PART ONE: THE THEORY OF JEWISH UNIVERSALISM

A. Jewish Universalism: A Definition   
     Jewish universalism is a term I suggest be used to designate
a religious interpretation of Judaism in which welcoming converts
is seen as central to the Jewish enterprise in history.  The
theory of Jewish universalism I propose and will describe holds
that God created the entire universe as a single entity, that all
people were created for a common moral purpose, and that God
chose the Jews to convey a moral message to all humanity so that
the redemption available to all people through God might occur.
Part of the moral message delivered by the Jews was that Judaism,
though not religiously required, was available to all people and
that the Jewish people has the religious obligation, as embedded
in their covenantal agreement with God, to offer Judaism to the
world and welcome converts.
     It will be useful to start with a conceptual analysis in
defining "Jewish universalism." A concept is a generalized idea
derived from a variety of specific instances. For example,
instances of shapes with three angles and three sides lead to a
term that applies to all those instances: triangle. 
     While concepts can be of various types, the crucial types
for this study will be "simple" and "conjunctinve" concepts. A
simple concept has only one attribute and is defined by that
attribute. A triangle is an example of a simple concept.  
     When more than one attribute is present in a concept, that
concept is called a "conjunctive concept." An example of a
conjunctive concept is a "red car" which consists of two
unrelated attributes combined to form a single concept, a concept
separate and different from either of its constitutive concepts.  
 
     The term "Jewish universalism" is a conjunctive concept, one
that joins the concept "Jewish" and the concept "universalism." 
There is no seeming relation between the two concepts prior to
their having been joined for the new concept in the normal
conjunctive concept. For example, there is no obvious
relationship between the simple concepts "red" and "car" before
they are joined to form the conjunctive concept "red car."
     "Jewish universalism," however, is a special kind of
conjunctive concept. It contains two distinctive ideas that do
have a relation to each other. Furthermore, that relationship is
one in which the two ideas seem to be mutually exclusive even as
they are placed together. "Jewish" seems to imply a
particularity, a separateness and a distinctiveness, while
"universality" seems to imply an inclusion of all. Therefore, it
is a crucial problem in defining "Jewish universalism" to discuss
the relationship in the same conjunctive concept of two seemingly
antithetical individual concepts.
     Jewish thinkers have identified a large number of conceptual
pairs made up of seemingly opposite concepts that are central to
understanding Judaism. These conceptual pairs are frequently said
to exist in creative tension, though, not part of one conjunctive
concept. Abraham Joshua Heschel, borrowing a term from Hermann
Cohen, calls these conceptual pairs polarities. Heschel cites
especially the tension between halakhah and aggadah, between law
and inwardness, but includes other conceptual pairs as well:
ideas and events, divine commandments and sins, intention and
actual deed, performing religious deeds regularly and performing
them spontaneously, conforming and being an individual, love and
fear, understanding God's will and simply obeying the
commandments, the urges toward good and evil, this world and the
next, God's revelation and human response to that revelation,
gaining knowledge through insight or by learning, God's justice
and mercy, and the human looking for God and God looking for the
human. Milton Steinberg adds to the list of polarities:
obligations to the self and obligations to the community, having
a specific religion and being generally spiritual, remaining
loyal to the Jewish people and maintaining a loyalty to all
humanity. 
     Sometimes the relationship between polarities is one of
unresolved tension, sometimes creative tension, and sometimes
something beyond tension. 
     Jewish universalists believe the tension between seemingly
antithetical pairs sometimes creates a separate, identifiable
third concept, a conjunctive concept which draws on the two
opposing concepts but is logically independent of them. Jewish
universalists believe that the tension between the particularity
and universality in Judaism creates a conjunctive concept called
Jewish universalism, which can be identified as an idea logically
separate from either the concept of "Jewish" or the concept of
"universalism." 
     Conjunctive concepts form many of the most basic concepts in
Judaism, although they are not always recognized as conjunctive
because a single word is used to cover both concepts, unlike the
two words "Jewish universalism." For example, the very idea of
monotheism is a conjunction between the concept of "oneness" and
the concept "gods." The concept "revelation" combines the concept
of "God" and the concept of "linguistic communication." The
concept of mitzvot, or divine commandments, is a conjunction of
the concepts of "sacredness" and  "daily behavior." The term
"Zionism" is one word used to cover the two words "Jewish
nationalism." 
     All conjunctive concepts are characterized by the relation
between their two concepts, the synthesis, or, a term with more
Jewish religious resonance, the unity between the two concepts. A
united concept draws upon each aspect in the duality and puts
those aspects into proportion. Unity means combining or arranging
both parts into a whole.    
     The unity of these polarities does not, however, imply
unification. Unity does not extinguish the separateness of the
entities in a duality. Nor does it attempt to destroy conflicting
entities in order to make one single new entity. "Jewish
universalism" does not fuse opposites. 
     Thus, for example, "Jewish universalism" is a unity of
particularity and universalism, a distinct people and all of
humanity. The existence of the unity "Jewish universalism" does
not extinguish or diminish the existence of the separate concepts
of "Jewish" as referring to the particular or "universalism" as
referring to the general. Both of these ideas retain their
vitality, but it is in the unity of the two separate concepts,
that Judaism becomes its most creative.
     The "Jewish" particularism in Jewish universalism refers to
the theological doctrine, personal and social morality, body of
religious law, sacred literature, established group of prayers,
religious practices, rites, customs, ceremonies, and holidays,
religious institutions to express all these, a sacred people to
follow the tradition and all other specific parts of the Jewish
tradition that are identified as originally or uniquely Jewish.
Examples of such Jewish particularities are the Sabbath,
following the laws of kashrut, and studying the Talmud.
     The "universalism" in Jewish universalism refers to the
universalist conception of the cosmos. In such a conception, the
universe is a unified creation by one universal God. That God has
a purpose and a goal. The goal is that all humans will be
redeemed. (There are, of course, many conjunctive concepts
involving "universalism" other than "Jewish universalism." For
example, "liberal universalism" seeks to identify moral
principles that are applicable to all humanity independent of a
particular religion and aims to convince humans to follow those
principles).
     In uniting these two concepts, Jewish universalists first
assert that Judaism has a religious concern not just for Jews but
for all humanity. "Jewish universalism looks to the whole world
as God's domain: the Jews are chosen by God to convey a message
to all mankind." The particularities of Judaism are meant to be
available for all people. This assertion requires a further
clarification of the concept of "universal."      
     The term "universal" can be used in two distinctive ways. A
proposition is "universal" if it is universally believed. A
proposition is, however, also "universal" if it is true. Jewish
universalism asserts that Judaism is universal in that it is the
most coherent--the truest--interpretation of God, the world, and
humanity. There are propositions that are not universal in the
first sense (believed), but are in the second (true). Indeed, no
religion or belief system is universal in the sense of being
universally believed. Jewish universalism, conceiving of itself
as "universal" in the sense that it is true, believes, in
principle, that Judaism could also be universal in the sense of
being universally believed. It is important to add here that
Jewish universalism, unlike other religious views that claim to
be universalistic, does not believe that all humans must accept
Judaism for the world to be redeemed, only that Judaism, because
it is true, should be made available for all who wish it. To make
sure that all humans know that Judaism is available, Jewish
universalists believe that Jews must offer Judaism to the world
and welcome those who freely choose to join the Jewish people.    
     Jewish universalists believe Judaism to be the universal
truth in the sense that the particularist core of Judaism--
ethical monothesism--has universal applications in all belief
systems. That ethical monotheist core defines not just what it
means to be a good Jew, but also what it means to be a good
person. Indeed, to be a good Jew is to be as good a person as
possible. The particularist moral injunctions that define a good
Jew are not just constitutive (that is, they don't just define
what it means to be Jewish) but have a truth to them that
provides a moral yardstick for all people. Additionally, there
are no universal moral truths not included in Judaism, but
Judaism contains moral truths not contained in any other belief
system. As such, Judaism ought to be universal in the first
sense.    
     Jewish universalism, starting with the belief in God and
God's creations, the natural world and, the crucial creation,
humanity, focuses on the attempts to make the particular
universal. Such a focus requires an examination of the emergence
of the Jewish people, their election by God, God's revelation of
holy teachings to the Jewish people, and the covenant, the
agreement made between God and the Jewish people. Part of that
covenant provided a way of life to the Jewish people, and it is
this that forms the particularism of Judaism. Part of the
covenant also provided the Jews with a mission, and it is that
mission that Jewish universalism focuses on, because the mission
ties the particularity of Judaism to universality. The mission
includes conveying God's morality by offering Judaism to the
world and welcoming those who embrace it by converting to
Judaism. The mission is helped by a Jewish nation and has as its
final goal the redemption of humanity.
     The unity of conflicting concepts does not imply harmony
between the concepts. Harmony tries to balance differences, to
seek a balance between extremes. This is not the Jewish concept
of unity because, in the Jewish concept, a balanced mean between
two polarities might not be truthful or just. Sometimes, the
polarities are not both reasonable or capable of compromise, and
in those cases harmony is not the aim. In an argument between a
Nazi and a democrat, the one who seeks the delicate balance of
harmony or the golden mean between these two positions violates
decency and truth. Even-handedness is not necessarily moral,
however appealing the symmetry and neatness of such an approach
might be. The aesthetic criteria inherent in harmony can
sometimes be at odds with the moral criteria inherent in unity.
     The unity of concepts doesn't necessarily imply
reconciliation. Instead, the unity involves, first, moral choice,
to consider the range, from one polarity to the other, to
eliminate the immoral, the unreasonable, the uncompromising. What
is left is the basis of combination of some sort, seeking to make
use of seeming opposites which turn out not to be opposites in
principle but capable of unified definition. Unity seeks to
incorporate the true and the good from all sides, even though it
may in fact turn out that one side has little or no truth or
goodness.  
     Thus, the concept of "Jewish universalism" is not a delicate
balance that carefully measures out equal proportions of
particularism and universalism. Jewish universalists must make
clear choices at certain points in building Jewish universalism's
theoretical structure, For example, Jewish universalists reject a
universalism that seeks to downplay the particularities of Jewish
life. They also reject particularists who believe Judaism is
solely meant for those born Jewish.    
     Jewish universalism is an interpretation of Judaism. As an
interpretation, it suggests one way that Judaism orders reality.
It provides an explanation and a critique rather than a strict
demonstration. What counts for success in an interpretation is
that the interpretation make sense, be useful, lead to a good
life and happiness, satisfy a person's and a group's needs, and
be ethical. Only then is an interpretation of reality evaluated
in regard to whether or not it is coherent as a description of a
purported objective truth. Science has experiments and objective
measures for validating its claims, while a religious theory must
be satisfied with less. In part this is so because religious
belief is the belief in the probability of truth, not its
certainty, based on available evidence and our ability to
interpret that evidence. A religious theory must be logical, it
must be aesthetically pleasing, it must be consonant with a
person's and a group's experiences, and it must make sense of
history. 
