Presented by Rabbi Ryan Dulkin, Ph. D.
Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning
Quad 264
Saint John’s University
November 9th, 2023
Good afternoon my name is John Merkel I have the pleasure of directing the J Phillips Center for Interfaith learning and uh on behalf of everybody connected to the center and um who’s sponsoring this event by the way in collaboration with the other J Philip Center our partner
Center um at the University of St Thomas um so in in uh on behalf of everybody connected to these centers I’m happy to welcome you all here uh today um and I’m particularly happy to welcome Rabbi Ryan Dolan to our campus for the first time we’ve already had a a
Pleasant more than half of a day and um I’m just very grateful uh to Rabbi Dolan that he accepted this invitation and I know he has a lot to share with us in the coming moments um Rabbi Dolan is he’s a native of Californian California but he teaches now at the University of
St Thomas and he directs there the encountering Judaism initiative um he he is a man of many degrees um he has a ba and an MA in English literature he then decided to pursue rabinal studies and those studies are often I think in your case probably six years of of intensive study to
Become a rabbi and he also has um two other Masters and a PhD um so so um he has Masters uh in midrash or scriptural interpretation and a PhD in that as well he has scholarly articles that have been published in journals like the Jewish um quarterly Jewish studies quarterly the
Journal of the Society of Christian ethics The Rutledge uh dictionary of ancient Mediterranean religions um and speaking of ancient Mediterranean religions um given the topic today you all know right that Christianity emerged in The Matrix of uh Mediterranean society and particularly in the in the Matrix of uh the Jewish
World at that time and many Christians down through the centuries have drawn inspiration uh from Jewish wisdom Jewish literature Jewish religion um but unfortunately many Christians down Through the Ages have also become quite anti-jewish and that anti-judaism um morphed into something even racial eventually and anti-Semitism and um I suspect that’s
One of the things that motivates you to give a talk titled what Christians get wrong about Jews and Judaism um and you are are a perfect person to do this and I look forward to enlightening us so please help me give a very warm welcome to Rabbi Ryan Dolan
Okay it is uh so wonderful to be welcomed here at St John’s and uh and I want to thank Professor Merkel for this opportunity uh we did not quite know that it would be as timely a topic when we first came up with it uh over the
Summer uh but uh alas here we are so um I want to start out with a bit of a personal story and then I’ll I have a few ideas that I want to share with you but mostly I want to make sure that I leave enough time for a dialogue so um
It turns out that it will be this year will be my 20th anniversary of finishing rabinal school uh I know I don’t look it but it’s sort of hard for me to believe and uh I was thinking about uh my journey to becoming a rabbi and one
Of the first things that I did get my my feet wet in the professional Jewish world was I attended a conference of major Jewish organizations in Seattle atle in probably 1996 and I remember it was my first kind of exposure to the Jewish World the Jewish professional world uh and here I
Was thinking about this journey of becoming not only a rabbi but a Jewish professional and I remember having a conversation with someone who I now don’t remember who it was but he looked a lot like me now when I and I looked a little bit more like the students back
Then and I remember this conversation that we had uh at in 1996 the major issue that I think many of us who were thinking about becoming Jewish professionals primarily uh uh rabbis en Canter people working with Jews was we were really concerned about how to transmit Judaism in a positive
Way to the Next Generation Um my Jewish identity growing up was was I would say primarily rooted in a negative Jewish identity in the sort of sense of the the Holocaust was a major um major influence on the Jewish community and major influence on me as a
As a young person and also the state of Israel which uh so and that I think was true of a lot of Jews of my parents’ Generation Um but there was a feeling that anti-semitism M was dissipating and I remember this conversation with this particular uh probably a rabbi where we
Anti-Semitism is going away and we’re going to have to think about you know our problem is not going to be having to deal with anti-Semitism it’s going to be dealing with how do we transmit a positive identity how do we how do we reach this next Generation My Generation next generation of Jews
And think about Judaism as you know the religious aspect the spiritual aspect to make that compelling not just simply we’re Jewish because other people don’t like us so it’s a little bit disconcerting I would say that 20 years later I’m giving a talk on anti-Semitism and it seems relevant today so I just
Felt that it would be kind of a way to preface this conversation so uh what I let’s see my clicker was working let’s try that again let see there we go okay so so the three issues that I want to talk about in this provocative title what Christians get wrong about Jews and
Judaism I first don’t want to make the same mistake than of putting all Christians in one box so I want to start out talking about what do I mean by Christians right which Christians am I talking about and then I would want to cover some aspects that I think are
