Genuine Religious Dialogue and Contemporary Jewish Thought

Sandra B. Lubarsky

            Although Jews have a great deal to gain from the “pluralistic turn” of Christian theology, the level of engagement in discussions of religious pluralism and its meaning for Jewish self-understanding has not been a pressing topic of reflection for most contemporary Jewish thinkers.  Instead, Jewish thought in the period since the second Vatican Council has been preoccupied with the two cataclysmic events preceding that period, the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel.  As Rabbi Arthur Green has pointed out,

            Theology has not been the creative forte of the Jewish people throughout most of the twentieth century.  We have been too busily engaged in the process of surviving to have had the energy to devote to sustained religious reflection….For the past fifty years the Jewish people as a body politic has been fully and single- mindedly engaged in the task of reconstruction, in our case meaning above all building the State of Israel as a secure national home for the Jewish people. ….Besides these monumental undertakings, all else seemed to pale.[1]  

When Jews have engaged in interreligious conversations, it has often been as participants in discussions about how Christianity might overcome anti-Judaism.  Jewish-Christian dialogue has been appreciated largely for its aim in correcting Christianity’s understanding of Judaism and preventing further tragedy.  It has not been with the intention of considering the structural consequences of religious pluralism for Judaism.  

            The generation of thinkers who came of age before the Holocaust, several of whom wrote important theological works after the Holocaust, by and large did not affirm the salvific nature of other religions except as they overlapped with Jewish insights.  Both Leo Baeck and Franz Rosenzweig developed sophisticated forms of religious inclusivism.  Tolerance and respect were given to members of other faiths, but the faiths themselves were not seen as having intrinsic value apart from either their relationship to Judaism or to the Noachide covenant.  Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel also held the view that though Judaism and Christianity differed in doctrine and practice, they were nonetheless revelations of the same God and the same truth, differently expressed, but they went further in their regard for non-Jewish traditions, particularly Christianity. Heschel believed that “religious diversity is the will of God” and spoke of the possibility of “mutual enrichment”[2]; Buber maintained that the task of religious traditions is “not to tolerate each other’s waywardness but to “acknowledge the real relationship in which both stand to the truth.”[3]  

            I begin this essay with a summary of the views of several of the most significant Jewish thinkers since 1960, each of whom acknowledges his intellectual debt to Buber and Heschel.  Irving Greenberg addresses religious pluralism as part of his post-Holocaust theology. David Hartman speaks from the perspective of an American-Israeli, confronting intra-religious dialogue and by extension, inter-religious dialogue. Arthur Waskow, Arthur Green, and Michael Lerner are representative voices from the Jewish Renewal movement.  They include questions of religious pluralism in their new configuration of a Judaism that is responsive to contemporary American intellectual and social movements.           

            It almost goes without saying that their situation is different from that of their predecessors.  In addition to the ongoing development of Jewish-Christian dialogue, they face intra-Jewish conflicts which have intensified between Orthodox, liberal, and secular Jewish communities in both the U.S. and Israel. And while American Jews have earned the reputation of being the most successful minority in the U.S., the intermarriage rate among Jews in the U.S. is now greater than 50%.  (As I will discuss later, there is still striking little consideration given to the impact of this demographic revolution on the issue of religious pluralism.)  Likewise, in the last twenty-five years, a disproportionate number of Jews have turned away from Judaism, not simply to become secularists, but to embrace non-western traditions, particularly various forms of Buddhism.  Further, Jews remain on guard against continuing patterns of anti-Judaism and negative stereotyping.[4]

            In light of these events, the question of “other religions” ought to be high priority for contemporary Jewish thinkers.  But because the Jewish encounter with religious pluralism has largely been in the context of Jewish-Christian dialogue, initiated by Christians as part of a rethinking of Christianity—and not as a catalyst for a Jewish rethinking of Judaism--Jewish thinkers have yet to develop a full-blown theology of religious pluralism.[5] Hence, the distinction between those who embrace generic pluralism and those who embrace genuine religious pluralism is rather ahead of the discussion in Jewish circles.  But the trajectory is clearly toward a full embrace of religious pluralism and indeed seems to be toward an affirmation of genuine religious pluralism.  Following a summary and assessment of the current discussion of religious pluralism among these several thinkers, I offer some reflections on a Jewish approach to genuine religious pluralism, informed by process philosophy.  Such an approach can be seen as consonant with the current discussion.    

Irving Greenberg

            Irving (Yitz) Greenberg is a remarkable figure in contemporary Jewish life.  An Orthodox rabbi with a Ph.D. in American history, a former professor at Yeshiva University where he initiated the teaching of courses on the Holocaust, and an instrumental leader in establishing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, he has also been accused of heresy by the Orthodox Rabbinical Council because of his advocacy of interdenominational cooperation and interfaith dialogue.  In 1974 he founded the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in order to promote intra-Jewish unity.  Under his leadership, CLAL has become an important center for discussion and advocacy of Jewish pluralism, based on the principle that the multiple voices within Judaism--liberal and orthodox--are legitimate Jewish voices.   

