A Psycho-Theological Reading of Repentance & Forgiveness in Judaism and Christianity

Abstract: The essay compares and contrasts repentance and forgiveness in Christianity and Judaism through various historical periods and liturgical practices. It concludes that although Judaism and Christianity offer different solutions to different questions, Judaism asking how best to organize society and Christianity asking how best to create humble people, both are interested in cultivating harmonious well-functioning societies. Through working from different starting points they both prescribe repentance and offer forgiveness. Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology 5-7 June 2017 Baltimore MD A Psycho-theological reading of Repentance & Forgiveness in Judaism and Christianity Ellen T. Charry In approaching repentance and forgiveness in Judaism and Christianity we necessarily begin by identifying discontinuities and dispelling understandable but imprecise generalizations in order to promote maximal clarity and understanding. So I begin with three caveats: 1. Ancient Israelite religion, as depicted in the Older Testament, is not Judaism. 2. Christianity is not the “daughter” of Judaism. Both developed more or less contemporaneously over a period of centuries. Siblings is a more appropriate metaphor. 3. Christianity offers “salvation” = spiritual well-being; Judaism offers community. Western Christianity ties salvation to repentance and forgiveness while Judaism does not. Therefore, repentance and forgiveness do not function comparably in the two traditions. To begin this discussion, I will assume that the first two caveats are readily understood and elaborate only the last: Second millennium western Christianity offers “salvation” = spiritual well-being resulting from deliverance from sin and its consequences. Judaism offers community; repentance and forgiveness do not function comparably in the two traditions. I begin with the last phrase: “the two traditions”. Here, on the Christian side, I have in mind a moderate modern western Christian mindset with an Anglican bent that I hope is recognizable. On the Jewish side, I will have in mind classical Judaism, that is classical Judaism as it developed after 70 CE that built on the earlier Pharisaic Judaism that we find reflected in the Younger Testament and the Mishnah written and compiled more or less contemporaneously in the first and second Christian centuries so-called and developed by rabbinic Judaism that is roughly contemporaneous with the Patristic Age. These two works, the Mishnah and the Younger Testament both claim to be interpreting scripture (the Torah, and the prophets [and the psalms]) but in that process redefine it in quite different ways with radically different results. Perhaps 40% of the Younger Testament is citations from or allusions to scripture. Indeed, Paul was fashioning Pauline Judaism. The author of Matthew was fashioning Matthean Judaism. The author of John was fashioning Johannine Judaism. The author of Hebrews was fashioning another version of Judaism. The Mishnah was fashioning Mishnaic Judaism. With the exception of Pauline Judaism these were all after 70 CE. Paul set the terms for Christianity when he transformed the humiliating death of Jesus into a saving, that is, well-being-producing event (1 Cor 1:17-31). Christianity became a religion that 1 offers personal spiritual repair (salvation) to those who he thinks need it: Jews and Greeks. Needing salvation means various things: atonement for or forgiveness of sin, relatedness to God, belonging to God’s covenant with Israel, all of which are different yet may now run together in Christian sensibility. Paul himself may have thought of the word euangelium [good news] as an umbrella term but it took on a specific and somewhat narrow scope in the west by focusing on forgiveness of sins as atonement. Mishnaic Judaism, on the other hand, some of which took shape before and some after 70, sought to preserve the sacred memory of the Jerusalem cult while at the same time transforming that way of constituting obedience to scripture for an agrarian society seeking to adhere to Mosaic teaching after the disastrous wars with Rome decimated Jewish identity, religion and community. The Mishnah primarily interprets selected passages from the prescriptive material of the Pentateuch from about Exodus 20 through Deuteronomy. The Mishnah became the definitive Jewish interpretation of scripture, simultaneously elevating this material above other scriptural texts and subordinating itto itself. While atonement is the focus in much of Leviticus and Numbers the Mishnah did not concentrate on it. It was more interested in the sections pertaining to family law, agricultural practices, civil law, and purity as these would create harmoniously functioning civil society. With the Mishnah in place by about 200 CE, classical Judaism further elaborated it through the Palestinian