Transcription
People who are Christian are asking, "Why is Jesus not the Messiah?"
Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Jerusalem. Excellent question. The question can logically be asked. I am sure you know this. The very early Christians did regard themselves as Jews. Jesus himself regarded himself as a Jew, and many of the Apostles, in fact, were Jews. They considered themselves Jewish. Peter himself differed with Paul. Peter took the position that a follower of Jesus should practice circumcision, keep kosher, and keep the Shabbat because they were Jewish. And of course, we have Hebrew Christians until this day.
So the question is, "Why can't I be a religious Jew, believe in the Torah, and still say that Jesus is the Messiah?" That's what they want to know. I would say that Judaism has three fundamental issues with Christian theology.
Issue number one, which does not go to the Messianic aspect but to the divinity and trinity – the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Our problem would be that God has never and will never assume a human form. Once you deal with the reification or the corporealization of the deity, you are violating a tenet of God being infinite and non-material. That, of course, goes to the divinity and a later development in Christianity.
In terms of the Messianic vision, let's say I say I don't believe that Jesus is God or son of God, but let him be the Messiah, which we do believe in. So I would say there are two points.
Point number one is that classical Jewish literature does not accept the notion of a second coming. That is, once the Messiah reveals himself, he will accomplish a designated mission of getting the Jews back to Israel, rebuilding the Temple, and hopefully establishing world peace. Now, Jesus, of course, was crucified. Jesus was murdered before he completed any of those things. Because of that, Christianity developed the idea of the Second Coming, that Jesus will come back and complete the mission. As I say, as far as normative Jewish theology is concerned, when the Messiah comes, he is going to get the job done. He is not going to die and then come back. That is point number one.
Point number two, which is actually more important, and I am not going to get into the debate of whether Jesus said it or the Apostles or later people said it. But the notion in the New Testament that God abrogated his covenant with Israel, that God has replaced the Sinaitic Revelation with the Justification by Faith, which is really Paul's innovation. Paul created the idea that one gets redemption not by works but by faith. Justification by Faith. That is a theological postulate which is absolutely inconsistent with the eternity of the Torah and the divinity of the Torah.
Now, again, I understand that one could make the argument that it is not Jesus's argument. In fact, there are passages where he says, "I am not going to abrogate a single letter of the Torah." And yet, even within the Christian Bible, there are narratives in which he implies that certain commandments are no longer binding. And certainly, Paul took a position that none of the commandments are binding. And that is a postulate that we cannot accept because, as Maimonides writes in his article of faith, even the Messiah will not abrogate or replace the Torah. And that's our problem with Christian theology.