            The starting point for Greenberg’s activism and intellectual work, including his approach to religious pluralism, is the Holocaust.  In the face of the Holocaust, indeed, in the face of “burning children”--Greenberg’s now famous standard for post-Holocaust discourse--Greenberg argues that the primary responsibility of all people is to honor and promote the value of every human life.  “There is one response to such overwhelming tragedy: the reaffirmation of meaningfulness, worth, and life—through acts of love and life-giving.  The act of creating a life or enhancing its dignity is the counter-testimony of Auschwitz.”[6]

Greenberg’s theological  project is based on two trajectories which come together in a post-Holocaust covenantal theology.  This first flows from the biblical idea that humans are created in God’s image; Greenberg asserts over and over again that every individual thereby possesses infinite value and that humanity is involved in a redemptive process and ultimately will be redeemed. “Judaism and Christianity tell of God’s love for man and stand or fall on their claim that the human being is, therefore, of ultimate and absolute value.”[7]  The Shoah is evidence of what happens when this religious orientation is dismissed and human life is devalued.  

But it is also “counter-testimony” to assertions about God’s love and care.  “The cruelty and the killing raise the question whether even those who believe after such an event dare talk about God who loves and cares without making a mockery of those who suffered.”[8]  In response to suffering as counter-testimony to God’s love, Greenberg turns to an analysis of power, both divine and human.  This is the crucial step in his construction of a post-Holocaust covenantal theology that yet includes a redemptive God.  In answer to the question, “Where was God at Auschwitz?” Greenberg asserts that God’s  power is self-limited.   

“According to Jewish tradition, God, out of love, self-limits—first to create and sustain existence, then to enable its ultimate perfection…The primordial self-limitation is expressed in establishing natural order/law and being bound by it.  …Similarly, God does not continuously interfere with history; nor will the divine enter into human lives with constant miraculous intervention.[9]

According to Greenberg, without such divine self-limitation, there could be no covenant, understood as divine-human partnership.  As an expression of God’s love for humankind, the covenant is a framework within which human freedom is joined to human responsibility.  Through the covenant, humans become co-creators with God in perfecting the world.  God is present in God’s hiddenness; to put it differently, God is hidden in the presence of human freedom.  

The final question for the believer is not: where was God in the Holocaust?  The manifest answer is that God was present, being tortured, gassed, shot down relentlessly amidst God’s people.  Rather the question is:  what was God’s message when God did not stop the Holocaust?  Let us venture to say that God was calling humans to take full responsibility for the achievement of the covenant. . . . As humans take power, they must develop their antenna to perceive God as the Presence everywhere.[10]

Even in the face of overwhelming evil, God declines to intervene in a supernatural fashion, for such intervention, though it may well change the immediate balance of power for the good, will unravel the power-relations that enable the covenant. Thus God’s commitment to the covenant is evidenced by God’s self-restraint in the use of power apart from human agency.  

            Greenberg writes with tremendous sensitivity to the loss of faith experienced by many Jews after the Holocaust.  He continually makes reference to the responsibility of post-Holocaust thinkers to speak with honesty and clarity about the reality of evil. Nevertheless, Greenberg maintains that we can speak of a redemptive God, even amidst the ashes of Auschwitz.   Fundamentally, this is because he believes that in our era, God acts in history through the deeds of human beings.  He does, however, offer an additional reason why Jews can still speak of God as redeemer:  the existence of the State of Israel.  

If the experience of Auschwitz symbolizes that we are cut off from God and hope, and that the covenant may be destroyed, then the experience of Jerusalem symbolizes that God’s promises are faithful and His people live on.  Burning children speak of the absence of all value—human and divine; the rehabilitation of one-half million Holocaust survivors in Israel speaks of the reclamation of tremendous human dignity and value.  If Treblinka makes human hope an illusion, then the Western Wall asserts that human dreams are more real than force and facts.  Israel’s faith in the God of History demands that an unprecedented event of destruction be matched by an unprecedented act of redemption, and this has happened.[11]

Greenberg does not speak directly about the kind of divine action that was involved in this event.  Instead he shifts from theology to anthropology, describing how Jews must accept a “dialectical tension”—between atheism bred by the catastrophe of the Holocaust and faith borne of redemption of a Jewish homeland—and  the “moment faith” that follows from living between Auschwitz and Jerusalem.[12] Yet the contrast between Auschwitz and Israel calls out for clarification regarding God’s mode of action; in not addressing it as a continuation of the pattern of God’s hidden work, Greenberg intimates that in regard to the establishment of Israel, the supernatural God of Exodus replaces the self-limiting God of Auschwitz.  

