The answer is Yes. However, these people totally misunderstand the use of the word Election - the Jewish people have the election of Israel which means they have a special vocation to play in salvation history. This is what they are chosen for, as a witness to God's Revelation to man through Scripture and his Covenants given to Israel. They are elected by God to bring light to the nations or Gentiles through the Messiah who is the Davidic King of the Jews. This does not mean that other groups and nations in the Church do not have special roles and missions. Of course they do. 

To say that Hebrew Catholics are separating themselves by observing their heritage is the same as accusing the Ukrainian Catholics of the same thing or the Maronites because they observe different customs and forms of spirituality than the Latin rite. I might add that the Carmelites or Trappists separate themselves by their spirituality from most other Catholics in living out their special calling in the Church, yet nobody has any problem with this. 

The late Archbishop of Paris Cardinal Lustiger published a wonderful book called "The Promise". Here is an extract from it that speaks about the Election of Israel.

"The Church appears in Jerusalem, after Pentecost, as an "assembly" kahal in Hebrew, ecclesia in Greek. It is unthinkable that she would claim to replace Israel. She is not another Israel, but the very, fulfillment, in Israel, of God's plan...The Church is then faced with the question of the extent to which these pagans [Gentiles would be a better translation into English from the French] who share in Israel's Election should be obliged to observe the laws which are Israel's trust, responsibility, and privilege. To what extent should these pagans [Gentiles] be associated with the totality of Israel's mission? This is the major problem facing the first generations of Christians, as all the New Testament writings testify...

...In this early Church, the status of the pagan-Christian [i.e Gentile Christian] assemblies begins to be established. They are not dispensed from observing the Law- if the pagans [Gentiles] did not observe the Law, they would have no share in either Israel's Election or grace. But the gift of the Holy Spirit, a grace of the messiah, enables pagans to observe the law differently from Israel, which remains charged with this "delightful" burden of observance.

Cardinal Schonborn the Archbishop of Vienna a great friend of the Jewish people writes: 

"...No infidelity on the part of Israel, no sin of the people, not even the misjudgment and rejection of Jesus the Messiah, can ever destroy God’s fidelity to “Abraham and his posterity for ever”. And so Paul writes to the Christian community in Rome: “[A]s regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:28-29). Twice Paul asks the question, and twice he gives the resounding reply: “I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means!” (Rom 11:1, 11).

What does this mean for the Church? It opens up the need for a change of outlook, in fact, a change of heart. The indelible impression left by the Shoah, the Holocaust, teaches the same lesson. It makes us realize that the deadly hatred of Israel is also, deep down, aimed at the Church, in fact at the God of Israel himself, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

With the advent of the concept of Catholic Anglican-patrimony ordinariates which has allowed Anglicans to enter the Church and maintain their structures and traditions, the question is asked if this might be a model for possible Jewish ordinariates in the future. Many of those Catholics who support the continuation of Jewish identity in the Church have been looking for a way that a more corporate organisation of Hebrew Catholics might function in the Church. Many now see the Anglican-patrimony Ordinariates as a possible model.

This model is an improvement on the personal prelatures in that it includes the lay faithful in the ordinariates under the authority of their own ordinaries (a bishop or a priest). This could allow the Jewish people and Judaism to enter the Church corporately maintaining their traditions and Rabbinic structures and authorities [of course under the higher authority of the Pope and magisterium]. This would also allow different types of Jewish groups from different backgrounds to enter the church remaining true to their groups charisms. For example Messianic Jewish groups could enter the Church in separate ordinariates. It would seem that the Chasidic model of different dynasties could quiet happily enter the Church in this way maintaining their distinctive traditions and emphasises.

One group may wish their Rabbis to be ordained as priests others may wish to maintain two categories of priests and rabbis as seems closer to Jewish tradition. Whatever the future holds, the movement of the Holy Spirit in inspiring the Pope and Magisterium has certainly opened doors for us to perceive how the ingrafting might occur. At the moment our project is to gather those Hebrew Catholics already in the Church into corporate action and fellowship. Part of our role should also be to reintroduce those Catholic families of Jewish ancestry who have become assimilated to their Jewish heritage, culture and customs.

The exact way the ingrafting of the whole House of Judah will happen is still a mystery of the Holy Spirit. The Association of Hebrew Catholics is a beacon that is drawing many Hebrew Catholics together. They need the support of all Catholics both financially and in generosity of those called to work in this apostolate full time. We pray for the establishment of Hebrew Catholic communities who can be dedicated to this work and which can be places where Hebrew Catholics can grow and develop as Catholics in tune with their Jewish calling and election in the Church and the world. 

In the mid 1980's before I entered the Catholic Church I came across Father Lev Gillet's book "Communion in the Messiah". Father Lev Gillet was a Russian Orthodox priest who was influenced greatly by Paul Levertoff a Chasidic Jew (descended from the family of the Alter Rebbe Schneur Zalman of Liadi) who came to faith in Yeshua as the Mashiach in 1897 and became an Anglican priest. This book probably had the greatest influence on me and was the template for my understanding of Jewish Election and vocation in the Church along with certain insights of Father Elias Friedman in "Jewish Identity". 

