President Gordon Presents at the Interfaith Lunch
Mark Gordon’s Story of Holocaust Survivors in His Family, Reform Judaism, and the Value of Interfaith Experiences

Mark Gordon, President of Defiance College, was the featured presenter at the February 9 Interfaith Lunch Series sponsored by the Office of Spiritual Life and Intercultural College Community Task Force of Defiance College. Gordon  told the story of his mother and her parents escaping the Holocaust during the early 1940s, an ordeal that involved a Catholic convent and family in Belgium  hiding his mother. His grandfather escaped a concentration camp only to be thrown into prison in England as an enemy alien.  He also commented on his paternal grandfather escaping the Russian pogroms.

Gordon identified Judaism as the first monotheistic religion of the world and explained the function of key Jewish holy days. He stressed that that the High Holy Days—beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish New Year, and ending ten days later with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement—are central to Judaism. According to belief, on Rosh Hashanah God writes in the book of life what will happen in a person’s life during the year and, as Gordon playfully put it, “we have ten days to get Him to change His mind” through a focus on self-reflection and repentance for sin.

Passover as a time to contemplate what God did for our ancestors and does for us today, especially the “release from bondage,” was explained by Gordon. He stated that Judaism focuses  on strengthening the inclination to do good as well as harnessing the inclination to do evil and putting it in the service of the inclination to do good.  He said that Defiance College is a place that supports putting energy toward the good, and he phrased it as actively working to “repair the world,” a concept that in Judaism is called Tikkun Olam.

Gordon’s faith journey has included becoming more religious over time and valuing the traditions of Judaism, which have come from his family, especially his mother’s side of the family. Gordon cited growing up in New York, where there is a large Jewish community, as an influence in his life. He added that being raised among the multiple faiths of U. S. culture and raising two children to appreciate both

Judaism and the Lutheran Christian faith of his wife have provided him valuable perspectives. These interfaith experiences, Gordon explained, have helped strengthen his Jewish faith.

February 12, 2010