            What is clear is that rather than the issue of God’s power, it is the power of human beings that fuels Greenberg’s passion.  According to Greenberg, the covenantal claim on human beings is for  responsible use of power applied to the perfecting of the world.  Like God, this means that humans need also to practice self-restraint and self-criticism, the one in regard to power, the other in regard to claims about truth.  The affirmation of religious pluralism is, for Greenberg, both a necessary response to the Holocaust and a strategy for establishing a balance of power between people. Assertions of absolutism lead to the “delegitimizing” and devaluing of other human beings; power that is not sufficiently distributed leads to conflict and the destruction of weaker members of society.  “The practice of pluralism is essential to the exercise of power.. . Pluralism divides power; this guards against excesses.  Pluralism distributes power so more interests are accommodated and fewer feel left out.” Furthermore,

                        Why should people instructed by God (as they understand it) grant serious         weight to other views which are merely human (as they understand it)?          Absolutism would answer—they should not.  Relativism would answer—they      should—because there is no ultimate truth…

                        . . . Pluralism answers that there are real truths and ultimate claims.  But             humans of good will differ on which of the conflicting views are real and     ultimate. Therefore we are left with genuine disagreements.  Out of the unity of         common goal, then, people pledge not to delegitimate.  This self-restraint will     contain conflict and not let it tear society and community apart—lest everything    be destroyed.” [13]  

For Greenberg, religious pluralism reigns in both theological and political aggrandizement and is instrumental in sustaining both the value of life and actual human lives.  It is based on the limited nature of human understanding and the historical evidence that unlimited power, fired by claims of absolute truth, results in great evil.  

            To support his affirmation of the social necessity of pluralism, Greenberg offers a theory of progressive covenantal relationships established by God.  First, through the universal Noachide covenant, God’s presence permeates the created world so that all people have access to God’s blessings.  However, God chooses to establish particular covenants in order “to establish the human scale of redemption and to hasten its pace” as well as to “release the channels of blessing already inherent in the creation.” The stages of covenant creation begin with the family of Abraham (and even as the vision of redemption/perfection is revealed to others, Israel continues to play a special role as the people of the original redemptive pattern in which “God’s presence is more visible”).[14] Because God’s goal for humanity is redemption/perfection, “step by step” covenantal relationships are established with other peoples as the “model of perfection itself unfolds in history.”[15]  In this linear model in which “each stage of the covenant has its own time,” a covenant is eventually established with Christianity, itself a “tree of life,” able to bear “redemptive fruit.”[16]  

            In regard to Christianity, Greenberg writes, “To reverse a classic image, then, it was God’s purpose that a shoot of the stalk of Abraham be grafted onto the root of the Gentiles.” Although Christianity is “an organic outgrowth of Judaism,” it eventually becomes an “independent religion” with its own “vitality,” and “contributions to meaning and ethics around the world.”[17]  Indeed, it is a “counterpart religion” to Judaism, balancing Judaism’s stress on peoplehood with an emphasis on faith community and serving as a “moral/religious balance wheel.”[18]

            Greenberg’s affirmation of religious pluralism is rooted in the idea that that there is a “universal divine covenant with humanity” and that, through God’s covenantal guidance and human effort, life will be perfected, triumphing over suffering and death.  For Greenberg, this constitutes the basis of all religious traditions:  the ground of religion itself is a messianic drive toward perfection, understood as the perfection of social relationships and human relations with natural processes.  Theistic and non-theistic traditions alike are motivated by the same longing and commitment.  Greenberg writes, “I believe that world religions such as Islam and noncovenantal faiths such as Buddhism and forms of Hinduism should be recognized as movements legitimately striving to fulfill the universal divine covenant with humanity.”[19]  

            While Greenberg posits a structure of salvation that all traditions share, he also affirms that “God has many messengers” and he speaks of the “full spiritual dignity” of other traditions.[20]Because traditions have their own salvific power and legitimacy as well as their own spiritual dignity and because they have a common salvific goal, traditions can guide and inspire one another.  “Models of faith are what we have to gain from each other.  Those models evoke our own deepest possibilities.”[21]

            Finally, for Greenberg, religious pluralism is a strategy for avoiding the kind of suffering that Jews experienced in the Holocaust and for helping to establish peaceful relations between people.  He writes,

             “The indivisibility of human dignity and equality becomes an essential bulwark    against the repetition of another Holocaust.  It is the command rising out of Auschwitz.  This means a vigorous self-criticism, and review of every cultural or         religious framework that may sustain some devaluation or denial of the absolute and equal dignity of the other.  This is the overriding command and the essential       criterion for religious existence, to whoever walks by the light of the flames.              Without this testimony and the creation of facts that give it persuasiveness, the act          of the religious enterprise simply lacks credibility.”[22]

 Religious pluralism is a tool for perfecting the world, helping to eliminate religious arrogance which has resulted in so much human suffering. Greenberg’s analysis centers on a balance of power and religious pluralism helps to insure such a balance.[23]

David Hartman

            David Hartman is an orthodox rabbi and founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem which is dedicated to addressing religious, political, and ethical issues facing Israeli society.  In 1971, he immigrated to Israel from the U.S. and it is Israel that is the geographical and intellectual landscape for his thought.  His overarching concern is the integration of Jewish tradition with modern, Israeli society; his goal is the development of a covenantal Judaism that is relevant to the spiritual and political dimensions of Israeli life.