The weaknesses in Father Elias' approach was in the area of how Jewish Identity could be preserved in the Church, as like many Hebrew Catholics of his generation, he did not see the validity and central importance of Jewish Torah observance in accordance with the Halakah of Rabbinic Judaism for the preservation of Jewish identity in the Church. In fact it was the suppression of the distinctive Jewish Torah observances and Gentile hostility to Rabbinic Jewish tradition that led to the 'Regime of Assimilation' and the gradual death of the Church of the Circumcision which was the mother form of the Church.

Levertoff and Gillet's vision of a Jewish liturgical, mystical and traditional form of Hebrew Church proclaims a way forward for Messianic Jews and Hebrew Catholics who feel the longing and calling in their Jewish hearts to Torah and mitzvot as a deeper Jewish way for them to draw closer in intimacy with the Mashiach and his acts. The election and vocation of Israel is primarily a collective one. 

It would seem Messianic Rabbi Mark Kinzer and the UMJC are grasping this reality as expressed in Kinzer's book "Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism" and are far ahead of the Hebrew Catholics in this regard. However, the Association of Hebrew Catholics is at the stage of seeking to gather the Jews in the Catholic Church so that it will be possible for them to participate in their collective vocation in the church and the world. 

If one listens to many self appointed "experts" on Jewish-Christian relations one would think that the Church has settled all questions about the validity of the Mosaic covenant and Torah observances by Catholic Jews. However, this is not the case and this is an area of further theological speculation and development. There are still a lot of open questions in this area. The Church has not definitively ruled on these questions for Jews in the Church. This is confirmed by Cardinal Avery Dulles before his death in 2008. He wrote:

"The Second Vatican Council, while providing a solid and traditional framework for discussing Jewish-Christian relations, did not attempt to settle all questions. In particular, it left open the question whether the Old Covenant remains in force today. Are there two covenants, one for Jews and one for Christians? If so, are the two related as phases of a single developing covenant, a single saving plan of God? May Jews who embrace Christianity continue to adhere to Jewish covenantal practices?"  

The Cardinal then seeks to give his personal understanding and position on these issues in the light of Catholic teaching. I personally would disagree with many aspects of the good Cardinal's ideas and conclusions. However, these discussions and disagreements are part of the theological process that may go on for many centuries yet, before the Church makes a definitive ruling. This is dispute for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

Since the Vatican II documents there are other important developments of understanding in this area to be taken into account especially the writings and teachings of John Paul II and Benedict XVI (both as a Cardinal and Pope) as well as Cardinal Lustiger, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other theological opinions by leading theologians. The new Biblical and theological studies on the Jewishness of Jesus, Paul and the Gospels by those who have a comprehensive knowledge of Jewish tradition and sources will open up new ways of looking at these questions. Many of the mistaken ideas and conclusions of Cardinal Dulles are due, in my opinion, to the mistaken understanding of Paul by many generations of Gentile Catholics. The new studies on Paul from a Jewish perspective is crucial for clearing up many mistaken understandings of the role of the Jews in the New Covenant. Cardinal Dulles also writes :

"...John Paul II was not content to let Judaism and Christianity go their separate ways. Speaking at Mainz in 1980, he called for ongoing dialogue “between the people of God of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God, and that of the New Covenant.” He expressed hope for an eventual reconciliation in the fullness of truth. In Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1994) he wrote of Judaism: “This extraordinary people continues to bear signs of its divine election. . . . The insights which inspired the Declaration Nostra Aetate are finding concrete expression in various ways. Thus the two great moments of divine election — the Old and New Covenants — are drawing closer together...The time when the people of the Old Covenant will be able to see themselves as part of the New is, naturally, a question left to the Holy Spirit. We, as human beings, try only not to put obstacles in the way.” ..."

One needs to have charity in these discussions and refrain from personal attacks on people who are in sincerity searching for a clearer understanding. Of course, we do know from Vatican II and magisterial teaching since then, that former approaches that were anti-Jewish or anti-Judaism are not valid. This means that if even a great saint or doctor of the Church should base his understanding on such a base, it is today a valid reason to reject that saints understanding and conclusions in this area but not his sanctity. Pope Benedict XVI clarifies this when he said as the Cardinal in charge of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith: 

"...Down through the history of Christianity, already-strained relations deteriorated further, even giving birth in many cases to anti-Jewish attitudes, which throughout history have led to deplorable acts of violence. Even if the most recent, loathsome experience of the Shoah was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel it cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to its atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians. Perhaps it is precisely because of this latest tragedy that a new vision of the relationship between the Church and Israel has been born: a sincere willingness to overcome every kind of anti-Judaism, and to initiate a constructive dialogue based on knowledge of each other, and on reconciliation.

If such a dialogue is to be fruitful, it must begin with a prayer to our God, first of all that he might grant to us Christians a greater esteem and love for that people – the people of Israel – to whom belong the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; theirs are the patriarchs, and from them comes Christ according to the flesh, he who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen. And this not only in the past, but still today, for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

In the same way, let us pray that he may grant also to the children of Israel a deeper knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth, who is their son, and the gift they have made to us. Since we are both awaiting the final redemption, let us pray that the paths we follow may converge. It is evident that, as Christians, our dialogue with the Jews is situated on a different level than that in which we engage with other religions. The faith witnessed to by the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament for Christians) is not merely another religion to us, but is the foundation of our own faith..." 

