A lot of people advocate “interfaith dialogue” without realizing the incredible demands it places on us. Many interfaith people would be uncomfortable with minority religions and sincere discourse at the table.
I still believe that such dialogue is necessary and vital for a functioning society, if only because we live in a pluralistic world and talking is a substitute for fighting. But it should be approached *very, very carefully*.
I mostly agree. Except talking and fighting are not the only two options. There's also thinking. I often feel like what's needed is not more chatter but more room to hear your own thoughts (says me, blathering on Substack 😊). Face to face in dialogue, how many people actually change their mind and admit defeat? Not many. ... When I think about the Sinai moment, I don't see a dialogue, I see a collective awakening to an entirely different reality. (Followed, of course, by a chat about Covenant: "We will do and we will hear.") That said, it's imperative that people are exposed to other ways of seeing the world and experiencing G*d. I'm just not sure face-to-face interfaith dialogue is the best one.
You’re right: there’s also books, film, the internet. Lots and lots of ways for people to encounter the other.
Interestingly, changing minds has never been the point of interfaith dialogue for me. It’s rather to get to know my neighbor more deeply, and learn from him when I am. It’s about upholding a covenant to my neighbor — I will be hospitable to him, despite our differences, because I am reliant on him being hospitable to me.
But I also understand that such a posture for dialogue is unusual. We want to change minds. It is also impossible to enter into such a neighborly covenant with a community that wants to destroy you.
I made it sound as if I believe that changing minds is the only purpose of dialogue, and it's not. Your right about that. Sometimes it's simply honest, open curiosity about your neighbor. However, disputations like The Disputation are about competing truth claims in a Roman Catholic world that can ultimately accept only one truth. And that's a serious threat to a Jew in 13th-century Aragon.
Related: I'm fascinated by the Church teachings that emerged from Vatican II. On the surface, there were huge breakthroughs re Catholic-Jewish relations. But underneath, the seeds were planted for a dangerous reckoning down the road. It's as if the interfaith dialogue that informed Vatican II failed to address the root cause of the Church's deeply ingrained anti-Semitism.
Agreed- I do believe that with Jews, Christian believers often have the ulterior motive of achieving conversion and/or winning the day. Christians want to be vindicated that their god Jesus is real. Or the whole thing falls apart. Then it’s bad for the Jews.
Don’t forget that those who converted continued to be persecuted- by the SpanishInquisition- that is, it became about race, not just religion, for the first time.
Absolutely right. ... Years ago I read A History of the Spanish Inquisition, written by Benjamin Netanyahu's father. The short version: "It doesn't matter what Jews say or do or believe, we will always be hated." I don't believe that, but it helps to explain why Bibi behaves the way he does.
There was an absurd string of hateful persecution during that dark time (even darker than now). The British Anglicans were extremely violent in their persecution of Catholics while in Spain the Catholics were even worse in their persecution of Jews. Shameful and an example to be referenced when contemplating how politicians can use religion for their own craven purposes, too often with the cooperation of religious “leaders”.
I think your principle, however, is wider than interfaith dialogue. It shows why any discussion about religion is futile if truth is the objective. eg Religious Jews love to debate religion, yet always reach the same official conclusions. Now there is religious truth but you are obliged to debate with yourself for it to be meaningful.
Good piece. I have always felt that interfaith dialogues are essentially a tithe that minority religions need to pay to the majority ones. Faux respect is required to prevent persecution.
Thanks, Nachum. I'm embarrassed it took me so long to figure out something most people (like you) knew long ago. What drove the point home for me has been the religious debates I've had with friends. The discussion always begins in a friendly way, but very quickly it becomes apparent that the stakes are very high. One wrong move and it can all come crashing down. ... My new goal is to keep such conversations to a minimum.
The Story *is* the problem because the Story is now in danger of running us off a cliff. Which leaves us with two optinos: Scrap the Story because it causes problems. Or: Come up with a next chapter that we all want to inhabit. You seem to opt for the first; I lean into the second. ...
