We do agree that there is evil—plenty of it. The difference, succinctly put, is that Christianity generally believes that evil comes from outside people; the Jews accept that there is some evil and some good within every person born. In other words, we do not believe in Satan; people themselves can be satanic enough.
We’re not that intrigued by sins, sinners, demonic forces, as some of our good neighbors in other faith communities. We’re much more fascinated with life itself, milestones, experience, and repairing the world.
Given the Holocaust, if we actually thought that a vile deity equal to heaven exterminated six million people, including 1.5 million kids, we’d be without a trace of hope and our God would be invalidated.
But not only that: “The devil” is not involved in our liturgies, because we don’t have a corporeal devil concept in Judaism (except in some peripheral sects) and we don’t burden people with trying to get God to exorcise any kind of evil entity out of themselves. We’re just trying to get ourselves to change—this is the leitmotif of the whole exercise. Change, or “turning over” comes from within—and this is an area where Judaism does differ significantly with Christianity.
Nor are we afraid of evil—we just wish to protect our children from it. No third party, human or divine is required or sought for these painfully genuine human moments of outreach and healing that heal the world and seal the soul against what we call “the evil inclination.” Given the Holocaust, if we actually thought that a vile deity equal to heaven exterminated six million people, including 1.5 million kids, we’d be without a trace of hope and our God would be invalidated. The Germans and their many accomplices did it; men and women went mad and all we had was God to hold on to.
God is life and we’re still here.
If there was really a Devil, why bother reaching out to another person? That arrangement precludes my ability to serve human life, to be creative, to fight injustice, and be God’s partner on earth. I personally would have a hard time believing in a system that starts out by weakening God with a 50% demonic degradation, presumes I’m inherently evil and have a quick existence on the planet just to shed that doom in a future world. This makes my existence more a competition than an opportunity.
With respect: Christianity, a great faith that has helped a lot of people for a very long time, perceives evil as a force from without human life. That is why the Adam and Eve story, when it is strained by the serpent and the forbidden fruit, is labeled as the chronicle of Original Sin. For the Jews, Adam and Eve didn’t sin; they grew up.
None of us can—or would want to—live in paradise forever. There comes a time, whether it’s college, marriage, a job change, a recovery from trouble or misfortune, when we realize that from bittersweet wisdom comes growth. There also come many times when we realize that we might have done something really bad, even evil, to someone else, or to ourselves. We thought about it and halted the evil inclination and chose the good—both necessary human attributes. In that tension is a harvest of knowledge.
When a Christian asks, what’s in store in the afterlife, the answer is often: “the Judgment.” When a Jew asks about it, the answer usually is: “We don’t know. Let’s eat.”
Comments