The Journey Home: An Orthodox Rabbi and a Christian Journalist See Israel Through Each Other's Eyes and Strengthen Their Faith

It's rare for work of fiction to have the potential for so much common sense and impact. I felt that The Journey Home was a highlighting a basic fact of daily life; that no matter how advanced we think we are as a society, we still suffer from a basic inability or unwillingness to show tolerance and understanding in a basic human way.The affectionate interplay between Jamie and Yeichel underscored their preconceived biases towards one another's religious beliefs, and their journey to understanding and respect that no one's person way was the absolute way was heartwarming. The passages describing the extermination of the Jews at Dubno brought me to tears; and should serve to remind us that what seem on the surface to be petty and insignificant intolerances can escalate to frightening proportions and consequences if we don't seek to build bridges of peace and understanding among people from different backgrounds.The spiritual nature of the journey left me with the desire to learn more about both religions and to redefine and discover my own faith. This is the kind of book that can change your life, and that you will pass on to others for them to enjoy the message as well.

Rabbi Eckstein has been in the Jewish/Christian dialogue for many years and this book is one of the fruits of that dialogue. His specialty over the years has been a dialogue with the more Evangelical Protestant tradition and the characters in this story are himself as a guide to Judaism (especially the Orthodox tradition)and Jamie Buckingham, a fallen away Southern Baptist journalist. Eckstein has agreed to take Jamie to Israel (mostly Jerusalem) as a favor to a longtime friend and New York city publisher.Rabbi Eckstein admits in his forward to the book that the character of the journalist is based on a long time friend by the same name, an Evangelical Pastor who died before they could realize their dream of going hand in hand to the top of Mt. Sinai to deepen both their respective faiths as well as their friendship.This is not so much fiction as it is a Socratic dialogue. Eckstein is Socrates and Jamie his student on this "Journey Home." The insights into Judaism's Orthodox tradition and the resonances with Evangelical Christianity are powerfully articulated. The common respect for the revealed Word of God is the lynch pin on which these traditions are connected. "The world conforms to the Torah, not the reverse" Eckstein writes early on. This is a commonly held principle of Biblical hermeneutics that would not be shared with much of modern liberal Christianity.Jerusalem we learn is a "potent truth serum" for all people of faith which does not convert so much from one faith perspective to another (i.e. from Judaism to Christianity or vice versa) but from unfaith to faith. "Jerusalem," Eckstein writes, "makes mystics out of ordinary people."Jamie, the financial journalist, who has lost his Evangelical Christian faith has it returned to him through the agency of an Orthodox Rabbi to the amazement of both Jamie and the Rabbi. "What will my friends think when I tell them that I have had a born again experience under the spiritual guidance of a Rabbi" says Jamie. "Never mind you!" Eckstein responds laughing. "What about mine?"The recovery of Jesus as a Jew is a second central theme which echoes much recent scholarship in all camps of modern Christianity (known in scholarly circles as the discipline of "Christian Origins"). The Rabbi points out with power that "Jesus as a Jew" would have been taken off of the cross by the Nazis and forced into the lines heading toward the crematoria and gas chambers. In the "davening" (praying) Yeshiva students, Jamie can see a young Jesus learning of his own faith. If Jesus was a 1st century rabbi, then he, too, would have been a "Pharisee" countering the prevailing notion among mosts Christians that the Pharisees are the bad guys and Jesus is a good guy. In fact, Jesus would have been a Pharisee, perhaps in the tradition of Gamaliel (in the Christian Scripture's book of Acts) and Hillel (who taught a version of the Golden Rule well before Christ).This book encourages a general respect for the three gr