Inspired by the biblical figure of Jethro—Moses’ Midianite father-in-law—Jeff Jacoby makes a novel proposal:
One day in the spring of 2012, the Catholic archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, paid a visit to the main beit midrash, or study hall, of Yeshiva University. There he saw hundreds of young men engrossed in their learning, fervently discussing and noisily debating the talmudic texts they were studying.
Reflecting on his visit in a stirring essay for First Things, Chaput wrote, “What struck me first was the passion the students had for the Torah. They didn’t merely study it; they consumed it. Or maybe it would be better to say that God’s Word consumed them.” . . . Such ardor for learning helped illuminate for Chaput one of the astonishing wonders of history: the endurance of the Jewish people against all odds. . . . Then came a remarkable coda: “What I saw at Yeshiva should also apply to every Christian believer, but especially to those of us who are priests and bishops.”
If a relatively brief visit to a yeshiva could evoke in the archbishop such strong admiration for the serious study of Torah and Talmud, how much more enthusiastically might he have reacted had he been able to take part in such study himself? What if he could have encountered traditional Jewish learning at some point in his career, not merely as an onlooker but as a participant? Imagine that it were possible for non-Jewish clergy—Catholic, Muslim, Baha’i, Mormon, Baptist, Hindu—to have the opportunity to engage meaningfully with the world of Torah study from the inside, even if for only a limited time.
[T]he Jethro Project would have no conversionary intent. Nor would it be designed for interfaith dialogue. Its purpose is different: to develop a measure of Jewish literacy among non-Jewish clergy, thereby introducing more of the world’s religious elite to the riches of Jewish wisdom while expanding the Jewish people’s circle of knowledgeable allies and admirers.
Read more on Sapir: https://sapirjournal.org/aspiration/2022/01/jewish-study-for-non-jewish-clergy/