Q & R: From a Jewish reader

Here’s the Q:

I am a Jewish person reading “Why Did Jesus, Moses……” At the request of a Christian friend who I have been involved in conversation with for over a year. We are both working to achieve a sense of community through acceptance of others who may believe differently than we do (amongst other topics). I have a question that I hope you can answer. At your meeting with religious leaders in a mosque with other religious leaders, you quote Christian leaders of many faiths (p. 146). I am very curious to know what the responses of the rabbis and imams was. I feel that this could be a very telling answer because it would give me, and other readers., insight into the Jewish/Muslim view of this event and how we could move forward. It also would reflect on the quote by your Muslim friend (p. 134) that he really didn’t know Christianity until he heard it described by a Christian. You are writing for a Christian audience but it would be helpful to me, as a reader, and I hope my Christian friends, to learn about other responses that are outside the “Christian box.”
Your book is very interesting. I am learning more about the Christian point of view and it is sending me back to my own Jewish texts to understand my own personal Jewish responses.

Here’s the R:
Thanks for your encouraging words and your interesting question. I wish I had an interesting answer! At the event I described, each leader read a prepared answer to a question (e.g. “According to your tradition, what is your duty toward your neighbor?”), and there wasn’t any cross-talk (as I recall) between speakers. So as far as I can recall, nobody responded to the talks of other speakers. That would have been interesting.
Since that time, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in many dialogues where rabbis, imams, Buddhist teachers, Hindus, and Christian leaders like myself had the chance for interaction. It has always been a rich experience. Here’s a snippet from one such dialogue, held at the Wild Goose Festival in NC, featuring my Muslim friend Ani Zonneveld: