Responses in Outline Form to Profs. Phan and Soulen

David Rosen

American Jewish Committee

Obviously, the topic of this evening's panel is a matter for internal Christian theological discussion. I offer  the following comments and questions as an interested outsider to the conversation.

We need to ask these questions:

• Are there multiple covenants?
• Do Christian-Jewish relations point to a wider set of relations?
• Can this discussion be expressed in such a way that it will resonate more to Jewish ears – and what are the consequences then for Christian understanding?

• How is "salvation," which has come to have a distinctively Christian connotation, to be understood by Jews who do not conceive of God's redemptive acts in the same frames of reference?

The topic of covenant is important to this discussion. From a Jewish perspective, covenant:

• is irrevocable in spite of human failures
• includes God’s commandment, i.e., it includes specific expectations of human beings. This is absolutely critical. For Jews, without God's commands the concept of covenant has little meaning. Covenant includes tangible expectations that are expressed through concrete human conduct, not just as values.
• This leads me to a pose a question to my Christian dialogue partners: What place does commandment have in Christian theologies of covenant?

Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, past president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, has spoken of a “theology of partnership” If this has eternal validity, then it has theological implications:

• It requires a complementarity in relationship between Christians and Jews.
• Therefore, Jewish-Christian relations (and its renewal) is a divine call for partnership in expressing the divine message in the world.
• Jews need to go beyond the language of Rabbi Jacob Emden and others in exploring how complementarity can enable Jews to approach the Church’s claim to be the New Israel.