Food for thought

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 14:07:00 EST
From: mrflewis@aol.com
Subject: Re: Convert from Orthodox Background

In a message dated 11/11/2003 01:59:08 GMT Standard Time,
kingans@comcast.net writes:

> The reason I want to discuss this all with someone orthodox, is
> because orthodoxy is to me the genuine Jewish expression of faith, so I
> want to know how Catholicism fits.
>

'Orthodoxy' was until the growth of the Reform simply the ordinary,
normative Judaism. Although grossly over-simplifying, Reform,
Conservative, Liberal, Progressive, and Reconstructionist Jews are all
either a break away from that normative Jewish tradition or a 'break away
from a break away.' The core of Orthodoxy is a belief that God revealed
the Torah at Sinai, and that the Torah is to be found in written and
oral form. (It also can have the sense of the whole of tradition).

Catholicism is simply ordinary, normative Christianity. The various
Protestant groups that broke away at the time of the Reformation were like
the Karaites who rejected the oral Torah, saying that only the written
Torah is valid. The Karaites at least initially were like the Lutherans
in believing in 'sola scriptura' (scripture alone'. Without tradition,
various Reformers came up with their own interpretations. Thus thousands
of sub-groups were born, especially in America, apart from the major ones
such as Lutherans and Presbyterians, etc.

The Catholic finds the word of God in Scripture and Tradition. Scripture
is the inspired word of God but it is only by Tradition that we are able
to both discern what is Scripture and to interpret authentically. There
is the Magisterium - the teaching authority of the Church. A Catholic
believes that Christ gave the Apostles and their successors (the bishops)
the authority to teach and recognise the authentic Torah of Christ. Just
as the sages of the Talmud have a special status within Judaism, so the
early Christian writers known as Fathers of the Church have a special
status. The Pope is today what Peter was then - Head of the Apostles.

I have left much out but write simply to make the point that the Orthodox
Jew is much closer to Catholicism than to Protestantism (Christian
Karaitism if you will.)

For me, the root of anti-semitism is the hatred of evil people for the
people to whom God gave the Torah. The Torah reveals God's truth and
will. Since the Torah condemns them, the evil hate those to whom the
revelation was made. With the coming of the Messiah, the evil hate the
Jewish people because the Messiah is a Jew born of a Jewess.

Some one once said that the wicked do not hate the Jews because they
believe that they killed Our Lord, but because they gave birth to Our
Lord. Down the ages, that hatred has taken many forms. It has sought
many false reasons to try to justify its poison but ultimately it is the
hatred of the evil for God, darkness hating the true Light. Again, all of
this is very much a sweeping generalisation. But we have to go deep to
find the ultimate reason for anti-semitism. Of course, there are numerous
historical considerations going back to the Graeco-Roman world but
ultimately it is a question of the hatred of evil for good. If a people
is called to be holy, the world will hate them. The Torah held up a
mirror to the world and the world sought to smash the mirror and those who
held it.

Hope that this helps in some small way,

God bless,

Fr. Michael Lewis