Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
Nothing has riveted my attention in the immediate past weeks and months as the movie "The Passion of the Christ." It has drawn me to study materials of the New Testament and the theology of early Christianity. I have scanned the media in the farthest ranging way to detect any increased trends of anti-Semitism and, God forbid, violence against Jewish institutions. [There hasn't been any.] And I have followed the internecine Jewish about who should speak, what they should say, and when they should say it. Yet the consequences and dynamics of the movie and the religious fabric and climate it reflects or creates cannot be ignored. I previously stated that it would be the source of many sermons because it provokes us to think about core issues of religion and religiosity, besides the politics of religion. It is necessary to extract lessons from this movie for it places the idea of faith, being a believer, and the juxtaposition of conflicting faiths on center stage.
There has been much talk in the media that this movie would divide Christians and Jews. There has been considerable concern that the political support of the Evangelical Christians for the State of Israel would be weakened by the controversies, as it seems that "Jews are attacking the movie," the birth story of Christianity. I have been deeply concerned that in our community harm would come to the good relations between our religious communities and thus have reached out in several directions to counter it. Because I know that once this sermon is released on our listserv next Monday it will go in uncontrolled directions, which I appreciate, I specifically focus this second sermon in an undetermined series, on the theme that the Christian and Jewish faith communities share "A Chronicle of Suffering." I specifically use the motif of the Holy Temple , which had fifteen steps leading up to its entrance. I also issue the following preface: strength in one's own faith enables us to respect another's faith and not feel threatened, no matter how different or contradictory it is. We can respect it, and be respected. That is the foundation upon which I recite this Chronicle of Suffering.
1. The Jews of Palestine suffered greatly under Roman domination. All sources, Jewish, Roman, New Testament, outside sources give overwhelming testimony to the gruesomeness of Roman tyranny. Pontius Pilate is miscast in the Gospels and the movie, for he made the hillsides of Jerusalem run red with the blood of crucified Jews. Jesus was one of them.
2. Jesus, whose existence we do not question, suffered in being flogged and crucified. Christians seeing this movie are terribly moved because the words in the Gospels depicting Jesus' death are now vividly visual. Regardless of our personal reaction to this depiction, the physical suffering of Jesus is central to the Christian experience.
3. The Jewish community of Palestine endured momentous suffering because of their defeat by the Romans in 70 C.E., which destroyed the Holy Temple and exiled many Jews throughout the Roman Empire . This revolt ended Jewish autonomy until 1948. It made us powerless and vulnerable. It caused our enmity in the Roman Empire . It caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews and ended in the mass suicide on Masada .
4. Jesus' followers also endured great suffering. They brought a message that was not accepted by other Jews, even by their own families. They suffered the loss of their leader and teacher. They suffered in the general suffering of all Jews of their time.
5. The Jewish community of Palestine suffered even a worse fate after their second defeat by the Romans of the Bar Kochba rebellion in 132 C.E. This second revolt caused the massive dislocation of the Jewish people and mass destruction throughout Eretz Yisrael. The war was worse that the first time. The entire country ran red with Jewish blood. It ended with the massacre at Betar. We mourn for our Jewish martyrs on Tisha B'Av.
6. The incipient Christian church suffered in their struggle with the Jewish community inside and outside of Eretz Yisrael. As Jews, Jesus' disciples and their students came to the natural place - the synagogue - to propagate their faith. They were strongly rejected. So much so, that even a beracha in the Amidah was created to make them feel so unwanted and undesirable that they would not return.
7. The incipient Christian church suffered in their struggle with the Romans. For the Romans, the original Christians were Jews. They brought a religious message contrary to the pagan empire. They and we were thrown to the lions in the dens of Rome . They were unwelcome among us and unwelcome elsewhere.
8. The Jewish people's suffering greatly increased when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire . From the early 300's C.E. there were increasingly harsh restrictions and persecutions caused by the Church that included legal severity and physical abuse. It led to public disputations and forced conversions, and expulsions from countries such as Spain and England .
