Emet ve-Emunah

A Statement by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. 1988

Emet ve-Emunah

From a Statement of the

United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

issued in 1988: "Emet ve-Emunah":

As Conservative Jews, we acknowledge without apology the many debts which Jewish religion and civilization owe to the nations of the world. We eschew triumphalism with respect to other ways of serving God. Maimonides believed that other monotheistic faiths—Christianity and Islam—serve to spread knowledge of, and devotion to, the God and the Torah of Israel throughout the world. Many modern thinkers, both Jewish and Gentile, have noted that God may well have seen fit to enter covenants with many nations …

Theological humility requires us to recognize that although we have but one God, God has more than one nation. Our tradition explicitly recognizes that God entered into a covenant with Adam and Eve, and later with Noah and his family as well as His special covenant with Abraham and the great revelation to Israel at Sinai. It is part of our mission to understand, respect, and live with the other nations of the world, to discern those truths in their cultures from which we can learn, and to share with them the truths that we have come to know.

 

Editorial remarks

"Emet ve-Emunah" (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1988)