Benamozegh Ehijah

Elijah Benamozegh (Livorno, 1823-1900) was a highly-respected Italian rabbi of Moroccan heritage. He was well-versed in Kabbalah, the study of Jewish mysticism and, in his works, connected Kabbalistic and philosophic sources to delineate his conception of God. He argued, inter alia, that Torah and science are in complete harmony, and his religiously tolerant model called for the legitimacy of diversity of faiths and worships. In this paper, I aim to show that Benamozegh's conception of the Divine – and thus his philosophy and theology – was based on a reading of Kabbalistic sources about God that was heavily influenced by Baruch Spinoza's philosophy on the nature of the Divine, and in particular, by the Spinozist-inspired concept of " God's attributes. " This comparison between Benamozegh and Spinoza will enable us to better understand Benamozegh's bold argument in favor of religious tolerance, but also how and why he succeeded in challenging the traditional concept of heresy, all while using terminology provided by traditional Jewish sources and from within the rabbinic paradigm.

Recent developments in the Christian world (especially in the Catholic Church) regarding Christian-Jewish relations—initiated by the papal Nostra Aetate declaration of 1965—have led to the questioning of some classical Christian attitudes vis à vis “the Jews”. They culminated in “the most important development in Christian teaching on the Jewish people since the second and third centuries” (R. Kendall Soulen): the abandonment of supersessionism. On the Christian side, this step triggered, unsurprisingly, also considerable backlashes. These stem in the fear that the theological difficulties accompanying the new Christian nonsupersessionism could jeopardize the very raison d’être of Christianity. On the Jewish side, the unprecedented Christian overture has elicited increasing efforts to provide a positive theological answer. Most of these efforts, however, are based on a political model of “conflict resolution or diplomatic negotiations” (Levenson) rather than on sound theological reasoning and thus bear the stamp of theological light-mindedness. In this context, the pioneering efforts of two Jewish thinkers, Eliahu Benamozegh (1823-1900) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929), in laying the ground for a Jewish theology of Christianity become relevant again. These two major Jewish attempts at a largely positive reevaluation of Christianity that preceded the present Christian overture might deliver, albeit in a rather rudimentary form, some non-apologetic and authentic tools necessary for a Jewish reassessment of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. However, even according to Benamozegh and Rosenzweig, whose theological benevolence toward Christianity is unique, a theological harmony that would somehow make both sides happy seems a mission impossible. They could nevertheless help in establishing a modest model of a possible collaboration as well as a dialogue between these two religions, while delimiting honestly the theological limits of such an interreligious endeavor.