CPWR - Interview with Rabbi Or Rose

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions

> An Interview with Rabbi Or Rose

> Rabbi Or Rose

Recently, we spoke with Rabbi Rose on new innovations in interfaith
education within the seminary context, the future of the
interreligious movement and what it means to live on the ?growing
edge? of life.

CPWR:  We are here today with Rabbi Or Rose, who we are grateful to
for sharing some of his time while he is in Chicago.  Rabbi Or Rose
assisted in developing the Jewish programming for the 2009 Parliament.

He is the Associate Dean and Director of Informal Education at the
Rabbinical School of Hebrew School.  Or is also a writer and social
activist and has recently co-edited a book entitled, Righteous
Indignation, A Jewish Call for Justice (Jewish Lights Publishing).
His next book, also a co-edited volume, is Jewish Mysticism and the
Spiritual Life: Classical Texts, Contemporary Reflections (Jewish
Lights, Fall 2010).

CPWR:In your work as an interfaith activist you have helped to launch
a number of innovative programs.  How did you become involved with
this movement?
OR: My involvement with the interfaith movement began with my family.
I am blessed to come from a family in which both my mother and father
were deeply engaged with interfaith efforts as far back as I can
remember.  Among the many things I value about my parents was their
ability to communicate to my siblings and me a great love for Judaism
and an openness to learning from people from different religious
backgrounds.  My brothers, sister, and I all went to Jewish day
schools and summer camps and took many trips to Israel. The rhythms of
the Jewish calendar guided our family life.  At the same time, my
parents were in regular conversation with spiritual seekers from other
traditions.  In fact, one of the most vivid memories I have from my
childhood is celebrating Passover?the great Jewish festival of
liberation?with my family and an eclectic group of Jewish, Protestant,
Catholic, Sufi, and Humanist guests.

CPWR: Please share with us a teaching from your religious tradition
that helps guide your work as an interfaith leader?
OR: There is a famous story in the Talmud about two heroes of early
Rabbinic culture, Hillel and Shammai. The legend goes that these great
sages were involved in an intense debate about a particular legal
issue for three years?going back and forth, yes and no, discussing
every imaginable answer. In a dramatic moment in the tale, a divine
voice breaks through and states, ?These and these are the words of the
living God.?  Which is to say, God?s truth is greater than anything we
can conceive of or articulate.  No one person or community possesses
absolute truth.  It is a wonderful teaching about the need for a
plurality of voices in the human search for truth and meaning, and the
need for humility in this search.

The story continues and takes another interesting turn. The ancient
rabbis ask, ?But if both are words of the living God, why is it that
the law follows Hillel??  The answer is that Hillel was kind, modest,
and careful to state the position of his opponent before stating his
own position. This is a very powerful example of how to engage in
serious and respectful dialogue.  Remember, these rabbis debated for
three years, each arguing passionately for his position.  Hillel
teaches us how to do so humanely.

While this story takes place within an exclusively Jewish context, I
believe that it can also serve as a model for interaction across
religious traditions.  We must learn how to engage in honest
conversation, how to agree and disagree, and how to work together for
the common good.

CPWR: In one of your presentations at the Parliament, you used an
intriguing phrase to describe your approach to Judaism.  You spoke
about the need to live on ?the growing edge? of your tradition?
OR: Yes.  This is a phrase from my beloved teacher Rabbi Zalman
Schachter-Shalomi.  Reb Zalman (as he is affectionately called)
distinguishes between the ?cutting edge? and the ?growing edge.?   ?I
am not interested in the cutting edge,? he says, ?because we don?t
want to cut ourselves off from all that is beautiful and wise from the
past. Like a tree, we need to be firmly rooted in the ground, but our
branches must extend forth and touch the world around us.?  Another
great modern Jewish thinker, Abraham Joshua Heschel put it this way:
?We must be both inheritors and innovators.?  Of course, living this
teaching requires constant care and refinement, knowing when to remain
continuous with existing traditions and when to change.

