The Book of Jonah. I have studied it many times. I have preached it many times. It is the prophetic lesson for the afternoon service of Yom Kippur. I knew the book well. Or so I thought.

Chris Leighton chose The Book of Jonah as the first text that the hundred and fifty registrants for our Congregational Proj-ect were to tackle. I soon discovered that there were lessons to be learned from The Book of Jonah that I had not even considered. Why? Because I had been reflecting on The Book of Jonah through the Jewish liturgical lens. That lens: Yom Kippur is about our ability to repent and God's great capacity for forgiveness. It was through that lens, and that lens alone, that I had always encountered Jonah.

Chris proceeded to "teach" by introducing Jonah, the back-ground and main movements of the story. He then posed a series of questions for participants to grapple with in small study groups. Chris wanted the participants to embrace the questions, to understand that the only way to understand a text, especially a sacred text, is to ask questions of it. If our texts are to provide us with a way to see the world and live in it, then we must understand the questions the text comes to answer.

I thought I "knew" The Book of Jonah and, actually, I did. But from only one perspective. There were questions I was incapable of asking of the text because I saw it exclusively through the Jewish liturgical lens. That lens framed how I encountered the book. That frame also prevented me from seeing new and other possible interpretations.

My own experience points to exactly why it is so important that we create opportunities to study together -- not by our-selves, and not only with people whose lenses are similar to our own. We must study with others who also take the same text seriously, yet see it through a different lens.

When it comes to sacred texts, that is not an easy thing to do. What can a Catholic teach me, as a Jew, about my own Scriptures? What can I as a Jew teach a Christian about his or her sacred Scriptures? The answer, it turns out, is quite a lot. If you are willing to take the risk of studying with the other.

This enterprise -- studying our sacred texts together -- lies at the heart of the mission of the ICJS. While it is easy to declare that mission, it is, in fact, difficult to accomplish it because it relies upon a threefold trust. Trust that is often not much in evidence in our time.

One must trust oneself. If you are unsure of where you stand on the basic issues of life, if you are really ignorant about your own tradition and are easily influenced, or if you are so set in what and how you think, then studying together will probably not attract you. Studying together requires an openness -- to ideas, to people, to life. Are you secure enough in who you are to risk openness?

One must trust the other. Are you willing to trust the other? I mean, are you willing to meet the other as he or she under-stands him- or herself to be? We all have preconceptions about the other. We all harbor certain prejudices about the other. Are we willing to suspend those understandings and prejudices so that we can begin to encounter the other as the other actually is? It takes time. Studying texts together is a magnificent context for allowing that to happen.

One must trust God. So often when we hear an interpreta-tion of Scripture with which we are uncomfortable, we think it offends God. We have to loosen up. God does not require us to protect Him. God can take care of God's self. Trust God, understanding that God revealed God's self in many ways. Studying together is surely one of them.

Rabbi Joel H. Zaiman is the ICJS Jewish consultant/scholar. This year's Congregational Project was held for four weeks in January and February. Jewish and Christian lay people gathered at Beth El Congregation and studied together four different sacred texts from Jewish and Christian tradition.

   "The Congregational Project keeps us from get-ting too comfortable, keeps us from saying ‘I know God’ but rather ‘I am getting to know God.’"