Father Isaac Jacob, O.S.B.

A brief history

Some Thoughts on the Welcome Address of Father Isaac Jacob, O.S.B.

Some Thoughts on the Welcome Address of Father Isaac Jacob, O.S.B.

to

Participants of the First Catholic Institute for Holocaust Studies

at the

Benedictine Center of Tel Gamaliel

June 13, 1989

 

From reading and reflection on Father Isaac Jacob’s address, we came to appreciate some profound concepts and beliefs that he conveyed to his audience that June day in 1989 at the Benedictine Center at Tel Gamaliel, located near Bet Shemesh in Israel. He began, as one would expect, by emphasizing the need for the Church to undertake the challenges of Nostra Aetate but with this specificity:  recognize the harshness of serious study of the Holocaust, “and how its causes still impact on our post-modern world” (1). Yet to do so with hope and, “Believe that the Word can come forth under the Spirit during this experience” (4).

His listeners were challenged to bring to this “harsh” study their inheritance “of the Word, and the Meal…to rearrange the Word of God for our time. To take into account the Word of God as it is tied to the Jewish people as it comes forth in our time” (2). This required that if Catholics were going to be creative in this effort then it would be about “liturgy” but with a new dynamic.  “At the beginning of the Mass we hear the Word while sitting, it is Shema Israel (Hear, O Israel ), it is listening to the Word of God, and God help us if we get the same meaning as the last time we heard it!” (2) The listener is transformed by the Word to “a new level of consciousness about the Word of God,” hearing the Word “as Israel” because “we are part of Israel” (2).

This deep listening to the Word prepares one to eat the Meal that “will not be a dead meal because it will be suffused with a new understanding and meaning of where we are standing before God’s Word, and therefore, what we are to do with our lives.” And this leads to the recognition of the call to relationship: “relationship with Israel, in the sense of the Jewish people” (3). The Church recognizes and is challenged to remember “that she received the revelation of the Torah, (so-called Old Testament), through the people with whom God in inexpressible mercy deigned to establish the Ancient Covenant” (3-4), and must not “forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles (cf. Rom. 11:17-24)” (4).

But before going further, Father Isaac turned to the word that has become an icon for the mass murder of the Jews, “Holocaust.” Replace this term, he urged, with the Hebrew word, “Shoah” that “defies definition” (3). It can be “translated as heap, rubble. In other words, destroy that city utterly, as sometimes is required by the Lord God in the Scripture” (4). What remains are the ashes of utter destruction and for all time. Attempts to comprehend this devastating reality may lead one to say, “…who needs it? Why are we wasting our time on that? Why should we be bothered with that?” (4). “Only because you cannot, we cannot as a community, understand God’s Word in our time, in our worship, unless we are able to explain how this happened to this people, who are historically identified with God” (4).

So the Jewish reading of the Word and our Catholic point of view, two differing perspectives, have clashed throughout history that prepared the fertile ground for the Shoah (5). There is then a need for Catholics to reconcile their “praise-oriented study” and their obligation to study seriously the Shoah (5). “It is all too easy to say, ‘Alleluia,’ and praise the Lord…but if we are empty-headed about the Shoah, and how the Lord is coming across in history…and at the same time being called to a deeper participation in the Word…we have to come through this, it is a question of our obligation” (5).

Fulfilling this obligation requires analysis of how one reads Scripture: either in a universalist way or a particularist way. Isaac Jacob reminded his audience that “Christians are accustomed to reading it in a universalistic way” (6). An over-emphasis on the universalist view minimizes or eliminates altogether the particular history of the people through whom Scripture has been transmitted, in this case, the Jews. A particularist understanding of Scripture recognizes that we are reading about Jewish history. “…a Jew would say, we are talking about our history. Lord, our God of Israel, King of the World…we want to know what you can learn about our history” (6). So Christians “…develop your universalism with a Jewish reading that sees the Sinai Covenant as central” (6). This then raises the question: “…what is revelation, what is revealed?” (7).

Is revelation about “the heaviness of God (Kavod Adonai)?” (7). Isaac Jacob responded, that “God is heavy on His people because He has identified with His people, which heaviness becomes as a light to the Gentiles, to the world” (7). And so, “Israel is also a light, in that sense, it is Revelation” (7). But first of all “it has to be understood” [as] “a heaviness of God, an identity with God, a Covenant with God, a relationship with the Lord” (7). However, it was precisely these two interpretations, legitimate and not mutually exclusive, that throughout “history have emphasized antagonism, and…helped to prepare the Shoah. Because, when the fulfillment of universal salvation has come in Our Lord Jesus Christ, what can Judaism be?” (7).

