Frank: There are many verses in the Hebrew Bible that are my favorite, however, one line stands out more than all the rest. That line is found in Genesis 12:3 where God speaks to Abraham saying, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” Jewish history confirms the validity of this biblical quote.
From the two destructions of the Jewish Temples, the first in 586 BC by the Babylonians and the second in 70 AD by the Romans, to the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, pogroms of Russia and Poland, multiple expulsions of countries all over the globe, the numerous Middle East wars, and of course, the Holocaust, the Jewish people have survived while those who attempted to curse and destroy us have themselves in the long run been cursed with failure, demise, and irrelevance.
Leo Tolstoy said it best when he wrote: “The nation which neither slaughter nor torture could exterminate, which neither fire nor sword of civilizations were able to erase from the face of the earth, the nation which first proclaimed the word of the Lord, the nation which preserved the prophecy for so long and passed it onto the rest of humanity, such a nation cannot vanish.”
Mark, in a time of worldwide rising anti-Semitism and an Iranian commitment to wipe Israel off the face of the map, can we Jews remain hopeful that what God said to Abraham 4000 years ago remains true once again?
Mark: Frank, two things can be true at the same time:
On the one hand, the Jewish people survived and even thrived during two thousand years of exile from our ancestral homeland. The Babylonian Talmud and the prayer book were both created in the Diaspora. The institution of the synagogue, the single most innovative enduring enterprise in Jewish history, was born in exile. Jewish culture and community continued to be established in every land in which Jews were either permitted or required to enter and call home.
And yet, on the other hand, Jews never forgot where they came from nor the place they called home. Wherever they prayed, they faced Jerusalem. Whenever they prayed, their prayers included petitions and pleas for a return to their ancestral homeland. They observed their holidays according to the agricultural cycle of the pilgrimage festivals in the Land of Zion. The language they spoke inside the walls of their synagogues was the sacred vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible.
In essence, we never forgot the land promised to our shared ancestor Abraham, to whom God gave to him and to his descendants the Land of Israel. It was, and is, a divine promise and an eternal inheritance. And the Jewish people, in return, never surrendered their connection to that homeland nor lost hope in someday returning to reclaim it as ours once again. As the Torah states: And there I will make you a great nation, and you shall be a blessing.
Which brings us to the words of Genesis 12:3, the idea that those who bless us will be blessed, and those who curse us will be cursed. Frank, we live in a rare moment in history, one in which many evangelical Christians see the promise of a blessed life through their blessing of the Jewish people. They express the hope of being a branch grafted onto the Jewish tree. And they are incredibly supportive of the State of Israel and very strongly demonstrate their allegiance to the Jewish people.
Frank, why do you think this is a relatively recent occurrence? Do you believe in the sincerity of these people? And how should we best respond to them and express our gratitude for their allegiance to us?
Frank: Mark, you ask a few important questions. First, I agree that this evangelical viewpoint is a recent occurrence. It was fifteen years ago that I joined an evangelical men’s discussion group which met once a month at one of Nashville’s most respected and loved evangelical leader’s home. I joined Don Finto, also known as Papa Don, each month for over five years in prayer and discussion on a variety of religious subjects. I was one of two Jews to attend these two-hour morning meetings that usually was attended by approximately twenty evangelical Christian men.
I learned at these meetings that these men were sincere in their commitment to God and the words in the Hebrew Bible that stated God’s promise to Abraham. They genuinely believed that they were grafted on the roots of the Jewish tree and their support for Israel and the Jewish people was unwavering and sincere. I grew to admire and respect each of the men at these meetings.
Second, because most Christians I meet do not believe in replacement theology also known as supersessionism, (a belief that because the Jew did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, God has rejected the Jew and made Christians the new chosen people,) I have embraced my fellow Christians with a feeling of respect and admiration and thanks for rejecting this replacement theology. We Jews should be thankful for those Christians who totally support the Jewish people and reveal to them a feeling of thanks and love.
It was the Jewish people who introduced monotheism to the world as well as the ten commandments, the need for humankind to be free from slavery and the need to live a life that helps repair the world, love God, and the stranger among us. God’s blessing on the Jewish people, although at times questionable, eventually has been fulfilled. We have been blessed while those who have cursed us have themselves been cursed. I believe that will continue for all eternity.
Mark: Frank, I believe that your admiration for the sincerity of these evangelical Christians’ commitment to the strength and vitality of the Jewish people is warranted. While we may not agree with each other on every position regarding social values and ethical priorities, we can and
should accept their embrace of our people, as the blessed nation through whom they hope to receive blessings upon themselves, by their blessing of our endeavors and our very existence.
One final note: I also believe in the sincerity of their continuing and vigorous support for our Jewish homeland as a divine gift to the Jewish people as an inheritance for all time. Whatever their reasons, whatever their ultimate goal, Israel benefits from their support, which includes the lobbying efforts of several million American Christians who are members of Christians United for Israel. As they embrace us with open arms and open hearts, we would be wise to be more embracing in return, and more appreciative and expressive of our gratitude towards them.
Rabbi Mark Schiftan can be reached at mschiftan@aol.com Dr. Frank Boehm can be reached at frank.boehm@vumc.org
The Jewish Observer is published by The Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville and made possible by funds raised in the Jewish Federation Annual Campaign. Become a supporter today.