9. Jesus is interpreted in Christianity to be the "Suffering Servant" mentioned by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 53. Setting aside the very divergent views of that passage, for Christianity, suffering is a core component of their theology of Jesus. We don't have suffering as a core component of our theology. For Christianity Jesus had to suffer in order to redeem the world. That is a terribly heavy burden and demanding theology. Judaism's foundation and posture is quite different.
10. The retelling of the Gospel stories of Jesus' suffering brought great suffering upon the Jewish people wherever we lived. This period of the calendar was fraught with danger as we were accused of the blood libel of using Christian blood to make matzah that we desecrated their ritual objects, leading to massacres of Jewish communities during the Crusades and before Easter.
11. Christians watching this movie are moved to tears. It is a true and valid response by them to their central story. I cannot even imagine what it means to retell a story of so much suffering as the essential story. Our story of suffering, the enslavement in Egypt is told as part of redemptive history. We tell the story in a festive setting, the Seder table. The chrain, bitter herbs, usually horseradish, might cause our eyes to tear, to but it is recited within the context of family and friends telling an uplifting story imbued with happy music. These are two vastly different experiences.
12. & 13. These are two sides of the same historical suffering tragedy. We the Jewish community knows that the preaching against us, the demonization of us, the theology about us, contributed to the milieu that enabled the Holocaust. It took place in the heart of Christendom, in eyesight of churches, whose perpetrators were Christians. Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, never led to a holocaust. Our suffering of the Holocaust is forever an utmost tragic part of our story. It is also a part of Christian history. After twenty years of silence after World War II, beginning with Pope John the 23rd, Christianity has grappled with the suffering they caused by those who should have heard the lessons of "the religion of love." They have had to deal with the silence of the Church and the compliance of their parishioners. They, too, carry the burden of the Holocaust. While different, there is a common burden of suffering.
14. The Jewish people suffer when any part of us suffers. We suffer in the pain of suicide bombers in Israel . We suffer knowing that leaving the settlements in Gaza will cause a national trauma. We suffer for our co-religionists in Argentina in the economic implosion. We suffer for the anti-Semitism recurring unimaginable in Europe . We suffered for Soviet Jewry and worked to set them free. We suffer for Jewish poor. That is why we fully support and subscribe to our Federation's Welfare campaign. We understand suffering. We feel suffering. And we work to alleviate suffering. This is part of our unique story.
15. If you have been keeping count, you notice that I have strategically enumerated seven "chronicles of suffering" for each faith community. The fifteenth and final step is a suffering shared between us: We both must feel the suffering of humanity in a world wracked with hatred. Is there any among us, Christian and Jew - I restrict this only because this is a movie between these two communities - but certainly any feeling, caring human being of any faith who has ever carried a baby in their arms, who can not feel the agony, pain and immense suffering of the hundreds murdered in Madrid and the suffering of their families? This is only the most recent horror before our eyes. Any person who has any belief in a divinity must be moved by the suffering caused by such an abomination and desire and work for a world where hatred is abolished forever!
The use of the word "Passion" in the title of this movie really means suffering. Besides all other very relevant issues, we can learn a shared history of suffering of our communities in a world that is still unredeemed from suffering. These fifteen steps intertwine two related faith communities in a chord that can never be severed. It is right and necessary to understand and appreciate each other's suffering, learn from it, and then unite in making a safe, honest, and peaceful world.
After Ayn Kayloheynu tomorrow morning there is printed in the Siddur a small piece of Rabbinic learning. It cites Isaiah 54:13: "When all your children will be taught of the Lord, great will be the peace of your children." The Rabbis connect this verse to Psalms 119:65: "Those who love your Torah have great peace; nothings makes them stumble." Then they cite Psalms 122: 7-9: "May there be peace within your walls, security within your gates. For the sake of my brethren and companions I say: May peace reside within you. For the sake of the House of the Lord I will seek your welfare." The Rabbis connect these verses to one more from Psalms, 29:11. I recite this verse as our prayer with the belief that all humanity is His people: "May the Lord grant His people strength; may the Lord bless His people with peace." We and our children are entitled to a world of peace. Amen.
---Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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