Yesterday we heard about how the Groton Interfaith Council visits each others’ religious services and how Amy hopes for more than tolerance. She wants acceptance. I agree. For more than 30 years I have participated in various interfaith dialogue exercises. At Tufts as an undergraduate I taught a class in Jewish Christian relations to freshman. I did an internship with American Jewish Committee helping the local logistics for the National Workshop on Christian Jewish Relations that was held in Boston the spring of my senior year. I wrote a senior honor thesis on the topic of Elder and Younger Brothers in Conversation: Jewish Christian Relations Post 1948.
When I started doing all of this I think I believed that promoting interfaith understanding would help prevent another Holocaust. It was the subject of many arguments with my father.
What I have learned is that participating in dialogue has increased my own understanding of Judaism. Having to explain the nuanced answers to complex theological questions to non-Jews, helps me explain them to Jews. It deepens my own engagement. Along the way I have found tolerance, acceptance, respect and understanding. Along the way I have found partners in social justice issues. Working on a Habitat for Humanity house, writing letters to preserve emergency oil subsidies, providing an interfaith kids camp so that kids could have lunch during the summer, keeping pools open so that kids have a safe place to play in the summer have been rewarding and lead to peace. Having partners in prayer to express gratitude at Thanksgiving or to respond to local or national tragedies have stretched my understanding of the Divine. Speaking at various conferences like Faith in an Age of NASA at University of Massachusetts Lowell help me realize how similar the religions are. There is much to unite us rather than divide us.
When a synagogue I worked in had anti-Semitic graffiti spray painted on it, I called the police, then I called an Episcopal priest and a Catholic director of religious education. They arrived before the police.
Through the years we have laughed together, cried together, celebrated together, mourned together, played volleyball and studied together.
Along the way I found life long friends.