Die Tagespost is Germany's Catholic Newspaper

PRAYING FOR THE CONVERSION OF OUR NEIGHBORS
JACOB NEUSNER

         Israel prays for the gentiles, so the other monotheists - the Catholic church included - have the right to do the same, and no one should feel offended.  Any other policy toward the gentiles would deny gentiles access to  the one God whom Israel knows in the Torah.  And the Catholic prayer expresses the same generous spirit that characterizes Judaism at worship. God's kingdom  opens its gates to all humanity and when at worship the Israelites ask for the  speedy advent of God's kingdom, they express the same liberality of spirit  that characterizes the Pope's text for the prayer for the Jews--better "holy Israel" -- on Good Friday.

             Let me explain.  I derive evidence of the theology of Judaism toward the gentiles from the standard liturgy of the synagogue, repeated three  times a day.  I draw the text from The Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the  United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire (London 1953), which sets  forth an English translation of a prayer for the conversion of the gentiles  that concludes public worship three times a day every day through the year.  The text is uniform in the worship of Judaism. In it Israel the holy people  (not to be confused with the State of Israel) thanks God for not making the holy people like the nations. In worship holy Israel asks that the world be perfected when all mankind calls upon God's name and knows that to God every knee must bow.

 
         The text of the prayer “It is our duty to praise the Lord of all things,” thanks God for making Israel different from the nations of the world. Israel has its own "portion" and it is to differ from the nations. God is asked to remove "the abominations from the earth" when the "world will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty." This prayer for the conversion  of "all the wicked of the earth," who are "all the inhabitants of the world" is recited in normative Judaism not once a year but every day.  It  finds its  match in the passage in the Eighteen Benedictions that asks God to cut off  "the dominion of arrogance."  We may say that normative Judaism asks God to enlighten the nations and bring them into his kingdom.  As if to underscore this aspiration, the prayer "It is our duty" is followed by the Kaddish: "May  he establish his kingdom during your life and during your days and during the  life of all the house of israel, even speedily and at a near time." I do not see how in spirit or in intent these prayers differ from the one under discussion.

      These passages from the standard, daily liturgy of normative Judaism leave no doubt that when holy Israel assembles for worship it asks God to  illuminate the gentiles' hearts. The eschatological vision finds nourishment  in the Prophets and their vision of a single united humanity, and in a liberal  spirit encompasses all humanity.  The condemnation of idolatry does not afford much comfort to Christianity or Islam, which are passed by in silence. The prayers beseech God to hasten the coming of his kingdom.  The prayers form the   counterpart to the one that asks for the salvation of all Israel "in the fullness of time, when all mankind enters the Church." The proselytizing prayers of Judaism and Christianity share an eschatological focus and mean to keep the door to salvation open for all peoples.  No more than Christianity and Islam take umbrage at the Israelite prayer should holy Israel object to   the Catholic one.  Both "It is our duty" and "Let us also pray for the Jews" realize the logic of monotheism and its eschatological hope.

Jacob Neusner

Distinguished Service Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism

Senior Fellow, Institute of Advanced Theology
Bard College

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504