I NSIGHT

'If You Know
One Religion,
You Don't
Know Any'

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An observant Jew's beliefs are
tested during a year spent at the
Harvard Divinity School

ARI L. GOLDMAN

I

n the first days of the
1985-86 school year at
Harvard, the course called
"World Religions, Diversity
and Dialogue" was so popular
that all the seats were taken
and some students were sit-
ting cross legged on the floor
of a great lecture hall. With
two hands, the professor
pushed her blonde hair
behind her ears and made a
statement that was to rever-
berate in my mind for the rest
of the school year. "If you
know one religion," she said
slowly, looking at us with in-
tensity, "you don't know any."
The comment was so pow-
erful for me because it broke
down one of my basic as-
sumptions. I had always felt
that my involvement with my
own faith, Judaism, was
enough to enable me to
understand Christianity,

Ari Goldman: spiritually challenged.

Photo by Shira Dicker

Ari Goldman is a reporter
covering religion for the New
York Times.

Islam, Buddhism and Hin-
duism. After all, I knew what
it was like to go to synagogue,
so I assumed that I knew just
what a Christian felt in
church or a Moslem felt in a
mosque.
It was just one of many
preconceptions that would
crumble in the extraordinary
year I spent as a student at
Harvard Divinity School, the
nation's most prestigious
Christian school of theology
that is a training ground for
Protestant ministers. I was
neither a Christian nor a con-
didate for the ministry, but I
found myself there on an
unusual leave of absence from
my job as a religion writer for
The New York Times.
The idea was that, at the
age of 35, after a decade of
daily journalism, I would go
to Harvard for a dispas-
sionate encounter with Chris- ,
tianity and the religions of
the East and then return to
my beat to write about
religion with greater
knowledge and authority.
At Harvard Divinity,
however, I learned that there

