The Dialogue of Depth and Devotion
Title
The Dialogue of Depth and Devotion
Creator
Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections at the University of Colorado Boulder
Date
2013
Contributor
Stephanie Yuhas, Netanel Miles-Yepez, Deborah Fink, Sue Salinger, David Shneer, Andrew Violet, and Jacob Flaws.
Rights
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Format
Portable Document Format
Language
English
Text
A core contribution to post Holocaust American Judaism has been Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s deep engagement with other faiths by establishing intimate relationships with people of different religious backgrounds. Beginning in the mid-1950s, Schachter-Shalomi began to dialogue with many of the world’s great spiritual luminaries, including the Rev. Howard Thurman, Father Thomas Merton, Pir Vilayat Inayat-Khan, Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak, Father Thomas Keating, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama, and countless others.
His “organismic metaphor” imagines that the world’s religions function like organs in the body of the planet, each contributing something vital to the whole. Thus, he encourages everyone not only to respect and learn about other religious traditions, but to be supportive of them for the health of the body politic. He demonstrated this ideal in 1990 when, at the request of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, he led a delegation of Jews to Dharamsala, India, to talk with Tibetan Buddhists about their mutual experience of survival in exile. This profound encounter was later documented in the bestselling book, The Jew and the Lotus.
In Schachter-Shalomi’s worldview, this ability of one tradition to learn from another demonstrates how interconnected all people are becoming. Schachter Shalomi demonstrates this in his own personal practice when he, a Hasidic rebbe, was made a Sufi sheikh by Pir Vilayat Inayat-Khan in 1975.
Father Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
Father Thomas Merton outside of his Shangri-la hermitage, holding a copy of The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert, given to him that day by Rabbi Zalman Schachter, ca. 1963.
Srimata Gayatri Devi (1906-1995)
Close-up of Srimata Gayatri Devi sitting outdoors at the Vedanta Centre in Cohasset, Massachusetts in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Rev. Howard Thurman (1899-1981)
Candid photo of Reverend Dr. Howard Thurman in the office of Rabbi Zalman Schachter at the Hillel House of the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Gerald Heard (1889-1971)
Candid photo of Henry Fitzgerald ("Gerald") Heard in California, ca. 1961.
Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi (1916-1985)
Pir Vilayat Inayat-Khan (1916-2004)
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan in a rust colored robe, ca. 1965.
Father Thomas Keating (b. 1923)
H. H., the 14th Dalai Lama (b. 1935)
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, wearing the B'nai Or tallit given him by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, at the Spirituality and Education Conference at the Naropa Institute in 1997.
His “organismic metaphor” imagines that the world’s religions function like organs in the body of the planet, each contributing something vital to the whole. Thus, he encourages everyone not only to respect and learn about other religious traditions, but to be supportive of them for the health of the body politic. He demonstrated this ideal in 1990 when, at the request of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, he led a delegation of Jews to Dharamsala, India, to talk with Tibetan Buddhists about their mutual experience of survival in exile. This profound encounter was later documented in the bestselling book, The Jew and the Lotus.
In Schachter-Shalomi’s worldview, this ability of one tradition to learn from another demonstrates how interconnected all people are becoming. Schachter Shalomi demonstrates this in his own personal practice when he, a Hasidic rebbe, was made a Sufi sheikh by Pir Vilayat Inayat-Khan in 1975.
Father Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
Father Thomas Merton outside of his Shangri-la hermitage, holding a copy of The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert, given to him that day by Rabbi Zalman Schachter, ca. 1963.
Srimata Gayatri Devi (1906-1995)
Close-up of Srimata Gayatri Devi sitting outdoors at the Vedanta Centre in Cohasset, Massachusetts in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Rev. Howard Thurman (1899-1981)
Candid photo of Reverend Dr. Howard Thurman in the office of Rabbi Zalman Schachter at the Hillel House of the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Gerald Heard (1889-1971)
Candid photo of Henry Fitzgerald ("Gerald") Heard in California, ca. 1961.
Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi (1916-1985)
Pir Vilayat Inayat-Khan (1916-2004)
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan in a rust colored robe, ca. 1965.
Father Thomas Keating (b. 1923)
H. H., the 14th Dalai Lama (b. 1935)
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, wearing the B'nai Or tallit given him by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, at the Spirituality and Education Conference at the Naropa Institute in 1997.
Files
Citation
Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections at the University of Colorado Boulder, “The Dialogue of Depth and Devotion,” IJL Digital Exhibits, accessed May 18, 2024, https://embodiedjudaism.omeka.net/items/show/104.