Poster and title page of 30=page teaching supplement prepared by the Italian bishops and the rabbinical assembly of Italy.
Sorry - I missed posting this yesterday because I thought today was the observance of the annual Day for Judaism dedicated by the Church in Italy every year (and other national Churches in Europe) to promoting dialog between Christians and Jews. But is is properly January 17, because it precedes the Week for Christian Unity which always begins on January 18...
In considering the commandment
of chastity and responsible love,
this year's Jewish-Christian dialog
focuses on the traditional family as
the indispensable basis for society
Translated from the Italian service of
January 17, 2013
The 24th annual day of dialog for Catholics and Jews was marked all over Italy yesterday. This year, the theme focused on the seventh commandment in the Jewish version of the Ten Commandments, "Thou shall not commit adultery" (sixth commandment in the Christian Decalogue). The cycle of reflections on the Ten Commandments began In previous years.
In the teaching aid prepared for the observance this year, the Bishop of Pistoia, Mons. Mansueto Bianchi, who is also president of the Italian bishops' commission for ecumenism and inter-religious dialog, and Rabbi Elia Enreico Richetti, president of the Rabbinical Assembly of Italy, called on the faithful to reflect on the spousal relationship between man and woman, especially within the institution of the family, as an image of the covenant between God and man. Fabio Colagrande spoke with the bishop.
MONS BIANCHI: In the tie that binds man and woman in marriage, we can recognize what we might call the natural structure of human relationship, but also the revelation of the face and the greatness of God to man in his covenant with God, which is realized in one form as the nuptial alliance of a man and a woman.
I think that this effort to recognize and promote appreciation of the marriage link as a reflection of the greater relationship between God and his people, will be of help in our time. It will oblige us, in a way, to oppose the banalization or what we ma call the 'Whatever!' attitude that seems to be consolidating in our society regarding married love and the family - a debasement of values that is very evident in some strata of society today.
Do you think that the family based on traditional marriage is in danger?
I think it is threatened by the culture today because the family structure is being emptied of its specific contents and replaced by a range of other relationships and cohabitations that have nothing to do with God's design for the human family as we know from Biblical revelation.
Let us recall that there is a document from the Pontifical Biblical Commission, signed by then Cardinal Ratzinger, when he was the head of it [ex-officio as CDF Prefect), that calls on Catholics for a constant commitment to 're-read' Judaism and its exegetical tradition. This seems to be something people forget...
That is true, and yet, it is a valuable document because not only does it indicate stable points that we can rely on andbring to realization, but it also calls for a change in mental attitude that is so often subconscious in Christians, of thinking that Judaism is a thing of the past, whereas the document clearly shows how Scriptures, even during the time of the Old Covenant, are the roots of our common identity, and that we ourselves will not succeed in recognizing our Christian specificity, without the Old Testament that makes us brothers with the Jews.
It also helps us understand that Judaism has a very rich history and is equally rich in spiritual tradition, in culture, in liturgical experience. In this sense, it certainly accompanies not just Italy and Europe, but all of mankind, in our common course through history.
The reflection on the 'seventh commandment' that is the focus of this day of dialog also has to do with the sanctification of matrimonial life - kedusha in Hebrew. Colagrandi spoke to Rabbi Richetti about this:
RABBI RICHETTI: The Jewish concept of
kedusha has to do with bringing the natural events of daily life to a level of higher consciousness, namely, to realize that every thing is, in a certain sense, as God wills it.
Sanctification of matrimonial life consists precisely in not living it as a purely physical and material experience, but as part of a far larger design which serves to maintain that which keeps the universe alive.
We can also derive from this commandment an important teaching regarding the role of the family in society...
Of course. Because in the Jewish tradition, the family is the first nucleus of society. Society is seen primarily as something that can promote and advance human existence, and is therefore based on the union of man and woman which alone can generate life.
But from the viewpoint of dominant public opinion in today's culture, do you see the model of the family - based on marriage between a man and a woman - as endangered at this time?
Let us say that there is a part of human society today that seems to forget that society is generated through the union of man and woman. I don't think there is a danger that natural procreation will cease. But I know that there are increasingly less marriages - though these too will never cease, thank God, because there will always be those who feel the cosmic necessity of basic truths.
In the teaching aid for this Day of Dialog, you make a forceful statement, that one of the problems for Jewish-Christian dialog today is the awareness among Christians that Judaism is not gone at all or dying...
Today we continue to have many indications that there are still many pockets of hatred, or opposition to Jewish ways. I think that only genuine knowledge and dialog will bring out the reality and contribute to put an end to hatred, which is the child of ignorance.
What attitude would you say is most appropriate on this Day of Dialog?
I would say that it should truly serve as a take-off point for reciprocal knowledge, to set good foundations for what we can both do for the common good. The Christian world will always find a total readiness for this on the part of the rabbis.
I don't know whether, in the interests of promoting a basic awareness of Judaism among Catholics, anyone has ever prepared a primer that tells Catholics what are the main things we have in common with the Jews - belief in one God, descendance from Abraham, the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament, etc - which is quite a lot already. But also where we differ most, and perhaps this will be the more difficult to accept. The Jews think Jesus was just another good rabbi (I believe they endorse all his teachings about man's relationship to one another, but not what he says about himself), he certainly is not their awaited Messiah, much less the Son of God, nor God himself! And they dismiss the Christian idea of the Trinity. But these are the basic tenets that make us Christian.
What we must not forget is that Jesus was a Jew - born a Jew, raised a Jew, died a Jew. Mary and Joseph were Jews, the apostles and early disciples were Jews - and that they all, starting with Jesus, lived their lives strictly according to Jewish religious instruction and law.
The difference is that we believe Jesus is the awaited Savior anticipated in all of the Old Testament, while the Jews are still waiting for their Savior, despite all the consonances between the prophecies in the Old Testament and the life of Jesus. (Perhaps because Jews still believe that their Messiah will not just be a spiritual leader but a worldly leader as well, who will redeem and elevate the 'chosen people' and give them earthly power and status above all others So they will not accept either that Jesus extended the idea of 'chosen people' to everyone who accepts him as Savior.)
I like to think of the Jews after Christ as somehow stuck in a time warp, and that therefore, they remain essentially as the Jews were in the lifetime of Christ. If the Jews are ignorant about Christ, then let that ignorance - there are two senses of 'ignorance' here: not knowing at all, or ignoring what one cannot believe - be their pretext for not accepting Jesus the way we Christians do. It need not be ill will, or even hatred - just a stubborn belief in the faith they were born into - for regardless of religion or lack of it, all men are brothers under God.
So that's my personal attitude towards the Jews. Somehow I think there is a greater problem for them in that they would tend to ridicule the very idea of a man being God, or that there could be Three Persons in one God. But then, no other religion outside of Christianity believes in Christ's divinity, so the Jews are on equal footing with all the other non-Christian faiths there. (Having dabbled in some of the eastern religions, it always puzzled me that Buddhists and Hindus, for instance, could say "Even dust is divine" and invoke a myriad 'divinities' for every possible thing, and yet deny the divinity of a man who was also great and good and wise, not just some phantasmagoric representation of man's irrepressible need to imagine 'higher beings' that can help him make sense of life.)
P.S. I came upon the PDF of the teaching aid issued for this year's Day of Judaism too late. In addition to a joint overview of the theme for this year's observance, it is a beautiful and most educational compilation of prayers and intercessions that can be said by borh Jewish and Christians, as well as pertinent Biblical citations. But it's all in Italian, of course, and I don't know how much and if I can translate what is most relevant....
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/01/2013 01:40]