Generally speaking, wiping the slate clean, resetting the clock to Year One, and starting over from scratch hasn't worked. One reason I'm intrigued by the Jewish Story is it begins at the beginning -- with the creation of everything, and maintain narrative continuity (more or less). Yes, there's a reset with Noah, bu the slate is not wiped completely clean; Noah & family & a lot of critters manage to escape the deluge and begin again, along with a Promise: "I'll never burn it all down again," sayeth the Lord. "Whatever Story we tell together is the one we'll run with."
You sound like a narrative therapist who once told me: "A good story is better than a bad story. But no story is better than a good story." (which is a strange thing to hear from a narrative therapist)
A discussion participant being in a "minority" seems to me as not being a decisive or permanent point that endangers participants; otherwise we wouldn´t have for example people defined as "minorities" everywhere from which significant parts of "the majority" even seem to be kind of obsessed, getting cherished and favoured - as long as they keep up to expectations.
The point and the danger lies in and develops from constructing "majority"/"minority" and all kind of "groups". From their first childhood days, people get "educated" and accustomed to sort in, out and off human beings into "groups", towards which they develop certain "expectations", they have to be this way/that way, otherwise the well-sorted perceivance of "reality" gets disturbed.
"You cannot" value, enjoy and appreciate "Classical Music, "Jazz", "Dance Music", "Gospel", "Punk", "Ethnical" music etc. at the same time; "you cannot" at the same time (dis)approve of Kamala and Donny, "you have to decide" etc.
People don´t get educated and accustomed to for example seeing so-called "minorities" as in 99,99 % the same as the so-called "majority", with just one or two special "characteristics", a few special abilities or "dropouts" sorting them "out" and getting them labelled as being "not like you & me", or not "normal", for example if it may seem to promise "advantages" when it comes to "attracting voters" and "raising one's profile".
That applies to all people, all around the world, to Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindu, Buddhists,Black, White, Yellow, Brown, "Leftists", "Liberals", "Rightists" etc. etc.
And this "We" are "We", and "they" are "them" can always ever be easily recalled when forming "Parties" of all kind. *Everyone* can so find himself quite easily as being sorted as a "minority" and getting offended.
This will be the case as long as not the "majority", or better all, of human beings get educated and affirmed in that one belief: "We" will never be "the same", we are parts of broken pieces, and if we eliminate one part, we all let break and die one more piece of us.
It’s important to remember, in reading the New Testament, that almost all of it was written by Jews with the target audience primarily being the Jewish communities in Palestine and around the Mediterranean. The Apostle Paul, a Jewish Pharisee and citizen of Rome, wrote a great deal of this, with the general thrust being that adherents to Jewish law had a special place with God under the New Covenant that the Jewish Carpenter brought to us, but that this Covenant was so powerful that even Gentiles were its beneficiaries.
We cannot count on members of the media to discuss any of this coherently since among the many things they have read, the Old and New Testaments aren’t among them.
As we see now in Israel and Palestine, the rest of the Middle East, Africa, the US, the UK and elsewhere in Europe, India/Pakistan, etc, religion goes way off the rails when it becomes conflated with tribalism/nationalism as driven by political leaders focused only on their own interests while aided and abetted by religious “leaders”. These “leaders” are so misguided that they make their own religious causes forces for evil rather than good.
The illegal (under Israel’s laws) storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by right wing Jews yesterday was a classic example of the antithesis of interfaith dialogue. It was fueled only by tribal hatred. Of course, Israeli police as directed by hate-based political leaders (Israel’s Minister of National Security and notorious hater Ben-Gvir was a leader of the assault) feigned being unable to stop the incursion.
Thanks for this, Dan. I (mostly) agree. When I watch guys like Ben-Gvir, I always want to ask: What's the plan? Is the goal to rebuild the Third Temple? Reinstate animal sacrifices? When you tell the Story of the Jewish people, are Christians and Muslims chopped liver? (That is, peripheral and not especially important.) The brilliance of post-Second Temple Judaism is that the rabbis had to figure out a Next Chapter that was consistent with all that came before -- not unlike Paul, who, by hitching the whole Story to Christ, was doing much the same thing. Jews and Christians diverge at that point, of course. But it's a tiny minority of people (I think) who dream of razing Al-Aqsa and bringing in the contractors to erect the Third Temple. That's a plot twist that leads to disaster.