            Although Hartman recognizes the importance and legitimacy of diaspora Judaism, he sees Israel as the place where Judaism can regain its full covenantal integrity.  Judaism in the diaspora has been largely a private affair, confined to home and synagogue; psychologically, it has been shaped by fear and alienation stemming from life as a minority culture in a largely hostile environment.  In contrast, Judaism in Israel is part of the public domain and according to Hartman, this new political reality offers tremendous opportunities.  Most importantly is the chance to develop as a messianic society (carefully nuanced) in which the “guiding principle is to seek to expand the powers of knowledge, wisdom, and love.”

            I live with the guarded hope that out of this complex and vibrant new Jewish      reality will emerge new spiritual directions for the way Judaism will be lived in    the modern world.”[24]

            What Hartman calls “convenantal consciousness” is shorthand for his efforts to shape the identity of Israeli society in response to political self-determination. He is both optimistic about the spiritual possibilities afforded by the new political entity of the State of Israel, believing that it can be the embodiment of prophetic values, and realistic about the difficulties facing Israeli society, both internally and externally.  In regard to both intra-religious and interreligious relations, religious pluralism is central to his theological project.  “We can respond “halakhically” to our past suffering by striving in the contemporary world to discover how the presence of the other can be spiritually redemptive.  Thus the attempt to establish a secure framework for religious pluralism and tolerance in the State of Israel is not spiritually tangential to our national rebirth.”[25]   

            Hartman gives special attention to the complex of issues around intra-religious differences.  In a beautiful letter to an American, Reform rabbi, he acknowledges the importance of heterogeneous forms of Judaism for klal Yisrael (the house of Israel), replacing the question, “who is a Jew” with the question, “how [can we] build a people and a nation in the midst of radical ideological diversity?”[26]  He deplores the treatment of Reform and Conservative Jews by the Orthodox establishment in Israel. And though he disagrees with the Reform approach to Halakhah, Hartman firmly supports theological diversity, not for its pragmatic effect on relations between diaspora Jews and Israel, but because he believes that religious pluralism can lead to “a new level of spiritual dignity.”[27]

              That new level is based on the ancient inheritance of the Sinai event which Hartman believes is the normative frame for Jewish life, including the rebirth of the State of Israel.  Unlike Greenberg, he does not view the Holocaust as revelatory (though he believes that any suffering should result in increased sensitivity).  It is, rather, in memory of Sinai, not Auschwitz, that Jews must build a just and moral society that includes efforts to create “a shared moral language with the nations of the world.”[28]

            Hartman’s approach to religious pluralism has both a theological and a psychological dimension. In both ways, his approach breaks new ground in Jewish theology and prepares the community for richer and potentially transformative encounters.  Though at this stage in his writings his outline of the psychological and theological aspects of pluralism calls out for fuller treatment and greater systematizing (his argument is scattered over a number of essays in several different books), Hartman has already made important contributions to the discussion.  

            He argues that “cultural monism is no longer a psychological option” in Israel; the “other” is both the non-Jewish other (Muslim or Christian) and the Jewish other.  In coming home from the ghetto to Jerusalem, Jews find themselves face to face with  diversity and feel challenged to defend their various structures of identity. Psychologically, religious pluralism leads to a “radical shift” in “human religious sensibility” analogous to the consciousness of death which awakens “fear, uncertainty, loss of control.”[29]  Such emotional terrain poses a spiritual challenge:  how might encounter with the other generate love rather than suspicion?  In answer, Hartman posits a theological shift in which the divine creative-redemptive activity is understood as an ongoing, temporal process, marked by novelty and uncertainty.     

            According to Hartman, the divine name that was spoken to Moses at the burning bush, is best rendered, “I will be—I will come in new ways”  (Ehyeh asheer ehtehm, Ex. 3:14)[30] And he interprets the daily prayerbook’s description of God as the one “who in His goodness renews the act of Creation continually each and every day” as “thereby implying that divine creation is an abiding feature of reality and not merely something that happened once.”[31]  Moreover, “Creation is the affirmation not of the exclusive worth of eternity, but of the value of temporality.” God is both the God of history as well as “a God who says that radical novelty and surprise are possible in a spiritual life in which the covenantal ancestors follow you constantly.”[32]  Elsewhere, he asserts that “belief in radical freedom, in an open future, in surprise and novelty are crucial elements of normative Judaism.”[33]  

            Novelty (and uncertainty), then, are essential characteristics of the process of creation.  But there is an additional source of novelty  in the world and that is human freedom.  In this case, however, novelty is corrupted by human imperfection, giving rise to sin and estrangement from God and further uncertainty in the world. God’s response is to “repair the rupture” by reaching out to human beings through revelation, covenant, and election.  According to Hartman, out of love and respect for human freedom, God seeks a divine-human relationship that is based on freely chosen commitment to God.  “God agrees, as it were, to share the stage with humanity, to limit His own freedom and power so as to sustain human freedom, and to accept the risks of relation to human beings from within the context of history.” The consequence of human freedom is divine self-limitation.  “God no longer simply speaks and produces results automatically as in the Creation (‘And God said…and there was…’).  He addresses human beings without being sure of their response.”[34] Uncertainty becomes an aspect of both divine and human experience.  

