From the Rabbi

For the ten years I lived in Philadelphia, I was blessed with a wonderful next-door neighbour. Carolyn embodied generosity, openness, and caring - qualities one truly appreciates with the person with whom one shares a patio, and who could say gesundhayt through her open door to a spring sneeze from our kitchen!

It was a particular delight to witness the blossoming relationship between my daughter and Carolyn, from her role as speaker at her brit/naming ceremony, to her official role as the Philly godmother. We organically became a part of each other’s lives, celebrating birthdays, achievements and holidays together, as well as losses and illnesses. Carolyn was a frequent guest at the Shabbat table, and we were regulars at her Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and other family get-togethers.

Some of my favorite Christmases were those that overlapped with Hanukkah. We would light our menorah, say our blessings and sing our songs, and then I would sit down at the piano to accompany Christmas carols, to the surprised delight of Carolyn’s guests.

During Passover one year, Carolyn invited Doriya to accompany her on some errands. Since she would normally bring her to a café,or pick up a snack, I reminded her that the range of options would be limited to fruit – actually, four year-old Doriya reminded her.

When they returned, I learned that one of the errands had been to a candy shop, where Carolyn had to pick up some jelly beans for Easter festivities at her workplace. Nonplused, my daughter turned down the storekeeper’s offer of a candy, and explained that she was Jewish. But her next phrase was the surprising one. She went on to explain to the bemused shopkeeper that Carolyn … was Christian and Jewish!

She certainly could have been be right. My kids have friends who are Christian and Jewish, like our next door neighbour in Baltimore, who lived with her Christian mommy and also spent time with her Jewish dad. But four-year-old Doriya was tuning in, I believe, to something else, at once concrete and ephemeral. She could observe Carolyn comfortably joining in our Passover seder, or setting up her Christmas tree. She could also sense her godmother’s true elemental spirit – open and seeking, comfortable with Jewish blessing moments and ritual vocabulary, yet rooted in a very different set of experiences.

Not every Jewish-Christian, Jewish-Muslim, or other cross-faith relationship is a comfortable one. Historical encounters, though not necessarily “remembered,” are not necessarily absent from our daily lives, and are certainly not absent from our news feeds.

A few weeks ago I was a guest speaker of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Women’s Association, Ottawa branch at their first annual Peace Conference. In just that short time that I joined them, I learned a tremendous amount about their branch of Islam. My appetite was whetted to learn more, not in spite of but rather because of the tremendous differences between our approaches to life as women of faith in Canada.

Interfaith dialogue, in its many guises, is an undertaking I embrace and encourage. There can be nothing better to help one articulate – perhaps for the first time clearly and aloud – one’s own beliefs. For those in our community whose own families include relatives from more than one faith or culture, in can be both necessary and unsettling.

Celebrating one’s own tradition and upholding one’s own beliefs should never preclude either one’s own doubt, or the ability to celebrate alongside another. Questions about differences should always be predicated on one’s capacity to listen, and, potentially, be changed. I used to worry that this latter principle meant that I needed to be open to actually changing my beliefs, a scary thought for Jews still. I have come to understand this notion differently. I must be prepared to change my feelings, my relationship to boundaries, and perhaps even more.

I am grateful for the many years I have spent in Christian worship settings, in interfaith dialogue, and in study of various religious doctrines. Poised as we are between Easter-tide and Passover, and in anticipation of the many layered encounters with our neighbours’ faith calendars throughout the year, let us keep the patio doors wide open.

-Rabbi Liz