Well, not entirely clickbait: The Disputation asks precisely that question. And I put the title in quotes. That said, yeah, it was a tad provocative, especially for the people who read my Substack. ... As for that video I posted of me lifting up my dog to the tune of The Lion King -- I imagined you sitting in Israel and looking at the coastline (Maine), and pining just a tiny bit for a New England summer. :-)
I don’t know. I immediately guessed Maine. So there’s that. I don’t know an Israeli that wants to be anywhere but here right now. I’m sure there are, but I don’t know any. I think that a stress-free life for a Jew is a chimera.
Very true. Maine is beautiful, but not stress free, at least for me. The stuff we chat & write about here is always on my mind. There is no escape, not as long as we're alive and conscious.
Dan great book about that time in Spain: The Dogs of God about how the crown funded the reconquista last phase by despoiling the conversos and Jews of Spain . Can’t recall the author. Good article !!!
Jews haven’t missed any remnants of their faith or identity they’re just fine the way they are. All this effort at dialogue last 500 years, and here we are today, defending barbaric Hamas and projecting the new CRT DEI religion on Jewish people .
I don’t mean to put words in to Jonathan‘s mouth, but I think what he was trying to say is that none of us can see the full picture and completely understand whatever the Divine purpose might be. Each one of us is created in the image of God, so each one of us holds a piece of the big puzzle. No one can claim to possess the whole thing.
A lot of people advocate “interfaith dialogue” without realizing the incredible demands it places on us. Many interfaith people would be uncomfortable with minority religions and sincere discourse at the table.
I still believe that such dialogue is necessary and vital for a functioning society, if only because we live in a pluralistic world and talking is a substitute for fighting. But it should be approached *very, very carefully*.
I mostly agree. Except talking and fighting are not the only two options. There's also thinking. I often feel like what's needed is not more chatter but more room to hear your own thoughts (says me, blathering on Substack 😊). Face to face in dialogue, how many people actually change their mind and admit defeat? Not many. ... When I think about the Sinai moment, I don't see a dialogue, I see a collective awakening to an entirely different reality. (Followed, of course, by a chat about Covenant: "We will do and we will hear.") That said, it's imperative that people are exposed to other ways of seeing the world and experiencing G*d. I'm just not sure face-to-face interfaith dialogue is the best one.
You’re right: there’s also books, film, the internet. Lots and lots of ways for people to encounter the other.
Interestingly, changing minds has never been the point of interfaith dialogue for me. It’s rather to get to know my neighbor more deeply, and learn from him when I am. It’s about upholding a covenant to my neighbor — I will be hospitable to him, despite our differences, because I am reliant on him being hospitable to me.
But I also understand that such a posture for dialogue is unusual. We want to change minds. It is also impossible to enter into such a neighborly covenant with a community that wants to destroy you.
I made it sound as if I believe that changing minds is the only purpose of dialogue, and it's not. Your right about that. Sometimes it's simply honest, open curiosity about your neighbor. However, disputations like The Disputation are about competing truth claims in a Roman Catholic world that can ultimately accept only one truth. And that's a serious threat to a Jew in 13th-century Aragon.
Related: I'm fascinated by the Church teachings that emerged from Vatican II. On the surface, there were huge breakthroughs re Catholic-Jewish relations. But underneath, the seeds were planted for a dangerous reckoning down the road. It's as if the interfaith dialogue that informed Vatican II failed to address the root cause of the Church's deeply ingrained anti-Semitism.
https://outofbabel.substack.com/p/when-push-comes-to-shove
Oh! Wonderful, thank you so much for sharing. I’m off to bed, but will save that article to read.
*and learn from him when I can.
Hate that I can’t edit comment typos
Agreed- I do believe that with Jews, Christian believers often have the ulterior motive of achieving conversion and/or winning the day. Christians want to be vindicated that their god Jesus is real. Or the whole thing falls apart. Then it’s bad for the Jews.
