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God works in mysterious ways - A man with a dream
Manfred Vogel

It is no exaggeration to say that the Jewish-Christian Dialogue came to constitute the very heart and essence of Fr. Rijk's life. It became his vocation and mission in life to which literally every moment of his awakened, conscious life was devoted. This is in itself is quite a remarkable phenomenon when one stops to think about it. Here was a man coming from a remote, isolated, out of the way province of Holland, from a community of Dutch farmers where, one dare say, hardly a Jew was ever seen, who became so involved intellectually and existentially in the life of the Jewish community — in its history, its faith, its liturgy, its customs and ceremonies, its personalities and, indeed, its current problems and tribulations; a man who was just as knowledgeable about and at home in Israel as he was in Holland. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

The Encounter with Judaism

But remarkable as this phenomenon was, it was even more remarkable by virtue of its quality, its depth. His encounter and involvement with Judaism exemplified the dialogue in its deepest and most authentic level. How persistent and insistent he was that the Christian must encounter and accept Judaism in its own reality and not as something which he, by virtue of his own predispositions and interests, would like it to be. How persistent and insistent he was on encountering Judaism in its totality — biblical, rabbinical and present-day, Judaism not only in its vertical, spiritual, rarified expression but just as much its horizontal, concrete, every-day and down to earth expression (i.e., in its social, political and economic dimensions). And how persistent and insistent he was that the sole and exclusive motivation for the encounter be clearly perceived to lie in the need, indeed the necessity, for the Christian tobetter understand and appreciate his own tradition and faith. It was pursuing the dialogue in its full authenticity.

At the same time he was convinced that if the dialogue is to yield its full richness it must be pursued on a serious theological level and this, in turn, meant that it had to be carried out in small intimate encounters. One must continuously strive to get to the root of the matter, to explore patiently and laboriously step by step the ultimate theological significance of the relation between the two communties of faith; short of probing the depth of the mystery was to cheat the enterprise of its real significance. Clearly, such an endeavour could not be realized in large public conferences that perforce played to the media and to various international vested interests (no wonder that this type of conference many of which he had to attend in line of his professional duties became his nemesis); it could be realized only in small, selective working groups meeting quietly in calm surroundings away from the light of publicity and the pressures of press releases.

These, I believe, were the fundamental views and commitments which guided his life and work. And it was the most noble and impressive characteristic of the man that he had, deeply embedded beneath the surface of amicability and easy-goingness, a steely strength of character which refused to compromise these views beyond a certain point (being quite worldly he realized the necessity for some flexibility but, in the last analysis, he kept this flexibility well under control).

Dialogue at Nemi

What he considered the high-point of his tour of duty during the years he was working in the Vatican was not any of a number of rather significant achievements in quiet diplomacy or official and quasi-official ronouncements of various church bodies in which he played a very important role but rather, of all things, the conference which he conceived and organized and which took place at Nemi in August, 1968. And he was quite right in this estimate, for this conference expressed most accurately and fully his ideal of an authentic Jewish-Christian dialogue. It was a very small conference — fourteen participants in all (seven from each side). The participants were chosen with no consideration whatsoever to institutional affiliation —they came by virtue of themselves, representing no-one except their own thought and knowledge (as Professor Tal remarked at the time, quoting Buber, "he who represents is himself not present"). There was no pre-arranged, rigid agenda; the discussions were open-ended and completely flexible. There were no datelines and conclusions that had to be reached because there were no press releases that had to be made (indeed, there was no publicity whatsoever given to the conference). The conference was to be a total life-experience for its three-day duration. It was to be a living together that fostered fellowship — the talk at the shared meals or over a bottle of wine at the village coffee-house or at leisurely walks in the lovely surroundings was to be as significant as the more formal discussions around the conference table. It was an experience that none of the participants would ever forget.

No wonder that the Nemi conference elicited great nostalgia on the part of Fr. Rijk and became for him the criterion for the kind of conference that he found meaningful and valuable. One could have conferences that were more than merely big shows, conferences that could contribute significantly not only to the thought but to the life of the participants. And so the man who basically disliked conferences became in a way a promoter of conferences, but of a special kind of conference — conferences that would be oriented not outwardly but inwardly, conferences that would be not only intellectually enriching but existentially meaningful.

SIDIC Symposia

Thus, when Fr. Rijk assumed the directorship of SIDIC, the idea of sponsoring symposia in the Jewish-Catholic dialogue in conjunction with the periodic meetings of the Sisters of Sion came to occupy an important place in his plans. This is most telling, for he certainly had his hands full with the planning and development of a myriad of various projects for SIDIC. But he tenaciously pursued the idea of the symposia because he had the dream of Nemi. Of course, the situation was perforce different in a very significant sense. The SIDIC symposia could not be geared, as was Nemi, solely for the mutual edification of the participant scholars; they had now to be geared also to audience participation.

In all, two symposia were held — one in 1975, the other in 1978. The first symposium undertook to examine the connections between faith and land while the later one attempted to probe the relation of man to God, nature and fellow-man. From a purely scholarly and intellectual vantage-point they were quite impressive — the seriousness and depth of the themes speak for themselves and the speakers were of notable calibre coming from every part of the world, (although in such large undertakings it is almost inevitable that some unevenness would prevail.) In organizing these symposia Fr. Rijk's aim was to attain that which, in the last analysis, was most significant and dear to him, namely, the right atmosphere, the intimate and open fellowship among all participants, yet doing this in a framework which perforce consisted of lectures, the reading of prepared learned discourses which tend to create a gap between speaker and audience. He recognized this challenge and wrestled with it. I feel strongly that, given more time and opportunity, he would have been successful in finding the right framework and then what a precious contribution to the life of dialogue this would have been. But alas, this time was not given. God does indeed work in most mysterious ways.