Question
How do the Jewish and Christian views of salvation differ?


Answer
From the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul, we recite Psalm 27 each morning and evening. Its opening words are "HaShem ori v'yish'i" - "The Lord is my light and salvation."


Salvation (yeshu'ah) is a major concept in Judaism, but in a quite different sense than in Christianity. The latter holds that a person's soul needs to be "saved" from its sinful self,

It is not that I am my own enemy, but that real earthly forces threaten me and I need God's protection.

an after-life event, granted by Divine grace as a reward for faith. The Jewish concept sees salvation in earthly, historical terms. It is not that I am my own enemy, but that real earthly forces threaten me and I need God's protection.


This is the theme of many of the psalms, which constantly call upon God to save, i.e., to rescue, us from suffering. The distress is sometimes caused by human transgression, but no one is born automatically or inherently sinful. If we go wrong, then it is because we are careless or rebellious, not because our nature is evil and compels us to sin.


Salvation is the Divine protection that enables us to escape the clutches of real-time trouble.


There is a different, but associated, principle of redemption (ge'ulah). Though this is sometimes in the singular, it is generally in the plural. It is not so much that I, as an individual, am redeemed, but that we all are, as a people.


Redemption is crucial to the messianic fulfilment; Israel is "redeemed" as the first stage in the redemption of the whole of mankind.