Located across from our Temple, as you know, is San Antonio College. On its campus are several student religious organizations. Last Monday morning, I received a call from a staff member of one of these groups. He wanted to verify something that he had heard about Jewish wedding practices. He asked: “Is it true that when a Jewish couple gets engaged, the prospective groom washes the feet of his prospective bride?” In all of my years in answering questions about Jewish belief and practice, this one gets the prize.

So much ignorance about Judaism prevails in the wider community. Last month, I heard another glaring illustration of such misunderstanding. Years ago, Shearith Israel, the large Conservative congregation, in Dallas, wanted to build its new synagogue on Douglas Avenue. A neighborhood group then started a petition drive to prevent this from happening. Why? The signers of the petition feared that the odors from the synagogue when the worshippers sacrificed their sheep and cows would be intolerable.

One of the main reasons why some hold such distorted ideas about Judaism is that they identify today's Judaism with the Judaism of the Bible. The neighbors of the Shearith Israel Synagogue worried about the noxious smells of animal sacrifices because in the Bible there were animal sacrifices. We haven't engaged in that practice for almost 2000 years, ever since the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed.

The reality is that 95% of the Judaism we embrace and practice today developed after the time of the Bible. For example, tonight, we offered blessings over our Shabbat candles and wine. Nowhere are these rituals mentioned in the Bible. Furthermore, tonight we are celebrating a Bat Mitzvah, and next week, we shall mark a Bar Mitzvah. These terms are not found in the Bible.

I spend a significant portion of my time in interfaith activities, which I find extremely gratifying. Over the years, I have spoken in numerous churches and Christian-based colleges. Following my presentation, of course, is a question-and-answer period. If I have failed to cover these three points, I can be assured that someone in the audience will ask about some or all of them: (1) “Why don't Jews believe in an afterlife?” (2) “Why don't Jews believe in Jesus?” and (3) Are Jews a race?”

Let's take the first of these: “Why don't Jews believe in an afterlife?” The truth is that we do believe in an afterlife. However, the Hebrew Bible, which many mistakenly think describes the beliefs of Judaism today, hardly refers to any life after death. To the Biblical writer, the dead are gathered to a place called Sheol, the netherworld. This is merely a repository of corpses. Once the person dies, his or her life is permanently over. That is the end.

However, after the Bible was completed and canonized, Jews began to develop three different ideas of what happens to us after we die. First, to this day, Orthodox Jews believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. At the end of time, when the Messiah comes, the dead will be assembled from the entire world and they will be raised from the dead near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Because Orthodoxy clings to a belief in resurrection, cremation is prohibited. To cremate is to deny the resurrection, according to Orthodox Jews.

Those of us in the non-Orthodox community generally hold two other views of life after death. Few of us believe in resurrection. Rather we maintain that, after we die, the soul, the imperishable God-like part of us, will return to God. The body, on the other hand, will go back to the dust from which it originally came into life.

In addition, we maintain that our beloved dead live on in the hearts and minds of their survivors. Our Gates of Prayer expresses this belief in these felicitous words: “By love are they remembered and in memory do they live.”

Thus, contrary to popular misconceptions, we Jews do cling to a notion that life does not end at the grave. Some Jews embrace a belief in the resurrection at the end of time. Others, especially in the Reform community, maintain that we live on perpetually through the immortality of our souls. We also remain alive as long as our influence will continue to be felt after our demise.

Let's now address the second question about Jesus. Here we enter an emotionally charged mine field. Regrettably, for the past 2000 years, the name of Jesus has been linked with Christian anti-Semitism. The cross sometimes stirs up anxieties and apprehensions within us. We think of the Crusades, the Good Friday pogroms, and other massacres, when thousands of Jews were murdered, under the cross, in the name of Jesus.

Jesus, himself, a Jew, would be appalled if he knew about the atrocities perpetuated in his name in the centuries following his death. Fortunately, in the last three or four decades, Christian-Jewish relations have greatly improved. Thus, we Jews can now take a more dispassionate and objective look at the figure of Jesus. Let us emphasize that Jesus was born, lived and died as a Jew. He was never anything but a Jew.

