by John Paul Shimek
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Currently, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, DC is sponsoring an exhibit on the late pontiff’s relations with the Jewish people. With the help of photographs, videos, documents, and artifacts, the museum curators tell the story of a relationship that may have dramatic consequences for the House of Israel and the Church of Rome.
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How to Become a “Perfect Stranger”
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Recently, I took advantage of the opportunity to view the historic exhibit, appropriately named “A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People.” Then, following my visit to the museum, I took up the invitation of a rabbi to attend services at a nearby synagogue. I suppose that I wanted to mimic my namesake or perhaps entertain my curiosity about all things Jewish. But I wanted also to pray with the ones that John Paul called “our elder brothers and sisters in faith.”
So on Yom Kippur, I boarded the Washington, DC metro bound for Cleveland Park station. I was headed to synagogue for only the second time in my life. Truth be told, I was nervous. I had entered a synagogue only once before and the experience was a difficult one, since I absent-mindedly genuflected upon taking my seat. Needless to say, I garnered a few stares and turned some confused heads. This time I was going to be a bit wiser.
Before the visit, I picked up a copy of Kolatch’s Jewish Book of Why. Thumbing through, I noticed that the author didn’t take up the question as to why the Jews do not genuflect upon entering a pew. I suppose that Kolatch thought the answer all too self-evident. But I did see that he had addressed a number of other issues of equal significance. In fact, the middle section of the book is devoted to the religious objects and attire of the Jewish people, the layout of their synagogues, and the nature and theological importance of their yearly feasts, festivals, and commemorations. In just over a couple hundred pages, the author supplied me with some much-needed information.
So on the Day of Atonement (the English name for Yom Kippur), I headed over to the synagogue expecting to become a “perfect stranger.” I must have done my homework well, too, because at one point during the course of the day, a young Jewish man came up to me and asked me about the differences between the various kinds of services that were on offer that afternoon. I had to laugh to myself. Then I told him that I wasn’t Jewish at all but just a guest of the rabbi. To finish things off, I dropped the bomb: I told him that I was a Catholic seminarian. The two of us had a good laugh.
.
Confession Is the Starting Point
.
It was in that laugh that I entered into dialogue with the stock of Abraham. Here I was, picturing myself as some kind of a religious sociologist — a real knowledgeable goy about all things Jewish, to use a word that I picked up in Kolatch’s book. Yet in fact, I was no more Jewish (or Jewishly literate) than the imam down the street. I had failed to take account of an important truth: Judaism, just like Catholicism — or Islam for that matter — has to begin from the standpoint of confession.
Jewish theology, Jewish culture, and the Jewish people themselves emanate from a single confession. It is called the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” (Dt 6:4-9). That call to prayer, recited every morning in every synagogue in the world, reminds the Chosen People of their chosenness. It tells them that they were the first to hear the voice of God and to follow Him. As such, it should remind us of the fact that “salvation is from the Jews” (Jn 4:19-22). For Christ Himself, born from the tree of Jesse and incorporated into the kingdom of David, was — and remained throughout His life — a pious and devout Jew.
Much like Catholicism, Judaism cannot be reduced to a set of practices, prayers, or pious platitudes. It can’t be explained just by reference to the 613 mitzvoth, 13 religious principles, or 10 commandments that form the fundamental content of Jewish law and theology.
Now, don’t get me wrong. As I learned from Kolatch and other Jewish theologians, Judaism is much more a religion of deed than of creed. Jewish law is central to Jewish life. But while the rich relationship between Torah and Temple is an important hermeneutic for the understanding of Jewish religion, it can’t explain the whole of the Jewish confession. Rather, one has to read Judaism from the inside, as it were, and that requires the faith of the Jewish people themselves.
One of the great rabbis of the Talmud told a story about a man walking down a city street. As the man was walking, he passed in front of a house into which he could peer through an open picture window. From the street, he could see the shadows of people who were flailing their arms. Just before he pushed on, a woman came to the door and beckoned him to come in from out of the cold. Only after he entered the house could he hear music and see that the people were enjoying themselves by dancing at a wedding feast. What seemed so strange from the outside seemed normal from the inside. The story teaches us that Judaism has its own internal perspective — a perspective, to round out the point, whose music can be heard only from the inside.
To read Judaism from the inside, then, one has to uphold the revelatory nature of the Torah and the role and mission that the Temple had in the designs and plans of our common provident Father, God. More to the point, one has to discern within Judaism the lines of a great love story about a nomadic people and their God. A love story that continues to this day.
.
Friendship and the Theological Narrative
Currently, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, DC is sponsoring an exhibit on the late pontiff’s relations with the Jewish people. With the help of photographs, videos, documents, and artifacts, the museum curators tell the story of a relationship that may have dramatic consequences for the House of Israel and the Church of Rome.
.
How to Become a “Perfect Stranger”
.
Recently, I took advantage of the opportunity to view the historic exhibit, appropriately named “A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People.” Then, following my visit to the museum, I took up the invitation of a rabbi to attend services at a nearby synagogue. I suppose that I wanted to mimic my namesake or perhaps entertain my curiosity about all things Jewish. But I wanted also to pray with the ones that John Paul called “our elder brothers and sisters in faith.”
