
DATE: Saturday, April 12, 1997              TAG: 9704120297

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   92 lines

LEADING BAPTIST OFFICIAL ACCEPTS BEACH RABBI'S PASSOVER INVITATION

Two unlikely dinner guests will ``pass over'' their differences at a seder this month: the vice president of the Southern Baptist executive committee and the rabbi who has battled Baptist attempts to convert Jews to Christianity.

Rabbi Israel Zoberman has inundated the Southern Baptist Convention with letters protesting last summer's Baptist resolution to bring Jews to Christ. The resolution is not binding on the nation's largest Protestant denomination, which has 15.6 million members, but it outraged many Jews nonetheless.

Earlier this month, Zoberman sent another letter to the SBC, chastising the organization for not returning his phone calls, and inviting the president of the SBC's executive committee to celebrate the Jewish Passover dinner, called a seder, with the reform Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach.

To his surprise, the SBC accepted.

``In all honesty, I thought that I, at best, would just get a reply telling me thank you, but no,'' Zoberman said. ``Passover is about opening doors. To me, this is an indication that, indeed, the SBC wants to keep the doors open.''

SBC Executive Vice President Ernest E. Mosley will attend the seder on April 21. Passover begins at sundown that day. President Morris H. Chapman wrote that prior commitments prevent him from attending in person.

Mosley has been involved with the letters sent to about 10,000 Jews throughout the United States, urging them to accept Jesus as their savior.

``My response is in the same good faith as you manifest in inviting me to fellowship with you,'' Chapman wrote. ``. . . I want you and your congregants to be the best Jews you can be.''

Zoberman said that he will invite Mosley to speak to the approximately 100 persons who will attend the seder. ``He would be welcome to make any statement that he would like,'' Zoberman said. ``I would even invite him to participate in the reading of the ritual.''

Mosley was on jury duty in Tennessee and could not be reached for comment.

Passover celebrates the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The name arises from Exodus Chapter 12, which tells that God ``passed over'' the homes of the Jews when he cursed the Egyptians by killing their first-born sons.

But Passover has meaning for Christians as well. Christ's Last Supper before crucifixion was probably a Passover seder, scholars say.

Zoberman said the encounter will expose Southern Baptists to the rich Jewish heritage. ``I would like our guest to be seized with a sense that, indeed, Judaism is a very fulfilling religion, that we find salvation within it,'' he said.

But evangelicals believe that salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone, and the resolution inflamed both Jews and some Christian groups. The flap threatened interfaith understanding.

Congregation Beth Chaverim has a history of interfaith cooperation. It met for 10 years in the Catholic Church of the Ascension before opening its own facility in December 1995, and last September a local Baptist pastor addressed the congregation on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Zoberman has a doctorate from a Presbyterian seminary.

Such tolerance and mutual respect was what led the rabbi to fire off letters to the SBC, protesting the resolution to convert Jews.

In his letter of invitation, Zoberman referred to his interfaith encounters and cited his own background as the son of Polish Holocaust survivors.

``Something touched them, obviously,'' Zoberman said.

``We should always try to keep hearts open, for we never know how things might change for the better. I have a sense that a measure of healing will emerge from this encounter.'' ILLUSTRATION: Israel Zoberman has inundated the Southern Baptist

Convention with letters protesting that body's intent to convert

Jews.

EXCERPTS OF LETTERS

Israel Zoberman:

``You probably know by now that what you regard as an act of

faithful love, holds the very opposite meaning for those who are

committed to the preservation of both Judaism and its people Israel.

``I am pleased to invite you to come to Hampton Roads, which is

home to 37,000 Southern Baptists, to be my guest at our Passover

Seder. . . , where you'll be witness to an ancient faith - giving

birth to Christianity and Islam - that remains alive, vital and

relevant.''