            Revelation is the balance to Creation; it is God’s lure, as it were, to bring humanity back into relationship with God and to counter individual freedom with community stability.  It is “not meant to be a source of absolute, eternal, and transcendent truth,” but is rather “an expression of God’s love”[35][36] Hartman argues against any claims of universality for either revelation or redemption. Revelation is about building community and continuity of structure within history; it is always particular and limited to a specific community.  

And about redemption he says, “It would be ‘bad faith’ to advocate tolerance and pluralism in unredeemed history, yet maintain a triumphant monolithic universalism with regard to the End of Days.”[37] Instead, he maintains that the only universal is the sanctity of life, a universal which follows from Creation.  

            There is, then, a dialectical tension between Creation and Revelation.  Creation is the confirmation that all of life is interconnected and sacred. It is the basis for a universal ethics which proclaims that all of life, as the creation of God, is sacred and that all human beings were created in God’s image.  Revelation is the confirmation that God chooses to enter human history, chooses to establish particular relationships with human communities, and chooses to love humanity in spite of our imperfection.  But though Creation is a “metahistorical category”[38] bearing a universal ethic, and revelation is in history and thus limited and particular, both affirm “the value of temporality,”[39]

            By de-universalizing revelation and establishing a dynamic between universal Creation and particular Revelation, Hartman argues that faith communities need not be rivals.  There is no revelation that transcends the particular, no revelation that is complete, and no revelation that “exhaust[s] the divine plentitude.”  “Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are distinct spiritual paths, they bear witness to the complexity and fullness of the infinite.” [40] Indeed, he maintains that revelation isn’t about knowledge of God at all.  Rather, “Revelation is God’s speaking to human beings for their own sake and not for the sake of uncovering the mysteries of the divine mind.”[41]

            Hartman celebrates religious pluralism, even proclaiming it to be “spiritually redemptive.” It preserves the understanding that God is greater than any single faith community; it frees humans from the mistaken belief that any revelation is universal; and it reasserts the sacredness of all human life, regardless of different truth claims.[42] Hartman recognizes the theological import of religious pluralism and the need to embed it within the religious system as a whole.  To that end, he calls on Jews to examine the implications of the ideas of election and covenant and to develop new forms of commitment that rely on neither exclusivism nor absolutism.  And because he believes that Judaism is a creative-responsive system, he is confident that it can offer a vigorous spirituality without claiming religious uniqueness, denigrating other traditions, or isolating itself from other ways of being religious.  Although Hartman says that “We have not yet built religious communities where acceptance of “the other” and celebration of religious diversity go hand in hand with intense piety and religious devotion,” he clearly believes this to be possible and to be a task in which all religious thinkers must engage.[43]   

The Jewish Renewal Movement

            The Jewish Renewal Movement is a uniquely American movement which developed in response to various cultural shifts in the 60s and 70s and emerged as an organized movement in the early 80s.  Its leading voices are Rabbis Arthur Waskow, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Arthur Green, and Michael Lerner.  To date, little has been written in a systematic fashion about the movement and no single thinker has constructed a renewal theology of Judaism which gives adequate attention to religious pluralism.  Nonetheless, the movement embraces pluralism as one of its core principles and its main representatives have addressed aspects related to it.  In this section, I present some of what has been said in relationship to pluralism, drawing on several of renewal’s leading thinkers for this picture.

            In response to the question, “What is Jewish Renewal?” Waskow offers a “definition-in-process.”  

At the heart of Jewish Renewal is a renewed encounter between God and the Jewish people, and an understanding of Jewish history as a series of renewed encounters with God.  These encounters have followed painful crises during which God has been eclipsed; yet each crisis has resulted in the emergence of a more or less deeply transformed, renewed, and joyful version of Judaism.  

In our generation, Jewish renewal is the increasingly joyful, renewing, and transforming response of Jews to the crisis of the Holocaust and the triumph of Modernity in both its creative and destructive aspects.” [44]

