Smith out on the team in the name of God
the most merciful the most compassionate
person piece on all the prophets and on
our Prophet Muhammad I want to first of
all thank the NYU and dr. Sexton and
also dr. serene Jones all the people
involved in enabling this event I'm
honored to be here
dr. Sexton actually honored us by coming
out and supporting our College recently
and so this is a wasn't quid pro quo but
I'm happy to be here the the topic
tonight the the idea of the sacred and
secular is obviously a perennial topic
secularism is the dominant modality by
which we view our world today in many
places although there are still several
societies that are Theo centric that
tend to view through the lens of the
sacred certainly the India is one of
those societies where Hinduism still
deeply pervades the culture and
certainly in in many parts of the Muslim
world turkey is in a way there is a type
of sacred consciousness that's being
reawakened if it was ever dormant but it
was certainly suppressed for a long time
under a type of lay assist government
the United States although we are a
secular government we have never seen
the sacred as something that was not
permitted or even encouraged to be part
of the public sphere certainly we have a
long history a very devout public
servants presidents if you read Abraham
Lincoln's second inaugural address if
somebody tried to get away with that
today you would be completely ridden out
of town as a religious fanatic but when
we talk about the liberal arts for me
this is the the subject is certainly a
subject that involves the sacred because
the roots of the liberal art are
profoundly sacred roots in the Muslim
community when you talk about the
liberal arts there's often a blank stare
I think a lot of Muslims think that
liberal arts means that you're gonna
vote for Bernie Sanders and that you're
learning basket weaving or painting or
some craft and so it's very difficult
especially in a culture that was
defeated by in the view of many many
Muslim superior technology and so the
stem areas of study have become an
obsession in the Muslim world despite
the fact that it has a profoundly
humanistic tradition and in the rise of
colleges George mekdeci actually argues
that much of the humanistic tradition
that comes into Western civilization
came through the vehicle of Muslim
civilization George Sartain is another
one that makes similar arguments and
Matt Dean Augustine who did a very
important PhD at the University of
Colorado called the Islamic origins of
Western education and there is certainly
a huge influence so what I'd like to do
is just look at this idea from a Muslim
perspective the liberal arts providing a
forgotten tradition amongst the Muslims
the the origin of the liberal arts is a
a mystical origin some will attribute it
to Pythagoras who was certainly working
in a esoteric tradition that was a
hidden tradition even Plato the Platonic
tradition which is heavenly heavily
involves the liberal arts Plato in his
seventh letter actually says that he
never spoke openly about his real
doctrine which obviously leads to a lot
of speculation but if you look at the
history of the liberal arts in the
Muslim world one of the earliest
colleges established was a tuna College
in Tunisia which still exists it was
established in 731 the kata Wien
University in Morocco some consider it
the oldest university in the world it
was 859 in the
you're the Common Era it was founded by
a woman faulty Medea she was an educated
woman allows her University founded by
the Ismaili Fatima dynasty and later
becomes a SUNY College it's still
functioning as a university founded in
1970 in Egypt one of the most
extraordinary universities is the
University of Timbuktu and if you read
what Rodney's book on how Europe
underdeveloped Africa an argument he
makes is that Africa was actually a
highly educated society and that's
certainly true for West Africa and
Sahara and sub-saharan Africa and North
Africa and you will find that Timbuktu
was an extraordinary center of learning
and I just want to call attention to
certain people this is a picture of dr.
Mahmoud Zubair who studied with my
teacher in the 1950s in in West Africa
in Mauritania he's originally from Mali
he went on to get a PhD from the
Sorbonne and his PhD dissertation was on
one of the greatest scholars that
Timbuktu produced I'm a Baba Tim bhakti
but he also was one of the badass
librarians of Timbuktu because this book
by Joshua hammer is about how dr. Zubair
and his student in Timbuktu actually
saved over 300 manuscripts three three
hundred thousand manuscripts of all
different knowledge --is handwritten
manuscripts many of them hundreds of
years old they were smuggled out when
the Black Flag's took over Timbuktu because they were so fearful that they would burn them so as the as these fanatics got closer to Timbuktu they hid all of the manuscripts in people's houses under beds and to preserve them because they were so fearful of them being destroyed well with the help of some Europeans that provided containers they smuggled three hundred thousand manuscripts out of Timbuktu down to the capital of Mali where they're there. They have not been restored to Timbuktu but the library of Timbuktu was a famous library.
I actually visited Timbuktu. I almost died in Timbuktu by getting amoebic dysentery was saved by some French tourists who had flagyl with them. So I owe my life to a French tourist. I must always speak kindly about the French. the Varia
College is a great college in Damascus
and I could go on there are many
colleges throughout the Muslim world but
the subjects that were taught
obviously revelation was a very
important subject but revelation was
predicated on an understanding of what
we call in the West the Trivium the
Muslims called them the three arts soon
act with Seth
they called him the instrumental arts
and Roman alia and this was absolutely
foundational it is still taught I
studied this in in the Muslim world when
I did my college studies in traditional
madrasah people wonder what goes on in a
madrasah they're actually studying the
the Trivium in most mattresses and and
so it's unfortunate that they have this
idea that somehow they're producing
terrorists the quadrivium is the other
half and people unfortunately because of
Vilhelm dilthey who was a brilliant
scholar from germany about over a
hundred years ago he divided knowledge
into the the Natural Sciences and the
humanities which unfortunately is a
false dichotomy because the humanities
humanity ATS was actually the Latin
translation of Paideia from the Greek
and it was actually both sides of the
knowledge the qualitative the
quantitative but this was lost with this
demarcation that has led people to think
now that the liberal arts are the
humanities meaning literature and
philosophy and these things but
traditionally the liberal arts were seen
as both sides the qualitative and the
quantitative sciences so this was
extremely important the Trivium was
grammar logic and rhetoric grammar
involved not simply grammar learning the
parts of speech but also literature
and the idea of what they call in
rhetoric copia of learning through
reading getting a vast fund of
expression because you've read great
literature so it was very important and
then obviously logic and rhetoric the
revealed religion involved law
jurisprudence theology and then
understanding the Quran and the hadith
through these interpretive skills
prophetic tradition but the quadrivium
and Nasir Athena through C says that all
of knowledge is based on these two
fields of knowing the three arts of
language and the four arts of number
arithmetic geometry harmony and
astronomy this led in in the pre-modern
world this is true for the Muslim world
as well as Europe and and and the
Christian tradition and and the Jewish
tradition to a large extent it led to
three specializations this was called a
piston or ciencia which was the
specialization after Paideia after this
foundation in these arts and law and
politics was to heal the social body
theology philosophy which involved
ethics and psychology Freud did not
invent psychology a lot of people don't
realize that psychology is an ancient
science if you read some of the ancient
writings on the Muslims had incredible
insights into CD at mizzou
scholar died in 1492 talks about his
obsessive compulsive behavior people
that wash their hands constantly and he
talks about it being a type of mental
pathology but this was to heal the
mental and spiritual body and then
medicine was to heal the physical body
and this was a holistic understanding of
what the specialization involved in
order that you had a healthy social body
a healthy spiritual body and a healthy
physical body as the liberal arts moves
in to Europe a rediscovery of these
sayings you get these great teaching
institutions that Makdissi argues are
probably the result of Europeans going
into the Muslim world during the
Crusades and dis
hovering these incredible institutions
and bringing these ideas back to Europe
and there's a great deal of evidence I
would I would recommend reading his book
if you're interested in pursuing this
but all of these great institutions in
in Italy in England places like Oxford
and Cambridge
they were rooted in the sacred and this
