Welcome to our first “Interfaith Insights” conversation. Over the coming weeks Anthony MacIsaac will have conversations with fellow students of different faiths.
Catholic Theology Student Anthony MacIsaac interviews fellow students of other faiths.
Interview 1 Abigaëlle Chalom – Jewish student
Anthony: Hello Abigaelle, thanks for agreeing to discuss some elements of your faith with me. It’s good to have the chance to talk about your faith and theology. To begin with let me ask… Is belief in God important for you? What is God in your opinion? I know that is a big question to start off with!
Abigaëlle: Belief just isn’t Jewish core material. God is self-evident, the very starting point of any thought, sensation, emotion or perception. It’s in the very Name, the Tetragrammaton,(YHWH) which is related to the verb “to be”. So if something “is”, it’s God, period. So, believing or not believing isn’t really the question, ever. Life, and how to conduct one’s life, that’s the central matter of Judaism, to me. Furthermore, by definition, no person could embrace God’s point-of-view, so to speak. This means that God isn’t a theory or an addition of principles. Instead, God is the very essence of being. For us, being is not only mere action, but also questioning our own acts and motivations, our desires and needs. Not once and for all, not when so inclined, but as a way of life.
Anthony: What impact does Scripture have on your faith?
Abigaëlle: Since Judaism is not dependent on faith, as far as I am concerned, the Scriptures impact me as would a machine that could travel in Space and Time. Scriptures are a millennia-old writing process, enacted through so many civilisations – all of them born, all of them grown, and all of them eventually lost – sharing the tales of God’s unending diversity, and at the same time God’s breath of constancy.
Anthony: Do you consider Scripture as literature, or as something more?
Abigaëlle: I consider the Scriptures as a powerful generator of symbolism, and as one of the oldest relays of one simple but essential fact, life is hard and confusing, it has been, it will be. Beyond literature, it is the most ancient testimony of our shared struggle and responsibility.
Anthony: What about rituals? Are these important for you?
Abigaëlle: I do believe rituals are at the essence of Judaism, creating a bridge between spirituality and life. Like bridges, we must worry if everybody walks on them at the same pace, and all at the same time, for the bridge will collapse. A Jew remains a Jew, but his identity in Judaism intrinsically demands that he question everything about Judaism. Some Jews will study exclusively, some will maintain a few traditions, some will do both, there are as many variations of Judaism as there are Jews, even an Jewish atheist is still Jewish.
Anthony: In Catholicism, we have the Sacraments. These are centred on worshipping God, but also on our relationship with God. They tend to touch each person emotionally, as they associate all of this with music, art, and even theatre. Do the rituals of Judaism have a similar impact? Do they touch the individual in the same way?
Abigaëlle: I think they do in a way that has been progressively enhanced by successive diasporas. First things first, Judaism excludes images of God, this extends to a complex definition of idolatry. As we said before, God is “to be” but experiencing being – this is human. The depiction of God’s interactions with humanity has always been focused on the human point-of-view in the Jewish Scriptures, and the Jewish arts play with that limitation.
Anthony: Perhaps we can also talk about prayer? One form of prayer is contemplation. In the Church, this is often accomplished by asceticism, the monastic life, and even hermitage. This can also be achieved to a degree in the ordinary devotion of a life well-lived. Is contemplation important for you?
Abigaëlle: Judaic prayer tends to put each thing in its place, to actively celebrate life. Even the austere aspect of some Jewish Orthodox communities contains a constant flow of feasts and celebrations squared by prayer as a conscious rest and focus. So, as a consequence of having no proper eschatology (theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind), Judaism does not seem really “contemplative” to me.
Anthony: As I understand more traditional forms of Judaism, I thought there was some eschatology, even if not well defined. Within the Kabbalah, is there not the idea of Tikkun Olam, that is of repairing and restoring the world to what it should be? Is there not also a world to come in Jewish prayer?
Abigaëlle: One of the most structural ideas in Judaism revolves around the end of times as an undefined and undefinable perspective. The end of time marks a partition between the Olam Hazeh and the Olam Haba – Olam Haba as the continuous here and now, the strictly absolute future. Since potential and realisation are mutually exclusive, human expectations are paradoxical, as shown in the few pages of the Talmud’s Sanhedrin that debate these issues. To act or to wait is the messianic question with the most discrepancy in Judaism.
Moreover, since the end of time is an absolute, nothing is to be humanly said about it and the very question of trying to put a date on it is rejected: “let their breath be taken away, those who try calculating the end of time” say the masters. However, those masters had to manage expectations raised by fears and hopes. To this end, the Talmud refers to the “messianic time”, as a transitional era between our world and the one to come, an era we can discuss to drive our expectations forward. During this era, changes are to occur, but once more, nothing can legitimately be said about the world that is to come because it is within God’s plan and as such, an absolute.
“All the prophets, without exception, prophesied only for the messianic times, but as for the world to come, the reward is not quantifiable, as it states: no eye has seen it except You, Elohim, who will act for him who awaits You.” (Sanhedrin)
As to Tikkun Olam, I understand it as a goal to target, but not to reach. To me, the idea of a perfect world or a perfect experience is contradictory with humanity. Instead, it is God’s field of existence, while ours is relative, complex and imperfect.