The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue

Over the course of any given school year, Solel is host to numerous grade 11 classes from the Catholic School board. As part of their world religions studies, the students are taught about various world religions, the customs, the rituals, and the theology of the many faiths that are part of the community in which they live. These students are given the opportunity to come into our places of worship, hear from our leadership, and learn how to understand, and respect the many different world religions.

As we begin each session with the students, as many as 150 at a time, I am so proud of how well prepared they are to learn more about Judaism. They are eager to understand the roots they share with Judaism, and how, even though there was a parting of the ways some 2000 years ago, the roots are still strong and firm. We begin each session, especially at this time, by pointing out the meaningful passage from Proverbs 3:17 that we have over our ark: “All its paths are peace.” Particularly, in this most difficult time, we remind them that we are all human beings, that we were all created in God’s image and that all words of scripture should lead to peace. We spend a little bit of time actually teaching them how to read the word “shalom” because it’s an easy word for them to recognize, especially since the shin looks like the Vulcan hand greeting that Leonard Nimoy used as his greeting on the old Star Trek series to say hello and goodbye and peace! (The students know Star Trek!)

We point out to the students those many roots that we share. We share a scripture, which they call the Old Testament, and we call the Hebrew scripture. We share a cadre of stories, like the story of creation, or Noah’s Ark, or the Exodus from Egypt. We share a concept of biblical history based on the belief of one God having brought the world into existence from what was “unformed and chaos”. And most importantly we share, not just 10, but many, many commandments- ethical and moral – that God gave us in order to create a liveable and functioning, caring, just world! In addition to the “Ten Commandments”, we all are commanded to leave the corners of our fields unplowed for the homeless, the needy, the orphan and the widow. The first commandment to Adam is to be fruitful and multiply. We have a responsibility to have or at least take care of the world’s children. Adam is commanded to take care of the earth. We too must take care of the earth, the environment.

We then talk about the parting of the ways, when the roots grew into an amazing tree, with many branches. Our theological parting took place some 2000 years ago with the concept of whether or not the messiah had come. Our differing narratives develop from that point on. Christianity finds a new direction, based on the belief that Jesus is the Messiah (hence the New Testament or Christian scriptures). We do not have the Christian scriptures as our path, rather we have the Talmud and the growing body of Rabbinical commentary. And even in our differences, there are similarities. Though each place of worship may have a different name- mosque, church, gurdwara – they all are used in the same way as a synagogue – Beit Knesset (house of meeting), Beit Tefillah (house of prayer) and Beit Midrash (a house of study). We look at the distinguishing features of a synagogue, in particular, the mezuzah on the doorpost. Each place of worship has its identifying characteristics. We talk about what is contained in the mezzuzah, a klaf (piece of parchment) on which is written, by hand, by a scribe with a quill pen, words from Deuteronomy – “Hear O Israel Adonai is our God. God is One. You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.” God may have many different names, but God is One. We reference that this statement of faith is something we share we our Christian neighbours because it’s not only found in Deuteronomy, but also in the Christian scriptures, in Mark, chapter 12: 28 to 30. When Jesus is asked: “Teacher, what is the first commandment?” Jesus responds with the words of the Sh’ma. Jesus was born, lived, and died as a Jew. We may not believe in him as the messiah, but he is part of our story. We hope, in giving students an understanding of Judaism, in letting them actually meet us, we are building bridges of understanding and respect, in particular, at this time, when there is so much misunderstanding, and so little respect.

There are, in the Catholic system, several Muslim students in attendance, and we are very cognizant of their challenges right now, being in a synagogue, but we never address politics. Our mandate in these tours is religion, faith, respect and humanity. We point out that we share with Islam many adages, including” if one takes even one life, it’s as if one has destroyed the entire world; none of us should be put in a position where we have to take any life. We also point out that it’s with Islam that we share many rituals, such as the circumcision of our male children, many of the rituals involved in Kashrut that are similar to Halal , and burial rituals , such as the avoidance of embalming and cremation, the washing of the body after death , and burial as soon as possible.

Of course, we explain many of our holidays. The one they’re most interested is Hanukah! We explain that the miracle of Hanukah the light that kept burning is the light of survival, the light of being a people that pray to one God, in the manner the people wish, without being forced to give up one’s faith. Different paths can exist side by side! We conclude our tour in the foyer learning about the “Tattooed Torah and the impact that the Holocaust had and still has on world’s Jews, this minority of minorities, 1/4 of 1% of the world population, which suffered the loss of 6 million people, whose only offence was that they were Jews. We talk about the tragedy of the Holocaust, that took, as well, the lives of the LGBTQ community, the handicapped, the mentally challenged, the black community, and any political opponents of Naziism. That Torah is a stark reminder of hatred unleashed. There must be a realization that it is necessary for all of us to stop hatred, to stop anger, to stop attacks, to stop kidnapping, to stop killing. We remind them that, if we’re all made in the image of God- b’tzelem Elohim- we should not hate or try to harm any other human being, and we leave them with the prayer, the hope, the possibility that we should export the togetherness and community and respect that we have had in Canada not import the hatred and divisiveness that’s tearing the world apart. What’s happening in other places in the world we can’t, as teachers and students fix, but we can fix what’s going wrong here in Canada. We hope, by the end of the visit, that we have some young allies, that they respect us, and they will go out and really echo the message that all its paths should be paths of peace!

Filed under: Educator's Message

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