     A religious theory of Judaism must, in addition, be grounded
in Jewish literature. There is at least one problem in this
regard. In seeking support from the vast sea of Jewish
literature, the accumulation of various quotations from different
sources at different times does in some sense do violence to the
integrity of individual texts and neglects the longer, but more
accurate, task of taking each successive text first on its own
merits and then in relation to other texts. In the interpretation
provided here, the citations are used to show that the ideas can
be found at various crucial points in that literature and should
not be confused with the unfinished task of scholarly support. 
     A religious theory of Judaism must, finally, be compatible
with the basic ideas of Judaism, and it must not contradict any
of those basic ideas. Such are the burdens Jewish universalism
faces as a theory of Judaism. 
     
     














B. God
     Jewish universalism starts with the traditional Jewish
conception of God. God is understood in Jewish thought as the
Supreme Being. God has a number of attributes: 
(1) God exists as an actual Being, not a projection of the human
imagination.  
(2) God is incorporeal, that is God is without the attributes of
form and substance found in nature. While there are numerous
passages in Biblical literature which ascribe physical attributes
to God, Jewish tradition sees this as simply an analogy to help
humans understand God. "We borrow terms from His creatures to
apply to Him in order to assist the understanding." (Mekhilta to
19:18).
(3) God is omnipresent, that is God's non-physical being is not
limited by space. "His glory is over the earth and heaven."
(Psalms 148:13). 
(4) God is omnipotent, that is God is all-powerful in that God is
capable of all conceivable tasks that are not contradictory (e.g.
God can't create a square circle) and is not subject to any
natural laws or limitations. 
(5) God is omniscient, that is God is all-knowing in the sense
that God knows all knowable knowledge. "He knows what is in the
darkness, and the light dwells with Him." (Daniel 2:22).
"Although God is in the heavens, His eyes behold and search the
sons of man." (Exodus Rabbah, 2:2).
(6) God is eternal, that is God will exist through and past all
time. "Everything decays but You do not decay." (Leviticus
Rabbah, 19:2).
(7) God is personal in that God can have a relationship with
individuals, specific groups, and all humanity.
(8) God is ethical, that is God is the model and source of
goodness. God is ethical in nature and so ethical in creation.
Such a view implies that any creation by God is good. "And God
saw all that He had made, and found it very good." (Genesis,
1:31).   
     God has other important attributes. God is transcendent,
outside the cosmos, but God is also immanent, immediately
available to all who seek; and, in addition, God is characterized
by justice and mercy, by holiness, and by perfection. 
     Beyond these attributes, Jewish universalism stresses three
more that are central to the Jewish understanding of God. These
three are universality, unity, and purposefulness.
     God's universality means that God created the entire cosmos,
that God is the single Being deserving of worship, and that all
human beings should worship God and not purported gods.  
     God as creator includes the notion that all of natural
creation outside God (the cosmos) was contingent upon God's
having created it. God created the cosmos from nothing using only
a divine will to effect the world. The cosmos, completely created
by God, can be conceived of as unified, in the sense that the
laws of the universe apply throughout that cosmos and that
ultimately the idea of God unifies all the physical laws of the
cosmos. Furthermore, the cosmos continues its existence by a
sustained act of God's will. 
     That cosmos, though created by a divine Being, is not in and
of itself divine; it contains, for instance, evil. Indeed, the
very idea of creation is paradoxical: creation was restricted in
time and yet it continues, it was started, but is not finished.
"Every hour He makes provision for all who come into the world
according to their need. In His Grace He satisfies all
creatures..." (Mekhilta to 13:12). "During a third of the day He
is occupied with sustaining the whole world from the mightiest to
the most insignificant of living beings." (Avodah Zarah, 3b). 
     Because of God's nature as the God of all the universe, God
is the single Being deserving of worship. Such a view had a
crucial effect on Jewish thought. In polytheism, a new god was
able to find a place among other gods so that if a person moved,
that person could worship the god worshipped in the new place.
Similarly, if a land were conquered, the gods of the conquerors
simply displaced the earlier gods (or, more likely, a syncretism
occurred). However, given the notion that there is only one God,
such simple swapping of gods could no longer morally occur; no
syncretism is possible when the choice is between worshipping God
or an idol. 
     In polytheism, then, the notion of religious conversion
could never have developed because such a notion was
intellectually unnecessary. Only a religion that saw God as the
single being deserving of worship could create the idea that
those who didn't worship that God should and could if they freely
chose to do so. That free choice is the moral basis of
conversion, and therefore it is not surprising that it was
Judaism that first developed the very concept of religious
conversion.
     God is holy. The call to worship God is incumbent upon all
human beings. By tradition, the notion of worshipping God
includes, beyond the direct call to worship, the ideas that God
cannot be worshipped through an intermediary, but directly, and
that no other beings besides God are to be worshipped. God
doesn't just rule over one people or one nation, or even several
people or nations, but over all people and nations, over all the
cosmos. God is, as Abraham noted, "the Judge of all the Earth."
(Genesis, 18:25). That God's rule and power extend over all finds
daily expression in all blessings that begin, "Blessed Art Thou,
O Lord Our God, King of the Universe...." All Jewish worship
services conclude with the Aleinu prayer, which acknowledges the
Oneness of God.  
     Because God is the Supreme Being and holy, worshipping
beings other than God constitutes blasphemy. While the
particularities of the forms of worship may legitimately differ
among peoples, God's universality implies that worshipping a
being other than God is not worshipping the Supreme Being.
     It is also crucial to Jewish universalism to stress God's
unity. This idea is so vital to Judaism that Maimonides listed it
as the second (after God's existence) of his Thirteen Principles
of the Jewish faith. The idea is the center of Judaism's most
defining declaration: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is Our God, the
Lord is One."
     The idea of unity is subtle. The Biblical emphasis on the
idea of one God, rather than none, two, three or many, was
examined more fully, starting in the Middle Ages. When speaking
of the unified nature of God, Judaism's claim includes several
interrelated beliefs: (1) God is the singular Supreme Being.
There are no other gods; (2) God is unique in that there are no
comparable entities; (3) God's singularity and uniqueness make
God the only entity to be worshipped, not for example the Supreme
God among a variety of gods. Such a view differentiates
monotheism from monolatry; (4) God is a unified Being, meaning
that God cannot be divided into smaller or simpler entities; (5)
God is a Being with a single order. God has no extraneous
elements and lacks no elements; (6) God is a Being capable of
creating a single order out of many.  God can take extraneous
elements and absorb them into God's Being so that the elements
are no longer extraneous; and (7) this ability to create order
means, in principle, that God can absorb all extraneous elements
in creation. There are no restrictions to God's capacity for
unity. Differences of entities extraneous to God can become part
of god and indivisible and undifferentiated within God. In this
sense, God is at one with all elements within. 
     Jewish universalism also stresses God's purposeful nature. 
     The act of creation implies that God had a specific purpose.
The fact that creation is not completed implies that humans have
a specific role in finishing that creation; humans have a
universal moral purpose. In this sense, God is also the Lord of
cosmic history, intensely involved with history by incursions,
such as at Mount Sinai, and by grappling with human free will as
humans seek the mysteries of their existence and their purpose
and their willingness to accept and carry out divine mandates.
God awaits redemption by the free created beings. 
     The world and its human inhabitants were not created on a
whim, or for God's pleasure, but for a moral purpose. The purpose
can be seen, as mentioned, in creation itself, in the specific
creation of people, in the election of the people Israel to be
holy, in the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people, and in the
subsequent history of the Jewish efforts to fulfill their
agreement with God and advance God's ethical teaching in the
world. The fact that Jews have a mission, and humans a divine
goal to strive towards, presupposes a God who has a clear goal in
mind (human redemption), a means to achieve the goal (following
the divine teachings), and a moral teacher charged to use the
means to accomplish the goal (the Jewish people).
     God's ethical purpose involving humans starts with the
creation of the natural world.






C. The Natural World
     The cosmos God created is unified. It was created as a
single entity. 
     The first crucial question to ask about the cosmos is: why
did God create it? After all, God is a perfect being, not in need
of a world. The only possible response to this is that God had a
purpose, a reason for doing so. That reason, as will be seen,
ultimately involves human beings, but first it involved creating
a natural world. That natural world was made to suit the ultimate
moral purpose, so that creation was not just an act of artistic
creativity. 
     The natural world is made up of many entities. God created
or caused plural entities outside God's being. Joseph Albo in
Sepher Ha-Iqqarim, for instance, cites the Sh'ma as meaning both
parts, that "The Lord is our God" means God created the plurality
of the cosmos while "The Lord is One," means that God is a
singular being. The fact that the material entities emanate from
a single, immaterial unity implies that ultimately the many
entities can be understood as unified. This is exemplified by the
fact that the same natural laws apply throughout the cosmos. It
is a unified God who controls the universe and gives it an
ultimate order. The laws created by God form a covenant between
God and nature, a covenant that foreshadows the covenant God
would later make with the Jewish people. This idea was most
clearly expressed in Jeremiah 33:25-26: "Thus said the Lord: As
surely as have established My covenant with day and night--the
laws of heaven and earth--so I will never reject the offspring of
Jacob and My servant David...."
     Before God created the natural laws and material entities
there were no imperfections in creation. It is therefore crucial
to ask what purpose was served in creating in imperfect, material
world, that is, if God controls the world, why are imperfections
allowed? Put in contemporary language: how can natural "evil" be
accounted for?
     As a theory, Jewish universalism is compatible with all
Jewish theories of natural evil, including the general one
outlined below which is presented as one possible response to
natural evil.
     Natural "evils," such as accidents, would not, of course,
even be concepts were it not for the regular laws of nature.
Without regularity there would just be chaos; accidents imply an
order to which they do not conform. One can ask why God did not
create a natural world without any accidents, or with fewer or
less severe accidents, or with accidents that seem so randomly
connected to the personal morality of the sufferer. 
     It is clear from the account of God that natural "evils" are
part of a God-created cosmos, though they are not part of God and
therefore not holy. The account of an incomplete creation of the
cosmos in which all was not finished by God to allow for moral
purpose suggests that the particular dangers of this natural
world were necessary to create the moral conditions for humans to
improve morally. That is, a perfect world without disasters would
have left humans with nothing to improve and so a world incapable
of affecting or shaping moral values.
      A world without natural laws would have made it impossible
for humans to make sense of the world and so moral values would
have been seen as meaningless. While it is impossible to ascribe
Godliness or morality to natural laws, that is, for instance, to
blame God for a snowstorm or to believe a hurricane had evil
intentions, it is possible to see a relation between the natural
world--with its order but without morality--and the moral world. 
