Venerable rabbi tackles current issues of power, freedom and choice
Friday, March 12, 2010 | by dan pineAsk Irving “Yitz” Greenberg a question, and you’d better brace for a real answer: an elegantly argued, historically grounded and logically airtight answer.
An Orthodox rabbi and co-founder of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL), Greenberg, 77, was a leading advocate for religious pluralism long before the term caught on.
His notion of pluralism is more nuanced than the connotation of Jews and non-Jews joining hands and singing happy songs.
Jews “are living the same challenge the rest of the world is,” he said, “but to live it properly is to live in partnership with God and with other people. You move from hostility and othering, towards a new relationship with non-Jews.”
For the rabbi, that has meant fostering closer ties between Christians and Jews. He has urged Jews to respect Christian reverence of Jesus, and Christians to cease viewing Judaism as an outmoded faith.
He thinks it’s working.
“The Jewish-Christian transformation of the last 60 or 70 years is one of the great religious reformations of all time,” he said. “Not at every level, but within the mainstream of Protestant and Catholic churches, there is a repudiation of anti-Semitism. They affirm Judaism as an ongoing valid covenant.”
Greenberg has another message of pluralism aimed strictly at Jews. It’s all about moving beyond denominational lines into what he calls the Third Era of Jewish history.
“The core of Judaism is repair or perfection of the world,” he said, “that all people are given the dignity they deserve. It will be accomplished by a covenant, a partnership between God and humanity, in which every generation does its best to move the world toward these goals.”
As for those three eras, the first was the biblical, in which, said Greenberg, God was “the dominant partner. God speaks from heaven, sends messages and prophets, or you go to Temple and get a direct message through the breast plates of the high priest.”
The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. ushered in the Second Age, in which God was both “more hidden and more present,” Greenberg said, adding that God ceased performing visible miracles, but could now be accessed anywhere a synagogue could be built or a prayer uttered.
“This was less the God who spanks you, and more the God who partners with you.”
The Holocaust changed everything. Greenberg said, “We learned that human power and freedom when exercised without limits becomes very deadly.”
Thus in the Third Era, while the covenant between God and the Jewish people remains permanent, the roles of God and people will change significantly, he believes.
Greenberg predicts denominational lines will blur, while other aspects of Jewish life will shift dramatically, from redefining kashrut to expanding the role of women within Orthodox Judaism.
“I’m convinced that maximum freedom and openness will do best,” Greenberg said. “But it’s a paradox. If there are no limits, it becomes self-defeating. It’s the difference between pluralism and relativism.”
Greenberg has pondered these topics for decades. Ordained in 1953, he taught history at Yeshiva University, and later chaired the Jewish studies department at the City College of the City University of New York.
He pioneered the Modern Orthodox movement, while his wife, Blu Greenberg, is a feminist leader within Orthodox Judaism.
Meanwhile, the rabbi says he is folding in Third Era practices into his own Judaism. That means reaching out to every corner of the Jewish world.
“You don’t want anything in your tradition that degrades the other,” he says. “It’s a feeling of tikkun. We have to step up our standards.”
Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg will speak 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 18, at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, 200 N. San Pedro Road, San Rafael. Tickets: $18-$20. For information, (415) 444-8000 or online at marinjcc.org.