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Where Judaism Differed
370 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1972
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December 23, 2025
A MARVELOUS EXPOSITION OF JUDAISM, AND HOW IT DIFFERS FROM CHRISTIANITY
Abba Hillel Silver (1893-1963) was an important Zionist as well as Reform rabbi, who served a large congregation for 46 years.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1956 book, “the founders of Judaism… fashioned a way of life for men… they were not technical theologians… not did the faith they founded ever boast of a systematic theology or a science of ethics. There is no attempt to formulate a systematic Jewish theology until the early Middle Ages, almost a thousand years after the final canonization of the Bible… In the Bible and Talmud the doctrines of Judaism are nowhere presented in the unified form of a treatise. They are broadly diffused in prophetic utterances, legal codes, history, poetry, precept, parable, and drama. There were, of course, many theologians and philosophers among the Jewish people… but Judaism is not based upon their theology or philosophy.” (Pg. ix-x)
Later, he adds, “No special metaphysics, no unique ‘knowledge’ or secret gnosis which is requisite for salvation, no evangel of a miraculous scheme of redemption are offered by Judaism. It is not a transcendental wisdom … that can be grasped only by the exemplary few… after a long and intense psychophysical discipline. Judaism does not attempt to answer unanswerable questions, or to give man what man cannot have. Judaism is Torah---‘teaching.’ … Judaism’s ‘way’ is designed to sustain and advance life, not to escape or transcend it… The source of its authority is God. The motive force is the love of God and man… The reward for man and mankind is now and in the future.” (Pg. xiii-xiv)
He notes, “Socrates was a sage of unimpeachable moral character, ‘the best, wisest and most upright of his age.’ But what sage in Israel would have boasted, even playfully, of being a lifelong victim of Eros, a ‘lover’ of Alcibiades, and would have spoken of homosexual perversion as complacently as Socrates did? And what was the moral tone of a people that would show no aversion to this?” (Pg. 50)
He points out, “The Hammurabi Code recognizes two distinct classes of society, besides slaves, and applies separate legal standards of legal responsibility to each...The Hebrew Code… makes no such distinctions. No discrimination is made .. between a noble and a commoner.. On the treatment of slaves, the Hebrew Code is infinitely more humane… The slave’s death must be avenged as murder (Ex 21:20). The Code of Hammurabi is silent on this score… the Hebrew Code is also far more lenient than the Hammurabi Code to a culprit who commits larceny.” (Pg. 54-55)
He notes, “The care of the poor in Israel was a religious duty. The Biblical laws which made provision for the poor were greatly elaborated in subsequent times. Charity came to be regarded as the highest of all commandments… No literature of mankind abounds in such tender solicitude for the poor or in so many provisions for their protection…. No community in history organized itself so early to provide adequate relief for the needy as the Jewish community.” (Pg. 63)
He summarizes, “[Judaism] detected in Hellenism a distinct threat to its own sober morality, its code of personal piety, and its prophetic tradition of social progress. It saw in Christianity … fatal eschatological overemphasis, an irrational antinomism, and an attenuation of monotheism in the concept of the God-Man. Judaism consciously resolved to go its own way.” (Pg. 85)
He argues, “Nor did the Jews reject ‘the still greater treasure’… in the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. What they rejected was the Messianism of Jesus, Paul’s onslaught on the Law, his gospel of redemption through the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus, and the doctrine of God incarnate in man. How could it have been otherwise? As a Messianic movement Christianity failed… the Kingdom of God, which was expected hourly, did not materialize. The appearance of Jesus did not mark the end of history.” (Pg. 96)
He states, “Jesus would not heal the daughter of the Canaanite woman who pleaded with him… he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ‘It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs’---a sentiment which cannot be paralleled for severity in the whole literature of Judaism.” (Pg. 108-109)
He asserts, “Paul’s position cut at the very roots of their faith. There has always been a debate among Jews as to the extent one is free to interpret the Written Law and … whether the Oral Law is binding and to what extent… But no organized religious group ever maintained that the Law could be dispensed with altogether, that the Law was a curse or that faith alone was sufficient.” (Pg. 118)
He explains, “The teachers of Judaism almost instinctively rejected a formula of Either/Or in assaying religious values… Competitive theology has, almost from the beginning, assigned to Judaism a God of justice and to Christianity a God of love. Judaism never proclaimed that God is love. It never proclaimed that God is justice… The teachers of Judaism, knowing man’s frailty, taught the love AND forgiveness of God.” (Pg. 124-125)
He observes, “The adoration which the followers of Buddhism, for example, came to bestow on Gautama, or the Christian world in Jesus, was never given by Jews to Moses or to any other man. The major interest of Judaism always centered in the way and the goal rather than on the guide.” (Pg. 132)