Still misperceptions about Jews as people and then I’m going to talk a little bit about I think misconceptions about Judaism as a religious tradition um and the where I’m coming from in terms of which Christians is I’m thinking about my experience my experience as both a rabbi in the
Community as an educator in the classroom and I’m thinking what what kinds of issues am I faced with when students come you know I’m teaching now St Thomas when my students who probably have never met a Jewish person let alone they get they do get a kind of a kick
Out of the fact that the foundation of theology course that they have to take is being taught by a rabbi at the Catholic University so um I once they oh that seems kind kind of cool for most of my students but what what are what what
Kinds of things am I having to deal with uh assumptions that students have so I’m thinking about a composite of students that I work with also I’m thinking about um primarily Christian clergy that I’ve come into contact with um I also in addition having taught at a um at a at a Catholic
University now I also have taught at a Lutheran college and I’ve taught at a United Church of Christ Seminary so I’ve I’ve I’ve learned a little bit about Christianity along the way not to mention that my doctorate which uh is in classical Judaism means I had to learn a
Lot about ancient Christianity including learning how to read Greek so because I had to learn Greek no matter when I give a public transport uh public talk I always have to call that because it was kind of a pain okay so um so the kinds of questions that I’m
Distilling I don’t think like there are certainly many Christians that don’t have these preconceptions but I’m trying to kind of think about a composite of issues that I’ve encountered along the way in my in my travels so here I think are um some of the contextual deficits that many
Christians have when thinking about Judaism or coming into cont with Jews and the first one is the lack of personal exposure to uh Jews and the Jewish Community right many of uh my students at St Thomas come from the suburbs of the Twin Cities and also uh
Just like here in St at St John’s many of you are coming from um exurban and rural areas not a lot of Jews right in uh probably not a lot of lot of Jews around here would be my guess um why aren’t there a lot of Jews Why are
Jews mostly in urban centers anybody kind of think about that for a minute Why are Jews concentrated there how many Jewish farmers do you know why aren’t there a lot of Jewish Farmers because Jews were not allowed to own land for most of Christian history right Jews were kept out and
I’ll go over this but Jews were kept out of particular economic spheres right one of them was land ownership so there’s not a large history of Jews in agriculture it would take the state of Israel for Jews to kind of reconnect with the idea of farming right so um most of my students
Are coming at to my class never having really met a Jew or if they have maybe very few especially at St Thomas I asked has anybody been to a bar about Mitzvah and not a lot of my students have have been to a bar orat mitzvah
That’s the coming of age ceremony in the Jewish tradition that uh teenagers when they’re 13 are called before the congregation to uh read from the Torah the five books of Moses the sacred scroll and it’s a it’s a sign of acceptance into the uh emerging adulthood in the Jewish community and if
You never been to a bar about Mitzvah that means you don’t have any Jewish friends right so so that’s the first thing the second one I think is a lack of awareness of the historical anti-Semitism that shapes broader conceptions of Jews and Judaism now I’m
A little bit of mixed Minds about this I sometimes feel bad that I have to teach my students some of the ins and outs of anti-semitism because many of my students don’t know much about the history of Christian anti-judaism and I might say you know thank God that might
Not be a bad thing the problem though is I think when we’re not aware of the historical aspects of anti-Semitism we’re then doomed to kind of repeat the cycle right so this example that I just kind of gave right which is that why are there no Jewish farmers because Jews didn’t hold land
Jews in especially in Europe were channeled into particular Industries right so Jews couldn’t own land they couldn’t be part of guilds uh of Tradesmen in medieval Europe so they’re not a lot of Jewish plumbers right not a lot of Jewish Craftsmen what were Jews channeled into they were
Channeled into Commerce right and also because of of of church doctrine Jews could fill a niche by lending money right that was illegal or that was seen as sinful by the by the church in the Middle Ages so Jews they’re going to hell anyway so they can they can lend the
Money um anybody here majoring in finance okay interesting a lot of my students are majoring in finance okay anybody got a mortgage okay good we’ like you know lending money turns out to be a pretty good thing right for I couldn’t afford my house without being able to pay for it monthly
Right so um the point the point that I’m getting at here is that Jews are channeled into particular economic niches and that sort of dictates uh ideas of like Jewish over representation in particular industry so like think about finance and think about things like um uh uh business right for many uh
For many centuries being the word Jew was not only a noun but it was a verb what is the verb mean it means to cheat you in business right so why do these why why do we have these ideas well I think most people don’t really know the history of
Say Medieval Europe right why are jeed over represented in Hollywood if they we want to say that well it’s a new industry right Jews couldn’t break into uh uh other Industries in the early United States in in the in terms of immigration so Jews flocked to industries that they