Waskow points to the “neo-hasidism” of Martin Buber, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and Shlomo Carlebach as the spiritual basis of Jewish renewal.  Emphasis is given to direct spiritual experience with divinity and creation, embodied in intimate community life as modeled in the havurah movement and in the practice of social justice.  The movement draws on Hasidism for its spiritual vitality at the same time that it embraces the Reconstructionist idea that Judaism is an evolving civilization in which the past has a “vote but not a veto.”  Thus, it also shapes itself in positive response to feminism and egalitarianism, environmentalism, and religious pluralism.  It sees itself as involved in a “paradigm shift” which requires a reconstruction of Judaism, akin to the major reconstructions that occurred when Judaism encountered Hellenism and in response to the challenges of 70 C.E., 1492, and the European Emancipation.  Renewal recognizes modernity as posing both positive and negative challenges to spiritual life.  Such aspects as gender equality, participatory democracy and religious pluralism are affirmed; the “modern urge to constrict religious expression, to shatter communities, and to conquer the earth” is rejected.  Stressing the importance of personal experience with God, often described as “Godwrestling,” Renewal encourages people to connect to traditional sources “without getting stuck” in them. Thus the Torah,  understood as a wisdom source, a spiritual aid, and record of encounter between God and generations of Jews, is to be augmented and interpreted on the basis of new religious experience and new cultural insights and sensibilities.[45]  

            Beginning with the teaching from Genesis that every human being is made in the image of God and that God’s presence is throughout the world, Renewalists value both intra-Jewish and inter-religious diversity. Waskow’s definition includes “respect for and often learning from other spiritual paths (e.g., Buddhism, Sufism, etc.)” and the Alliance for Jewish Renewal (ALEPH) includes the following:

            We are committed to consult with other spiritual traditions, sharing with them what we have found in our concerned research and trying out what we have learned from them, to see whether it enhances the special truths of the Jewish path.

            …We will ourselves treat with respect and open-mindedness those who belong to other peoples and walk other paths than our own, even if we feel compelled to oppose their actions in the world.  

            …We intend to treat with respect other Jews and other Jewish communities whose approaches to Jewish life differ from our own, even if we feel compelled to oppose their statements or their actions.[46]

Zalman Schacter-Shalomi puts it this way, “We now, on this small  planet, bump against each other and discover, God didn’t speak at just one Sinai.”[47]  

The Tikkun Community, headed by Michael Lerner, likewise promotes pluralism, making it clear though, that pluralism is distinct from relativism:

            …we believe that there are many paths to spiritual truth, and we want to honor all of those which are open to an Emancipatory Spirituality…We do not believe that every particularistic tradition must be totally left behind in some new globalized spiritual mush.  …we do not seek a spiritual melting pot but a world in which plurality and difference can be respected, even as we affirm the Unity of All Being, the interconnectedness of all with all.  …we want to be clear that we do not embrace a vapid “tolerance” which refuses to make moral distinctions or a deconstructionist logic which sees all forms of discourse as little more than strategies for some group or other to gain power over others.[48]

Clearly, a core principle of Jewish renewal is the affirmation of generic religious pluralism, including intra-religious diversity.

            At this point, there seem to be two prevailing theological approaches undergirding Jewish Renewal.  The dominant form is neo-Hasidism which looks to a kabbala-informed metaphysics and practice. Because Jewish mysticism promotes a form of monism—All is One without distinction—differences between traditions are ultimately overcome (either on this plane of existence, once vision of the oneness of all is gained, or on a higher plane where unity overcomes diversity). As Arthur Green has taught,

In the insight of Chabad mysticism—sheer nonsense, but also the greatest truth—nothing but God exists.  This is the most profound Jewish mystical teaching.  …the Lord is God on heaven above and on earth beneath—‘Ein od.’  There is nothing else.  Patently nonsensical, yet the only truth.  We need to train ourselves to this awareness—that there is no separation between human beings.  We must know there is only the One.”[49]

Although the mystical claim that distinction is an experiential error makes religious pluralism only a fact of non-ultimate reality, nonetheless, Green believes that Buddhism has much to teach Judaism about the insight of nothingness/oneness.  “It’s probably the next important philosophical, theological step Judaism will take.  …When I talk about the move from monotheism to monism and trying to redo Judaism in a nondualistic framework, I’m preparing the way for that kind of dialogue and am already open to that sort of influence.”[50]  Green believes that the Jewish mystical notion of unification and the Buddhist notion of nothingness are compatible.  But as others such as John Cobb have made clear, these are not the same understanding of reality; because of his commitment to monism, Green posits this at the outset and approaches Buddhism with this expectation in mind.  Likewise, Waskow operates with a neo-Lurianic approach, but nonetheless asserts that other traditions are “I-Thou responses” to divinity and thus acknowledges their validity; finally, though, they are only aspects of the “Godwave” and hence not truly distinct creations.[51]         

The other theological approach, as yet underdeveloped, is panentheistic.  It is Michael Lerner who expresses this approach most clearly, speaking of a “notion of God as the Unity of All Being, in whom everything exists, but who is more than all that exists, yet manifests through all that exists.”

At any given moment we are part of God and God is part of us, but we are not all that there is to God.  

…[E]verything is alive, capable of interacting with the rest of the universe in increasingly conscious and self-determining ways as matter organizes itself in greater and greater complexity, and everything is permeated with God’s spiritual energy.[52]   

Lerner does not relate his panentheism to his stance on religious pluralism, but he does present a metaphysics that supports his recognition of the validity of truly diverse  traditions.  

