Multifaithworld.org

Today’s ReligionDispatches carries an article by Professor Aryeh Cohen of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of American Jewish University.  Cohen does a great job of showing that there is, indeed, a sea change in the Jewish world in the relationship between traditional text study and progressive politics.

My experience in American Jewish communities, dating back to the seventies, confirms Cohen’s claims.  It was rare to find a serious encounter with religious sources going hand-in-hand with left-liberal Jewish activism. The latter was the province of Reform or secular Jews who grounded their thinking less in Talmud than in Kant. The former was pursued almost entirely by Orthodox Jews who were usually conservative or not involved in the political sphere.

According to Cohen—and I happily agree—that situation is changing. Cohen offers a number of examples of Jews who are engaged in “taking back the texts.” He then asks, Why? One reason he notes is of particular interest to readers of this blog. Cohen writes that the move to ground one’s social activism in traditional Jewish text is, among other things, “a way to participate in a multiethnic and interfaith discussion from a grounded Jewish space and in a textured Jewish vocabulary.”

Fascinating! I think Cohen is right.  Much social justice work in this country takes place in coalitions of faith based activists. Religiously inspired Catholics and Protestants have led many of the great social change movements in America, most dramatically the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. When Jews join with Christians to work on issues from homelessness to undocumented immigrants to the environment, they are encouraged and inspired  to bring to the table their own spiritual idioms. They do not want to share the Christian language, but they are moved by Christian faith.  In seeking the language of Talmud, it seems these Jews are looking less  for guidance on issues than a sense of the religious depths from which they hope to act as they  “heal the world.”

Here we see an example of one of the ways interfaith encounter enriches our lives.

Professor Terry Rey, the Chairman of the Religion Department at Temple University, has close personal ties to Haiti. He recently published his reflections in a local newspaper, The Philadelphia Daily News.

I have read many commentators on this issue, but Terry’s thoughts were particularly meaningful and provocative. Thank you, Terry, for taking the time to share your perspective during a time of so much pain.

Terry sent a letter to friends and colleagues that included the full text of what he had submitted to  The Daily News. In his letter, he shared his  regret that the editors  chose to leave off the last paragraph. Since he intended it for publication, I am sharing it here:

I lived in Haiti for a long time; two of my children were born in Haiti to a Haitian mother, my first wife, who tragically died of cancer in 2001. When I learned of the earthquake, I felt very much like I did when I learned of her diagnosis. This horrible tragedy saddens me greatly and my condolences go out to all who have lost loved ones. I fear for our relatives and dear friends in Haiti, most of them in Port-au-Prince, of whom we have little or no news. Our house there may well be destroyed; it is quite near the Montana Hotel, which is itself now rubble. There were as many as 300 people inside when the Montana collapsed. They had no warning. My wife and I would often go there to sip rum punch while watching the sun set over the city and the Bay of Port-au-Prince – the city on the very plain that late yesterday afternoon was all covered with rising smoke and human wailing. The cathedral has largely collapsed. That was a second home for me while I lived in Haiti. I often went to Mass there, or just to pray or do research. I grieve for Archbishop Miot, who died there yesterday, across the street in his office, where once I interviewed him. He blessed my rosary then. This Sunday I will go to a Haitian church – there are about 60 of them here in Philadelphia – to pray with Haitians for Haitians and for Haiti, our Haiti, and to express my solidarity with them. The rosary will be with me, and Msgr. Miot and everyone else will be in my prayers.