Weren’t allowed to get into in other places right so there’s a there’s a there’s a historical ideology to some of these ideas that most people are not aware of so I have a friend that I I play I play golf with and he told me about a conversation that he had had
Went to a Toastmaster uh event Toastmaster is a an organization where you practice public speaking I think it’s a good networking organization I know my my father-in-law is a got a couple of Toastmaster trophies on the on the on on the mantle and there he heard a public speech given
At a at a Lutheran um men’s club about how Jews are too powerful in Hollywood and in Wall Street right that was this summer right so so this issue is alive and well right so I think one of the problems of not knowing about the history is you don’t
Know when you’re walking in to these kinds of anti- anti-jewish anti-Semitic tropes third piece a lot of times when Christians are interested in Judaism it’s not really because they’re interested in Judaism they’re primarily interested in Christianity and so let’s so a lot of my students begin with I want to know more
About who Jesus was or I want to know what we are not anymore right and so so this is most of the time it’s not I want to learn about Judaism as a self-standing religious tradition and Community but only in as much as it informs me about
Myself right and then fourth I would say um the other one is like why don’t Jews just kind of get Christian truth um most of my congregants have no idea how Christians read for example the book of Isaiah right um so uh you know I I I
Last semester I taught uh uh Luther uh uh screed against the Jews right and it’s all full of like Luther is like we just read the Bible we’re the Bible only right but all and everything that he’s saying the plain sense of the Bible is a basic Christian reading of the Old
Testament which I’ll get into in a minute right so it seems like the Christian understanding of these texts are just self-evident and why don’t Jews get it all right so um those are some I think of the uh the contextual deficits that I deal with when talking about this
Subject okay so let me just I want to talk a little bit about Jews I think the first one is that for most Americans Jews have become white right I can pass as a white person I don’t and when I’m forced to like put on my you know ethnic
Box on something I you know do I put white non-h Hispanic or do I put other CU you know a lot of times I don’t feel white like uh when the Christmas decorations come out on October 25th right and I’ve got to hear Jingle Bells for six months
Straight right yeah I’m reminded right that’s not my culture right but there’s also a misconception that Jews are all white and part of that is the historical immigration of Jews to the United States Jews from uh the the historical Jewish Community uh first began with spartic
Jews Jews from North Africa and and what was uh uh originally kind of tracing their Origins North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula those were the early Jews like so when George Washington first visited a congregation in 1790 he visited a spartic community in the ear
In the mid 19th century we had a wave of German Jewish immigration and then after that my family came uh from primarily Eastern Europe right so my I trace my uh family’s Origins to Hungary Romania Poland and Russia so most of the Jews uh in the United States are igrs from
European lands in Jewish terms we call that ashkanazi Jews okay but but um most of the world is not always is not ashkanazi and I think uh if Jews come in all Hughes and ethnicities because Jews have lived in all regions and countries of the world
So we have um European Jews we have yemenite Jews right we have Ethiopian Jews right and what I think most people don’t understand particularly about the state of Israel is that most of the population would be considered Jews of color by our standards right they come from uh
Primarily um uh former uh Islamic countries after the Advent of the state of Israel and uh many Jews were expelled from Islamic lands after the start of the after the 1948 War so here’s just an example of uh immigration of Jews from Islamic lands to Israel uh after the
State uh is founded in 48 uh and you can see there’s quite a bit of uh of immigration from these regions to Israel often because of the grow of growing Arab nationalism and Jews didn’t feel safe in those countries so one of my wife’s personal friends growing up her family is originally from
Egypt right they first they they fled to France and then came to the United States but a lot of those Jews went to to Israel and um a another piece I think that people don’t really kind of understand about the inner politics of Israel is that many of these communities
Tend to be the more conservative parts of the Israeli Society um the um particularly Jews from former Islamic lands are particularly suspicious of of of the possibility of peace right and so they they tend to vote on the more right right word side of Israeli politics so it’s I’m not making a
Judgment about it I’m just it’s just a kind of a fact right that Jews of color so to speak tend to be more um politically conservative in Israel okay another factor is uh where that I kind of uh run into is how can you can be Jewish and not believe in God
Right that this one kind of throws Christians a lot like if you’re going to said like the Lutheran club right at at the University of Minnesota right you’re primarily going there because that’s your religious identity right and and maybe you’re the the students have very wide views of of