He notes, “A Jew could question the existence of God… and go unpunished… It was only the man who cursed God, or who turned to idolatry… who was subject to the penalty of death. No one could be punished for not believing in … the Hereafter, or resurrection, or the Messiah, or the divine origin of the Torah. The authorities were content to leave the punishment of such heretics to Heaven.” (Pg. 136-137)
He clarifies, “while entertaining the hope of the coming of a Messiah, the Jewish people never accepted any specific Messiah… Nor did Judaism wish people to occupy themselves too much with the subject of the Messiah, or be impatient about his coming, or calculate the time of his appearance.” (Pg. 140)
He states, “the Temple was precious in the sight of the people … There is no criticism of the cult of sacrifice in the New Testament. Jesus, his parents and Paul brought offerings to the Temple (Lk 2:24; Acts 21:26). And yet the Temple was not enough!… leaders and people alike knew that it did not completely satisfy them nor fully express the inner spirit of their religion. Much more was needed.” (Pg. 147)
He says, “Jewish ethics is nowhere motivated by the conviction that ‘this is the last hour’ (1 Jn 2:18)… Judaism does not… build its ethical doctrines on a concept of radical malevolence or on man’s importance to ‘save’ himself. The teachers of Judaism constantly stressed … that Judsiam is a livable faith… It did not demand the impossible of man.” (Pg. 157)
He points out, “The Christian Gospels themselves demonstrate how impossible of fulfillment was Jesus’ mandate to love one’s enemy when, time and time again, he… is portrayed in denouncing the Scribes and Pharisees as ‘a brood of vipers’ (Mt 12:34), ‘blind fools’ (Mt 23:17)… and consigning them to damnation, woe and hell (Mt 23:33, Lk 10).” (Pg. 159-160)
He clarifies, “Judaism is not constructed around any drama of redemption. There is no term in the Hebrew language for ‘salvation’ in a … redemptive sense… The idea that man needs to be ‘saved’… from some Original Sin… is not part of Judaism.” (Pg. 183) He states, “Not a single one of the 613 positive and negative commandments of the Torah… enjoins any form of asceticism or mortification upon man. There is but one public fast day… Yom Kippur.” (Pg. 228)
He explains, “The Judaism of the Bible does not rest upon the dogmas of resurrection and immortality, though an occasional late reference to resurrection may be found in it (Is 26:19; 1 Sam 2:6; Dan 12:2). They are not key ideas with the Hebrew prophets.” (Pg. 316)
He argues, “Some writers have treated the ethics of the Torah rather condescendingly… They point rather vaguely to a conception of higher and selfless ethics in the New Testament. It is difficult to understand why the expectation of rewards for a good life in this world is any more mercenary than the expectation of eternal rewards in the next world.” (Pg. 329)
This book will be ‘must reading’ for anyone studying Jewish doctrine, and how it differs from Christianity.
Abba Hillel Silver (1893-1963) was an important Zionist as well as Reform rabbi, who served a large congregation for 46 years.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1956 book, “the founders of Judaism… fashioned a way of life for men… they were not technical theologians… not did the faith they founded ever boast of a systematic theology or a science of ethics. There is no attempt to formulate a systematic Jewish theology until the early Middle Ages, almost a thousand years after the final canonization of the Bible… In the Bible and Talmud the doctrines of Judaism are nowhere presented in the unified form of a treatise. They are broadly diffused in prophetic utterances, legal codes, history, poetry, precept, parable, and drama. There were, of course, many theologians and philosophers among the Jewish people… but Judaism is not based upon their theology or philosophy.” (Pg. ix-x)
Later, he adds, “No special metaphysics, no unique ‘knowledge’ or secret gnosis which is requisite for salvation, no evangel of a miraculous scheme of redemption are offered by Judaism. It is not a transcendental wisdom … that can be grasped only by the exemplary few… after a long and intense psychophysical discipline. Judaism does not attempt to answer unanswerable questions, or to give man what man cannot have. Judaism is Torah---‘teaching.’ … Judaism’s ‘way’ is designed to sustain and advance life, not to escape or transcend it… The source of its authority is God. The motive force is the love of God and man… The reward for man and mankind is now and in the future.” (Pg. xiii-xiv)
He notes, “Socrates was a sage of unimpeachable moral character, ‘the best, wisest and most upright of his age.’ But what sage in Israel would have boasted, even playfully, of being a lifelong victim of Eros, a ‘lover’ of Alcibiades, and would have spoken of homosexual perversion as complacently as Socrates did? And what was the moral tone of a people that would show no aversion to this?” (Pg. 50)
He points out, “The Hammurabi Code recognizes two distinct classes of society, besides slaves, and applies separate legal standards of legal responsibility to each...The Hebrew Code… makes no such distinctions. No discrimination is made .. between a noble and a commoner.. On the treatment of slaves, the Hebrew Code is infinitely more humane… The slave’s death must be avenged as murder (Ex 21:20). The Code of Hammurabi is silent on this score… the Hebrew Code is also far more lenient than the Hammurabi Code to a culprit who commits larceny.” (Pg. 54-55)
