Shituf

Shituf or shittuf is a Hebrew term which describes the worship or belief of other gods or divine aspects in addition to the God of Israel.

Source of the concept

Deuteronomy 4:19 reads:

And lest you lift your eyes towards the heavens, and you will see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the heavenly hosts, and you will stray, and you will bow to them, and worship those [sun, moon, etc.] that God apportioned to the nations below the heavens.

The rabbis inferred from this verse and others that non-monotheistic worship might be permissible for non-Jews, provided that they worship God as well. This "association" of other powers with God was termed shituf, or "association".

This exemption from the absolute monotheism espoused in Judaism was made only for non-Jews. For Jews, any deviation, however small, from absolute monotheism is considered avodah zarah, or Idolatry. The view that it is permissible even for non-Jews is a minority one.

Talmudic sources

The Talmud warns against causing an idolater to take oaths. The commentators living in Christian Germany in the 12th century, called Tosafists, permitted Jews to engage in business practices with Christians, even though this could result in the Christian partner taking an oath in the name of Jesus or Christian saints, by saying that the Christian concept of God is not considered by Jews to be idolatry but only an association. In a terse comment, they wrote:

It is permissible to [cause a gentile's oath through litigation with one's non-Jewish partner because] today all swear in the name of the saints to whom no divinity is ascribed. Even though they also mention God's name and have in mind, in any event no idolatrous name is actually said, and they also have the Creator of the world in mind. Even though they associate (shituf) God's name with "something else", we do not find that it is forbidden to cause others to associate (shituf), and there is no issue of placing a stumbling block before the blind [by entering into litigation with the non-Jewish business partner, thereby causing him to take an oath] because the Sons of Noah were not warned about it (Tosafot Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 63b).

In the 16th Century, the terse comment is explained as follows:

"Today, it is permitted [to form a partnership with Christians], because when they swear on their holy scriptures called the Evangelion, they do not hold it to be divine. Even though when they mention God they mean Jesus, they do not mention idolatry since they really mean the Creator of heaven and earth. Even though they mention jointly (shituf) God's name and another name, there is no prohibition to cause someone to jointly mention [or associate] (shituf) God with another... since this association is not forbidden to gentiles" Moses Isserles Darkhei Moshe YD 156.

The idea of shituf is only found in the Northern European school of Jewish law of Tosafot. In other countries it is unknown.

Maimonides in several places considers Christianity to be idolatry (Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Ma'achalos Asuros 11:7 and Hilchos Avodas Kochavim 9:4; Commentary on Mishnah, Avodah Zarah 1:3), (Note: these texts are censored from the standard editions of these works).

The ruling of the Tosafist Rabbeinu Tam remains ambiguous enough to allow dispute on whether he deemed Christianity not to fall under the category of idolatry (for Gentiles) or merely permitted Christians to take an oath in the name of the Trinity, but generally his dictum is interpreted as stating that Christianity is monotheistic enough for Gentiles.

Eighteenth Century

Moses Mendelssohn, the Jewish enlightenment thinker used the concept of shituf as cited in Tosafot to justify any form of association of God with another entity.

[However,] the nations of the world though they recognize the entity of God … they nevertheless worship another entity besides Him. A few worship the angels above believing that God apportioned to each one of them a nation or country … to rule, and they have the power to do good or bad as they please. And these are called "other gods" in the Torah.… And a few [of the nations of the world] worship the stars in the sky … or people … and bow down to them, as is known. And the judgment of the intellect does not require to forbid such worship to a Son of Noah if he does not intend to remove himself from the realm of God because by what [obligation] must he offer service and prayer to God alone? And if he hopes for good and fears bad from an entity besides Him and acknowledges that also that entity is subject to God, it is not beyond the intellect for him to offer sacrifices, incense, and libation and to pray to this entity be it an angel, demon, or person.… And who would say to us [Jews] that such offerings are appropriate for God only had He not warned us against [offering to other gods] in His Torah.

Twentieth Century

One twentieth century explanation of the above passage is as follows: In Judaism there is allowance for Gentile belief that there are other gods besides the Creator, but forbidding actual worship of them:

So long as ascribing power to a deity other than the Creator remains conceptual, it is permissible to the Children of Noah according to many authorities. But worship of this independent being is clearly idolatry.

Rabbi Walter Wurzburger wrote "with all our appreciation of Christianity as an avenue to God available to the non-Jewish world, we must not gloss over the fact that the Trinitarian faith still falls short of our universal religious ideals. While the belief in the Trinity - classified by the Halakhah as Shituph - may not be regarded as downright prohibited to the non-Jew, we still cannot recommend it as the ideal way in which the non-Jew should relate himself to God."

However, other twentieth century explanations differ with the irenic 20th century position. Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz and David Berger hold that Jewish law considers Christianity idolatry and that the entire concept of shituf in Jewish law was only an ad-hoc permission applying solely to oaths in court.

In variations of Jewish views and rulings of some Rabbinic authorities, codified in Jewish law, Christians worship the same God as taught in Judaism, along with what Jews consider to be "extra" gods like the other two persons of the Trinity in a partnership of other gods and God working together. Although this theology is considered to be no different than any other form of idolatry and unacceptable for Jews under any circumstances, it may be an acceptable belief for non-Jews. Accordingly, some Messianic congregations uphold a similar view with the description of God as a "compound unity."

According to Louis Jacobs:

Christian thinkers frequently assert that Jewish polemics against trinitarianism are based on an inadequate understanding of what the doctrine really means. It is no doubt true that crude attacks on Christianity as tritheism are unfounded (tritheism is, in fact, heresy from the Christian point of view) and there are subtleties in the doctrine which Christians have tried to uncover. But the fact remains that all Jewish thinkers have rejected trinitarianism as Judaism understands it.

External links

• Wikinoah on Tosafot and Christianity
• Discussion of the Meiri and Tosafot with translation of many passages