Lutheran the ology they don’t all agree on the same thing but they’re primarily it’s a religious identity how can Jews be non-religious yet Jews it’s a confusing thing for for Christians well the first one is Judaism remains a tribal religion and what I mean by that
Is do you know how I became Jewish I became Jewish cuz my mother was Jewish right I didn’t do a survey of all of the world religion right and decided I’m going to pick this one CU this one makes the most sense and my guess is that most of us in the room
You could say the same thing right we’re although there’s a lot of flux in religious identity by the most part most people inherit the religious traditions of their parents right but for Jewish identity it is it is transmitted first and classically at least after the rinic
Period by uh being born of a Jewish woman like this this issue is influx today in modern Judaism there are some more liberal strains of Judaism that say well a Jewish parent right so it’s a tribal religion that doesn’t mean though that it’s a racial religion because
First of all as I showed there are lots of different ethnicities that make up the Jewish community and you can also convert into Judaism so someone who converts into Judaism will uh once they have undergone the conversion process will inherit a new name they usually take a Hebrew name and they also are
Then designated as the son or daughter of Abraham our father and Sarah our mother right so they are kind of adopted into the tribe so the first one is it’s the kind of the structure there’s no like belief requirement right I didn’t have a choice at eight days to get
Circumcised okay but the second piece is that often being Jewish is has been primarily defined by others right um and this is uh particularly I was Jewish in the past whether I wanted to be or not and I’ll get a little bit into that when I talk a little about the history of
Anti-Semitism so what I mean by that is that even if I wanted to get into say General Society there were barriers for most Jews and we have a history particularly in the early 20th century of Jews creating parallel institutions to Christian ones right so we have the the Advent of Jewish
Hospitals why do we have Jewish hospitals so Jews could get healthare right Jewish country clubs right if there’s no more exclusive kind of institution in the United States don’t probably there are more but I can’t think of one off the top of my head right country clubs right they’re not
Going to for mostly Jews couldn’t get into them but how did you show that you were part of wider Society or more affluent society you joined a country club so Jews created parallel institutions right so it’s not that Jews didn’t want to be part of the larger culture but they were often pre
Prevented from being part of it right so I’m saying there’s a aspect of Jewish identity that is both internal but then there’s also an aspect that is external so this brings me to anti-Semitism so uh this will be my anti-Semitism In 3 Minutes piece um so most Christians don’t understand the
Context of of of anti-Semitism and that it’s really made up I think of three three there are three legs in this stool right and maybe I’ll I’ll use that as that was no pun intended but maybe I’ll make the pun anyway right um the first one and I’m going to go over a
Little bit is Christian anti-judaism I’m save that but the second one I’ve already alluded to which is this idea that Jews have outside influence that Jews exert outside political and economic influence so here we see uh I’ve have some images for you I don’t know how well we can see them in this
Light but here would be an early version of uh sort of medieval money lenders right and what would happen is is that um Christians Christian leaders would invite local would invite Jews to come and settle in their in their land right so maybe like the so the famous the
Bishop of Shire in Germany invited a group of Jews to come and live in this little Hamlet that they’re creating why did the Christians want some Jews to come because they brought economic activity they could lend money because the church wouldn’t uh uh lend money and they also brought Commerce with them
Whose Jews were um had networks of Commerce so the the local Bishop would invite a uh Community to settle with the offer of physical protection they’ put them in a separate space in the community and build a wall around them they became ghettos but they originally built for the physical security of Jews
To protect them from the Christian uh the Christian peasants and the second thing that they is they gave them economic incentives right and so Jews uh would settle in these lands and they um over time many of the local peoples would become indebted to uh these Jewish money
Lenders anybody love getting a call from a creditor right even if you don’t owe money you still like you know I still kind of freak out right you don’t really love the people that you lend money to right so then so we have all we have this religious anti-judaism now we have
A kind of a cultural or a societal or an economic anti-Semitism this usually uh led to the local Lord who was not the original local Lord that brought the Jews in but a subsequent one who then would would accuse the Jews of either um some kind of ritual murder it’s called
The bloodlock Bible or of exploiting the community and they would confiscate all of the Jewish wealth and expel them so the history of Jewish settlement in the Middle Ages is a history of inviting Jews in they they fill an economic Niche once the economic Niche is no longer working they get
Expelled so we have this history of uh what I’m going to call cultural anti anti-judaism and then the third piece is develops in modernity which is racial anti- uh anti-judaism which becomes anti-Semitism so where does the term anti-Semitism come from well what is a Semite right news flash there is no such