     The natural world shapes the moral world in significant
ways, sometimes in incomprehensible ways. Human beings have to
make the particular moral choices they do make to some extent
because of the natural forces they face. For example, in a world
without dangers there would be no need to be concerned with other
people facing accidents or getting hurt. Human chances to be
heroic or just to help would be drastically diminished,
simultaneously reducing human opportunities to test themselves or
for moral growth. With different natural forces--say with no
natural evil--the nature of human morality would be radically
different.     Evidently, the nature of human morality God
intended required the peculiar natural structure even with its
morally disturbing disruptions of life. In this sense the unity
of the natural world refers not only to the unity of God's
creation or the unity of natural laws, but to a unity between
nature and humans. The particular kind of natural world that
exists was required so that human beings could have their
particular nature. In that sense, God sees the suffering that
humans undergo caused by nature, but because nature is necessary
for humans to be human, God suffers along with people at natural
disasters.
     Along with a theory of natural evil, Judaism must consider
the effects of contemporary scientific thought on its conception
of nature. 
     Contemporary physics, for instance, has interesting
contributions to make to Jewish thought. For example, the theory
of the Big Bang origin of the cosmos (should it turn out to be
true) obviously fits (though does not explicitly support)
comfortably into a Jewish notion of God creating the world. Even
the seemingly troubling world of quantum mechanics has some
contributions to make. Quantum mechanics has the startling thesis
that nature, at a quantum level, can be seen to be random and
anarchic rather than following laws. Yet within quantum theory a
central place is put aside for the observer--for humans. The
inherent anarchy is given order when humans observers give it
order by making sense out of the randomness. Far from just
another creation, then, humans seem to be the only ones in
quantum theory able to provide sense to the universe. (Of course,
Judaism would add God as an additional provider of sense). The
Biblical notion of unity is clearly made more complex by
contemporary physics then, and requires a reinterpretation to
mean a unity imposed by the human observer. The "unity" of
nature, then, presupposes the central importance of God's
crowning creation.



D. Humanity
     All people were created by God and descend through one
couple. That is, all humans have an equal spiritual relationship
with God. Also, all humanity is ultimately related, part of one
vast universal family.
     This belief led to several theological conclusions. First,
the creation of humans through Adam and Eve was seen as further
proof of a single God: "He created in the beginning one man only
so that heretics should not say that there are several Powers in
heaven." (Sanhedrin, 38a). Also, it was said that if Adam and Eve
had been created at the same time, people would have claimed
there were two gods. But one couple was needed to produce
humanity. The tradition notes that if more than one pair of
humans had been created to produce humans, a claim might have
been made that the pious, good people came from one pair and the
wicked and evil from another pair. With one common mother and
father, no family can boast of its ancestors. (Sanhedrin, 4:5;
Tosefta 8: 4-5). 
     Second, humans were created in God's image, blessed, and
given their first commandment, to "be fertile and increase."
(Genesis 1:27-28). Indeed, the very nature of human creation--
with God blowing the breath of life into Adam's nostrils instead,
as with the remainder of creation, simply commanding being to
begin--illustrates the special place of humans in the cosmos. The
early unity of languages among people can also be seen as a unity
of a form of reason. 
     Additionally, creation through a single couple not only
provides a familial relationship for all peoples, but also
includes the idea of a shared universal history and a shared
universal destiny with the common potential for redemption. God
is attached to all individuals and so concerned about the
collective fate of humanity. It is human history, rather than the
histories of individual peoples or nations, that is the focus of
Godly concern. Because people share a common background and
because they are all creations of the same God, there exists the
potential for them to unite on the basis of the acceptance of
God's sovereignty and universal moral law. As part of a universal
family, nations and individuals have an inherent relationship
with an implied duty to each other and a common purpose to act
for the good of all. 
     Stressing the unity of humanity was important for Jewish
thinkers precisely because of the obvious diversity and variety
of humans. The unity of humanity was seen as split after the
flood, especially after the building of the Tower of Babel, and
the generations after Moses. There was a clear sense that
humanity's unity would be restored. The diversity among humans
seems deliberate and important. The end of unity was a way to
spread humans throughout the world, fulfilling God's purpose in
"filling the earth." In a way, the diversity among humans who
emanate from one couple is parallel to the diversity of the many
natural, material entities that emanate from one God. In part,
the parallel implies that there is a similarity underlying the
diversity. Also, the diversity is needed to meet the diverse
needs of the material world. Various tasks are needed to repair
the world, and different individuals and groups sometimes have
different--and, at their best, complementary--skills. The same
goal requires different activities. God doesn't want one type of
human, but has one goal for all humans and one morality to reach
that goal.
     Because of God's concern for all humanity and the potential
for a united humanity that worships God, the spiritual message
that God provides is meant for all, not just one people or some
people. This spiritual message constitutes the divine purpose.
The divine purpose is either fulfilled or frustrated by human
actions.
     The cosmos in which humans had such a special place included
a moral law inherent in the world from creation. The story of
Cain, with its implicit moral conclusions that humans are
responsible for one another and killing another person is
tantamount to killing one's sibling, implies the existence of a
specific moral law meant for humans that was present at the
beginning.
     Humans, however, were given freedom about whether to follow
that moral law or not. Maimonides, in Part III, Chapter 12 of his
Guide For the Perplexed, distinguished among natural evil and two
kinds of human evil, evil caused by others (e.g. murder) and evil
people bring on themselves. Humans have the choice whether or not
to help or hurt others and whether or not to give in to urges
they know to be wrong. "Everything is in the power of Heaven
except the fear of Heaven." (Berakhot, 33b). In this sense, human
free will can be seen as God's gamble in that God voluntarily
gave up some power so that people would have freedom. 
     Why is human freedom so important that humans have to put up
with the evil that it allows? In part because morality itself
requires free will. Morality is only ascribed to human behavior
when there is a choice between right and wrong. The possibility
of moral growth must be so fundamental to God's purpose that a
just and good God would create humans who could hurt each other
so much. 
     When humans freely choose to do right, all the positive
elements of human behavior unite to form a just individual and a
just society. Human "evil" may, in this sense, be seen as a
freely-chosen violation of divine law. Since humans either
advance a divine purpose, retard it, or don't affect it, human
evil more rightly ought to be called sins of omission or
commission. 
     Having created humans and a morality for humans, God needed
moral teachers or messengers to give that morality to humans.












E. The Jewish People
     By tradition, the Jewish people started with God's call to
Abraham to leave his native land and journey to a new, promised
land. God made a covenant with Abraham to make him the father of
a mighty people who would be in a special relationship with God.
Abraham's grandson Jacob, after struggling with an angel,
received the name Israel, a name subsequently applied to the
people who had Jacob as their progenitor. The name source implies
a people who must wrestle or struggle with God and existence to
transform their being, to be reborn into a higher state of being. 
     The people Israel's descent from one ancestor may be seen as
an attempt to unify them, as a family as is the case with Adam
and all humanity, and as a spiritual partnership. That is, the
people Israel were united, were to be one people, in accepting to
do God's will. 
     The unification, however, is a spiritual, not a biological
one. The Jews are a people, not a family. It is clear from the
beginnings of Abraham's journey that those who joined the people
were not only physical descendants. Abraham and Sarah, for
instance, made a point of welcoming strangers into their
spiritual home. The Rabbinic interpretation of Genesis 12:5, "the
souls which they had gotten in Haran," was that the patriarch and
matriarch of the Jewish people welcomed converts. The Bible talks
of a "mixed multitude" that left Egypt along with the Israelites
(Exodus 12:38). Rashi interpreted this multitude as a mixture of
converts from various peoples. The oneness of the diverse people
is emphasized in the Bible: "You have made Me one in the world,
so will I make you one in the world." (2 Samuel, 7:23). 
     The spiritual oneness stems from the fact that the Jewish
people should, in principle, be one in adhering to God's will. In
Saadiah Gaon's words: "Our people is only a people by virtue of
the Torah." 
     The history of Israel, of the Jewish people, reaches its
spiritual zenith only after experiencing slavery and reaching
Mount Sinai where their history as a spiritual community re-
commences, for it is there that they are chosen to receive a
revelation from God, a revelation that includes a mission.
Israel's faithfulness to that mission and its successes and
failures in performing that mission constitutes its subsequent
history.












F. Election
     God chose to reveal the universal moral instruction meant
for all people to a specific people, the Jews. This choice was
made to provide spiritual teachers for all humanity, not to
restrict God's concern to one people only. The fact that the
Jewish calendar starts at the creation of the world rather than
at the inception of the Jewish religion and the fact that the
Bible begins with Adam rather than with Abraham, the first Jew,
show Judaism's concern for other people. Also, it is precisely
because of the possibility of conversion, because by personal
choice any gentile can choose to become a Jew, that the Jews
cannot be seen as being exclusionary or as preventing others from
entering the covenant God made with the Jewish people. The choice
of Jews as receivers of the message is the choice of a particular
spiritual community, but a community open to all humanity and
thus potentially a universal spiritual community. 
     Chosenness occurred because Jews were spiritually willing to
accept responsibility and moral standards without getting any
special human privilege (Amos 3:2). In the words of the Amidah
for Festivals, "You have chosen us from among all peoples."
Additionally, chosenness was a fulfillment of God's covenant with
the Jewish people's meritorious ancestor, Abraham. This mutual
agreement between God and the Jewish people formed the basis of
their covenant. The election of the Jews as the teachers of
divine instruction provides them with their religious vocation
and their transcendant meaning.
     The selection of a particular people to give a message to
humanity rather than God's presenting the message directly to all
people is difficult to understand because it seems to disrupt the
idea of humanity's unity. While, clearly, different peoples
seemed part of the Godly plan, the ultimate aim was to have all
people embracing God. It would have been more efficacious, then,
for God to have chosen all people rather than just one people.
The mystery is of a revelation to some but not all. 
     One solution to such a mystery resides in the idea of
spiritual choice. If they heard a revelation from God directly,
people would follow God's laws without the necessity of doubt or
faith, that is without a spiritual freedom of choice. Hearing of
God's revelation not directly but from others, especially from a
small, weak people, would provide true freedom of spiritual
choice for humanity; they could accept, reject, or ignore the
message.  However, in order to react to the message in some way,
they first needed to hear it. God needed a messenger. That
messenger would have to make two moral choices: how to react both
to the message and to the obligation to deliver it.