            There is much within the Jewish Renewal movement that supports a commitment to genuine religious pluralism though, again, a systematic consideration has yet to be undertaken.  Renewalists take seriously direct human intuition of God’s presence in the world and thus begin with respect for the religious experiences of others.  They also respect the right of individuals to explore other traditions, given both the intensely personal nature of spirituality and the belief that God’s continuing creative energy is at work throughout the world. The tendency among Renewalists is to talk of God as a “presence” or “source of life” of “breath,” and thereby intimate that God acts in the world in non-supernatural ways.  Indeed, most Renewalists may be described as affirming naturalism_ns although this is not language they have used.  But Renewalists define their task as the reshaping of Judaism and Jewish theism in harmony with some of the insights of modernity.  Non-atheistic naturalism is one of these.  Furthermore, the Renewal movement contends that neither Judaism nor any other tradition is constituted by unchanging truths or is a completed system; God’s omnipresence and ongoing creativity, human limitations, and the great beauty, complexity and diversity of the created world undermine such confidences.       

Toward a Jewish-Whiteheadian Approach to Genuine Religious Pluralism

            The thinkers under consideration, representative of some of the finest thought currently underway in the Jewish community—have embraced a number of key principles that support generic religious pluralism and move toward genuine religious pluralism.  A brief summary of these principles includes their affirmation of a) a self-limiting God who makes room for human freedom and thereby b) acts in the world through human agency and the ongoing persuasion of revelation; c) a God who is immanent in the world and responsive to it, expressed either as panentheism or pantheism or simply drawing on the covenantal structure of partnership; d) an understanding of redemption as a process which requires humans to work in tandem with God and each other;  e) a belief that God’s love overflows any single “vessel” and that God is the source of on-going creativity so that therefore, f) no single tradition may claim full and final understanding of God nor claim to be complete in itself and eternal in relation to the world.  

            It is particularly striking that Greenberg and Hartman, both Orthodox Jews, affirm the notion of a self-limiting God.  Traditional covenantal theology holds human freedom in tension with divine omnipotence, framing it with a parenthetical “as if”— despite God’s omnipotence, humans are to act “as if” they made free choices.  Although neither Greenberg nor Hartman go so far as to embrace the strong form of theistic naturalism as defined by David Griffin, they are remarkable in deflating the traditional covenantal tension by proposing a self-limited God as a primary principle of post-Holocaust covenantal theology.  For Greenberg and Hartman, the affirmation of theistic naturalism arises in response to the Holocaust; for the Renewalists, it seems to be related more to the challenges raised by modern science.  Indeed, although the Renewalists at this point have the least developed theology, they may be the most open to accepting theistic naturalism in its strong form, both because of their desire to be in sync with certain aspects of the modern world and because of their valuing of personal experience over authoritarian models of truth.

            This rethinking of God’s redemptive power (even if it continues to be understood as a contingent arrangement), is the basis for proposing a limit on God’s revelatory  power as well.  In a sense, God self-limits the revelatory truths presented to human communities, attending to the limitations inherent in human understanding. Hartman (following Maimonides), proposes that God limits revelatory truth to the needs and abilities of particular communities.  Greenberg imagines a “step-by-step” unfolding of various covenantal relationships over time.  Renewalists speak of ongoing encounters with God and multiple “Sinai’s.”  All affirm that God continues to act in the world, presenting and responding to novelty.  None yet use the language of “persuasive” power to describe God’s work, but it is language I believe they would find useful in expressing the notions of self-restraint, hiddenness, and creative Presence.  

            At this point, “identist pluralism” characterizes the position of this diverse group of Jewish thinkers.  Despite their affirmation of naturalistic theism (in its weak form), their recognition of the complexity of God and the inability of any single tradition to embody God’s plentitude, their high regard for other forms of revelation, and their acknowledgement of the limitations of human understanding, they all speak in terms of one and only one ultimate reality.  Many paths are celebrated, but all paths are regarded as leading to a relationship with a single ultimate being.  This ultimate is understood as being personal and as establishing inter-personal relationships akin to the model of Jewish covenant.  (Though covenantal language is used less often by the Renewalists in reference to non-Jewish traditions, it is so deeply a part of kabbalistic and Hasidic thought, that it can be assumed until a non-covenantal option is articulated.)  Not only do they assume a single ultimate, but they also assume the shared goal of perfecting the created order.  God is the ultimate reality who establishes appropriate covenantal relations with different communities.  Religions, then, are all engaged in some form of the covenantal model and thus involved in a personal relationship with a personal God in efforts to improve present conditions.   