Thing as a Semite we can speak of Semitic languages those would be languages in a particular family that would be Hebrew Arabic Aramaic just as a few examples examples but the term Semite is made up in the 19th century and it’s part of this growing 19th century pseudoscience of
Race that the that um in the wake of the darwinian Revolution like um human beings are not all related but there’s some kind of biological differences between different peoples and surprise white Europeans sit on the top of the racial hierarchy right below that would be Slavs and then well below that would be
Jews and people of color and so this is part of a a a a a pseudo science that develops in the 19th century um race is not a biot I’m not a biologist but as far as I understand my reading bi there’s no such thing as race from a
Biological perspective last time I checked almost every human could mate with anybody else right so but this idea develops in the 19th century and so there’s a now feeling that I’m not only a Jewish by religion but I’m Jewish by biology and as Jews are invited into uh the emerging European societies
Of the 19th century there’s a backlash and a lot of that backlash comes in racial terms so I’ve given you kind of a few examples here so uh rard Vagner wrote in his screed jewelry and music where he’s decrying the Jewish influence in western music he writes the
Jew who as everyone knows has a God all to himself in ordinary life strikes us primarily by his outward appearance which no matter to what European nationality we belong has something disagreeably foreign to that nationality right so you could just tell who a Jew is by looking at them right because it’s
Because it’s biological you have another um uh an I’m going to focus on this exerpt here um this is by Carl yugan during where he’s putting Judaism now in racial terms right he he writes I return therefore to the hypothesis that the Jews are to be
Defined solely on the basis of race and not on the basis of religion the diverse ad mixture of our modern cultures the sprinkling of racial jewry in the cracks and crevices of our Natural Body must inevitably lead to a reaction but what is he talking about here he’s Imagining the people the folk
As a biological entity so what happens when Jews start marrying into this these PE this people they’re infecting the body and the body is reacting to it now who are the Jews that he’s talking about he’s not talking generally speaking he’s not really talking about people who self-identify
As Jews but he’s talking about Jews who convert to Christianity because one of the ways that you got ahead in 19th century Europe more easily was once the floodgates were open was to convert to Judaism I mean sorry to Christianity so what he’s talking about here is that Jews who are becoming
Christians are now infiltrating the body the body of the people and so the blood of the people is being contaminated right so Jews are a biological threat right that’s the language that ultimately leads to the shaah and the Nazi ideology and the destruction of 6 million Jews right it’s not enough we
Can’t convert the Jews because we’re just making the problem worse right the only answer is to exterminate the Jews right because that will protect the blood of the people so whenever you hear a politician talking about foreigners polluting the blood of the people who live here this is the
Ideology all right so those are some of the major things I’m talking thinking about Jews now let me talk a little bit about Judaism so most Christians are unaware I of the history of intellectual anti-judaism in the church um sometime in the 4th Century uh I most Scholars including me
Would argue that we can start meaningfully talk about a Juda a Christianity separate from Judaism right I’m going to say I’m going to put the marker at Constantine okay um we see elements of this ideology in the New Testament I’m going to say in a minute that the New Testament is a
Jewish text so just wait for wait for a second okay but the ideology that kind of emanates or once this text is seen as Christian and all of the Jews spoken about in the New Testament are now ethnically other right a a an idea develops in Jud in Christianity that which we’ll call
Supersessionism right that Jews don’t get the Bible Jews are stuck in kind of reading just the surface level of the Bible and they don’t understand the spiritual meaning and the spiritual meaning is Jesus Christ right so for early Christianity the way to read the Bible I like to teach my
Students is there’s a secret decoder ring the secret Dakota ring is Jesus Christ and you put it over the verse and then you’ll get the true meaning right and so Jews don’t get how to read the book so they’re carnal they’re part of the body they don’t
Understand the depth of it they don’t understand the spirituality so this basic idea Works its way into uh into Christianity and now what does new testament mean Testament means Covenant the bre kadesha the New Covenant so God has has removed his favor from the Jews and the new elect of
Israel is the Christians right so that’s the ideology that develops in the early church and it’s symbolized all over Europe uh European um Art here’s an example uh of these this famous statue that come in Parish uh Ecclesia and synagogue right Ecclesia and synagoga those are feminine endings in Greek that’s why
They’re depicted as women right so on the left we have the church and on the right we have the synagogue so they’re twins notice that they’re twins what how is uh Ecclesia standing straight up with a with a with a a a a erect posture she’s holding the CH of
