This is the D'var Torah I'm planning to deliver tonight at Temple Beit Torah. Enjoy!
This week, the Jacob saga continues. Our patriarch, on his way back to Canaan after years of exile with his wives, concubines, children and considerable wealth, is still afraid of his brother, Esau. He divides his entourage into three camps in case Esau attacks; that way he'll have a remnant with which to start over.
In the night before Jacob's meeting with Esau, he wrestles with an angel all night. Another dream? But no, this time it is apparently seen as an actual, physical encounter. As the sun is rising, the angel blesses Jacob and re-names him Israel, meaning he-will-strive-with-G-d.
Despite Jacob/Israel's fears, Esau awaits with a loving reception...sort of. Outwardly it's an encounter one would expect between two long-separated brothers, but the Rabbis clearly felt some ambivalence about the undercurrents of the meeting. And Israel clearly feels it, as he tells his brother of his plan to settle in another part of the Land, far away from the flocks and pens of his brother who has also become quite wealthy in the years of their separation.
Israel clearly does not fully trust his brother. But he understands he must make an attempt to reconcile with him if they're to live in the same country. So he sends a delegation ahead with gifts and warm greetings, and he physically approaches his brother without an accompanying war party.
Jacob is caught in the broad nether-land between fully trusting and fully distrusting. And we, likewise often find our relations with others falling into that extensive ground.
It is dangerous to trust others completely. How many of us can relate to having been 'burned' after lending a considerable sum of money to a relative or a close friend or associate? Who among us had an unfortunate experience after co-signing a loan? Has anybody ever let someone stay in their house and returned to find something missing or broken? And these are just examples of PERSONAL trust that was returned with bad-will.
What about relations between groups, for example the different groups with which we find we must forge alliances in order to improve life in our country, in our world? I'll give you an example that comes immediately to mind, from my recent experience that some of you here tonight experienced with me. As you know, I recently invited a representative of the Muslim community to come and teach us something about Islam. Since it is alleged that Americans in general are very ignorant of Islam and likely to fear it and its adherents out of that ignorance, does it not follow that we should be willing to sit and learn something from a representative of that community? Very hearteningly, a number of you showed up to listen and learn respectfully.
The presentation by Mr. Yousufi was supposed to be in the framework of a series of discreet events that would ultimately, hopefully lead to some form of dialogue and fellowship between members of his community and this one. We hadn't worked out the details, but we had discussed the process to some degree. And an agreement that we made immediately in our discussion - it was Yousufi's suggestion, but in offering it he could have been reading my mind - was that we should leave the Arab-Israeli dispute out of the structure of the dialogue. Yousufi expressed that it would could not be anything other than a point of contention, conspiring to spoil any good efforts we might be making. From my standpoint, it is irrelevant to the notion that we are two minority groups in American life that actually have quite a bit in common. Few of you find that the large part of your Jewish consciousness resides in the conflicts of the Middle East, and my assumption was that for most members of the local Muslim community that would also hold true. Perhaps, but clearly not for Mr. Yousufi.
Despite our agreement, Yousufi chose to use his audience with us to lecture us about the sins of Israel. Some of you responded quite vigorously,as I would expect you to. But most importantly, an excellent opportunity for further dialogue and mutual support between our two communities vanished, at least for the immediate future. And that's unfortunate.
I trusted Mr. Yousufi, but in truth I didn't stick my neck TOO far out, and that minimized the damage. To be honest, in proceeding with the 'baby steps' toward dialogue I was very much thinking about Israel's caution in approaching his brother, as chronicled in this week's Torah portion. If one aught to hold one's brother, Esau,at arm's length after a bitter conflict,how much more so one's distant cousin, Ishmael? Approach,trust as much as necessary to open a dialogue, and be ready to either open up more-or withdraw, depending on the other side's behavior. Or to put it as we did when I worked in intelligence: In G-d we trust...all other we monitor.
As I've said on so many occasions that I know I sound like a broken record - for those who remember what a record is! - The Torah, whatever the process that resulted in our having it in its existing form, is an endless repository of some of the most sublime wisdom known to humanity. The lesson we learn from Israel this week is just one example.
Shabbat shalom!
Showing posts with label islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label islam. Show all posts
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Letter to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
I sent Imam Feisal this letter as my contribution to the conversation on his controversial Park51 Islamic Center, the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque."
