c. 2000 Religion News Service
(Rabbi Rudin is the senior interreligious adviser of the American Jewish Committee.)
UNDATED _ Retired business executive Frank J. Johnson, a high priest of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Rabbi William J. Leffler, were Dartmouth College roommates in the 1950s.
The men have maintained their friendship over the years and together have written a fascinating new book, “Jews and Mormons: Two Houses of Israel” (Ktav Publishing).
This timely book will help Jews and Mormons relate to one another with mutual respect and understanding. Until recently the two communities passed like the proverbial ships in the night barely recognizing each other’s existence.
But today that is impossible.
While Mormonism originated in 1820 when the 15-year-old Joseph Smith had a divine revelation in Palmyra, N.Y., most of the church’s 11 million members live outside the United States. It is one of the world’s fastest growing religions.
More than 5 million Jews currently live in Israel in addition to the large American Jewish community.
Brigham Young University has a facility on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, and, of course, Mormons and Jews increasingly interact in today’s highly mobile American society.
Unfortunately, many authors of comparative religion books frequently dumb down their ideas into a mushy pablumlike text, similar to a computer default setting. Such joint efforts usually feature tired cliches like “All religions have the same basic beliefs.”
However, diversity, this year’s hot political buzzword, also describes the world’s religious reality.
Happily, in “Jews and Mormons,” Johnson and Leffler have written a different kind of book that sharply focuses on the differences between the two groups. Each author has written separate chapters describing Judaism and Mormonism, but they also reveal their personal faith commitments as well _ commitments that frequently clash.
Leffler, a Reform rabbi, acknowledges in the book’s preface that “he writes from a liberal Jewish perspective that may not always reflect a traditional understanding of some aspects of Judaism.” Leffler’s full disclosure is important because although he presents a fair and comprehensive picture of Judaism and the Jewish people, he relies heavily on modern biblical and historical scholarship. His Judaism is filled with many “nuances, options and alternatives” on many of life’s challenges.
Leffler describes his progressive approach toward Judaism as “both/and” and it reflects the views of many Jews today.
Johnson is an adult convert to Mormonism and his writing clearly shows it. Indeed, his spiritual conversion is featured in a church film shown at the Washington, D.C., area Mormon temple. Not surprisingly, Johnson writes with an evangelical fervor that stresses the fundamental teachings and history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In sharp contrast to Leffler, Johnson’s Mormonism is an “either/or” religion: it is either totally true in a literal historical sense or it is not. He approvingly quotes Mormon Elder William Bradford, who last October declared, “In every case which confronts us in life there is either a right way or a wrong way to proceed.”
Johnson writes that “Mormons believe in absolute truth … scriptural, ethical, moral … historical.”
The authors stress the importance of post-biblical sacred literature for both communities. For Jews it is the Oral Law, including the Talmud, while the translation of the buried “book written upon gold plates” Joseph Smith discovered near his New York State home in the 1820s is today the sacred Book of Mormon.
The authors correctly note that Mormon-Jewish relations are even more complicated than Jewish encounters with other Christians. Johnson writes that Mormons “have always felt a particular affinity for Jews. … We consider ourselves to be literal, or adopted through baptism, descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel.”
When the Mormons fled the persecution and violence they encountered in Illinois and made the trek to Utah in the 1840s, they perceived themselves inextricably linked with the ancient Israelites who escaped Egyptian slavery.
It is no accident Utah has many biblical place names including Zion National Park, Mount Nebo, Moab and Goshen.
But as Leffler points out, “there is only one House of Israel, the Jews. We are the linear descendants of the people of the Bible.” The Mormons’ assertion that they are also the House of Israel is rejected by Jews.
Johnson believes he has more in common with the prophets of ancient Israel than with the contemporary Jewish community, while Leffler is angered by any Mormon missionary efforts aimed at Jews.
But at the end of their painfully honest book, both men affirm the need to continue their conversation that began nearly 50 years ago at Dartmouth.
DEA END RUDIN