Jews and Unitarians

What underlies the affinity between the "Jews'' and the "Unitarians''? (I put those words in quotes because standing alone they are mere labels that conceal concepts rather than explicate them.)

The obvious answer is that the theological simplicity of unitarian traditional belief, the belief in the oneness and transcendence of the god concept echoes closely the central Jewish doctrine that Adonai echad (God is one) and has no human embodiment. But there is something more complicated going on than doctrinal agreement. The idea of the unique and transcendent nature of Allah is central also to Islam, yet there has not been for many centuries the kind of sympathy that once existed between Jews and Moslems that I believe now obtains between Jews and Unitarians.

Consider the following:

1. To Jews, the Garden of Eden story is not one of fall into sin but of rise to responsibility that accompanies knowledge.
   
2. Throughout the Torah there is a recurring theme of argument with God rather than submission to God. In the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, for example, God seems to be telling Abraham, "Don't do what I say just because you heard me say it; think it through for yourself.''
   
3. The personality of God in the O.T. is not consistent. G. is "vengeful'', "jealous'', "loving'', "protective of his people'', "demanding of his people'', "indifferent to human suffering'' (as in Job and as is Nature), "a consolation to the suffering'' (as in Psalms). And once the Bible was fixed and codified, the whole book was up for reinterpretation through the Talmud and through a continuing process of argument and commentary.
   
4. A major part of the Hebrew Bible, an essential aspect of it, is a book of history. Distinguished thinkers have said that the Jews invented history. In any case, the idea of history -- a communal memory of change as well as of constancy -- is very much part of a Jewish view.
   
5. Jews have never been able to answer satisfactorily for themselves, "Who is a Jew?''
   
6. Jews do not believe that they possess The Truth. Judaism is not catholic. They do not proselytize. They do not disidentify Jews on the basis of belief, although on occasion (I think here of Spinoza, for example) the existent power structure may disown particular Jews for political or prudential reasons. And for non-Jews, a Jew who converts remains, nonetheless, a Jew and, often, suspect.
   

Underlying these data is, I believe, an ancient intellectual tension between "Greek and Jew'' (or, as it is put in Paul's letter to the Colossians in an attempt to bridge the division, "Neither Greek nor Jew....''). It runs against the Jewish grain to put the word ahead of the fact. It is a particularly Hellenistic concept to say, as does the opening of John's Gospel, "In the beginning, there was the Word.'' Jews, at least since Maimonides in the twelfth century, have been comfortable with the great contribution of the Greeks to civilization, the use of reason. The tension has been phrased (wrongly, in my view) as one between "faith'' (Hebrew) and "reason'' (Greek). Instead, I submit, the dichotomy is between the primacy of the "ideal'' (Greek) or the "real'' (Hebrew). Jews, I suggest, have made disproportionate contributions to mathematics and science because their traditions put existence before essence. Likewise, in the law, Jews are comfortable with Justice Holmes' aphorism, "The life of the law is not logic but experience.'' The opening words of Genesis are, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth.'' In the beginning there was the world [hear that "l''] and the word [no "l''] is the imperfect best we can do to communicate about it. So, I am left tongue-tied as I try to make verbal explanations which, in the very nature of words, belie the concepts I want to convey.

If I can't escape the existential state of being Jewish, if I continue to respect the underlying ideas of the Jewish experience, why do I associate myself with Unitarianism? Partly because I feel a confinement, a loss of individuality in adopting totally the communal baggage of an ancestral accident. I want one foot in a distinguished heritage but another in the wider, less parochial community. Conforming to a prescribed pattern impoverishes not only the individual but the whole community. I am far more comfortable accepting the teaching of a wide diversity of thinkers -- Greek and Jew and more -- than looking for closure in a single tradition or a Biblical authority.

Sander Rubin
2032 Gauguin Place
Davis, CA 95716-0542
(530) 753-7263

12 April 1992

Unitarian Church of Davis

To related essays 1997.