Jerusalem has its very own version of Dublin's Grafton Street, a pedestrian zone in the heart of the city, filled with souvenir shops and sidewalk cafés, where street musicians entertain passers-by each day. When I was younger and more brazen, I headed down there one Saturday evening with my guitar in hand. The sun had just gone down, ending the Jewish Sabbath, the stores were open again, and young people were beginning to throng this street that had been practically deserted since the evening before.
I stood at a good vantage point near where a small side-street ran off Ben Yehuda Street, and went through my repertoire of Beatles' songs. To my surprise and delight people kept dropping shekels into my open guitar case. At one point an Orthodox man and his young son, taking an evening stroll, stopped to listen. They were both dressed in black suits and white shirts, with wide-brimmed hats on their heads. The father sported a long beard, and each of them had long sideburns, curls of hair pushed forward over their ears. The little boy smiled with childlike joy as I sang ‘Yellow Submarine’. When I had finished, his father said, ‘Brother, play something in Hebrew!’
I was flattered - and also strangely touched - that he mistook me for a Jewish man. I was at once humbled and awed. I also immediately began to panic, because I did not know any song in his native language. But suddenly I had a flash of inspiration. There was one Hebrew song I knew, primarily because it comprised only three words. I launched into the famous folk song: ‘Havenu Shalom Aleichem’. My own enthusiasm grew as I repeatedly sang the familiar words of this song, and when I finished it with a flourish, both father and son beamed with delight. It was a moment of magic, for there was an instantaneous connection.
Although it lasted only an instant, for that brief time there was a real and living bond between us. We had transcended the customary boundaries that divide people into tidy and distinct categories. Something unheard and unseen had united us through the melody we had just shared.
I was deeply grateful to be the catalyst of that joyous moment in their lives. As a Christian, I owe so much to Judaism. Today, with a new wave of anti-Semitism sweeping across our world, I feel it is important to say something about how much we all as Christians are indebted to Judaism. At this period in history, we need to think more deeply about Judaism and about our relationship with the Jewish people.
Let's begin at the heart of Christianity, with Jesus himself. I want to recall an episode from Jesus' ministry with which you are undoubtedly familiar, and invite you to look at it in a new light. It is from Chapter 4 of Saint Luke's Gospel. Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth and goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath. He is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Now, this text is not any old text. The Hebrew of this passage is of an extremely sophisticated kind, somewhat like the English in a Shakespearian play. In fact, reading this passage aloud is like trying to recite the famous ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy from Hamlet. Many actors aspire to reading Hamlet's marvellous speech, and a lot are terrified of even attempting this feat, because it is much easier to get this soliloquy wrong than right. Something else to bear in mind is that the Hebrew text Jesus was given had no vowels and no punctuation. There were no comfortable spaces between the words to facilitate reading it; in fact, one word ran straight into the next. All this makes Jesus' impeccable delivery and rendition of this passage even more extraordinary.
Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.’ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. (Lk.4:17-22).
Jesus speaks so fluently and authoritatively that his words are full of life and power. He does not hesitate for a moment, he does not trip or stumble over his lines. It is obvious that Jesus is completely at home with the Hebrew Scriptures, and with speaking in a synagogue. He is in his natural element, the religion and world of Judaism. This is the world he has grown up in, the milieu to which he belongs.
Please don't get me wrong: just because Jesus was Jewish, I am not suggesting that all Christians should convert to Judaism. Jesus claimed to be faithful to Judaism, yet spoke about the Jewish faith in a way that did not always find agreement among his Jewish contemporaries. He also made a huge claim about himself - that he was the Messiah, the Son of God. This is a claim which Christians believe and Jews reject. So Jesus did not have a cosy and comfortable relationship to the Jewish world of his time.
But for all that, we cannot simply dismiss the Jewishness of Jesus. If we want to be like Jesus, we need to know more about him and who he was. For instance, the fact that he went to synagogue, observed the rules of the Sabbath, celebrated the Jewish feasts, going to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover, and also for the Feast of Tabernacles. It is amazing how effortlessly we forget that Jesus never read the New Testament (which of course was not written during his lifetime), but on the other hand was thoroughly familiar with the Jewish Scriptures. Since Jesus was Jewish and we Christians follow Jesus, we could benefit from knowing this Jewish side of Jesus better.