Wildacres Interfaith Institute

GCAR-Wildacres Interfaith Institute: Celebrating 25 years

“Between Jerusalem and Jerusalem”: The Heavenly and the Earthly Jerusalem

July 28-31, 2008

This year, the Greater Carolinas Association of Rabbis (GCAR) and co-sponsor, Wildacres, celebrate 25 full years of their Interfaith Institute. In this, its 26^th year, the GCAR-Wildacres Interfaith Institute returns to a theme of its first meeting:  “Israel.” Our retreat center is located in Little Switzerland, NC, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Accommodations and food are great.

As 2008 marks Israel’s 60^th birthday, a return to this topic is doubly appropriate. Wiser now by a quarter of a century, we will not consider Israel in broad terms, but will tighten our focus to the city of Jerusalem—a most prominent example of how prophecy and politics, theology and statecraft, metaphor and everyday life shape one another.

Our title comes from a poem by Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai about the power of metaphor and metaphor-made-real. The poet locates his house on “the border between Jerusalem and Jerusalem.”

In another poem, Amichai contributes to our theme by re-enlisting two ancient characters in the service of a modern parable:

I and Jerusalem are like a blind man and a cripple
           She sees for me
           Out to the Dead Sea, to the end of days.
           And I hoist her onto my shoulders
           And walk blind in my darkness underneath.

The blind man and the cripple are two that become one. It is the sighted, visionary Jerusalem above that directs the path of the earthbound Jerusalem. As an Interfaith Institute, our interest will be in the Christian and Jewish visions—theological, moral, liturgical, mystical, artistic—that have helped to shape the directions traveled by the earthly Jerusalem.

As is the tradition of the Interfaith Institute, two scholars will guide our learning. Dr. David J. Halperin, Emeritus Professor of Religion of UNC, will guide us through an array of Jewish sources. Professor Ellen Davis of the Duke Divinity School is a returning Interfaith Institute Scholar who will present Christian traditions about Jerusalem.

For further information please E-mail Rev. Michael J. Watts, Registrar, at michael.watts@att.net or call him in Smithfield, NC at (919) 934-5905.