"WHAT CRUCIFIED JESUS?"
April 18, 2003
Shabbat Passover 5763
Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn
Temple Sinai
New Orleans, Louisiana
There is, inevitably, for those in the know, a moment late in the Seder when one becomes painfully aware that historically there has always been physical danger afoot at Passover time. Even two thousand years later, our own Reform Haggadah forthrightly alludes to it at the moment when the door is opened for Elijah. Did you notice it?
How many images this moment brings to mind,
how many thoughts
the memory of Elijah stirs in us!
The times when we were objects of distrust,
when our doors were open to surveillance,
when ignorant and hostile men
forced our doors with terror!
The annual convergence of our Passover with the Christian Holy Week observance recounting Jesus' passion on the cross has set the scene through so many centuries for violent, and unspeakably profane, corruptions of Christian religious fervor, against helpless Jews hoping to seek sanctuary behind their ghetto doors. And why? Because of centuries-old false accusations, and his being fostered by the Gospel writers and perpetuated by human ignorance and greed.
Though we can, and shall, examine the reasons for the New Testament's bitter anti-Jewish bias and vitriol, suffice it to say, its effect is undeniable: for the better part of 20 centuries Jewish death and exile and humiliation.
I met with one of our Temple members this week who is 95 years old and mentally as clear as day. We were reminiscing about his childhood before coming from Poland to this country with his many brothers and sisters.
"We lived in the great ghetto of Lodsk," he told me. "Do you know what a pogrom is, Rabbi?" I told him, of course I know.
"Well, our house was attacked by the mob when I was just two years old. I don't remember it at all but, here, feel right there on my hands. Those indentations are from where the mob nailed my small hands to the kitchen table and that's how I was found."
For years, no one mentioned the incident to the boy so that he wouldn't recall the trauma. "The rabbi of Lodsk ordered it to be unspoken, but I heard it mentioned years later, I don't remember exactly when."
As I looked at my friend's age-slender hands, I wondered what the movie star and film producer Mel Gibson would say to such tragic behavior. Yes, Mel Gibson! Did you read that article about Gibson and his Holocaust denying-father in a recent New York Times Magazine? It seems that Mel is an ardent critic of the post-Vatican Council Catholic Church. He is a follower of an unauthorized, conservative, ultra-Catholic sect and largely bankrolled the building of its Los Angeles Church.
Mel is busy at work finishing his film biography of Jesus-filmed without subtitles in Latin and Aramaic for authenticity. And guess what? We Jews, once again, despite 30 years of Catholic teaching to the contrary, return to our first typecast starring role as the intractable, bloodthirsty advocates of Jesus' crucifixion. Talk about "Lethal Weapons." This lie of Jewish culpability remains the most treacherous of ages old lethal weapons, and Gibson is re-telling it! Shall two-year-olds be nailed to tables again?
Our friend, Dr. Michael Cook, who was our scholar in residence last winter, says this of Gibson's movie on Jesus' passion:
[Mel Gibson] professes concern for the "truth" yet is ignorant of truths many Christian New Testament scholars have uncovered. The Gospels were completed after the Jews rebelled against Rome beginning in 66 C.E. In order to prevent Roman vengeance against Jews engulfing Christians as well, the Gospel writers magnified the Jewish role in Jesus' death. Thereby the Gospel writers attempted to dissociate Christians from Jews in Roman eyes.
. . . The notion that Jews were the enemies of both Christians and Rome suggested that Rome and Christians were natural allies. Thus did Jesus, a Jew killed by Rome, instead emerge as Christian killed by Jews.
[Cook concludes] because Gibson comes from a family legacy that denies the historicity of the Holocaust, naturally he is insensitive to the role the Gospel accounts played in allowing the Holocaust to occur. His weakness on 20th-century history is thus mirrored in his weakness on first-century history as well.
Still, we are forced to recognize that there are empirical facts that cannot be ignored. Unless one would agree with those very few scholars who challenge even the existence of this man called Jesus, we must necessarily accept as fact his trial and his execution during the Roman procuratorship of Pontius Pilate and the high priesthood of Caiaphas. And, given these basic facts, the question of responsibility is certain to present itself again and again.
Here, then, is the scholarly response presented by the distinguished professor, Dr. Ellis Rivkin, in his highly respected book, What Crucified Jesus? Rivkin insists:
It was the Roman imperial system that was at fault, not the system of Judaism. . . . Had there been no Roman Imperial system, Jesus would have faced the buffeting of strong words, the battering of skillfully-aimed proof-texts, and the ridicule of both Sadducees and Scribes-Pharisees, but he would have stood no trial, been affixed to no cross.
So what did happen? Rivkin's response is this.
Frightened by the crowds drawn to Jesus' charisma and absolutely certain themselves that Jesus was not the messiah and that the kingdom of God was not at hand, some Scribes-Pharisees may have voiced their concern about the tragic consequences that might follow should the crowds get out of hand and go on a rampage. . . . The Scribes-Pharisees. . . were committed to both the doctrine of live and let live in the religious sphere. . . . If the preservation of God's covenant required subservience to Roman rule, the payment of tribute to Rome, or helpless inaction as Roman legions repressed unruly crowds, then this was a small price to pay for spiritual survival.
The times were no ordinary times; the tempests no ordinary tempests, . . . .the chaos that gave birth to a charismatic like Jesus was the very chaos that rendered clarity of judgement impossible. The Roman emperor held the life or death of the Jewish people in the palm of his hand; the procurator's sword was always at the ready; . . . Jewish religious leaders stumbled dazed from day to day, not knowing what they should do or not do, say or not say, urge or not urge.
[Rivkin concludes]. . . It was not the Jewish people who crucified Jesus. . . . We will ask not Who crucified Jesus, but What crucified Jesus? . . . It was the imperial system, a system that victimized Jews, victimized the Romans, and victimized the Spirit of God.
And Jesus understood. Twisted in agony on the cross--that symbol of imperial Roman cruelty and ruthless disregard of the human spirit-Jesus lifted his head upward toward God and pleaded, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
So, on this Jewish Shabbat of Passover and this Christian Good Friday-two millennia after the events on a small hillside in Jerusalem, what is left to be said?
What we have is an irreconcilable and honest difference of opinion. Is it too much to pray that, despite a few pathetic primitives, the likes of Mel Gibson and his father, we have arrived at a point in human evolution where Jews and Christians can honor our differences, and work together to build a world and a future of greater caring and compassion.
Let us grow, please God, to accept and respect our diversity and enhearten one another to seek God, each in our own way.
Kein Y'hee ra-'tzoan
And so may it be!
Amen.