You know, I try to address the subject of Jesus at least once each year from my pulpit. And I am well aware that some of our members must think it odd, perhaps even inappropriate. We are Jews, after all, and as such, have no lack of our own religious texts or Biblical personages. Moreover, Jesus is so vividly associated with our people's two millennia long-experience of persecution and suffering. To which I steadfastly counter: and who says Jesus is not within our distinguished assembly of Jewish personalities, and wasn't he, after all, as surely a Jewish martyr as Rabbi Akeba or Anne Frank?

Though Christians portray Jesus' agonized words of Psalm 22 spoken from the cross-

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

We remember all too well how at this very season, especially during Holy Week, throughout the centuries all over Europe, angry mobs, often at the incitement of their clergy, would attack the Jewish populace to rape, to loot, and to murder their Jewish neighbors.

"Christ killers!" they cried out. "You have killed our Lord and you must die!" No doubt our ancestors who were fortunate enough to survive such terror were also perplexed by how a religion which proclaimed universal love, could provoke such lethal and barbaric conduct among its followers.

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" was a lament which we Jews havesoo often uttered: hanging from crosses 2,000 years ago in Roman-ruled Judea, or dying and suffering during the murderous frenzy of the Crusades 1,000 years ago, or while being burned alive 500 years ago during the Spanish Inquisition, or being gassed by the millions not even six decades ago in Nazi death camps.

So you see, I am convinced that if we Jews can make so much of a baseball player named Hank Greenberg or a senator named Joe Lieberman, we surely ought to be willing to think about this first century Galilean who is, beyond argument, the world's most famous Jewish celebrity and martyr of all times.

I know you've heard the old and, I suppose, irreverent story of how we can be sure of Jesus' Jewishness:

• He went into his father's business.
• He lived at home until he was 30.
• And his mother thought he was God!

• Religious liberals invariably discover a Jesus who is a peasant revolutionary.
• Mystics label Jesus an eschatological seer.
• Individual Christians see him as a devout Christian of whatever denomination they happen to practice.
• Jews see him as a misunderstood, ardent, and possibly confused Jewish brother.
• In the 1930s, German New Testament scholars even attempted to prove that Jesus was racially Aryan and not Jewish at all, giving rise to "goose-stepping Jesus."

And granting the facility of speaking the English language, I would like to think that Jesus would recognize various phraseologies and rubrics of prayer, making himself, to some extent, comfortable with much of the content, metaphors, and aspirations of synagogue prayer as it exists today.

But, I'll take it a step further: he would not be altogether comfortable in either an orthodox or conservative congregation, due to his advocacy of shorter, simpler prayers (Matthew 6:7) and the propensity of those movements toward lengthy and repetitious prayers. Besides, Jesus' major emphasis in religious was upon the Hebrew prophets and Tikun Olam, social action, rather than Halacha, traditional Jewish law.

So Jesus would then opt for a Reform Congregation-the one which was less hung up on Jewish legalism or dietary obscurantism. And one in which there was clearly felt an open, relaxed, and welcoming spirit of fellow religious seekers and pilgrims. In short, Jesus would join our Temple Sinai!

Now, application received and accepted, Joshua ben Yosef oo'Miriam, aka Jesus, formerly of Nazareth, now living in a shotgun double Uptown, would then become our newest member-but what kind of Jew and fellow was he? Well, we would have lunch together and talk it out.

For one thing, as a critic of the Sadducees, those influential and upper class (drivers of Mercedes Chariots) who could not conceive of a religion of Israel without a Jerusalem Temple, or without a sacrificial cult and its officiating priestly bureaucracy, Jesus and I would both pro-Pharisees.

The Pharisees were the interpreters of Torah, and from those creative students Judaism was bequeathed the doctrine of life after death and resurrection of the dead. Jesus and I would agree on the former, but differ on the latter.

Moreover, were we both living in the first century, we would both reject the advice of those Jews who advocated military revolt against Rome. Not a smart tactic, or as Jesus said: "Those who take up the sword will perish by the sword."

Most important, I do not think that, for all of his passion and critique of the status quo, Jesus had any intention of founding a new faith. His "Sermon on the Mount," his rewording of the Kaddish doxology into what is known as the Lord's Prayer, his parables (many of which are quoted, word for word, in contemporaneous Midrashim of the first century), his contemplations on Torah and the goal of Torah--the realization of the Kingdom of God-all are easily compatible with normative Jewish teaching.

We ought to consider whether Jesus' uniqueness may have derived more from his force of personality and his charisma than from the substantive originality of his message.

Now there are some unique features to Jesus' reported teachings. One of them is his admonition, "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44). There is no exact Jewish equivalent to that teaching. Here's another: the idea that lustful thoughts are equivalent to the act of adultery itself is not a Jewish teaching (thank God!), nor is Jesus' fierce objection to divorce, nor his claims to messianic or divine authority.

Along with all Jews, of course, I cannot think of Jesus as any more the "son of God" than any other of God's children. One cannot be both human and divine in Jewish belief.

Whether or not he came to regard himself as the Messiah for his Jewish brothers and sisters, he was mistaken. For Jesus simply did not fulfill the messianic expectations of the Jewish people, namely the establishment of political independence from the oppressive Roman occupiers and the restoration of the Kingdom of David in a wondrous golden age.

But this much I must say. Because of Jesus' emphasis on the message of the Hebrew Prophet, because of his insistent plea for T'shuvah (spiritual renewal), and because of his unshakeable belief in the possibility of God's kingdom here on earth, I believe he does share a place among the highest ranks of the teachers of many faiths whose spirituality spoke truth to power, threatening the oppressors and exploiters of the human family. And it is because of that that Jesus died at the cruel hands of the Romans.

I want to admit this. It would not be easy to be Jesus' Rabbi! You know that, don't you? He was prone to being quarrelsome. He had his own take and his own ideas. He was often not a realist or an "establishment" person. In short, he would have been a handful and a source of congregational contention.   So what else is new?

In the end, Jesus belongs in the ranks of those who, in life and death. taught the emptiness of a life lived only in the service of one's own makriat success.

There is a fanciful Jewish legend of uncertain origin which relates that one day the Messiah did, in fact, appear. At long last, Jews and Christians were able to arrange a greeting and celebrate the establishment of God's reign. But, as has too often been the case in relations with one another, rather than simply rejoicing together, Jews and Christians began to argue over who had been right over all these centuries.

Accordingly, during a hastily arranged "press conference," you know what the key question turned out to be:

 
Messiah, is this coming your first or your second?

To their chagrin, the Messiah ventured only a terse, "No Comment."

Let us instead do something truly radical--let's live in fidelity to our separate faiths, rather than mock them by hypocrisy and childish one-upmanship. The world and its people suffer while we, "the faithful," neglect our rightful task.

And what is that task? Precisely put,

So to live together in holiness that we might refashion the world to more closely resemble that Messianic dream of peace and love and justice which has been for us all a precious vision and a cherished goal throughout the ages.