CPWR: How do understand the significance of this teaching for your
interfaith work?
OR: I feel called to participate in interfaith dialogue and action as
part of the great human project of tikkun olam, of healing our broken
world.  This involves humbly sharing with others the wisdom of my
religious tradition and learning from other religious and secular
traditions.  I view my interfaith work as a way of walking in Hillel?s
footsteps.

CPWR: Speaking of tikkun olam, I want to thank you for your role in
hosting the national CIRCLE interfaith conference last spring.  It was
a very meaningful gathering for me because of the depth of the
dialogue and because of the opportunity to be shoulder-to-shoulder
with several luminaries of the interreligious movement.  Please share
with us your experience of the conference.
OR: I have the great pleasure of teaching at the Rabbinical School of
Hebrew College, one of the few trans-denominational Jewish seminaries
in the country. We are also located next to Andover Newton Theological
School. The fact of our proximity has allowed us to explore a wide
range of interfaith educational initiatives, including joint academic
courses, holiday gatherings, and service learning programs.  We are
consciously seeking to create a holistic model so that members of our
communities can meet and learn from one another in different contexts.

One manifestation of this wonderful partnership was the national
conference we held in April 2010.  In collaboration with the Boston
Theological Institute, we brought together approximately 100 scholars,
educators, activists and students involved in North American seminary
education to explore the question of how best to educate future
religious leaders for service in a multi-religious world.  What do our
graduates need to know about interfaith dialogue and action to lead
their communities effectively in the twenty-first century?  As you
said, it was a joy to welcome this amazing group of veteran and young
leaders to our campus.  It was both a powerful interfaith and
intergenerational experience.  I was very impressed with the
willingness of the participants to openly share their best practices
and their challenges.  There was very little posturing and a lot of
honest conversation.

CPWR: To date, much of your work at Hebrew College has been focused on
Jewish?Christian dialogue and action.  Please share some of the
blessings and challenges of this arrangement.
OR: The blessing, of course, is that with Andover Newton as our
neighbor we have opportunities for rich and sustained conversation and
action.  We can study together, eat together, rally together, and play
together because of our proximity and because we have cultivated this
relationship carefully.  But in such situations, one has to be careful
not to inadvertently cultivate a new triumphalist sensibility.  We
have to be careful not to create yet another exclusivist situation in
which Jews and Christians are in and others are out.  This is why we
are in active conversation with other organizations and institutions
about the possibility of creating new partnerships.

CPWR: Given your experience with Andover Newton, do you think the
presence of the religious ?other? is necessary for a well-rounded
seminary experience?
OR: I think it is important for several reasons: When seminarians
engage across religious lines, they have the opportunity to share
their beliefs, values, and practices with people outside of their
usual circles of conversation.  This requires that they reflect
carefully on their religious commitments and articulate them with
clarity.  At the same time, students have the opportunity to learn
about the spiritual journeys of their peers and about some of the
riches of other spiritual traditions.  If these encounters are
successful, students can explore their similarities and differences,
learn how to agree and to disagree, and how to work together on issues
of common concern.

CPWR: Interestingly, at one of the sessions at the national CIRCLE
conference, a colleague spoke about the fact that it is often easier
for your students to discuss what they have in common than it is to
talk about their differences.  Do you agree?  If so, why do you think
this is the case?
OR: I agree with that observation.  I think it is often more difficult
for our students (and faculty) to articulate their differences because
we are still so wounded by the legacy of past conflicts between
Christians and Jews.  So we want to be careful to treat each other
gently and respectfully.  But we also need to help each other say,
?This is why I disagree.?  The question is whether we can then live
into deeper relationship, knowing that we?re going to continue to
disagree about some issues of real consequence.  If we can stay the
course, we actually have the opportunity to experience each other?s
humanity more fully.

