Daniel Meeter, the pastor at Old First Church, and Rabbi Andy Bachman of Congregation Beth Elohim, sat down for an interview with the Brooklyn Paper’s Gersh Kuntzman. Here in an excerpt the two men of the cloth discuss intolerance:

GK: So where does intolerance come from?

DM: It comes from fear. Many people fear that God will not come through for us. Or they fear that God won’t protect us. They fear someone who is dirty or someone who makes them feel dirty. Even squirrels have fear. You can’t get rid of it. You have to deal with fear. The question is how we deal with it. Do you project it or do you work your way through it?

GK: But God does not protect us.

DM: He doesn’t protect us from being humans. He does not go around protecting us from having bodies. We don’t see God as a constant interventionist. A lot of people want that from their gods, like Zeus of old.

AB: An analogy that I like is watching parents at the tot lot in Prospect Park. At 6-18 months, a parent is stooped over every step so the child doesn’t hurt himself. And at a certain point, the child says, whether in gibberish or English, “Leave me alone.” A mature adult understands that the ultimate test of the covenant relationship with God is that we have to take control at some point. God could not stop 9-11 or the Holocaust. Humans treat each other in an abominably poor way. People say, “Where was God?”