6/2/00

Star crossed rabbi

    "Jesus loves me, this I know: Rabbi Solomon told me so." This was a popular ditty when I was a kid, an oblique swipe at liberal Judaism.
    But now, I'm hearing pretty much the same thing -- from an Orthodox rabbi.
    Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein is the clasped hand that joins two arms of religious belief, Evangelism and Judaism. As incongruous as they are, Eckstein has forged a brotherliness between them that neatly accommodates both potentially antagonistic sides.
    It became possible only when Eckstein gave his rabbinical blessing to preaching their beliefs to Jews.
    "I affirm their right to share the gospel with us, because that's their starting point," he says, not at all surprised by the amazement his statement generates. He's been getting that reaction for the past 25 years.
    An Orthodox rabbi says that proselytizing is kosher?!
    No.
    "I distinguish the difference between evangelizing and proselytizing. I'm using the words very deliberately. The Evangelists feel called by God to what they call the Great Commission to preach the gospel to the whole world. What I have done is find ways in which they can fulfill their Great Commission and not feel they are compromising their integrity, but in ways that are acceptable to us as Jews.  Their job is not to convert anyone. Their job is to share the love of Christ, but then to stop. If God wants to bring about a conversion, that's His doing."
    To many Jews, who do not care to consider the distinction, they're all just goyim bent on snaring Jewish souls. A rabbi crusading to enlighten his people on behalf of activist Christians is bound to be controversial. And he is.
    Ottawa-born Eckstein, 48, began his career in interfaith diplomacy when the Anti-Defamation League despatched him to Chicago in 1980 to generate gentile support at the time of the Nazi marches in Skokie. in 1980. "At the time, Jimmy Carter was president, and the Jewish community found itself with a born-again Southern Baptist in the White House. We asked ourselves, What is this? Is it good or bad for the Jews?" Eckstein found his niche, initiating evangelical-Jewish relations.
    It was a "sexy topic," he says, and he was the right man for the task. Good-looking, affable, dynamic, articulate, Eckstein glides easily among politicians and religious leaders of all persuasions. And being Orthodox gives him doctrinary weight.
    A rabbi hobnobbing with the likes of Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell on the one hand, and politicians in the US and Israel on the other, is just what tantalizes the media. Eckstein attracted a lot of interest: he even made People magazine's list of under-30s most worth watching. 
    His chosen field of expertise swiftly became a hot topic. "The evangelical movement was just starting to grow in attention, in awareness, in numbers, in political influence. Carter was president." (President Clinton, and Al Gore, are born-again as well.)
    He was close to TV evangelists Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggert and Jim Baker; with over 40 percent of Americans tuned in to the TV ministries, Eckstein was more than a curiosity: he was in the spotlight.
     Concurrently, Israel had become disillusioned with liberal Christians' support for the PLO, and was in need of friends. Those friends, Eckstein surmised, would be the 68 million born-again Christians. "My niche became important both to the American Jewish community and to Israel," and no less so, to the evangelicals' essential need for Jews to love.
    Falwell went to Eckstein's shul and spoke to the congregants, and Eckstein became a mainstay speaker in churches. There is a lot of prejudging to overcome, on both sides.
    "I once gave a talk in Oklahoma City, and someone came up to me and said, 'Y'know, rabbi, I really know the Jewish community, I understand it very well.' I said, oh, really? He said, 'I haven't actually had much interaction with the Jews, I don't know any, but I once read Meir Kahane's book.' "

SAVVY AND shrewd, Eckstein has won wary support from even the haredim, in part because he has established strict ground rules for the Christians.
    "I affirm their right to spread the word. The question is not if they should, but how. I will not ask Evangelical Christians to compromise their integrity, the same way I won't ask that of the Jews. If they say, 'we'll work with you provided you get rid of that circumcision stuff,' obviously I'm not going to work with them. 
    "We can't ask them to stop evangelizing the Jews; it is their theology. But I have found moral ways in which they can fulfill their mitzva, so to speak, that does not involve manipulation, coercion, deception and overly zealous techniques and targeted missions toward Jews.
    "I will not work with any group that targets Jews for conversion."
    However, three years ago, the understanding was abrogated when Bailey Smith, leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, made his infamous declaration that "God Almighty does not hear the prayers of Jews."
    Eckstein was stabbed in the back. Finally, a month ago, he publicly broke relations with the Southern Baptists. His move was widely reported, and significantly, the big-name TV ministers turned against their own and backed Eckstein. In the wake of the controversy, even Clinton announced his support for Eckstein's stance.
    His formula for partnership may seem tenuous and unbalanced, but it works: they give, we take.
    "They seek to bless the Jewish people because of what it says in Bereshit, Chapter 12 Verse 3: God promises that those who bless Abraham's seed will be blessed, and those who curse them will be cursed. They take that very seriously.
    "I have provided ways in which they can fulfill the Great Commission by helping the Jewish people, by blessing them. They can express their love for Israel, their solidarity with the Jews ... but not by preaching Jesus. They're not saying the word 'Jesus.' "
    It has not been difficult to find Christians eager to dole out contributions. On the contrary; Eckstein's organization, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, will sometimes return a donation if they feel the donor has sacrificed too much, impoverishing himself.
    These Christians are sometimes astonishing in their generosity, "like the people who are giving 10 percent of their Social Security to help Jews immigrate to Israel; or the person who for three years saved $1,000 for a down payment on a car so he can get to work, and instead gave that $1,000 for a soup kitchen for elderly Jews in Odessa."
    Yeah, meshugineh goyim, you say, but whereas "Jews give and say 'Don't bother me again until next year,' these Christians give monthly. It's based on need, not obligation. It's built on spiritualism."
    These people don't give splashily at big bashes, dinners, or honorariums. They don't get plaques. "None of that. They don't want it."
    They give, and God only knows. "There's no contact between the Christians who give and the people here who receive. We just gave money for a major project for a haredi institution here -- I won't say what, because I don't want to embarrass them -- and the money came straight from Christians. The haredim know where it's coming from.
    "Millions of Christians want to help Israel. Do they believe that in the end of days all people including the Jews will come to Christ? A hundred percent. But are they actively trying to bring that about? The answer is no.
    "I make the distinction between people who believe theologically that all Jews will go to hell, versus those who are actively involved in trying to bring the Jews to Jesus, which I call proselytizing."
    Eckstein offers, as an example, presidential candidate George W. Bush.
    "He was asked by the media a few months ago about the Jews getting to heaven. This is now a standard question: the same way they're asked about their sexual affairs, they're asked now if Jews can get to heaven. So Bush really messed it up in the beginning; he said, no, only Christians believing in Jesus can get to heaven.
    "Then he talked to his mother, and his mother put Billy Graham on the phone, and Graham gave him the answer which he now uses, which is that only God can judge."