We also need to know what the Church means by the Old Law and the New Law - with this Cardinal Lustiger helps us by stating that there is only One Law of God but the newess is the deeper penetration of the Law in the Messiah. Thus, the Old Law (a term commonly used in Church documents) refers to the intention of observing the Law before the coming of the Messiah as Promise and the new Law refers to the deeper messianic interpretation and intention of observing the Law as reality of the Promise. Thus, the old intention based on Promise alone passes away and is subsumed into its mystical fulfilment and reality. 

How one does this in the practical, differs depending on whether one is a Jew or Gentile, male of female, child or adult, Roman or Byzantine, priest or lay etc. However, in the realm of salvation there are no distinctions - we are all one in the Messiah and all saved by Grace working through Faith and manifesting in good works. Even Judaism teaches of the coming of a New Torah with the revelation of the Messiah. By this they do not mean a new novelty but a new way of understanding and relating to Torah that is revealed by the Messiah.

Benedict XIV states: 

"...the ceremonial rites of the old Law could be observed under the new Law if only they were not done as obligations of the old Law, which was abrogated, but as a custom, or lawful tradition, or as a new precept issued by one enjoying the recognized and competent authority to make laws and to enforce them..." 

What does the word 'abrogate' refer to here. It is not the abrogation of the Law but the abrogation of the need for Gentiles who enter the Church to be obligated to observe the Law as Jews. This is the abrogation (dispensation) for Gentiles discussed in Acts 15. We can be assured that Pope Benedict XIV was not speaking of the abrogation of the Sinai Covenant but of the need for Gentiles to be obligated to the specifically Jewish observances, by the words of Benedict XVI when he was the Cardinal in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He wrote:  

“With regard to the issue of the nature of the covenant, it is important to note that the Last Supper sees itself as making a covenant: it is the prolongation of the Sinai covenant, which is not abrogated, but renewed” (Many Religions, One Covenant, p. 62). 

Even for the Jewish Catholic, one is not obligated to the old way but observes the customs and ceremonies in the light of the New Covenant with a Messianic, Eucharistic and Marian intention. We do this to more fully adhere to the Will of God and to grow in intimacy with God according to our Election and calling as physical Israelites in the Mystical Body of Christ. Many Hebrew Catholics are drawn to observe as Our Lady and the Apostles and all the first Jewish Catholics of Jerusalem did after Pentecost with zealousness for the Torah (see Acts 21), which we wish to pass to our children and grandchildren.

Krister Stendahl in “Paul Among Jews and Gentiles: And Other Essays” emphasises that the road to Damascus experience of St Paul was not a conversion from Judaism to Christianity. He prefers the word ‘call’ and he heads a whole section of his article “Call rather than conversion”. As a Catholic Jew I have never liked this word conversion or convert when speaking about a Jew who embraces Jesus according to the teachings of the Church. I prefer the term often used by Russian Jews who have embraced Jesus as Messiah in the Russian Orthodox Church - doubly chosen. Chosen first as Jews and then in baptism.

Stendahl’s use of ‘Call’ is also attractive to me as being more Pauline and more respecting of every Israelites’ election (call/ vocation) that is not lost at baptism but is enhanced. One eschatological day, according to Paul in Romans 11, all Israelites will enter into that deeper call, which will then bring about a mystical eschatological experience known as “Resurrection or Life from the Dead” which will enrich the whole Church and the world. 

Hilary Putnam discusses Emmanuel Levinas’ French term “me voici” as an equivalent to the Hebrew term “hineni” (behold). Putnam writes that it is very difficult to comprehend what Emmanuel Levinas means by ‘me voici’. Nevertheless, if one translates the French word into the Hebrew concept of ‘hineni’ (behold) it becomes clearer. Putnam believes that it is from the story of the Akeidah (or Binding) of Isaac that Levinas draws this concept. 

As an observant Orthodox Jew, Levinas would have read the account of the Akeidah each day in his morning prayer. While using the Akeidah as a prism we can follow the dance of light back to Genesis 1 to the expression “God Saw” (literally ‘God shall see’) as the concept of Hineni (Behold) has a visual element. These primordial ‘beholdings’ are closely associated with “goodness”. However, the second day is missing this ‘beholding’ and ‘goodness’. This is the time of the breaking of the vessels and the fall of the angels. Hidden in the secret of the second day is the void which will manifest itself in the 20th century as the Shoah. It was here before the void that God chose (bachar) Israel. One meaning of ‘bachar’ is connected with the concepts of dividing and examining which links it to the second day when separations and divisions occurred in the primordial and immemorial past. In a sense God foresaw the passion or sufferings of Israel and its Messiah in the midst of the void’s infestations within history. Levinas writes:

...but which marks the religiosity of Israel: the feeling that its destiny, the Passion of Israel, from bondage in the land of Egypt to Auschwitz in Poland, its holy History, is not only that of a meeting between man and the absolute, and of a faithfulness; but that, if one dare say so, it is constitutive of the very existence of God...(Emmanuel Levinas, Beyond the Verse, (London: Continuum, 2007), 6.)

The Sages of Israel such as Rebbe Nachman refers to the “Suffering soul of all Israel” as Miriam (bitter seas). This Mother of Sorrows is the Shekhinah who regularly appears weeping and wailing for her son Israel at the Kotel (Wailing or Western Wall). Every Jewish son receives his election (bachar) as an Israelite through the tears of his Mother giving birth. 

