The Observer, April 11, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 24
Rabbi promotes interfaith discussion at U. Oklahoma
Abigail Allums
Oklahoma Daily
(U. Oklahoma)
As a documentary producer, author, media analyst, and sought-after speaker, Brad Hirschfield is not the typical traditional Jewish Orthodox rabbi that his academic background suggests.
Yet Hirschfield, whose comments often are made on a global stage, addressed students, faculty, and guests Tuesday night in Beaird Lounge of the University of Oklahoma Memorial Union about the need for interfaith communication.
"No matter how smart you are, don't ever imagine you have the answers, and no matter how wrong you think the other side is, don't imagine they are not worth talking to and learning from," Hirschfield said. "This is not about tolerance. This is about celebrating the range of human response to life's biggest questions."
Hirschfield last visited OU in 2005 for the world premiere of the documentary Freaks Like Me, which featured discussions between OU students and Hirschfield at the Parliament of World Religions in summer 2004.
Officials from the Department of Religious Studies invited him to return to discuss his newly released book, You Don't Have to Be Wrong For Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, to promote an open dialogue on a topic not always found in the educational realm, said Paige Hoster, religious studies dean advisory Ccommittee representative. "The goal is to allow students a way of broadening their perspective on what religious studies can be," said Hoster, religious studies junior. "He is focusing on a topic that is highly discussed in the religious studies field today, and that is pluralism. Pluralism is a concept in response to the religious fanaticism or extremism that much of the world has faced in these last few years."
One student attendee, Leesa Keller-Kenton, religious studies and international and area studies senior, came to have her copy of Hirschfield's book signed.
"You can have two entirely different perspectives and neither is right or wrong," she said. "By acknowledging that, maybe you can start getting past the whole bickering aspect and actually do something."
Through his experiences, Hirschfield realized the need for a vocal advocate for acceptance of different religious beliefs.
After growing up in a Jewish home in Chicago, Hirschfield graduated from high school at 17 and moved to Hebron in the West Bank to become more observant of his faith, he said. Hirschfield, who had struck a deal with his parents to study for a semester, ended up staying three years before deciding to leave after an incident where two Palestinian boys were killed by two settlers, an event that provoked his self-reflection.
"It wasn't their deaths that unnerved me," Hirschfield said. "When you're fighting, there is collateral damage because there is no such thing as a war between good guys and bad guys. It was when I went to my teachers to ask why it happened and how to keep it from happening again, and they weren't that bothered by it. If you can't find it in your heart to mourn the other side's losses, you don't belong on the battlefield."
Hirschfield said he returned to the United States to pursue his college degree and waited 10 years before becoming a rabbi. He chose to avoid the national and international issues in a public forum until Sept. 11, when he felt that people of faith needed to be at the forefront of asking the tough questions.
Kyle Stevens, University College freshman, said people of different faiths must communicate with each other in order to coexist, which was a topic Hirschfield addressed Tuesday night.
"One thing that did stick out to me was, he mentioned that it's not things said that can ruin a relationship; it's things unsaid," Stevens said. "That's what we have to do – we have to communicate."