Here a problem arises: “The most complimentary thing you can say about Judaism is that there is the Covenant, My people, the Lord God, the Covenant of Sinai, it continues, and that is how I am going to live my life. And yet, you are in an era of the Christ, which says there is salvation for all humankind. Therefore, where do you stand as a Jew, insisting on this special relationship?” (7)…The mystery of Israel was not quite understandable without the parameters of theology and a closeness to God” (8). It was Nostra Aetate that “turned around the thinking about the Jews and therefore [what ] the Sinai Covenant implied and therefore the vocation of the Jewish people” (8).

Nostra Aetate created a sea change in Catholic-Jewish relations. “What is really revolutionary about it is that we are asked to enter into dialogue, a fraternal dialogue, with the Jewish people, in order to understand, in order to share in the fruit of Biblical and theological study. In other words, it is like saying we can learn: to my mind that is the most revolutionary statement perhaps, of the 20th century, up until now. You can look at it in different ways, but that we can learn, and learn in terms of Biblical Studies and in relationship with the Jewish people. It is an opening to recreating a new reading of Sacred Scripture” (9). Now there exists the “possibility of balancing the universalist and the particularist” points of view (9).

For Isaac Jacob, this new reading of the Sacred Scripture “has to come out of the consideration for the Land of Israel. And, if we are going to get into modern times, inexorably that entails the State of Israel…I want to emphasize how it comes from the Tanaḥ, the Biblical concept, the Biblical understanding of the Land” where “The Lord is speaking to Israel, and says this is the Land I promised you, this is the Land of Israel…and that is the sign of the relationship, and you can understand how we are doing together in so far as you are living in peace or not in peace, or you are in, or you are out of Israel!” (12).

Furthermore, “what it means to be a believing Christian you have to do something with all these references to Israel as the Land for the Jewish People, or you have to fall back on a kind of universalist interpretation…I would theologically propose to you that the Shoah is tied to the coming back to the Land of the People” (13). “The Land and the People are important because they give a solid sense of what Revelation is” (15)*.

Dialogue is the key. The challenge is re-engaging the Word in the shadow of the Shoah and in the light of Nostra Aetate. Isaac Jacob placed the challenge clearly before his listeners, especially on the issue of Land as it relates to both Biblical and modern Israel. The “Ancient Covenant” God made with Israel is the instrument through which we received and receive Revelation. And so the focus par excellence for this task of engagement is the “liturgy,” where we come together to celebrate and to be transformed by the Word and the Meal. It thus becomes the source for “fraternal dialogue with the Jewish people” with “an opening to recreating a new reading of Sacred Scripture” (9). Isaac Jacob had no doubt about the power and importance of this dialogue, “In other words, it is like saying we can learn from one another which to my mind is the most revolutionary statement perhaps of the 20th century” (9). His message of 1989 prepares us to celebrate the 50th anniversary of  Nostra Aetate and to continue in renewed and creative ways this “fraternal dialogue with the Jewish people” in our time.

 

All page references are to the unpublished address made by Father Isaac Jacob, O.S.B. at the Benedictine Center at Tel Gamaliel on June 13, 1989.

 

* Since the writing of the Welcome Address, Isaac Jacob’s thought about the Land of Israel evolved as reflected in his last published document, The Rule of Benedict: Bridge to Israel (as found in the American Benedictine Review 45:4, Dec. 1994):

The existence of the state of Israel is certainly implied in the ecumenical dialogue between the Church and Judaism. That having been said, that fact does not prejudice judgments on the political level, whether in regard to the rights of the Palestinian people, or to the judgments and policies of the state of Israel. Each party, including the Vatican state, must be judged on its individual merits. And history will judge…With its return theologically to Israel and the Middle East, the Church will sense more keenly its relationship with Judaism and Islam, the other monotheistic communities in the Land where it was born (405-06).

 

June 24, 2014

The Feast of John the Baptist

by

Sister Gemma Del Duca, S.C. and Carl A. Tori, Ph.D.