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Dear Imam Feisal,
As a colleague in religious leadership, I wanted to write to you to express my support and solidarity, and to offer a little unsolicited advice. I pray you’ll be forbearing.
Perhaps I congratulate myself far too much in referring to myself as your colleague; I am rabbi of a small synagogue in Colorado Springs, hardly the peer of a religious leader of national stature who has embarked on a very bold, visible and controversial project in New York city.
Nevertheless, I claim the title ‘colleague.’ I do have a little experience in working with Muslim colleagues; while stationed in Germany as a US Air Force Chaplain, Imam Hamza al-Mubarak and I built a chapel and educational center for the joint use of our two communities. At a $550K budget for construction, it was obviously far more modest than your proposed Cordoba House in New York. Here in Colorado Springs, I consider my local Muslim colleague, Imam Arshad Yusoufi, to be a friend and confidant although we have not yet had the chance to get our communities together for any dialogue or activities. Ah, so much to do…but that’s something I surely needn’t tell you, this being the middle of Ramadan!
Imam Feisal, I hardly need to point out that prominence is a two-edged sword. It enables one to accomplish things that the relative unknown cannot. Of course a danger of prominence is that the fame can be intoxicating. And of course, the more dangerous aspect is that one can often unwittingly attract attention of the unwelcome kind: attention that questions one’s motives and integrity. I have experienced this, but on a very small scale. You, of course are now experiencing a tidal wave of such attention.
Of course, I refer to the firestorm of protests that seem to have consumed the nation for the last three weeks or so, since your proposal for Cordoba House has become such widely-reported news. Very strong words have come forth, impugning your intentions. Some of your supporters have suggested that the negative expressions represent a general anti-Muslim feeling – many call it, Islamophobia – that already existed in our land, and which the feelings that your project elicited have simply brought to the surface.
Being an attentive observer of the public discourse, and in particular being a Jew with roots in New York, I want to tell you that I don’t see America as being infected with Islamophobia, if such a thing could even be said to exist.
Americans tended to have very ambivalent feelings about my people, the Jews, and my religion, Judaism at least until the Second World War. So, what happened to change that? The war itself, of course – and the experience of so many Christian kids landing on Omaha Beach, marching across Europe, and diving into foxholes next to a Jewish kid from New York or Philadelphia. As that march across Europe wound toward its conclusion, those Christian kids saw the heartbreak of the Nazi concentration camps, and saw how deeply the sight affected their Jewish comrades – many of whom had only shallow roots in America and still had family in Europe.
If those Christian kids had any ambivalence about their Jewish fellow citizens left after those experiences, they vanished for most in the post-war years when so many ex-GIs crowded American colleges and universities, and began to move out of traditionally ethnic neighborhoods in America’s cities to settle in the new, and culturally-diverse suburbs. Thanks to all that history, we Jews are so accepted in the American scene that it is sometime breathtaking when one considers that before the war, we were not welcome in various businesses, clubs, and even whole towns across the land.
Imam, most Americans want to – and do – judge Muslims positively. Look at the proof. Since 1990, we have spilled our own blood no fewer than five times in order to help Muslim peoples in various parts of the world: Kuwait, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This has happened under administrations and congresses representing both our major political parties, conservatives and liberals, so our willingness to defend Muslims abroad is clearly not what one would call a ‘political’ issue – it transcends politics.
After the shocking and sad events of September 11th, 2001, what did President George W. Bush do? He told the nation unequivocally that we are at war, not with Islam or the Muslim people, but with a group that attacked and wants to destroy us in the name of Islam. He urged all Americans to look favorably upon their Muslim neighbors, to not hold them accountable for what had been done in the name of their religion. He took a lot of flak for his statements, which were interpreted in some circles as being an expression of ‘political correctness,’ itself an unfortunate element in our public discourse, and something of which you’re surely aware. For my part, I believe that Bush’s statements were straight from the heart, an expression of his deepest sense of what’s right. After all, even his detractors knew him as a devoutly religious man with a sincere respect for others’ religions as well as his own.
Of course, our current president has surpassed even his immediate predecessor in terms of outreach to, and expression of solidarity with, the Muslim world. That President Obama’s first television interview after his inauguration was to al Arabiya, and that his first trips abroad as president included Turkey and Egypt, were pregnant with meaning. They elicited, as with Bush’s post-9/11 statements, both praise and criticism.
