I was wondering whether we would ever get a story about the Pope's audience yesterday with Rabbi Jacob Neusner - and here we have tomorrow's issue of OR with a great story! I am going to alter the 'order' of the story which begins with discussing the occasion for which Rabbi Neusner came to Italy - a public discussion on Monday evening in a Rome auditorium with Mons. Bruno Forte, a leading Italian theologian, about the Sermon on the Mount. Monday morning, Neusner and his wife met with the Pope at the Vatican, and before that, they were at the Rome Synagogue on Sunday afternoon for the Pope's visit.
The Pope and Rabbi Neusner:
He says he's finished JESUS Vol. 2
and the rabbi thinks Pope's
Synagogue visit was 'great'
by Andrea Monda
Translated from
the 1/20/10 issue of
Rabbi Jacob Neusner and his wife Suzanne were received by Benedict XVI Monday morning at the Vatican in a private audience.
The rabbi presented the Pope with a German edition of Neusner's 1993 book
A Rabbi Talks to Jesus which Cardinal Ratzinger had read in its original English edition, as well as the Italian edition of a book on the Talmud by Neusner [author of more than 900 books].
Neusner says they talked for about 20 minutes. "Enough time for a beautiful encounter between two professors. I have always admired the scholar Joseph Ratzinger for his honesty and lucidity, and I really looked forward to meeting and getting to know him. Because I came to Rome for his historic visit to the Synagogue and for the event with Mons. Forte, it was a great gift that I was able to have this audience."
[NB: The two first met briefly in Washington, D.C. during the Pope's visit to the USA in April 2008, at his meeting with Jewish representatives.]
The rabbi could hardly contain his joy at the occasion: "We spoke of our books, and he told me he has finished writing the second volume of JESUS OF NAZARETH".
But Neusner is also someone who goes straight to the essential. "What struck me most are his penetrating eyes. He is able to look into you and through you. And then, of course, his gentlemanly manners, full of kindness and humility."
He found these human traits most appealing about the Pope, the same traits he saw during the Pope's visit to the Rome Synagogue.
"It was a magnificent event, with such enormous participation, which was moving for everybody, and which makes me hopeful about the future. The problem today - which the Pope understands well - is that we live in a sort of oblivion, forgetting history and our religious traditions. That is why the study of history is so important.
"I think, for instance, of the historical figure of Pius XII. I think it is still too early to say, and yet, we often hear cutting judgments, one way or the other. I have the odd sensation that there seems to be a force acting destructively that is not interested in Catholicism nor in Judaism, much less in dialog between the two great traditions.
"It is sad, because in fact - and I see this in daily life in the United States - relationships between individual Jews and Christians are excellent.
"If we ignore the past, we are condemned to relive it. So studying the past, from this viewpoint, is essential - along with a sense of responsibility. Every generation is responsible for the future, and we have that responsibility today, here and now."
The following is how the article begins:
There was no person more appropriate than Rabbi Jacob Neusner - one of the best connoisseurs and scholars of Judaism living today - to dialog with the Archbishop and theologian, Mons. Bruno Forte, about the Sermon on the Mount.
Their exceptional discussion was held Monday evening at the Sala Petrassi of the Auditorium on Via della Conciliazione. It was not by chance that it was held the day after the Pope's visit to the Synagogue of Rome. Nor was the choice of Rabbi Neusner random.
He was invited specially by the Fondazione Marilena Ferrari-FMR in connection with an event called
Imago Christi, which is also the title of an art book edited by Nicola Sapori illustrating the Sermon on the Mount, which was read on the occasion by Italian actor Luca Zingaretti.
"Thanks to this text {the Sermon}, I learned to love Jesus," Mahatma Gandhi famously said, as Mons. Forte recalled in his opening remarks, describing the Beatitudes as an 'identity card' of Jesus, and therefore, the ideal for every Christian.
And no one could be better than Rabbi Neusner to offer his reflections as a Jew on the Sermon, because he has been doing it for almost twenty years, in effect, since he began a long-distance dialog with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
In 1993, Neusner published the book
A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, in which he imagines that he was present when Jesus gave the Sermon, and reflects on it as if he was really hearing it for the first time.
And he sought to listen to the Sermon without being influenced by any of the prejudices and interpretations that had accumulated in the 2000 years of Christianity.
Rabbi Neusner recounted this about its first publication: "Before it was to be published, I went to my editor, asking him what he thought of using in the book jacket a review from Cardinal Ratzinger, who was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He thought I was mad and said the cardinal would never even think about it."
"We made a bet, and I won. Among other things, Ratzinger called my book 'the most important document for Jewish-Christian dialog that has come out in the past decade'. He also said, 'The absolute intellectual honesty, the precision of analysis, its respect for the other side, joined to a radical loyalty to his own position, characterize this book and make it a challenge, especially for Christians, who should reflect well on the contrast between Moses and Jesus'.
"Then, when Benedict XI wrote the first volume of JESUS OF NAZARETH in 2007, he did me the great courtesy of resuming our dialog by dedicating quite a few pages to my 1993 book".
Mons. Forte is well-acquainted with Neusner's book, praising it several times during the public discussion, underscoring its originality, which "lies in the fact that the author imagines himself to be a contemporary of Jesus, with whom he enters into an intensive discussion."
"In the rabbinical tradition," Mons. Forte said, this is an act of profound respect and great spiritual tension."
The bishop also praised the frankness and loyalty to Jewish tradition with which it is written: "Jesus's Jewishness is not put to question, and one must be grateful to those like Neusner who show him honesty and respect".
But with similar frankness, Mons. Forte presented the tenets of Christianity, dwelling on the point which the Rabbi found most questionable about Jesus: whether Jesus meant his teaching to supersede the Torah.
Citing Jeremiah, Forte said the Sermon on the Mount was not a law set against Mosaic law, but a Gospel, the good news about the love of God who never abandons man, and incarnated in Christ, gives man the strength to reach the apparently impossible ideals expressed in the Beatitudes, Christianity's Magna Carta.
The most fascinating aspect of the discussion between the two theologians was its authenticity: kind and courtly in manner, but frank and open in substance - a genuine confrontation which, in the context of current efforts at dialog between Jews and Christians, contributes to improve their knowledge of one another.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/01/2010 22:38]