            In the main, the reasons why Jewish thinkers have not moved toward a pluralistic pluralism are more sociological than theological.  As yet, the discussion about religious pluralism among Jewish theologians has taken place almost entirely within the bounds of Jewish-Christian relations or intra-Jewish relations. Apart from these discussions, religious pluralism has simply not been as pressing an issue as either the responses to the Holocaust or to the founding of the State of Israel (and the numerous attendant issues associated with both).  For example, although Greenberg participated in the ground-breaking conversations with the Dalai Lama in 1990, his covenantal theology is first and foremost a response to the Holocaust and not to the truth claims of other traditions. On the other hand, it may be sociological reasons that eventually lead to the development of a pluralistic pluralism.  Jewish Renewal is home to many Jews who have explored Buddhism as part of their spiritual journey and who maintain a positive relationship with it, even as they develop their neo-kabbalistic and neo-hasidic approach to Judaism. As Renewal theology develops, it may respond to the claims of its adherents to recognize Buddhism and Judaism as expressing complementary but distinct truths, based on their experiences as practitioners of both traditions.  

            There is another reason why pluralistic pluralism has not yet been considered among this group of Jewish thinkers and that is the underlying essentialism that characterizes their approaches. Greenberg addresses the increased risk of assimilation that comes with an affirmation of religious pluralism, but he does so by making the “risk” an occasion for “choice.”  He writes, “We act out of weakness to retain the otherness of others because we are afraid we cannot survive choice.  Is not the ultimate message of the covenant that God wants us to exercise choice?” [53]  In other words, for Greenberg, religious pluralism calls on individuals to clarify their faith commitments and to choose one tradition over another.  He doesn’t address the possibility that pluralism may result in new forms of traditions.  Thus, neither  intermarriage nor the identity issues raised by the emergence of hybrid religious identities such as Jewish-Buddhists have been addressed as issues related to religious pluralism.  Both challenge the essentialism of traditions in a direct way, clearly violating boundaries.  The fact that these issues have been ignored and that the existence of “other traditions” has not been seen as equally problematic lends credence to the suspicion that thus far, Jewish thinking about religious pluralism has assumed boundaried entities. Though they all acknowledge the responsive character of the covenantal relationship and the ongoing creative process, as well as the limited nature of human understanding and religious communal understanding, they nonetheless hold to the idea of Judaism as fundamentally a theologically independent and self-sufficient system. Other traditions are pictured as “next to” or side-by-side with Judaism.  A model of external relations makes it less likely that the internal experience of other traditions will be seriously entertained.[54]  

            Among many Orthodox Jews, pluralism is equated with relativism and thus rejected.  Rabbi Marc Angel, a past president of the Rabbinical Council of America and a member of the Orthodox Caucus, for example, writes, “since [pluralism] is generally used as a vague synonym for relativism, the Orthodox find it intellectually and religiously unacceptable.”  Although he distinguishes between pluralism and relativism, he ends us conjoining the two, concluding that, “In short, pluralism/relativism is one sure way for unraveling the wholeness of the Jewish people.”[55]  Greenberg and Hartman clearly oppose this understanding of pluralism.  But they have set up the relationship between traditions in such a way that the accusation of relativism is not groundless.  Greenberg’s affirmation of multiple legitimate covenants, all with the same purpose and goal, and Hartman’s support for limited revelatory relationships, perfectly tailored to particular communities, increase tolerance but do not contribute to an expanded understanding of the very reality that they believe to be diverse, complex, and only partially experienced by human beings.  

            Surely there are advantages in proposing a pluralistic ontology, such as the ability to support pluralism without succumbing to either relativism or inclusivism. Is there any reason why a Jewish thinker could not do so?  Can a monotheist affirm the existence of plural ultimates?  While is it one thing to imagine that truth is not exclusive, it is another to propose that there is more than one orienting principle.  Can there be a Jewish affirmation of Cobb’s proposition that “in the full complexity of reality… ‘Emptying’ identifies one truly important aspect, and ‘God’ another”?[56]  The inclination, I believe, is to affirm diverse aspects of reality, but to treat them as aspects of a single ultimate, God.  If God “will come in new ways,” as Hartman interprets the divine names, can’t one of those ways be impersonal and formless?  Can a Jew say about a Buddhist’s experience of emptiness, “this, too, is an aspect of God”?  In fact, such an interpretation leads to the imposition of theism and the denial of the possibility of non-theistic experience.  It has untenable similarities to the grace bestowed on “anonymous Christians.” As Griffin and others have pointed out, such a move collapses pluralism into inclusivism.

            John Cobb points to Christocentrism as “the deepest and fullest reason for openness to others”[57] and also as the basis of Christian uniqueness. The Jewish notion of covenant may function likewise for Jews and thereby enable the affirmation of plural ultimates to explain the quite different experience of others.  In the concept of covenant are affirmed several values that are important for the affirmation of genuine religious pluralism: relationality as fundamental, freedom and novelty as qualities of God and the created world, and the demand that humans “choose life” and act in its behalf.  Conceived as a pattern for becoming more fully alive by entering into conscious relationships with the profusion of life, covenant can be the means by which Jews affirm truly diverse experiences of reality. For the Jewish thinkers considered in this essay, covenant is central to their affirmation of generic religious pluralism; it is possible for it to serve also as the basis for an affirmation of genuine religious pluralism.