Yehezkel Landau
Faculty Associate
in Interfaith Relations
This is a place where I can thrive, both personally and professionally. I cherish myfaculty colleagues and the stimulating interactions among us. I love teaching here, interacting with mature students who really want to be in the classroom, many of whom bring deep reservoirs of life experience. I relish the chance to share the riches of my own Jewish tradition with Christians and Muslims, and to receive in return the spiritual treasures to which they are heirs. I am grateful, also, for the time I have to do the kind of writing I could not do during most of my time in Israel, burdened as I was with administrative and fiscal responsibility for two peace organizations over a period of 23 years.
Hartford Seminary is a special place, a vessel and catalyst for extraordinary encounters across boundaries of religion, culture, nationality, and gender. It is a laboratory for exploring new possibilities in human relations, especially in the religious sphere. It strives to live out its vision of pluralism--in the classroom, in its programs for the general public, and in its web of informal interactions.
The new program that I am directing, “Building Abrahamic Partnerships,” is yet another experiment in creating opportunities for fruitful interfaith study. The combination of academic and experiential modes of learning that characterizes this program could not be undertaken at most seminaries, but here at Hartford Seminary it is a natural outgrowth of earlier educational initiatives. In this new millennium, the Seminary is pioneering new ways of training religious leaders, preparing them for ministry in a more spiritually heterogeneous society than we have ever known. I am blessed to be a part of this cutting-edge community of scholar-practitioners and to contribute what I can, as a Jew, to the mix of spiritualities that makes this place so vital.
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