 

3 Comments

  1. Rolf Danielson

    First, thank you to Gemma and Carl for putting up this summary of Isaacs lecture. I would only here like to say what I personally and specially remember from reading the whole lecture. The suggestion Isaac came with in one sentence, I think, was that we Christians are to seriously check out what Jewish universalism is about for us all today, before we continue in our Christianity. This in order to prevent anything like the Shoah again, or as can be concluded, prevent any antisemitism in our spirituality and way of life, I think.

    • Doc Tori

      Rolf,
      Thank you so much for your insight into Isaac’s mindset. This helps all of us to better know and understand Isaac, his writings, and his thoughts.
      Carl

      • Rolf Danielson

        Doc Tori

        The writings and thoughts of Father Isaac and my memory of him and the community of Tel Gamaliel will be the theme of the site-oriented conceptual art
        that I will work on starting this year 2024.

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Family Renewal through “Mary on Saturday:” Celebration of the Sabbath

Tel Gamaliel Center

Family Renewal through “Mary on Saturday”

Celebration of the Sabbath

Father Isaac Jacob, O.S.B.

1/1/1990

 

 

Formatted and edited by Carl A Tori, Ph.D. and Gemma Del Duca, S.C., Ph.D

 

 

 

Family Renewal through “Mary on Saturday:” Celebration of the Sabbath

The Church has designated Saturday as the day of the Blessed Mother. There is throughout the world-wide Church a special Mass, “Mary on Saturday” (Maria in Sabbato), for every Saturday that is free, when there is not another obligatory memorial.

At the Benedictine Center of Tel Gamaliel in Israel, we have been celebrating Saturday as a day of weekly community renewal. We celebrate the Sabbath much the way it is celebrated by families in Israel. I use the word “Sabbath” because that is the English word for the Hebrew “Shabbat” from which the word Sabbath comes.

Usually we Americans refer to the day as “Saturday.”

At the Celebration of the Sabbath at Tel Gamaliel, Our Blessed Mother holds also a very special position. For in Israel, the Sabbath is considered a Bride and a Queen that is greeted when the beginning moment of the Sabbath comes into the family home on Friday evening. And as Catholics we know Mary as Queen and Mother. But in connection with the Sabbath, we know that Mary did exactly what we do, and all the Jewish wives and mothers are doing on the Sabbath eve throughout Israel—and throughout the world. She with us, and with wives and mothers of Israel, ushered in the Sabbath by her blessing and lighting the Sabbath candles. And, in a sense, Our Lady lights the Sabbath candles now with us in the community home founded in the name of her Son.

With the lighting of the Sabbath candles, we now become, in the world of Prayer and Praise, members of the Household of the Holy Family of Nazareth in Israel where the Sabbath was celebrated every week.

This celebration of the Sabbath helps us understand a deep reason why the Lord has brought His people again to the Land of Israel in our days: to celebrate the Sabbath and grow strong in community.

As I travel throughout the United States, I can see that a lot of young people are not at Mass, not much involved in the parishes, not meeting and doing neat things with young people of the parish, with other young Catholics and Christians. Of course, the reason why our youth is not around is because their parents are not around much in their lives either. Often both parents work and it is hard for the wife and the husband to celebrate their relationship. There are many divorces and one-parent families.

There is no need for me to make the point that family life is in crisis. A lot of time and effort are needed to be present in love and service to each other and to our children. The big question everyone talks about now is abortion. However, are not our families and our living children, in reality, the bigger question? Is not the crisis in family life connected and more basic than the tragedy of abortion?

I want to invite Catholic families to keep and to celebrate the Sabbath for Family Renewal in relation with the Tel Gamaliel Benedictine Community in Israel, the community in the Church that is dedicated to the Christian celebration of the Sabbath in the Land where the Lord God has commanded it. In addition, to do this by marking the times of the Sabbath, its beginning, and end, a twenty-four hour period of family action in solidarity, reading Sacred Scripture, discussing it.

Of course, families will work out their celebration for themselves and no doubt networking with other families will be natural and necessary. These families will have a resource community in Israel to share with and to grow together, a community that has celebrated the Sabbath in a Catholic way for fifteen years.

I am convinced it is the Lord’s will that families come together to celebrate the Sabbath in communion with us in Israel and with all Israel.