     Another problem with the concept of a chosen people is how
individual Jews are to determine their place if their covenant is
centrally as part of a people rather than as individuals. One
solution to this dilemma resides in the notion that each
individual simultaneously has individual acts to perform, but
these must be in unity with acts to perform as members of a
people. It is religiously illegitimate to talk of moral Jewish
hermits or monk-like separation from the world. Similarly, the
obligations of an individual Jew as part of a people do not
preclude obligations as an individual, e.g. as a marriage
partner, a parent, and so on. The obligations as a member of a
people simply are supplementary obligations to the normal moral
obligations of an individual to observe God's will as an
individual. There is one crucial distinction, however, between
the ordinary notion of supplement and the one that applies here.
Individual Jews can't have an obligation which is contradictory
to the obligation they have as members of a people. It is not
possible, for instance, to have an obligation as an individual to
embrace another religion besides Judaism. Such a perceived
obligation would contradict the obligation the individual has as
a member of a people and thus be invalid. 
     Some modern Jews deny the purported "chosenness" of the
Jewish people. The modernist interpretations of Judaism inherent
in such claims provide challenges to the interpretation of
Judaism offered by the more traditional Jewish universalism.
Jewish universalism must defend itself by considering the
concepts that emerge from the supposed acts of being chosen:
revelation and covenant.






G. Revelation
     The belief in the revelation of God's will is central to
Jewish universalism. Many groups within Judaism have quite
different interpretations of the precise meaning of that
revelation. Jewish universalism is compatible with both
traditional and some modern interpretations of revelation.
     Revelation in Jewish history occurred at various times.
There were individual revelations, such as to Abraham and to
Moses at the burning bush, and a communal revelation at Mount
Sinai. The crucial one at Sinai, where, to traditionalists, God
gave the written and oral Law to Moses, is central to Jewish
universalism, because it is the real (to traditionalists) or
metaphoric (to some modernists) time at which God revealed divine
will and provided a moral mission to the chosen people.
     Much about the use of Sinai as the place of receiving
revelation instead of the seemingly more obvious choice of the
land of Israel is interesting. It was, of course, no accident
that the revelation was given during a flight from slavery into
freedom--a perfect spiritual metaphor for God's message of
releasing spiritual prisoners. Additionally, as the Mekhilta on
Exodus 19:2 makes clear, the Torah was given in the desert
because a desert belonged to no one group of people and no
nation. The point of a desert setting for the revelation was to
render clearly that the teachings given in the revelation were
meant for all people, not just one. The Torah, according to
Bereshit Rabbah 1:1, is a united plan for humanity. 
     God's choice was a gift offered to that Jewish generation, a
gift that was accepted. In that sense the Jews had the freedom of
choice to accept being chosen; they were not, as Kant suggested,
forced into an acceptance of the Torah. However, just as the Jews
had to convince the gentiles of the value of the revealed
message, so, too, did that generation of Jews have to convince
future generations of their own people who were morally free to
abandon following God's revelation. The choice by the generation
was a fateful one, for it was the revelation that crucially
transformed the children of Israel from a community group into a
religious group, from a group of people with a shared sense of
kinship to a people with a divine mandate.
     Revelation occurred in two separate ways at Sinai. The first
way was through two theophanies, or divine manifestations. One
theophany was experienced by all the people and the other was
experienced individually by Moses. The second was the revelation
of God's will through language "spoken" by God to the people and
to Moses.
     Understanding these two ways of revelation is difficult. The
gulf between traditional and many modernist interpretations of
revelation is wide indeed. The traditionalist has the easier time
of it, and so does the Jewish universalist who accepts the
traditional rendering of Sinaiatic history. To the
traditionalist, God revealed a holy Torah, a divine Law to be
followed, directly and clearly, in propositional form, to the
people and to Moses. The Torah, then, is of Mosaic authorship and
is authoritatively the divine will of God. It is our obligation
to listen to those who interpret it faithfully and obey its holy
commandments.
     There are many modernist interpretations of revelation,
often in conflict with each other as well as with the
traditionalist interpretation. All modernists, though, have one
common problem, which is, if they dispute the Mosaic authorship
of the Torah, and see it instead as a collection of writings by
individuals which was put together by a redactor and then
declared sacred, then how can they believe such a document is
holy and divinely revealed? Others, who do not even conceive of
the Torah as holy, must define what then exactly is a revelation. 
     Given the variety within modern interpretations, it is
difficult to cite all of them. Here is an amalgam of some of the
ways that modernists try to interpret revelation put in a form
compatible with Jewish universalism.
     Some modernists start with the notion that there was a human
component to revelation. In order to speak to the Israelites, to
Moses, and to the prophets, God faced an important restriction in
having to use a language the humans could understand. In the
words of a midrash, "Each Israelite heard what was in his power
to hear." (Exodus Rabbah 28:6). Such a necessity severely
restricted God, because the same words have different meanings to
different people, especially when read across history and
cultures. Additionally, the restrictions included the limitations
of the various listeners. They could understand only so much not
only because of their limitations as humans or the specific
limitations of their backgrounds, but also because of the
scientific, historical, and other knowledge then available to
them as they tried to interpret God's will. Finally, the prophets
felt a comparable constraint in that they knew they would have to
transmit the revelation from God to ordinary people in a language
that could be understood by the people.
     Another restriction on God posited by some modernists is
that God's morality is not fully comprehensible by humans. Humans
have their own autonomous morality, but it stems from non-Godness
and from the unique existential predicament of humans. Such an
autonomous human morality is qualitatively different from God's
morality, and so, in transmitting a morality, God was unable to
have humans follow God's morality completely. Similarly, humans
have a limit to their intellectual and reasoning powers, a
limitation that God does not have, so that human ability to
understand Godly revelation was inherently limited.
     Given these restraints, a modernist claim might be that it
is clear that Torah must be a human response to God, a limited
effort to understand the commanding voice that came to the people
and the prophets. God did reveal the divine will, and the Torah
is the human record of that revelation. As a human record, it is
subject to interpretation and re-interpretation as the divine
will is understood in accordance with the knowledge and
circumstances of each generation. These re-interpretations, these
conversations among the generations of Jews, form the Jewish
tradition. 
     The question remains about whether the human records of
divine revelation are, then, sacred. For the modernist unwilling
to accept that the complete Torah was given at Sinai, the
sacredness of the Torah must be explained. One explanation is
that the Torah is a divinely-revealed group of documents with the
divine revelation given at different times to different prophets,
though possibly metaphorically understood as coming at one time
and place, until the documents were gathered and one person, also
acting according to divine revelation, edited the documents into
one single document, what we call the Torah. The editing occurred 
for the obvious reason that a single Torah would be a unifying
document, one that united the tribes, the kingdoms, the social
groups, and the political groups as well as forming the basis for
the future of Jewish history. In Franz Rosenzweig's famous
formulation, the "R" referring to the redactor also refers to
another "R," Rabbenu, our teacher.
     The prophets, on such an interpretation, must be seen as
having received revelation, rather than just being inspired, if
inspiration is understood to originate from within the human as
some kind of general feeling or sense, to be bereft of a specific
message, but instead to feel a force, and to be unique, that is
without reference to other inspirations. A prophet receives
revelation, rather, when the message is clearly from God, when it
is propositional, or has a specific content, and when it is
connected to previous revelations.
     There are also modernist Jews who believe in non-
propositional revelation. Examples of non-propositional
revelations include, for example, the notion that God reveals the
divine will through historical events or provides a revelation
directly to individuals rather than having individuals obey the
Law given at Sinai. This position, of course, was most developed
in its most well-known form by Martin Buber. Jewish universalism
remains compatible with these various interpretations as long as
revelation is understood to mean the imparting of a specific
message that includes a specific religious vocation for Jews.
     Jewish universalism, however, is not compatible with
interpretations of Judaism that see Judaism as containing a
message only for Jews, or see the development of Judaism as an
historical accident that lacks transcendent historical meaning,
or a Judaism without a specific religious mission as ethical
teachers to the world.
     In summary, a variety of modernist interpretations join a
traditional interpretation in allowing for revelation, for a
specific message from God, although a message that must be
mediated through human thought. It is this message that the Jews
received and must contemplate, and it this unified message--given
over time or given once at Sinai--that gave the Jews their divine
commission. 





H. Covenant
     The Godly offer and the Jewish acceptance of the divine
revelation and commission is embodied in the notion of covenant.
The paradigmatic brit or covenant in the Bible is the covenant at
Sinai. This covenant was an agreement between God and the Jewish
people. This agreement took several steps, the first of which
came before the revelation.
     According to Exodus 19:3-6, God told Moses to propose a pact
to the assembled Israelites. The terms of the pact were that
Israel would follow God's will, made up of teachings and ethical
injunctions--the Torah and the mitzvot. Later rabbis and scholars
sought to interpret and codify the religious obligations of the
Jews. That is why Jewish religious law, the halakhah, is so
crucial, for it seeks to understand the full nature of the Jewish
covenantal obligations to God. A full study of the halakhah is
necessary to understand the "Jewish" in "Jewish universalism." 
     God's promise was that, in return for their meeting their
religious obligations, the Jews would be seen by God as a
"treasured possession," and, more specifically, as "a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation." There is much that remains unclear
about this. A "treasured possession," for example, seems to
indicate that the Jews would be considered unique by God, not in
the sense of having superior attributes or special rights not
accorded other people, but unique in their holy role in God's
redemptive drama. The covenant was to be but one act in that
drama, which began with creation and would continue awaiting the
climactic moment when all humans would spiritually pledge
themselves to God. 
     The notion of "kingdom of priests" has been interpreted in
many ways. The fact that the Jews would be a kingdom of any kind
seems to be a call in the proposal of the covenant itself to
redeem the land of Israel, an interpretation which would cohere
with the covenant God made with Abraham and with much else in the
Bible. Philo maintained a universalist message was contained in
this term, that just as the priests serve to worship on behalf of
all the Jewish people, so the Jewish people serve to worship on
behalf of all humanity. The term even conveyed a mission to some.
Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno, commenting on this passage, compares it
to Isaiah 61:6 as meaning that the Jews have a religious vocation
to bring their message to all humanity. Many contemporary Reform
theologians, from Abraham Geiger on, also see the passage as
giving the people of Israel a specific religious task, to be a
minister to all of humanity. It is clear that it can be argued
from this idea that the duty of a priest is to bring to God all
people who desire, of their own free will, to be brought. Hillel
(Pirke Avot, 1:12) called upon Jews to show love toward people
precisely by drawing them close to the Torah. The notion of being
priests coheres well with the idea that it is through the Jews
that all other peoples are to be blessed (Genesis, 12:3 and
repeated four more times in Genesis: 18:18, 22:18, 26:4, 28:14). 
