On Fixing the Text 'the Jews'

Pope Benedict in the synagogue in Cologne, Germany

                                                          

 On August 19, 2005, German Pope Benedict in a spirit of reconciliation visited the synagogue in Cologne, Germany. It had been burned down by the Nazis on the night of November 9, 1938 (known as Krystallnacht – The Night of the Shattered Crystal), and was rebuilt in 1959. 

On Fixing the Text `the Jews’ 

March 18, 2012, 4^th Sunday of Lent

II Chronicles 36:14-23    Ephesians 2:4-10     John 3:14-21   

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Glory to you, Lord.

Jesus said to Nicodemus: "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction

The first day of spring

On this fourth Sunday of Lent the old Latin Mass opened with the words Laetare, Ierusalem! (Rejoice, oh Jerusalem!) It’s a reference to Isaiah 66:10: “Rejoice with Jerusalem; be glad for her, all you who love her.” In the course of time that mid-Lent Sunday was called Laetare Sunday. There was very good reason to rejoice in the old days: we were halfway through a very stoutly penitential season of forty days of fast and abstinence. On the fourth Sunday of Lent we also rejoice because most of the snow has melted away, the days have grown longer, and this coming Tuesday, March 20, is the first day of spring.

“The Jews” in John

The gospel readings for the second half of Lent are from John’s gospel which is intertwined with frequent and sometimes detailed accounts of the conflict between Jesus and “the Jews.” That conflict is there already in the 2^nd chapter of John (last Sunday’s gospel) where “the Jews” challenge Jesus to prove He has the authority to cleanse the Temple with His whip of cords. (Jn. 2:18) The conflict rages on again in the 5^th chapter where “the Jews” are ready to kill Jesus for breaking the Sabbath by healing a man sick for thirty-eight years, and for saying that God was His Father, thereby making Himself equal to God. (Jn. 5:18) The conflict continues on in the 7^th chapter where Jesus has to go incognito to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, because “the Jews” were watching for Him. (Jn. 7:11) Conflict permeates the whole 9^th chapter of John[1], which is a rambling story of 39 verses about a man born blind and cured by Jesus, but “the Jews” weren’t willing to believe that he had been blind and could now see. (Jn. 9:18) And the man’s parents, because they were afraid of “the Jews,” declined to tell them that their son had indeed been born blind. (Jn. 9:22) The conflict peaks in the 11^th chapter of John: “From that day on `the Jews’ made plans to kill Jesus.” (Jn. 11:53)

The roots of anti-Semitism latent in Scripture

 John’s reiteration of the conflict between Jesus and “the Jews” helps us to understand why Jesus eventually came to die at their hands. But by the time Good Friday finally arrives, those who daily attend Mass during Lent and hear these readings are a bit depressed and wearied by the endless scrapping going on between Jesus and “the Jews” in John’s gospel.

More importantly, we begin to suspect the roots of anti-Semitism latent especially in John’s gospel. No doubt about it, a mindless reading of Scripture and especially of John’s gospel down through the centuries has spawned a subtle and at times a not-so-subtle anti-Semitism among the faithful and even in the church institution itself. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council in its Canons on Jews declared that Jews in the Eternal City had to wear distinctive garbs from their twelfth year on, and pay taxes on their homes and property to the Church. The Council also forbade Jews to appear in public during the last three days of Holy Week. The distinctive garb which the Church forced Jews to wear reminds us of the distinctive armband which the Nazi forced German Jews to wear. The armband read: JUDE! JEW!

What’s more, for centuries the church institution unabashedly prayed every Good Friday: “Oremus pro perfidis Judaeis.”[2] (“Let us pray for the perfidious Jews.”) That was before Good Pope John XXIII in 1958 expunged from the Roman Missal the prayer that prayed for “the perfidious Jews,” and replaced it with: “Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they might continue to grow in the love of His name and in faithfulness to His covenant.”

Anti-Semitism in Germany

The Church’s mindless reiteration in the liturgy of the fight between Jesus and “the Jews” (especially as recorded in John) contributed in no small way to the age-old pastime of turning Jews into a convenient scapegoat for frustrated Gentiles. When frustrated Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) needed a scapegoat upon which to blame the inflationary problems of Germany and the loss of World War I, he built upon the bedrock of anti-Semitism that had already been laid by the German reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Frustrated by the unwillingness of Jews to embrace his religion, Luther became one of the most intensely bitter anti-Semites in history. [3] His writings described Jews as the anti-Christ, worse than devils, ritual murderers and parasites. He preached and prayed that they should be expelled from Germany, their books should be seized and their synagogues should all be burned to the ground.

Luther’s fervent prayers were answered. On the night of November 9, 1938, the anti-Semitism sown by Luther burst into a huge conflagration in Germany. In one night it torched 191 synagogues and incinerated 7000 Jewish businesses. That night goes down in history as Krystallnacht (Night of the Shattered Crystal), and it marks the beginning in earnest of the Holocaust.

 On the occasion of World Youth Day in Germany, German Pope Benedict entered the synagogue in Cologne, Germany on August 19, 2005, and with words and gestures sought reconciliation with the chief rabbis and the Jewish community gathered in their synagogue destroyed on Krystallnacht but rebuilt in the 1959. Paul Spiegel, the leader of Germany's Jews, told reporters later: "If someone told me 45 years ago, 'You are going to be in Cologne, and the Pope will visit you in a synagogue,' I wouldn't have believed it. We have come a long way in mutual support and in mutual understanding and, as the Pope said in mutual love ."

