Interview with Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Beth El
By Rachel Rosin
As a continuing series, NewCastleNOW.org will interview religious leaders in New Castle so we can all get better acquainted
Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Beth El in Chappaqua has recently taken on the role of president of the Chappaqua Interfaith Council. Rabbi Davidson has been an active participant in the Council for five years. He recently sat down with Rachel Rosin, a contributing writer for NewCastleNow.org, to talk about the work of the Council.
Q. What role does the Interfaith Council play in this community?
A. The Chappaqua Interfaith Council has been a terrific way for the leadership of the various religious communities in town to connect. It has produced wonderful friendships, not just among the clergy, but among lay leaders too.
It is important not just for that reason. A series of wonderful learning opportunities have come to pass as a result of the Council meetings. There have been occasions where there have been issues that have emerged in town where we have been able to talk honestly with each other about our concerns.
Q. How does each of the religious communities play a part in the Interfaith Council?
A. The Council has put certain programs together and encouraged all of the congregations that are its members to participate. So, for example, there is the annual Thanksgiving Service. Last year, for the first time, the service was followed by a dinner. While the service itself was beautiful, what happened at the dinner was wonderful.
Seated at every table were members of the different religious communities. So you had Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Baha’is and Quakers all mixed together. We encouraged people to sit at tables with people they did not know. It felt like what Thanksgiving is supposed to feel like. Here we had these various immigrant communities who came to America, some of us more recently than others, really celebrating our diversity. It was a great event and I’m very proud of the Council. We’re going to do it again this year.
Q. What are some of the current issues in which you see the Interfaith Council involving itself?
A. One of the topics that the Council has begun to wrestle with is the question of the role of religion in public life. Last spring we ran a terrific discussion group/panel on the role that faith plays in motivating us to do our work in the world. For example, one person spoke about his work in medicine because his faith suggests to him that healing is one of the responsibilities that God gives us. Others spoke about how they devoted their volunteer time in service to the Church or in working with the elderly.
There are other programs that we want to do. One of them will deal with the role of faith in political discourse: how we talk about faith in our expressions of values particularly as those values shape public policy. One question we’ll ask is, “To what degree are we comfortable hearing politicians talk about the role of faith in their own lives?”
Q. What role does the Interfaith Council play most effectively?
A. I think that the role that the Council plays most effectively is as sort of a sounding board for how the different communities feel about certain issues. Knowing how our neighbors feel gives us sensitivity in speaking to our own congregations. The Interfaith Council operates basically with the unanimity of the people sitting around the room.
The Interfaith Council wrote a letter to The Journal News to let people know about our relationship with the Upper Westchester Muslim Society. We wanted people to know that we have had a warm relationship for a number of years with this mosque. And, in a climate where unfortunately there is mistrust of many Muslim communities, we wanted everyone to know this was a community that we had complete faith and confidence in.
A couple of years ago we ran a terrific series of Open Houses where each congregation, the clergy or the lay leader of the congregation, talked about how its worship takes place. It was an opportunity for members of the other congregations to go and learn. To me that is a wonderful function of the Interfaith Council and we’ll do these Open Houses again because there will always be people wanting to learn.
Q. Is there a special Interfaith Council story you’d like to share?
A. Because of the friendships I’ve made on the Interfaith Council, when “The Passion of the Christ” came out I called a couple of my Council friends, Leigh Pezet, pastor of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer and Monsignor Charlie Kelly (of blessed memory) of St. John and St. Mary’s, and the three of us went to see the movie. So here you had the three of us, a Lutheran minister, a priest and a rabbi, sitting in a movie theatre in Hawthorne watching “The Passion of the Christ”.
And then we came back to my study and we sat in this room and talked about what it was like for each of us seeing the movie. That type of experience can only happen when you develop the relationships. So that is a very important part of what this Council does. The friendships that we have created give me the confidence that whatever would come up we would be able to talk it through and help our wider community find ways to address it.
Rachel Rosin is a congregant of Temple Beth El and has been its volunteer publicist and advertising director for the last four years.
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