Meeting 2005

THE LORD IS EVERYTHING
edited by Alberto Savorana

“A law for man” was the theme for the lawyer Claudio Morpurgo, Vice-President of the Union of Jews in Italy, and Joseph Weiler, Professor of European Law at New York University, New York, two personalities who, in the experience of belonging to the grand tradition of the Jewish people, recounted the great theme of the law, of freedom in their lives and in the history from which all of us descend. Here, excerpts of their contributions.

Joseph H. H. Weiler: Last week, during his historic visit to the Cologne synagogue, Pope Benedict XVI spontaneously, from the heart, changed the official text distributed to journalists. Instead of speaking of the imperative of respect between Christians and Jews, he spoke of the imperative of love. The law is the heart of the Jewish religion. Thus, understanding the law, seeing it as we practicing Jews see it, is essential in order to be able to follow Pope Benedict’s imperative of love between Christians and Jews, and this is what I will try to explain. For us, it is the law that constitutes the Jewish way to holiness. In practice, the Jewish law is omnipresent in daily life, from the moment you open your eyes until you say your final prayer in the evening. It’s not a concept; it’s a continuous daily presence. The law is what shows me my obedience to God. The Jew without the law is an orphan, an orphan of God.

Claudio Morpurgo: For us Jews, the relationship with the law is a creative relationship that makes the Lord’s teaching current and alive. This means bringing that experience and tradition to everyday life.
The law of the Lord, in order to be embraced by a collectivity, must be felt and acknowledged by each individual; it must speak to the identity of each man, to his needs and desires. The law is the modality for being yourself, not as an abstract code to conform to spinelessly. It is almost an ante letteram litteram subsidiarity, based on the recognition of the creative force of the single individual, who becomes contracting party in a pact, a contract with the Lord Himself. For us Jews, this evidence can be thus described: “There is no freedom for a Jew without the law.” True freedom is not free; it costs effort; it is conquered day by day. True freedom is conquered through a spiritual discipline, which is at the same time individual and collective.
For us Jews, you have understood, man is free to choose his own road, but he is not independent of the Lord and His creation.
After having listened to the two representatives of the Jewish community, it is clearer why Fr. Giussani always encouraged us to look with devotion, like smaller brothers, to the great Jewish history, without which we could not speak today of freedom, because God is the term of a loving relationship that opens to reality, and for this reason frees us, putting us in the condition of not being slaves of any circumstance, so we look at everything with curiosity, curiosity for a new possession of things.