause for division and conflict, one seeking to dominate the other. But if we have a sense of what unites us, then our diversity will enrich our lives. Dialogue is very difficult. It takes commitment, it takes honesty, and it takes a willingness to be open to the other.

From Yona Metzher, Chief Rabbi of Israel:

The answer as to whether religions can live together, the answer is yes. They can. They have to. Our sages say: "As faces differ, so do opinions differ." Every person has a different face. Do I hate him because his face is different from mine? If he doesn't have eyes like mine, am I supposed to hate him? It is like this also with different opinions. If his belief is different than mine, why should I hate him? We can stay friends. Each with his own laws. Each with his own beliefs. Everything depends on the religious leader and what kind of attitude they promote in their communities toward other religions.

From Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England:

I believe that the Christian faith is true. I believe that what is revealed in Jesus Christ is the truth about God. But that does not make me feel I must now force everybody to accept that. It means I am grateful for what I have been given. That I would love to share it. That, also, I need to know that other people have come to their faith by a route that deserves my respect. So we talk to one another. We listen to one another. We have our convictions. We have our firm commitments to truth. But that does not mean violence. I think we can live together.

From Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia Russian Orthodox Church:

We need to find common ground. We need to find out more about each other. That's why we support people knowing about religious values. First of all about the values of their own religion. And after that, about the values of other religions. This will help people to understand each other better, and not to address people of other religions with hostility or hatred.

From Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tibetan Buddhist:

We can't decree that this or that religion is the most important. I cannot tell that Buddhism is the best for each one of us. For example, for one of my Christian friends, Christianity is the best, and that is the most suitable for him. Thus, Buddhism is the best for me, but I can't say that this is the best for you too. And it being the best for him, he cannot say it is the best for me as well.

Likes and interests are different, as in the food habits of different people. Some people like chilies. Others do not. Those that like chilies cannot say that the food having chilies is the best. For those that don't like chilies, the food without chilies is the best.

Take medicines also for another example. There are different varieties of medicine because there are different varieties of diseases. We cannot claim that only one medicine is the best for all diseases ….

Whatever religion it is, they are all beneficial to many people. I feel wonderstruck that these religions have been beneficial for millions of people for many thousand years. I always think they are very favorable to humanity.

From Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Shia Muslim:

I have always been open to humanity as a whole. I have always thought that if I have the right to differ with the other, the same applies to the other. That is why I am always ready to engage Christians, Jews, and secularists and all other people who have a different religion than mine. I have never been a religious fanatic.

Elapsed Time: DVD, bonus feature titled "Can All Religions Co-Exist?" (the clip runs about five minutes)

In the book Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, authors Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg explore how the Jewish culture and heritage of Jesus influenced his life and ministry—and how it should influence our understanding of the Gospels.

Spangler travelled to Israel several times while researching the Second Temple Period and writing the book. Her first flight was aboard El Al Airlines, which is the preferred method of travel for many Orthodox Jews. She writes of being fascinated by the ritual and symbolism of the Jewish faith she observed even during that flight:

I tried not to stare as a bearded man three rows ahead stood up and began carefully winding a long strip of leather around his arm. He was observing a daily custom common among Orthodox Jews—binding small boxes, called tefillin, to both head and arm. These boxes, I knew, contained parchment scrolls inscribed with the ancient command recorded in Deuteronomy 6:6-8: "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads."

As the young man wound the dark strand of leather around his arm, I could hear him speaking in Hebrew. Later I learned that he was echoing the words of Hosea 2:19-20: "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord"….

In the seat next to me was a teenage girl, piously bent over her prayer book. When she wasn't sleeping through the long flight, she was reading and praying, rocking rhythmically back and forth as she read and meditated on the Hebrew words. Later, I asked a white-haired rabbi I met in Israel about this practice, called davening. The rocking motion during prayer, I discovered, is a way of expressing that one's whole self, body and soul, is caught up with God. The old rabbi explained that the movement of the body mimics the flickering flame of a candle, calling to mind the saying that "the candlestick of God is the soul of a man."

In 1993, [Philip Yancey] read a news report about a "Messiah sighting" in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. In an article for Christianity Today magazine, he wrote about the feverish response of over 20,000 Lubavitcher Hasidic Jews who lived in the region, many of whom believed the Messiah was dwelling among them in the person of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson:

Word of the rabbi's public appearance spread like a flash fire through the streets of Crown Heights, and Lubavitchers in their black coats and curly sidelocks were soon dashing toward the synagogue where the rabbi customarily prayed. The lucky ones connected to a network of beepers got a head start, sprinting toward the synagogue the instant they felt a slight vibration. They jammed by the hundreds into a main hall, elbowing each other and even climbing the pillars to create more room. The hall filled with an air of anticipation and frenzy normally found at a championship sporting event, not a religious service.

The rabbi was 91 years old. He had suffered a stroke the year before and had not been able to speak since. When the curtain finally pulled back, those who had crowded into the synagogue saw a frail old man with a long beard who could do little but wave, tilt his head, and move his eyebrows. No one in the audience seemed to mind, though. "Long live our master, our teacher, and our rabbi, King, Messiah, forever and ever!" they sang in unison, over and over, building in volume until the rabbi made a small gesture with his hand and the curtain closed. They departed slowly, savoring the moment, in a state of ecstasy. (Rabbi Schneerson [later] died in June 1994. Now some Lubavitchers [still await] his bodily resurrection.)

