Warmth in an Arctic Blast: An Interreligious Encounter in Chicago

Two weeks ago, I was boarding an early morning flight to Chicago full of excitement about the journey I was embarking upon. The truth is, however, that the journey had begun in 2024 when several young Jews and Catholics had been selected to represent the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to meet over a period of several weeks on Zoom as the first-ever “Religion for Good” cohort.

As the events of October 7th and its aftermath had revealed, Jews felt alone. But those who stepped up courageously during those difficult times as friends directly touched our deepest wounds and were welcomed by our raw and lonely hearts. It was in this spirit that we met online, people of different faiths living the maxim that religion can and should be used for good, for the promotion of mutual understanding and peaceful dialogue between the children of God. Online, we got a small taste of how beautiful it could be to lean into not only our commonalities but also into our differences as we discussed theology, history, and regular everyday life.

Then, in October of 2025 I met a few of my classmates in person for the first time at St. Thomas University’s Nostra Aetate 60th anniversary celebration, where we participated in a panel discussing how we, as the young generation, were living the principles of Nostra Aetate. That document, which I wrote about in my previous article, was proclaimed by the Catholic Church during Vatican II in 1965. Nostra Aetate (In Our Time) declared that there was no place for antisemitism within the Church, that God’s covenant with the Jews was irrevocable, and that learning from and respecting all the children of God of any faith was to be pursued.

It is also the precise document that brought approximately 15 Catholics and 15 Jews to the Catholic Theological Union (CTU) during an arctic blast two weeks ago. Freezing temperatures and falling snow could not deter us from our “In Our Time” mission of opening our hearts in friendship and our minds in understanding. What better place for our holy encounter with each other than CTU, of which Pope Leo XIV is an alumnus, an institution that was built after Vatican II, particularly designed to be a leader in interreligious dialogue, which even features a Jewish studies program taught by Jews themselves, currently led by Professor Ranana Dine, who spent the weekend with us. I wonder if Jewish seminaries feature courses on Catholicism, and if so, are they taught by Catholics? Perhaps they should.

We were welcomed by the president of CTU, Father Enzo Del Brocco, who set the tone for our weekend and advised us, “First, make space for silence. Within yourself, silence the misconceptions and fears about the other. Like two dogs on their respective sides of a closed fence barking at each other who suddenly, as the fence opens, silently approach each other, sniffing, feeling. In silence and then in dialogue, look for the image of God in each of you.”

We regrouped at the historic KAM Isaiah Israel Synagogue, where Rabbi Allyson Zacharoff, associate director of interreligious affairs at AJC, gave an interactive introduction to Shabbat, opening space for our Catholic brothers and sisters to ask questions and explore the meaning of the day and its varied observances before we began the Kabbalat Shabbat service.

I looked around and saw my new Catholic friends wearing kippot, smiling at the children dancing, and even singing the psalms aloud with tunes they had likely never heard before. This otherworldly experience continued during our joint Shabbat dinner. I wish I could have eavesdropped on the topics of conversation at the various tables, but I can only share what I remember from mine; discussing sadness, disappointment and frustration with anti-Zionist Jews found in some of our home towns, wondering what’s next in a Mamdani-styled NYC, struggling with some specific text within Nostra Aetate, and a Catholic scholar encouraging us to voice the ideas aloud the next day to encourage discussion among the larger group.

Shabbat morning began with Rabbi Zacharoff teaching us how to engage in Chevruta study, a traditional form of study used by Jews for thousands of years where partners learn in pairs, dissecting text one line at a time, posing questions to each other, and reveling in disagreement for the sake of arriving at the truth. We were each paired in Chevruta, one Catholic and one Jew, finding that disagreement and question often refined both the one asking and the one answering the questions.

Deacon Zachary Muñoz, soon to be ordained a priest, then taught us about a traditional Catholic practice known as Lectio Divina, a combination of study and prayer, which involves engaging with Scripture through several steps: Lectio (reading the text several times to glean its literal meaning), Meditatio (reflecting on how God’s message in the text relates to one’s personal life), Oratio (allowing the text to move one into spoken prayer directly with God), Contemplatio (silently resting in God’s presence), and Actio (taking the lesson gleaned from the entire process and translating it into action in daily life).

Learning Genesis Chapter 18 in both of these formats was an unforgettable experience that brought ancient text to life. Lectio Divina challenged me to open my heart in vulnerability, inviting God in and finding myself speaking with God out loud in my own words.

For all the talking we did, we also emphasized the importance of silence. Dr. Julia McStravog, the senior advisor for the Synod at the USCCB, taught us that Pope Francis had convened the “Synod on Synodality” over a period of several years. Bishops, religious leaders, and laypeople came together to discuss the Church and its mission by meaningfully listening to each other in silence, allowing each point of view to be truly considered before further discussion.

In small groups, we spoke of b’tselem Elohim or imago Dei —the concept that human beings are created in the image of God— using the synodal technique. Each of us presented our thoughts individually to the group, and after each member spoke, we sat in silence absorbing the impact of what had been said. Each participant had the chance to truly be heard of their own accord, amid holy silence of reflection and understanding, even when opinions differed. The synodal process of pausing to truly listen would likely strengthen many marriages and remind us of the basic human need of feeling heard.

Throughout the weekend, I found myself noticing and admiring how easily our Catholic friends brought God into almost every conversation in a very personal way, as if God was right there next to them. “The Lord kept showing me the path to take until I finally listened,” and “I felt the Lord moving me to understand” were sentences that floated in the atmosphere, drew my attention, and my desire. Oh, how I wished I could clearly discern what the Lord wanted of me, what the Lord was saying to me, especially in times of confusion or doubt.

And then I saw my new Catholic friends in their element as we went to the Sunday Mass service at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church. There was a moment where I could almost imagine my ancestors looking down at me, ancestors for whom stepping into such a scene would have likely evoked visceral fear for their lives. I shivered and wondered what my Catholic friends would think if they knew, but perhaps they already did. After all, the role of the Catholic Church in the Crusades and the Inquisition is widely known and likely drove an attempt at Teshuva (repentance) or Tikkun (rectification) of sorts with Nostra Aetate. Instead, we were there of our own accord, witnessing their prayer, as the Catholics had done for us Jews, neither of us trying to convert the other.

And just as our leaders had foreshadowed, it was the unstructured conversations that held a particularly unforgettable magic. As we walked the snowy streets, I found myself beside Deacon Muñoz asking him how he had discerned becoming a priest, learning about the meaning of his long black frock called a cassock, and being inspired by how he counsels men and women in their journey to marriage. Rev. Christopher Malano, ordained a priest just a few months earlier, gave me a personal blessing on one condition: that I bless him first.

That Shabbat’s Torah portion was Parashat Vayishlach (Genesis 33), in which Jacob, fearful of the harm that might await him upon reuniting with his estranged brother Esau, instead discovers that “Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.” We—the children of Jacob and Esau—were living that encounter in real time, approaching one another with humility and a shared eagerness to learn, to connect, and to grow. As I took one last look around the room before we parted ways, I dared to imagine what God Himself might have felt: His children, finally learning with and from one another, together, after thousands of years. And like Jacob on his way home, it seemed that angels, too, had accompanied us on this journey.

“Jacob went on his way, and angels of God encountered him. Jacob said, when he saw them, ‘This is a godly camp.’” That weekend, in the midst of an arctic blast at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago, it truly felt like one.