led to the great imitations in America
the idea we forget this is New York we
forget that Cambridge which is where
Harvard is is called Cambridge Princeton
these these were attempts at replicating
these great institutions John Harvard
studied at Oxford and donated his
library in the land to start Harvard
College because he wanted to produce
scholars so that we didn't have to go to
England to learn the liberal arts and so
these are the great liberal arts
institutions but they were sacred
institutions all of them were founded as
seminaries primarily to train people of
the cloth it was very interesting
Harvard was teaching Arabic 200 years
ago and George Bethune English the very
first Muslim that I found that the
American who converted to Islam George
Bethune English I discovered him by
reading the letters of Jefferson and
Adams Jefferson actually mentions that
he read Bethune's English's book on his
travel log up the Nile River and in a
footnote it said this is an early
convert to Islam he was born in 1787
distinguished himself at Harvard with a
PhD a master's degree which was the
highest degree then but he learned
Arabic at Harvard and if you want to see
something fascinating Noah Webster the
first American Dictionary published in
1828 has several Arabic words in it
because Noah Webster was trying to prove
that English went back to Hebrew but he
actually found that there were many
cognates from Arabic and so he would
actually mention the Arabic word with
Arabic script and I wondered where they
got such good typography in in the
United States at that time
so another aspect is these great
african-american liberal arts colleges
that were founded the the great Atlanta
University Morehouse College Tuskegee
these were these were great colleges
where they were training African
Americans in this tradition w/e be
Dubois who I love and I think he's a
voice that's very important today
he said the riddle of existence is the
college curriculum that was laid before
the Pharaohs that was taught in the
groves by Plato that formed the Trivium
and the quadrivium and as today laid
before the freedmen sons by Atlanta
University and this course of study will
not change its Meza methods will grow
more deft and effectual its content
richer by toil of scholar and sight of
seer but the true College will ever have
one goal not to earn meat but to know
the end and aim of that life which meat
nourishes and that is a beautiful
articulation of the purpose of a liberal
arts education he was a great liberal
artist he actually left a relatively
progressive environment in Massachusetts
to go to the south to teach in Atlanta
and spent several years there teaching
he disagreed with Booker T Washington
who wanted African Americans to learn
trades and and become technicians and
study the Industrial Arts WB Dubois had
this idea of the talented tenth that one
out of every 10 African Americans should
master the liberal arts and show their
intellectual prowess so that they could
become equal intellectually to a people
that were telling that they were
inferior I think this is it's it's it's
it's a popular book but one of the
things that struck me about this book
was Fareed Zakaria said that when he
left India which is education by largely
by rote memorization not much critical
theory and came to Harvard he was
shocked to be introduced into this idea
of a liberal education and he said at a
time when America is abandoning this
type of education and putting more
emphasis on vocational and stem research
he said it places like India
realizing maybe this is the secret of
America's power and they're getting more
interested in studying this we forget
that 2% of people in the United States
are studying at liberal arts colleges
and yet almost 20% of the most
influential people in the United States
have Liberal Arts degrees and so this is
a very significant point that that I
think needs to be emphasized so I could
go on I'm going to go through these
Daniel de Nicola argues that there's
five paradigms for the liberal arts and
I and it's become a contested term but
the traditional idea was largely the
acquisition of the skills of learning
and the transmission of cultural
inheritance across generations there are
other now understandings that really
come from those first two understanding
the world that you're in the forces that
shape your life self-actualization which
is now more popular and finally activism
and engagement so a lot of liberal arts
colleges now produce a lot of activists
and people that are more engaged with
the world so stay tuned ecology is is
our attempt at reviving this tradition
which was very powerful and I think gave
the Muslim world incredible creativity
and Arnold Toynbee argues that
civilizations rise and fall based on how
they respond to the challenges if they
have critical if they have a critical
mass of a creative minority this is what
he called them a creative minority that
are able to grapple with the problems
that are facing them then they can find
creative solutions to those problems
that creative imagination comes through
deep reflection a contemplative period
of time is needed to do this and and
Joseph Pieper who wrote a beautiful book
on leisure makes an argument for the
contemplative that every society needs
people to think deeply about their
problems this is also Susan Cain wrote a
beautiful book called quiet about the
importance of the introvert that so much
of our culture now is about extraversion
it's about presenting yourself it's
about becoming a winning personality and
learning all these tricks to influence
people I read a
recently and one of the lines in it was
it takes real practice to appear
authentic and and I just thought that
was just so bizarre but this is the idea
that is really pushed on so many young
people now to learn this the liberal
arts tradition is actually it's to
discover your authentic self it's not to
practice authenticity it's to actually
go into the self and so we've
established Zaytuna College we were
fortunate to buy a beautiful red brick
building which was part of the Pacific
School of religion and then we bought
also a seminary of the Franciscans that
was originally a Jewish frat house then
it became a Franciscan College and now
it's an Muslim College so it's gone
through the Abrahamic progress so the
crises of knowledge the the real crisis
that we have I believe is a metaphysical
crises one of the greatest problems that
we face is the fact that scientism and
this idea that empirical knowledge is
the only true knowledge and the idea
somehow that speculative knowledge
reflective knowledge knowledge that
comes through deductive reasoning with
universals is no longer a valid form of
knowing this comes from august compton
others but and this is a long long
discussion so i can't go into it but
bayer dodge who was the president of the
protestant university in the protestant
University in Beirut brilliant scholar
Bayer dodge wrote a book on medieval
Muslim education and in it he argued
that the Muslim education of the Middle
Ages is rapidly being superseded by
schools and universities which are both
modern and secular the widespread
movement is so recent that it is
impossible to tell how it will affect
the cultural and social life of Islam it
is clear however that in this age of
chaotic change when members of the
rising generation are confused by
bewildering doubts the reformist must
not neglect the basic principles of
medieval education which were a search
of spiritual truth and faith in the
reality of Allah I consider this to be
just an incredibly important statement
by somebody who made the statement over
60 years ago and I think we're now
seeing the results in the Muslim world
of the fact that education has
completely ignored this side and and
you've had reactions that are gross and
and and and actually heinous because of
that the umayyad mosque and College in
Aleppo one of the most beautiful
architectural testimonies is now a
rubble heap because of this forgotten
tradition this is my real belief that
it's something that they've forgotten I
could go into this maybe we can talk a
little bit about this but the importance
of knowledge when we think the the the
the Scholastic's had this idea of what
they called the the theater LaMotta that
that god has these divine intentions and
that that meaning is imprinted on the
human being and that meaning comes
through form and it comes through the
interaction of the mind with form and
and and data is a latin word which means
what's given who gave it to us
fact is from is from factum which is
what is made who made it these are these
are ancient ideas that facts are not
something we we create or make up there
they're discovered by our minds and then
they're organized into knowledge so data
and information which is what much of
our modern education involves
organization of data information becomes
knowledge but knowledge then has to
become understanding and understanding
has to evolve into wisdom how do we use
that knowledge do we use our airplanes
to dwarf great distances or do we use
them to bomb people that have no self
defense how do we how do we use the
incredible knowledge of chemistry that
we have to create napalm or to create
balms and salves that that heal our