and Babylonian Gemarot (ca. 400 and 500 CE respectively) to create the two Talmudim, two massive compendia of Jewish practice that spell out in minute detail customs governing Jewish civil society in every respect. Rabbinic literature, of course, also interpreted other scripture texts as well in the Midrashim (written and collated over a millennium) but the legal foundation of the Mishnah and the Gemarot constituted the core, consolidated by 500 CE, at about the same time that orthodox Christianity was determined at the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE). In the Christian west, baptism became associated with forgiveness of sins as the central accomplishment of the initiatory rite. It was generally assumed that Christians would not sin after baptism and so post-baptismal transgression of moral and practical standards became problematic and had to be dealt with publically in order to promote public welfare. Tertullian (ca. 150-225) set the stage for the meaning of salvation in the Latin west with his short prescriptive treatise On Penance.1 The assumption of the treatise is that Christians do not sin. This marks them off from pagans. Baptism is considered the conclusion of a period of repentant self-examination resulting in the forgiveness of sins through the rite. This forgiveness expresses or perhaps even enacts spiritual health or salvation. Baptism, the culmination of a long process of training and self-examination is a first repentance so that post-baptismal sin constitutes the loss of salvation. Sinning after baptism essentially puts one outside the community of the saved. As Cyprian would hold: there is no salvation outside the church. Therefore, restoration to the holy community and state of personal holiness required a second penance. Tertullian does not know of the modern three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule. For him there are but two, baptism and one more. There is only one opportunity for a second chance. The treatise’s main contribution to later 1 Tertullian. 1959. Treatises on Penance. On Penitence and On Purity. Ancient Christian Writers; No. 28. Westminster, Md: Newman Press, 14-37. 2 penitential sacramental practice is the formulation of exhomolgesis the imposition of penitential practices: sackcloth and ashes, abstention from quality food and drink, fasting, confession of sin to the priests and self-denunciation before the community for a considerable period of time, at the conclusion of which, he seems to say, the person is restored to community. Psychologically speaking, the public nature of the practices associated with repentance begins with knowledge of the threat of eternal hell that promotes fear of God that in turn prompts appropriate guilt, regret, self-incrimination and an openness to recrimination that is understood to be reparative. Psychological relief is found in the release from fear of divine punishment that exhomogesis assumes or perhaps assures. Thus, by the beginning of the third so-called Christian century the Latin west’s use of fear and guilt to assure social and moral conformity for the sake of the common good and the welfare of society is articulated although not yet universally established. It was subsequently developed with formal patterns but never challenged. Augustinian Christianity further elaborated Paul’s soteriological concern for “salvation” in terms of how to deal with sin in order to gain or regain spiritual well-being identified as remission of sin or atonement. Behind this was not only Paul but also John 1:29 that identified Jesus of Nazareth as the “lamb of God” the atoning instrument that replaced the Jerusalem priesthood just as synagogal worship replaced the sacrificial cult on the Jewish side. There is not a direct scriptural warrant for John’s phrase here although Exodus 12 and Isaiah 53.7 are in the background along with various Leviticus texts on atoning sacrifice that structured the Jerusalem cult. With Christians driven to eradicate the guilt of sin via Christ’s atoning sacrifice, later contributors to that development were Augustine of Hippo and Christian monasticism, both of whom heavily influenced later western Christianity. Classical Judaism had nothing comparable; it never identified the fall, sin, atonement or justification as central to one’s relationship with God, one’s eternal fate or one’s moral health. Let us consider each Christian influence in turn. Although the problem of sin was essential long before him, Augustine of Hippo gave the west the notion of original sin. At that point, sin shifted from being incidental untoward or destructive behavior to being sinfulness: a condition, a psychological pathology, or a symbolic congenital defect, that in modern parlance we might call a character disorder that affects every human being to greater or lesser extent. Judaism knows that all people sin and it has remedies and practices that address it. But Augustine gave us