This weeping Kneset Yisrael is first alluded to in the primordial and immemorial time in Genesis 1:10 where the Aramaic text calls the ‘gathering of the waters’ ‘kneset maya’ and the Latin ‘congegationesque aqarum’ called ‘maria’. This gathering (kneset or mikveh) of waters alludes to Miriam’s Well which the Latin Vulgate connects to the concept of Maria (Mary) as the Seas of Wisdom (Sophia). 

In a sense every Jewish Mother is a type of Miriam. The Messiah Jesus (Yeshua) received not only his election and identity as a Jew through his mother Miriam (Mary) but also his humanity. Israel is chosen for ethical service to others and to proclaim God’s glory [see Adriaan T Peperzak, “Judaism and Philosophy in Levinas” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Vol 40 #3 (Dec.1996), 133].

Jacob Meskin, in an article about the great French Jewish philosopher and thinker Emmanuel Levinas, writes about philosophical thought as “the choreography of the dance of real life” to which Levinas makes an important contribution in a post-Shoah world [see Jacob Meskin, “The Jewish transformation of modern thought: Levinas and Philosophy after the Holocaust” Cross Currents 47.4 (Winter 1997/1998), 505.].

This ‘choreography of thought’ transcends the reality of the dance and links the dancer to the tracings (reshimu) of the ‘beyond’ from where inspiration flows. This ‘beyond’ is at the same time primordial and eschatological. Levinas links it to the terms ‘immemorial past’ and ‘ethical transcendence’ [see Glenn Morrison, A Theology of Alterity: Levinas, von Balthasar and Trinitarian Praxis (Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press, 2013), 3.]. 

Levinas’ concepts are enriching all areas of post-modern Christian theology. This article seeks to read Genesis 1 mystically using the concepts of Jewish mystical thought and the philosophical concepts of Levinas. I do this in order to demonstrate that the Jewish source of Levinas’ major ideas also find their origin in a mystical Jewish reading of the ‘immemorial past’ of Genesis 1 which may aid in the development of a distinct Hebrew Catholic theology and spirituality. 

Using Levinas and Jewish thought I ‘wrestle’ with the text for a deeper ‘Hebrew Catholic’ encounter with the text of Genesis 1 through the paradigm of a mystical Dance or Tango, in order to bring forth new insights and understandings that will enrich this Hebrew Catholic endeavour or dance in the spirit. 

Hebrew Catholics do not believe in proselytizism (manipulated or forced conversion) of non-Catholic Jewish people. Many including myself and Father Elias Friedman (founder of the Association of Hebrew Catholics) do not believe in any form of active evangelisation that targets Jewish people as a group at this stage of salvation history. Hebrew Catholics seek to provide a Jewish space in the Church for those Jewish people and their descendants who have freely already embraced the Catholic faith and who believe it is right to preserve their Jewish identity and election as individuals and as a group. 

Father Antoine Levy a  French Jew, a Dominican priest and a Theological Professor in Finland who is also a leader in Yachad BeYeshua writes:

"Although some Christians like to tell Jews who became their fellow believers that they are “doubly chosen”, they have no idea what this dual election means in theory as well as in practice. As far as I know, the embryo of a Catholic – let alone a Christian Orthodox – reflection on the purpose and role of Jews in the Body of the Church has yet to see the light of day."

Mark Kinzer's book on Nostra Aetate 4 is worth a read. Kinzer is a leading American Messianic Jewish Rabbi and theologian. I think the book is important for all those interested in the Hebrew Catholic and Messianic Jewish movements. His analysis of Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate 4 is very insightful and how they connect and don't connect is an important area of further theological exploration and speculation. We have only started on the theological journey of understanding the role of Jewish believers in the Body of Christ, which is the Church, in the light of the development of doctrine on the role of the Jews in recent magisterial teaching. 

I think Kinzer makes a very important and valid point about Jewish identity and Torah observance of Jewish believers in Jesus. Lumen Gentium 9 speaks about  the Church being the people make up of Jews and Gentiles, united in one in the Spirit through the blood of the Messiah. Kinzer then draws our attention that this renewed messianic people of God are to be made up of Jews and Gentiles. Kinzer then refers us to the writings and teachings of Cardinal Lustiger who speaks of the full Catholicity of the original Church containing both Jews as the church from the circumcision and Gentiles as the church from the nations, as two corporate environments in the one Body of the Messiah. Kinzer states:

"If the Body of Christ is an eschatogically renewed and expanded form of genealogical-Israel, rather than a separate entity created by God ex nihilo and only prefigured by the Israel of the old covenant, then one would expect that the presence of Jews in her midst would be an essential component of her identity. Along with Mary the daughter of Zion, and the apostles, these Jews would serve as an extension of the Jewish identity of the risen Jesus in the heart of the Church...The Jewish members of the Church are a prophetic sign of the church's historical continuity with " the people of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God"....The "people of God" will not reach their destined fullness till the Jewish people - as a corporate reality- and the ecclesia come together as one flock with one shepherd...The presence of the gentiles in this people is essential to its universal vocation: however, the presence of Jews is just as essential..."

Rabbi Mark Kinzer then challenges us with these questions:

"...Is it sufficient for these Jewish members of the Church to be hidden like leaven in her universally expanding dough? Should their identity as Jews not be treasured, celebrated, and visibly expressed? And is it sufficient for these Jewish members of the Church to live dispersed among their gentile brothers and sisters, isolated from one another and without any distinctive corporate identity among themselves? Is the ecclesia ex circumcisione an invisible community of unrelated individuals, or is it called to be a manifest social reality, like the universal ecclesia of which it is part?..."