bodies I mean these are these are real
problems that we're dealing with today
and and so grammar was that the
knowledge logic was was the idea of the
understanding but then rhetoric was the
wisdom rhetoric was not a bag of tricks
that you learned to to influence people
when friends rhetoric was was the the
way that you expressed the truth of your
knowledge in your understanding this is
a beautiful picture by Botticelli a
young man being introduced to the seven
liberal arts the liberal arts were
always personified as women in the
Western tradition because men were the
students and men pursue women and so
these were the beauties to pursue and
you have who's leading her this young
men in grammar and then over them is
prudential wisdom so you learn these
seven sisters to be presided over by
wisdom but grammar was the entrance into
the liberal arts so to go from the
sublime to the ridiculous
yes Winky yes a winky face is correct
but in ancient times the semicolon was
actually used to separate archaic
written devices known as complete
sentences and if you think that's a joke
you have not taught composition in
college recently ignorance you know and
all I need to conclude because I want
dr. Sexton to have his time
ignorance compound and simple ignorance
I'll just end by saying that I truly
believe that if we don't restore the
vision of the liberal arts tradition to
its proper place at the heart of the
intellectual and spiritual pursuits of
our civilization then the we will
continue to watch as our civilization
declines and Falls the trends and
consequences are clearly evident our
elite further isolate themselves in
distant places our inner cities become
military theaters of engagement our poor
schools remain juvenile halls for
hapless youth while our top tier schools
continue to serve as recruiting centers
for what could really be argue argue Lee
be called sociopathic corporate
enterprises that devastate the global
Commons destroy our oceans and devour
what remains of the great forests and
jungles of the world I think it's
appropriate that I conclude by sharing
something from our nation's history the
very few people are aware of it's an
inspirational story about a woman and
the high school where she served as
principal the scholar and educator is
Anna Julia Cooper a name that should be
known to our children
as well as George Washington or any
other name she was a true liberal artist
a devout Christian an early advocate for
the rights of women and the fourth
african-american woman to receive a PhD
in 1924 from the University of Paris
Sorbonne born a slave on a southern
plantation despite all odds she obtained
what she should have what should have
been her right in education she mastered
the liberal arts
she learned Latin and Greek she wrote
her dissertation in French and went on
to become the principal of America's
first public high school for black
students that was renamed Dunbar High
School in 1906 it produced some of the
greatest african-americans of the 20th
century their sports team which i think
is the best name for a college team ever
was known as the Dunbar poets in a
seminal speech entitled the ethics of
the Negro problem Cooper wrote a
nation's greatness is not dependent upon
the things it makes and uses it's not on
the iPhones and the iPads things without
thoughts are mere vulgarities America
can boast her expansive territory her
gilded domes her paving stones of silver
dollars but the question of deepest
moment in this nation today is its span
of the circle of brotherhood the moral
stature of its men and its women the
elevation at which it receives its
vision into the firmament of eternal
truth thank you
[Applause]
well I want to thank my good friend
serene for being here and Hamzah welcome
to the I almost say the right coast but
I want to make it clear that I mean the
correct coast I think that my visit to
site tuna was a very important one for
me not least because I met this
remarkable man we had shared a wonderful
student important both of our lives who
brought us together and I'm delighted
that that has resulted in part in your
being here
now he's rightly described as the major
religious figure that he is I guess I
can give you an image which will give me
a little bit of religious stature I mean
you're actually very few of you know I
don't know if I've ever said this
publicly at NYU but you are looking at a
major historical figure at the podium
right now
you're looking at the Jackie Robinson of
the B'nai B'rith Little League I was the
first Christian to play in an old Jewish
league so this was a simpler time well
before the vast majority of you in this
room were born perhaps well before some
of your parents were born certainly well
before the two of them were born it was
the 1940s and the 1950s in this place
that gives birth to this accent Brooklyn
New York is the true other center of the
world I must say and it was a simple
time for Irish Catholics like me
working-class Irish Catholics like me I
went to a religious school was a Jesuit
High School it was an enlightened place
there were men teaching us and women and
many of them would go on to lead the
peace movement in the United States and
the civil rights movement name said I
could tell you the history books would
use to conjure and one of the great ones
just died a year ago his name was Daniel
Berrigan he was a leader of the peace
movement here in the 1960s and I will
never forget the word that he wrote on
the blackboard in my sophomore year of
high school
extra ecclesia nulla Salus outside the
church by which he meant the Catholic
Church there is no salvation
I remember going up to this
extraordinary progressive man after
class and saying father Bergen theirs
does that mean my my best friend my
picture I was a catcher
Gerry Epstein can't go to heaven and he
said unless you baptize him he will not
go to heaven now ultimately I was
blessed with persuading the most
extraordinary human being I ever met to
marry me she was Jewish and she doesn't
have a far higher place in the eyes of
God than I do there's something wrong
with God but that was this triumphalism
that we were taught that we had the
truth and no one else did and then as I
began college in 1959 the Vatican
Council began in the Catholic Church and
a great man by the name of John the 23rd
a great Pope what's in the spirit of the
Pope you know Francis taught us a word
and the word was acumen ISM acumen ISM
now some of the students here some of
the alumni here certainly some of the
faculty certainly Holliday knew who to
have heard me refer to NYU which unlike
the universities that hamza described
here in america that did have religious
roots and weiu in 1831 was founded
solely as a secular University from its
beginning but people have heard me
describe and want you as the first
ecumenical University but not ecumenical
in the sense that john xxiii was using
it he taught people with narrow
worldviews like me that we could frankly
understand our own selves in our own
faith better if we entered into genuine
dialogic dialogue not just a
conversation of tolerance but a
conversation where you really emptied
yourself into the being of the other
person and tried to see what that person
seeing through the window that he or she
had been given at birth not just the
window that you'd be given at birth and
to see yourself as they were seeing you
and that dialogic dialog allowed you to
look at the world not through the one
window you were given by birth but
through the many windows of the mansion
and enrich your own view of self never
giving up your own space but enriching
it and then that's what this word acumen
isn't meant theologically for john xxiii
but when when we've used it here at NYU
to refer to a secular university we've
meant it in a more yura sztyc secular
sense okay it's still a heuristic word
it's still a way of looking at the world
but but one doesn't have to take now
we're we're we're here in an event
that's sponsored by a many and that
celebrates the the work of many and and
which is an ecumenical work and we're
here gathered most of us in the room I
would assume like me like them taking
religion as a serious part of our lives
as speaking to the deepest part of our
lives but humanism this this this
heuristic is much broader and can be
seen simply as a way of looking at
diversity in the world and it's in that
sense we began to use it here at NYU a
secular University how does this play
into what we see going on around us in
the world the large trends of the world
we are the three of us theologians so we
don't think even election cycle to
election cycle let alone debate to
debate we think in centuries the large
arc of history that we hope is as Martin
Luther King says bending towards justice
we're certainly hopeful of that we we're
inherently optimistic
about the future because we believe in
the inner worthiness of human beings so
what are the large trends that are
relevant to universities today first
undeniably the world is miniature rising
all of the constraints of that bed that
separated us physically from each other
are disappearing we each are in each
other's lives the matter how remote we
are from each other
so how do we react to this some people
react with feein some people choose fear
