What Interfaith Meetings Can Lead To - Opinion

• Published date: 25 May 2023
• Author: RABBI ARIE FOLGER
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Last week, I was invited to represent the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) in Geneva as a keynote speaker at exactly such a conference, entitled Roots and Responsibility, Jews, Christians, and Our Common Future in Europe

So how do we move from interfaith conferences to interfaith action? One guiding light is the 1964 article by Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik entitled "Confrontation," in which the Rav urges Jews not to engage in theological dialogue with other faiths, but to seek to conduct the dialogue at eye level as a proud, authentic, independent faith community, granting the dialogue partner space for the same authenticity, pride and independence. The purpose of the interfaith encounter is not to trade theological favors, but to encounter one another and to act together. It goes without saying that ecumenical prayers were not the order of the day.

To some, abstaining from theological dialogue feels unnatural – an unbearable restraint – and indeed, in a 2018 letter to yours truly, the late Pope Benedict XVI...