In the rabbinic sources

These texts we've been engaging involve Israel's self-understanding and by implication Israel’s understanding of 'the other' – the non-Jew. But, of course, there are numerous references in the rabbinic sources to the other nations directly, to the other religious traditions of the human family. And, of course – especially because of the Jewish people's history of themselves being vilified and persecuted by many Islamic regimes and especially by Christian Europe – many of these Jewish sources are dismissive and even harshly condemnatory of these, after all, all too frequent and often persistent not merely neighbors – but enemies. And yet for all that the historical context of these derisive attitudes makes them understandable, they exact serious harm to the spiritual-ethical character that all religious traditions at their best strive to develop. And the persistence of such attitudes once generated become dangerous obstacles when these same competing civilizations – when many of their leaders and adherents – enter into serious confrontation with their history of vilifying those fellow humans who belong to different civilizations, to different traditions of the religious life. This indeed becomes a tragic problem of delegitimation and hatred of the other too long and too well pursued; as the classic novel about South Africa – Cry the Beloved Country – has one of its characters reflect – that by the time the whites will have, eventually, turned to loving, the blacks will have turned to hating.

One of these rabbinic sources represents God as first making the rounds of all the other nations – offering the Torah to them. But each and every nation asks what, for instance, is written in this Torah and each finds that there is a commandment, a demand that contradicts an essential element in their character. So, for example, the Ishmaelite – the Arab – people say – No stealing, no assaulting?! Oh, but that's something vital to our way of life! And there is a biblical verse to call upon in support of each of these stereotypical character defects of each of the nations! For example, regarding the Arab peoples it is Genesis 16:12  that predicts Ishmael and his descendants will be 'a wild man; his hand against every person'. (See pages 78-79 in Bialik & Ravnitzky's The Book of Legends – Sefer ha-Aggadah: Legends from the Talmud and Midrash.)

Yet, on the other hand, there are numerous passages in the same rabbinic sources – often on the same page alongside degrading attitudes toward the non-Jew – numerous passages of tolerance and even affirming embrace. Perhaps the most stunning is the teaching in regard to a non-Jew who achieves high levels of spiritual and ethical development. Such a person can be described metaphorically and even literally as  tantamount to one who studies and practices the Torah. They are thus like the Kohen Gadol – the High Priest – the highest spiritual-ethical office when the Temple(s) stood in Jerusalem! (One of the sources of this teaching is in the Talmud, Avodah Zara 3b. An elaborated version that is especially striking appears in the Talmud volume Baba Kama 38a, as well as in the midrashic collection Exodus Rabbah – the 4th passage in the 19th section, as well as in the midrashic collection known as the Sifra – on Leviticus – on page 86b of that collection. In Bialik & Ravnitzky's The Book of Legends, it can be found on page 354, passage 151. Stunning is the repeated expression in this text that in several biblical contexts – in reference to someone who engages Torah or good deeds – Scripture does not say 'a kohen (of the priestly class), a Levite, or a (common, regular) Israelite,' but rather says 'a person'; thus, the non-Jew is included!

It is from such sources – and from the general principle in Judaism that does not see the non-Jew as having to join the Jewish people, or adopt Judaism, in order to achieve the highest levels of spiritual-ethical attainment – that Emmanuel Levinas develops his view of Judaism's particularist-universalist dialectic:

But as we have seen this is not always so in all of Judaism's sources; there are contrary attitudes to be found 'as well'(!?). In medieval Jewish philosophic sources, for instance, we encounter Yehudah HaLevi's racist view, in his work The Kuzari – that only Israelites, only Jews, have the potential for prophecy – the reception or grasping of Divine truths – as much as human beings can attain to the Absolute. Indeed, the Rihal, as he is known by abbreviation, argues that the non-Jew's soul or character is as different from the Jew's as are the categories of animals, vegetables and minerals! So this is part of Judaism! Yet opposing this view – also in Judaism – is Maimonides' teaching in his work The Mishneh Torah – in his Laws/Ways of the Foundational Principles of the Torah – where he in fact legislates that "It is one of the principles of universal theology that the Divine causes – potentially, if people develop their potential – causes all the Children of Adam – all humankind – to prophecy' (i.e., to have the potential capability to attain an understanding of the truths governing all phenomena of the Divinity's Creation – what Aristotle categorized as either 'physics' or 'metaphysics.')