No, Imam…our nation and our people are not Islamophobic, this despite the charges that have been made regularly in the left-wing commentariat over the last couple of weeks.
What we are is basically unfamiliar with the Islam of our neighbors, which unfortunately gets drowned out in the noise created by the Islam of Al Qaida, Hamas, and Ahmadinejad. We’re perplexed. Although Muslims are ubiquitous in American life, they occupy a fringe. In a sense, your people occupy a place in American life that is analogous to that of my people up until the war; they are recognized as being part of the fabric of American society, but are little understood because most Americans have not had a close friendship with one of their Muslim neighbors. And honestly, that’s not entirely the fault of non-Muslims. Frankly, you have not been all that good at being approachable, and telling your story to America.
But you surely know this, since the website for the Cordoba House suggests that the Park51 venue would be used specifically as a place where such connections could be made through creative and welcoming programs.
The problem of course, is that you’ve misread the mood of America in selecting 51 Park Place as the address of your new center. That it is located only yards from ‘Ground Zero’ and is in fact the site of a building that was severely damaged in the fall of the Twin Towers, has resulted in a majority of Americans (according to the most recent polling data) thinking negatively about your project.
The way I see it, your only ‘sin’ in all this is a lack of clairvoyance which caused you to act in miscalculation of what the national mood concerning this issue would be. But you have the power to turn this miscalculation into a tremendous public relations success, not to mention as my tradition would put it, a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of G-d’s name. How can you accomplish this? Easily: Call a press conference and announce that, while the law cannot prevent you from erecting your center at 51 Park Place, you wish to honor the sensibilities of America by deciding to build it on another site. Ask for assistance from local government and any groups with an interest, on selecting an alternate site. Imagine the goodwill that would result! And with that goodwill, your Cordoba House would be far better positioned to fulfill your prayers as to what it would accomplish. My fear is that, if you build it at 51 Park, it will only serve as a permanent symbol of division and rancor. And you surely deserve a better result for your most well-intentioned efforts to build bridges.
My best wishes for you as you return from travelling abroad and continue your days of fasting and introspection…
Rabbi Don Levy
Temple Beit Torah
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Dear Imam Feisal,
As a colleague in religious leadership, I wanted to write to you to express my support and solidarity, and to offer a little unsolicited advice. I pray you’ll be forbearing.
Perhaps I congratulate myself far too much in referring to myself as your colleague; I am rabbi of a small synagogue in Colorado Springs, hardly the peer of a religious leader of national stature who has embarked on a very bold, visible and controversial project in New York city.
Nevertheless, I claim the title ‘colleague.’ I do have a little experience in working with Muslim colleagues; while stationed in Germany as a US Air Force Chaplain, Imam Hamza al-Mubarak and I built a chapel and educational center for the joint use of our two communities. At a $550K budget for construction, it was obviously far more modest than your proposed Cordoba House in New York. Here in Colorado Springs, I consider my local Muslim colleague, Imam Arshad Yusoufi, to be a friend and confidant although we have not yet had the chance to get our communities together for any dialogue or activities. Ah, so much to do…but that’s something I surely needn’t tell you, this being the middle of Ramadan!
Imam Feisal, I hardly need to point out that prominence is a two-edged sword. It enables one to accomplish things that the relative unknown cannot. Of course a danger of prominence is that the fame can be intoxicating. And of course, the more dangerous aspect is that one can often unwittingly attract attention of the unwelcome kind: attention that questions one’s motives and integrity. I have experienced this, but on a very small scale. You, of course are now experiencing a tidal wave of such attention.
Of course, I refer to the firestorm of protests that seem to have consumed the nation for the last three weeks or so, since your proposal for Cordoba House has become such widely-reported news. Very strong words have come forth, impugning your intentions. Some of your supporters have suggested that the negative expressions represent a general anti-Muslim feeling – many call it, Islamophobia – that already existed in our land, and which the feelings that your project elicited have simply brought to the surface.
Being an attentive observer of the public discourse, and in particular being a Jew with roots in New York, I want to tell you that I don’t see America as being infected with Islamophobia, if such a thing could even be said to exist.
