The Rosh Hashanah service a few days back was a reminder to me about how little that is "Judeo-Christian" exists in either Judaism or Christianity.
Oh, there are some shared values. And reverence for some of the same texts and places. But about many of the matters that matter most to theologians, there's not a lot of overlap between the mainstreams of traditional Judaism and Christianity.
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Odds are most of you reading this are Christian. Almost eight in ten Americans self-identify as some flavor of Christian. Your holiest holiday is Easter, yes? Here's a narrative associated with that event:
The creator of the universe instilled in the world a set of moral laws for his greatest creations (humans) to follow. Breaking any of those laws without proper repayment results in an eternity of torment in a very specific Hell. Not being guilty of sin gets you eternal bliss in a very specific heaven.
But God created laws that he knew humans could not follow. Nor could they in any fashion repay the burden of their sins.
So God sent his son, who is in a mysterious way also God, to earth to suffer a bloody, painful and very human sacrifice as payment for all the sins of humanity forever. All we need to do to gain the benefit of that sacrifice is accept and believe in it. And by the grace of God, literally, we get heaven.
I think I have that reasonably straight.
Here's a bit of Anglican Easter liturgy:
"We should praise you, the unseen God, the Father Almighty, and your only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who has ransomed us by his death, and paid for us the price of Adam's sin. For this is the Passover of that true Lamb of God, by whose blood the homes of all the faithful are hallowed and protected."
And here's a bit of Catholic Easter liturgy:
"For Christ has ransomed us with his blood, and paid for us the price of Adam's sin to our eternal Father! This is night, when Christians everywhere, washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement, are restored to grace and grow together in holiness. This is the night, when Jesus broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave."
Summing up: Impossible standards to meet.
A single divine sacrifice to purchase forgiveness. Grace, not works (though I realize there's a devil in those details). An annual celebration of a single, eternal event. And certainty about what happens after death.
Switch to the traditional services for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the Jewish "High Holidays." Here's a narrative for that:
The creator of the universe instilled in the world a set of moral laws for his greatest creations (humans) to follow. But doing well enough to please God is not impossible.
Many Jewish services include some version of Deuteronomy 30:11: "For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not too hard for you..."
On the other hand, God recognizes that no human is perfect and that all will fall victim to sin. And yes, God is a judgmental so-and-so. But he's also merciful. And effort counts.
The call for forgiveness is annual and the confession of a litany of sins is very public. Yes, we are blessed by the grace of God. But we work to earn it. As the traditional High Holiday prayers repeat every year: "Prayer, repentance and charity can avert the severe decree."
What about the World to Come? Traditional Jewish doctrine is uncertain at best about details.
Hell? Not so much. Eternal torment? Not so much. Heaven as a place of eternal reward? We sure hope so. Gotta have faith.
Lots of stories about how judgment might happen? Lots and lots and lots. (One of the most famous of those stories has to do with the first question a soul faces from the Heavenly Tribunal: "Were you honest in your business dealings?" Nothing there, you'll note, about faith or even ritual.)
One similarity between the Easter and High Holiday services is some recognition that life was hard for our ancestors. The path to Calvary is a story filled with harsh details that can only be understood in the light of those days. One of my favorite passages in the Jewish High Holiday liturgy is also a fossil from earlier and harder times.
The "U'netaneh Tokef" prayer may be almost a thousand years old. The full name means "Let Us Tell How Utterly Holy This Day Is." The traditional story about its author is that he composed it after having his limbs hacked at the orders of a Catholic bishop. However it was written, it's a list of ways to die that include the still-familiar and the less so:
"On Rosh Hashanah it will be written, and on the fast of Yom Kippur it will sealed -- how many will pass [from the world], and how many will be created; who will live, and who will die; who is at his end, and who is not at his end; who by water, and who by fire; who by the sword, and who by wild beasts; who by hunger, and who by thirst; who by earthquake, and who by plague; who by strangulation, and who by stoning; who will stay in place, and who will be exiled; who will live peacefully, and who will endure tribulations; who will have tranquility, and who will suffer; who will become poor, and who will become rich; who will be lowered, and who will rise."
It concludes with that exhortation of hope about the power of prayer, repentance and charity.
Do the traditional Jewish and Christian narratives sound remotely like similar understandings of God, humanity, or salvation? Not to me. Which side has it right? We aren't likely to know this side of the Great Perhaps.
Either way, I'm thankful that I live in a place where both sides -- all sides -- are guaranteed the right to go to Hell (or not) the best way we know how.
L'shana tovah tikatevu. Which means, "may you be inscribed (in the Book of Life) for a good year."
Jeffrey Weiss is a RealClearReligion columnist from Dallas, Texas. He can be reached at jweiss@realclearreligion.org.
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