and and they they they there's kind of
that latent triumphalism that was
captured in that phrase extra ecclesiam
nulla Salus outside my group there is no
worthiness there is no salvation and we
attempted out of theá--
nativism if you want to call it that
which is a deep strain in america we
attempt to to get ourselves off gaining
strategies whether they be gated
neighborhoods or as some would suggest
gated Nations the second reaction is the
reaction of embrace to delight in the
fact in the spirit of John the 23rd in
the spirit of a human ism that that that
someone who sees the world and me
differently from the way I do what a
delight that is how much I can learn
from that now in a way the the theory of
our University here at NYU captured in
an of many's agenda but permeating I
hope the entire university is is the
second of those reactions it's it's it's
affirming the power of community yes I
have an identity but but at NYU that
identity isn't found in some overarching
notion of homogeneity and community its
we don't gather in big stadia or arenas
wearing the same colors with
cheerleaders having us chant in unison
pretending to be the same tell us that
seems very old very kind of 1950's it
belongs back in that small classroom in
Brooklyn where even a great man thought
small about the word community we give
you here at NYU hard community it's hard
to find community at NYU unless you look
for it and work at it and and and and we
would we would rather assert the complex
community that can be the joy of an
ecumenical world a community of
communities where we all become parts of
micro communities within the overarching
entity and then we interlock the way of
many has us interlocking we interlock
creating a whole that's greater than the
sum of the parts creating and something
like a watch where the elements are
still identifiable but where there's
something greater that's come out of the
aggregation of thee of the elements so
that's the first broad trend and I think
the way we as a university and
universities generally could react to it
but there's another broad trend and I
hope you'll see here a connection both
to the first and to Hamas's remarkably
wise talk where we're on the verge of
seeing the death of the
but the death of thought certainly the
Trivium maybe also the quadrivium
because we some would say we're moving
into a post factual a post factual
period but certainly you've seen and I
first wrote about this you go my website
and see a piece I wrote over a decade
ago through 12 years ago after the 2004
election I began to worry that America
was developing what I call been an
allergy to nuance and complexity we we
we wanted very simple answers best of
all we wanted a ranking give us a
ranking I remember discussing with an
NYU trustee you owned a magazine that
provided extensive rankings of colleges
and universities and it was the first
time I'd met him I was a relatively new
Dean and he came up to me and said Dana
I understand that you're against
rankings and I said they're an
abomination and he said to me why would
it why should the consumer have less
information on the purchase of an
education that on the purchase of a
toaster and I said why does NYU have a
trustee who thinks in education is like
a toast
and I said what are you gonna do next
what are you gonna do next rank
religions give us a nice ranking to let
us know who's best you know or at least
who this week is best but this this
allergy to nuance and complexity which
is of course what thought is we do new
ones in complexity at universities
inevitably leads to a world where the
the corollary lack of trust develops
because we engage with each other
through conversation in an in a trusting
way you know we have to develop common
ground and of course the next step is
the devaluation about which harms the
worried of the spiritual there are some
here tonight who have been kind enough
to tell me you've read my book baseball
as a road to God it's interesting if you
read baseball as a road to God which I
could only write after Lisa's death
because I could only be public about my
spirituality then you'll see that it's
really not a book about baseball and
it's really not a book about God it's
it's a book about and the word I use in
the book is a word that hums are you
scientism and the danger of scientism
the danger of making science into a
religion that is the only true religion
the triumphalism now has all told us
that there is the known and we impart
that hopefully to our students we have
experts here on what is known and and
what we have cognitively and we should
give every bit of that that we have to
our students and then because we are a
research university there is the
knowable but not yet known the knowable
but not yet known and that's of course
what a research university does it
discovers the next generation of
knowledge and and that becomes part of
the virtuous cycle of them of an party
but then and and this was at the S
of what hamza said i think then there is
a third category which is neither known
or knowable and but not yet known if we
mean by known known in our cognitive
terms that's where scientism comes in if
you end the block there if it's all
capable of knowledge through science
then you've left out perhaps the most
important and that is those things that
are ineffable ineffable beyond our
putting into words they're so deep like
love love the meaning of life the fact
that there is a dimension called the
spiritual the fact that that there is a
God not necessarily an anthropomorphic
or interventionist God although perhaps
even that but something that goes beyond
our capacity for words that all the
great religions describe as God and we
need as we approach that to approach
that third category that goes beyond
science with deep humility and and and
never with the triumphalism of extra
ecclesiam nulla Salus because that
displays a pride which is the Greek
tragedy floor of hubris taken to its
extreme so it is that it brings great
pleasure to me every time I walk into my
new office on the fifth floor of the
Student Center here
I always enter through or most of the
time I enter through the spiritual life
center because it's wonderful for me to
see the activity there it's wonderful
for me to see the the affirmation of the
spirit that's true and the work of the
Islamic sent there in the Brompton
Center and everything else and I'll just
close with a story
of my first week here at NYU as
president I I had been named president
it was made 2001 so it was before 9/11
and the students in the Brahmin Center
were the first to invite me to come
visit with them and it was a Friday
night and they all gather for Shabbat
dinner on Friday night and then and then
they go back to the Brompton Center and
they asked me to come over after Shabbat
dinner and I I left Lisa we usually
tried to have time together at home on
Friday night I left her about 8:30 I
think to go over and I said honey I'll
be back in about an hour and when I
walked in shortly before midnight
my beloved understanding wife looked at
me and I said to her because I'd come
from the law school where we built a
little community everybody knew
everybody's name and I said to her you
know honey I think there's a chance I
think that my message of community got
through these students tonight and I
can't I'm sorry I'm late I'm sorry we
missed our Friday night but I was on
such a roll with them persuading them of
the importance of community and she
looked at me and she said honey where
did you go tonight
and I said to the Brockman senton I
remember she's Jewish and she said I
said Friday night and she said where
they bent
I said Shabbat dinner and she said and
you think you taught them about
community
you see that's the wonder of an eye
though love affair right because an ID a
love affair allows you to to understand
the context in love the way this person
is saying to you this is the way you
look to the world how absurd of you to
think and how absurd of me to think
every time the elevator opens does that
go up to the fifth floor and I see the
students the Muslim students gathered
for prayer I just said my heart leaps
for joy every time that elevator happens
or I see it happening and that's the
wonderful work that's being done here we
have to avoid the pride that I was
taught in Brooklyn in the 1950s if we do
if we embrace the ecumenical mission of
our faiths at their best of this place
at its best of our universities as they
fight against simplicity and advance
truth or this miniaturized world can be
a world of much great joy and not fear
and don't listen to anybody that tries
to scare you
about people that are different from you
[Applause]
[Applause]
so let me first begin by thanking both
of you for your reflections for your
combination of story and abstraction if
you will which often sits at the heart
of what makes the sacred tick I don't
quite know where to begin in terms of
opening up the conversation between you
but the scholar in me wants to ask right
here at the beginning as we've been
using this language of the sacred and
the secular like as you were reflecting
on your remarks do those terms actually
mean anything anymore
what what are they referring to what is
the difference between the secular and