     However, as some modern scholars such as Daniel R. Schwartz
have argued, the notion of a "kingdom of priests" was not
understood in a universal way by most Talmudic Rabbis or others
until the emergence of the Reform movement, and that the
missionary idea was expressed through the notion of "a light unto
the nations." The conclusion of such scholars is that the
linguistic origins of the term do not appropriately allow for a
universalist interpretation, but a more particular one, e.g. that
the "priests" will be only in their own land, but that all the
Jews in that land will be like priests. One interpretation of
such a priestly vocation is that Jews can deal directly with God
without needing a priestly intermediary. There is, then, an
ambiguity about the term. It can fairly be interpreted as having
both universal and particularist dimensions. 
     Similar is the case with "a holy nation." In one sense, the
holiness is meant to convey a sense of separateness, to remain
undefiled by the profane in the world. Such a particularlist
interpretation is balanced by another possibility: that a holy
nation has a universalist imperative by setting a moral example
for the rest of humanity, by being a moral light brightening up
the spiritual darkness.
     This proposal of the pact was followed by the Revelation, by
God's theophany three days after the proposal was accepted by the
people. God appeared before the people and spoke the Ten
Commandments to them. As Yehezkel Kaufmann has pointed out, the
commandments themselves are an almost even, carefully delineated
mixture of the particular and the universal. The first four of
the commandments are religious, aimed particularly at the
Israelites. The last six commandments, however, have a character
that is universal. This revelation to all the people was
followed by Moses ascending to the darkness and receiving more of
God's law, descending and transmitting this law to the people.
The final event of the covenant was its ratification. Moses
ordered that twelve pillars and an altar be erected. 
     The covenant, then, in its proposal and in God's statement
to the assembled people of Israel, was peculiar in its mixture of
particularist practices and universalistic vocation. The
universalism in the mixture was important because the Jews had
been uniquely assigned the role of messenger and teacher--letting
the world know about the Torah and mitzvot by following the
teachings themselves and serving as moral models. 
     The particularist elements in the mixture were also
important. The separateness inherent in particularism served as a
reminder that Jews were not to sacrifice Judaism on the altar of
either other religions or some supra-religion. The existence of
the particular laws does, however, raise the question of why God
gave particular practices to Jews if their message was to be
universal. One response to this question may be that the
particularities weren't meant to be particularities permanently,
but eventually to be universal; they are only conceived of as
particular because they are not yet universally practices. The
particularities served to define a model morality not practiced
by humanity. Beyond being such a model, though, the
particularities were also useful for spiritual self-defense; they
were meant precisely for temporary separation of the Jewish
people so that the God-given morality would not be defiled.
Finally, the separateness was also useful in preventing the Jews
from developing a sense of superiority which would allow them to
incorporate a dynamic of religious imperialism to drive their
mission. A people serving as a light unto the nations does not
try to make everyone else a light. A people apart cannot
overwhelm others. The limitations placed on proselytizing in such
a missionary definition are clear; Jews were not to compel others
to accept their faith.
     Indeed, Judaism's very tolerance subverted its missionary
activism because part of a religion's attractiveness is the power
of its claim to exclusive truth and salvation. Despite this,
Judaism saw that the mission required honesty above all, and that
converts had to come to Judaism freely, not, for example, out of
fear that not doing so would impede or end their chance of
salvation. 










I. Mission
     The idea of religious mission is that the entire Jewish
people, divinely chosen, having freely accepted an agreement with
God that 
included missionary obligations, has the spiritual vocation to
bear witness to Judaism, to bring God's universal moral message
to all humanity by offering their faith, and to welcome converts
who accept the particularities of the moral message. 
     A central problem in understanding the nature of this Jewish
mission is that the concept "mission" has multiple meanings and
is often understood in a way not consonant with Jewish
universalism.
     The term "mission" in ordinary language, for example, often
means an active effort to approach people, frequently in foreign
lands, and effect their religious conversion. Such "missionary"
work has unfortunately included force, threats of force, and
bribery as well as a variety of insistent, intrusive, deceitful,
or unwanted attempts at persuasion. Some contemporary examples of
such intrusive efforts include accosting strangers in public,
going house-to-house to seek converts, or demeaning the religious
legitimacy of other faiths.
     This concept of "mission" is totally at odds with the Jewish
conception. This concept is one that distorted the original
Jewish meaning of mission. The Jewish concept is opposed to any
coercive, deceptive, or intrusive conversionary methods.
Sometimes the word "proselytism" is used to differentiate the
Jewish efforts from the non-Jewish efforts, but it, too, may be
confusing if it is identified solely as a comparable Jewish
effort to the non-Jewish sense of missionary work just described.
"Proselytism" is useful, however, if it is understood in the
specific ways Jews understood and performed their mission to
offer Judaism and welcome converts.
     The Jewish concept of mission, derived from the covenant and
developed over time, consists of: (1) bearing witness to the
verities of Judaism; (2) conveying God's moral message to all
people, a general obligation which eventually came to be
understood more specifically as offering Judaism to interested
gentiles; and (3) welcoming those gentiles who wish to convert.
     Witnessing means, in part, setting a moral example by
following the particularities of Judaism. The Jews, in religious
isolation, with a fence around the Torah, attempted to observe
the 613 commandments in so exemplary a fashion that their pattern
of living would serve as a living model of righteous spiritual
possibilities. Abiding by their faith, Jews were sometimes forced
to face death rather than renounce their religion. For example,
if a Jew were to have to choose between death and committing an
act involving idolatry, murder, or sexual immorality, death,
Kiddush Ha-Shem, the sancticfication of the [Divine] Name, was to
be chosen. Kiddush Ha-Shem is the ultimate act of witnessing.
     A distinction needs to be drawn between passive and active
witnessing. Passive witnessing focuses on religious activity
internal to one's own faith community and essentially ignores, or
tries to block out, all other communities. At various times in
Jewish history, usually times characterized by Jewish military
and political weakness, the passive witnessing aspect of mission
has been seen as the exclusively required obligation of mission.  
     Those who saw passive witnessing as completely fulfilling
the obligations of mission believed, for example, that no effort
was required to convert gentiles because at the end of time when
the messiah comes all people would come to God without a specific
conversionary effort. 
     In contrast to such a passive understanding of "witness,"
Jewish universalists believe that the idea of "witness" is more
active and that performing the mission requires additional
activities on the part of the Jewish people. 
     Jewish universalists point out that a witness must testify
both by word and action, and not just serve as a moral model.
Thus, to use the same example, it is certainly clear from
Rabbinic literature, that at the end of time, converts would come
to Judaism. In the Talmud, Rabbi Jose ben Halafta (Avodah Zarah,
3b) and Rabbi Simeon ben Elazar (Berakhot, 57b) note that in
messianic times converts will acknowledge the Lord. Rabbi Ammi
(Avodah Zarah, 24a,b) makes it clear that converts will be gladly
received. However, Jewish universalists draw a distinction
between the belief that at the end of time non-Jews will come to
God and so it is not necessary to do anything now (passive
witnessing), and having such a belief coupled with a continuing
belief in the covenantal obligation to act now to offer Judaism
to non-Jews rather than just wait (active witnessing). 
     Jewish universalists believe that passive witnessing fails
to meet the full obligation of mission because the passivity is
an implicit argument for a retreat from history and for moral
quiescence. It is a morality of powerlessness. It is an assertion
that waiting is a political act. Waiting, however, does not serve
to prepare a people for history's tragedies, much less to prevent
them. Indeed the morality of powerlessness may be relatively
easy, and an inadequate statement of the complete religious ideal
of Judaism. Seeking self-perfection is a significant activity,
but seeking only one's own moral perfection while waiting for
others to act on their own with no effort to help them is an
inadequate effort. If the efforts to help are uncoercive, failure
to help may even be considered immoral. It may even violate the
Biblical injunction against allowing a "blind" person to fall
into a trap. 
     Waiting has been an historical failure. Such a retreat from
history, such waiting, was exactly the attitude that for so long
opposed, and, in some circles, continues to oppose, the Zionist
enterprise. Jewish universalists point out that Jewish history is
replete with proof that passive witnessing has been an
indadequate response to life. Of course, in a post-Holocaust age,
the calculations of the results of passivity are painfully easy
to tabulate. The numbers of the dead and damaged are a permanent
part of Jewish history. The Holocaust forever delegitimates
powerlessness and passivity as a Jewish political choice.
     Passivity has also been a failure in its assertion that if
Jews act as spiritual models, gentiles will emulate that model.
The historical legacy of the non-Jewish confrontation with Jewry
makes it unlikely that even a perfect but passive Jewish people
will be regarded as a pattern to follow. The world has not
emulated the Jews, but has, instead, seen passive Jewish
witnesses as small in number, weak in political power, and
unorganized for communal self-defense; in short, as perfect
victims. 
     Pre-messianic human efforts toward repairing the world imply
activity rather than simply hoping that others will follow one's
moral example (particularly when accompanied by powerlessness),
or simply waiting for the messiah. Passive waiting for messianic
redemption is an unwarranted self-curtailment of the divine
mission. Waiting is an abandonment of the Jewish covenantal
obligation.    
     Those who argue for passive witness can dismiss history,
asserting that a final judgments about the efficacy of passive
witnessing can only come at the end of time. Such an argument, by
definition, cannot, before the end of time, be proved wrong.
However, its strength as a s view of Judaism is suspect precisely
because it focuses on the end of time rather than on the more
authentically Jewish focus: the here and now. Additionally, it
dismisses reality when such a dismissal has historically caused
Jews so much pain. 
     It does need to be said, however, that passive waiting was
prudent for Jews for much of their history because of actual and
potential persecution for expressing their views or welcoming
converts. Passivity should not be judged solely through the lens
of the Holocaust. Passivity was frequently the Jewish side of a
social contract which brought a measure of protection in return.
It was reasonable to delay transmitting the Jewish message when
Jewish survival was at stake. Yet when historical conditions
allow for such a transmission, delay is no longer morally
tenable. Jewish universalists agree that historical conditions
today allow for an active mission.
     Jewish universalism does not dismiss passive witnessing;
indeed, it embraces all witnessing, claiming only that passive
witnessing is, by itself, insufficient. Jews must surely wait,
hope, and pray for the coming of the messiah, but such passivity
makes for an insufficient Jewish present. Waiting ignores the
necessary tasks to be completed now, so that a messianic
redemption could complete, rather than replace, human efforts. 
     Passive waiting need not be pitted against active movement;
the two don't need to be seen as mutually exclusive. Indeed,
Jewish tradition unifies the two. Emil Fackenheim makes this
point in arguing for the middle ground of both acting and
awaiting God's completion of our efforts: "...the Jew came to
both work and wait for the 'end of days.' To wait only would have
been to view salvation as a divine incursion wholly unrelated to
human action, and hence all history prior to that incursion as
meaningless. To work only would have been to regard man as able
wholly to complete the work of salvation, and divine action as
superfluous. But the one would have been a lapse into inactivity
and lassitude; and the other, a lapse into an unrealistic
optimism unfit to survive tragedy. If the Jewish faith in
salvation had the power to meet every test, it was because it
made its followers act as if all depended on them, and pray as if
all depended on God."