the idea that we are not just sinners but essentially sinful. That exceeds being unable not to sin, according to Augustine, with which Judaism might agree. The Augustinian understanding of sin as superbia is often translated as pride=inordinate selfesteem sometimes oversimplified to selfishness. But if we were to translate it into modern psychological terms it suggests that everyone is at least mildly narcissistic. Character disorders are quite difficult to treat. The eastern Christian tradition also began its narrative with the Christian insistence on sin located in a mythical fall into mortality .But it did not have Augustine’s notion of original sin or his doctrine of election that posits that because of the fall everyone deserves divine punishment and only few are exempt from the punishment they deserve and are elected by God to heaven, making up for the number of angels who fell with Satan. Both eastern and western Christian 3 monasticism envision a universal fall based on Genesis 3, although the theme became far more important in the west than in the east. That is, all Christians understand Christianity to be a solution to the diagnosis of a moral flaw in humanity. According to biblical warrant, although world history begins with creation, the Christian story takes Genesis 3, that it labels as “the fall” as its theological point of departure. Monasticism took the fall narrative quite seriously and the western penitential system elaborated the fallenness of humanity and its consequent helplessness before God alleviated by the penitential sacramental system developed after Tertullian. In some cases, monasticism took extreme measures to combat this character disorder. The influence of monastic spirituality and piety notwithstanding, medieval western Christianity emphasized the sacramental system and with Anselm of Canterbury atonement for sinfulness and sacramental absolution became the pivotal soteriological achievement. Alleviating the guilt and anguish incurred as a result of a universal fall and consequent threat of divine punishment preoccupied western Christian theology and piety thereafter with atonement soteriology centered on the cross pressing other understandings of attaining spiritual well-being (salvation) to the margins. In short, western Christianity became preoccupied with what it took to be a universal debilitating defect in human beings. Pressing for harmonious civil society, Anselm of Canterbury reinforced the psychological power of this imputed universal character failing with the wrath of God. God is so distraught by human sin that we are all deserving of capital punishment (Cur Deus Homo). We apparently escape (even though we remain mortal) only because God’s mercy overcame God’s righteous indignation in the cross. None of this is present in Judaism. Its understanding of sin is behavioral not character-based or psychological. It does not posit a universal human nature or common personality, let alone a troubled one. It assumes that people can choose good over evil. It does, however recognize inclinations toward both good and evil but does not know of the aching struggle that Augustine’s Manichaean heritage gave us of the divided will, the better self pitted against the weaker self. Judaism’s question is not how do I manage given that God is displeased with me and I deserve punishment but how do we best live together in community before God, given scriptural warrants and guidance. Classical Judaism cares about repentance and forgiveness but without the guilt and anguish that drove some into the desert others into monasteries and Martin Luther to despair in search of a gracious God whom he could not find in the church that he knew. Rabbinic Judaism’s basic answer to its own question of how best to ensure civil society is to encourage people to sanctify time and space by blessing and thanking God for creation’s gifts. Liturgical prayer and practice sanctify time and space molding a community of belonging in solidarity with God’s good blessings. Perhaps a way of characterizing this difference between the two communities is to suggest that Judaism begins its narrative with Genesis 1, enshrined in the liturgy and quickly moves to Genesis 12 (God’s election of Israel through Abraham) while Christianity begins its creed with Genesis 1 and quickly moves to Matthew 1, or perhaps even Romans 4-5. I apologize for the long throat-clearing prelude but it is to be sure that we grasp that when talking about repentance and forgiveness between Judaism and Christianity we are cognizant that they are not offering different solutions to the same question but different solutions to different questions. To oversimplify somewhat, Judaism asks how do we best live in community and Christianity asks how do we find relief from the threat of divine wrath. Ultimately, however, 4 both traditions, and I suggest all religious heritages, are pressing a common concern: how to craft