Fixing texts that didn’t need fixing

Sometime ago US Catholic bishops met and voted “to fix” some of the Mass prayers translated from the Latin, and in use for more than 35 years. The bishops, we were told, wanted to bring the prayers “into greater conformity with the original Latin.” On the first Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011 a new translation of the Roman Missal[4] (mandated by the Vatican for all English-speaking countries) `burst upon us.’ In the new translation, for example, the “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you” in the prayer before Communion is now `fixed’ to say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.”

Behold another `earth-shattering’ example: the response to the priest’s “The Lord be with you” was “And also with you.” That has now been `fixed’ to say: “And with your spirit.” Still another example: a phrase from the first Eucharistic prayer in the Mass that formerly read: "Joseph, her husband" has now been `fixed’ by the new translation to say: "Joseph, spouse of the same virgin." A final example: Catholics who worry about the growing spread among them of the 4th century heresy of Arianism will now be consoled by the fact that instead of saying that Jesus is "one in being with the Father" will now be uttering the incomprehensible "consubstantial with the Father." 

Simpler folk didn’t have the slightest suspicion that those texts needed `fixing’ at all, and they feel it was a matter of the Church fixing texts that didn’t need much fixing at all.

Texts in far more need of fixing

Dr. Eva Fleischner, Professor Emeritus at Montclair State University, N. J. is bent on fixing texts that really need fixing. Her father was a convert to Catholicism from Judaism. She fled Austria at the age of thirteen, as the Nazis marched into Vienna. She is a pioneer Catholic theologian in Christian-Jewish relations, Christian anti--Semitism and Holocaust studies. Teaching and writing about the Holocaust and Christian anti-Semitism for 40 years Dr. Fleischner is not much interested in fixing texts like “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you” or “And also with you.” For her there are other texts in far more need of fixing.

Dr. Fleischner writes, “We have made much progress, thanks to the green light given by Nostra Aetate.[5] Yet much work remains to be done, especially in our liturgical texts.” Fleischner has in mind a whole litany of scriptural texts used in the liturgy, texts like: “The Jews challenged Jesus to work a miracle to prove He had the right to cleanse the temple” (Jn. 2:18)  or “The Jews were all the more determined to kill Jesus because of what He said “ (Jn. 5:18) or “The Jews from that day on made plans to kill Jesus” (Jn.11:53).  The litany goes on and on. If the Church is looking for texts to fix, Fleischner says, here they are! Such texts (mindlessly read, heard and preached down through the centuries) contributed subliminally and powerfully to the unspeakable Holocaust which incinerated 6 million Jews in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald. And since they are `sacred texts,’ they are doubly effective and lethal.

Texts easy to fix

In a few instances when the evangelist John uses the expression “the Jews,” he is referring to all Jews. An example is John 2:13: “The Passover of `the Jews’ was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” In almost all the other cases, by the expression “the Jews” John does not mean all Jews but rather the Jewish authorities. An example is John 5:16: “And this was why the Jews (i.e. the Jewish authorities) persecuted Jesus, because He did this on the Sabbath.” Another example is John 7:13: “Yet for fear of the Jews (i.e. the Jewish authorities) no one had the courage to speak openly in His behalf.” Still another example is John 9:22: “The parents of the man born blind said this because they feared the Jews (i.e. the Jewish authorities) who were ready to throw them out of the synagogue  if they confessed Jesus to be the Christ.” Etc.

Unconscionable not to fix `the Jews’

It is very easy to fix these texts in which lurk the lethal seeds of anti-Semitism, if we want to. It is as easy as simply changing the words “the Jews” to “the Jewish authorities,” when that’s what’s really called for (which is almost always). In view of the lethal consequences which the expression `the Jews’ can and has caused in the Christian faithful down through the centuries, it is unconscionable not to fix them. These days of late Lent when John’s gospel is daily read, priests and readers at Mass should therefore have the conscience and courage to take it upon themselves to fix the text before them, if it has not already been fixed. If it reads `the Jews,’ then for God’s sake and for the sake of the six million Jews of the Holocaust fix it to read “the Jewish authorities.”

Conclusion

Cleansing our Temple as Jesus cleansed His

The “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you” in the prayer before Communion doesn’t really need fixing; it has no subliminal power to stoke up the crematories of the Holocaust. But liturgical texts and New Testament translations, in which lurk the roots of anti-Semitism, do indeed need fixing.  In these days when Iranian President Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever happened and wants Israel wiped off the map, it is unconscionable not to fix the liturgical texts and New Testament translations in which lurk the roots of anti-Semitism. Once fixed, we will have cleansed our Temple as Jesus cleansed His Temple, when with a whip of cord He drove sheep, cattle and merchants out of His Father’s House.

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[1]Read on the fourth Sunday of Lent, cycle A)

[2] Missale Romanum, Feria Sexta in Parasceve 

[3] Confer “On the Jews and Their Lies” written in 1543 by Martin Luther, translated by Martin Bertram

[4] The book of prayers, chants and responses used at Mass. 

[5]Vatican II’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions. The Declaration decrees that the death of Jesus “cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today.”