From the Rabbi
A Sermon for Rosh HaShana 5765 at Kolot Chayeinu
By Rabbi Ellen Lippmann and Debbie Almontaser
My sermon for erev Rosh Hashanah 5764 was in fact a sermon in two voices - mine and that of Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim Brooklyn educator and peace activist. What follows is that two-voice sermon; note that occasionally the text refers to something that was spoken but unwritten. At the end of the sermon are some prayers in Arabic which may not be visible, and a prayer in English that was also read in Hebrew.
INTRODUCTION, by Rabbi Lippmann:
I went last Sunday to hear the Dalai
Lama speak in Central Park. As we waited in a long line on the park
road, we listened to a couple of small boys who were waiting with their
father. They saw several monks who were dressed similarly to the Dalai
Lama, in red and gold robes. They pointed them out to their father,
saying, "Look, there are some Muslims." Their father explained that
in fact they were Tibetan Buddhist monks. But their misunderstanding
stands with us. Since September 11, 2001, we have been interested in,
perplexed by, worried about and misunderstanding Muslims here and around
the world. For Jews, this concern is heightened by ongoing Arab anti-semitism
and by the horrific violence in Israel and Palestine. We are haunted
by memories of Jewish life flourishing for a time in Arab countries,
and by a Golden Age in Spain when Muslims and Jews lived together peacefully
and with mutual creative influence. And we watch with cautious interest
as Jewish and Muslim neighborhoods in Brooklyn thrive side by side.
Dialogue groups have sprung up around
the country, and some of you are participants. Interfaith efforts aimed
at greater connection and understanding abound. Here in Brooklyn many
of you have protested the detention or deportation without cause of
Muslim, Arab and South Asian men. We have all learned a lot, myself
included. Yet children in New York City can still easily confuse Buddhist
monks with Muslims in religious garb. And on an individual, personal
level, I imagine few of us have Muslim friends with whom we socialize,
sharing visits, meals, news of family. We are as curious as children,
asking impolite questions and learning new words.
For all these and more reasons, I invited
Debbie Almontaser to speak with me here as we enter this new year, Rosh
HaShanah or Ras a Sannah. The issues that have grabbed me for some
time, that tear at my heart and my kishkes, all seem to involve Arabs
and Muslims. And I felt that I could not speak alone again without
also speaking to and with someone who could teach me, argue with me,
and give me hope, the gift sorely lacking for so many of us. We are
not scholars, though both of us have knowledge of our own traditions
and thought. Maybe there is nothing more we can do than to stand here
together as a new Jewish Year begins, to say, "It is a new year, and
we must find new ways. To do that, we have to start talking." The
poet Robert Cording, writing about Dietrich Bonhoeffer's imprisonment
for trying to save Jews in Nazi Germany, says Bonhoeffer "believes religion
begins with a neighbor who is within reach."
DEBBIE: I am honored and humbled to
be invited here on this Holyday, and very happy to be able to speak
with you all.
ELLEN: I met Debbie on September 15,
2001, which was Shabbat Shuva, the Sabbath of Return that year. We
had invited the Dialogue Project, begun by Marcia Kannry, to join us
for discussion following September 11. Debbie and her husband Naji
were among those who came, and Debbie woke us up to what it might feel
like to be a Muslim-American in the wake of 9/11, by telling us how
afraid she was of being attacked in those hard days, as she is a Muslim
woman who wears the hijab and is thus identifiable. Several members
of our groups offered to help, by driving her or escorting her. That
was the good part, the part that made us feel connected and hopeful,
able to help a neighbor in distress. But we also heard that day and
for weeks that followed, an opinion voiced there by a Muslim man, that
Israel and the Mossad were in fact the ones behind the terror of September
11. It was the kind of thinking that made us Jews feel alienated
and afraid, disconnected and unhopeful. Those feelings - the connected
and the alienated - have persisted for us, and for Muslims here. So
when Debbie and I first spoke about talking together here, I said we
could only do it if we spoke of the hard questions as well as the easy
ones, the ones about terrorism and occupation as well as the ones about
how similar our language and cultures are or about our American immigrant
experiences. Just so you know, as I wanted to, Debbie was born in
Yemen and came to this country at 3, after her father had been able
to send enough money back to get his wife and daughter. She grew up
in Buffalo. I was born here, into a family of long-time American Jews
who came from Germany in the 1840's and from Russia and Poland in the
1880's.
