-Seventh in a series-
Exit 2: Morena Boulevard ~USD campus
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Rabbi Wayne Dosick received a telephone call in 1988 from Richard Stern, an activist in the Jewish Chattaqua Society, which was formed in the previous century to spread among diverse audiences knowledge about the Jewish religion. Stern wanted to know whether Dosick would like to teach a course at the Catholic-run University of San Diego that would be underwritten by his society.
Dosick, then the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Am, agreed to teach one course on the hilltop campus, and after it was completed, he was invited back year after year for a total of 17 years.
He recalled that on one occasion, Monsignor I. Brent Eagen, chancellor of the San Diego diocese, told him he would like to start a new tradition, an All-Faith Service to be held at the beginning of every spring semester at which representatives of “every faith we could find” would pray together.
That first year, “we had Catholic, Jews, Buddhists, Baptists, Episcopalians… and each year had a theme,” recalled Rabbi Dosick, an author of many books who today leads the Elijah Minyan in suburban Carlsbad, California. “The first year it was peace and everybody chanted, danced, meditated, ohmmed, in his or her tradition. Another year, I preached.”
He said in a subsequent year there was “an All-Faith Service that filled the Immaculata with about 1,000 people, and there were Native Americans in loin cloths and head dresses dancing up and down the aisles of the Immaculata.””
Eagen also appointed Dosick to the campus ministry which “led to my leading for a couple of years a model seder for the Catholic community at USD. We put together a beautiful model seder every year, with the entire ritual and liturgy left to me.”
Msgr. Eagen and Rabbi Dosick became such close friends that “when he died (in 1997), he left in his will instructions that there be only two scriptural readings at his funeral mass—one from the New Testament to be read by the president of the university, Alice Hayes, and one from Hebrew scripture to be read by me,” Dosick said.
Dosick contrasted his interfaith experience at USD with his earlier participation in the San Diego Ecumenical Council. Most of the times the meetings were “all very collegial and lovely, and they never needed a vote for anything,” said the rabbi. “But one time an issue came up and they needed to take a vote, so I voted, and they said ‘Rabbi, you can’t vote. ‘Ecumenical’ is between Christians and Christians.”
In October 1996, the 8,600-acre Harmony Grove fire destroyed 100 homes in the northern part of San Diego County. Rabbi Dosick’s home, including his extensive Judaic library, was among 100 homes that were destroyed.
“My house burned down on a Monday and unbeknownst to us, at a mass at the Founder’s Chapel, they took up a collection for the rabbi and his wife (Ellen Kaufman) and they came to me with a check for between $300 and $400 from the students. USD President Author Hughes and his wife wrote us a personal check. And regarding returning to teaching, they told me to take as much time as you need. They were incredibly kind to us.”
Dosick’s busy schedule writing and lecturing on his books led to his departure from USD. “I wrote a book about Indigo children and I had to travel a lot around the country,” he said. “The commute got worse and worse. They were understanding when I couldn’t do a class at the time of the High Holidays, but book promotions was another matter.”
The tradition of having a rabbi or knowledgeable Jewish layman teach a course on “Jewish Faith and Practice” became well established. The position has been filled in the years since Dosick by different Jewish spiritual leaders.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. You may comment to him at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com or post your comment on this website provided that the rules below are observed.
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