David Novak, He frequently addresses interfaith conferences

Early life and education

Novak was born in 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1961 and his master's degree in Hebrew literature in 1964. He received rabbinical ordination in 1966 from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, He is married to Melva Ziman since 1963; they have two children and five grandchildren.

Contributions

Ethics

Novak has contributed to Jewish ethics by advocating a Jewish social ethics drawn from both the natural law tradition and Halakha. To this end, he interprets the rabbinic approach to the Noahide laws as a useful grounding for cross-cultural moral reasoning. His expertise includes Maimonides, John Courtney Murray, and Paul Tillich. In his theology, he combines Jewish rabbinical tradition and logic with Christian teachings.

Interfaith

Novak, together with Peter Ochs, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, and Michael Signer, drafted a full-page advertisement which appeared in the Sunday, 10 September 2000 edition of The New York Times under the title "Dabru Emet (Speak Truth): A Jewish statement on Christians and Christianity". Among the eight theological statements which the advertisement briefly laid out were: "Nazism is not a Christian phenomenon"; "Humanly irreconcilable differences between Jews and Christians will not be settled until God redeems the entire world as promised in Scripture"; and the statement which generated the most controversy in Jewish circles, "Jews and Christians worship the same God". Explaining his rationale for publishing the document, Novak told J. The Jewish News of Northern California: "I want Jewish readers to clearly realize that Christians are not necessarily our enemies. Quite the contrary, they can be very good friends to Jews and Judaism". The document was subsequently translated into eight languages.

  1. The new covenant is an extension of the old covenant.
  2. The new covenant is an addition to the old covenant.
  3. The new covenant is a replacement for the old covenant.

He observes, "In the early Church, it seems, the new covenant presented by the Apostolic Writings (better known as diatheke ekaine or novum testamentum) was either taken to be an addition to the old covenant (the religion of the Torah and Jewish Pharisaic tradition), or it was taken to be a replacement for the old covenant."

Novak considers both understandings to be supersessionist. He designates the first as "soft supersessionism" and the second as "hard supersessionism." The former "does not assert that God terminated the covenant of Exodus-Sinai with the Jewish people. Rather, it asserts that Jesus came to fulfill the promise of the old covenant, first for those Jews already initiated into the covenant, who then accepted his messiahhood as that covenant's fulfillment. And, it asserts that Jesus came to both initiate and fulfill the promise of the covenant for those Gentiles whose sole connection to the covenant is through him. Hence, in this kind of supersessionism, those Jews who do not accept Jesus' messiahhood are still part of the covenant in the sense of 'what God has put together let no man put asunder' [emphasis original]."

Public lectures

In 2001, Novak delivered the fifteenth Erasmus Lecture, titled Jews, Christians, and Civil Society, organized by First Things magazine and the Institute on Religion and Public Life. In his address, Novak examined the theological and moral foundations of public life shared by Jews and Christians, arguing that both traditions contribute indispensable resources for sustaining a just and humane civil society. The lecture reflected his long-standing engagement with Jewish-Christian dialogue and the intersection of faith and ethics in modern pluralistic democracies.

Other activities

He is a founder, vice-president, and coordinator of the Jewish Law Panel of the Union for Traditional Judaism, and a faculty member and vice-president of the Union for Traditional Judaism in Teaneck, New Jersey. He is a faculty member of the Department of Talmud and Halakha at the Canadian Yeshiva & Rabbinical School, Toronto. He also serves as a Visitor of Ralston College.

In the mid-1980s he was invited to join the Institute on Religion and Public Life by its founder, Richard John Neuhaus, and became a member of the editorial board of the institute's journal, First Things. He is also a member of the advisory board of The G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.

In 2006 he was appointed as a board member of Assisted Human Reproduction Canada.

Published works

  • (Vol. 1 foreword by Louis Finkelstein)
  • .

Selected articles

  • (with John Pawlikowski and Paul Matthews Van Buren)
  • Homosexuality: A Case Study in Jewish Ethics (with Elliot N. Dorff and Aaron L. Mackler). Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 28 (2008): 225–35.
  • Shorter articles in Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility include:
  • Concerning Physician Assisted Suicide, Vol.21/no.420 1991
  • Jew, Yes; Gentile, Yes; Quasi-Jew, No, Vol.18/no.346 1988
  • Yes to Halakhah Means No to Women Rabbis, Vol.9/no.166 1979

References

Further reading

  • Professor David Novak Views "Nostra Aetate" and "Dabru Emet"
  • Suicide is Not a Private Choice by David Novak
  • Abortion by David Novak
  • An Eye for an Eye: Judaism on punishment and torture by David Novak
  • No Right to Marriage for Same-Sex Couples by David Novak