In memory of Prof. Moshe Greenberg z"l

"Not infrequently I told my brothers and my friends about our acquaintanceship. Although we met rarely, it always provoked a range of profound and pleasant feelings.

A few stories remain etched in my memory, however I want to tell you (and the family) at least of one incident:

My mother, who at the age of 20 rejected Christian faith, came back to personal faith out of personal choice at the age of 50 and she spent hours towards the end of her life in prayer and in reading the Holy Scriptures. She would send me recorded conversations and I would answer her in the same fashion. From time to time she would ask me all kinds of questions: Why this? What does this mean? I remember once telling her about certain things that had become clear to me after having lived in Israel, and she responded in her next recording: Why don't our priests tell us these things in their homilies?

Thus, mother asked me once: "How come in all the Holy Scriptures (she was thinking specially of the New Testament but it would be true of the TaNaKh too) it is never written that someone said "I love you" to God.

I asked various Christian friends and no one ever gave me a serious answer. Then I thought: The only one who can give me an answer is Moshe Greenberg. I met him on Mount Scopus (at Hebrew University) after a lecture, and there on the plaza, between the buildings of the university, as I would put it "on one leg", I asked him the question.

He responded immediately: "I see two reasons. Firstly: In the TaNaKh, the human person speaks to God as if he were speaking to another person (that is, there is no specific religious language). It is a fact that in the language of the ancient East, it is likely that no one said to anybody else: "I love you". Not even a boy to a girl. It is a fact that in the Song of Songs, they go around, they run, they search, the express all kinds of beautiful things, symbols, images, by means of which one can feel the feelings of those speaking, however there is no expression "I love you" in the entire book."

"However, there is another answer: a commandment must be accomplished in acts and not in words. In the Book of Deuteronomy it is written: "He loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing – love the sojourner therefore" (Deuteronomy 10:18). To live is to give, to fulfill the love in a deed, and not to repeat the words "I love you, love you". That means that to fulfill the commandment "to love your neighbor as yourself" you must do for him and not repeat pretty words".

I will never forget those words."

Yohanan remembers another story too:

Moshe Greenberg was a friendly person who loved to laugh, even if he usually looked very serious (like in the picture). When I met him the first time at the home of Haim Blanc, a childhood friend, I was very impressed. He heard what I was and then looked with his penetrating grey eyes and asked: "How do you pray?" I told him about the hour of silent prayer without words and he stiffened: "What? You do not converse? You do not argue among yourselves about this, about the Bible, etc? Just like that, without words?" I said that one thought is like the burning bush and can suffice in order to stand before God in silent prayer. I thought that I was disappointing him. Suddenly, he turned to some of the people sitting in he living room and said: "I ask myself when we lost this type of prayer in Judaism?" He then added: "One I was present in a prayer of Protestants, 200 people, families with children, and at a certain point they were silent, for five minutes. They remained silent, without words. And I can promise you that that silence was not empty!".

That was my first meeting with Moshe Greenberg. May his memory be a blessing.