Seeking Forgiveness: Like a Mustard Seed

Jerusalem is the most fascinating place on earth– even moreso than New York City– because human beings representing ancient antagonisms and unresolved tensions literally walk side-by-side down the old stone streets. The encounters are not always happy.

Last week some young Orthodox Jews spat at Christian clergy while walking in the Old City. In response, David J. Michaels, the director of intercommunal affairs for B’nai B’rith, wrote the following open letter of apology [excerpted below, with link] to Christian leaders in Jerusalem.

I like to lift up this kind of news. Words of apology are not a spectacle– they don’t titillate, so they rarely get attention from the mainstream media. However, when words of apology are expressed, the world changes for the better. The power of words that seek reconciliation is a power that starts small, like a mustard seed, and grows.

An open letter to Christian leaders in Jerusalem

As a Jew, especially an Orthodox one, I am ashamed that so-called “religious” people would spit on clergy of other faiths. The following letter has been sent to over a dozen of the most senior church leaders in Jerusalem, with copies to officials at major Christian bodies abroad.

I write with a request: for your forgiveness. As a representative of the oldest Jewish communal organization – B’nai B’rith International, which includes members of many backgrounds in over 50 countries, including Israel, where we have been present in Jerusalem since 1888 – I feel obliged to express my revulsion over new reported incidents of spitting at Christian clergy in certain areas of the Holy City. I feel especially obliged to do so as an Orthodox Jew….

via An open letter to Christian leaders i… JPost – Opinion – Op-Eds.

 

Ever Old, Ever New: The Call for Peace

Latin Patriarch calls for ‘genuine, long-lasting peace’

By JONAH MANDEL (from the “Jerusalem Post”)

With Christmas and the year 2011 around the corner, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem relayed his seasonal wishes to the public on Tuesday….

Speaking to the press in the capital’s Old City, His Beatitude Fouad Twal thanked the pope for convening the recent Synod of Middle Eastern Bishops, which “condemned violence, religious fundamentalism, anti-Semitism, anti-Judaism, anti-Christianity and Islamophobia, and called on religions to assume their responsibilities in promoting dialogue among cultures and civilizations in our region and in the entire world.”

Let the people say, “Amen.”

 

The Peace of Jerusalem– Direct Talks Begin Today

When I was in Jerusalem last January, one evening we heard an Israeli Jew give an Israeli perspective on the peace process; on another evening we heard a Palestinian Arab Muslim give a Palestinian perspective on the peace process. After the second presentation, my friend Rich said to me, “That was depressing.” I asked him why? He said, “The two guys we’ve heard are moderate, intelligent, articulate people– and if we put them in a room together to figure this out, EVEN THEY wouldn’t be able to come to an agreement.”

Add people to the mix– extremists on both sides who are not interested in co-existence– and you get a snarl of conflicting desires and stoked passions. And you get violence; and vengeance– and the vicious cycle of pain for pain. That’s what happened near Hebron last night.

The Middle East can seem very far away from us, but it’s not. What happens there affects us: as has been observed, the world is closer and hotter than it has ever been. A viable Palestinian state, side-by-side and at peace with Israel, is in our interest. It wouldn’t be a cure-all for the challenges in that part of the world, but it would be helpful.

Hopelessness is easy: the experience of the last 120-or-so years  suggests– and it is utterly reasonable to conclude– that peace between Israelis and Palestinians will not issue from the direct talks starting today in Washington. Faith, however, holds to a hope that the world does not know– that the world cannot know– because it is a hope grounded in God’s nature to break open new possibilities for life. Despair puts limits on what God can do; despair says, “I know the darkness, and the darkness cannot be overcome.” Hope says, for a start: “I don’t know. Maybe.” Sometimes that’s enough.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.