He notes, “The care of the poor in Israel was a religious duty. The Biblical laws which made provision for the poor were greatly elaborated in subsequent times. Charity came to be regarded as the highest of all commandments… No literature of mankind abounds in such tender solicitude for the poor or in so many provisions for their protection…. No community in history organized itself so early to provide adequate relief for the needy as the Jewish community.” (Pg. 63)
He summarizes, “[Judaism] detected in Hellenism a distinct threat to its own sober morality, its code of personal piety, and its prophetic tradition of social progress. It saw in Christianity … fatal eschatological overemphasis, an irrational antinomism, and an attenuation of monotheism in the concept of the God-Man. Judaism consciously resolved to go its own way.” (Pg. 85)
He argues, “Nor did the Jews reject ‘the still greater treasure’… in the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. What they rejected was the Messianism of Jesus, Paul’s onslaught on the Law, his gospel of redemption through the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus, and the doctrine of God incarnate in man. How could it have been otherwise? As a Messianic movement Christianity failed… the Kingdom of God, which was expected hourly, did not materialize. The appearance of Jesus did not mark the end of history.” (Pg. 96)
He states, “Jesus would not heal the daughter of the Canaanite woman who pleaded with him… he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ‘It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs’---a sentiment which cannot be paralleled for severity in the whole literature of Judaism.” (Pg. 108-109)
He asserts, “Paul’s position cut at the very roots of their faith. There has always been a debate among Jews as to the extent one is free to interpret the Written Law and … whether the Oral Law is binding and to what extent… But no organized religious group ever maintained that the Law could be dispensed with altogether, that the Law was a curse or that faith alone was sufficient.” (Pg. 118)
He explains, “The teachers of Judaism almost instinctively rejected a formula of Either/Or in assaying religious values… Competitive theology has, almost from the beginning, assigned to Judaism a God of justice and to Christianity a God of love. Judaism never proclaimed that God is love. It never proclaimed that God is justice… The teachers of Judaism, knowing man’s frailty, taught the love AND forgiveness of God.” (Pg. 124-125)
He observes, “The adoration which the followers of Buddhism, for example, came to bestow on Gautama, or the Christian world in Jesus, was never given by Jews to Moses or to any other man. The major interest of Judaism always centered in the way and the goal rather than on the guide.” (Pg. 132)
He notes, “A Jew could question the existence of God… and go unpunished… It was only the man who cursed God, or who turned to idolatry… who was subject to the penalty of death. No one could be punished for not believing in … the Hereafter, or resurrection, or the Messiah, or the divine origin of the Torah. The authorities were content to leave the punishment of such heretics to Heaven.” (Pg. 136-137)
He clarifies, “while entertaining the hope of the coming of a Messiah, the Jewish people never accepted any specific Messiah… Nor did Judaism wish people to occupy themselves too much with the subject of the Messiah, or be impatient about his coming, or calculate the time of his appearance.” (Pg. 140)
He states, “the Temple was precious in the sight of the people … There is no criticism of the cult of sacrifice in the New Testament. Jesus, his parents and Paul brought offerings to the Temple (Lk 2:24; Acts 21:26). And yet the Temple was not enough!… leaders and people alike knew that it did not completely satisfy them nor fully express the inner spirit of their religion. Much more was needed.” (Pg. 147)
He says, “Jewish ethics is nowhere motivated by the conviction that ‘this is the last hour’ (1 Jn 2:18)… Judaism does not… build its ethical doctrines on a concept of radical malevolence or on man’s importance to ‘save’ himself. The teachers of Judaism constantly stressed … that Judsiam is a livable faith… It did not demand the impossible of man.” (Pg. 157)
He points out, “The Christian Gospels themselves demonstrate how impossible of fulfillment was Jesus’ mandate to love one’s enemy when, time and time again, he… is portrayed in denouncing the Scribes and Pharisees as ‘a brood of vipers’ (Mt 12:34), ‘blind fools’ (Mt 23:17)… and consigning them to damnation, woe and hell (Mt 23:33, Lk 10).” (Pg. 159-160)
He clarifies, “Judaism is not constructed around any drama of redemption. There is no term in the Hebrew language for ‘salvation’ in a … redemptive sense… The idea that man needs to be ‘saved’… from some Original Sin… is not part of Judaism.” (Pg. 183) He states, “Not a single one of the 613 positive and negative commandments of the Torah… enjoins any form of asceticism or mortification upon man. There is but one public fast day… Yom Kippur.” (Pg. 228)
He explains, “The Judaism of the Bible does not rest upon the dogmas of resurrection and immortality, though an occasional late reference to resurrection may be found in it (Is 26:19; 1 Sam 2:6; Dan 12:2). They are not key ideas with the Hebrew prophets.” (Pg. 316)
He argues, “Some writers have treated the ethics of the Torah rather condescendingly… They point rather vaguely to a conception of higher and selfless ethics in the New Testament. It is difficult to understand why the expectation of rewards for a good life in this world is any more mercenary than the expectation of eternal rewards in the next world.” (Pg. 329)
This book will be ‘must reading’ for anyone studying Jewish doctrine, and how it differs from Christianity.
Displaying 1 of 1 review