Thoughts on the Annual Interfaith Institute in North Carolina

Readers of my blog posts and emails over the past six years know well of my deep interest in all aspects of Jewish teachings and traditions. I love nothing better than exploring a text or investigating a custom or tradition and attempting to teach and explain it to others and, in the process, learning new things myself. Already in grammar school I became the go-to person when the Jewish holidays arrived, asked by my teachers to explain my Jewish traditions to my fellow students. I also developed an interest in the religious practices of other faiths and sought out the common elements in the religions of others and my own faith. My undergraduate major at the University of Pennsylvania was Religious Thought.

While some Jews have been reluctant to engage in interfaith dialogue in the past primarily due to the history of persecution and attempts at proselytizing by the dominant Christian or Muslim authorities in various communities over the ages, that has not been the general situation that I have encountered over the past half century. My experience in interfaith groups has been overwhelmingly a positive one. Jewish tradition teaches us to honor the dignity of every human being, and interfaith gatherings offer a sacred opportunity to live out that value. They allow us to build bridges of understanding, especially in moments when fear and misinformation threaten to widen the gaps between communities. Knowing the other opens the door for greater understanding.

These dialogues and other gatherings provide a chance for spiritual enrichment. Hearing how others wrestle with questions of meaning, justice, and the divine helps us to clarify and deepen our own commitments. Studying both the texts we share, particularly biblical writings, as well as those unique to each group opens our eyes to the diverse ways we view our world and the approaches we take to spiritual life. Historically, we have joined with other faith communities to champion civil rights, religious freedom, and social justice. We have joined in partnership with our neighbors to uphold the dignity and equality of all people. As the Jewish community faces challenges today, we look to our interfaith partners for support.

In Seminary, I was a regular participant in the Institute for Religious and Social Studies founded in the late ‘30s by Seminary Chancellor Rabbi Dr. Louis Finkelstein, a nationally recognized leader of interfaith initiatives. Aside from the meetings of scholars and other intellectuals on different topics, the institute conducted regular student meetings as well. These included students from Catholic and Protestant seminaries in the area as well as a group of students from the Jewish Theological Seminary. It was always interesting to me to see how much we shared in common with our fellow-students of other faiths as well as where we differed. I always recall a Catholic seminarian responding to a question by noting that “someone is working on ‘the answer’ to that question.” Of course, the three Jewish students had answers, all of them different from one another yet not considered a problem. You know, “two Jews, three opinions.”

I have continued to join such groups since my rabbinic ordination in every community in which we have lived, joining the interfaith groups in existence and, in several places, helping to create such groups. It was natural then when I first became a part of the Greater Carolinas Association of Rabbis during my tenure as spiritual leader of Synagogue Emanu-El in Charleston, SC, to also join its Interfaith Institute.

The Carolina rabbis had held an annual retreat at Wildacres Retreat Center going back to the early 1950s. This center on Pompey’s Knob off the Blue Ridge Parkway in the village of Little Switzerland, NC, about an hour east of Asheville, had been acquired by the Blumenthal family in the 1930s. I.D.Blumenthal, a Jewish industrialist from Charlotte, had learned of its availability following the bankruptcy of its previous owner, a notorious racist whose writings formed the basis for the movie “The Birth of a Nation.” The property was in foreclosure and a bank in Texas held its mortgage. Thanks to several fortuitous circumstances, Blumenthal was able to attain it for a ridiculously low price leading him to claim that God gave him the mountain. The story of the acquisition in great detail is lovingly retold to every group that meets on the mountain. After a number of years trying to figure out what to do with this property, I.D. and his younger brother Herman decided to make it a center for “the betterment of human relations.” In this beautiful mountain setting, opposite Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak in the Eastern portion of the country, all sorts of groups of artists, musicians, potters, jewelry makers, astronomers, writers, and rabbis among others, schedule their annual meetings for several days each year from the spring through the end of October.