healthy, socially-productive societies. This may be harder to appreciate in a society like ours that now takes separation of religion and state for granted. It is easier to appreciate if we compare Calvin’s Geneva to classical Judaism. Judaism’s way is to order society according to accepted standards of worship and practice based on biblical warrant honed generation after generation. Christianity’s way is to cultivate humble people, classically motivated by fear of eternal punishment in the Middle Ages in order to promote good behavior. Both heritages ground their approaches in obedience to God, but western Christianity, shaped by the first psychologist, Augustine of Hippo, centered obedience in humility whilst Judaism, untouched by Augustinian pessimism about human nature, located the source of obedience in customized practice, communal prayer and liturgical rites. Paul’s notion that no one can meet God’s standard of obedience (Rom 3:9-12; 7:7-12) simply never took hold among Pharisaic, Mishnaic or rabbinic Jews. Why would God command what is undoable for us? That not only would be setting us up for failure; it would mock God’s graciousness and wisdom. The Pauline-Lutheran heritage imbued the Christian west with the fear, even the expectation that no one can live obediently and therefore everyone must constantly seek guilt-reducing reassurance through sacramental assignation of divine forgiveness in order to maintain psychological stability through trust in one’s salvation. When psychological relief through the assurance of pardon by a priest is achieved, as the medieval sacramental system enabled it individually, now residually practiced in Protestantism as pronounced by an ordained minister during public worship, or by throwing oneself directly on the grace of God in Christ without sacerdotal intervention as Luther found helpful, one can rest from the struggle of being tossed from consolation to desolation (as Julian of Norwich put it) and back again. Dante and John Bunyan both offer versions of this life-long struggle to rest in relief from guilt at deserved divine wrath by clinging to God’s grace. All knew that anxiety has a way of creeping back up on one despite believing that one is accepted by God. For its part, Judaism too knows the tension between divine judgment and divine mercy, but aside from Yom Kippur (Lev 16: 29-34; 23: 26-32) does not dramatize it for daily living as the western Christian penitential system did, although other fast days and penitential practices throughout the Jewish liturgical year keep the concern alive. With this considerable preamble that argues that we do not have a symmetrical playing field here, I turn to the body of this examination of repentance and forgiveness in Judaism and Christianity beginning with scripture. Then I will explore how penitential need was worked out and finally compare and contrast these developments for conversation between Christians and Jews today. The thesis here, if there is one, is that these two great religious heritages offer one another refreshing perspectives on themselves precisely because they address common concerns rather differently. `` Scriptural foundations of repentance and forgiveness Even as we approach this topic we encounter another significant asymmetry besetting ChristianJewish conversation. Christianity and Judaism only partly share a common scripture. The 5 Hebrew Bible is the whole Bible for Judaism but only part of and for many only a preface to the Christian Bible whose primary interest lies elsewhere as Christian scriptural interpretation of the Older Testament has amply demonstrated. Here we must again proceed cautiously, recognizing that “the Bible” not only is a different entity for Christianity and for Judaism but functions differently for them as well. The Christian Bible is central for the former, especially for Protestantism and subsequent interpreters of the tradition seek its guidance and inspiration. For the latter, however, the Jewish Bible may be the building block of the later tradition but historically speaking access to it has been through rabbinic interpretation much as the Roman Church accessed scripture through theological interpretation and canon law for centuries. While ancient Jewish hermeneutics sought divine guidance in every word, Christians often interpreted scripture christologically beginning with Paul. Indeed, while the Christian Bible is scripture for Christianity, the Jewish Bible plus the Mishnah and the Gemarah/Talmud together function authoritatively for Judaism. Customary terms for this pairing are the Written Torah (teaching [PLEASE], not law) and the Oral Torah respectively. While Protestant Christianity put scripture into the hands of the laity once printing made books widely available, classical Judaism delegated interpretation to authorized leaders for the welfare of the community. The Jewish Bible is the national literature of the Jewish people as much as it is