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PRACTICING FAITH: NEGOTIATING IDENTITY ANDDIFFERENCE IN A RELIGIOUSLY PLURALISTIC WORLDFayette Breaux Veverka aa Villanova UniversityPublished online: 17 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Fayette Breaux Veverka (2004) PRACTICING FAITH: NEGOTIATING IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE IN ARELIGIOUSLY PLURALISTIC WORLD, Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 99:1,38-55, DOI: 10.1080/00344080490269380

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PRACTICING FAITH: NEGOTIATING IDENTITY ANDDIFFERENCE IN A RELIGIOUSLY PLURALISTIC WORLD

Fayette Breaux VeverkaVillanova University

Abstract

The concept of “practice” has become a central category of socialanalysis across a variety of disciplines. While religious educators havebegun to recognize the critical role of practices in faith formation, lessattention has been given to their role in education for responsiblereligious pluralism. Based on conversations between Catholic andJewish educators, this article argues, first, that educating for authen-tic religious identity and for responsible pluralism are intrinsicallyrelated, not antagonistic or mutually exclusive concerns. Second, itargues that “practices” as rooted in and expressive of particular re-ligious traditions are not only critical to nurturing and sustainingparticular religious identities, but that as expressions of shared hu-man goods, they also function as a meeting ground for participantsfrom different traditions to explore the “boundaries” that differen-tiate as well as the “bonds” that connect us in relationship with oneanother.

This article brings together two educational conversations that typicallyare pursued independently and often at cross purposes. Interlocutorsin the first conversation, tend to be “wall builders,” concerned aboutthe educational task of maintaining religious identity in the face ofthe corrosive powers of modern individualism, pluralism, relativism,and consumerism. The other conversation engages “bridge builders,”convinced that the encounter with religious pluralism is not only in-evitable, but also theologically and educationally necessary and en-riching (Eck 1993, 19). But what are the connections between thesetwo educational concerns?

In recent years I have had exceedingly rich opportunities to reflecton the relationship between educating for religious particularity andpluralism. My long-standing interest in the history, theory, and prac-tice of Catholic education took a new turn when I became coordinator

Religious Education Copyright C© The Religious Education AssociationVol. 99 No. 1 Winter 2004 ISSN: 0034–4087 print

DOI: 10.1080/00344080490269380

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of “For I Am Joseph Your Brother” a continuing education program ofJewish Studies for Catholic educators at Villanova University. Workingwith Jewish colleagues from nearby Gratz College, we created a pro-gram designed to change the way Catholics educate about Judaism. Forone year, fifteen Catholic educators engaged in intensive three-hourweekly seminars learning about Jewish faith, culture, and history fromJewish instructors. Outside of classes, participants celebrated Shabbatwith Jewish families, attended worship services at various Jewish syn-agogues, met with Jewish educators, and explored first-hand elementsof Jewish cultural and religious life, including a three-week study-tourof Israel. Concurrent with this project, I also participated in a two yearcolloquium among twelve Jewish and Catholic religious educators ledby Dr. Mary Boys of Union Theological Seminary and Professor SarahLee, Dean of the School of Education at Hebrew Union College inLos Angeles to explore issues of “Educating for Religious Particu-larity and Pluralism.” Using the experience of the colloquium, Boysand Lee facilitated a workshop for Catholic and Jewish educators inthe Philadelphia area entitled, “Catholics and Jews: How to TeachAbout the Other.” While this article does not attempt a comprehen-sive analysis of these innovative programs, it does seek to elaboratetwo fundamental insights that emerged consistently from engagementin these projects.

First is the conviction that the tasks of educating for religiousidentity and responsible pluralism are intrinsically related, not antag-onistic concerns. At the end of the grant supporting “For I Am JosephYour Brother,” appeals for extending the program were rejected byofficials, one of whom commented that “Catholics don’t even knowthere own tradition; why should we invest in acquainting them withanother?” Besides belying lack of understanding of the Jewish rootsof Christian faith, this comment reflects an attitude common amongreligious educators. It is “counterintuitive” to insist, as I did, that itis precisely through deep engagement with a religious “other” thatparticipants came to understand and appropriate their own religioustradition more deeply and critically. The second insight had to dowith the critical role of “practices” in forming religious identity andin making accessible an experience of the “other.” Not all educationhappens conceptually. We come to know and have a “feel” for a reli-gious tradition not only through stories remembered and theologicalbeliefs defined, but as Robert Bellah observes, by “participat[ion] inthe practices—ritual, aesthetic, ethical—that define the community asa way of life” (154).

