Bridge Building

Nearly a thousand Protestant and Catholic Sunday-school teachers crowded last week through the pillared facade of Cleveland's Euclid Avenue Temple and jammed its high-domed auditorium. Three-quarters of them were women, but there were also some Presbyterian elders and Methodist deacons. Most of them had never been in a Jewish place of worship before. This was the first Institute on Judaism for Christian Teachers.

Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner, who conceived the idea of the institute, spoke of the importance of Jewish ceremonies in the life of Jesus: "The wine [Jesus] gave [his disciples] was from the Kiddush cup --the chalice. The bread he gave them to eat were these matzos, flour and water. Also on the Seder table is a shankbone, roasted .... In Jesus' time they ate the lamb together. That feast of the Passover was the Last Supper . . . 'Shema Israel adonoi elohenu adonoi echod--Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.' Those were words that Jesus knew and recited constantly."

As the cantor chanted the blessing of the wine and drank deeply from the silver goblet, one young woman whispered to her companion: "And that's real wine."

The non-Jewish teachers were impressed by the solemnity of the ceremonies and were pleased when Rabbi Brickner held a question & answer period. Samples: "Do the Jews believe in a Messiah?"

"In what light is Jesus regarded in the Jewish religion?" The Jews, replied Brickner, believe in a Messianic age, "when there shall be no war, no hatred," rather than in a Messiah, and they think of Jesus as a great teacher.

Rabbi Brickner has believed for years that Christian ministers should know what Judaism is and how closely related it is to Christianity. Approving his idea, Greater Cleveland's Ministerial Association set aside one of its monthly meetings to get instruction on the Jewish religion. In recent years it has been their best-attended meeting, and a showplace for scholars of both faiths.

Pleased last week with the first Institute on Judaism for Christian Teachers, Rabbi Brickner was even more pleased that Cleveland's Religious Education Fellowship will shortly reciprocate and start an Institute on Christianity for Jews. Says he: "Many Christians think of Judaism as lurking behind a silken veil . . . Judaism is a rational, logical faith and the more questions we are asked the better we like it ... Good will between religions can never be achieved simply by mutual back-patting . . . We're going to have to build bridges . . ."

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