2. Would you enter such a site to attend meetings of non-sectarian support groups (such as Alcoholics Anonymous), cultural (e.g. traveling string quartet), or civic events (e.g., voting booths are sometimes placed by civic authorities into sanctuary lobbies and the program rooms of religious institutions)?
3. Or to engage in interfaith dialogue, for a multi-faith Thanksgiving? Or for a multi-faith memorial service after a major societal tragedy (e.g. 9-11, or Veterans memorial?)
4. Would you enter a given site, or allow your child to enter the site as part of a multifaith or cultural awareness series? (e.g., when scouts visit each other's religious sites and services?)
5. Would you enter the site if rented or co-owned by your havurah, minyan, synagogue or other Jewish non-profit? For services? For a one-time Israel Independence Day concert? For youth group, religious school, or other Jewish social meetings? For a Jewish Day School or summer camp? Conversely would you vote for your board to rent your Jewish community site(s) to groups from other religious traditions? Never? Some? All?
6. Would you enter for a non-Jewish friend or colleague's rite of passage? (e.g., Wedding? Baptism? Conversion? Funeral service? Ordination?)
7. For a friend's interfaith rite-of-passage?
8. For a family member's interfaith rite-of-passage?
9. For the rite-of-passage of a family member being completely conducted under a jurisdiction other than Judaism?
10. Regularly attend services of another religion with a life-partner who is of that religion?
11. Would you regularly attend services of another religion, when you live somewhere that offers no Jewish community, or none in which you participate? Well, this is the easiest one, experience shows either you, or almost certainly your children, will be lost to Judaism if you do so.
2. Others cite traditional sources that prohibit entering churches and temples, where what the rabbis considered idol worship is practiced. Those coming from this vantage point cite sources such as: Talmud Avodah Zara 17a as well as Maimonides, the Rashba, the Ritba, Rosh, and Rabbis Moshe Feinstein, Ovadia Yosef and Eliezer Waldenberg. Instead, they encourage that interfaith dialogue and contact be held on neutral ground, and suggest this has the advantage of not trivializing the religious power of other tradition's religious sites, nor our own.
3. Jewish law and custom appreciate that sometimes situations arise where entry to sites of other religions is necessitated to avert causing offense that might lead to malevolence towards Jews. (The Holocaust, pogroms, Spanish Inquisition and Crusades have made us a discerning people when it comes to safety and self-preservation.) The code of Jewish law called the Shulchan Aruch allows Jews being asked to represent their communities to the ruling government to do so, even if the gathering is in a religious site that offers idol worship and the required dress would not usually be acceptable under Jewish norms.
2. There is a clear Biblical injunction against creating or encountering, embodied images of a god or gods with a human face, aka, forms considered foundational to avoda zara, "idol worship."
Other religions: Other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism and many others are either bulk-listed under avoda zara, or are intelligently and individually reviewed and discussed depending upon the sources one studies.
4. There are seven laws which Maimonides most famously considered essential criteria for ethical human societies and religions to whom we can relate. There are called the Noachide laws; they derived from the Torah and are listed by the Talmud and Tosefta as: Prohibition of idolatry, murder, theft, sexual immorality, blasphemy, eating flesh taken from an animal while it is alive, and the requirement there be the establishment of courts of law.
6. It can be inappropriate and/or disrespectful to engage in practices of other religions, for example, one does not take communion unless one is a Catholic deemed in good standing by the priest. A long-standing Jewish practice is not to bow or kneel in obeisance to monarchs or other heads of nations, nor in religious contexts of others. Participation without commitment can be viewed as trivializing the traditions of others. One's quiet presence at a religious ceremony is often well received, in our tradition and others.
7. There is also the principle in Judaism called maarit ayin or maris ayin, which advises care not to give others wrong impressions about you, nor to act in a way that might cast doubt on the core practices or faith of the Jewish people.
8. Another consideration is the mitzvah of bal tashchit, caring for the environment. This speaks to the importance of repurposing available space in buildings to avert depletion of the planet's resources during construction.
9. Pikuakh nefesh, the mitzvah of saving lives, trumps, if one is entering to work at a soup kitchen, homeless shelter, respond to a medical emergency or fire, or seek sanctuary from persecution (some of our people survived the Holocaust in this way).
Knowledge and experience in Judaism is an essential part of developing the capacity for dialogue, understanding and coexistence with those who follow other religious paths. As an author I have chosen to explain the meaning and relevance of Judaism's core ethos of mitzvah-centered living in my books [4], lectures, workshops and retreats, and of course through this site, ReclaimingJudaism.org.
- bal tashchit [6]
- Christianity [7]
- church [8]
- Hinduism [9]
- interfaith [10]
- Islam [11]
- maarit ayin [12]
- mosque [13]
- Noachide Laws [14]
- pikuach nefesh [15]
- Pirkei Avot [16]
- Talmud [17]
- Tosefta [18]
- Mitzvah Guidance [19]