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You Called My Name
The Hidden Treasures of Your Hebrew Heritage
By Esther Ben-Toviya
O Books, 2006. xvi plus 256 pages.
Reviewed by Wayne-Daniel Berard
I’m half-Jewish and half-Portuguese (a “Portajew,” I joke with friends). When Vatican II had sufficiently eased the minds of my Catholic family members, some accompanied me to their first synagogue service. Faced with a tabernacle at the front of the room (albeit for a Torah), with psalms they recognized, and a cup of wine being raised in blessing, one of them leaned over and whispered loudly, “They’re just like us!” “Actually,” I replied in an even louder whisper, “we’re just like them.”
Esther Ben-Toviya’s book You Called My Name invites “all Christians to search in the Hebrew tradition for the foundations (roots) of their spirituality.” Herself a convert from Christianity, Rabbi Ben-Toviya, whose style is to directly address her readers, states that “the purpose of this book is that you may learn some of the Jewish concepts and practices that your ancestors hand down to you through your spiritual inheritance.” I’m not sure, however, that the reaction of my Christian relatives to this book would be “They’re just like us.” Mine wasn’t. And I’m Jewish.
It is not that Rabbi Ben-Toviya’s work is uninformative. She points out, for instance, that in God’s call to Avram in Genesis 12, “Get yourself out of your country, from your kindred, and from your father’s house,” the Hebrew command can also be translated “Go to your-Self.” The thought is a lovely and significant one. The application of it she urges upon her readers is as follows:
. . . we are a fraction of The Infinite Being; and any fraction of Infinity is still Infinity! Think of it. We are made of “God stuff.” As such, we have everything within us that we need to deal with life. We see the Divinity in our Selves and recognize it in others; other human beings, animals, nature, all that exists. There is no duality.
Actually, I agree completely with the Rabbi’s sentiments. But I doubt that those relatives of mine, or the great majority of Christians for that matter, would recognize their own spiritual roots here. Yes, the author does make connections to Jesus’ person and teaching in each chapter. But the connecting cables are threaded from a form of her faith known even to most Jews only from the pages of Kamentz’s The Jew in the Lotus or like works. Those Christian readers with the knowledge or inclination might, indeed, feel themselves called by name, but to a bodhi tree rather than by a burning bush. The catch phrase “no duality” is the giveaway; Rabbi Ben-Toviya’s concepts and practices seem to be as foundationally Buddhist as Baptist or Benedictine. Reconstructionist Judaism, and the Jewish Renewal Movement in particular, fosters this cross-pollination of spiritualities, and it works well for many (I myself belong to a Renewal congregation as well as an Episcopal one). But most Christians, whose faith life is still “through, in, and with” a more mainstream version of Christ, may feel a bit disappointed by this book, especially in its earlier sections. And disappointment could well give way to a sense of manipulation as the book proceeds.
Consider Rabbi Ben-Toviya’s take on malachim, angels:
Have you ever had experiences or encounters with angels? Sometimes our “spiritual ears” are opened and we can hear them “sing” or hear celestial music which has notes far beyond the harmonies of the physical world. It is quite unusual for an angel to deliver a message without taking physical form. At that time you may sense the “presence” of an angel. There are times we experience the messages of other dimensions quite naturally in this dimension.
Unintentionally perhaps, the soul of You Called My Name rather quickly transmigrates from a body of Jewish-Buddhist thinking to that of New Age consciousness. When it examines Hebrew traditional blessings over bread and wine, for instance, its next move is not toward Christian liturgical practice, but to suggested blessings “Upon seeing exceptionally strange-looking people or animals” or “Upon smelling shrubs and trees or flowers (your Christmas tree).” At this point, my unsuspecting Portuguese relatives would be crossing themselves like crazy and heading for the nearest exit from anything Jewish. If they ever spoke to me again, it would be to say how “duped” they felt by my assurances of Jewish spiritual inheritance which turned out to be a backdoor promotion of Judaized New Age-ism.
Rabbi Ben-Toviya’s sincerity is never in doubt in her book. She is clearly a committed Renewal Jew, a convert who sincerely sees a door to a better understanding of Christ for Christians opening from her side of Judaism. What she unfortunately fails to recognize is that in most Christian houses, this door still swings out onto a rather standard view of Jesus and of Christian practice. Rabbi Ben-Toviya’s efforts read much more like a call for Christians to leave their kindred, country and father’s house in favor of a Self and Age that she will show them, rather than a guide to the Hebrew foundations of all of these.
Wayne-Daniel Berard teaches in the English department at Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts, where he is also the chaplain. His book When Christians Were Jews (That Is, Now): Recovering the Lost Jewishness of Christianity with the Gospel of Mark will be published in October 2006.
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