Michael Wyschogrod, Dean of Orthodox Jewish Theologians, Dies at 87
God’s preferential love for Israel was the great theme of Wyschogrod’s own writing. Jewish history begins with an act of inexplicable love: God fell passionately in love with Abraham and for his sake loved his descendants. Wyschogrod’s most-read book,The Body of Faith, asserts that “Judaism is a religion of the body,” whose purpose is to sanctify the real, physical Jewish people so that it can be a fit vessel for God’s Indwelling (Shekhinah) in this world. His study of Kierkegaard and other Christian philosophers strengthened his argument that Judaism is an incarnational religion: The divine is physically present in the Jewish people.
.. Even if Christianity is wrong to worship a man-god, he argued, the Christian idea of Incarnation sheds light on a fundamental Jewish concept: that God’s Indwelling is present in the physical Jewish people. As the sages of antiquity said, the Shekhinah went into exile with the Jewish people after the destruction of the Temple.
.. Unlike Christian theologians, who characterize Judaic particularism in contrast to Christian universalism, Wyschogrod asserted that God’s first love for Israel did not exclude love for all humankind. On the contrary, “When we grasp that the election of Israel flows from the fatherhood that extends to all created in God’s image, we find ourselves tied to all men in brotherhood, as Joseph, favored by his human father, ultimately found himself tied to his brothers. And when man contemplates this mystery, that the Eternal One, the creator of heaven and earth, chose to become the father of his creatures instead of remaining self-sufficient unto himself, as is the Absolute of the philosophers, there wells up in man that praise that has become so rare yet remains so natural.”