CPWR: You have been involved in a number of different interfaith
educational endeavors.  Recently, you were at the 2009 Parliament in
Melbourne, and in addition to leading an observance and speaking, you
helped to coordinate the program Educating Religious Leaders for a
Multi-Religious World. Can you speak to us a little bit about this
experience of bringing together seminary students and faculty from
across the United States for this unique experience?
OR: It was a joy. I had the privilege of working with a number of very
talented people in organizing the program. I worked most closely with
Paul Knitter of Union Theological Seminary and Ellen Ott Marshall of
Emory University.  Each participating school agreed to offer an
interfaith course in advance of the Parliament based on the expertise
of the faculty and the priorities of the institutions.  But we also
created a set of common readings and questions for faculty and
students to think about in advance of our meeting in Australia.  We
were all invested in a common process before we arrived in Melbourne.

The sessions themselves were wonderful because they were dynamic.
Each meeting opened with a panel discussion in which students shared
their responses to the questions we had posed in advance of the
Parliament.  We then broke into small groups to continue the
conversation.  It was exciting to step back at various moments and see
a hundred or so seminarians and faculty from different religions and
geographical locations engage in sacred discussion.  The buzz created
by all of these conversations made for beautiful music.

And then, of course, what was so special about having this experience
take place within the context of the Parliament was that we would
leave our conference room, spill out into the halls, and join the
thousands of other people that were there because they too were
committed to building the interfaith movement.

CPWR: I read a heartwarming blog entry you wrote for the Huffington
Post about an interaction you had with an American Sikh leader.  I?m
wondering if you have any other personal stories that you might share 
with  us?
OR: One story that I want to share is about the ritual that I led with
my Hebrew College students on Shabbat morning.  As it happened, most
of the people who attended were actually not Jewish. And among the
participants was a young woman in her early twenties from Iraq.
Following the service, she introduced herself to me and we spoke for
several minutes about the similarities and differences in our prayer
rites.  She also explained that this was the first time that she had
ever met a rabbi.  Before leaving the prayer space she asked if it
would it be possible to take a picture together after Shabbat?
Touched by her request and her sensitivity to traditional Sabbath
practices, I immediately said yes.  She then added, ?I want you to
understand that this is not just a picture for my scrapbook, I need to
document this for my family and friends at home, otherwise I don?t
know if they?ll believe that I had such a positive experience this
morning given all that separates our communities?Jewish and Muslim,
American and Iraqi.?  Needless to say, it was a very powerful moment.

CPWR: Looking to the future, what advances do you hope to see in the
next decade in the interreligious movement, both in the United States
and internationally?
OR: One basic hope that I have is that interreligious cooperation
becomes more of a civic norm in this country and elsewhere around the
world.  We need to cultivate a stronger ethos of religious pluralism
if we are to ever overcome the religious intolerance, bigotry, and
violence that continue to plague humanity.  The current controversy
over the so-called ?Ground Zero Mosque? has demonstrated yet again
just how much work we have to do to repair relations between religious
groups and the need for interfaith education.

Among the many issues that we need to work on across religious lines
is the health of our shared planet.  The environmental crisis may be
the most urgent issue facing humanity, and religious communities have
to play a positive role in the healing process.  We have to marshal
the best of our spiritual and ethical teachings to address the great
ecological challenges of our day and the accompanying political,
economic, and social issues.

CPWR: Are there any other areas of social justice that you think are
particularly important for interfaith activists to engage?
OR: Yes, there is a long list: poverty, malnutrition, HIV-AIDS,
women?s rights, etc.  However, in order to address these issues
effectively in interfaith contexts, we need to develop a worldview in
which we can hold the tension of our similarities and differences and
find creative ways to care for one another and for the planet as a
whole?  This takes us back to the statement from Reb Zalman about
living on the ?growing edge.?  What does it mean to work on the
growing edge of the interfaith movement?  I think it involves an
embrace of religious pluralism, of the interconnection of all of life,
and a shared sense of responsibility for the earth.

CPWR: Is there anything else you would like to share?
OR: I feel blessed to be a part of the interfaith movement at this
moment in time because there are tremendous opportunities for
cooperative work domestically and internationally.  I also want to
thank all of the brave women and men who have come before us as
interfaith activists, scholars, and sages.  It is my prayer that we
worthy heirs to their legacy in our roles as both ?inheritors and 
innovat ors.?

CPWR: As an interreligious activist and educator in your own right, we
thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. And thank you for your 
time.
OR: Thank you.