Our Orthodox synagogue was purchased by an African-American church a couple of years ago. Slowly but surely, they’re making changes to the edifice. The bulletin board has been covered over with the logo of the church and other things “Jewish” have been removed. By the way, this is one of the synagogues designed by Percival Goodman whose buildings had class and warmth; Adas Kodesch shel Emeth (AKSE) was no exception.
I noticed that of all the Jewish trappings identifying it as a synagogue nothing was done to change the Ten Commandments facing the main avenue. The Hebrew letters, the first of each commandment, remain, and from what I’ve been led to believe this representation of the Decalogue will not be altered at all. It is a tribute, as it were, to what has been called the “Judeo-Christian Tradition” of two of the three Abrahamic religions (Islam, the third).
Is there, in fact, such a thing as the “Judeo-Christian Tradition”?
Many believe that since the roots do go back to Abraham, there is. Many further believe that the values of each so complement each other that to assume anything else is ludicrous. And others believe that outside the claim of divinity of the Christian savior there really are no differences. For the sake of peace, who am I to argue, yet the very non-peaceful history of the two make me wonder. If we “share” so much why have there been wars fought, infidels murdered, houses of worship burned to the ground and converts sought before they burned in hell? And it hasn’t been the Jews who coined the phrase, the “Judeo-Christian Tradition” phrase; it was the Christians? Nice that we were included.
Throughout our history there’s been conflict and controversy. Forgetting about the accusation of Deicide, just the terms “Old” Testament and “New” Testament indicate a schism. It’s not an age-thing either since the idea is that “New” replaced the “Old.” The “Old” is there to be a source for much of the theology of Christian Scripture, therefore Christian theology. For example, it is said that Isaiah prophesied the virgin birth and other elements of Jesus’ being God’s son. Well, the Hebrew word alma Christians believe means “virgin” doesn’t mean that at all. An alma is one of the Hebrew terms for a “young woman.”
Furthermore, as I’ve mentioned before, ours is a commandment-based religion yet the founder of Christianity, Paul, was victorious in his position that emerging Christianity was not to take the mitzvot of the Hebrew Scriptures to heart, at least none of those connected to ritual or hygiene or life-style (kashrut). His point was that salvation would come not from following the details of the law but from faith in Jesus, that he died for our sins. Surely that by itself divided us; it was, as they say, where the river parted.
(Speaking of the J-C tradition, Jacob Goldfarb visits the DMV for a driver’s license. The clerk asks him questions…” What’s your name?” He said, “Jacob Goldfarb,” “And where were you born?” “Russia.” “Your line of work?” “Tailor” “Religion?” “Catholic, what else?”)