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40 PRACTICING FAITH

My task, then, in the first part of this article is to demonstratethe necessary link between religious identity formation and a seriousencounter with a religious other. With a specific focus on Jewish andChristian relations, I will explore how the intrareligious dynamics ofeducating for religious identity and the interreligious dialogue betweenthe two traditions are mutually affected in a postmodern age. In a briefconcluding section, I will explore the specific contribution of religious“practice” in educating for religious particularity and pluralism. I willargue that “practices” rooted in and expressive of specific communaltraditions are critical to nurturing and sustaining religious identity.At the same time, as expressions of shared human goods, religiouspractices also can function as a meeting ground for participants indifferent traditions to explore the “boundaries” that differentiate” aswell as the “bonds” that connect us in relationship with one another.

EDUCATING FOR RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: THEPOSTMODERN CHALLENGE

There is an old saying that the best thing we can do for our chil-dren is to give them “roots and wings.” To know that one belongs andhas a specific place in the world is to be grounded as a human be-ing, to have a center. But without sufficient room to grow, roots getpot-bound, twisted in on themselves, strangling new life. To long for“home”—community and connection—is deeply human, but so too isthe desire to explore beyond our particular horizons. The encounterwith another, especially the stranger, can expand, deepen and enrichour live. Nonetheless, by destabilizing and decentering our world, itcan just as readily threaten the very ground on which we stand. Humanidentity is always relational, forged in a constant process of negotiatingboundaries and border crossings.

Something analogous happens within communities of faith. Weare always religious in some particular way. There is no “generic” reli-gion because our way to God is always mediated by some set of imagesand symbols, metaphors and stories, beliefs and practices. Religioustraditions embody a particular people’s experience of the divine overtime. Each is a unique and irreplaceable embodiment of the accu-mulated wisdom of a people bound together by common memoriesand hopes that shape the religious and moral imaginations of its mem-bers. Yet religious identity is not some unchanging essence handed onfrom generation to generation, but a dynamic process through which

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treasured religious meaning are interpreted, reconstructed or evenchanged over time in light of new, ever-changing historical and socialcircumstances. To participate in a living faith tradition is not only toidentify with an historical people; it is to engage in an ongoing com-munal conversation about how best to live in relationship with God inthis time and this place.

Historically, this adaptive, developmental “traditioning” processtook place slowly, even glacially. Change could be absorbed and in-tegrated over time in ways that did not overwhelm a community’ssense of continuity and identity. However, in the midst of contempo-rary pluralism, individualism, and awareness of the historically situ-ated condition of knowledge, as Kathleen Tanner observes, religiousidentity “is fluid and complex; its meaning contested by different in-terpretations and definitions, ever subject to changing conditions andmultiple understandings. It is always in the process of qualification andmodification” (1997, 25). Beliefs and practices that constitute clear anddefinitive boundaries in one age may become less significant and moveto the periphery in another. What some members consider essential inone context, others merely tolerate, ignore, or even reject in another.What was once excluded may later be embraced. As theologian RonaldTheiman concludes, the identity of a religious tradition “Can never befixed or final because it is always in the making” (1996, 149).

As communities of faith struggle to live out treasured religiousmeanings from the past in new, ever-changing historical and socialcircumstances, we come to appreciate that “the tradition we have re-ceived is itself the accumulated efforts of past generations engaged ina similar task” (Sawicki 1987, 376). For religious educators who bearresponsibility for nurturing religious identity and commitment, it isno small task to equip new generations of the faithful to abide in thiscreative, tension-filled relationship between identity and difference,continuity and change, commitment and criticism, memory and hope.As Mary Boys has argued, it requires a distinctive type of formationshe refers to as “education for paradox.” Obviously, religious educa-tors seek to foster faith commitments that are “clear and rooted” in atradition’s faith and practices. However, to honor the mystery of re-ligious experience, religious commitments must also retain a degreeof “ambiguity and adaptability” that embodies an awareness of thelimits of all human apprehension of the divine (1997, 7–9). Even un-der optimal conditions, this is a delicate balancing act; but for Jewsand Christians educating amidst the centrifugal forces of postmoderncultural developments, it is a daunting challenge.

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For example, while we recognize that religious identity is com-municated both formally and informally through active participationin a community of faith, religion in modernity has become a private,individual affair and a matter of choice, not obligation. How are we toencourage participation in the shared rhythms of corporate, communallife in cultures that oblige each individual to create him or her self?Moreover, as communal participation depends increasingly on reli-gion’s subjective appeal, can “religious identity” be sustained amidstlocal congregational cultures shaped less by distinctive religious tradi-tions and practices than by the personal needs and preferences of itsmembers?