Since we met, I have been in Debbie's
home, and she is coming to mine. We are not yet friends, but are becoming
so. Debbie has become a major activist on behalf of her people here,
and we have seen each other somewhat often at protests and gatherings
of one sort or another. And please note,
she went to a special dinner with the Dalai Lama after
his Central Park talk!
So let us begin. We start with text,
for both of us are informed and inspired by our sacred texts. And we
begin with the same story, told two ways, reminding us that our traditions
spring from the same source. We start with the story of Sarah and Hagar,
two women trapped in place, coming from different places. Their story
is part of the foundational stories of Judaism and Islam.
TORAH, by Ellen:
Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him
no children. She had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar.
And Sarai said to Abram, "Look, Adonai has kept me from bearing. Consort
with my maid; perhaps I too shall have a son through her." And Abram
heeded Sarai's request. So Sarai, Abram's wife, took her maid, Hagar
the Egyptian…and gave her to her husband Abram as concubine. He cohabited
with Hagar and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived,
her mistress was lowered in her esteem. And Sarai said to Abram, "The
wrong done me is your fault! I myself put my maid in your bosom; now
that she sees that she is pregnant, I am lowered in her esteem. Adonai
decide between you and me!" Abram said to Sarai, "Your maid is in your
hands. Deal with her as you think right." Then Sarai treated her harshly
and she ran away from her.
ELLEN: I have such trouble with this
story. I try to find myself in Sarah, and can't find a way in. I
keep wishing for Sarah and Hagar to be friends, instead of mistress
and maid. Our tradition says both were princesses at one time, so how
much they might have understood one another. I always wish them to
find a way together to have a child. What if Abraham were out of the
way? Back then, it would have spelled disaster, women unable to make
a living. But now? Who is Abraham now? Is he the power in the world
around whom everyone else is to revolve?
Our stories are so similar, Debbie, and
we have learned how much alike our languages and cultures are or were:
our systems of eating, for example - in medieval Spain, some rabbis
said that Jews who couldn't get hold of kosher food should eat halal
food.
DEBBIE: And for Muslims migrating to
the West, imams said to them, "Those of you who can't get hold of halal
meat should eat kosher." Jews and Muslims lived side by side and studied
together. Witness the Jewish scholar and philosopher Maimonides, whose
work was first published in Arabic. And earlier, in the year 630, in
Syria, Christians, Jews and Muslims shared a space to worship: St.
John the Baptist Church. On Fridays the Muslims used it, on Saturdays
the Jews used it and on Sundays the Christians used it. It feels like
life then was so simple. Last year I saw a flyer from the Board of
Ed, notifying us of a Jewish effort called Yad b Yad, and realized
the words meant the same thing as yed b
yed, in Arabic - both mean hand in hand. In so many ways
we are connected hand in hand through our history as children of Abraham.
ELLEN: But are we children of Abraham, a unified family, or separate children of different mothers, Sarah and Hagar? The Torah tells us, Sarah saw the son, whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, playing. She said to Abraham, "Cast out that slave-woman and her son, for the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." The matter distressed Abraham greatly, for it concerned a son of his. But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed over the boy or your slave; whatever Sarah tells you to do, do as she says, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall we continued for you. As for the son of the slave-woman, I will make a nation of him, too, for he is your seed."
I am embarrassed by my ignorance of so
many Muslim customs and ideas. When I first came to your home for a
community gathering, I sat with a cousin of yours and asked really stupid
questions about the hijab - when does one start wearing it, what
do the different colors mean (fashion, she told me), do you ever wish
to take it off? And you must have questions about us Jews, too, our
customs, our clothing, our rituals.
DEBBIE: My main question is about why Jews who keep kosher
don't mix milk and meat. You told me it comes from the verse in the
Torah that says, "Do not boil a kid in its mother's milk." But is that
about mother and child or milk and meat?
Our stories are different, so often our
perceptions are different. Sarah figures very little in the Quran's
version of our story:
FROM THE QURAN:
For many years, Abraham and Sarah
lived as exiles, and during all that time they had no children. Sarah,
having passed the age of childbirth, suggested to Abraham that he marry
her maid and companion Hagar. Abraham and Hagar married and Hagar bore
him a son who was called Ishmael. Many years later, God rewarded Sarah
for her patience and faith by giving her a son of her own named Isaac,
and tidings of a grandson named Jacob. God revealed that both Isaac
and Jacob would become prophets.
