Rabbi Daniel Lapin calls protests of Mel Gibson’s film by national Jewish organizations “morally illegitimate.”
There must be some middle ground between Jews and Christians with regard to The Passion of the Christ.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin is firmly standing on it.
Like most of us, Lapin hasn't seen Mel Gibson's film, opening nationwide Feb. 25. He says he probably won't. Lapin prefers to speak, not as a critic, but as a 20-year Orthodox rabbi and founder of Toward Tradition, a Seattle organization intended to unite Jews and Christians in, as the group's Web site (www.towardtradition.org) describes: "traditional, faith-based American principles."
From that position, Lapin believes protests by national Jewish organizations - saying The Passion of the Christ is anti-Semitic art that will inspire hate crimes by blaming Jews for Jesus' crucifixion - are fraying those Judeo-Christian bonds.
"They're saying something which I consider to be morally illegitimate," Lapin said by telephone from Miami, where he visited Coral Ridge Ministries, a conservative Christian organization.
"(Jewish leaders) are saying: "Even if this (movie) corresponds to New Testament versions of Christ's death, we reject it anyway because such versions are unacceptable to us.'
"I reject what they say and consider it to be morally illegitimate because, No. 1: Classical Jewish sources basically concern Jewish complicity in Jesus' death."
Lapin mentioned Jewish law codifiers written by 12th century philosopher Moses Maimonides as examples.
"The arrival of Jesus was obviously very uncomfortable to Jewish authorities in Jerusalem at that time," Lapin said, unwilling to say whether the leaders were concerned with losing their power.
"I don't know the details," he said. "That's not provided (in the codifier) and we weren't there, so we have no idea. But there were some connections, that Jewish leadership and Roman authorities were somehow hand-in-hand. There's no disputing that.
"To reject the movie for saying something which our own books do not deny, and to denounce Mel Gibson as an anti-Semite, just isn't fair. It isn't right."
Lapin also disagreed with Jewish leaders who say The Passion of the Christ violates a provision of Vatican II, a papal doctrine presented nearly 40 years ago after centuries of violence toward Jews blamed for Jesus' death. (Gibson's conservative Catholicism rejects Vatican II's loosening of traditional worship.)
"Vatican II simply said that Jews today shouldn't be held responsible for what (Jews) did 2,000 years ago," Lapin said. "In the same way, I think it's wrong for American Jews to hold American Christians responsible for things that may have been done by medieval European Catholics hundreds of years ago.
"There's this presumption in the American Jewish community - and it's an insulting presumption - that Christians going to see this movie will suddenly react by being converted from philo-Semites into anti-Semitic thugs because of words in the movie. That doesn't make any sense, because most Christians already know those words from Scripture.
Lapin recently came to the St. Petersburg Times' attention through an e-mail essay (available on the Toward Tradition Web site) titled "Why Mel Owes One to the Jews." In the essay, Lapin made three predictions about The Passion of the Christ:
The film will make a lot of money. "Those distributors who surrendered to pressure from Jewish organizations and passed on Passion will be kicking themselves," Lapin wrote, "while Newmarket Films will laugh all the way to the bank."
Second, that Gibson's film "will become famous as the most serious and substantive biblical movie ever made."
And finally, that the film will inspire even more faith among Christians and urge others to embrace Christianity. "The movie will one day be seen as a harbinger of America's third great religious reawakening," he wrote.
The first two predictions are locks, considering advance ticket sales and Hollywood's habit of making religion-themed films that either use Scripture as a backdrop for drama (Ben-Hur, Barabbas, The Robe) or revise it (Jesus Christ Superstar and The Last Temptation of Christ). But how can Lapin predict that the film will spark a spiritual revival?
"What I notice is that there's an unbelievable proliferation of evangelical churches around the country, particularly nondenominational," he said. "I interpret that as resurgence. The figures seem to reinforce my contention.
"When I see the number of hours on cable (television) devoted to religious programming, when I notice the sales of religious publishers and the number of New York publishers who bought out Christian publishers so they don't miss that amount of business, that's extraordinary. "As I say tongue-in-cheek: Gibson should say thanks to the Jewish community for making sure the movie is now a national phenomenon rather than just a religious, Christian phenomenon. That it coincides chronologically with something that is already happening in America, in my opinion, is striking."
