I do not know the secret of God, but I believe that Jesus and Christianity were providential means, useful to the Deity in guiding all men gradually, and by an effort, keeping pace with the mental state of the majority of men from paganism up to the pure and true idea of the divinity.
The error—one might almost say a fatal one—of Christianity is to believe that it is an end in itself, whereas it is but a step, and as error often generates evil, Christianity in its evolution toward its end has effected side by side much good as well as much harm.
We Jews await the Christians on God’s appointed day, when, all humanity having become more enlightened, will rally to the spiritualistic principle which is that of Judaism, viz.: that of the unity and the perfect spirituality of God, in opposition to any incarnation and to any trinitarian idea whatever.
Meanwhile, I think that Jews and Christians, divided on the identification of Jesus with God, but both in accord in acknowledging this God the same for all, consider themselves children of the same Father, and thus love one another with brotherly love.
October 11, 1899.
From M. KAYSERLING, Ph.D., Rabbi, Budapest, Hungary:
The Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah and Redeemer, but they recognized him as “the extraordinary man” who first showed to the heathen world the way to natural religion and moral perfection. “The founder of Christianity,” says the pious and scholarly Jacob Emden of Altona, who lived about the middle of the last century, “was a twofold benefactor to the world, since, on the one hand, he strengthened with all his might the doctrine of Moses and insisted upon its eternal validity; and, on the other hand, drew heathens away from idolatry and obligated them to observe the seven Noachian commandments to which he added moral teachings. The alliance of the nations in our time can be regarded as an alliance to the glory of God, whose aim is to proclaim over all the world that there is only one God who is Master in heaven and on earth; who rewards the good and punishes the evil.”
This is the opinion of the immense majority of the Jews of our epoch about Jesus of Nazareth, “the extraordinary man.” We all look forward to that sublime end when all human beings, prompted by the love of fellow men, shall recognize God and worship Him in full harmony and glory as the one only God.
November 20, 1899.