Rebbe Nachman’s stories of “The Lost Princess” (told in 1806) and “The Master of Prayer” (told in 1810) are stories about the loss, quest and finding of the Lost Princess, whom many identify with ‘Emunah’ (Faith). The quest or journey allows for the purification that is needed for the final encounter with the lost Princess. Many Rabbis and other interpreters also associate the lost Princess with the “Shekhinah” [see Howard Schwartz, “The Quest for the Lost Princess: Transition and Change in Jewish Lore”, Judaism 43.3 (Summer 1994), 242.] 

As Shekhinah, she is associated with Devekut (Cleaving/ Nearness). She is also associated with the Sabbath Queen, Bride, Matronita, the Soul and Kneset Yisrael (Community or Lady of Israel). She is all of these and more. [see Eli Talberg, Tikun ha-Brit: View of the Torah on Sexual Development of a Man] Others identify her mystically with the “beautiful foreign woman” of Deuteronomy 21:10-14.

Both St Cyril of Jerusalem and the “Zohar” associate the ‘beautiful foreign woman’ (Captiva Gentilis), mentioned in the Torah, allegorically with the Exodus and Election of Israel.[see Casten L Wilke, “The Soul is a Foreign Woman: Otherness and Psychological Allegory from the Zohar to Hasidism” The Bible and its World, Rabbinic Literature and Jewish Law, and Jewish Thought Volume 1, 129-130.] Rabbi Isaac Luria (the great Ari) states that she is “from the root of Israel, abducted into the captivity of the shells”. She could thus be associated with the daughter of Chokhmah (Wisdom as the male Abba) and Binah (Understanding or feminine wisdom as Imma) who becomes lost among the Gentiles (Greeks) as Sophia or Philosophia and who will one day be purified and restored to Israelite dignity. This would be a kind of mystical and philosophical marriage of Jerusalem and Athens as envisioned by Levinas and others [see Ephraim Meir, Levinas’s Jewish Thought: Between Jerusalem and Athens  (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2008).]. 

I would divide Jewish thought into four main areas of Talmud Torah, Musar, Kabbalah and Hasidut. Levinas draws extensively on the teachings of Talmud Torah and Musar. Buber draws extensively on the teachings of Kabbalah and Hasidut. In differing ways Levinas and Buber bring Jewish thought to a wider and universal non-Jewish audience. These insights influence both Western philosophy and Christian theology. The Mitnagdim or Litvak tradition is mostly concerned with Talmud Torah which is the intensive and often legalistic study of the Talmud’s teachings on the Torah. 

The future generations of believers may find certain aspects of Levinas and Buber’s thought useful in the new age of Faith that is coming, beyond the nightmare of our rationalistic and secular technological age. If they do, it will be because of their drawing on the wellsprings of truth found in the ancient but ever renewing traditions of Judaism [see Baal Shem Tov, A letter from Rabbi Yisrael Ba'al Shem Tov to his brother in-law, Rebbe Gershon of Kitov].

Over two millennium, Jews and Christians have influenced each other knowingly and unknowingly with their spiritual movements and insights. In the third millennium, which Pope John Paul II foresaw as a ‘millennium of unifications’ [Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth, An Interview With Peter Seewald,, 237.], will we see the rise of a new mystical and humble Catholic Church with Judaism at its heart as the Mother form of the church [see Louis Bouyer, The Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit, 568] and its two lungs of East and West breathing in perfect union [Ut Unam Sint 54 ]? Vladimir Soloviev a famous Russian Orthodox mystic and writer believed that it would be the mystically awakened Jews in the Eastern and Western Churches that would bring about the reunion of the Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic churches [see Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Doubly Chosen: Jewish Identity, the Soviet Intelligentsia, and the Russian Orthodox Church, 19-22.]. Will this be the fulfilment of the Election of Israel as a light to the Gentiles? Will Jewish thought reach its greatest ‘fullness’ when it is reunited and restored to the very heart of the Church in the service of the Messiah and His kingdom?

'Doubly chosen' is a term used by Russian Orthodox Christians of Jewish ancestry to demonstrate that they are firstly chosen by God through their birth into the Jewish people and secondly chosen by the Lord through the grace of baptism. Many Hebrew Catholics (Catholic Jews) also like this term for understanding their relationship to the Jewish people and the Church (which is mainly Gentile).

According to orthodox Jewish teaching one is Jewish if one's mother is Jewish or of maternal Jewish ancestry or if one converts to Judaism according to Halakah. The convert to Judaism is said to have come under the wings of the Shekhinah. In a sense the feminine Shekhinah as a mother brings through the waters of the conversional mikveh (a kind of symbolic womb) the new son or daughter of Israel. Thus a Jew receives his election or chosenness through the womb of his mother whether a biological mother or the heavenly mother Shekhinah, who is also Kneset Yisrael.

St Paul, the great Pharasaic Rabbi of Tarsus who embraced Yeshua as the Messiah, also alludes to this concept of the 'doubly chosen'. In Galatians 1:15 he speaks of this double call or election. In the Douai Rheims Bible it says

"...But when it pleased him, who separated (ἀφορίσας) me from my mother's womb, and called (καλέσας) me by his grace..."