the sacred what's the difference with
the sacred and the religious or the
secular and the state but what are we
playing with when we're playing with
this big distinction that underlies both
of your thoughts well one of the
beautiful words in our language is
sacrifice and one of the religious
aspects of baseball is the sacrifice
bunt the word the word sacrifice is the
Latin root is to make sacred and so at
the root of sacredness is really the
idea of sacrificing things for greater
things and whenever you have that
whether it's from a secular person or a
religious person you have something
sacred and in my estimation
I read a an op-ed in the Los Angeles
Times about It's a Wonderful Life which
in when I was growing up that was an
American ritual I think to watch that
around Thanksgiving and
Jimmy Stewart I was just actually at
Princeton where he went
Jimmy Stewart plays a character who
keeps sacrificing his dreams for other
people's dreams and and he's got a lot
of resentment he's a bit of a
passive-aggressive in the film but by
the end of it he realizes what an
incredible life he's had and what what
deep meaning was in those sacrifices but
the article was arguing what a horrible
movie it was and how terrible a
philosophy that was because why should
we give up our dreams for other people's
dreams and and I thought that was just
such a testimony to the secular so first
of all I want to join brother Hobbes his
opinion this is what we lawyers do I'll
join but I'll write a concurring opinion
with a slightly said no dissent yet no
dissent here at all says so for me the
dimension of which we're talking in
which every human tries to touch whether
it be in love or through spirituality or
whatever is in this ineffable space and
just as it's ineffable that means that
all the architecture of doctor in an
organization and so forth serves the
wonderful role of carrying on the
tradition on the one hand but has the
danger of sapping all of the energy out
of the tradition on the other and when
that sapping occurs by people who want
only to maintain their power
that's when religion can become very
dangerous so for me you know the word
sacred and profane or sacred and secular
are completely circular words if you try
to make an explanation of them in other
words they there is no explanation
beyond the experience of the person who
is experiencing the higher Offaly of the
sacred the sacred shining throat and and
and and so so I I can't convince you
my sacred or vice versa any more than I
can convince you of the existence of God
or I could convince Lisa by a syllogism
that we were in love I mean these things
are not touchable bye-bye
the first two of the three categories I
spent so just very quickly and then I'll
toss it back to you so one example I use
for my students is you know suppose I
were as could have been a Catholic
priest and the heart of the Liturgy of
my religion is is the Eucharist where
the bread and wine are transformed
sacramentally into the spirit and body
of the Savior that's my belief now I'm
walking through the outback in Australia
with a native Australian guide and and
the great vast flatness of the outback
suddenly arises uh LaRue ul you are you
google it you'll know you'll recognize
it this tremendous orange mound that to
the native Australian that's with me and
his one hundred thousand year olds
culture of welcoming and love represents
the connection of this world to the next
and we stopped because he's in awe in
the religious sense of it and I'm in awe
of it as a beautiful beautiful piece of
nature that has caused me to travel
around the world to see it and I'm so
moved I take out the bread and wine that
I have with me and I consecrate them
liturgically
for me the deepest spiritual act I'm
looking at a wonder of nature not Axis
Mundi he's seeing me eat my lunch
right I mean this is what's sacred and
what's profane what's sacred and what's
secular it's it's it depends upon the
experience and how it calls you but we
know there is this category that calls
us okay and each of us so many of us at
least in this room are called deeply to
that plane of existence which is the
most fulfilling and joyful of all planes
it's the plane of love and I think one
of the most interesting phenomenon
that's happening right now in the u.s.
not outside of the US but in the u.s. is
precisely the rise of this category sort
of like the sacred was called the realm
of the spiritual and it's the rise of a
whole generation of people who are
spiritual but not religious who who
claimed exactly to feel that common
human yearning for the ineffable and
that that thing that we reach for which
is beyond and yet it's it's not
connected to any kind of religious
practice or deep religious tradition and
it is in many ways calling into question
what we mean by secular or sacred
anymore and my question is is what is
the future of the category the reality
of this thing called religion which is
about not the ineffable but about
oftentimes practices and doctrines and
borders and boundaries and determining
mechanisms and related to identity and
not about sacrifice and the giving away
of oneself I mean that's almost the
opposite of the dogmatic and religion is
not about the reaching it's often about
the the defining that stops the reach so
if you could both just reflect on that
the the future of religion well one of
the things I mean obviously what's
called organized
aegeon has put off a lot of people I
always tell them become a Muslim or the
most disorganized religion on the planet
but there there is there is a real you
know disdain now for organized religion
for me personally one of the things that
I love about the the the pre-modern
world is is the discipline of the
pre-modern world if you wanted to dance
you had to learn how to dance I grew up
my my mother was half Greek so we had to
learn how to Greek dance and one things
about the Greek dancers is somebody who
really masters the the steps and becomes
a great Greek dancer is allowed to
improvise and a great musician has to go
through all these scales and learning
all these these the circle fists and all
these this music theory but at a certain
point they become free to play the piano
and this is essentially what the liberal
arts is about it's about the discipline
of becoming free one of the things most
people think that they think freely but
there are many shackles of the mind and
and and we have natural prejudices that
were often very unaware of like
generalization people come to New York
they have a bad experience with a taxi
driver and they're convinced that all
New York taxi drivers are cheats that's
a very common hasty generalization and
and this is why traditionally learning
how to to think clearly and to think
effectively it was a discipline that
actually took a great deal of time and
so I think that religious practice one
of the things that I've found because we
have a very specific practice of praying
five times a day and I Muslims always
tell me you know I pray and and I'm not
really feeling anything and for me I
think we tend to forget that this is a
spiritual experience consciousness
itself is a spiritual experience and and
what practice is meant to do if it's
done right is to actually free you
to have that experience and this is why
they say to live in wonder the the child
who is is still in that that world of
the sacred you know little children are
there already there they don't need to
be anywhere else but as they come into
adulthood and and and they they come
into their bodies and have their their I
mean you can't even use this word
anymore but they're sinful experiences
and and they and they become tainted
with the world religion is there to
remove that taint and and to
re-establish that purity of children and
and somebody one of my favorite quotes
of Confucius is when I was 15 my heart
was set on learning when I was thirty I
remained firm when I was forty I no
longer had doubts when I was fifty I
knew the Mandate of Heaven when I was
sixty my ear was obedient and I was when
I was seventy I could fulfill my heart's
desires without deviating that's a
spiritual path and that's practice and
that's the purpose of practice so you
can be spiritual without a practice but
where is it going to take you
[Applause]
so I would I would say picking up
exactly on what you said Hamza that the
future of religion depends in large part
on how we use it and how those to whom
we've given it as stewards in my church
the hierarchy uses it I'll take the
spirituality as a good start even if
it's not inside organized religion if
you find it at a baseball game because
of the intense attention to detail a
baseball game requires fine that's why I
say bass boys a road to God because it
cultivates the intense hard work of
noticing and paying attention if you
find it in the Grand Canyon you know in
the wonder of nature or in Leroux that's
a good start but Hamza is completely
right that that there are truths I mean
to to affirm the importance of the
ineffable is not to deny the importance
of what we can know and what is knowable
and we should come to know this is not
an argument against science it's an
argument against scientism that we're
making it's making science into a
religion and saying it has all knowledge
that's the argument I think both of us