Rulership she’s got the Chalice the the um the you know the cup of the Eucharist and she’s Regal what do we have on the right we have the synagogue notice how she’s bent over it’s not really easy to see in this but that that line that’s by her head is the a broken
Scepter meaning that uh Authority has been broken she’s blindfolded she’s blindfolded because she can’t read the scriptures and she’s got a tablet in her hand and what direction is the tablet it’s down right because she’s hopelessly lost in the law so this this you know if you didn’t
Read uh and most people didn’t read in medieval Europe right how do you communicate ideology you communicate it through Visual Arts right so here’s an example in the visual art parts of this basic idea um so what are the sources of Christian anti-Semitism the first one is
I think tendentious readings of the New Testament so one of the things that I like to teach my students is the New Testament it’s a Jewish text why is it a Jewish text it’s written by Jews all the Jesus was Jewish all of the apostles were Jewish Paul was Jewish he
Come says it many times in his letters right he’s creating I think the context for what will become a a non a deth a de ethnicized Christianity but it’s not there yet when the gospel writers are are are talking about the Jews they’re talking about their fellows right that
AR don’t see the light but the writers of the New Testament are the real Jews right this community is the real Jews as opposed to the Jews the the the general Jews who don’t get it because we’re talking about a Jewish sect an apocalyptic Jewish sect so when John is talking about the
Jews he’s talking about the Jews who don’t get it but he’s not claiming that he’s not Jewish right but then these term this term becomes the Jews starts to mean other when Christianity crosses the threshold from Jewish ethnicity to primarily Greek ethnicity then if you’re if you’re reading this text in Rome and
You’re a Roman a gentile Roman when you read the Jews you’re reading those other people and not us right another um example would be early Jewish right I mean early Christian writings and I won’t belabor this too much but I think a lot of early Christian writing is trying to figure
Out how we’re not Jewish how is it that we have this Old Testament but we don’t follow it all right can Jews e can Christians eat pork like how is it that the bi this is part of the Bible but we don’t do it right that’s something that that early
Christianity has to deal with and so they are so I think a lot of early Christian thought is imagining Who We Are by how we’re not Jewish anymore and the dialogues that they have with Jews are not real Jews they’re madeup Jews right the early church fathers are not
Really sitting around talking to the rabbis okay um so the this uh quote on the right which I’m not going to read but this is an example of what I’m talking about Justin martyr’s dialogue with Trio where he spends a lot of time talking about how the Jews don’t understand the
Bible this one on the left right is from the lectionary it’s just basically a reading of John uh The Book of John on Good Friday right which is about the passion of Jesus Christ and what do Christians for Millennia here in church the Jews killed Jesus
Right and this is still as far as I understand a a a a a liturgy that that is still being read on Good Friday so if you’re reading this as the Jews right then you’re you’re communicating throughout the generations that somehow the Jews are responsible for killing
God okay I’m going to wrap this up okay which is that um the other the last piece I want to say is there kind of a on the other side this well called like pho Judaism like love of Judaism a lot of Christians come to synagogues and think like wow I’m experiencing the
Religion that Jesus lived and not understanding there’s been 2,000 years of history and that the the the CH that the religion that of Judaism is not the same thing as the Old Testament right if if you’re if you thought that the religion of the Old Testament is Judaism when You’ come to a
Synagogue you’d expect to find a priest you’d expect to find a lot of animals and a awesome barbecue like a one continuous barbecue I’m in favor okay I’m the smoker in my family uh not not this kind of smoker but the one that you know makes the meat
Okay so you come to synagogue and what are they doing they’re sitting around for 3 hours reading a book where’s the Rabbi in the Bible they’re not there right and so I think uh I I’ve developed this kind of thought which is if you want to know what ancient
Religion looked like go to church there’s a priest there’s a sacrifice there’s incense right that’s what ancient worship looked like so Church’s more stylized version of Ancient Ancient religious practice than what happens in the synagogue for some various reasons that if I went into now I would not
Leave time for questions okay so um most people are just lacking awareness of post-biblical Judaism especially rabbinic Judaism I’m a rabbi not a priest that’s a significant term it’s not just the other version of Christian clergy okay so what are some ameliorations that I think we could do
The first one is educate ourselves right the history of Judaism from Scholars and from Jewish sources if you want to know what Jewish Jewish Jews think read Jewish sources on Jewish thought um I also think it’s incredibly important that Christians understand the Jewish context of the Sacred Scriptures
Right that again as a piece of writing I think the New Testament is Jewish not as a religious text but as a scholar of CL of ancient Judaism it’s an important window into a particular sect in uh in the Jewish landscape of the second period take a class I don’t uh this gets
