Jewish Proselytizers?

Missionary zeal once beat strong in Judaism; the Pharisees, said Jesus, would "compass sea and land to make one proselyte" (Matthew 23:15). This proselytizing urge vanished in the Diaspora, but the time may have come to compass land and sea again. So thinks Robert Gordis, professor of Bible at Manhattan's Jewish Theological Seminary and of religion at Columbia University.

Judaism has much to offer the Gentiles of today, says Dr. Gordis, member of a Conservative congregation, in the current National Jewish Monthly. Jewish emphasis on family life would be a firm foundation in "the contemporary quagmire of sex and family relations." Jewish internationalism would be a potent palliative for the excesses of nationalism. And many a non-Jew would welcome Judaism's "uncompromising insistence . . . upon the unity of God, its realistic yet hopeful view of the nature of man, its refusal to accept a dichotomy between body and spirit, its de-emphasis of miracle and dogma, its optimistic view, rooted in the Prophets, of human history as culminating in the Messianic age."

Gordis pays tribute to the "sincerity and idealism" of Christian leaders, but he is not impressed with their 2,000-year record: "In no area of the world has there been a darker record of wars, bigotry, tyranny and persecution than in the Christian world." A new emphasis may be indicated, "if not a different conception of man's nature and duty and of relationship to the universe. Perhaps Judaism can supply this need."

To supply it, Judaism would need both missionaries and missions, and Gordis is well aware of what they would be up against. For one thing, potential converts would have to acquire not only a new set of beliefs but "a new pattern of practice that requires a complete transformation of one's way of life." In addition, "it should be remembered that no Christian sect has ever formally surrendered the goal of converting the Jews to Christianity. There is a grave question as to how these churches would react if Jews were to begin to convert Christians to Judaism." To explore these problems, Gordis proposes a conference of all Jewish national organizations, lay and rabbinic. Before such a Semitic summit meeting, Gordis would lay a "two-pronged program." Prong No. I : a pilot mission to Japan, which "would not encounter the difficulties that might arise in a country in which Christianity is dominant." Prong No. 2: information centers on Judaism throughout the U.S.

Plans are already under way for such a center in Manhattan, to be run by the New York Board of Rabbis. The center, says Gordis, will "make available to all who knock at its door the guidance of the Jewish tradition in solving whatever problems confront them." Eventually, Gordis believes, Jewry may again take up "the challenge of the prophetic injunction" to be " 'a light to the nations.'"

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