Don’t forget that those who converted continued to be persecuted- by the SpanishInquisition- that is, it became about race, not just religion, for the first time.
Absolutely right. ... Years ago I read A History of the Spanish Inquisition, written by Benjamin Netanyahu's father. The short version: "It doesn't matter what Jews say or do or believe, we will always be hated." I don't believe that, but it helps to explain why Bibi behaves the way he does.
There was an absurd string of hateful persecution during that dark time (even darker than now). The British Anglicans were extremely violent in their persecution of Catholics while in Spain the Catholics were even worse in their persecution of Jews. Shameful and an example to be referenced when contemplating how politicians can use religion for their own craven purposes, too often with the cooperation of religious “leaders”.
Great piece Alan!
I think your principle, however, is wider than interfaith dialogue. It shows why any discussion about religion is futile if truth is the objective. eg Religious Jews love to debate religion, yet always reach the same official conclusions. Now there is religious truth but you are obliged to debate with yourself for it to be meaningful.
From Daniel (Aragon resident)
Good piece. I have always felt that interfaith dialogues are essentially a tithe that minority religions need to pay to the majority ones. Faux respect is required to prevent persecution.
Thanks, Nachum. I'm embarrassed it took me so long to figure out something most people (like you) knew long ago. What drove the point home for me has been the religious debates I've had with friends. The discussion always begins in a friendly way, but very quickly it becomes apparent that the stakes are very high. One wrong move and it can all come crashing down. ... My new goal is to keep such conversations to a minimum.
What if stories aren't the solution, but the problem?
The Story *is* the problem because the Story is now in danger of running us off a cliff. Which leaves us with two optinos: Scrap the Story because it causes problems. Or: Come up with a next chapter that we all want to inhabit. You seem to opt for the first; I lean into the second. ...
Generally speaking, wiping the slate clean, resetting the clock to Year One, and starting over from scratch hasn't worked. One reason I'm intrigued by the Jewish Story is it begins at the beginning -- with the creation of everything, and maintain narrative continuity (more or less). Yes, there's a reset with Noah, bu the slate is not wiped completely clean; Noah & family & a lot of critters manage to escape the deluge and begin again, along with a Promise: "I'll never burn it all down again," sayeth the Lord. "Whatever Story we tell together is the one we'll run with."
I'm just trying to add another angle to consider.
There is the "this story" vs. "that story" game of course.
There can also be "story" vs. "no story".
You sound like a narrative therapist who once told me: "A good story is better than a bad story. But no story is better than a good story." (which is a strange thing to hear from a narrative therapist)
https://towers.substack.com/p/interview-harry-rieckelman?utm_source=publication-search (AUDIO)
As we've seen, it's possible to have a story about the limits of stories. :-)
A discussion participant being in a "minority" seems to me as not being a decisive or permanent point that endangers participants; otherwise we wouldn´t have for example people defined as "minorities" everywhere from which significant parts of "the majority" even seem to be kind of obsessed, getting cherished and favoured - as long as they keep up to expectations.
The point and the danger lies in and develops from constructing "majority"/"minority" and all kind of "groups". From their first childhood days, people get "educated" and accustomed to sort in, out and off human beings into "groups", towards which they develop certain "expectations", they have to be this way/that way, otherwise the well-sorted perceivance of "reality" gets disturbed.
"You cannot" value, enjoy and appreciate "Classical Music, "Jazz", "Dance Music", "Gospel", "Punk", "Ethnical" music etc. at the same time; "you cannot" at the same time (dis)approve of Kamala and Donny, "you have to decide" etc.
People don´t get educated and accustomed to for example seeing so-called "minorities" as in 99,99 % the same as the so-called "majority", with just one or two special "characteristics", a few special abilities or "dropouts" sorting them "out" and getting them labelled as being "not like you & me", or not "normal", for example if it may seem to promise "advantages" when it comes to "attracting voters" and "raising one's profile".
That applies to all people, all around the world, to Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindu, Buddhists,Black, White, Yellow, Brown, "Leftists", "Liberals", "Rightists" etc. etc.