I believe the Lord wants this movement toward His Word to build up His People—in Israel and throughout the whole world. That is a faith that has grown over twenty years as a Benedictine priest in Israel. And I want to share that vision.

I know that you have not experienced the celebration of the Sabbath, it may not be easy to grasp the potential for Family Renewal of the Sabbath. So I ask you to consider this: it was the Holy Family that celebrated the Sabbath. And it was that Family’s celebration of the Sabbath that was the garden created and seeded by the Word of the Lord to bring forth the Good News of Salvation to the nations of the world. For Jesus came—and He comes today—with his Family: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

And it is Mary, Queen, and Mother, who is guiding us back to the Sabbath. She is leading us to Family Renewal and the Renewal of our Households.

I am willing to speak about “Family Renewal through ‘Mary on Saturday:’ Celebration of the Sabbath” if there is interest.

 

Feast of Saint Benedict, July 11, 1990

Father Isaac H. Jacob, O.S.B.

 

 

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Reflections on Shabbat: Celebrating Our Inheritance

Reflections on Shabbat

Celebrating Our Inheritance

Father Isaac Jacob, O.S.B.

1984 to 1992

Formatted and edited by Carl A Tori, Ph.D. and Gemma Del Duca, S.C., Ph.D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sabbath at the Benedictine Center of Tel Gamaliel

Introduction

Israel Sacrament of History: The Lord brings back his people to the Land of Israel.

The Rule of Benedict is key to bringing the Church once again into Israel. The Rule is based on the First Church in Jerusalem described in Acts.

 

There are different Christian presences in Israel:        Byzantine

From the West: Latin Franciscans

Local Churches: Maronite, Syriac, etc.

 

Tel Gamaliel is a center for Christian settlement (on the land, not in the city) that will express a communal continuing of the Jerusalem Church, and, as with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, will celebrate the Sabbath.

 

Shabbat Reflections

 

Mary on the Sabbath, Gospel of John, the Marriage Feast of Cana

“Woman” recalls Eve with Adam in Genesis, the way humankind has gone on in history. Lots of sin, errors, sweaty work, painful childbirth. Our world is not all bad.

Perspective of Gospel according to John: Mary is New Eve, sharing governance of the Messiah with her son: “Do what he tells you.” Governance because she “moved” Jesus’ hour forward.

Mary, Our Lady of Shabbat, moves the hours of our life to the Lord God’s Fulfillment (realization) in history.  The Land of Israel and the Sabbath are the place and the time of the Lord in History.

 

 

Brief explanation of the Sabbath, before the Lighting of the Candles

Let us turn our minds back to the time of Jesus in this Holy Land, to the home of the Holy Family: Jesus, the young Jewish boy, Mary and Joseph, his mother, and father. Our primary focus must now be on Mary because it is the wife and mother who has the honor of kindling (lighting) the candles of the Sabbath, Friday night, at the beginning of the day of rest of the Sabbath. The Sabbath will end tomorrow evening, with another prayer with one candle: the Havdalah, the ending of the Sabbath day of rest and the beginning of every-day time, the time of work, striving, earning, every day time.

 

At the beginning of the Sabbath, there is a passage of the Scriptures read that gives the Lord’s word of what he wants done—for us to rest—on the Sabbath, which will be followed by the kindling of the candles by Mary and Jewish women of homes throughout Israel and the whole world. “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy…” (Ex. 20:8-11).

 

Kindling of the Sabbath Lights

Then Mary and Jewish women everywhere begin the prayer for the kindling of the Sabbath lights, “Lord of the universe, I am about to perform the sacred duty of kindling the lights in honor of the Sabbath.” The Woman prays that the result of her lighting the candles will be the intense Sabbath presence in the home of the Lord God Himself: “may the effect of my fulfilling this commandment be, that the stream of abundant life and heavenly blessing flow in upon me and mine; that thou be gracious unto us, and cause thy presence to dwell among us.” The word for divine presence is שכינה in Hebrew, which itself is very holy, very sacred, very intense holiness. Lighting the Shabbat candles “gives” the divine presence to the household on the Sabbath, reminiscent of the “real presence” at the Holy Meal that is the Eucharist, which the Catholic faith affirms.

