Mission

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The Bible teaches that the ultimate concern of God is to bring Redemption to all mankind. Abraham is told: "You will be for a blessing and in you will be blessed all the families of the earth" (Gen. 12:2,3). In some unspecified way, Abraham's seed is to bring blessing upon all men. This is made more explicit by the prophet: "I have kept you and set you for a covenant of the people, for a light unto the nations" (Isa. 42:6). The concept that Israel as a nation has a task and a responsibility that reaches beyond itself and encompasses all mankind is referred to by the modern term "Mission of Israel." This task or mission is somehow to bring the word of God to the nations of the world. It was never spelled out how precisely this was to be done. In certain periods, this was understood to mean the active discrediting of the false gods of paganism and aggressive programs of proselytization in which the Jewish people literally act as teachers. At other times it was construed primarily in terms of teaching by example. By observing the Torah, each Jewish community could become a living and inspiring embodiment of the highest principles of morality and sanctity. Also by persisting in their faith and loyalty to God to the point of martyrdom, Jewish survival becomes an impressive manifestation of God's miraculous Providence.

This notion of mission is related to the concept of Israel as a "witness" who "testifies" to the greatness and goodness of God (Isa. 43:10). It is also related to the concept of the sanctification of the name of God (Kiddush Ha-Shem), attesting to the standing of God's reputation in the world. The aim and goal of Israel's mission, to "testify as witness," or to be a "blessing" or to "sanctify the name" is always the same, namely, to bring all men to acknowledge the sovereignty of God.

The rabbis saw the "mission" as one of the purposes of the Exile and dispersion: "The Almighty dispersed Israel among the nations in order that they may gather to themselves proselytes, as it is written: 'And I have sown her unto me in the land' (Hos. 2:25). Would a man sow a measure of grain unless it was to reap manyfold?" A connection between dispersion and mission is also alluded to in Genesis 28:14, in the words of God to Jacob: "Your seed shall be as the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the south and to the north. And in you and in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

The mission concept became a central tenet of the theology of the Reform movement, receiving expression in the theology of Kaufmann Kohler and incorporated in the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885. Judaism was almost completely universalized with only the moral law in the Bible regarded as binding. The goal of Judaism was the establishment, together with other progressive religions, of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. Jews were no longer to be considered a nation but a religious community with the mission of being a priest for the dissemination of monotheism. The messianic concept of a return to Zion was rejected and the dispersed condition of the Jew affirmed as enabling the Priest-People to be in direct contact with the nations he was directed to influence and inspire. This approach was vehemently attacked by the Zionist philosopher Aḥad Ha-Am as a romantic rationalization of the Emancipation in Western Europe, which he termed "Slavery in Freedom." The Mission concept had become a cover for transforming Zionism and the Jewish national ideal into a vapid universalistic concept and a justification for rendering the Galut permanent. Since the 1930s, Reform Judaism has modified its concept of mission, especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and has incorporated a strong Zionist bias in its theology and practice. At the same time, it maintained its broad Universalism and in the 1980s adopted an outreach program seeking to attract non-Jews to Judaism, initially non-Jewish partners in mixed marriages.

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