As I understand it, some time in the ‘80s the Carolina rabbinic group decided to create an Interfaith Institute. The rabbis of the group were asked to suggest Christian clergy whom they knew from their communities to join them on the mountain for several days prior to the rabbis’ retreat. Distinguished Jewish and Christian scholars were engaged to discuss a given topic each year. Some communities in the Carolinas had local interfaith groups who also sent lay and clergy participants. The longtime directors of the program, Rabbi Leo Hoffman and his wife Estelle, also invited other interested lay people, including some local professors to join them. Often the attendance at that time numbered some one hundred participants, totally filling the two lodges of the center.

The program had been operating for about a dozen years or so when I first started attending in the 1990s. Very quickly, I found myself as an officer of the Greater Carolinas Association of Rabbis, on the planning committee for the Institute as well. Over time, with the retirement and passing of the Hoffmans, I joined with two other colleagues to direct the program. Different formats have been utilized over the years and for the past decade or more we have invited Muslim participation as well. We have encouraged more lay people to get involved. Sadly, my other two colleagues have passed on in recent years and I was asked by the GCAR president to continue my involvement leading this group. Since coming to Aurora, I have encouraged a number of our congregants to attend this gathering and six or seven have come at different times to participate and we have brought one local minister there as well. When Marilyn Katz first attended several years ago, she offered to assist the registrar as people arrived for the retreat and soon agreed, a year or so later, to take on the responsibility of the registrar herself. She has continued to handle that task ably for our group and to try to recruit more folks to join us on the mountain. One of our former speakers, a professor at Duke Divinity school, Rev. Amy Laura Hall, has been our program chair for the past several years now.

In recent years, our format has become much more relaxed and greater participation by the attendees has been encouraged, both during the presentations by the speakers and afterwards in small group discussions. There is great emphasis on fellowship whether sitting on the patio to enjoy the view of the mountains, engaging in personal conversations and swapping stories over dinner or in the canteen in the evenings. We have a writing workshop where those so inclined can create personal responses to a given theme, some of which are shared with the group one evening. For the past several years we have enjoyed the music of a group called the Sassafras Band who play traditional mountain music including many familiar tunes. Those so inclined have gotten up to dance or even demonstrate their mastery of the hula hoop while the music plays. The last night of the institute, around an open fire, people toast marshmallows and make s’mores with graham crackers and squares of chocolate, melted by the hot marshmallows.

The kitchen is koshered each year under my supervision for those who observe kashruth and effort is made to accommodate other dietary requirements. A Jewish morning service is held each day, another group meets prior to that to reflect on Psalms. In the past, we have offered Christian or Interfaith Vesper services as well as opportunities for Muslim prayer.

I am sharing all of this in the hopes that other people, rabbis or non-Jewish clergy, as well as laypeople, Jewish and non-Jewish, might consider joining us in the future. Our meeting is generally held during the last week of July or the first week of August and thanks to the generosity of the Blumenthal Foundation, the retreat is highly subsidized for Wildacres is a partner with the GCAR in this project. In addition, we have been able to offer some scholarships to students and other participants who may need assistance to join us.

This year our topic was “We All Inhabit the Earth: Creatures of Creation.” Jewish and Christian Texts were discussed by a Christian theologian, Rev. Shannon Craigo-Snell, from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and by my colleague, Rabbi Robert Wolkoff who serves a congregation in North Brunswick, New Jersey and has a long history, including a number of years serving in Sweden, involved in interfaith dialogue. Kavanah Anderson, from the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, provided experiential opportunities to celebrate the relationship between plants and the human community they support, taking our theoretical discussions of creation to its embodiment in the world.

It is always with great reluctance that we depart the mountain at the end of the gathering, passing the signpost which says, “You are now leaving Wildacres and entering the real world.”

For more information about Wildacres see: https://wildacres.org/

For information about this past 2025 Interfaith Institute see: https://wildacres.org/.../05/2025-Interfaith-Institute.pdf

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Edward Friedman