To my last point it’s a little self- serving let’s reinvest in Jewish studies not just because you know we want to attract Jews to our colleges but because it’s important to and this maybe it’s important to understand religion in general and if you really do want want to understand the history of
Christianity it probably pay it be it’s probably worthwhile to learn something about Judaism so a I think a recommitment to this and a recommitment to the movement of Jewish Christian reproach mon after the Vatican 2 I kind of feeling like oh we Vatican 2 is the
Over we can move on to something else no um I’m going to end with that and I am going to uh welcome your questions [Applause] questioners can come up to uh the mic either on this side or on that side you see where the I I should also um I’m as John said
I’m originally from California so I don’t always understand motan like you know so the the range of facial expression between like that was really interesting and I absolutely hated that is you know so it’s hard for me to decipher and also um there are no dumb questions I’m sister Katherine from uh
St Ben’s Monastery and I just want to say that there’s a group of sisters over at St Ben’s um that are really studying some of the lurgical readings that that we read at Mass every year and they’ve um kind of gone and they’ve put in a few
Words like some of the Jews or the Jews who were present or you know things like that to kind of get rid hopefully alleviate some of the challenges and the difficulty in the readings you know we can’t change them but you know so they’ve kind of done that so um and I
Have a few questions I was wondering if you have difficulty at St Thomas or um if you’ve had any backlash or if or like what people think as far as do you find people think that you’re there and then they want to convert you or that you’re
There and you’re like trying to find out the truth like you were saying and then therefore you’re like searching still and then I have another question um as a musician I was just wondering what you or maybe you have some idea as far as vogner’s music do people um do Jews Like
Find Vagner offensive or um do they disconnect the person with the music I’ve always wondered about that it’s a great it’s a great uh lots of great questions right and as as um as a rabbi I’m also aware of like how difficult it is to change liturgy right I mean people
Will you know have have died over this issue right there’s nothing as hard as changing liturgy so I totally get that so I’m not necessarily thinking about changing liturgy but I think it’s how is this liturgy being preached right um the second piece uh I’m I I feel pretty welcome at St Thomas
Um so they seem to like me I and I and I like them uh and uh so I don’t really feel that I don’t really feel um um I it’s that’s not to say that I’ve heard like you know in some places maybe there might be a little bit of vestage
Of like conversion but most of the people don’t do that I also tend to be the most in my classroom the person most knowledgeable in you know uh and so I don’t I don’t say that I just as a professor the students and they’re from Minnesota or the area they have a hard
Time challenging Authority right so I don’t really kind of feel that right um as much but um I do have like occasionally like um and really not Catholic students but I think these are more like Evangelical students that um you know they really want to cut like my
Take my Judy’s some class because they want to you know they always got to go to tell me how they don’t believe in this you know and I feel like okay first of all we’re in the Academy I don’t really care what you believe on your
Paper Okay um but you know it’s a CH I think it’s a challenge for some to say this is just a human experience that I want to learn about and that’s what I’m kind of calling for in terms of Vagner right you’re not going to hear
And now I I I gave this I gave this lecture a version of this lecture so now I I got that Vagner is um right that’s the and then the Wedding March is Mendelson so mendleson uh is not played at a Jewish wedding because he he was
Converted as a as a child and he uh his his Jewish identity is relationship to Judaism is complicated you certainly won’t hear Vagner at a wedding um I’m torn I listen you know I’ll listen to Vagner and I can like separate out like I think this is very sticky
Question about you know ART versus the artist um I think we can have difference of opinion of that I know that um you know it was pretty controversial when one famous Israeli conductor brought Vagner to Israel so I think this is an ongoing I think there is an anti there
Is some antipathy towards Vagner I’m not like rushing to put it put it on I also don’t have like 12 hours to spend you know but um but yeah I mean that there are some you know particularly in in in religious context like a wedding right that’s why you won’t hear those those
Tunes in a Jewish wedding Rob Dolan thank you so much this is such an interesting and helpful lecture for us I’m Michael rui I’m one of the theology professors here and I was wondering both in my experience um in the academy as well as in the parish I’ve seen lots of well-intentioned ways
In which Christians try to understand something about Judaism but kind of fail so for instance seder meals right in which before Easter we celebrate a seder meal but only with Christians and no sort of influence from the way that that’s celebrated with the hagada and the traditions of the Jewish culture
What are some of the ways in which you can see some productive ways for Christians to learn from Jews about their culture and to see a different way of understanding the Lord who who is our common God right okay I’m just not sure who you means who’s common God I I