Just as individuals require clear psychological boundaries to main-tain an enduring sense of self, religious identity is nurtured in com-munities whose members share a common sense of identity and pur-pose, however differently interpreted. But for the most part, we nolonger live in the kind of cohesive, bounded communities where re-ligion, ethnicity, class and neighborhood reinforce a distinctive senseof peoplehood (Bellah et al. 1985) We are “saturated selves” living inmultiple communities of discourse, each with distinctive histories andtraditions, some complementary, others contradictory (Gergen 1991).Personal identity becomes diffused and fragmented as individuals areincreasingly forced to sift and weigh competing moral, religious, aes-thetic and intellectual claims (Wuthnow 1998). As members bringthese conflicting commitments and divided loyalties to their partic-ipation in religious communities, our “particularities” become more“plural.” Religious communities become increasingly diverse, includ-ing groups that may or may not see themselves as compatible with oneanother (Hunter 1994). When the differences within particular reli-gious traditions seem as great as those among them, they tend to loosetheir distinctive character as communal bonds become more fragileand boundaries become more permeable. If education is a communitybuilding enterprise in which individuals come to see themselves as apeople sharing a common vision and way of life, how does a commu-nity educate when the very definition of what it means to be a peopleis itself at issue? How do we sustain a sense of corporate identity amidtensions generated by multiple and diverse religious understandingsand practices?

While there are no easy answers to these questions, it is im-portant to note that in “educating for paradox,” our contemporarycontext largely insures that religious commitments are “ambiguous”and “adaptive.” Little intentional effort seems required to cultivate

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these qualities. On the other hand, the culture provides little sup-port, indeed, actively militates against religious commitments becom-ing “rooted” and “clear.” In the face of such challenges, despite our bestefforts, the “roots” we cultivate are often shallow, barely able to sustainlife and growth; and the “wings” we seek to strengthen prove unableto navigate a sure course, easily tossed about by every passing current.No wonder it is tempting for religious communities to invest their bestenergy, imagination, and efforts to identity maintenance, while view-ing engagement with religious “others” as, at best, a distraction and,at worst, a burdensome obstacle in an already difficult endeavor.

How Jews and Christians respond to these intrareligious dynamicswill play a large role in shaping the future of interreligious dialoguebetween the two traditions. Recognizing the ambiguity and pluralismwithin each tradition has the potential for deepening the conversa-tion between Judaism and Christianity, but it also may lead eitheror both traditions to turn inward and retreat from dialogue out of aheightened concern for sustaining communal identity. Which path ourcommunities choose, in large part, depends on how we conceive of therelationship between identity and difference.

EDUCATING FOR RELIGIOUS PLURALISM:A RATIONALE

As Diana Eck observes, we live in a world where religious diversityis “an existential fact” (167). Our inevitable encounters with religious“others” alert us to the spiritual depth, power and beauty in differentreligious traditions as well as confront us with the darker shadow sideof our own. Whatever the strength of our own commitments, we knowon some level that it is possible to choose otherwise. Moreover, tolisten to a religious “other” is not just to hear someone else’s story.It is to consider a claim about the fundamental nature of the worldthat often differs from and challenges our own. To put it bluntly, tohear another’s religious story is to hear a rejection of our own. Wheneducating for religious commitment faces so many challenges, whyshould a religious community actively seek opportunities for dialogueand engagement with others?

The answer to these questions depends in large part on how weunderstand the character of religious traditions and the relationshipsamong them. For example, if we understand our own tradition asthe sole bearer of truth while all others are in error, there is littlepurpose in dialogue other than to convert the other to one’s own

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point of view. Resistance to the truth—interpreted as stubbornnessor hardness of heart—must be worn down and overcome. Sadly, thisoppositional, even adversarial view has characterized the long, tragichistory of Jewish-Christian relations. Until recent times, most Chris-tians believed, like the early Christian theologian John Chrysostom,that “the truth of one religious [is] dependent on the invalidity of theother” (Wilkens 1983, 148). On the other hand, if all religious choicesare merely subjective preferences, then nothing of consequence is ac-tually at stake in the encounter with the other. Is it possible to fostercommitment to our own particular faith traditions without demoniz-ing, absorbing, or relativizing the other?

