"The ability to appreciate this larger story empowers men who believe the traditional, received Gospel narrative to transcend an anti-Semitic view of the passion. But it is an uncomfortable view to the modern mind, which prefers to find real evil only in comfortably-faceless structures, reassuringly-amorphous systems, and happily-guiltless neuroses. When Adam and Eve had thrown off an onerous revelation, they tried to shed the blame onto others; Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the Serpent, none of them ever blamed themselves. There are echoes today, and throughout history, when Christians have found the revelation of Jesus' death onerous and uncomfortable and have tried to invent new tellings of the Gospel in which Pontius Pilate and the conveniently-defunct Roman Empire were to blame, or in which "the Jews" and not ourselves were the cause of His suffering. The truth is otherwise. The truth is that the larger Christian narrative sets the Jewish community's rejection of Jesus as a story-within-a-story that involves all our sins and all God's love. It tells us that we have all -- Jew and Gentile -- been caught in adultery, and that none of us can lay off our guilt onto others.
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This knowledge exists in anyone who understands that the passion was suffered for him, for his adulteries then, now, and in the future. It was alive even in the old Church which prayed on Good Friday for the "perfidious Jews" -- the same liturgy had the Christian worshipers playing the crowd which called for His death. It lies at the heart of the Christian faith. Critics of The Passion ask too much, and expect too little, when they claim that Christians can never tell this story-within-a-story without turning our backs on the Son of God.

Why do so many Jews not understand this about us? Why do they persist in viewing traditional thinking about Christianity's central narrative as a toxic, anti-Semitic relic which must be jettisoned? Because we have taught them that's what it is. Ghettoes in every city have taught it to them. Burned and ruined synagogues have taught it to them. Desecrated Torah scrolls have taught it to them. A hundred million slights, a hundred million acts of hatred, have taught it to them. Six million dead have taught it to them. Did we really expect them to learn nothing from our witness? From our "evangelization"? I cannot speak for them, I don't pretend to. But I know my own heart, and if this were my history it would take a miracle to dissuade me from believing that the traditional Christian account of Jesus' passion, like the traditional Christian account of Jesus himself, is malignant to the extent that it is believed."