Here in this verse we see that Paul associates his selection or election as a Jew as coming from his mother's womb. In the Greek two different words are used to represent these elections. For the physical chosenness as a Jew is used ἀφορίσας (aforisas) which means to separate which alludes to God separating the people Israel from the nations to be his separate or set apart holy nation. For the calling or chosenness of the new covenant grace of baptism is used καλέσας (kalesas) which means to call or invite.

Thus Paul confirms the teaching of orthodox Judaism that one's set apart or separate status is due to the maternal status of coming from the mother's womb not from the seed (sperma or zera in Hebrew) of the father. Paul elaborates more on this in Romans 9, where he uses Isaac as his example that not all who come from the seed (sperma) of Abraham and Israel are part of the separated or set apart children of Israel. He alludes to the verse in Genesis about "in Isaac shall thy seed (zera) be called (κληθήσεταί)". Abraham had Ishmael and the sons of Keturah but they are not considered the children of the promise as they had Gentile mothers. Paul singles out Sarah and Rebecca as Hebrew mothers who conceive those who are considered the children of the promise.
 
It is interesting that Paul uses in the Greek the same word for his call to grace as the call of Isaac's seed. In a sense he is saying that even in Old Testament times the grace of the New Law (living the Torah according to the spirit and heart) was in act as it was not only one's birth but the grace of the promise that was important in one being one of the chosen children of God. Gentiles in the New Covenant receive the grace of baptism which also alludes to the sanctified waters of the mother's womb of Our Lady and the Church. 

The phrase "and called (καλέσας) me by his grace (χάριτος) to reveal his Son in me" should not be separated by a verse division in Galatians 1:15-16. This feminine charitos alludes to Our Lady who is the "Full of Grace" and God's created Grace in action. Thus, Paul is revealing in hidden form (perhaps unwittingly) a Marian mystery connected with the Double Marian calling or election of the Jewish disciple and a Marian calling of the Gentile disciple. Thus, we can now read Galatians 1:15-16 as:

"...But when it pleased him, who separated (ἀφορίσας) me from my mother's womb, and called (καλέσας) me by his grace (χάριτος) to reveal his Son in me that I might proclaim him; Among the Gentiles I didn't immediately impart the body and blood (Eucharist)..."

Like Paul, the Jewish disciple of the Messiah Yeshua, is called by Our Lady (who is the personification of grace), in order to reveal the hidden crucified and Eucharistic Yeshua dwelling in him and all Jews. Paul then desires to share this with the Gentiles, through Our Lady in the womb waters of baptism in order to lead them to behold the crucified and Eucharistic Yeshua, who is the God who dwells, in the flesh and blood of his Mother, as Man. This is Our Lady of Zion, the Woman of Israel and Living and heavenly Ark of the Covenant, as the Woman in Travail (Labour) and Mother of the Church (Rev.11-12).  

Yeshua is both the humble Jewish carpenter, Jewish Messiah and Saviour of the Gentiles. His Jewish observance has great significance and meaning to those Jews who have also embraced him but have not rejected their election as a Jew. It is also important that Gentile believers see Yeshua in his Jewish features, if they are not to make Christianity into a form of Gnosticism cut off from its cultural and religious roots in the soil of Israel and the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The words of the Marrano Don Henriquez in the Israeli poem “The Words of Don Henriquez” by Zalman Shneour  - “Do not put your trust in the Gentiles, Jesus!” - express the mixed experience of many Jews who have entered the Church who identify with the Jewish Yeshua, Miriam and Yosef but not their Gentile overlords [see Neta Stahl, Other and Brother: Jesus in the 20th-century Jewish Literary Landscape, 34].

When I became a Catholic and joined the Association of Hebrew Catholics 38 years ago, I was one of the few voices advocating openly for the acceptance of Torah observant Hebrew Catholics. However, since then I have seen a shift in thinking and many more people supporting and open to this among Hebrew Catholics. What I found lacking in Father Elias' "Jewish Identity", I had found previously in Father Lev Gillet's "Communion in the Messiah". I had read it first and it, in a sense, allowed me to see that becoming a Catholic would not mean an abandonment of all that was best in Judaism and made possible the hope of working towards an "Hasidic Jewish branch of the Catholic Church", as proposed by Levertoff and Gillet. 

For now we bear the inner conflict of seeming to our fellow Jews to have abandoned them, while knowing that this is not really the case, if we can build this Jewish space in the Church, where we can live out fully our Jewish and Catholic election or vocation as an Israelite collective. The AHC began this journey 46 years ago to create an opening for that Jewish space in the Church and while there is still a long way to go much has been achieved in that time to prepare for the coming generation or generations, that will lead us into the Jewish space and place in the Body of the Messiah Yeshua.  

Paul in Romans 3 says that the Torah should be established or upheld (Rom 3:31). Ephesians states according to a modern translation “He abolished the Jewish Law with its commandments and rules” (Eph 2:15, GNT). This however is better translated as “Making void the law of commandments contained in decrees” (Eph 2:15, DRA), which gives it a very different meaning and interpretation. These “commandments in decrees” (dogmasin in Greek) refer to the eighteen rabbinic decrees (gezerot in Hebrew) enacted by the Sanhedrin under the control of the Beit Shammai Pharisees [see Solomon Schechter and Julius H. Greenstone, Jewish Encyclopedia, “Gezerah,” 1906]. These eighteen gezerot made a much stricter separation between Jews and Gentiles. That these gezerot are the ‘commandments in decrees’ that has been nailed to the Cross and abolished makes much more sense than Paul saying that the Jewish Torah has been abolished.