In my view, neither fundamentalism nor relativism is theologicallyor ethically tenable as a way of educating for responsible religious plu-ralism. If one takes religious claims seriously and, at the same time,recognizes the existence of religious diversity as fact of life, then wecannot afford to ignore or merely tolerate one another. Instead, weneed to find ways, in Eck’s words, “to make a home for ourselves andour neighbors.” In contrast with either “exclusivism” or “relativism,”Eck proposes another option. “Pluralism,” she argues, is “the complexand unavoidable encounter, difficult as it might be, with the multi-ple religions and cultures that are the very stuff of our world, someof which may challenge the very ground on which we stand.” Plu-ralism requires active engagement with differences, seeking genuineunderstanding, not mere tolerance of the other.” When pluralism isembraced as a value, dialogue becomes a “truth-seeking encounter”between religiously committed participants who seek to “find ways tobe distinctively ourselves and yet be in relation to one another” (1993,191–9).

While I find Eck’s analysis helpful, there is a deeper level of com-plexity to religious traditions that alludes her typology. The problem isone Lee H. Yearly in his William James Lecture delivered at HarvardUniversity describes as “false fixities.” Eck’s analysis assumes a viewof “religions” as separate and distinct objects lying in space, each hav-ing a certain essence, an identity that distinguishes it from all others.But this physical model of “self-contained entities interacting acrossstable boundaries” is insufficiently nuanced to account for the enor-mous complexity of religious traditions. Her analysis, for example,does not recognize that religious traditions are internally, as well asexternally, differentiated; that our “particularities” are themselves plu-ral. To defend the proposition that educating for authentic religiousidentity and responsible pluralism are intrinsically related we need to

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conceptualize “identity” and “difference” in ways that better illuminethe interdependence and inter-relatedness of religious traditions.

In The Symbolic Construction of Community, sociologist AnthonyP. Cohen defines community as a symbolically constructed “systemof values, norms, and moral codes which provides a sense of iden-tity within a bounded whole to its members” (1985, 27). This idea of“community” implies relationships of both similarity and difference;that is that members of my group have something in common with eachother, which distinguishes them in a significant way from the membersof other groups. Communal identity is inherently “relational” and “op-positional” in the sense that groups “only need to formulate a sense ofthemselves as coherent and distinctive because they confront others.”I can only recognize “sameness” because I am aware of “difference.”Boundaries have “a symbolic character and function” that allow themto be perceived in rather different terms, “not only by people on op-posite sides of it, but by people on the same side.” This conceptualfluidity is precisely what makes social solidarity possible; it providescommunity members “with the means to gloss over the innumerablefactors which divided them in the course of day to day social life, inorder to present themselves, by contrast with other communities, ashaving an essential likeness” (1985, 27–32). It is no wonder that socialgroups often seek to reinforce group identity and solidarity by an op-positional strategy that heightens and reinforces differences between“us” and “them.”

But religious identity also is relational in the sense that particular-ities do not exist as isolated wholes. The other’s story impinges uponand informs my own identity and self/understanding. As theologianKathryn Tanner (1997) observes, religious traditions have been forgedin relation to one another and to the larger cultures of which they are apart, appropriating and refashioning certain elements, while opposingand excluding others. “It is not so much what materials are used, buthow they are used that establishes religious identity. Different ways oflife establish themselves . . . in a kind of tussle with one another overwhat is to be done with the materials shared between them” (110–9).If religious identity is relational in this sense, Tanner concludes, then

any boundary distinguishing Christianity from a non-Christian way of lifecannot be determined by looking at Christianity alone. . . . Boundaries aredetermined by how a Christian way of life is situated within a whole fieldof alternatives. The boundaries distinguishing a Christian way of life fromothers will shift with shifts in the practices of the other ways of life makingup the field. (111)

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For Christians and Jews, educating for religious identity requiresattention to pluralism because the shape of our traditions has the im-print of the other on our respective histories. It is not just that en-countering the other enriches my own self-understanding, but thatthe relationship with the other is in some sense constitutive of thatidentity. In the words of Jewish scholar Jean Halperin “we not onlyneed to understand one another, we need one another to under-stand ourselves” (Eck 1993, 189). This is especially true for Chris-tianity where “the encounter with Judaism is not only an externalconversation with a religious other, but “an internal conversation be-tween two parts of our own tradition—indeed, two parts of our writ-ten scriptures, what we have traditionally called the Old and NewTestaments” (Soulen 1996, 21). You can’t educate about Christian-ity without at the same time making statements about Judaism. AsChristopher Leighton observes, “Christians walk a path that repeatedlycrosses Jewish boundaries. There is no way around this stubborn fact.Christians cannot enter into relationship with the God of Israel with-out simultaneously becoming entangled with God’s covenantal part-ner, Israel” (2000, 1). Cunningham’s 1991 study of Catholic religiontextbooks illustrates in practical terms the truth of this claim: nearlyhalf of primary grade lessons contained specific references to Jews orJudaism.