     This work involved conveying God's moral message to all
people. The second aspect of the Jewish message is offering
Judaism. There is a crucial difference between "offering" Judaism
and explaining it. In the case of explaining, Jews wished pagans
and other non-Jews to remain as they were, but simply to have a
fuller understanding of the Jewish way of life. In "offering," a
Jew wished to provide Judaism as an alternative. Sometimes the
distinction was hard to make because "offering" began with
"explaining," but "offering" clearly is the correct word, because
the Jewish motive was to make the non-Jew know that Judaism was
available as a religious alternative.  
     Some traditional Jews additionally believe that the mission
given by God at Mount Sinai only involved going to other Jews. It
is possible to read the Torah as suggesting that, although God
governs the world, God's name and Torah were revealed only to the
people of Israel and, therefore, only Israel is obliged to
worship God by obeying the specific mitzvot of the Torah. By the
time of the prophets though, the clear interpretation of the
revelation was available: the message was meant not just for the
Jews but for all. The fence around the Torah has a gate to admit
those who wish to enter.       
     The prophetic vision of mission (Isaiah, 2:2-4; Micah, 4:1-
4; Tobit, 13:11) was of humanity accepting the moral instruction
that came from Zion, and turning to God. The Rosh Hashanah
liturgy includes the statement: "My house shall be called a house
of prayer for all peoples," echoing King Solomon's declaration
(Isaiah 56:7). The moral laws were meant to be shared and not
only kept by the Jews (Shabbat 88b and Genesis Rabbah, 49:2).
Jeremiah believed that Israel was obliged to carry the Jewish
message to the nations, to play an active part in bringing them
to God, rather than waiting for any historical event. Both
Jeremiah and Habakkuk believed that the idolatry of the gentile
nations was sinful. The people Israel, on this reading, served as
a witness on behalf of God to have all people accept God's holy
leadership.    This message of mission, of Jews having a message
for humanity and a moral obligation to give that message, is
stated in general terms. It remains important to see the
connection between a general statement of mission and the
specific activities of offering Judaism and welcoming converts.
Welcoming converts ties the particularism of Jewish practices to
the universalism of Judaism's message. Welcoming converts
provides a transcendent meaning to the mission's activities and a
practical dynamic to perform that mission. Welcoming converts
provides a touchstone to judge how effectively Jews are
performing their mission. Offering Judaism and welcoming converts
provide the best way to perform the Jewish mission.  
     Jewish universalism makes the inductive leap from Judaism's
mission being to bring a universal message to mean offering
Judaism on the basis of a variety of claims.
     First, the movement from general statement to specific
activity was inspired by an understanding of God's actions and
those of Judaism's founders. God's act of revelation can be seen
as the original model of the active offering of Judaism. The
revelation is God's sharing of a faith; God did not keep the
faith alone, but wished to share it with humans. God did not
impose the faith on Jews, but offered it to Jews who freely chose
to accept it. 
     The faith God offered to the Jews contains a universal moral
message. God offered the same Torah given to the Jews to other
nations, all of which refused. God didn't prepare a separate
Torah for the Jews. The Torah was meant for all who would accept
it. The Judaism described in the Torah was and is meant for and
available to all. Judaism, that is, is the universal religion. 
     Besides God, the founders of Judaism and other figures in
Judaism's sacred writings were also seen to embody the idea that
Judaism should be offered, to exemplify the moral imperative to
offer Judaism specifically as the way to offer God's law.  
     Abraham's journey from Haran to Canaan with "souls" whom he
had gotten (Genesis, 12:5) is understood by the Rabbis to mean
the converts whom Abraham had made among men and Sarah among
women. (The notion of "convert" and "conversion" is used only
loosely here. Such a religious act did not occur until, at the
earliest, the covenant at Sinai, when tradition states that all
the Hebrews were formally "converted" to Judaism. Conversion as a
specified religious act did not occur until later. Nevertheless,
the religious activities by Abraham are comparable to, and may
best be understood by, using the historically inaccurate term
"conversion.")  Abraham was, then, considered a missionary
(Genesis Rabbah. 39:21)) who entered the land attempting to alter
pagan beliefs to a belief in one God. In Avot De-Rabbi Nathan
(23a), Jews are urged to bring people "beneath the wings of the
Divine Presence" precisely as Abraham had done. Abraham began the
creation of a Jewish people, a necessary step and not a
substitute for extending God's Torah to the world. Additionally,
Abraham waited until he was ninety-nine to be circumcised, so
that no later male candidate for entry into the covenant could
regard himself as too old.     
     The very fact that Abraham himself was not born Jewish but
was a convert--that is to say, a Jew by belief not birth--is
significant. Abraham's existence proves that a person who is not
born Jewish can be significant, even decisive, in Jewish history.
The fact of Abraham's conversion means that, ultimately, all Jews
are descended from a convert and, therefore, should be willing to
welcome other converts. Abraham's first actions of converting his
wife and son may be seen as an ethical imperative for all Jews to
seek converts.
     Other founders of Judaism were pictured in aggadic
literature as offering Judaism. Rabbi Hoshaya believed that Isaac
sought converts. Jacob is considered to have done the same, as
seen in Genesis 35:2 wherein Jacob tells the members of his
household, and all others with him, to "Put away the strange gods
that are among you, and purify yourselves...." (Genesis Rabbah,
84:4). Judah married the daughter of Shua, but only after
converting her. Even Tamar is seen, in some sources, as a convert
(e.g. Philo, De Virtutibus), although most sources identify her
as Shem's daughter. Rabbi Abba ben Kahana claimed that Joseph
would not distribute food to the Egyptians unless they became
circumcised. Rabbi Samuel ben Nahman deduced the same from
Genesis 47:25. (Genesis Rabbah, 90:6 and 91:5). Of course, many
sources cite Joseph's wife Asenath as a sincere convert. (Midrash
Samuel 28:5).
     Moses also is seen as a model of a Jewish missionary. One
midrash sees mission in asserting that "Moses expounded the Torah
in seventy languages." (Genesis Rabbah, 49:2). That is, the Torah
was meant to be heard and embraced by all humanity. Moses was
seen as being concerned about converts even before receiving the
Torah. Several sources note that prior to slaying the Egyptian
taskmaster (Exodus 2:12), Moses foresaw that there would be not a
single convert from among the taskmaster's posterity; it was this
perception that justified the death. (Exodus Rabbah 1:29). There
is a considerable amount of additional literature in the aggadah,
usefully summarized in such places as Bernard Bamberger's
Proselytism in the Talmudic Period and William Braude's Jewish
Proselyting In the First Five Centuries of the Common Era. 
Mission is discussed in regard to a variety of additional
Biblical figures.   
     Ruth is probably the most famous convert in the Bible. Like
Abraham, she is decisive in Jewish history, for traditionalists
believe that she is the great-grandmother of King David, and thus
the ancestor of the Messiah. (Ruth, 4:17-22). Ruth's moving story
of loyalty is sometimes inaccurately presented as a reaction to
the anti-conversionary views of Ezra and Nehemiah, who worked to
prohibit and end intermarriages. In fact, however, their efforts
(parallel in many ways to efforts in our own times to curb
intermarriage) were not directed against converts, but against
those who had intermarried and not converted. Ruth shows that
converts are not just allowed to enter the community, and not
just welcomed, but understood to play an historical role in
Judaism's mission. The fact that the Book of Ruth is read on
Shavuot conveys a connection between the revelatory and
agricultural aspects of the holy day and the nature of the
Biblical book about a convert. The Torah revealed at Mount Sinai
is meant not just for born Jews but for all the Ruths in the
world; righteous converts are a worthy harvest for Israel.
     Prophetic visions of the universal rule of God and of
instruction coming from Zion also indicate that conversion is the
central activity needed to reach the ideal state. 
     The conversionary mission is exemplified by the story of
Jonah, who is told that God's concern and salvanic power extend
to all people. Indeed, the entire book rests on the hope of
return to God's commands if not to formal conversion. It is
Jonah's physical voyage that allows for a reading of mission. 
     Jeremiah went to people other than Jews with his message; he
was appointed a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5). Passages
in Isaiah underscore that efforts were not limited to a few
prophets, but were meant as a mandate for the entire Jewish
people. However difficult their conversionary efforts would be--
and the reception given by history to Jews underscores the extent
of that difficulty--Jews were appointed by their covenant, in the
words of Isaiah (42:6-7), to open eyes deprived of light and to
rescue (spiritual) prisoners from confinement. The clear notion
that people will, by free choice, convert to Judaism is found in
Isaiah 56:6-8 and elsewhere (for example, Jeremiah, 3:17;
Zachariah, 14:9; and Psalms, 86:9). Isaiah 44:4 is seen in the
Midrash as a mandate to seek converts. (Mekhilta Mishpatim, 18). 
     Having enunciated the nature and the means of achieving
their Divine vocation, the Jews were urged in many psalms to
carry out that vocation, to teach about God to the world so that
the world would acknowledge God's sovereignty. Some examples from
Psalms include 9:12; 18:50; 22:26f; 67; 72:11; and 6:3,10.
     Hillel was the model figure for welcoming converts from the
Talmud. In one famous dictum he said, "Be of the disciples of
Aaron loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and drawing
them near to the Torah" (Pirke Avot 1:12). The reference to
"people" instead of Jews followed by the direct call to bring
humanity to the Torah has been interpreted as a clear sign of the
Jewish mission to offer Judaism. There are, in addition, several
widely-known stories of Hillel's welcoming attitude toward even
hostile and mocking potential converts. (See Shabbat 31a).  
     The most famous of the Talmudic passages specifically
praising conversionary work is by Rabbi Johanan (and agreed with
by Rabbi Elezar ben Pedat) in Pesahim 87b, a passage in which it
is asserted that God exiled Jews from their homeland for only one
reason, to increase the number of converts. The Baruch Apocalypse
states a similar idea: "I will scatter this people among the
Gentiles that they may do good to the Gentiles." (II Baruch 1:4). 
The idea reappears elsewhere as well. It is a striking notion
that so horrible event as exile should be seen to have a divine
use. The use (seeking converts) had to have been considered so
valuable that it justified exile from the sacred, promised land.
One midrash admonishes the Jews that they had better use the
exile for that purpose or they faced divine judgment: "If you
will not proclaim Me as God unto the [heathen] nations of the
world, I shall exact penalty from you." (Va-Yikra Rabbah, 6:5). 
      V'ahavta, the first paragraph of the Sh'ma, cites as a
religious duty the obligation to teach Torah "when you walk on
the road," (Deuteronomy, 6:7). The notion of talking about the
Torah away from home may be interpreted as offering it not only
in one's own house but to the non-Jews one meets in the world.