Americans tended to have very ambivalent feelings about my people, the Jews, and my religion, Judaism at least until the Second World War. So, what happened to change that? The war itself, of course – and the experience of so many Christian kids landing on Omaha Beach, marching across Europe, and diving into foxholes next to a Jewish kid from New York or Philadelphia. As that march across Europe wound toward its conclusion, those Christian kids saw the heartbreak of the Nazi concentration camps, and saw how deeply the sight affected their Jewish comrades – many of whom had only shallow roots in America and still had family in Europe.
If those Christian kids had any ambivalence about their Jewish fellow citizens left after those experiences, they vanished for most in the post-war years when so many ex-GIs crowded American colleges and universities, and began to move out of traditionally ethnic neighborhoods in America’s cities to settle in the new, and culturally-diverse suburbs. Thanks to all that history, we Jews are so accepted in the American scene that it is sometime breathtaking when one considers that before the war, we were not welcome in various businesses, clubs, and even whole towns across the land.
Imam, most Americans want to – and do – judge Muslims positively. Look at the proof. Since 1990, we have spilled our own blood no fewer than five times in order to help Muslim peoples in various parts of the world: Kuwait, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This has happened under administrations and congresses representing both our major political parties, conservatives and liberals, so our willingness to defend Muslims abroad is clearly not what one would call a ‘political’ issue – it transcends politics.
After the shocking and sad events of September 11th, 2001, what did President George W. Bush do? He told the nation unequivocally that we are at war, not with Islam or the Muslim people, but with a group that attacked and wants to destroy us in the name of Islam. He urged all Americans to look favorably upon their Muslim neighbors, to not hold them accountable for what had been done in the name of their religion. He took a lot of flak for his statements, which were interpreted in some circles as being an expression of ‘political correctness,’ itself an unfortunate element in our public discourse, and something of which you’re surely aware. For my part, I believe that Bush’s statements were straight from the heart, an expression of his deepest sense of what’s right. After all, even his detractors knew him as a devoutly religious man with a sincere respect for others’ religions as well as his own.
Of course, our current president has surpassed even his immediate predecessor in terms of outreach to, and expression of solidarity with, the Muslim world. That President Obama’s first television interview after his inauguration was to al Arabiya, and that his first trips abroad as president included Turkey and Egypt, were pregnant with meaning. They elicited, as with Bush’s post-9/11 statements, both praise and criticism.
No, Imam…our nation and our people are not Islamophobic, this despite the charges that have been made regularly in the left-wing commentariat over the last couple of weeks.
What we are is basically unfamiliar with the Islam of our neighbors, which unfortunately gets drowned out in the noise created by the Islam of Al Qaida, Hamas, and Ahmadinejad. We’re perplexed. Although Muslims are ubiquitous in American life, they occupy a fringe. In a sense, your people occupy a place in American life that is analogous to that of my people up until the war; they are recognized as being part of the fabric of American society, but are little understood because most Americans have not had a close friendship with one of their Muslim neighbors. And honestly, that’s not entirely the fault of non-Muslims. Frankly, you have not been all that good at being approachable, and telling your story to America.
But you surely know this, since the website for the Cordoba House suggests that the Park51 venue would be used specifically as a place where such connections could be made through creative and welcoming programs.
The problem of course, is that you’ve misread the mood of America in selecting 51 Park Place as the address of your new center. That it is located only yards from ‘Ground Zero’ and is in fact the site of a building that was severely damaged in the fall of the Twin Towers, has resulted in a majority of Americans (according to the most recent polling data) thinking negatively about your project.
The way I see it, your only ‘sin’ in all this is a lack of clairvoyance which caused you to act in miscalculation of what the national mood concerning this issue would be. But you have the power to turn this miscalculation into a tremendous public relations success, not to mention as my tradition would put it, a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of G-d’s name. How can you accomplish this? Easily: Call a press conference and announce that, while the law cannot prevent you from erecting your center at 51 Park Place, you wish to honor the sensibilities of America by deciding to build it on another site. Ask for assistance from local government and any groups with an interest, on selecting an alternate site. Imagine the goodwill that would result! And with that goodwill, your Cordoba House would be far better positioned to fulfill your prayers as to what it would accomplish. My fear is that, if you build it at 51 Park, it will only serve as a permanent symbol of division and rancor. And you surely deserve a better result for your most well-intentioned efforts to build bridges.
My best wishes for you as you return from travelling abroad and continue your days of fasting and introspection…
Rabbi Don Levy
Temple Beit Torah
Colorado Springs, Colorado
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