Jesus was a devoted son of the synagogue. He sat at the feet of some illustrious Rabbis of his time and dazzled them with his genius and brilliance. He taught Jewish ideals and values. Jesus was also a hero among the oppressed Jewish masses living in Palestine at the time of the Roman occupation. Many Jews looked to Jesus to free them from this harassment and oppression. The Roman authorities were naturally threatened by Jesus. They regarded him as a dangerous revolutionary, and, therefore, they crucified him.

However, it was Paul, not Jesus, who founded Christianity. Paul did not even know Jesus while he was alive. Paul was a Jew, whose original name was Saul. About 30 years after the crucifixion, Paul traveled to Damascus, now capital of Syria. En route, he caught a vision of the risen Jesus. He then concluded that he could reach God solely by placing his faith in Jesus. He no longer needed to observe the laws of the Torah.

Influenced by Greek thought, Paul insisted that everyone was born with a sinful condition. It was inherited from Adam, who disobeyed God. The only way we can rid ourselves of this sinful blemish is to accept the saving power of Jesus, whom Paul regarded as God made flesh. He directed his new-found faith primarily to Gentiles, not to Jews. He gave the non-Jews a way to connect with God, without following the mandates of the Torah.

Therefore, why don't we Jews believe in Jesus? The truth is that we can accept the Jewish Jesus, as one of the eminent religious teachers of his time. As a Jew, Jesus lived by the requirements of Torah. It is the Christian Christ that we can't embrace. First of all, to Jews, God can not assume a flesh-and-blood form. To us, God will always remain intangible and indivisible.

There is also another significant consideration. When Jesus was born 2000 years ago, we Jews had already been in a covenant with God for the previous 2000 years. That covenant is permanent. To provide an opportunity for non-Jews to covenant with God, Paul offered a new possibility: the notion of a Christian Christ. In other words, we Jews have all we need in the first covenant through Torah. The second covenant through Jesus was intended for Gentiles. It was to enable them to bond with God. Both covenants are equally valid, one for Jews, the other for Gentiles. So much for the Jewish stance on Jesus.

Finally, the third question: “Are Jews a race?” This is a particularly sensitive question, especially since the time of Hitler. He spoke the Aryan master race. Hitler regarded Jews as part of a sub-human race that needed to be exterminated. The truth is that we Jews don't constitute a race. Admittedly, most Jews today are Caucasians.

Yet, we Jews are represented in every major racial community. We have not only Caucasian Jews, but also Oriental Jews and Black Jews. When I was a Jewish Chaplain in Korea, I encountered several Koreans, who were Jewish. Admittedly, they were not born Jewish. However, upon converting to Judaism, they became as authentically Jewish as anyone born into an all-Jewish family.

Similarly, in the last two decades, over 25,000 Black Jews left Ethiopia to settle in Israel. They have been Jewish for centuries. In a few major cities of our nation, there are also Black Jewish congregations. This fall, an African American woman, now living in Denver, will enroll in Hebrew Union College to study to become a Rabbi.

Thus, if we Jews are not a race, what are we? We are not a nationality, because we are represented in almost all the major nationalities of this world. There are American Jews, French Jews, Russian Jews, Turkish Jews, Greek Jews, Italian Jews, Mexican Jews, etc. What then are we?

The best definition of Jews I have encountered is that of Dr. Mordecai M. Kaplan: “We Jews are a people, with an evolving religious civilization.” Yes, we are more than a religious group. We Jews are community with religion at its essential core. We also have languages, like Yiddish. We have foods, like gefilte fish. We have dances, like the hora. Neither Yiddish, nor gefilte fish, nor the hora are religious in nature. Yet they are elements of Jewish civilization. In short, we Jews are part of a religious entity, but so much more.

So here you have my attempts to answer the three questions most often posed to me in my encounters in the wider community. Inquirers want to know about the afterlife, Jesus, and race. It is essential that we explain ourselves clearly to others. So much of the world's violence and bloodshed comes from a misunderstanding of each other's religious views. I feel a mission to teach about Judaism to people in the wider community. By doing so, I try to do my part in advancing fruitful dialogue between peoples and ultimately world peace. Amen.

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