     Jewish universalists conclude from these actions by God and
the founders of Israel and the writings found in sacred texts
that offering Judaism was the specific activity required to
complete the mission.    
     The "offering" that Jewish universalists find inherent in
the notion of mission found its form in a variety of specific
activities that were, in fact, undertaken by Jews. Indeed, Jewish
universalists see the historical fact of such use as a further
justification for their theoretical position. Jewish history
verifies the Jewish universalist interpretation of mission.
     "Offering" was done through a variety of activities. These
activities, which will be discussed at greater length in the
history section, included: (1) relying on God; (2) creating
missionary literature; (3) using the synagogue; (4) personally
approaching potential converts; (5) assimilating non-Jews who
lived among the Jewish people; and (6) marriage.
     These various methods of offering Judaism, constantly
distinct from "offering" as an intrusive act, were so successful
and so accepted that formal rules for welcoming converts were
required. 
     The halakhah concerning converts arose precisely because
converts were welcomed. Why codify laws in the halakhah, after
all, if Judaism did not want converts? The existence of the
halakhah itself is a form of offering. With it, Jews have a
specific place to point to in order, first to say that converts
are permitted (and nowhere does the halakhah forbid conversion),
second that the rules are there as a means of showing converts
that Jews have thought about them and legally welcomed them, and
third that there are specific rites to undergo in order to
convert. The existence of the rules of conversion in halakhah
gave Jews guidelines to show potential converts. In this sense,
the halakhah carries within in a sense of mission. The halakhic
procedure is described in a lengthy baraita in Yevamot 47 a,b.
This procedure is, in effect, a guidebook for potential converts. 
     Besides seeing the imperative for mission in God's actions,
the activities of the founders of Judaism, the sacred literature,
the historical activities, and the halakhah, Jewish universalists
saw mission as a necessary dynamic for history's aim: redemption,
the culmination of Judaism's world view. Mission is a conclusion
drawn from the logic of the Jewish world view. God is universal,
humanity is meant to be united, the revealed Torah is divine
legislation meant for all humanity, the Jewish people were chosen
to receive the Torah and agreed in a covenant to follow its
teachings, teachings which included the notion of making God's
universal message available to all. The next step was to see that
the universal message and the Torah were the same and to define
the specific activities that made up the mission, activities
which ultimately included offering Judaism and welcoming
converts.
     This view of mission as the offering of Judaism to non-Jews
has been challenged by those who conceive of a Jewish mission as
going to non-Jews, but not for the purpose of conversion. These
thinkers claim that because the mission was to bring humanity
close to God, conversion to Judaism is neither required nor even
desirable. The moral basis for such a claim rests on a valid
observation about Judaism's message. 
     It is that the message and divine mission do not mean that
gentiles are belittled or formally required to become Jewish to
achieve salvation, or to be considered righteous, or that all
must convert before the world itself is redeemed. Support for
such a view can be found in the famous sentence from the Tosefta
of Sanhedrin, chapter 13: "The righteous of all nations shall
have a portion in the world to come." Yalkut Shimeoni on Judges,
section 12, adds: "I call heaven and earth to witness that
whether one be Gentile or Jew, man or woman, slave or freeman,
the divine spirit rests on each in accordance with one's deeds."
From one traditional point of view, it is sufficient for gentiles
to follow the moral code given to Noah in order to lead a moral
life. The Jewish mission then, on this reading, might be
fulfilled by trying to get non-Jews to adhere to the seven
Noachide Laws, which mandated that all people refrain from
idolatry, incest, adultery, bloodshed, profaning God's name,
injustice (by the affirmative act of establishing courts of law),
robbery, and such cruel acts as removing a limb from a living
animal.
     There are, however, serious deficiencies in seeing such a
view as completely fulfilling the Jewish mission.
     First, in principle, all movements within Judaism accept
righteous converts. The fact that, in theory, any gentile could
become a Jew means that the Noachide laws, while acceptable for
an ethical world, are not the spiritual heights which can be
scaled by religious seekers. Indeed, the Noachide laws were
offered to gentiles who were not ready to become Jews. Thus a
hierarchy was established, with paganism at the bottom, followers
of Noachism second, and followers of Judaism at the top.
Precisely because Judaism was available to all, it may even be
seen as unethical for Jews not to make their religion available
to gentiles in place of the Noachide laws. Reluctance to make
Judaism available may violate the divine mandate to love the Lord
with all one's heart, soul, and might. (Maimonides seems to hold
this view in Sefer Hamitzvot, Mitzvah 3. Maimonides quotes
Sifrei, Va Etchanan, 5 which included the idea that the mitzvah
to love God included in it the duty to get other people to love
God). If Judaism is not offered, after all, that is hardly loving
it fully, so fully that one feels compelled to let others know
about it and welcome (though not coerce) those who choose freely
to embrace it.
     Gentiles who follow the Noachide laws are certainly admired.
In ancient times someone who accepted the seven laws was known as
a ger toshav, or semi-convert. The possibility of living
according to the Noachide commandments is illustrated in modern
times by Aime Palliere, who, in his autobiography The Unknown
Sanctuary, recounts his close attachment to Jewish life without
a formal conversion. There is currently a small Noachide movement
in the United States. However admirable Noachides are, however
much they deserve the respect and spiritual support of Jews,
their number is extremely small. Such small numbers today are
symbolic of the indifferent reaction of non-Jews to Noachism
throughout history and testify to the inadequacy of Noachism as a
definition of the Jewish mission.
     Additionally, although the Noachide laws seem, at first
glance, to be non-controversial and acceptable, say, to many
Christians, in fact the seeming congeniality is deceptive. For
example, according to Maimonides (but not the Tosafists or Joseph
Caro), the prohibition against blasphemy precludes a belief in
the Christian messiah, hardly an acceptable position for most
Christians.
     Finally, even with the Jewishly minimal nature of the
Noachide laws, Jews have only rarely attempted to teach the world
about them; Jews have historically muted even this very limited
mission, rendering the Noachide laws essentially irrelevant to
non-Jews.
     If Jews are to take the missionary role embedded in their
covenant seriously, they need to ask whether they should seek
Noahides or converts. Is it sufficient to convert the world to
morality rather than, specifically, to Judaism?
     The answer, of course, is that it may be sufficient and
desirable, but it is not ideal. The crucial missionary questions
are: how can Jews help make righteous people out of the non-
righteous, more righteous people out of the minimally righteous,
and the most righteous possible out of the more righteous? To
make the world as righteous as it can be is to make it as Jewish
as possible, for Jewish adherence to Judaism implies that Jews  
believe that their religion expresses the most central and
complete religious truths and the most thorough and accurate oral
guidelines, and that other faiths are only partially true and
morally complete. Not to argue for as Jewish a world as can be,
at least in theory, is to accept a world that is not as righteous
as it might be. It is not that this ideal will be achieved, it is
that the mission requires that the attempt be made to achieve it.
Thus, making Judaism available to all is important. 
     Judaism was not triumphalist; it did not call for the
disappearance of any or all non-Jewish peoples or religions, only
for a common, unifying worship of the universal God. Judaism does
not claim, for instance, that even in messianic times, all people
will become Jewish.  While traditional and some modern
variations of Judaism believe Judaism to be the truest religion,
Judaism is not seen as the single and exclusive path to
salvation. Righteous people with any belief system are accorded
spiritual legitimacy by Judaism. Such a position is in contrast
to the positions of Judaism's monotheistic children, Christianity
and Islam, which disallow salvation outside of their individual
faiths. Judaism sought a middle position, a universal religious
view suitable for, and available to, all, but a religion that did
not delegitimate righteous individuals or peoples of other views. 
     Formal conversion to Judaism is the ideal, but not the
requirement. It should be offered but not forced. It should be
available but not mandated.
     The third aspect of mission is welcoming converts. This
aspect requires that Jews receive a convert openly. It implies
not only the lack of hostility but also positive hospitality. The
welcoming of converts is marked by an absence of wounding
accusations or behavior, a willingness to accept the convert as a
full Jew and to teach the convert about Jewish life, to integrate
the convert into the Jewish community. "If one wishes to adopt
Judaism, welcome and befriend him; do not repel him." (Mekhilta,
18:6).
     Jewish texts are overwhelmingly supportive of converts.
Indeed, in order for the mission to go forward, Judaism, in
principle, must have a positive theological attitude toward
converts. Without a willingness to accept converts, Judaism's
message cannot be universal and therefore cannot meet the
covenantal definition.
     Despite some negative comments, in general, Judaism does
have such a positive theological attitude toward those who join
the Jewish people. The Bible is filled with references to non-
Israelites, resident foreigners who lived in the land of Israel.
The Hebrew term for them, gerim, was used to describe those who
had attached themselves, in one way or another, to the Jewish
people. The Torah has more than three dozen references to those
foreigners, providing them equal rights, stressing their
responsibilities to perform religious tasks as Jews did, and
vigorously demanding that the gerim not be oppressed. 
     The Talmud, using gerim to refer specifically to religious
converts, has overwhelmingly favorable comments. Converts, for
instance, are frequently mentioned as being as close to God as
born Jews. "Dear are converts, for in every place the Torah warns
again [abusing] them." (Mekhilta Nezikin 18 on 22:20). "Our
Rabbis say: Dear is the convert, for the Holy One had written of
Himself (Jeremiah 14:8) 'Why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in
the land?' Said the Holy One: Thus do I cherish the convert. And
Abraham was a convert." (Lech Leka 6). There are many similar
comments.
     Beyond seeing converts as being as close or dear to God as
born Jews, some comments in the Talmud indicate that converts are
even closer to God than born Jews. Resh Lakish (Lech Leka 6), for
instance, said: "The proselyte who converts is dearer than Israel
were when they stood before Mount Sinai. Why? Because had they
not seen the thunders and the lightning and the mountains quaking
and the sound of the horns, they would not have accepted the
Torah. But this one, who saw none of these things came,
surrendered himself to the Holy One and accepted upon himself the
Kingdom of Heaven. Could any be dearer than he?" There is an
interesting parable (Numbers Rabbah 8:2) illustrating God's love
of converts, and there are similar references elsewhere. 
     Some additional representative positive comments about
converts can be found in Hagigah 5a, 8 and Genesis Rabbah 34:14. 
