Shituf

Shituf is the term used in Jewish law for worship of the God of Israel with an association of persons or lesser beings. Although Jews are forbidden to hold such a belief, some rabbinic authorities consider it to be permissible for non-Jews, since it does acknowledge the One God of Israel to be supreme.

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.

Deuteronomy 29:25 reads:

And they will go and serve other gods and prostrate themselves to them; gods that they have not known, and which were not apportioned to them.

The rabbis inferred from these verses 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.

The Works of Philo contain some of the best known Jewish examples of shituf:

God being one being, has two supreme powers of the greatest importance. By means of these powers the incorporeal world, appreciable only by the intellect, was put together, which is the archetypal model of this world which is visible to us, being formed in such a manner as to be perceptible to our invisible conceptions just as the other is to our eyes.

For when the wise man entreats those persons who are in the guise of three travelers to come and lodge in his house, he speaks to them not as three persons, but as one, and says, "My lord, if I have found favor with thee, do not thou pass by thy Servant."

On this account, I imagine it is, that when Moses was speaking philosophically of the creation of the world, while he described everything else as having been created by God alone, he mentions man alone as having been made by him in conjunction with other assistants; for, says Moses, "God said, Let us make man in our Image." The expression, "let us make," indicating a plurality of makers. Here, therefore, the Father is conversing with his own powers, to whom he has assigned the task of making the mortal part of our soul, acting in imitation of his own skill while he was fashioning the rational part within us, thinking it right that the dominant part within the soul should be the work of the Ruler of all things, but that the part which is to be kept in subjection should be made by those who are subject to him. And he made us of the powers which were subordinate to him, not only for the reason which has been mentioned, but also because the soul of man alone was destined to receive notions of good and evil, and to choose one of the two, since it could not adopt both. Therefore, he thought it necessary to assign the origin of evil to other workmen than himself, --but to retain the generation of good for himself alone.

Application to other religions

Christianity

Orthodox Jewish views

Jewish views, as codified in Jewish law, are split between those who see Christianity as outright idolatry and those who see Christianity as shituf. While Christians view their worship of a trinity as monotheistic, Judaism rejects this view.

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.

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".

Some modern commentators have stated the allowance for shituf extends only to belief in multiple or complex deity, but not to worship of such a thing:

One contemporary view of Shituf holds that 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.

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:

Even medieval Jews understood very well that Christianity is avodah zarah of a special type. The tosafists assert that although a Christian pronouncing the name of Jesus in an oath would be taking the name of "another god," it is nonetheless the case that when Christians say the word "God," they have in mind the Creator of heaven and earth. Some later authorities took the continuation of that Tosafot to mean that this special type of avodah zarah is forbidden to Jews but permissible to gentiles, so that a non-Jew who engages in Christian worship commits no sin.

Still other modern commentators have stated that shituf "may not" be forbidden to non-Jews, but presents this more softly. 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."

Conservative Jewish views

Conservative Rabbi Louis Jacobs took a more conciliatory approach:

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.

Reform Jewish views

Moses Mendelssohn, the 18th Century 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.

See Also

• Idolatry in Judaism
• Monotheism
• Polytheism
• Judaism
• Christianity
• Trinity
• Arianism
• Tritheism

External links

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