lilithu
The Devil's Advocate
It's Pesach, so I don't expect a response to this soon, but thought I'd post it now while I am thinking about it. On monday evening I attended the 38th annual interfaith Seder at Georgetown, led by the rabbi in residence and sponsored by Temple B'nai Israel. This is an interfaith Seder at a Catholic university, so I expected the rabbi to make ties to Christianity; that's fine. But I was very surprised when he started talking about how the sabbath is divided into three parts - friday evening, saturday morning, and satruday evening - devoted to the three aspects of God within Judaism - God as creator, revealer, and redeemer, respectively. He then made the obvious connection between creator, revealer, and redeemer with the Christian trinity - Father, Holy Spirit, and Son. I've never heard of anything like this. My understanding is that Judaism is strictly monotheistic. And like I said, I expect there to be some attempt to relate Judaism in Christian terms, translating for the mostly Catholic/christian students. But this seemed like a stretch even in that context.
So I asked a Jewish student/rabbi in training (what is the equivalent of divinity school?) whether this was "kosher" () and he politely said that his views of Judaism were a little more traditional. And then I asked the rabbi himself and he said that he got these ideas from another rabbi who wrote a book on it, the names of both I promptly forgot as I continued talking with Rabbi White. But anyway this other rabbi in this other book postulated that the star of David is actually two triangles (not new - heard that in Qabbalah), one of which represents the Jewish view of God (creator, revealer, redeemer) and the other triangle represents the Christian trinity (Father, Holy Spirit, Son) (that's new ) and that Christianity is bascially the messianic arm of Judaism. :faint:
Anyone else here ever heard of this? If so, I would love to get the name of the rabbi and the book. And either way, what do you think of this? I am espcially interested to know if other Jews view God and the sabbath in this tripartate way.
So I asked a Jewish student/rabbi in training (what is the equivalent of divinity school?) whether this was "kosher" () and he politely said that his views of Judaism were a little more traditional. And then I asked the rabbi himself and he said that he got these ideas from another rabbi who wrote a book on it, the names of both I promptly forgot as I continued talking with Rabbi White. But anyway this other rabbi in this other book postulated that the star of David is actually two triangles (not new - heard that in Qabbalah), one of which represents the Jewish view of God (creator, revealer, redeemer) and the other triangle represents the Christian trinity (Father, Holy Spirit, Son) (that's new ) and that Christianity is bascially the messianic arm of Judaism. :faint:
Anyone else here ever heard of this? If so, I would love to get the name of the rabbi and the book. And either way, what do you think of this? I am espcially interested to know if other Jews view God and the sabbath in this tripartate way.