According to Jewish tradition, all human beings are called upon to be holy. In the Book of Leviticus, God, through Moses, tells the Israelite People: “You shall be Holy, for I, the Lord your God, am Holy.”

That verse is sometimes read as a prediction: “If you follow my instructions, you will thereby be holy.”

Sometimes the verse is read as a commandment: “Be holy, by imitating Me; and since I, the Lord your God, am Holy, you will thereby be holy.”

According to proper etiquette, the head of the Roman Catholic Church is supposed to be addressed as “Your Holiness.” Calling someone “Your Holiness,” of course, doesn’t automatically make that person holy. It is a title, and we know from history that many of the individuals who have held the position of pope have been holy only by virtue of that title.

But from a Jewish perspective, there have been two popes in my lifetime whom I think deserve to be called holy, and not just as a courtesy.

The first was Pope John XXIII, who began the process of healing nearly 2,000 years of animosity between Catholics and Jews. His encyclical called “Nostra Aetate” condemned anti-Semitism, and repudiated the ancient libel that the Jews were collectively responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. One of the major supporters of that document was the future Pope John Paul II, who was then a Polish cardinal.

The second pope I refer to is, of course, John Paul II. In the last few weeks, as the pope was dying, and since his death, some people have asked me my opinion of this pope. My response has been that he was the best pope the Jews have ever had.

I know that there are people within the Catholic Church who have had doctrinal disagreements with him; and some of his views, on such issues as birth control and abortion, differ significantly from the Jewish views on these issues.

But in terms of the relationship between the Catholic Church and its teachings, on the one hand, and the Jewish people on the other, John Paul II stands above all of his predecessors, with the single exception of Pope John XXIII.

I believe that this is because John Paul II was the first pope in history for whom Jews were not just an abstract idea, a group to be identified only with the origins, and possibly the death, of Jesus. For John Paul II, born in a small town in Poland, Jews were real people. They were his friends, his neighbors, his classmates, his teammates in sports and fellow Poles. According to one report, he played goalie on the Jewish soccer team in his home town.

Although anti-Semitism was a part of the Polish culture, the future pope did not catch that disease. In fact, the killing of more than 1 million Jews, simply because they were Jews, at Auschwitz, only a few miles from his home town, reportedly marked him for life.

During his papacy, John Paul II did what he could to change the traditional Catholic view of Jews and Judaism.

On his first trip back to Poland as pope in 1979, John Paul went to Auschwitz. When he approached the inscriptions bearing the names of the countries whose citizens had been murdered there, he said: “I kneel before all the inscriptions bearing the memory of the victims in their languages. In particular, I pause before the inscription in Hebrew.

“This inscription awakens the memory of the people whose sons and daughters were intended for total extermination. It is not permissible for anyone to pass by this inscription with indifference.”

In 1986, John Paul II became the first pope since Peter to visit a synagogue. At the Great Synagogue in Rome, he warmly embraced the chief rabbi of Rome, and spoke of the irrevocable covenant between God and the Jews (in contrast to previous church teaching that, since Jesus, the covenant between God and the Jews was no longer in existence). He said to the Jews, “You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a certain way it may be said that you are our elder brothers.”

In 1993, Pope John Paul established diplomatic relations for the first time between the Vatican and the state of Israel. And in 2000, he made a historic formal visit to Israel. He visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s central holocaust memorial and study center; and he went to the Western Wall, that ancient remnant of the Temple Courtyard.

There is a Jewish tradition that a note placed in one of the cracks in that wall will be carried by angels directly to God. John Paul’s note read: “We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of Yours to suffer, and asking Your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the People of the Covenant.”

In the Jewish view, one does not have to be Jewish to be righteous. Any non-Jew who seeks God, and seeks to walk in God’s ways, is described as “a righteous person of the nations of the world.” Pope John Paul II, in his relations to the Jews and to many other non-Catholics in the world, sought God, and sought to walk in God’s ways. He was a righteous person of the nations of the world.

In the Talmud, we are advised to be among the disciples of Aaron, the first high priest, in seeking peace, and pursuing peace, and bringing people close to God. In my opinion, John Paul II was among the disciples of Aaron, in seeking peace between the peoples and the nations of the earth, and thereby bringing people closer to God, each in our own way.

And I will go so far as to say that he may have been one of the 36 righteous people in our generation for whom, according to a Jewish legend, the world exists. According to the legend, the world, as filled with evil as it is, could tempt God to destroy it again, as God did at the time of Noah.

But the story says that as long as there are at least 36 righteous people living in the world the way God wants us to live, God will not destroy the world, for their sakes. According to the story, neither the 36 themselves, nor their relatives, friends and neighbors, know that they are among the 36. And so it is up to each one of us to live as if we are number 36, so that the world will not be destroyed.

Some of our sources say that the story requires the 36 to be Jews. But in the spirit of our Baha’i brothers and sisters, I accept holiness wherever it comes from. There will need to be holiness from many sources in the world if we are to make the world ready for, in the Jewish view, the first and only coming of the Messiah; and in the Christian view, for the second coming.

And it is important to emphasize that it John Paul’s efforts were not limited to bringing Catholics and Jews closer together. His efforts were directed at all peoples and faiths. Throughout his life, as a young man, as a priest, a cardinal and as pope, no one was other to him. He recognized people of all faiths and nationalities as fellow children of God.

John Paul II, like John XXIII before him, lived up to his title of “His Holiness.” He set an example for his successors in how he related to all children of God; and he set an example for us all.

In the Jewish tradition, we honor someone who has died by the wish that his or her memory will be for a blessing. And in the case of a righteous person, even more so.

I honor John Paul II with the hope that the memory of this righteous man will be a blessing for all; and that his example in seeking to bring all the children of God together be remembered, and followed, by all the world.

Rabbi Hillel Katzir is spiritual leader of Temple Shalom Synagogue-Center in Auburn. This article was adapted from a sermon given by Rabbi Katzir on April 8, the day of the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

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