are making so so yes we should try in in
in the great liturgical stories of the
great faiths to return to them because
they have an ability to convey the
ineffable and and and doctrine is
important because it shines a light but
if doctrine becomes an instrument of
power you know if I'm told by my church
the Church of life I the father of an in
vitro child and the grandfather of three
in-vitro grandchildren am told that that
is a sin then doctrines gone
there's something wrong if the Church of
life is telling me that my daughter and
three grand doing is and there they're
being brought into the world through in
vitro was sinful
now there's something so that's a misuse
and and depending on now in my church
Francis gives me hope after a bad 30 or
40 years since John the 23rd Francis
gives me hope and makes me believe maybe
the Spirit is so indomitable that even
those that we've charged with the
stewardship of the great organized
institutional faiths will be overcome
ultimately by the goodness that's in
people I realized these questions I'm
asking aren't leading directly back to
the role of the sacred and the secular
in the liberal arts but and John you
mentioned this at the very end of your
previous comment and you mentioned it at
the end of your talk but historically
the space of a sacred has also been the
space where we reflect deeply in
practice on what it means to love love
very difficult topic but also the
reality of profound human suffering and
how we keep going in the face of it and
particularly in this day and age the
events of last week the events of the
year before and the century before these
questions of how do we learn to love and
how do we engage and stop and respond to
the profound reality of human suffering
how do those relate to the sacred well I
think the abrahamic face in the
pre-modern world certainly suffering was
never questioned in in I mean obviously
the story of job which is a very
important story in the Bible and job is
a good man
and gods making him suffer and his
friends say he must have done something
wrong you know he's being punished for
something he did wrong but he's a good
man and that story is also mentioned in
the Quran suffering is certainly part of
the world and we will all suffer just by
being human in fact this is the first
truth of the Buddha is is Thanh had the
nature of the world is it is is is the
nature of suffering because the world
this world is not conclusion to put it
in Emily Dickinson's
words the the idea somehow that the
temporal in the presence of the infinite
could could could really exact from us I
think any crises of faith for for
somebody who has deep and profound faith
for me personally I don't know I I know
that I've seen great suffering I've
experienced we've all had levels of
suffering but I've seen great suffering
with incredible fortitude and faith and
it's always just overwhelmed me to see
that it's incredibly inspiring but we
know that there today so many people are
perplexed by the amount of suffering on
the world and by what some have referred
to as the silence of God the absence of
God very often people ask where is God
from our tradition the question is not
where is God where are we to alleviate
that suffering one of the benefits of
tribulation and suffering and and I
actually translated a work called the 17
benefits of tribulation and one of them
was that the suffering of others enables
you to be a vehicle of alleviating that
suffering and certainly our religious
traditions have a profound understanding
of suffering that in fact say nor see
one of the great Turkish saints and
scholars said that sometimes God will
give you tribulations just to make you
uncomfortable in the world because he
wants to
give you a continual reminder that this
is not an abode of comfort for you it's
it's the yearning for the next world and
I think all religious traditions grapple
with this issue but I think profound
faith is is what enables people to
withstand great suffering and I've seen
this I think you know people say that
that religion is the opiate of the
masses but it was there to numb the pain
of the world right it was the heart of a
heartless world and and now I think we
replaced real opium with religion so we
have a crises of opioids in America
because now people numb that suffering I
mean with with drugs and wanting to just
get out of the world ex stasis you know
to experience some out of state
experience from that but as somebody who
knows chronic pain I I always just try
to remind myself that it could be much
worse
so I'm tempted to say nothing because
that was so beautiful
if I add anything and I think I will
it's it's it's dangerous because I'm
going to go to a very personal
illustration of what Holmes was just
talking about so if you've not read and
I have to warn you it's it's it's very
Catholic but in the spirit about many
and acumen ism I would welcome you to
read it if you've not read CS Lewis's
book a grief observed which is his
wrestling through the silence of God and
whether he can continue to believe in
God after the death of his wife whom he
married knowing she was dying a Tony
award-winning will be called Shadowland
which was made about their love for each
other and I will just give personal
testimony to affirm what hamza said I
mean the deepest existential suffering
that I've had was to find my wife who
was younger than me and it was not ill
ten years younger than me and it was not
ill suddenly dead a half an hour after
I'd been speaking to her but what that
transformed was my understanding of our
love into something that was greater and
I've lived every day of the last ten
years trying to be worthy of
representing her in this world and in
the belief unprovable that our love
continues to exist and that she is
conscious of my continuing love as we
will be together and that could not have
come to me and I couldn't have known the
fullness of my love for her cause in
that moment when I found her in that
sudden moment every bit part of my being
cried out to such
dude for her and although I would have
said those words I knew in that moment
that that was true and that was a
spiritual ecstasy that I've lived with
now for the rest of my life so I'm sorry
if that makes people uncomfortable then
I went to that place but it's a it's a
perfect illustration I think I'm sort of
what you said I you know I just lost
both of my parents in the last few
months and my mother who lived with me
the last four years of her life was
suffering from cancer and my mother had
taken her vows of the Bodhisattva about
20 years ago and she was she was
practicing actively what are called the
six perfections and despite the fact
that we knew she was in great pain she
always had a smile on her face and she
never complained and I actually put up
online on on on my website a letter that
her doctor her oncologist had written
and he said in his two decades of
practicing cancer he'd never met a
cancer patient that confronted cancer
the way she did because he said her
symptoms were joy happiness and smiling
and he said he realized that he was the
patient and and she was his doctor and I
think that that was certainly I know it
was her faith and it was a conscious
thing that she she was practicing
this past week at Union Theological
Seminary we welcomed a leading legal
scholar in the United States Michelle
Alexander who wrote the new Jim Crow on
mass incarceration and which she says is
the great moral issue of our day that
that we put people in cages and that
there's a social consensus that this is
allowable and she left the law to come
to a seminary because she said in the
spaces of the law
she found that you couldn't actually
address the deep spiritual needs which
undergird the policy issues that lawyers
are concerned about that the practice of
the law can't get you there so she's
come to a seminary what's so interesting
to me about that is also taking the
register of a way to engage suffering
and including the personal suffering and
how we manage it
putting starkly in front of us
our complicit role in the suffering of
those in our own communities and how
from a secular or sacred or the circle
of them as you describe it John we touch
that place so in my own context we have
a Center for Islamic studies which is
called the Center for Islam
inter-religious engagement and social
justice and we have a Buddhist Center
for Buddhism inter-religious engagement
and social justice to talk about that
social justice part of the reason it's
constructed this way is because
the sacred in the work that we're doing
we believe cannot be undone from the
public work of social justice so and you
spoke of that near the end and John you
have as well but step into that space
with this question of the sacred and the
secular for me well I think one of the I
think the facts of life on Earth is that
there is a great deal of injustice there
always has been I think there's a great
utopian fantasy about creating a world
without justice part of the reason why
sin is in the world is that we're meant
to stand up oppose it within ourselves
and attempt to help others remove it
from themselves I think one of the
things about dr. King and my family is
heavily involved in that movement my
sister actually marched across the