 

The Woman prays for loving kindness, in Hebrew חסד, upon her home, her husband, and her children. In this prayer on the Sabbath, her household is really hers. This Sabbath prayer of the Lady of the House is a good way of understanding how Mary can be Queen of Heaven, a real dignity and honor, and still be a daughter of Israel that is, a member of the whole people of God. Therefore, under the Lord God and his Messiah, who is her real and true son, she still shares in Jesus’ messianic reign for the Lord God.

 

 

Prayers after the Kindling

Following the Sabbath prayer of the Lady of the House is the prayer to the Lord God, King of the Universe, who controls and guides the heavens and the earth. It is a prayer based on Genesis, where the Lord God is depicted as Creator of Heaven and Earth, and, because He creates Heaven and Earth, He guides them. The next prayer (Hertz, 367[1]) proclaims the Lord God choosing His People, Israel, His giving them His very Word, the Torah, which we know as the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly called by Christians, the Old Testament. At this point, the Shema (Dt 6:4-6), is proclaimed, the very center of Jewish Faith, that prayer which the Gospels (Mk 12:28-31; Lk 10:26-27; Mt 22:35-40) show Jesus as proclaiming to his people. The God of Israel is the only God.

 

The final prayer we read before the Blessing of Wine, the blessing over the Kiddush cup, is a prayer taken from the Book of Deuteronomy about the rain. The rain-prayer is very important to Israel. If no rain comes, then, in the fall there would be no grain, vegetables, olives, fruits. We would be in a near-starvation situation. This prayer has a parallel and deeper reason for Judaism and the Church. The rain-prayer underscores the great importance of the Land of Israel. In many places in the Torah, Sacred Scripture, the Lord God promises the Land to Israel, the Jewish people. While it is true, when most of the people lived in the Land of Israel, the Land was needed to feed the people. However, the Scripture-Prayer continues and insists that the Land, rain or no rain, is the bellwether of the relationship of Israel and its Lord God. If Israel turns aside and serves idols, “the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, that there be no rain, and that the Land yield not her fruit…” (Dt 11:17).

 

Therefore, the people of Israel are to take heed to the Torah-Word of the Lord, and concentrate on that Word “when sitting, when walking, when rising, when lying down” (Dt 6:7). The Land of Israel and its rain is the barometer, not only of food, but of the relationship between Israel and the Lord God. In terms of Jewish spirituality, a key question is always: “How does it go in the Land of Israel?” Israel and its capitol, Jerusalem, we recall, were the bellwether for Jesus’ weeping over Jerusalem, showing him as a true prophet of Israel, nourished on this very Scripture-prayer of the Sabbath.

The Blessing of the Cup of Wine, Kiddush for Sabbath Evening

The last part for welcoming the Sabbath, is blessing the cup of wine, the Kiddush for the Sabbath. The blessing over the Cup is put in the context of the Creation of the World, exactly at the part that describes the sixth day, Friday, the start of the Sabbath. We can see clearly now the interweaving of the Sabbath themes. Themes in the final prayer: the Lord God has chosen for holiness the people of Israel, which is extraordinary because we are not very big or seemingly important, and yet He is the King of the Universe. The Lord has chosen us in holiness by giving us the commandments, which is the way the Lord gets very intimate with us, and He wants to be intimate with us, especially, those commandments that deal with the Land of Israel, since the Land is the bellwether –the Land of the dwelling-together of the Lord and His people.

 

Now the blessing-prayer moves deeply into our world, the world of everyday.  The Sabbath, because of its meaning, is our inheritance, what we hold on to and live off of; it reminds us of our departure from Egypt. It is the Lord Himself who keeps making the Sabbath a moment each week where we can meet Him who is Holiness. And that is what keeps us going: our inheritance. It is an inheritance that Jesus Messiah leads his Sisters and Brothers to in the community gathered in his name. Holy Mass can lead Gentile Christians to inherit the Sabbath with Israel and to celebrate that inheritance in the way we have been called.

 

 

Father Isaac H. Jacob, O.S.B., November 6, 1992

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Observance of the Sabbath at Tel Gamaliel

1. The Sabbath begins with Kabbalat-Shabbat at the designated time for Tel Gamaliel on the evening of Friday.

 

2. Sabbath morning at 8 o’clock is Morning Prayer (Shaharit) which focuses on the Eucharistic celebration of Sunday morning (The Psalm and the Gospel).