Paul using a Temple theology or analogy refers to these gezerot as a dividing wall (mesotoichon in Greek and Soreg and Cheil in Hebrew) (Eph 2:14).  The original Temple had a court for the Gentiles but later the Soreg was introduced as a more strict separation of Jews and Gentiles. Paul using the language of dividing walls and outer and inner courts alludes to the mystical Temple of the Messiah’s Body in which the dividing walls are broken down and those in the outer courts (women and Gentiles) are brought near in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Body of the Messiah. Thus, the eighteen gezerot are abolished. This is confirmed in Peter’s vision of the sheet (Acts 10:11) and later Judaism would also abolish them.

 The more mystical understanding of salvation in Paul (Gal 3:28) may then be understood, that there are no barriers to salvation between groups or people even though they still have their distinct callings. This allows for the joining of Jews and Gentiles in the one family of Abraham. Paul confirms in Romans that God’s election of the Jews is irrevocable (Rom 11:29). Thus, Paul after his Damascus Road experience is truly a Jewish prophet who is called to include the Gentiles in Israel’s inheritance without converting them to Judaism. 

While his place for Gentiles in the people of God has roots in the teachings of Beit Hillel, Paul provides a unique way or path for Gentiles who believe in Jesus as the Messiah. He does this while himself remaining a proud observant Jew and Pharisee (Phil 3:5; Acts 22:3, 23:6). In Romans 11, Paul alludes to some great spiritual resurrection for the Gentiles and the world, in the eschatological future, as a result of the ‘ingrafting’ of the surviving Jewish community into the Olive Tree that is the Church.

The Association of Hebrew Catholics was founded by a Carmelite monk Father Elias Freidman of the Stella Maris monastery in Haifa and Holocaust Survivor Andrew Sholl of Australia in 1979. They hold that Israelite identity or election is never lost and the Jews in the Church retain this Israelite vocation [see See: Elias Friedman. Jewish identity. USA: Miriam Press, 1987]. The Frankists of the 18th and 19th centuries are an interesting case study of this phenomenon of religious Jews entering the Catholic Church [see Pawel Maciejko. The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755-1816, 1-6.]. The Frankists began as Jews who were the secret followers of the Jewish false Messiah Shabtai Zvi [see Moshe Idel. Saturn's Jews: On the Witches' Sabbat and Sabbateanism, 64-69.]. They moved under the direction of Jacob Frank to becoming crypto-Jews under Islam and then as crypto-Catholics in the Jewish communities before many of them became openly Catholic in Poland and in other European countries after 1760 [See Arthur Mandel. The Militant Messiah; Or, The Flight from the Ghetto: The Story of Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement. USA: Humanities Press International, 1979].

Frank’s letters and sayings must be evaluated in the light of a Catholic Jewish and Marian reading of the “Zohar”. One needs to contemplate Frank and the Zoharists from a position of perceiving the Kabbalah as authentic Jewish Mysticism rather than a development of Gnostic occultism. When one does this, one comes to different conclusions than most of the writers of the last two centuries of slander. Gershom Scholem, while a erudite scholar of mysticism, is hostile to Kabbalah in general and so is a negatively biased researcher even if very erudite. Taking that into account one can find much valuable knowledge in his writings.

One can also perceive that the Frankist insights are the seeds and forerunner of Pope John Paul II’s phenomenological “Theology of the Body”, which draws from Polish Frankist sources. Some extremist authors indeed condemn John Paul II and his teachings due to their Frankist origins, which they perceive as evil. Phenomenology itself has roots in the teachings of Jacob Leib Frank who wished to encourage a spirituality that looked at truth from the perspective of man and his life. This phenomenological approach is also found in the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, who was influenced by the secret Jewish followers of Frank that remained in the Jewish community. Rebbe Nachman spent 5 years learning with the Zoharist Tzaddik Benjamin Ephraim Broida (Brody) his father-in-law, who was a rabbi in Ossatin (or possibly Satanov) at this time.

Much has been made of the claims that the Zoharists were anti-Talmud. A reading of the letters of Jacob Frank and the writings of some of the early Frankists, show that they had a detailed knowledge and use of the Talmud and Jewish tradition. The Zoharists were not anti-talmudic but opposed a dry legalistic way of interpreting the Scriptures and Talmud. The so-called anti-Talmud and blood-libel disputations attended by some of the Zoharists, were more due to the prejudices of the anti-semitic Gentile Christian clergy with whom the Zoharists were driven to ally with in order to save their lives. Jacob had nothing to do with these disputations and did not attend them. 

The lists of the Frankists so-called beliefs reflect more the ideas of the Catholic clergy and their anti-semitic ideas, than the beliefs of the Zoharists. Most writers seem to be ready to believe the picture of Frank painted by his enemies and assume his insincerity in his Catholic beliefs. It is clear that the Zohar alludes to the Trinitarian idea of three persons in one God. It also emphasizes the role of the heavenly Mother in Eternity who lives in deep union with the three lights within the Godhead who manifests in 10 attributes. In fact, the Zoharist movement could be called a Marian movement. 

Frank’s use of the term ‘goddess’ for Our Lady comes directly from the Sefer Zohar which calls the feminine aspect of Shekhinah ‘elleh/ elah’ or goddess. The Catholic Jacob Frank was not antinomian, he believed in the Torah but believed through baptism (the mikveh of the Messiah) the Zoharists were free in the Messiah to observe Torah at the mystical level of the Torah of Atik and for this greater purpose of universalizing the Mystical insights, they were free to appear as Gentiles to the Gentiles. 

