{"id":69124,"date":"2020-01-25T23:53:33","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T21:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69124"},"modified":"2023-08-23T17:33:18","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T14:33:18","slug":"grace-an-un-jewish-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/grace-an-un-jewish-concept\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace: An Un-Jewish Concept?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the most defining features of Judaism is the role played by law. We conceive of our relationship to God primarily as a <\/span>brit<\/em> <\/span>(a legal contract) and the study of law has for centuries been considered one of the most important, if not the most important, of religious activities. For much of the last two thousand years, this point has played a major role in Jewish-Christian polemicizing. Christians have often accused Jews of a cold-hearted legalism, a dependence on rules which cannot fathom the necessary role of God\u2019s unmerited love and forgiveness \u2014 known as grace \u2014 in salvation. Jews, for their part, have sometimes tended to see the Christian preoccupation with grace as a kind of spiritual vapidity and a deliberate turning-away from the revealed law which is the concern of so much of the Bible. Indeed, it is not rare to hear Jews claim that grace itself is an un-Jewish concept.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in reality, the idea of grace does play an important role in Jewish thinking, beginning, of course, with the Bible itself. The third chapter of Jeremiah provides an excellent example of a moment in which the prophet proclaims a divine love which sets aside the strictures of the law in order to forgive the people Israel, even when they do not deserve it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The relationship between God and Israel is, as so often here imagined, as a marriage. The prophet, seemingly referring to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, notes that according to Israelite law, a woman who has divorced her husband and married another man is forbidden, in the event that she divorces the second man, from returning to her first husband. Israel, the spouse of God, has abandoned the relationship and \u201cwhored with many lovers\u201d \u2014 that is, worshiped other gods. Thus, the metaphor goes, the law seems to require that God and Israel remain estranged. But, insists the prophet, such an estrangement is not Israel\u2019s fate: \u201cSince I have espoused you, I will take you, one from a town and two from a clan, and bring you to Zion.\u201d Although Israel thinks of its relationship to God along the lines of a marital contract, God\u2019s gracious love overflows the bounds of this legal structure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maimonides, in <\/span>Guide<\/span><\/i> 3:53, writes that most of the uses of the term c<\/em><\/span>hesed<\/span><\/em> (mercy, grace, or lovingkindness) in the prophetic books have the sense of \u201cpracticing beneficence toward one who has no right at all to claim this from you.\u201d When, in Jeremiah 3:12, the prophet reports God saying \u201cI will not look on you in anger, for I am compassionate (c<\/em><\/span>hasid<\/span><\/em>),\u201d <\/span><\/i>this seems to be the sense intended.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although by rights Israel has forfeited its claims on God by engaging in idolatry, God nevertheless promises to accept the people if they return. In moments like these, it is clear that, far from being a deviation, grace is a crucial concept for Jewish theology, one without which we would be unable to make sense of much Biblical teaching.<\/span><\/p>\n

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