bridge in Selma I marched as a
seven-year-old with my mother on the on
Selma with the theological Union in in
Marin County so one of the things that
was very clear and and I've heard this
from people that were actively involved
in that movement is in fact somebody's
who struggled with my mother and the
civil rights said at her funeral that
that we were motivated by a sense of
hope a sense of righteousness and
indignation about these things but she
said but there wasn't the kind of anger
that you're seeing today in a lot of
people and I think that's because of the
absence of the sacred I think that one
of our prophetic traditions from the
Prophet Muhammad is he said help your
brother the oppressor and the oppressed
and and and they asked him how do we
help the our brother the oppressor in
other words because they knew his
teaching so what do we oppress with him
and he said by stopping him from his
oppression and Albert memy wrote a very
important book called the colonized
the colonized which is he was a Jewish
Tunisian who was looking at the
colonization of Tunisia and as an
outsider as a Jewish outsider within the
Tunisian community he could see this
horrible cycle and the wonderful poet
Blake talks about the the purple tyrants
the hand of vengeance found the purple
tyrants bed and and smashes the purple
tyrants head and then becomes a tyrant
in his stead that this is the cycle of
justice the desire for justice by
becoming unjust the something Nietzsche
warned us in fighting the monster don't
become a monster and this is very often
what happens in these movements I mean
one of the tragedies now of seeing a lot
of reverse racism and I'm seeing a lot
of this now just in in in a lot of the
the just from the black lives movement
which has emerged which which is
addressing a very important issue but
when it's very tragic for me to see a
society that there is I don't think
there's any society and I've been all
over this world I don't think there's
any society that is actively trying to
overcome the historical wrongs of the
past like this society and I really
believe that I we the
anti-discrimination laws that have been
enacted in this country are are
unprecedented and they're imitated in
other places but many places don't have
them if you want to see real racism and
I've lived in Africa I've lived in the
Middle East and and I've been to Asia
you you will find racism that has no
redress to those wrongs and I think that
the fact that there were so many white
people involved in the civil rights
movement that we're trying to overcome
those wrongs and and I get and I
understand
the real problems that a lot of white
people have about white privilege and
all these things I understand that but
we need to help people overcome within
themselves not from a place of anger but
a place centered and rooted in a
spiritual desire for not only helping
ourselves but helping others overcome
these tribulations and I truly believe
that it is the sacred voice that enables
this I don't think the secular voice has
that capacity because I think the second
voice too easily falls into the demands
of justice and not recognizing that not
only do we need social justice we need
social mercy and I and I really believe
we need a social mercy movement the
history of righteous anger
[Applause]
remember anger ethically should be
directed to the right object in the
right degree for with the right amount
at the right time and for the right
reasons
and so when you're just angry which a
lot of people are we call it road rage
where I come from I mean there's just
people that are they're pissed off and
they're walking around angry and they're
looking for anybody to explore their
anger with and and that's a spiritual
disease anger is a mortal sin not
because it's an activity of an event or
two events or three events it's a state
of being IRA it is a state of being and
when you fall into that state of being
whether it's righteous anger because
every angry person is going to justify
their anger but if you don't see it for
what it is our Prophet was asked once by
a man he said give me some advice and he
said talk about don't get angry and he
said give me some advice and he said in
other words I know I don't want that if
I give me some real advice and the
Prophet said let's talk about don't get
angry and he said a third time give me
some advice he said don't get angry
so I'll just I'll just loop back to say
that there is so much suffering in the
world I mean now in I'm back on the
faculty at NYU but but in my work
outside of NYU I'm trying to bring
education to the kids in the world that
that are being neglected I mean really
neglected 85 million 85 million primary
and secondary aged kids in the world
today who if we don't change things will
never once in their lives meet a teacher
ok never once not one nobody's even
pretending to educate them another 260
million that I'll never get past the
fourth grade so 350 million kids that
had just been written off and some other
were in urban slums and some of them in
remote areas and we just don't care
because they don't have a disease that
we might catch okay there's a lot of
suffering out there and if if we can
touch the religious space the sacred
space that we've been talking about then
we understand that sacrifice for others
is is the natural extension of love of
self it's really the only way to love
yourself and to see real love is to
extend it so so the social justice
movement is intrinsically in my view
tied up with the spirituality that comes
with the elevation of what it means to
be human and the universal that that's
getting back to not dividing up into you
know oh I'm on the winning team but but
you know it's very interesting from this
stage Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrestled one
night in a major lecture with the
question what does it mean to be the
chosen
people and he said much in the same
words that hamza has said here tonight
chosen for special obligation I've
chosen for special privilege and that's
what connects all of this with me so
we're getting near the end of our time
and I can't avoid asking you both a
question about this conversation in the
context of the election so you knew it
was coming
no conversation can happen in this
country right now that lasts more than
five minutes without it turning to this
topic what is being revealed to us from
your positions as theologians who engage
the public square in this election it's
the end of time
somebody said it's like one of those
television series or soap operas where
at the end they just start getting so
outrageous in their scenarios but I have
just a one of the benefits of learning
logic one of my close associates and
dear friends is a ER doctor down in
Florida she's teaching her
thirteen-year-old logic she did formal
logic with her now she's doing material
logic so they watched the debates last
night and she said she's 13 years old
she's saying oh my god mom dad that's an
ad populum oh that's an ad hominem
attack and so she was picking up on all
the on all the fallacies going on in the
debate so that was one of the benefits
you know we forget that logic was
actually taught in all the high schools
in the United States even even 60 or 70
years ago which helped a lot for people
to see these my great-grandmother
studied Bains logic in black Falls
Wisconsin and I actually have her book I
know she had a toothache on December
23rd 1882 because she wrote it in her
book but they have there's a chapter on
on the emotions because that's part of
learning rhetoric is dealing with the
emotions and probably the most
interesting section in Aristotle's book
on rhetoric is his section on the
emotions and explaining the emotions but
one of the things that in in Bane's book
is that fear is often used by demagogues
and a population should always be
vigilant when they see a politician or a
demagogue using fear to scare people
because people will override their
rational impulses and and move towards
irrational responses when the emotion of
fear begins to motivate them and so I
think the thing that troubles me most
about this current environment is the
environment of fear and I think there's
a lot of unsettled aspects that are
happening but the other thing that that
really
voules me is I just I watched once great
speeches with my wife and we watched the
inaugural address of Kennedy and and you
know in Kennedy was no saint and I'm not
in any way sentimental about that but I
just after watching this speech I turned
and my wife had tears coming down her
eyes and she just looked at me and she
says what happened you know how do we go
from that to to to what we've got now
and I would argue that it's a loss of
liberal arts education
[Applause]
so this might be the first point of
disagreement of the night I didn't
expect that we would go here but I'm
very happy to be here and it only might
be and I won't I will push it except to
say the following it could be the end of
time but notice the difference ok I'm
not making a declarative statement it is
the end of time I I took that as being a
bit facetious it was ok it's it's always
the end of yeah
but but but I'm gonna use the difference
you're playing baseball I'm gonna use
the differentiated language for a