divine revelation. It is to serve the community’s needs wherever it may find itself. The Mishnah represents the emergence of Pharisaic Judaism focused on an agrarian life while the Jewish Bible articulates a semi-nomadic life and the history that focuses it. The Jewish people’s transformation into an urban way of life warranted yet another transformation of its sacred writ. With this further caveat in mind let us proceed to the biblical foundations of repentance and forgiveness that the traditions share. Vicarious atonement as the means of remediation of sin comes to Judaism and Christianity primarily through the sacerdotal ministrations depicted throughout Leviticus and to a lesser extent Numbers. Jews accepted the destruction of the Temple by Rome in 70 CE as finally ending the sacerdotal sacrificial system in Jerusalem as the primary means of Jewish worship and substituted liturgy for sacrifice. Because sacrifice was permitted only in Jerusalem, diaspora Jewry had already been developing liturgy and built recollection of the sacrifices into it, with the hope of reconstructing it when Jews would again return to Jerusalem. After 70, one of the tractates of the Mishnah, Yoma (“the Day”), carefully preserved precisely how Yom Kippur was to be practiced at both the clerical and lay levels in anticipation of eventual rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The western Christian tradition, on the other hand, discarded the requirement of centering sacrificial worship in Jerusalem and reconstructed the cult vicariously using a clerical structure that imitated the sacrificial rites in Jerusalem and liturgicized them. Salvation, reenacted in the mass, focused on the singular death of John’s “lamb of God” (John 1:29). This verse, extensively elaborated by the theological treatise known as the Letter to the Hebrews, effectively sacerdotalized Jesus, reenvisioning the Older Testament in terms left behind by the Church’s Jewish cousin in favor of the synagogue with a highly developed and democratic liturgy that endures to this day. Judaism has no priesthood. There is no liturgical function reserved for the ordained. Returning to the Christian case, on the theological side, with Augustine, sin became the preoccupation of the west and he identified an atonement soteriology in De Trinitate 13. In the 6 early Middle Ages, Anselm of Canterbury elaborated that soteriology as penal substitution to encourage fear of punishing divine wrath and guilt over sin (Cur Deus Homo). Penal substitutionary atonement became the quintessential expiatory means that encourages repentance and enacts divine forgiveness. It also cultivated anxiety perhaps for some, shame that reached a crisis point in the person of Martin Luther. Once the sacrificial system was gone, and the Jews were exiled from Jerusalem they had to reconstruct atonement, repentance and forgiveness to be portable, as Christians also did to carry its various forms of the worship of God abroad. Of the many Leviticus and Numbers texts on atonement Jews focused on Leviticus 23:26-32: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Now, the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you: you shall deny yourselves and present the Lord’s offering by fire; and you shall do no work during that entire day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the lord your God. For anyone who does not practice self-denial during that entire day shall be cut off from the people. And anyone who does any work during that entire day, such a one I will destroy from the midst of the people. You shall do no work: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your settlements. It shall be to you a Sabbath of complete rest, and you shall deny yourselves; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening you shall keep your Sabbath. Rabbinic Judaism transformed this requirement into the penitential day of days following the instruction as carefully as possible except for the “Lord’s offering by fire” that was prohibited outside Jerusalem. Yom Kippur is an annual 24-hour fast from food, drink, bathing, anointing, sex, and work as prescribed in M Yoma. Medieval Judaism liturgicized the 24-hour period. Practicing Jews will go home to sleep but be at prayer in the synagogue for perhaps 16 of these 24 hours. There is an entire prayer book (maḥzor) for this day alone, and another for the celebration of the New Year that precedes it by 10 days. The penitential season lasts 38 days beginning with Ellul, the last month of the Jewish calendar. It is devoted to penitential self-reflection. Lent is its Christian counterpart. During Ellul psalm 27 is added to the daily prayers along with special penitential prayers. While classical western Christianity distinguishes not only original sin from actual sin but also mortal from venial sin, as well as seven “deadly sins” Judaism has a different structure. Rabbinic Judaism does identify what might be