One cannot accept Christ and still be part of the normative Jewish community; one cannot live by Torah and still be part of the Church. – David Novak
A fully positive relationship between Christians and Jews is one that would elide all differences. – David Novak
The right to privacy has both positive and negative connotations for those who consider themselves part of the natural law tradition. – David Novak
The Holocaust, taken by itself, is a black hole. To look at it directly is to be swallowed up by it. – David Novak
Although most Christian churches advocate some sort of mission to non-Christians, no Jewish group advocates a mission to non-Jews. Proselytization seems to be foreign to Judaism. – David Novak
Because Judaism and Christianity are both covenantal religions, the relationship of the individual Jew or Christian to God is always within covenanted community. – David Novak
Cultural synthesis is how a compromise between various opinions is worked out. But truth does not change, and truth is not arrived at by some sort of compromise. – David Novak
All modern secularity requires is that our public norms and the arguments for them not presuppose common acceptance of Jewish or Christian revelation, even if these public norms are consistent with a particular community’s revelation and the authoritative teachings it derives from that revelation. – David Novak
In historical messianism, the reign of the Messiah is brought about by a Jewish ruler powerful enough to gather the Jewish exiles back to the land of Israel, reestablish a Torah government there, and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. – David Novak
The slogan ‘Never Again!’ that emerged after the Holocaust implies that the Holocaust has a universal moral meaning, which, if properly learned, can provide at least a theoretical prophylactic against its repetition against anyone. – David Novak
Most Jews, like most rational persons, know that their personal identity and their ethnic identity are not one and the same. – David Novak
I first came to Jewish-Catholic relations in 1963, while studying for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. – David Novak
At the political level, most Jews and most Catholics have accepted the liberal idea of religious freedom. – David Novak
We Jews who willingly and happily confirm our covenantal status and its attendant rights and duties must take the question of mission seriously: either to accept it or reject it knowingly and with conviction. – David Novak
As a practicing Jew, I have studied with Christian teachers whom I respect for who they are and what they are, including their positive concern with Jews and Judaism. – David Novak
In deciding among theological views, one should be something of a consequentialist: the choice of one theological position over another should be, if not actually determined, at least heavily conditioned by the fact that it implies a better ethical outcome than the alternatives. – David Novak
Religious traditions are in a constant state of development and renewed self-understanding. – David Novak
Theology always has moral implications, and morality is always undergirded by theology. – David Novak
Christianity and Judaism are united above all in their common affirmation and implementation of the moral teaching of the Hebrew Bible, or ‘Old Testament,’ and the traditions of interpretation of that teaching. – David Novak
Jews have not only become equal citizens in Western democracies, they have become leading citizens. And, of course, the reestablishment of the State of Israel has given Jews a political presence in the world they have not had since biblical times. – David Novak
When modern political Zionism emerged around the turn of the twentieth century, most Orthodox Jews opposed it. – David Novak
Every individual is a person necessarily imbedded in a range of multiple relations, and therefore, no one is really independent in anything but a relative sense; no one is truly autonomous. – David Novak
Foundational autonomy asserts instead that in the most fundamental practical sense, I am my own creator, which means that at the core, I am alone. – David Novak
It seems unavoidable that history will always link the reestablishment of the State of Israel with the tragedy of the Holocaust. – David Novak
Jews have long experience with Christians who have tried to help us in putting our Judaism behind us. – David Novak
If human language, with its logic, is the way God has given us to understand the world, then the Torah must be understood in that same language and with that same logic. – David Novak
The shortcoming of purely political discourse between Christians and Jews arises from the fact that it is largely built upon the perception of a common enemy. – David Novak
To view any individual as being independent of relationality is like viewing a point outside of a line, a line outside of a figure, a figure outside of a body. – David Novak
Proselytizing is only wrong if coercive or deceptive. Coercion, whether violent or not, is immoral, just as deception is immoral. – David Novak
During the Middle Ages, Jews were members of a semi-independent polity within a larger polity. – David Novak