So on Yom Kippur, I boarded the Washington, DC metro bound for Cleveland Park station. I was headed to synagogue for only the second time in my life. Truth be told, I was nervous. I had entered a synagogue only once before and the experience was a difficult one, since I absent-mindedly genuflected upon taking my seat. Needless to say, I garnered a few stares and turned some confused heads. This time I was going to be a bit wiser.
Before the visit, I picked up a copy of Kolatch’s Jewish Book of Why. Thumbing through, I noticed that the author didn’t take up the question as to why the Jews do not genuflect upon entering a pew. I suppose that Kolatch thought the answer all too self-evident. But I did see that he had addressed a number of other issues of equal significance. In fact, the middle section of the book is devoted to the religious objects and attire of the Jewish people, the layout of their synagogues, and the nature and theological importance of their yearly feasts, festivals, and commemorations. In just over a couple hundred pages, the author supplied me with some much-needed information.
So on the Day of Atonement (the English name for Yom Kippur), I headed over to the synagogue expecting to become a “perfect stranger.” I must have done my homework well, too, because at one point during the course of the day, a young Jewish man came up to me and asked me about the differences between the various kinds of services that were on offer that afternoon. I had to laugh to myself. Then I told him that I wasn’t Jewish at all but just a guest of the rabbi. To finish things off, I dropped the bomb: I told him that I was a Catholic seminarian. The two of us had a good laugh.
.
Confession Is the Starting Point
.
It was in that laugh that I entered into dialogue with the stock of Abraham. Here I was, picturing myself as some kind of a religious sociologist — a real knowledgeable goy about all things Jewish, to use a word that I picked up in Kolatch’s book. Yet in fact, I was no more Jewish (or Jewishly literate) than the imam down the street. I had failed to take account of an important truth: Judaism, just like Catholicism — or Islam for that matter — has to begin from the standpoint of confession.
Jewish theology, Jewish culture, and the Jewish people themselves emanate from a single confession. It is called the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” (Dt 6:4-9). That call to prayer, recited every morning in every synagogue in the world, reminds the Chosen People of their chosenness. It tells them that they were the first to hear the voice of God and to follow Him. As such, it should remind us of the fact that “salvation is from the Jews” (Jn 4:19-22). For Christ Himself, born from the tree of Jesse and incorporated into the kingdom of David, was — and remained throughout His life — a pious and devout Jew.
Much like Catholicism, Judaism cannot be reduced to a set of practices, prayers, or pious platitudes. It can’t be explained just by reference to the 613 mitzvoth, 13 religious principles, or 10 commandments that form the fundamental content of Jewish law and theology.
Now, don’t get me wrong. As I learned from Kolatch and other Jewish theologians, Judaism is much more a religion of deed than of creed. Jewish law is central to Jewish life. But while the rich relationship between Torah and Temple is an important hermeneutic for the understanding of Jewish religion, it can’t explain the whole of the Jewish confession. Rather, one has to read Judaism from the inside, as it were, and that requires the faith of the Jewish people themselves.
One of the great rabbis of the Talmud told a story about a man walking down a city street. As the man was walking, he passed in front of a house into which he could peer through an open picture window. From the street, he could see the shadows of people who were flailing their arms. Just before he pushed on, a woman came to the door and beckoned him to come in from out of the cold. Only after he entered the house could he hear music and see that the people were enjoying themselves by dancing at a wedding feast. What seemed so strange from the outside seemed normal from the inside. The story teaches us that Judaism has its own internal perspective — a perspective, to round out the point, whose music can be heard only from the inside.
To read Judaism from the inside, then, one has to uphold the revelatory nature of the Torah and the role and mission that the Temple had in the designs and plans of our common provident Father, God. More to the point, one has to discern within Judaism the lines of a great love story about a nomadic people and their God. A love story that continues to this day.
.
Friendship and the Theological Narrative
.
Perhaps that was the point of the exhibit at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. The museum curators were not just telling their visitors about the friendship that John Paul II shared with the stock of Abraham. They were trying to situate that friendship within a much larger theological narrative. And perhaps they were trying to illustrate the importance of that narrative for Christian audiences as well. For it was from that narrative that Christianity would much later emerge.When seen in the light of that narrative, Jewish-Christian dialogue becomes imperative. It no longer remains an option for the theologically astute. Instead, it becomes a duty that must be undertaken by all Christians in a spirit of prayer, sincerity, and charity. There is good reason for viewing the dialogue in this way, too. As the fathers of the Second Vatican Council taught in Nostra Aetate
[T]he Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God's saving design,
the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the
Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ
— Abraham’s sons according to faith — are included in the same Patriarch's call,
and likewise that the salvation of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by
the chosen people's exodus from the land of bondage. The Church, therefore,
cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the
people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant.
Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that
well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the
Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that by His Cross Christ, our Peace,
reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself.
The next time you pass in front of a synagogue, you might do well to remember those words.
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- © Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
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John Paul Shimek frequently writes about the JP2-Generation and issues related to men's spirituality. His writing has appeared in theNational Catholic Register, the Newark Catholic Advocate, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He lives in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Readers can contact him at mailto:%20intermirifica@hotmail.com.
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