called cardinal sins: murder, sexual impropriety and idolatry. These are sins for which death atones, ameliorating the fear of death for these transgressors. A deathbed confession comparable to Christianity’s last rites paves the way for repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation that as a package yield psychological relief. Lesser sins are dealt with through prayer, alms, and repentance that complement Yom Kippur. Judaism also distinguishes sins committed maliciously from those committed out of ignorance and those committed inadvertently recognizing greater and lesser culpability accordingly. It further differentiates sins against God from those committed against other people (M Yoma 8: D, E, F). “For transgressions done between man and the Omnipresent, the Day of Atonement atones. For transgressions between man and man, the day of Atonement atones, only if the man will regain the good will of his friend” (Neusner 1988, p. 279). 7 Perhaps some Jews today are considering another category: sins against the earth itself. I do not know. The month of Ellul reaches a climax on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah with an annual midnight penitential service. Special prayers and readings heighten the penitential atmosphere heading into the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe, the Ten Penitential Days that in turn prepare for approaching God on Yom Kippur itself. I have a British prayer book that consolidates all the penitential fasts and prayers. One hundred pages are devoted to prayers for these ten days. Here is a representative sample from a prayer on the fifth day: Our Father, our King, be gracious to us and answer us, for we have no (good) deeds of our own; deal charitably and kindly with us and save us. As for us, we know not what to do, but our eyes are upon you. Remember O Lord, your mercies and kindnesses, for they have been from of old. Let your kindness, O Lord, be upon us. According even as we hope for you. Retain not our former iniquities against us; let your compassion come speedily to meet us; for we are brought very low. Be gracious to us, O Lord, be gracious to us; for we are exceedingly sated with contempt. In wrath remember to be merciful. For he knows our nature; he remembers that we are dust. Help us. O God of our salvation, for the sake of your glorious name; and deliver us, and grant atonement for our sins, for your name’s sake. (Rosenfeld 1969, 330) During this season Jews are encouraged to seek out anyone whom they may have wronged during the preceding year to make restitution as is possible and seek forgiveness. Christianity, that does not distinguish sins against God from sins against other people, has nothing matching this practice; all sins are brought to the cross of Christ. Social, political and civil insecurity are as nothing compared to the eternal salvation offered by the cross. For its part, on the horizontal plane, a rabbinic source enjoins people to seek out those whom they have offended as many as three times if necessary to allow time for reflection and reconciliation to the extent possible. Should reconciliation escape reach the penitent is encouraged to carry the weight to God on Yom Kippur whose gracious attribute of mercy is presumed to overpower his punishing attribute of justice in such cases. Without a penitential system comparable to the medieval Christian structure or the sacerdotal sacramental system, Jews relied on liturgical form and recommended personal practice to weather personal crises and social impediments to their spiritual/psychological well-being. These liturgical markers should arouse considerable self-reflection during this six-week period. Designated liturgical prayers and hymns of the season, most of them medieval in origin, include long formulaic lists of sins confessed by the whole congregation as if the entire community committed all of them. Each sin is introduced with “Our Father, our King, we have sinned against you by….” The signature confession of sin for the day, known by its opening words “For the sin that we have committed against you by…” is comparable to classical Christianity’s confession of sin found in the BCP. It is recited or set to music and repeated multiple times throughout the penitential season. In addition to atonement for past sins the Day of Atonement acquired the dramatic connotation of bearing the weight of the individual’s destiny for the coming year based on divine judgement. 