 

3. Sabbath morning at 10 o’clock there is the reading of the designated Weekly Torah Portion and its Haftarah. There is an introductory prayer (Thanksgiving for the gifts of the Torah) which is concluded by the Our Father in Hebrew and Arabic.

 

4. Havdalah, the short ceremony that marks the end of the Sabbath, takes place at the designated time.

 

5. With the celebration of Sabbath, Sunday Mass, (the Eucharistic celebration) is experienced as a call to renewed dedication to building up the Kingdom of the Lord, the weekly life-response to the Resurrection.

 

6. In order to maintain the focus of the Sabbath on the Word of the Lord, radios, TVs, tape recorders are not used. Live entertainment is welcomed.

 

7. On Sabbath, telephones and vehicles are used only in an emergency of a serious nature.

 

8. At Tel Gamaliel, a form of kashrut is observed as a Torah-Gospel communal discipline. Use of the kitchen, therefore, is under supervision of a designated person who lives at Tel Gamaliel.

 

9. For health reasons, we ask people not to smoke in the Dining Room.

 

Feasts of St. Benedict, 1984, and of the Purification of Our Lady, 1990

Benedictine Center of Tel Gamaliel, Israel


[1] Hertz, J. H., Daily Prayer Book, The Soncino Press, Jerusalem, 1976.

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Television Interview

In 1990, Father George Balasko hosted the program, “Jewish Christian Dialogue,” and interviewed Father Isaac and Rabbi Samuel Meyer about Tel Gamaliel and its significance in the Land of Israel. For those who have not met Father Isaac, this interview serves as an introduction to the man, his personality, and his deep religious commitment to the Torah, the Gospel, and the Rule of Saint Benedict.

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Comparative Study of Religious Law

In August 1985, Fr. Isaac gave a lecture, “The Juristic Mind: A Comparative Analysis of Gratian and Maimonides,” at the second international seminar on “The Sources of Contemporary Law” held in Jerusalem. This lecture was later printed in the proceedings of the Second International Seminar on the Sources of Contemporary Law: Maimonides as Codifier of Jewish Law, 1987.

At a seminar held at St. Vincent Major Seminary, Latrobe, PA in the fall of 1989, Fr. Isaac introduced to some academic and religious institutions in western Pennsylvania the concept of a research institute into monotheistic law (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

In August 1991, the office for the Tel Gamaliel Research Institute in Monotheistic Law opened at the Saint Peter of Sion Center where the Ratisbonne Christian Center for Jewish Studies was located in Jerusalem.

3 Comments

  1. Rolf Danielson

    Shalom. I am intresseted in getting a copy of the lecture by Father Isaac Jacob, “The Juristic Mind: A Comparative Analysis of Gratian and Maimonides”, if possible.
    Peace, love and blessings, from Rolf Danielson, Na’ale, Israel.

  2. Rolf Danielson

    See above.

    • Doc Tori

      Dear Rolf,
      I hope you are doing well. I forwarded your request to Sister Gemma. She will send a copy to you.
      Take care,
      Carl

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Publications, Lectures, Rule of St. Benedict in Hebrew, Sermons

The Rule of St. Benedict, for which Fr. Isaac wrote the Preface, was translated into Modern Hebrew by Father Gabriel Grossmann, O.P., under the auspices of Tel Gamaliel and published in 1980. After he came to Israel, Father Isaac Jacob wrote and gave lectures in Israel, the United States, Ireland, and Germany. Among his seminal articles are: “Israel, History, and the Church,” America, 1970; “The Rule of Benedict, Bridge to Israel,” American Benedictine Review, 1994.

Father Isaac, in his deep desire to share the Word of the Lord, Torah and Gospel, wrote hundreds of sermons. These are carefully kept in a box in the library at the Benedictine Monastery, Saint Mary of the Resurrection Abbey, in Abu Ghosh, Israel. These and other documents are waiting to be read and edited for possible publication.

1 Comment

  1. emeka

    I am interested in buying a Rule of St Benedict in hebrew language.
    thank you very much.
    Merry Christmas

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Tel Gamaliel: Center for Christian Kibbutz

From 1974 until his death in 1995, Fr. Isaac lived near Bet Shemesh (the House of the Sun), on Church land, midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Here he worked to build up the Benedictine Center of Tel Gamaliel. At the Center, Father Isaac conducted programs of study of the Word of the Lord as Torah and Gospel, and a kibbutz-like community developed using the Rule of St. Benedict as its framework. Here, Christians, both lay and religious, sought to become self-supporting. In realizing this objective, a center for Christian settlement began to evolve, based on the call for community in the Judeo-Christian tradition within the Israeli context. Over the years, Tel Gamaliel received many visitors, volunteers, young people, families, priests and religious who prayed, studied, and worked in the Land of Israel. No matter how challenged the community was at times, for instance, in the early years there was no running water or electricity, the Shabbat meal was always a festive celebration.