Personally would say that the Lord is the same between Jews and Christians okay so I’m going to I don’t I I would not concur with that okay right I don’t there’s like God you’re not talking about Jesus I’m not talking about got it okay the Lord is because I also teach
Like I I teach the foundations theology course I’m about to teach the Trinity tomorrow and I totally um am confused and still you know but I you know do my best with it I think I think Christians are also confus I mean as a general as a
Mystery all right so um okay so I think the Sader is a kind of an interesting one right um so you know Jesus celebrates a last supper and I’m not telling you anything you don’t know but you know for the benefit of the the community right is Jesus at a
Seder no why is he not at a Seder because the the the ritual hadn’t been in invented yet when does Jesus live during the second temple period what would he have done on Passover he would have sacrificed a lamb right the idea of sitting and reading a book for 4 hours at dinner
That’s kind of what Jews Jewish worship can be kind of boiled down to reading a book together for several hours right okay uh and I say that with all the love that I because I love books right okay so the hagad is the it means the telling
And it is the order of the Seder that’s a rinic invention right that’s a rinic adaptation of how to celebrate Passover when the temple no longer standing and you can’t sacrifice right so that wouldn’t have been what Jesus would have practiced right so this whole idea of like kind of reclaiming or
Christianizing the Seder right to my mind is a little bit like when um people of European ancestry adopt um Native and Indigenous religions yeah right it’s a bit of an appropriation and so um so and that’s because like people aren’t aware right and this gets back to that earlier point
That I think when people go into a synagogue they think this is the ancient form of religion and there there are pieces that we talk about the Torah a lot the language of the Liturgy for most communities is either all Hebrew or you know at least a third Hebrew
Right and that’s the ancient language so there’s a kind of sense like oh we’re going back in time right so I think it’s just a kind of basic awareness and this kind of gets back to my original uh point which is um see if you can get invited to a Jewish
Lator right um or partner with congregation s where the where the Jewish congregants lead the service and you get a chance to experience the religious tradition from its from that’s that’s kind of my basic like when I had to learn like Christianity for my doctorate and I read
Like athanasius I’m not always going like well he’s wrong he’s wrong he’s wrong he’s wrong like I want to find out what he’s thinking yeah right and I think that that’s the approach that I’m calling for that’s great I really appreciate that that’s a very helpful
Answer can you give me just as a follow-up question maybe one example where you’ve seen some productive encounter like that between Jews and Christians that’s sure M uh one time I was invited to uh a Catholic Church to lead a Seder and um so I did it like as a model
Sader and I taught the pieces right and so I think like that’s a way um listen I I I’ll take a step back when I was in rabinal school I had the the the um the great Fortune of being a part of this organization that brought seminarians together me too oh seminarians
Interacting yes and um so I spent the night at uh the the Catholic seminary in Maryland right and they had a bar in the in the basement and I’m like this is what we need at the Jewish Theological Seminary okay I’m F smoking beer in Bourbon I smoking meat okay I’m a happy
Man and I got to you know stay up all night and we kind of talking with uh seminarians who were about to you know studying for the priesthood and I woke up in the morning and I um I put on my talit and I did my t i put on my tfillin
And I said prayers in the in the Seminary and I was thinking like when history has this happened yeah right and so I think the fact that I’m a you know professor at a Catholic institution that a Catholic institution is inviting me to have this I think this is an
Example of that right and so I um I am incredibly grateful for the development of you know Christian Jewish relations and Vatican 2 and I say recommit to that thank you I really appreciate that answer question yeah let me just grab the microphone oh okay oh good I do it
All well I’m just curious to know uh when you’re done with your classes do your students have a different perspective do they feel a little bit more enlightened uh you’re not going to change your mind but have you educated them I guess does yeah I well that’s my
Prayer but I think that’s a prayer of everybody whoever teaches a classroom but I I my Approach is especially um I I try to get students to see religion as a human endeavor and that all religions are instantiations of a basic human char characteristic so I’m a kind of a big
Believer in the cognitive understanding of psychology and that religion kind of emerges from the human mind so we’re all religious it’s just the question is like which religion and and so I think a lot of my students think like Catholicism is religion or Lutheranism is religion and there are other religions and they’re
Just kind of deficient versions of those religions and what I try to do communicate is note there are religions and Catholicism and Lutheranism are part are instantiations of those religions but I think I try to get students to see religion in a broader context and so if my students can leave the
Classroom uh articulating the difference between an academic approach and a confessional approach which I’m going to call being in church or synagogue I’m a happy person thank you all for [Applause] coming