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS: BONDS, BOUNDARIES,AND BORDER CROSSINGS

If this relational understanding of religious identity is accurate,then religious education for authentic particularity and responsiblepluralism are inextricably linked; each task impacts and informs theother. Given the increasing fragility and permeability of communalboundaries in a postmodern world, religious educators may be temptedto retreat from engagement with others, to rely on various forms ofhomogeneity—of ethnicity, class, race, neighborhood, or lifestyle—tosustain communal solidarity and to focus exclusively on strengtheningthe internal vitality of faith communities. But the reality of our frag-mented, contentious postmodern world pushes religious education tolocate itself at the various “borders” that inhabit our divided lives—theborders between communities of discourse, between religious tradi-tions, between faith communities and the public world, and amongthe multiple commitments that structure our personal identities.

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At the same time, it is not unreasonable for Jews and Christiansto anticipate that such educational “border crossings” will further in-tensify and accelerate the destablizing, de-centering forces that per-sistently undermine communal traditions, authorities, and values. Iwould make the case that educating for pluralism must attend to theimpact of dialogue on a community’s efforts to form the religious iden-tity of its members. Shifting perceptions of the boundaries that divideus inevitably impact religious self-understanding. For this reason, acommunity’s engagement with religious others cannot afford to moveforward independently of efforts to integrate new insights and learn-ing in the life of the community of faith—in the stories we tell, thebeliefs we articulate, the practices we engage, and the values we em-body. Border crossings and boundary building need to feed into oneanother for the integrity and flourishing of both traditions.

The inevitable tensions between educating for particularity andpluralism can be at least partially negotiated by a postmodern readingof identity and otherness suggested in this essay. Until recent times,modern forms of education have largely been shaped by the searchfor universal truths and values that could transcend and/or reconcilethe religious and cultural differences that divide and separate humancommunities. Efforts to maintain and define cultural and religiousparticularities were suspect; diversity was viewed as source of socialconflict, an obstacle to social integration and cohesion. But as MiroslavVolf so eloquently argues, there is a commensurate danger in the failureto recognize that boundaries not only divide and separate, they alsocontain and hold.

Vilify all boundaries, pronounce every discrete identity oppressive, put thetag “exclusion” on every stable difference—and you will have aimless driftinginstead of clear-sighted agency, haphazard activity instead of moral engage-ment and accountability and, in the long run, a torpor of death instead of adance of freedom.” (64–65)

Honoring particularity is not opposed to valuing pluralism; indeed,the former is a necessary pre-condition for the existence of the latter.Religious education in a postmodern time will seek to honor plural-ism, not by ignoring or obliterating differences, but by exploring the“boundaries” that differentiate as well as connect us in relationshipwith one another.

This postmodern reading of identity and difference also suggeststhe challenge of sustaining religious identity cannot adequately be

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addressed by guarding boundaries and strengthening borders alone.As Jewish educator Jonathan Woocher argues neither an uncriticalrelativism nor a defensive triumphalism is an adequate response tothe contemporary crisis of religious identity. “It’s not that I believethat all religious commitments are equivalent. I will defend the valueand validity of my beliefs. But long history argues that it is muchmore rewarding and important to build up and improve the interiorof our meaning systems than to defend their boundaries.” Sociolo-gist Anthony P. Cohen’s analysis of “community” reinforces Woocher’sinsight. Cohen argues that “whether or not its structural boundariesremain intact [emphasis added], the reality of community lies in itsmembers perception of the vitality of its culture. People constructcommunity symbolically, making it a resource and repository of mean-ing, and a referent of their identity” (1985, 18).

