Listen here.
I ask Rabbi Dunner to elucidate one “reason to be cheerful” about the Jewish future. So he tells me a story — about Christians.
Several years ago, Dunner helped organize a trip to Israel for Evangelical Christian leaders as part of his work with the Israel Christian Nexus. On his list of recommended sites, Dunner included an unusual suggestion for Christians: Mir Yeshiva in Mea Shearim, the largest yeshiva in the world. Bishop Robert Stearns, head of the Nexus, immediately said yes, that’s where the group should go.
Among the Charedim in Israel, Christians are still viewed with great suspicion due to a long history of Christian anti-Semitism, blood libels and blame, Inquisitions, forced conversions and the like. But on that night, 30 pastors poured into the Jerusalem Beis Midrash where 100 or so boys were still studying and according to Dunner, it was a lovefest. They opened a page of Talmud together and engaged in conversation. On the way out, a prominent pastor with a congregation in the tens of thousands told Dunner he had “met Jesus” in that yeshiva. Two students had asked the pastor all kinds of pointed questions, forcing him to defend his beliefs.
According to Dunner, this pastor said he had never had to defend his views before. Gospel is gospel. But it occurred to him that Jesus defends his ideas in the gospels, arguing with his interlocutors in much the same way those two yeshiva boys had argued with the pastor. “He realized, ‘Jesus must have studied at Mir Yeshiva!’” Dunner said. [Not sure about that one - E.E.].
“That was one of the most remarkable occurrences of my life,” he continued. “That is the power of the integration of different religious groups. Once you meet each other, you get a sense that what we share is more important than what we disagree about.
“So who am I to be a predictor of doom and gloom vis á vis the Jewish world? I subscribe to history. And Jewish history tells us that Jewish life is not going to die. It may morph from one thing to another, priorities may change, but Judaism doesn’t change.”
Danielle Beren
Jewish Journal
