Synthesis: Rabbi Yitz Greenberg at Pardes - Jerusalem Report December 27, 2004

back to: Pardes Article Index

Synthesis: Rabbi Yitz Greenberg at Pardes

Jerusalem Report
December 27, 2004

By David Margolis

There’s something inspiring and endearing about Orthodox Rabbi Irving ("Yitz") Greenberg. Passionate in his views, charming in their presentation, courtly and unhurried in his personal manner, Greenberg can claim many decades of accomplishment as a teacher, Jewish community builder and theologian. Currently president of the Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation, which funds innovative programming for American Jews, Greenberg’s Jewish community work has always focused on creating respect and cooperation among Jews of different stripes. I’m particularly fond of his disclaimer many years ago, cutting through the noisy self-righteousness that often replaces real conversation in Jewish life, "I don’t care what denomination you belong to, as long as you’re ashamed of it."

On a drizzly evening in late November, I was among some 250 people who filled the book-lined study hall at Pardes Institute in Jerusalem -- itself known for a mix of traditional study and openness to modernity -- for the Israel "launch" of Greenberg’s new book, "For the Sake of Heaven and Earth." The essays in the book extend his theory about "pluralism" in the Jewish community outward to relations between Jews and Christians while chronicling, very movingly, his inner work in Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Greenberg distinguishes among pluralism, absolutism and relativism. Absolutism is the belief that you possess the truth, the whole truth and nothing but -- an attitude that leads, he says, to degrading and scorning others; in the end, as Jews know well, it leads to murder. Relativism, its opposite, surrenders all claims to truth, assigning equal weight to opposing views. Pluralism, the synthesis that reconciles the two, is an acknowledgment that other religious paths and viewpoints are valid and worthy of respect even while one maintains a firm commitment to one’s own path.

In Rabbi Greenberg’s pluralistic view, God has a covenant with Christians that is as lasting and legitimate as the covenant with Jews. Through this "dual covenant," God aims at making all humans his partners in fixing the world. Issues like whether the "messiah" already came or not are, he suggests, mere diversions from this greater task. As Jews, we believe what we believe (including, if we like, that "they" are deluded), even while we validate the legitimacy of a "great religion" that has "trained and nurtured human beings in the image of God."

His hopeful view derives especially from two events. One, paradoxically, is the Holocaust, a "major orienting event" that demonstrated where the road of absolutism -- and unbridled secularism -- can lead. The other is the transformation of Christian theology and education since Pope Paul VI’s 1965 encyclical "Nostra Aetate," which reversed the Church’s teaching of contempt for Judaism by asserting that "God holds the Jews most dear," ushering in what Greenberg calls "one of the great religious transformations of all time." That is, Christianity has changed, and it’s time for Jews to realize it and cooperate with a changed Christianity in bringing about "God’s kingdom."

I’m not completely a disciple here. The special energy and mission of the Jewish people, I might argue, require the traditional separation from gentiles, even in modern, pluralistic society. And fully validating another’s view while fully maintaining one’s own draws a very narrow line that I’m not sure many people can walk without falling off.

But even if Greenberg’s theology is risky or abstract, there’s something wonderful in its optimism. The Holocaust’s radical evil, he says, was a "revelation" to both Jews and Christians -- not that God had abandoned the Jewish people or humankind but that, as the "climax" of the covenantal relationship, God has now given humans full responsibility for the world. Even secularization has "holy potential" in the freedom it offers, while pluralism, which acknowledges the godliness in every human being, sets limits on this freedom, so that no absolutism can demonize or dehumanize the "other."

A great irony surrounds Yitz Greenberg: His embrace of pluralism and mutual respect among Jews and between religions has sometimes made him the object of unrelentingly vicious criticism in his own Orthodox community. But on this evening, he didn’t mention that. A prophet with honor, he spent about an hour and a half to set out his view of things, responded to some edgy questions, signed books for a while and then, tall and dignified, went out again into the drizzle.

back to: Pardes Article Index