Woochers and Cohen remind us that religious communities are“bound” together by something more than the “boundaries” exist-ing at the “borders” distinguishing one group from another. Perhapsagain, we are trapped by spatial metaphors that are inadequate to theorganic character of communities. Notice the distinctions we makebetween the term “boundary” and two other closely related wordsderived from the verb “to bind”: “bound” and “bond.” A “bond” issomething that binds, connects, or holds things together. We are con-nected, held together in relationship in multiple and complex ways.The strength of those communal “bonds”—be they memories, prac-tices, theology, experiences, geography, ethnicity, nationality, ideology,gender, or merely accidents of birth—are not necessarily dependenton the clarity, precision, or stability of the community’s boundaries.We can feel strongly “bound” or committed to a tradition and a com-munity whose boundaries we experience as fragile or in flux, just as wecan feel “disengaged” and “alienated” in a community with strong andstable borders. Analogously, religious traditions certainly cannot longsurvive if their members become indifferent to the beliefs, values, andpractices that constitute their common life, but a community cannotnecessarily insure its future simply by preserving continuity with itspast. The identity of a religious tradition is ultimately sustained notby guarding boundaries, but by the meaningfulness and vitality of acommunity’s symbols and practices.

1Woocher’s comments were made at a meeting of the Colloquium of Jewish andChristian Educators in which the author participated, New York, May 2, 1999.

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Because of our historical relationship, Jews and Christians in par-ticular need vigorous and passionate engagement within and betweenour two communities around the nature of our common life and thecharacter of our relationship with one another. The paradox is that itmay be at least in part through the on-going conversation about howto deal with “the other” that Christians and Jews can strengthen thebonds that constitute each as a particular faith tradition.” In Tanner’swords, “the distinctiveness of a Christian way of life is not so muchformed by the boundary as at it” (1997, 115). The wisdom we gainfacing inward toward one another may then empower us to face out-ward together, speaking of what we have learned about integrity andhealing to a broken world.

THE ROLE OF PRACTICES IN EDUCATINGFOR IDENTITY AND PLURALISM

Religious educators today, then, are left with a central paradox.When the integrity of our religious communities is under the greateststress, the more we need to attend to the shape of our differences bothwithin our particular traditions and with those of other faiths. Whatmight it look like to educate “at the boundaries” between traditions?What strategies might be appropriate for religious educators seekingto foster “religious commitments that are both clear and ambiguous,rooted and adaptive” (Boys 1987, 7)?

The term “practices” has become a central category of social anal-ysis across a variety of disciplines, though it is often used in quitedifferent ways. In religious education Craig Dykstra and Dorothy C.Bass use the term “Christian practices” to refer to “things Christianpeople do together over time to address fundamental human needs inresponse to and in the light of God’s active presence for the life of theworld” (2002, 18). In Practicing Our Faith, they, together with elevencolleagues,2 identify twelve practices as integral to the “shape andcharacter” of a “Christian way of life”: honoring the body, hospitality,household economics, saying yes and saying no, keeping Sabbath, dis-cernment, testimony, shaping communities, forgiveness, healing, dy-ing well, and singing our lives to God. A similar concern for attention

2In addition to Bass and Dykstra, the team included Amy Plantinga Pauw, L.Gregory Jones, M. Shawn Copeland, Thomas Hoyt Jr., John Koenig, Sharon DalozParks, Stephanie Paulsell, Ana Maria Pineda, Larry Rasmussen, Frank Rogers Jr., andDon E. Saliers.

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to the lived practice of faith is central in Michael Warren’s (1999) book,In This Time In This Place: The Spirit Embodied in the Local Assem-bly. Warren draws on both broad and narrow meanings of the term“practice” to examine the “range of activities used by local churchesas a way of being a church. . . what we do regularly and ordinarily”(128). Together, these works shift attention from concepts and beliefsto embodied activity as ways of forming people in faith.

Can the religious practices which root us in particular faith tradi-tions also serve to mediate our encounter with religious differences?I want to suggest that those symbolic, value laden, meaningful actionswhich most concretely and obviously divide us also constitute a bridgeaffording us entrance into one another’s religious worlds in ways thatallow us to experience both our distinctive particularities and our com-mon humanity.

The following stories illustrate the power of religious practices tocreate a space that honors both particularity and difference. The first isan incident reported in the September 8, 2002 Philadelphia Inquirerabout the celebration of Ro’sh ha-Shanah by Senator Joseph Lieber-man’s family during the 2000 presidential campaign. The Liebermanfamily went to a New Haven park to celebrate tashlikh, the ritualcasting of crumbs upon the water to symbolically throw away mistakesfrom the past year. Walking through the park with bags of bread to tossinto the pond, the family attracted a group of onlookers. The Senator’smother, Marcia Lieberman, described what happened next.

