In March 1933, Edith Stein’s academic career in Germany came to an abrupt end due to the rise of the Nazi regime and the implementation of anti-Semitic laws. Stein was a lecturer at the German Institute for Scientific Pedagogy in Münster at the time. In March 1933, she was informed she could no longer teach. But even before the rise of National Socialism, she had been having difficulty finding a position at the University because she was considered to lack “credentials,” referring to the lack of Habilitation, a high-level academic qualification required to hold a professorship in Germany. Despite earning her doctorate summa cum laude under Edmund Husserl, she was repeatedly denied the right to “habilitate” because she was a woman. While she was a brilliant philosopher with a doctorate, she faced multiple rejections throughout her career due to both her gender and her Jewish heritage. She applied to several universities (including Göttingen and Freiburg) between 1919 and 1931, but her applications were rejected or returned unread, often because faculty members were unwilling to accept a woman or a person of Jewish origin. These systemic rejections, culminating in her final dismissal in March 1933, led her to fulfill a long-held desire to enter the Carmelite Order, which she did in October 1933. Ultimately, Edith Stein (canonized as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) was arrested by the Gestapo and died at Auschwitz in August 1942.
Jesus had no doctoral degree and never published any book. But Jesus was considered a man without credentials for different reasons. According to Jewish tradition, understanding Torah must come through an unbroken chain from teacher to teacher, back to Moses. Therefore, according to the Jews, Jesus has no credentials because He has no link with Moses. The background to today’s Gospel reading is the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. One of the important parts of the feast is that, upon arrival at the altar, the priest will pour the water from Siloam and wine into two vessels on the altar, allowing the water and wine to flow out onto the altar. The association of water with the feast linked it to the messianic expectation that a Moses-like teacher would come and repeat the gift of the well of Torah. The new Messiah will dig from the well of the Torah a final giving water from the Torah, the well of God. While the Jews consider Jesus a man without credentials, according to Jesus, His credentials surpass anything their tradition might require. His teaching is not of His own, but from God who sent Him. Jesus claims that God sent Him to the world to glorify God’s name. More importantly, Jesus does not dig from the well of Torah because He himself is the Living Water.