Later in his article, Yancey confesses he was tempted to laugh out loud as he read about Schneerson and his followers, thinking, Who are these people trying to kida nonagenarian mute Messiah in Brooklyn? But then a sobering thought came to mind for Yancey: I am reacting to Rabbi Schneerson exactly as people in the first century had reacted to Jesus. A Messiah from Galilee? A carpenter's kid, no less? He writes:

The scorn I felt as I read about the rabbi and his fanatical followers gave me a small glimpse of the kind of responses Jesus faced throughout his life. His neighbors asked, "Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" Other countrymen scoffed, "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" His own family tried to put him away, believing he was out of his mind. The religious experts sought to kill him. As for the common people, one moment they judged him demon-possessed and raving mad, the next they forcibly tried to crown him king.

It took courage, I believe, for God to lay aside power and glory and to take his place among human beings who would greet him with the same mixture of haughtiness and skepticism that I felt when I first heard about Rabbi Schneerson of Brooklyn. It took courage to endure the shame, and courage even to risk descent to a planet known for its clumsy violence, among a race known for rejecting its prophets. A God of all power deliberately put himself in such a state that Satan could tempt him, demons could taunt him, and lowly human beings could slap his face and nail him to a cross. What more foolhardy thing could God have done?

A 2005 poll, conducted by Newsweek and Beliefnet, asked: "What is your current religion?"

Evangelical Protestant—33 percent
Non-Evangelical Protestant—25 percent
Roman Catholic—22 percent
Other Christian—5 percent
Jewish—1 percent
Muslim—1 percent
Other, non-Christian—3 percent
Atheist/Agnostic—6 percent
Religion undesignated—4 percent

28 percent of those ages 18–39 were evangelicals; 9 percent were atheists. 36 percent of those ages 40–59 were evangelicals; 5 percent were atheists. 36 percent of those over 60 were evangelicals; 3 percent were atheists.

"When people think about the Holocaust, they think about the crimes against Jews, but here's a different perspective," said Julie Seltzer Mandel, editor of the Nuremberg Project for the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion. "They wanted to eliminate the Jews altogether, but they were also looking to eliminate Christianity."

Fragile, typewritten documents from the 1940s lay out the Nazi plan in grim detail: Take over the churches from within, using party sympathizers. Discredit, jail, or kill Christian leaders. And re-indoctrinate the congregants. Give them a new faith—in Germany's Third Reich.

Says Mandel, "The best evidence of an anti-church plan is the systematic nature of the persecution itself. Different steps in that persecution, such as the campaign for the suppression of denominational and youth organizations, the campaign against denominational schools, and the defamation campaign against the clergy were supported by the entire regimented press, by Nazi Party meetings, and by traveling party speakers."

Newsweek religion editor Kenneth L. Woodward writes:

Clearly, the cross is what separates the Christ of Christianity from every other Jesus. In Judaism there is no precedent for a Messiah who dies, much less as a criminal as Jesus did. In Islam, the story of Jesus' death is rejected as an affront to Allah himself. Hindus can accept only a Jesus who passes into peaceful samadhi, a yogi who escapes the degradation of death. The figure of the crucified Christ, says Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, "is a very painful image to me. It does not contain joy or peace, and this does not do justice to Jesus." There is, in short, no room in other religions for a Christ who experiences the full burden of mortal existence—and hence there is no reason to believe in him as the divine Son whom the Father resurrects from the dead….

That the image of a benign Jesus has universal appeal should come as no surprise. That most of the world cannot accept the Jesus of the cross should not surprise, either. Thus the idea that Jesus can serve as a bridge uniting the world's religions is inviting but may be ultimately impossible.

In What's So Amazing about Grace, Philip Yancey recounts this story about C.S. Lewis:

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith.

They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death.

The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. "What's the rumpus about?" he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that's easy. It's grace." After some discussion, the conferees had to agree.

The notion of God's love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of Karma, the Jewish covenant, and Muslim code of law—each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.

"Do you know the story of the great Rabbi Haim-Gedalia of Upshpitzin?" he asks me another evening. "He interceded with God in favor of an innkeeper who was notorious for his many sins. 'Very well, I forgive him,' said the Almighty. Whereupon, pleased with his success, the Rabbi began to look for sinners to defend in heaven. Only this time he could not make himself heard.

Overcome with remorse, the Rabbi fasted six times six days and asked heaven the reason for his disgrace. 'You were wrong to look for sinners,' a celestial voice told him. 'If God chooses to look away, you should do the same.' And the Rabbi understood that some things must remain in the shadows, for the shadows too are given by God."

Rabbi Baruck's grandson Jechiel was playing hide-and-seek with another child. Jechiel hid and waited for his friend to search for him. He waited a long time, and finally left his hiding place. His playmate was nowhere to be found. Now Jechiel realized that his friend had not even bothered to look for him. With tears in his eyes he came running to his grandfather. Then Rabbi Baruck also began to weep and said, "That is the way God acts: I hide, but nobody wants to look for me."