Joe began explaining to them what we were doing. Before we knew it, wehad a whole group walking with us—we must have had 30 people—all ina line. When we got to the park, Joe recited the prayer. He usually doesit in Hebrew, but this time he did it in English so our new friends couldunderstand. . . . On the way back, an Italian gentleman presented me witha bouquet of flowers. ‘That’s because you raised a son like Joe,’ he said.(Philadelphia Inquirer)

What strikes me about this story is the compelling power of this simple,meaningful human act. While some of the onlookers were perhaps mo-tivated by curiosity, or drawn by the Senator’s fame, I suspect there wasalso something deeper going on that was powerfully attractive, even tothose who were not Jewish. Celebrating tashlikh may be distinctivelyJewish, but one does not have to be Jewish to recognize tashlikh as aparticular community’s response to a deeply human need to acknowl-edge and come to terms with our shortcomings and failures, to manageguilt, to learn to forgive ourselves and others. And even though we are

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rooted in traditions that respond to these needs in different ways, wecan come to understand and appreciate, even be encouraged by thewitness of others to the possibility of human transformation.

Another illustration comes from a 60 Minutes profile of theAmerican-born conductor, Gilbert Levine, the first Jew to serve asconductor of the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra from l987 to 1993.Dubbed “the Pope’s Maestro” Levine first became acquainted withthen Archbishop Karol Wojtyla during his tenure in Poland. He waslater invited to Rome to meet the Pontiff personally and was tapped toconduct the celebration of the tenth anniversary of John Paul II’s pa-pacy. Other performances followed such as the 1993 World Youth Dayin Denver and a concert at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris ded-icated to healing the rift between Jews and Christians during disputesover the Carmelite monastery at Auschwitz.

However, it is was one concert in particular that earned Levine,a practicing Jew, the son of Yiddish-speaking parents and the grand-son of Polish Jews, the award of papal knighthood. Levine had ap-proached the Pope with the idea of a concert in Rome to commem-orate the Holocaust. The Pope readily agreed, but insisted that theconcert be held in the Vatican. The Papal Concert to Commemoratethe Holocaust, held April 7, 1994, included music by Franz Schu-bert, Beethoven, and Leonard Bernstein. In attendance were over200 Holocaust survivors, the chief rabbi of Rome Rav Elio Toaff, and7,500 invited guests. But what was truly historic about the occasionwas the playing of the Kol Nidrei, the traditional beginning of theYom Kippur eve service and the reciting of the Kaddish, the prayer ofsanctification recited by mourners. That had never been done before.For the first time, Jewish prayer was heard in the Vatican. Reflectingon the event, Levine spoke movingly of the impact of that concert.“Here I was performing in the Vatican, and yet it could have been asynagogue” (“Pope’s Musician”).

In comments at the beginning of the performance, John Paul II,too, alluded to the paradox of a transformed identity through the recog-nition and embrace of the other.

Among those who are with us this evening are some who physically under-went a horrendous experience, crossing a dark wilderness where the verysource of love seemed dried up. Many wept at that time and we still hearechoes of their lament. We hear it too: their plea did not die with them, butrises powerful, agonizing, heartrending, saying “Do not forget us!” It is ad-dressed to one and all. Thus we are gathered this evening to commemoratethe Holocaust of millions of Jews. The candles lit by survivors are intended

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to show symbolically that this hall does not have narrow limits. It contains allthe victims: fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and friends.In our memory they are all present. They are with you, they are with us(cited in Papal Concert).

These events, for me, speak of power of music, ritual, art, dance,and other aesthetic practices to create an embodied, non-literal zoneof meaning, an ambiguous “space” that allow us to occupy commonground in ways that honor rather than obliterate our differences. Prac-tices make possible the creative interplay of identity and difference inways that words and concepts are unable to effect.

The final story I will share recounts my own experience of studyingPsalm 147 with Jewish colleagues as part of the Colloquium experiencenoted at the beginning of this essay. After reading different translationsfrom both Catholic and Jewish sources, we reflected together abouthow we interpreted the psalm personally and what meaning the psalmevoked in each of our respective traditions.

My first insight came while reading verses 2 and 3: “The Lordrebuilds Jerusalem; He gathers in the exiles of Israel. He heals theirbroken hearts, and binds up their wounds.” How easily and automat-ically I, as a Christian, assign universal and metaphorical meaningsto the terms “Jerusalem” and “Israel.” But because I was reading thepsalm with faithful Jews, another powerful set of images emerged:Russian Jewish immigrants seeking refuge and finding a home in thestate of Israel, a poor woman beggar sitting near the entrance to theWestern Wall; foresters planting seedling trees and construction work-ers building roads—part of the many tasks of nation building.

