Cultivating Character: Creating a Multifaith Community of Discourse

Abstract

Cultivating Character:Creating a Multifaith Community of Discourse Nancy Fuchs Kreimer (bio) Keywords multifaith community of discourse, character, Leonard Swidler, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, clergy education, Mussar movement, interfaith learning, moral behavior I did not learn everything I needed to know in kindergarten. This is especially true when it came to interfaith relations. I did learn much of what I needed to know in graduate school. This was thanks, in no small part, to Professor Leonard Swidler, who, with his creativity and indefatigable energy, provided indelible lessons about our mutual chosen field. I have received many blessings in my life, and I count my training at Temple University’s Department of Religion in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s as one of the finest. I came to Philadelphia to study for the rabbinate at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC), but I soon found myself increasingly excited by my work for the “adjunct” degree, a doctorate from Temple’s Religion Department. Especially compelling was my work with Swidler and the many opportunities within the classroom and outside that he created for us. Leonard tried hard to teach me two things, both of which I neglected to my detriment—to learn computers and to learn German. He also taught me some things that I do try to emulate: Believe in your students; encourage them without let up, even when they appear to be permanently derailed on the mommy track; promote them in every possible way; and always, always be a mensch. He also taught me that, even as we are doing important and satisfying work, we should always be thinking ahead to what is next. What issues are we missing? Who have we yet to invite to the table? What new methods must we explore? This is all fine. What is the next big thing? In an effort to live out that legacy, about three years ago I began the process of discerning what might be a creative addition to the field of interreligious engagement. For decades, I had participated and learned from dialogues whose focus had been helping each other better understand the “other” and, in turn, helping our communities teach, preach, and pray in ways that were more genuinely respectful of our neighbors and their faiths. I also engaged in multiple dialogues about theological issues that deepened my own understandings and that became, for me, a kind of spiritual practice in themselves. For as many years, I had worked side-by-side with interreligious colleagues to advance shared social and political agenda. More recently, I had seen how, along with my students and colleagues, I had benefitted from the exchange of spiritual practices—from meditation to spiritual direction. We had learned from one another valuable tools to help enhance our inner lives and our connections to the divine. What else did the field of interfaith have to teach us? I began to dream, as Leonard had taught us so well to do. Why not? I thought about the questions I was asking myself, personally and in my work as a professor in a rabbinical seminary, and then wondered if people of other faiths, especially those involved in training the next generation, were asking themselves the same questions. One question seemed particularly relevant for us to ask together: What are the practices through [End Page 112] which we, as heirs to religious traditions, cultivate character in ourselves and in our students? In our highly mobile, globalized world, multi-generational families and traditional religious communities of obligation—two primary transmitters of values and models of human excellence—are in decline. At the same time, a felt hunger on the part of many has led to an explosion of activities under the catch-all heading, “spirituality.” The focus of this spirituality revival has often been on the individual and his or her experience of wholeness, well-being, and connection to the “beyond.” Spirituality has increasingly become associated with self-realization. What was once the very heart of spiritual/religious education, that is, the cultivation of character, is now relegated to the margins. While there is much talk of God’s showing up in our lives, there is less talk of the cultivation...