In lieu of Dvar Torah
I saw Menachem Kellner of the University of Haifa speak last night. He distinguished Christian and Jewish attitudes towards salvation: Christianity originally believed that man is naturally damned and earns salvation only through divine grace- which leads to the view that salvation is only available through the Church (whatever church one favors, of course*). By contrast, Jews believe that man starts off with a clean slate and thus can earn salvation.

He also made some broader points. He asserted that Biblical Hebrew (and thus the Torah) is far less abstract than Christianity or Islam. For example, when Maimonides' VERY abstract "Guide for the Perplexed" was translated into Hebrew, hundreds of words were added to make sense of it.

Why is the Torah so concrete, and also so uninterested in afterlife and related issues? Because the Torah is interested in maximizing holiness in THIS LIFE - words to ponder for this pre-Rosh Hashanah season.

And why is the Torah more interested in mitzvot than in doctrine? Becuase it is much more important to live with each other than to agree with each other. Because Christianity is more interested in ideological agreement, each disagreement leads to a new denomination- they have thousands,** Jews only four (or five or six, if you count Jewish Renewal or Secular Judaism as a separate denomination).***

*Thus Mel Gibson's statement that his wife was unlikely to achieve salvation because she is an Episcopalian.

**Though of course this is a relatively recent development- Christianity did have some splits before the Reformation, but I don't know how frequent they were. I would guess that in most places at most times there was only one type of Christianity.

**Not that there aren't plenty of philosophical arguments between Jews. But Rambam and Ramban, despite their disagreements, could pray in the same minyan (if they lived in the same place at the same time, that is).