     There are a few negative remarks in the Talmud, mostly
attributable to historical circumstances, and some open to
alternate interpretations. Braude has a whole chapter devoted to
explaining the supposedly negative comments. For example, Rabbi
Helbo's famous comment that converts are as troublesome as a sore
(Yevamot 109b) is frequently interpreted as a comment against
welcoming converts. Instead, it should be seen as the statement
of a political fact, that it was politically dangerous at the
time (the Council of Nicaea had made rules against Jews accepting
converts) for Jews to accept any conversion, and so the converts
were troublesome, but the trouble came not from the converts but
from the non-Jewish authorities who didn't want the Jews to grow
in numbers or expand in power. Maimonides thought the comment
referred only to converts who had ulterior motives, not to the
great majority of righteous converts. (Mishneh Torah V, i Chapter
13, no. 8). Some later commentators saw the statement as
indicative of the fact that converts were so punctilious about
obeying the Law that they made it difficult for the born Jews to
be even the least bit lax. However, even if Rabbi Helbo's
comments are hostile, they are made by an individual and are not
the least bit typical. In this case, and in the case of the other
negative comments about converts, arguments can be made that the
peculiar circumstances provide an explanation other than
hostility to converts or that the comments can be interpreted and
were (say by Rashi and the Tosafists) in various ways. Rashi, for
instance, found seven different interpretations possible of Rabbi
Helbo's comment.
     It is not surprising that the Talmud and other Jewish
religious texts supported what Jews actually did: they gave
gentiles the opportunity to embrace Judaism. Still, while
selective texts can be made to support a variety of positions
within Judaism, the sheer number of approving texts is
impressive. At the very least, the texts provide Jewish
universalism with support against any claim that it is outside
normative Judaism. 
     The specific inclusion of welcoming converts as a central
focus of the missionary task is important because such an
inclusion gives Jews a means to evaluate their success in
carrying out their mission. While a mission is a general
statement about Judaism's corporate intentions, it is necessary
to list goals. Goals are the specific means by which the mission
is to be achieved. Offering Judaism and welcoming converts are
the goals of the Jewish mission. Therefore, measuring the number
of converts is one central way of seeing whether the missionary
objective has been met. Without such a specific measure, it would
be impossible for Jews to determine if, in fact, they were
succeeding with their mission. Activity is sometimes confused
with achievement. Without a measurable means of evaluation, the
mission itself becomes hopelessly abstract, unable to define
itself, unable, most importantly to engage in the self-evaluation
necessary to determine if the covenantal obligations are being
met. Measuring the number of converts, that is, allows Jews to
determine if they have been following their Divine mandate. 
     Of course, there are other aspects besides the quantity of
converts that determine the mission's success. The quality of
converts is, for instance, vitally important. Additionally,
efforts to offer Judaism should be assessed in ways supplementary
to the accounting of converts. Still, the number of people who
actually convert is a crucial criterion in determining the
mission's success.











J. The Nation of Israel
     The role of the nation of Israel in accomplishing the Jewish
mission is vital. It is possible, mistakenly, to consider the re-
establishment of Israel as a triumph of Jewish particularism over
universalism, as focusing on concentrating Jews in a limited
physical space with nationalistic aspirations, rather than having
Jews throughout the world as potential teachers with religious
aspirations, as, in brief, inimical to the Jewish mission. On
this reading the tragic dispersion of Jews remained useful even
after two millennia punctuated by persecution.
     In fact, though, Jewish nationalism is a central component
of Jewish universalism; the nation of Israel accelerates Jewish
universalism rather than putting a brake on its development.
     Zionism has transformed the perception of Jews by non-Jews.
Through much of the history of the last two millenia, Jews were
seen not just as apostates, or outsiders, and generally inferior
to gentiles. History itself--the absence of Jewish political and
military strength, the dispossession and dispersion--was seen as
confirming religious and racial prejudice. This view had a
profound effect on the Jewish mission in significant ways. A
powerless minority is not an attractive group to join and the
mission had to be postponed because to carry it forth meant
persecution, death both for the Jews who did the converting and
for those they converted, and punishment of the entire Jewish
community. The reality of Israel frees the Jewish people to turn
again to their mission with the physical security necessary for
resumption. 
     Israel's re-birth has changed gentile perceptions, and can
change them even more. History has not forsaken the Jews after
all. It was their exile and not their sovereignty that was
ephemeral. A people who could pull off such a miracle as national
re-birth after two thousand years is a much more attractive
people to join.
     Indeed, the religiously sensitive could easily interpret
that re-birth as proof of God's intervention; God continues to
choose the Jews. Such a religious interpretation coheres as well
with passages in the Bible that some people interpret as
prophetic. In many of the most crucial prophetic passages, such
as Isaiah, 2:2, the nations come to Zion to worship God. That is,
the universal mission seems to be possible only when Jerusalem--
Zion--is under Jewish sovereignty. The revival of Israel makes
such a prophecy presently possible.
     The very reality of Israel's re-birth also revives the
Jewish spirit, a spirit that was warped but miraculously intact,
savaged but still alive, stymied in its attempts to redeem the
world but still chosen to do so. Jewish history is vindicated for
Jews as well. Such a vindication is inherently energizing,
unleashing emotional wellsprings that burst when so stunningly
verified by reality. The necessary psychological preconditions to
allow for re-establishing the universal mission could have come
about only after the establishment of Israel. The pride,
confirmation of purpose, and confidence unleashed by Zionism are
available for the resumption of the Jewish mission.
     Equally, Israel's re-birth makes it more difficult to accept
the triumphalist assertions of non-Jewish religions that
Judaism's glories were in the past and were superceded by
subsequent religious developments. After Zionism, Jews (and
gentiles) can no longer see Judaism as vestigial, as an
historical fossil, as allowed to live simply to testify to the
superiority of its successors.
     A missionary activity needs a spiritual center to point to,
a place where the heritage vibrates with life and growth, a model
of the spiritual shaped in the concrete forms of the actual.
Israel was to be a light to the nations. A light needs a standing
place. A holy nation must be a nation. It is no accident that the
most successful missionary moment in Jewish history was during
and just after the Second Temple when Jews had political control
of their ancient homeland. The control, however, was more than
political. A nation allows for communal self-defense, for the
orderly transmission of its heritage. The buoyant effects of
Israel's revival have not only been defensive--a haven for
persecuted Jews and a greater security for world Jewry--or
psychological--a more profound--a more profound self-respect
among Jews from seeing the re-kindling of the ancient fires of
glory. The effects are also spiritual; after Israel, the Jewish
people is poised to revive its covenantal obligation to offer
Judaism to the world. Restored to their ancient glory, seen by
the world as miraculously saved, the Jews after Israel can return
to their historic concern for redemption.
     Many Jewish thinkers have recognized this. From its earliest
modern conception, Zionism was never seen as a nation just meant
to have particular meaning for Jews. The Jewish State as haven
was also to be the nourisher of the Jewish spirit and the model
for non-Jews. Moses Hess, the brilliant precursor of Zionism,
wrote: "The Jewish people will participate in the great
historical movement of present-day humanity only when it will
have its own fatherland." . Theodor Herzl, the founder of
Zionism made this explicit. "We ourselves will use and carry on
every new attempt in our Jewish land; and just as we shall
introduce the seven-hour days as an experiment for the good of
humanity, so we shall proceed in everything else in the same
humane spirit, making of the new land a land of experiments and a
model state.". The final goal of establishing a model state was
clearly stated by David Ben-Gurion. "The renaissance of Israel
did not and does not consist merely of the establishment of
state-national instruments for the Hebrew nation; but it will
express its fullest and highest form in the revelation of its
eternal spirit and the fulfillment of its historic mission in
redeeming mankind." 
     This idea of mission was particularly important in Martin
Buber's conception of Zionism, which was a vision in contrast to
the more politically explicit vision of Herzl and Ben-Gurion.
Buber did not see how the political was a necessary part of the
spiritual. Nevertheless, he did see that "Israel is the
foundation stone and solid basis of the messianic building of
humanity."
     Of course, Zionists more closely attached to the religious
community than Herzl or Ben-Gurion or more attached to
traditional Judaism than Buber had similar views. Rabbi Samuel
Mohilever, in his message to the First Zionist Congress, stressed
the concern Jews felt about achieving good for all humanity.
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wrote: "To regard Eretz Yisrael as
merely a tool for establishing our national unity--or even for
sustaining our religion in the Diaspora by preserving its proper
character and its faith, piety, and observances--is a sterile
notion; it is unworthy of the holiness of Eretz Yisrael. A valid
strengthening of Judaism in the Diaspora can come only from a
deepened attachment to Eretz Yisrael. The hope for the return to
the Holy Land is the continuing source of the distinctive nature
of Judaism. The hope for the Redemption is the force that
sustains Judaism in the Diaspora; the Judaism of Eretz Yisrael is
the very Redemption."
     Because of Israel's central role in Jewish universalism,
support of Israel--politically, economically, and in other ways--
is an important activity for Jewish universalists. Jewish
universalism is not simply, after all, a relgious interpretation
of conversion, but an interpretation of Judaism, and, as such,
has analyses of all segments of Jewish life including such
central ones as Israel.
     Jewish universalists see Israel as indispensible as the
world looks to its final goal: redemption.

K. Redemption
     Jewish universalists claim that God's ultimate aim is the
redemption of humanity. Redemption means the reconciliation of
God and humanity, a reconciliation that will alter the
relationship from the current one of Godly disappointment with
the moral behavior of people to relief that the promise of human
moral potential had been fulfilled, thereby justifying and
sanctifying the original creation of humanity and simultaneously
providing the ultimate meaning to the human enterprise.
     Redemption is often put in eschatological terms. In this
sense, redemption will result in the Kingdom of Heaven, a state
of perfection in the world, when humans will be released from sin
and suffering and human beings will conform freely to God's moral
teachings. The concept of such a Kingdom of Heaven is joined in
traditional Jewish thought with the concept of a messiah, a human
anointed by God to rule over this Kingdom.
     From the point of view of humanity, the goal of such
redemption is clear: the spiritual transformation of humans to
effect the reconciliation. Such a transformation requires that
humans, who have a direct effect on redemption, and can advance
or retard it by their actions, choose to be moral. Jewish
universalists believe humans have the free will and moral
strength to act morally. This "prophetic eschatology," in Martin
Buber's phrase, is what will transform people. That freely-
chosen spiritual transformation will lead humans to adhere to the
ethical monotheism of Judaism. Humanity will achieve unity, an
achievement which will result in the end of war, the eradication
of hatred, the banishment of all injustice, the cessation of
strife, the deliverance from fear, the halt to oppression against
the powerless. Instead, the world will be at peace; justice will
prevail; humans will treat each other with love as they worship
the one true God.
     The goal of Jewish history, the Kingdom of God, provides a
destination for the mission. The way to know that the Jewish
mission is succeeding, that it is going in the right direction in
its mission, is to be a witness for Judaism, to offer it, and to
attract and welcome converts.  
     Such a conversionary endeavor would be a re-introduction of
a neglected facet of Jewish history, rather than an historical
novelty. The theological reasons for welcoming converts would be
undermined if it were not for the validating intensity and scope
of Jewish conversionary activity in its earlier history, the
forced retreat from that activity, and the beginnings of its
return.