In the past Jews and Catholics have both been subjected to misunderstanding and sometimes terrible accusations, so for our mutual relations, it is important to begin with an alliance. So, we both need to clarify who we are and what we stand for and work together to create a friendly atmosphere between us – stressed Susannah Heschel, Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel's daughter, who is a professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College in the United States. Her scholarship focuses on Christian - Jewish relations in Germany during the 19th and 20th centuries. She has also written many books and scholarly articles on her father's work.
How should Catholic-Jewish relations evolve?
So I first want to say how happy I am that the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin has established the Center. It is the Center for Catholic - Jewish Relations. And it is not limited to Poland or the United States or Israel, nor to the present day, but has a historical perspective as well.
First I want just to point out that Jews and Catholics have both been subjected to misunderstanding and sometimes terrible accusations. So historians have told us, for example, that in antiquity pagans accused Christians of practicing cannibalism, and that the Eucharist was cannibalism. There have been accusations against Catholics also in Germany in the middle of the 19 Century. There is a fine book by Michael Gross about that. Terrible accusations about financial misconduct, sexual abominations, and all kinds of other things... And similar accusations against Jews as well. So, I think one of the issues is the arising feeling in the U.S.A. of anti-Semitism, and it is not only a feeling but also a fact, and also of anti-Catholicism.
Let's begin with an alliance. We know that there have been accusations that are unfounded. So we both need to clarify who we are and what we stand for and work together against those terrible accusations. This is very important for mutual relations.
During the opening of the Center at the Catholic University of Lublin, whose patron was your father - Abraham Joshua Heschel - it was often emphasized that Judaism is the root of Christianity...
One of the things that my father used to point out is that Saint Paul in the Epistles of the New Testament speaks about the new Israel, implying that there is Israel. What sense would it make for Christians to speak of the new Israel if there is no Israel? What sense would it make to speak about the God of Israel if there is no Israel? What does it do to the world if there is no Sabbath, for instance? On the contrary, Pope John Paul II wrote about the Sabbath and stressed that for Catholics, too, Sabbath has meaning and importance. It seems to me that in fact, we enhance one another religiosity, and one another's faith. And that was my father's message. Yes, we have said bad things to one another over the centuries, but let's not focus on that right now. Let's also think about the things we have done to help one another.
The ways, for example, when Jews live in an area where Christians are pious, Jews are also pious. The piety, the atmosphere, the spiritual atmosphere affects all of us. It creates an environment in which we can all flourish religiously - in our different faiths, in our different environments. We deepen one another's experience. That was my father's message.
According to many accounts, Abraham Heschel was very involved in interreligious dialogue, for instance during the Second Vatican Council. Together with Catholic clergymen, including Cardinal Augustine Bea, he worked for understanding between Jews and Christians.
The question for my father was what we do for each other at this point in time. First of all, the Second Vatican Council decree: we have to stop with the effort to claim that Jews have killed Christ. They didn't. Cardinal Bea [Augustin Bea – a Jesuit, ecumenist] was clear about that. That has to end and has ended. My experience is that Catholics are not taught that anymore.
I have great admiration for Cardinal. Bea. I think he was a brilliant thinker, a brilliant theologian. You know who he was, the one who directed the "Nostra aetate". Cardinal Bea pointed out that if Jews had been blamed for the murder of Christ, then the Jews of the earliest era such as saint Paul, for example, would have said something about it but they didn't.
We are living in difficult times, times of confusion caused by crises of various kinds - pandemics, Russian aggression, and inflation. What would be Rabbi Abraham Heschel's message to our world now?
My father always emphasized that when we come together, first of all, we should not look for what divides us.
We all face death, we face terrible threats right now. We are sitting here very close to the border with Ukraine, here in Lublin, and in Russia Putin is threatening with nuclear weapons. It is a very frightening time. More than anything we have to come together. We also have to try to understand if there I a way we can find together to overcome the tension, the anger the polarization.
Is there any way we can reach hearts that are so hard and so cruel and soften them? What can we do? What religious recourses do we have to take anger and turn it into kindness?
So my father said...There is a famous prayer in Judaism called Kadesh. It's a prayer for the dead, but the prayer doesn't mention death. The payer says: (Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba) "let it be more of God in this world, let us magnify God's presence. In a sense, that is the essence of religious obligation. How do we magnify God's presence in this world? So my father addressed this and said: we have to understand, how God sees us. Not just how we see God. We are always anthropomorphizing, we speak about the arm of God, the finger of God... But how does God view us? How do we look from God's point of view? What is God suffering from? The injustice, the cruelty we do to one another. If we are God's creation, then how can we destroy God's creation and claim to be believers in God?
My father used to say that too often sermons are so superficial. People are sitting in the synagogue, and in church, and they may have something terrible going on in their lives. Maybe they would just die of cancer, maybe someone is dying, maybe there is a divorce or they have a sick child, God forbid. How do the sermons address such people? How to speak to people's hearts and lift them up?
Here in Poland in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a great transformation. There was a new spiritual movement in Judaism about prayer. A revolution, in a way; theologically it was extraordinary - called Hasidism. What happens if someone comes to you in despair? How do you respond? Hasids say you have to enter, descend into that person's despair, and feel with them, not with superficial words but with your heart, with your soul. And how do you do that? What is the secret of the soul? You have to find the secret of the person's soul.
Please tell us what are the most important goals - in your opinion - that the Center for Catholic-Jewish Relations of the Catholic University of Lublin should pursue.
My feeling is that the Heschel Centre at the Catholic University of Lublin should have three main goals. One is scholarship, another is teaching and the third is creating a new atmosphere.
Scholarship. I have already spoken to the Rector, prof. Kalinowski, and also to prof. Wróbel and suggested the names of wonderful scholars from Israel, Europe, and the United States who could come to Lublin and engage in discussion with the professors here, at the University, and hold workshops, lectures, symposia. That would be wonderful.
Discussing Catholic – Jewish relations in Lublin would produce something different from a discussion held let's say in the USA or in Germany. It is different here. That atmosphere and the fact of being at this important university, named for John Paul II – would be very important. Let's see how the atmosphere in this place would produce different approaches, and ask different questions, too.
Teaching, so classes can be offered to the students. There are many ways to do this. Since the pandemic we use ZOOM much more often – we can have classes together. We can bring students together for conversations from other countries. Perhaps the students here can also attend lectures and classes in other countries. Maybe they can also do some research projects together. Students from Poland together with students from Germany, for instance, France, and England.
What is most important at this moment is the atmosphere.
So I know everyone, everywhere, is feeling a lot of tension. There are terrible political threats, polarization, and a lot of anger. There are people on the right wing and people on the left wing who are angry and adamant about their position, not so much interested in talking, compromising, and having conversations.
We need to change the atmosphere. To me, that's one of the most important things that the religious community can accomplish: to transform the atmosphere, to transform the mood. I think we notice, when we go, for example, when you go to a synagogue or when you go to a church, you come out feeling different than when you get in. It is to be transformed through prayer.
The interreligious dialogue could be also a kind of prayer. That is what we should try to achieve. And that should be known to everyone. We don't come together to argue about the past or history or politics. We come together to change the mood. My hope would be that Heschel Center would create a different kind of atmosphere; that people would come to the Center and engage in discussions, and leave feeling transformed; that that would be an experience like going to church or synagogue; that our hearts and souls, as well as our minds, would be engaged; and a new spirit could be created. That is my hope.