And this "We" are "We", and "they" are "them" can always ever be easily recalled when forming "Parties" of all kind. *Everyone* can so find himself quite easily as being sorted as a "minority" and getting offended.
This will be the case as long as not the "majority", or better all, of human beings get educated and affirmed in that one belief: "We" will never be "the same", we are parts of broken pieces, and if we eliminate one part, we all let break and die one more piece of us.
It’s important to remember, in reading the New Testament, that almost all of it was written by Jews with the target audience primarily being the Jewish communities in Palestine and around the Mediterranean. The Apostle Paul, a Jewish Pharisee and citizen of Rome, wrote a great deal of this, with the general thrust being that adherents to Jewish law had a special place with God under the New Covenant that the Jewish Carpenter brought to us, but that this Covenant was so powerful that even Gentiles were its beneficiaries.
We cannot count on members of the media to discuss any of this coherently since among the many things they have read, the Old and New Testaments aren’t among them.
As we see now in Israel and Palestine, the rest of the Middle East, Africa, the US, the UK and elsewhere in Europe, India/Pakistan, etc, religion goes way off the rails when it becomes conflated with tribalism/nationalism as driven by political leaders focused only on their own interests while aided and abetted by religious “leaders”. These “leaders” are so misguided that they make their own religious causes forces for evil rather than good.
The illegal (under Israel’s laws) storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by right wing Jews yesterday was a classic example of the antithesis of interfaith dialogue. It was fueled only by tribal hatred. Of course, Israeli police as directed by hate-based political leaders (Israel’s Minister of National Security and notorious hater Ben-Gvir was a leader of the assault) feigned being unable to stop the incursion.
Thanks for this, Dan. I (mostly) agree. When I watch guys like Ben-Gvir, I always want to ask: What's the plan? Is the goal to rebuild the Third Temple? Reinstate animal sacrifices? When you tell the Story of the Jewish people, are Christians and Muslims chopped liver? (That is, peripheral and not especially important.) The brilliance of post-Second Temple Judaism is that the rabbis had to figure out a Next Chapter that was consistent with all that came before -- not unlike Paul, who, by hitching the whole Story to Christ, was doing much the same thing. Jews and Christians diverge at that point, of course. But it's a tiny minority of people (I think) who dream of razing Al-Aqsa and bringing in the contractors to erect the Third Temple. That's a plot twist that leads to disaster.
As always, your thoughtful input is valued! I learn….
Same here!
Clickbait title! 🙂 Other than that, a solid piece, Alan.
Well, not entirely clickbait: The Disputation asks precisely that question. And I put the title in quotes. That said, yeah, it was a tad provocative, especially for the people who read my Substack. ... As for that video I posted of me lifting up my dog to the tune of The Lion King -- I imagined you sitting in Israel and looking at the coastline (Maine), and pining just a tiny bit for a New England summer. :-)
I don’t know. I immediately guessed Maine. So there’s that. I don’t know an Israeli that wants to be anywhere but here right now. I’m sure there are, but I don’t know any. I think that a stress-free life for a Jew is a chimera.
Very true. Maine is beautiful, but not stress free, at least for me. The stuff we chat & write about here is always on my mind. There is no escape, not as long as we're alive and conscious.
Understood. But, since you are there, now, enjoy it! Maybe go screen-free for a while. We’ll hold the fort. :)
Great post m
Dan great book about that time in Spain: The Dogs of God about how the crown funded the reconquista last phase by despoiling the conversos and Jews of Spain . Can’t recall the author. Good article !!!
Jews haven’t missed any remnants of their faith or identity they’re just fine the way they are. All this effort at dialogue last 500 years, and here we are today, defending barbaric Hamas and projecting the new CRT DEI religion on Jewish people .
I don’t mean to put words in to Jonathan‘s mouth, but I think what he was trying to say is that none of us can see the full picture and completely understand whatever the Divine purpose might be. Each one of us is created in the image of God, so each one of us holds a piece of the big puzzle. No one can claim to possess the whole thing.