Temple Beth-El Las Cruces is the fourth congregation and community I have served since my ordination at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in June of 1981.
In each of my previous communities, there was a formal interfaith organization and an organized clergy group. In my last two communities, I participated (and often helped to plan) an interfaith Thanksgiving service and a service commemorating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Las Cruces, New Mexico features a diverse faith community. It is the first city in which I have lived that is the center of a Roman Catholic diocese. There are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Baha’i and Buddhist groups that are active and vibrant in their worship and programming.
Members of Temple Beth-El have recounted for me some of the interfaith programming from the past: interfaith Psalms study, joint programs with a Catholic Church near the previous location of Temple, Thanksgiving services, participating in the New Mexico State University Interfaith Council, and an ongoing relationship with Roman Catholic Bishop Ricardo Ramirez prior to his retirement in 2013.
In my eighth year in Las Cruces, interreligious connection and coordinated action continues to be ongoing and vibrant.
Members of the Jewish community serve breakfast every Monday with representatives from local Christian congregations at the El Caldito Soup Kitchen.
Temple Beth-El’s Social Action/Adult Education committee sponsors and organizes an annual interfaith dialogue program at Temple Beth-El on the Sunday before Thanksgiving on a chosen topic. This began in 2015, when the committee chairperson requested that I invite spiritual leaders to take part in a panel presentation to share faith perspectives on gratitude. During our fourth annual gathering on November 18, 2018, those who attended were calling for more frequent dialogue opportunities throughout the year.
I participate in an interfaith book discussion group that includes members of the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Baha’i communities. We meet every Friday at a local Catholic Church to discuss a book of our choosing. In early 2017, I was invited to teach the group about Jews in America, with Dr. Jonathan Sarna’s book, American Judaism, as our text. Since then, we have read and discussed other books on religion that have enabled us to deepen our understanding of one another’s beliefs and traditions, including Constantine’s Sword, by James Carroll. Currently, we are reading The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong.
I convene local clergy on the third Thursday of each month for breakfast. This group has been important in strengthening connections among a core of local spiritual leaders.
Over the past eight years, Temple Beth-El’s Tanakh study group, held at Temple every Wednesday, has studied Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Exodus, and Isaiah. We are now reading and discussing the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. This group has become interfaith with the participation of the local Orthodox priest, members of his church, and other members of the general community.
New Mexico CAFe (Communities in Action and Faith), a local affiliate of the national community organizing group Faith in Action (formerly PICO), has brought clergy and members of a broad base of religious groups together for discussion and action. Temple members have, at times, been active in NM CAFe and supported its work. I was often involved in helping to prepare faith-based statements on specific issues which expressed the teachings of several religious traditions on specific issues.
The local Dona Ana County chapter of the NAACP holds an annual march on the Sunday before the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday holiday, with a community breakfast on the morning of the holiday. Spiritual leaders and members of local congregations (including from the Jewish community) participate in these gatherings each year.
Religious and community leaders often join together in response to local and national events. Several of my clergy colleagues and I spoke at a vigil following the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, in June of 2016. Clergy addressed a vigil for the victims of gun violence (both citizens and police) in July of 2016. Roman Catholic Bishop Oscar Cantu, who recently moved to a diocese in San Jose, California, joined with me and several other spiritual leaders to organize a service to stand opposed to the Muslim ban in February, 2017. Bishop Cantu, along with Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, organized an interfaith service in Anthony, New Mexico in September, 2017 to express support for DACA recipients.
In the hours after the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, October 27, 2018, I knew that I needed to bring the community together for a memorial service for the victims, so that people could find expression for their grief and move towards strength and hope in the days to follow. Emails sent to Temple Beth-El members, my clergy group, and my Friday book discussion group, along with postings on Facebook, brought 180 people together at Temple on October 28.
People from throughout the faith community attended even beyond the direct reach of the messages I had sent. It was heartwarming to hear what people had to say when I gave those assembled a chance to speak with their neighbors about the positive values which they would try to promote going forward. When I asked people to share what they had discussed, one person offered this poignant comment: “We often judge people by what we see on the outside. We should overcome our tendency to prejudge and sit down with people to talk with them. We will usually find out that what we initially thought about them was wrong.”
That statement encapsulated exactly why interfaith dialogue and action is crucial to our communities. I know that Temple Beth-El and members of the Las Cruces community will continue to create new opportunities for sharing, learning and engendering connection and hope.
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