Salvation

A Jew talks about salvation:

Jews, however, have never adopted the individualistic concept of salvation that marks Christian theology, where salvation is granted on an individual basis to those who accept Jesus as their savior. Judaism, from its earliest stages, has been marked by a collective approach to redemption, rather than individual one to salvation: We pray together to witness the coming of the Messiah, to be taken up as a people to our Holy Land. We pray for God to hear our prayers. This is why Jewish liturgy is phrased almost exclusively in the plural. "Forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement." Judaism is a religion of the "we," not the "I."

In short, I tried to explain to my classmate that Jews don’t need Jesus. We don’t need someone to hold us when we fall short, we don’t need someone to "save" us because we have each other. Jews recognize that our fate is collective: we rise or fall together. This is the basis of the famous Talmudic saying, "kol Yisrael aravim zeh ba-zeh"–"all Israel is responsible for one another." (B. Shevuot 39a) We gain strength from knowing we can lean on others when in need, and gain responsibility from knowing that others lean on us. Hand-in-hand, with God’s help, we help each other reach our collective destiny, a destiny of redemption that rests with God, not with a personal savior.

Lots of Christians also don't believe that Jesus came to save us. He came to show us the Way. We don't need him to save us; we are perfectly capable of following him. There is sometimes a huge gap between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of Christian doctrine.