Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer

Rabbi Morris Kertzer was born on October 18, 1910 in Cochrane, Ontario. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and his master’s degree from the University of Illinois. He then studied under Mordecai Kaplan at the Jewish Theological Seminary where he earned a doctorate in Hebrew literature and he was ordained in 1934. Rabbi Kertzer would eventually separate from the Jewish Conservative movement to join the Reform Rabbinate.
Rabbi Kertzer led the first Jewish delegation to the Soviet Union in 1956 and subsequently won the George Washington Medal for his analysis of the Soviet Union’s anti-Semitism. He served as the national president of the Jewish Military Chaplains Association, he was the national chaplain of Amvets and was the chairman of the social action commission of the Synagogue Council of America (1950’s), secretary of the New York Board of Rabbis (1957-1959), member of the executive board of the CCAR (1964-1966), and trustee of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1962-1967). He served as Rabbi in Larchmont, then in Riverdale, New York in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He retired in Scottsdale, Arizona where he taught at Mesa Community College, and was a member of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. He passed away on December 29, 1983.

View of Jesus by Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer:

Jesus’ ministry on earth coincided with the lives of the early Rabbis known as Pharisees. Jews therefore see Jesus as a historical personality whose work and teachings parallel those of other wonder-working Jewish leaders of the time…

The Romans crucified Jesus just as they tortured Rabbi Akiba to death, because they feared the revolutionary effect of their doctrine of love and justice. But Jews stop short of identifying Jesus as in any way divine. Simply put, Jews do not believe that God had a son or appeared in human form…Jews do not quote Jesus as a model, not because we cannot identify with much that he said, but because his life and death are so intrinsically central to Christianity…

Were we to point to Jesus’ behavior or teachings as our guide in life, we would feel as if we were crossing the boundary from Judaism to Christianity. The Lord’s prayer, for instance, has nothing in it with which Jews would not agree. It is a prayer for the coming of God’s reign, a doctrine taught by every Rabbi of the first and second century. But we would not say the Lord’s prayer, since it is part of Christian liturgy, associated firmly with the bedrock of Christian faith. Similarly, Jesus is known to have preached the Golden Rule. But we do not cite Jesus to the effect that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, even though we agree that we should. Instead, we have our own daily prayer called the Kaddish [KAH-dish], which parallels the Lord’s prayer and was formulated about the same time…

It is always hard to second-guess history, but it is interesting to imagine what would have happened if the life of Jesus had not been appropriated by Christianity. What would have happened if he had been remembered only as the Jew he was, but not as the savior? His life might in that case have been retained by Jewish sources. He might well have remained a Jewish moral hero like the Pharisees of the time, who were much like him. But precisely because Jesus was recognized by Christians as the Christ, he could not be recognized as a Jewish role model by those Jews who did not accept his divinity.