8 The metaphorical Book of Life is opened during this season and one’s destiny for the coming year is inscribed. It is sealed at the end of Yom Kippur in a concluding service marking “the locking of the gates”. It lasts about an hour and is prayed standing because the Holy Ark is open, symbolizing the open gates of God’s judgment about to close. Everyone is inscribed; who will live and who will die by fire, by strangling, by drowning, by stoning, by accident. Death was ever present in a precarious world where pirates and vandals, fire and theft marauded at will. For Jews life was particularly fragile in Christianly controlled lands. During these Ten Days of Awe Jews greet one another with “May you be inscribed for a good year.” Anxiety is stilled by the slogan “Yet prayer, repentance and almsgiving mitigate the severity of the divine decree.” Similarities that sustain In sum, Christianity and Judaism both took the biblical sacrificial system seriously for their understanding of repentance and forgiveness. Both have penitential seasons lasting nearly six weeks for self-examination leading up to an intense 7-10-day period of dramatic liturgies that culminate in the holiest day of the liturgical year. Lenten discipline traditionally encouraged abstention from meat, sweets and alcohol, for example, as prescribed by the medieval penitential manuals for various offenses. The penitential discipline of Ellul, by contrast, does not encourage abstaining from gastronomic pleasures in advance of Yom Kippur. Other fast days are marked throughout the liturgical year and other fasts to be observed under certain conditions [M. Taanit with special penitential prayers for each]. Instead Ellul encourages interpersonal reconciliation reinforcing Judaism’s community orientation. For its part, Christian liturgy retains a remnant of interpersonal reconciliation in the recent practice of the passing of the peace before Holy Communion, respecting Matt 5:23-4: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” This text is perhaps a gloss on the M. Yoma passage I read. Today Lenten fasting is being reinterpreted in interpersonal and psychological categories. One such adaptation is as follows: Fast from judging others; feast on Christ dwelling in them. Fast from fear of illness; feast on the healing power of God. Fast from words that pollute; feast on speech that purifies. Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude. Fast on anger; feast on patience. Fast from pessimism feast on optimism. Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness. Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion. Fast from gossip, feast on purposeful silence. Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayers that sustain. Fast from worry. Feast in faith. This list echoes the lists of sins recited by the congregation in the synagogue on Yom Kippur. In its turn, Christianity reconstructed the biblical priesthood with holy orders while Judaism abandoned it, although a remnant remains in the custom of identifying those who believe they are descended from the ancient Priests and Levites and granting them priority in one aspect of the chanting of the Torah in the synagogue service. 9 In conclusion, although Judaism and Christianity offer different solutions to different questions, Judaism asking how best to organize society and Christianity asking how best to create humble people, both are interested in cultivating harmonious well-functioning societies. Through working from different starting points they both prescribe repentance and offer forgiveness. Judaism and Anglicanism in particular are prayer book communities whose liturgical life centers spiritual life on tucking people up into a venerable but ever adapting ancient heritage that plants people in community life with God in worship. Fortunately, we live at a moment when interest in improving interfaith understanding and cooperation is strong. This can carry us beyond polite but ignorant tolerance. Indeed, there is barely a Jewish or a Christian congregation that does not have members of the other community in its midst. It behooves us all to take advantage of the opportunity to embrace our neighbors not because it is the right thing to do but because we need them to continue growing into our best self. I will conclude with another anecdote relevant to a Christian audience. Last fall I took a large class to the local synagogue for Sabbat morning services. I was seated next to one student already functioning as a pastor. He had been to Jewish services numerous times before with Jewish friends growing up. In the middle of the service he leaned over and whispered in my ear: “You know, I could learn something from these people.” Perhaps his words resonate. And perhaps Jewish visitors to our churches will also find riches among us to take home with them. That is not for us to determine or even to anticipate. But let us all be encouraged trusting that the grace of God accompanies us as we bumble our way toward light and truth, hopefully in collegial friendship. Works Cited Neusner, Jacob, ed. 1988. The Mishnah: A New Translation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rosenfeld, Abraham. 1969. Selichot for the Whole Year. 4th ed. London: Labworth. Tertullian, and William P. Le Saint. 1959. Treatises on Penance. On Penitence and On Purity. Ancient Christian Writers; No. 28. Westminster, MD: Newman Press. 10