David Novak

During the Middle Ages, Jews were members of a semi-independent polity within a larger polity.

The Jewish tradition presents itself as the greatest revelation of God's truth that can be known in the world. That is why we call ourselves 'the chosen people.' It is not that we choose ourselves. It means that we have been elected by God and given the Torah.

Christians and Jews alike are the new exiles of the contemporary world, struggling with how to sing the Lord's song in a strange land.

A fully positive relationship between Christians and Jews is one that would elide all differences.

The Holocaust, taken by itself, is a black hole. To look at it directly is to be swallowed up by it.

Theology always has moral implications, and morality is always undergirded by theology.

Proselytizing is only wrong if coercive or deceptive. Coercion, whether violent or not, is immoral, just as deception is immoral.

The one and only time I met Pope Benedict XVI was when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

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.

Theological reflection takes place within history, but the history within which it takes place is an ongoing, open-ended process.

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.

The work of man is to respond to the Covenant by obeying the commandments of the Torah, those commandments that can be obeyed here and now.

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.

A traditional rabbi is the man to whom the community and its members turn to rule on what Jewish law requires of them, particularly in cases of doubt.

Each person is responsible only for his or her own sins. Even the Christian doctrine of 'original sin' does not mean that humans are punished for the sin of the first human pair but, rather, that humans seem inevitably to copy the sin of the first human pair.

Historically, Jews only accept converts rather than actively seeking them.

The Vatican's recognition of the State of Israel in 1997 could not have occurred without John Paul's leadership.

The religious doctrine of traditional Judaism entails the acceptance of the nationhood of the Jewish people and the everlasting sanctity of the Land of Israel for them.

Roots can live without branches, although truncated; branches cannot live without roots.

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.