2 Comments

  1. James Southern

    I volunteered at Tel Gamaliel during the 1980’s. I remember Father Isaac as someone with a good sense of humour, as illustrated by changing his name from Henry to Isaac. Sister Gemma was the practical one, running the establishment. I have pleasant memories of my time there.

  2. John

    I remember being there in 1977, four of us including Father Isaac. He was amazing! One Canadian, a Texan and I was from Ireland. Three ‘buildings’ little more than stone shacks. Our staple diet was bread, cheese and honey with the occasional trip in Beth Shenesh for Falafel!
    Hope to get back this year!

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Work, Study, Research in Israel

Requested by the Benedictine Abbot Primate to probe the possibilities of Christian community in the new State of Israel, Father received permission from the Abbot of St. Vincent Archabbey to return to Israel in September 1970. After spending some months in Kibbutz Shaar HaAmakim as a volunteer, he moved to Jerusalem where he began intensive study of Hebrew and became a research scholar in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University.

In Jerusalem he became an active member of the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel and of the Rainbow Group, associations trying to develop ecumenical understanding, especially as they emerged in Israel. Together with Professor Ze’ev Falk, Fr. Isaac organized in May of 1979 a symposium on “Religion, Law, and the State” at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In April 1983, he received Israeli citizenship, an extremely important milestone for Isaac, however, a very rare occurrence for foreign clergy. With the right to vote, he now felt even more socially committed and involved in the life of Israel.

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Contact with Israel, Study of Jewish Law

In 1966, with the University of Wisconsin Summer Hebrew Program, Fr. Isaac came to Israel for the first time. He was further prepared for future work in Israel by study at the Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 1968, where he was awarded the S.R. Schuerer post-doctorate fellowship in Judaic Studies and Jewish Law.

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Teaching, Pastoral Work

From 1962 to 1967 he taught theology and canon law at the Major Seminary and the College of St. Vincent in Latrobe. Fr. Isaac also served as spiritual director in the Major Seminary and was pastor for a time of St. Cecilia Church, Whitney, Pennsylvania.

 

In January 1965 even before the close of the II Vatican Council a symposium of Jewish and Catholic theologians was held at St. Vincent’s Archabbey with Fr. Isaac as a behind the scenes organizer.  Torah and Gospel, Jewish and Catholic Theology in Dialogue edited by Philip Scharper (New York, Sheed and Ward, 1966) is the volume that contains the papers delivered in an atmosphere of warmth and wisdom at the three day event.

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Ordination, Graduate Work

In 1957, Fr. Isaac was ordained to the priesthood. From 1959 to 1964, he studied canon law (Church Law) at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he received his doctorate. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the development of criterion of quality in the life of the Church, the principle of the Sanior Pars. This criterion is used extensively in elections and corporate deliberations.

1 Comment

  1. W. R. (Bill) HODGE

    Dear Friends, I am a member of the Association of Hebrew Catholics in New Zealand. We are in the process of preparing for a number of developments and I wondered if I might seek your opinion about some of these by way of email letters over the next 6 to 9 months. I was a Camaldolese Benedictine Oblate for many years, but this has now merged into my Hebrew Catholic apostolate. This letter is just to see whether this would be consistent with your apostolate or not. God bless,
    Bill Hodge Auckland. NZ.

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Early Education, Entrance into Religious Life

Born in 1929 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania he grew up in Pittsburgh and New York City. He attended Saint Mary of the Mount Grammar School and Brentwood High School in Pittsburgh and studied at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He entered the order of St. Benedict at St. Vincent Archabbey in 1951. In 1955, Fr. Isaac was sent to Rome to study theology at the International Collegio di Sant’Anselmo of the Benedictine Order, where he received a Licentiate in Sacred Theology. His thesis was “Israel, the Sacrament of History” (chapters 9-11 of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans).

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