May 2014

Six hundred years ago, the Disputation of Tortosa pitted a team of Jewish scholars against leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, including the anti-pope, Benedict XIII. The intent of that encounter, and there were many others, was to compel the Jews to accept the arguments of their adversaries.

We have come a long way in the relationship between the Jewish people and the Catholic Church. The convening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, under the pontificate of Pope John XXIII, led to the declaration of Nostre Aetate ("In Our Era”) which would reframe the relationship of the Church to the modern world and reconceptualise the relationship of the Church to the Jewish people.

Over the past 50 years, the Church has affirmed the teaching of the Apostle Paul that the divine covenant with the Jewish people has not been broken and is eternal. The Church has condemned anti-Semitism, affirmed that the “spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews” should lead to "mutual understanding and respect”, accepted the continuity of the living Covenant between God and the Jews, and recognized the existence of the State of Israel as a manifestation of divine blessing for the Jewish people. While there have been moments of disagreement, the two great religions have moved from disputation to dialogue and from conflict to conciliation.

The Jewish community was excited about Pope Francis’ his first trip to the Holy Land, which encompassed sacred sites and places of symbolic significance in Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and Israel, as well as a meeting with the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I to foster Christian unity. The Pope travelled to the birthplace of Jesus and to the land of the Israelite people into which Jesus was born.

In March, I joined with an imam, a priest, and a minister to bring Jews, Muslims and Christians to the Holy Land. We travelled together because Israel is the Biblical and national homeland of the Jewish people, the spiritual birthplace of Christianity, and the location of Muslim sacred sites. Our faiths are inextricably linked by the ties of history, geography and theology. We all have a stake in the Holy Land. It is notable that Pope Francis, a spiritual leader whose vision goes beyond politics, was accompanied by a rabbi and an imam. He met Jewish and Palestinian leaders, worshipped at religious sites, meditated at the security wall in Bethlehem, paid homage to Israeli victims of terror, and visited revered settings of Jewish history, including the grave of Theodor Herzl and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

Most particularly, the Holy Father met “the ordinary people” of the region. This Pope is already known for his personal humility, his modest demeanor and practice and his commitment to social justice – in Biblical language, the pursuit of H̱esed (compassion) and Mishpat (justice). These are religious values that our faith communities share.

Pope Francis understands that good theology is personal. He has had a long and extraordinary relationship with the Jewish community in his home country of Argentina. He demonstrated remarkable solidarity with the Jewish community in the wake of the terror attacks in Buenos Aires and co-authored a book with his friend, Rabbi Abraham Skorka, on theological issues relevant to both faiths. He has attended Rosh Hashanah worship in an Argentinian congregation and was involved in distributing aid to the poor through a joint Jewish-Catholic organization called Tzedakah (Justice and Charity). By all accounts, he already has touched the lives of countless people beyond the Catholic world—particularly Jews—by his commitments to the values articulated in Nostre Aetate.

These ideals have been reaffirmed by Cardinal Thomas Collins who, soon after arriving in Toronto, enjoyed a thanksgiving meal in my sukkah hut. A Biblical scholar, he particularly treasures a gift from the Toronto Board of Rabbis, A Jewish Commentary to the New Testament. I hope that he and other Catholic religious leaders will agree to travel together to Rome and Jerusalem with Rabbis and significant lay leaders from the two communities. This would advance the mutual understanding and respect that already exists between our faiths.

My friend, Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, the Secretary-General of the Canadian Council of Churches, met the Pope just prior to our Path of Abraham mission in March. I asked her what colour were his eyes. She didn’t know! “When I met him, his warmth, graciousness and absolute delight in God's people made him sparkle. His eyes are twinkly! He also asked me, very humbly, to pray for him. And so I do.” And so should we all.

Baruch Frydman-Kohl is the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Senior Rabbi of Beth Tzedec Congregation and the Co-Chair of the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus of CIJA.