Or consider verses 7 through 9. “Sing to the Lord a song of praise.Chant a hymn with a lyre to our God, who covers the heavens withclouds, provides rain for the earth, makes mountains put forth grass;who gives the bests their food, to the raven’s brood what they cry for.”

As a Christian I hear the voice of the psalmist giving praise forGod’s universal care for humankind. Among Jews, I am reminded of amore ordinary, specific king of care—tufts of pale green grass coveringthe Judean desert hills during the rainy season, a harbinger of hopethat this year’s short rainy season would be adequate to supply thewater needs of the region. Suddenly God’s care is physical, concrete,directed to the particular needs of a particular people.

Then verses 12–14 and 20: “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praiseyour God, O Zion! For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blessesyour children within you. He grants peace within your borders; he fillsyou with the finest of wheat. . . . He has not dealt thus with any other

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nation; they do not know his ordinances.” As a Christian, I see myself aspart of Zion—it is my children who are blessed. God’s peace is intendedfor me. I will be filled with the bread of life. However, reading theseverses in the presence of Jews suddenly de-centers the world of thetext. I am not the person to whom this word is first addressed. Godis not blessing my children or granting me peace. I am outside thebarred gates of the city. I am part of the nation that “does not knowGod’s ordinances.” I’m suddenly embarrassed, and even a bit ashamed.How presumptuous it must seem to Jews for Christians to appropriateso readily their Sacred writings and to see themselves as the centerof God’s address. Of course, from a Christian point of view, there is atheological rationale for such a claim. Nevertheless, at that moment Ifelt like an interloper intruding on an intimate relationship of which insome important ways I was not a part. And how naı̈ve, even arrogantof me not to notice it before.

Another epiphany occurred when two Jewish colleagues sharedwith me and another Catholic Colloquium member their memories ofcelebrating Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most solemn dayof the Jewish calendar. I confess that I don’t remember many of thedetails of the narrative. What I do remember was a sense of buildingmomentum through the day as the Jewish people came together toconfess their need of the Most Holy One and of one another, to repentof their failings, to seek reconciliation, to pray for the healing of theworld—Tikkum Olam. I could sense the power of that day, not only inthe lives of my colleagues, but among the Jewish people as a whole.

And then the climax of the story—the ending of the Day of Atone-ment with the proclamation of the Shema seven times over: ShemaIsrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai, Echchad” “Hear O Israel, the LordOur God, the Lord is One.” Then the long, haunting blast of the shofar.I was deeply moved, even shaken. It was as though I had been alloweda rare and privileged glimpse of the intimate embrace of lovers.

Now I must confess. Prior to this exchange, I had heard the blastof the shofar during the course of my work with Catholic educatorsstudying Judaism and found it a strange, harsh, even grating sound.The week after our Colloquium gathering, I accompanied a group ofCatholic educators on their first visit to a local synagogue. As was ourpractice, the Rabbi introduced Jewish prayer by explaining many ofthe physical elements of worship—including treating the group to aloud, vigorous blast of the shofar. This time, I heard all the choirs ofheavenly angels raised in hymns of praise and blessing to the MostHigh. And my soul was lifted up.

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CONCLUSION

These three vignettes give us some insight into what can happenwhen we pray, sing, mourn, celebrate and study in the presence of a re-ligious “other.” When I am in the presence of a religious other engagedin practicing their faith, I am compelled to see the other through theirown eyes, not filtered through my own tradition’s interpretive lens. Iam less able to reduce the other to an object, to reduce lived faith toa set of propositions; to render a complex, dynamic, living traditionas mere theological claims to be judged as either “right” or “wrong.”Moreover, I am also compelled to see my own tradition differently asI see myself through the eyes of the other. Through the mirror of theother, I can discover and come to appreciate previously unexploredbeauty and depth in my own tradition as well as confront categoriesand questions that challenge me to rethink and reconstruct my ownself-understanding. Finally, in the encounter with a religious other, Iopen the possibility of moving beyond my own religious particularityto learn more of what it can mean to have a relationship with the in-finite Mystery beyond human understanding. The truth, however, isthat we always educate in the presence of religious others—whetheror not they are immediately, physically present in our midst. This is theunavoidable context of faith formation in today’s world. The only ques-tion is whether our religious education practices reflect that awarenessor not.

Fayette Breaux Veverka is a professor in the Department of Theology andReligious Studies at Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania. E-mail:Fayette.veverka@Villanova.edu

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