My Mom (who worked as a real-estate manager) and my Dad (a chemical engineer) were not especially interested in religion, faith, or theology. My brother (a computer scientist) and my wife (a statistician) have little interest in religion. My teachers rarely, if ever, expressed any curiosity about Scripture or Biblical history (not in class, at least), and most of my friends spend their time and energy on other things. There’s the material world, also known as Reality, most of them might say. And then there’s a collection of spiritual fantasies and fairy tales that serve as a crutch for the superstitious, the ignorant, and the weak.
So, how did I become so superstitious, ignorant, and weak? 🙃 Why have I developed an obsession with The Story (Jewish edition), narrative theology, and Christian supersessionism?
Some of it comes from people I’ve randomly met over the years — at school, at work, or while traveling. Some of it comes from a natural curiosity about the meaning and direction of my life. And some of it might have possibly come from my Uncle Sam, whose books I’ve recently rediscovered.
Samuel Sandmel (1911–1979) was a prominent American biblical scholar and rabbi, recognized internationally as an authority on the relationship between Judaism and the New Testament. Sam was also my great uncle — my father’s mother’s brother. I met him a few times when I was a teenager during his periodic visits to Boston, and although I knew my Mom and Dad greatly admired Sam, I didn’t understand why.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Sam graduated from the University of Missouri and was ordained at Hebrew Union College, later earning his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1949. He served as a Hillel Foundation rabbi at several universities and as a chaplain in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II. He held professorships at Vanderbilt University and Hebrew Union College, where he was also Provost and later Distinguished Service Professor. A prolific writer, Sam authored 20 books, including A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament, We Jews and Jesus, and The Hebrew Scriptures, and served as general editor for the Oxford University Press Study Edition of the New English Bible. He was also known for his efforts in fostering Jewish-Christian dialogue and received numerous honors for his scholarly contributions and work in interfaith relations.
“The answer lies in your hands, not in ours.”
I recently bought a used copy of Sam’s 1967 book, We Jews and You Christians: An Inquiry Into Attitudes. As I read it, I wished Sam was still alive. I’d love to ask him about some of the issues and ideas that he spent a lifetime exploring and that continue to mesmerize me.
A few excerpts:
Your religion [Christianity] was born within ours, and left it, and there exist some elements which you and we have in common and some which are quite diverse. A Jewish attitude toward Christianity, then, must simultaneously take cognizance of the relationship of parent to offspring and of the abiding integrity of both parent and offspring. In this connection, we must momentarily forget the centuries of persecution and disabilities because they are not germane to the deep and abiding question of a Jewish attitude to Christianity. In any profound inquiry, the persecution and disabilities need to be regarded as kindred to the accident of history which obscure the true questions. Let us try to imagine that Christians had never scorned or persecuted us; in that light, what would our attitude be to a religion born among us, which left us? … [italics in original]
We Jews have a special and central focus in your missionary efforts, for various New Testament passages seem to make us your highest priority. You often trace this mandate to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, especially Chapter 10. You maintain a host of special commissions and agencies designed to convert us; we do not maintain any designed to convert you. In the past you often resorted to forcible conversion, or gave us the choice of conversion or exile; on occasions our people were compelled to assemble to listen to conversionist addresses (and a heavy penalty fell on the Jew who put into his ear some barrier to hearing). You have wanted us, almost desperately, to convert, and you have resented us for not acquiescing. …
[T]he Declaration by the Second Vatican Council… has undergone considerable discussion, and evokes some criticism from both Jews and Christians. What is common in these statements is the repudiation of historic anti-Semitism and present-day anti-Semitism. Also, there is present in the Amsterdam Declaration and the Second Vatican Declaration the suggestion that Christians continue in the hope and intention of converting Jews to Christianity. It must be stated that some of us Jews have, indeed, raised the question as to whether these statements are designed to repudiate anti-Semitism in its own terms, or only to remove it as the barrier to success in converting us. …
If you ask, have your missionaries to us employed means comparable to those here discountenanced, then the honest answer must be Yes. The responsible among you have disowned these methods; they have needed disowning because they existed.
The facts are that, on the one hand, we do not want you to try to convert us but, on the other hand, the missionary motif is central in your tradition. Both you and we must take note of the presence, even in the laudable documents in which you repudiate anti-Semitism, of your continued adherence to the missionary motif.
Can you carry on your purpose in such a way that it neither does violence to our dignity nor implies that you have abandoned this motif which you hold central?
The answer lies in your hands, not in ours.1
Postscript: Like father, like son
I’ve met David once or twice, but this is news to me:
“The answer lies in your hands, not in ours.” » This reminds me of the question that animates this Substack: Do Jews and their Story have a future in the Diaspora? (It depends on the Stories that drive everyone else.)