Nevertheless, in the privacy of their own homes and communities they, the now Catholic Zoharists who were called Frankists by their opponents, continued to observe circumcision, the Sabbath, their own burial customs and they practiced endogamy. Endogamy is the practice of only marrying other Jews. They mostly married others from Zoharists families. Women were sometimes allowed to marry non-Jews for social reasons but the men were encouraged by their mothers only to marry those from appropriate families. Frank was endeavouring to preserve the election of Israel as a community within the Church but he was too far ahead of his time.

Ontological based theology and Mystical theology often use the same terminology but they often mean different things. Those with a vertical mindset (logical steps and the order of a cultivated garden) are often more drawn to ontology and those with a latitudinal mindset (intuitive leaps and the freedom of the woods and the wild) to the mystical. We have seen that when one doesn't distinguish between the use and meaning of a word or term from an ontological perspective from a mystical use of the word or term, great misunderstanding of mystical writings ensure.

I would describe the first, ontological interpretation, as a Benedictine and Dominican ascent of Mt Subiaco and the second, the mystical approach and interpretation, as a Carmelite and Franciscan ascent of Mt Carmel. In Judaism this could be expressed in the differences between the Pharisee and Litvak approach (ascent of Mt Sinai) and the Essene and Hasidic approach (ascent of Mt Zion). 

The first with its focus on Talmud and Mussar (the way of the mind) and the second with its focus on Kabbalah and Chasidut (the way of the heart). Both approaches are needed to keep an orthodox balance and a fruitful creativity. Talmud study without Mussar teaching (a form of intellectualism) leads to spiritual danger and sterility as does Kabbalah study without Chasidut (which can then become a form of Gnosticism and illuminism). Talmud and Mussar (Law and Morals) without Kabbalah and Chasidut (Mystical Prayer Devotions and Charitable Kindness) can become intellectualism mixed with moralism and Kabbalah and Chasidut without Talmud and Mussar can become Occultic Gnosticism mixed with emotionalism. 

Thus, the meeting of the human mind and heart are a kind of incarnational rendezvous of intellect and experience which ascends through intellectual or ontological contemplation united or cleaving to experiential or mystical contemplation to the Divine Mind and Heart in Divine Intimacy. Thus, the human and his acts and life, becomes divinised in the Divine Will.

Leora Batnizky's article about Levinas and Wyschogrod is called "Jesus in Jewish Modern Thought" (2012). She discusses how both these modern Orthodox Jewish thinkers use the Christian idea of Incarnation in their religious thought. Levinas proposes a kind of Jewish Incarnational understanding of philosophy in which he sees the embodiment of the presence of God in the other person (an ethical focus). Wyschogrod has at the centre of his thought a kind of Jewish Incarnational theology of God being incarnate in the Jewish people as a group. She sees this Incarnational thought in both men as drawing from Lutheran and Protestant thought rather than Catholic ideas of Incarnation and Jewish thought. Wsychogrod makes a good point that is very insightful:

The Christian proclamation that God became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth is but a development of the basic thrust of the Hebrew Bible, God’s movement toward humankind... At least in this respect, the difference between Judaism and Christianity is one of degree rather than kind.

Thus, I don't totally agree with Leora Batnitzky's assessment. Though there does seem to be some development in her thought in regards to Wyschogrod between the 2012 and 2016 articles I read by her. I think both a philosophy of Incarnation and a Theology of Incarnation are exciting concepts. These are in my opinion already evident in both the Catholic and Jewish mystical traditions. Yehuda Liebes speaks about the ideas of Incarnation in regards to the Chasidic concepts of the Rebbe and of Chasidut. St Mother Teresa of Calcutta sees that each person is an icon or embodiment of Christ to be loved and served. The Church (Messianic Community) is seen as the Mystical Body of Christ by St Paul and is called the Universal Sacrament of Salvation by later Catholic writers. St Lawrence of Brindisi speaks of the Incarnational Circle of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the Primordial Beginning in which all Creation is modeled.

Leora Batnitzky is concerned with Wsychogrod divinising the Jewish People as the Community of God but as Catholics we should have no problem at all with this concept. Divinisation is becoming or acting God-like. God can be incarnated through his Son the Messiah in the power of the Holy Spirit in the flesh. At the same time God can be mystically incarnated in the Community of His people and in each individual and in each human act (especially those done in love and kindness) and in each created thing in the Divine Will hidden in all. This alludes to Levinas' idea of the Trace (or Reshimu as it is called in Kabbalah). In fact the whole concept of Shekhinah in Judaism is a Jewish form of the incarnational concept of the Divine Word dwelling in time, matter and place. This is at the heart of the approach of the teachings of the Zohar and the mystical interpretation of Scripture. Batnitzky is also concerned with Wyschogrod's idea of the particular love of Israel. However, Wyschogrod himself said:

“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.”

While Levinas may have been influenced by Protestant thinkers the source of most of his insights come from his Litvak reading of Kabbalah and I think Batnitzky has overemphasized this Protestant influence on Levinas. I find it rather telling that many Catholics have taken to his writings and concepts, including Popes, which would be less likely if they found Lutheran and Protestant concepts to dominate in his thinking.