purpose because I spent a lot of time in
the world of logic and I agree with you
about it and I'm gonna say that this is
a very very tough moment as I said for
thought and for trust and if we reward
the absence of thought and if we allow
20 years at least of the building of a
Colosseum society where 85% of Americans
say in polls they don't trust their
neighbors forget about the institution's
there's just no trust we we have a
trustee named Evan chess Allah
Evan chess Allah grew up as a tailor's
son up in the Grand Congress I may have
a factor too long because I'm I'm
reaching back to when we installed him
in this building as a trustee in a
ceremony about 2002
and he said that he grew up on the Grand
Concourse and and he was the only one in
his family that went to high school and
the only one that read the newspaper and
he would come home from high school and
he would say to his father at the dinner
table dad what about this what about
that and Evans father would always say
don't worry Evan they're taking care of
it and he said I always wondered who
they were and tonight as I become a
trustee of NYU this is 2002 I realize
I'm part of they with the responsibility
to take care of it right and I said to
him last night I said you know Evan no
father is saying that to his son in the
United States today
no one believes they're taking care of
it but there is a reason for that ladies
and gentlemen in 1995 I was the head of
the Association of American law schools
and I wrote a pastoral letter to all my
constituents all the professors and
educators in the country because I been
given a copy of an internal memo by a
man named Frank Luntz two candidates for
office saying if you want to win attack
law and lawyers there is nothing too
negative you can say about them and I
remember writing at that time this is a
nation that was built on law on de
Tocqueville's notion of the Jeffersonian
law and if we start attacking law and
lawyers and then idea there's got to be
just as corrosive build-up and there is
no equivalency between the two
participants in that debate last night
and I I don't care how you bohtan I'm
gonna tell you how I'm voting and I'm
with her okay and the fact of the matter
is the fact of the matter is that if
that man is the representative of this
country to the world and to our children
not only will we all be embarrassed by
it
but we will have rewarded a 40 years
baseless attack on a strong woman
and we will have put another nail in the
coffin of thought so yes do I think that
she's a panacea or perfect no do I think
that on January 21st the campaign of
2020 will begin and that it will require
leadership beyond my capacity and
perhaps beyond hers to restore trust in
this country and so forth because the
pummeling will begin of course I believe
it's going to start then but make no
mistake about it I'm not going to leave
this stage with any any doubt that I
think there was an equivalency or is an
equivalency in terms of where this
should be
and that's not so much a political
endorsement as is an endorsement of
liberal arts education period end of
case I certainly wasn't making any
equivalency I always looked look for
good grammar that's just a hallmark I've
always found that on the Internet
invariably all the stupid statements of
trolls are poorly written so last last
question John earlier you brought up
Abraham Joshua Heschel amazing intellect
who fifty years ago last spring wrote a
remarkable essay no religion is an
island in which he made the claim the
very radical claim that actually a
religious person actually only comes to
know themself truly through their
encounter with another religion and not
just an encounter but one in which they
are willing to be vulnerable and less
than their own hold upon the claim
of their own religion that that is in
fact the most sacred moment when your
own hold is loosening as you encounter
the other so could we end with each of
you giving a description of a moment in
your own life when that was in fact
manifest that's your own sense of your
own tradition was jarred loose by an
encounter with another in another
religious tradition well for me
personally I once worked as a cardiac
nurse and I had a patient who had just
had a heart attack he was a Sikh and yet
his turban on and he was he was opening
up his heart to me about what was
happening to him and the turban the Sikh
turban disappeared and that other nurse
completely dissipated and I just saw
another human being in front of me
confronting his mortality and reaching
out to me for solace and I think we just
we very often I've never been a person I
went through a period just after being
brainwashed for a little while
dogmatically probably that was
troublesome for me but I wasn't raised
like that so I it didn't last very long
and and I think a lot of religious
converts to other religions often very
they very often in fact mama Gandhi said
about Marmaduke Pickthall that he was
that rare individual that convert could
convert to another religion without
becoming a fanatic and so I think I've
never looked at people with religious
hats on or religious personas I've
looked them I try to look at them I mean
I I look at
John sex and I see a very distinguished
man of character and that I respect and
I'm not gonna let his Catholicism which
I respect deeply because I I grew up in
the Catholic tradition and and um in
some ways an armchair Catholic
theologian but and the same is true for
any other religious faith I and even
secular people I'm not I'm not going to
allow the secularity to blind me from
their goodness one of the things that
the Quran says is Leia dear Amanda come
Shanna and no commonality recorded taqwa
it says do not let the hatred of another
people prevent you from being just and
so even when people hate you it should
not prevent you from being just with
them let alone merciful and
compassionate for those that don't hate
you and so the word in Arabic Shannon is
a specific type of hatred that blinds
you of the goodness of the of the object
of your hate and that's the worst form
of hatred where you can't even see the
the goodness in the other and so I think
ultimately that's my attempt and that's
why my mother was in the world she I
once said to my brother that she didn't
see color and he said no I totally
disagree with you
she saw colors and she loved it she
relished it
[Applause]
[Music]
so for me it would be too easy to refer
to the fact that everybody in my family
my children my wife my grandchildren are
all Jewish and the Seder is is is always
an experience that takes me out of
myself every time I go to NYU Abu Dhabi
I'm take it out of myself by the wonder
that I see in the evidence spirituality
of some of the people I encounter there
I can't give I can't give an example as
deep as Hamza just did I wouldn't try to
touch the space that he just touched but
if I were you know in a life that tries
always to see things through the the
ecumenical lens that I described earlier
I think perhaps some of my deepest
ecstatic experiences you know where I've
looked back on my own experience I said
boy I've been taken out by another's
religion have occurred in very remote
areas of the world where I encounter
extraordinary spirituality in villages
or huts and Laos and Cambodia and you
just there's this sense of the ancestors
and the spirits that we don't associate
with modern dogmatic religion it's it's
it's it's almost pre temporal or
prehistorical at least but I've been in
the presence of people who manifest such
a deep spirituality and and a
blessedness and a goodness and a
happiness that comes out in both Laos
and Cambodia and then undergone najara
of listening to their stories about how
they would blind themselves in one eye
to prevent going into the military
service tour
the war the American war is they call it
and I think every time I'll just come
back this is maybe being too
intellectual but every time that we
enter into what I called early a
dialogic dialogue not just a dialogue
but where you're listening to each other
in exchanging views and so forth but
will you really try to put yourself in
the place of the other being and
understand where he or she is and then
face back that's been a habit of life
that was inculcated in me by a great man
who used to teach her at NYU he was my
mentor at Fordham named Hugh and cousins
who when I met him in 1963 was the
world's leading expert on a single
medieval theologian of the Christian
faith and by 1983 when I was beginning
my career here at NYU there was a
conference at the United Nations that I
intended to celebrate the publication of
his 60 volume work on world spirituality
which had 25 faith traditions in their
spiritual ineffable strain because all
the organized religions have that
spiritual ineffable strain that's the
greatest migration I ever saw and I've
just tried to expose myself as much as I
can to it well I ask all of you to join
me in thanking
[Applause]
these two theologians these two
defenders and inspires of the liberal
arts tradition and two very deep public
intellectuals and I feel privileged to
have been here tonight I want to thank
the people who organized this at NYU and
all the good work that's going on here
and walk away from this with lots to
think about and lots to do thank you all