On Irving Greenberg’s Thought Of Covenant

The Holocaust has killed six million European Jews and shaken traditional Jewish values and religious beliefs. During and after the Holocaust, there are a lot of Jews continued to quest:Why did God not prevent the Holocaust? Why did God keep silent? Was the Covenant broken? Different denominations of Judaism started to response this belief crisis after the Six Day War, some of them went back to the tradition to seek ways to response, and others rebuild the image of Jewish Theology by constructing new ways. What’s more, part of them began to explore the Covenant as a context for reaffirming ties to tradition, and Irving Greenberg is one of the important representative personages.Irving Greenberg is a Jewish-American historian who identifies as a Modern Orthodox rabbi. He is known as a strong supporter of Israel and a promoter of greater understanding between Judaism and Christianity. In facing the challenge of the Jewish religion which made by the Holocaust, Greenberg put forward "Voluntary Covenant" as the new stage of development of modern Jewish covenant which is quite different with others. What’s more, this assumption has connected the Jewish tradition and now. Thus, it is necessary to analyses his covenant thought. This essay has studied Greenberg’s covenant in three chapters by using text analyses, historical analyses and comparative analyses.In chapter one, we introduces Greenberg’s thought about the third great cycle of Jewish history, by combining the main covenant events and crisis in Jewish history. And we analyze and conclude that in Greenberg’s eyes, Judaism is a historical religion, and its development was subject to the effect of history changes. In chapter two, we analyzed the background of Greenberg’s thoughts, and studied his covenant thought in two aspects:the changed essence of Jewish covenant and the assumption of "Voluntary Covenant". Then, we concluded that Jewish covenant in the Third era is a covenantal relationship accepted voluntarily, and the Jews who will take a greater responsibility has become more active and been the senior partner of God in this relationship. In chapter three, we analyzed the novelty of Greenberg’s covenant and evaluated his thought by combing other Jewish thinker’s discussion of post-holocaust theological questions. We concluded that Greenberg’s response to the Holocaust belief crisis was quite difference with others, for he created a new way to rethinking the relationship between God and the Jews, that is the assumption of "Voluntary Covenant". It is an open account that respects the threat of the Holocaust to shatter the covenant, but also shows how retrieval is possible that portrays post-Holocaust Jewish life as continuous with the pre-Holocaust Jewish past. Although very few people accepted the way Greenberg has offered, and Greenberg’s thought is so controversial in Judaism, the fewer receivers did not tell the "Voluntary Covenant" makes no sense. What we should concern and consider is the new way of thinking he put forward to reply to the post-Holocaust belief crisis.In short, studying Greenberg’s covenant thought is good for us to understand the recent changes and trends of the contemporary Jewish theology. What’s more, it is good for us to realize the attitude of the Jews when they are facing the conflict between tradition and modernity. And it is good for us to enhance the understanding Judaism and Jewish civilization.