A Jew maintains that no one can atone for a sin except for the sinner. The relevant Jewish viewpoint has been that you don't send another party to jail for someone else’s crime. Nor may another person stand in for or take upon him or herself the misdeeds and transgressions committed by someone else. That would not reflect the concept of justice, at the heart of a covenant. It is a purely Christian idea that we cannot realize our own atonement because we were conceived in original sin and, in a fallen world, are incapable of overcoming our sinful nature without a surrogate who is a Savior.
The Jewish tradition teaches that a sin is a wrongful act not an inherited or intrinsic condition and that everyone is conceived morally neutral - born with a good urge and an evil urge – a yetzer tov and a yetzer ra. Consequently, a parent's job is to cultivate and train the good drive in a child to predominate. It is up to the children themselves, however, (as it is up to all of us) to conduct their lives according to their understanding of God’s will and to do so increasingly on their own as they grow. Most important, in Judaism sin is not original and you don’t come by it automatically ‑ you have to earn it! You start out with a blank slate, and what you write on it is your own composition for good or otherwise.
For Jews, as for many Christians, what you do, not what you think, is what counts. Action not words. At virtually every synagogue service Jews recite, often aloud and in unison, the biblical words of the Shma text, the core of the service, “Be mindful of all my Mitzvot, and do them; so shall you consecrate yourself to your God.” By what you do!
Judaism teaches that God would prefer an atheist who does good deeds to deeply faithful disciples of the Lord who fail to translate good thoughts into conduct. Many Christians would feel the same way - not surprising given the Jewish roots of Christianity. For Jews bad thoughts are of no consequence if one does not act on them. The tenth commandment is interpreted by tradition to mean that If you covet your neighbor's wife but keep your hands to yourself, no sin has occurred. And justice requires that sin never be inherited ‑ that would not be just. To this way of thinking, therefore, a Savior is unnecessary and “gets in the way” of reaching up directly to the Source of the ultimate.
In any case, to a Jew the idea simply does not make sense that even if you have led an exceptionally moral life, a loving God would not let you into Heaven, if Heaven exists, because you don't have the right thinking/beliefs. Such a notion, from the Jewish perspective, is not consistent with human equity or our sense of fairness. A Jew’s religion is founded upon the concept of “brit” a covenant, a contract, based on justice.
Christianity teaches that salvation is awarded by God's grace alone and cannot be earned in any way ‑ it is a pure benefaction. That is what makes God great in compassion. God in His grace sent His only begotten Son to die for us on the cross so we can be absolved of our sins and enter Heaven. On the other hand, Judaism, is founded upon a covenant and therefore intellectually at war with such a notion. Judaism understands the covenant conception as a binding contract (brit) that “we enter into with one another and God, the details of which are in the Torah”. And this covenant, like all contracts, is based not on grace or mercy but on fairness and justice as defined by a negotiated relational interaction - or a negotiated interactive relationship (“I-Thou”) - between God and man. And that relationship is disclosed or “revealed” in the words, verses and chapters of the Torah Teaching Text.
The small print of the contract – writ large as Torah/Judaism - tells us how to live. If we follow it – Torah/Judaism - we may not necessarily achieve salvation in the next world – because a world following this one may not be real. It is not even a subject brought up in the Hebrew Bible. But this world is assuredly and unquestionably real. And we, its denizens, must do what we can to create a good and moral world right here on Earth – a messianic kingdom.
In fact, Jews often say, “the next world (if it exists at all) will take care of itself. Meaning, if it does exist and if I live, as a decent person should, I’ll be there too, as will all people of good will from all the nations of the world. But the focus of right minded and good hearted people must be directed on what we do here.”
> In short, Christianity and most believing Christians have an otherworldly emphasis. Some Christians understand “the “Kingdom” to be not of this world in the sense that it is a spiritual kingdom. Judaism and most Jews have a this-worldly focus and orientation. Over the centuries, the this-worldly/other-worldly distinction has become a rather high profile contrast. It is listed prominently among the polarities – the schedule that we have referred to below as “issues of contrast.” (This schedule has been organized to help us compare Judaism and Christianity’s opposing attitudes towards the world and towards our understanding of our selves in the world.) Theologies, by their very nature, come at you from angles of opposition.