Our situations in the world today are
also very different. Jews are comfortable in America, after three or
four or more generations and easily fit into society. Muslims, especially
observant Muslims, show our identity wherever we go. Many Muslims in
NYC are immigrants who come from all over the world, and find it difficult
as Muslims and immigrants. The "War on Terror" has produced
new terrors for us. STORY ABOUT BEING AT CITY COUNCIL THE DAY JAMES
DAVIS WAS SHOT. The fear of being suspected because of who I am frightened
me even more.
I realized then this is what I'm living with in this climate of rage and suspicion. I feel it every day. The proposed Patriot Act 2 will be a disaster for us all BECAUSE it will not leave anyone untouched. Since Sept. 11, essential rights and freedoms that were once guaranteed to all Americans have been substantially degraded, especially for Arab, Muslim and South Asian men. Many American still don't realize the significance of what we have lost. The Patriot Act has already resulted in the expansion of government powers that have eroded the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments: FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION, RIGHT TO ACCESS GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCH & SEIZURE, RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS & FREEDOM FROM BEING HELD WITHOUT CHARGE, RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION, RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL, FREEDOM FROM CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT.
ELLEN: I have been surprised that there
haven't been more Jews protesting the detentions and deportations that
have already taken place. We have short memories if we forget the times
and places in which we were the suspected ones, the different ones who
could not fit in, the ones ordered to special registrations. The violence
and fear in our world make it complicated for us. We are sophisticated
enough to understand that Islam is not a terrorist religion, and that
terrorists use religious cover to take violent political action. But
a part of us still wonders: Why so many Muslim terrorists? Why so
much anti-women violence among Muslims? Maybe there is something in
the religion - that's our secret fear. We should, of course, acknowledge
that we have had our share of terrorists, some recent - Jews trying
to bomb mosques or other Muslim places or people. But the question
remains.
DEBBIE: This is a question that is on
the minds of a lot of people. First, I want to say clearly that Islam
is not a religion of terror or violence. The root word of Islam is
salaam, which means peace. The word Muslim means submissive to God,
the creator, the bearer of peace, and refers to a follower of Islam.
Its root word is also peace. Many verses in the Quran denounce the
taking the lives of others. For example,
Ch. 5 V.32
We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone killed a person not in retaliation of murder, or (and) to spread mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed all mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind.
And from the Sayings of the Prophet Muhammed:
The greatest crimes are to associate another with God, to vex your father and mother, to murder your own species, to commit suicide, and to swear to lie.
Next, the question, " Why so many Arab
and Muslim terrorists?" I would rather ask our world leaders, "Why
is there so much poverty in this day and age? Why are there so many
people who are disfranchised and stripped of their human rights as individuals?"
These are the things that lead people to terror, not religion. Religion
is misused, to frame terrorist acts. Terrorism is a problem that exists
in all religions and ethnic backgrounds. I think a terrorist has no
identity, no religion, and no nationality in the human race if his motives
are to take the lives of people.
But let's also not forget the underside
of American history, and ask, "What is terrorism?" Why are Native American
practically extent? Why were African Americans lynched and tortured
for hundreds of years by groups like the KKK, unprotected by police
who were meant to protect?
And we must remind ourselves that terrorists come from all races, religions, and ideologies. A good reminder was Timothy McVeigh, and his plot to blow up government buildings, but most Americans didn't call him a Christian extremist or even call what he did a terrorist attack.
Or think of Paul Hill, the Presbyterian minister, who gunned down an abortion doctor. He belonged to a loyal core of admirers, who believe since his death by capital punishment that Paul Hill is a martyr whose actions were justified by the Bible.
And let us not forget the man who took the life of Yitzhak Rabin, motivated by religious and ideological fanaticism.
Like them, the 9/11 terrorists who acted in the so-called name of Islam do not know anything about Islam, if that is how they misused it. Muslims do not acknowledge them as Muslims but as creators of havoc.
Finally, about women in Islam: In our
faith, a woman has equal rights to men in getting an education, running
for leadership roles, running and financing a business to profit herself,
and even had the opportunity to vote1400 years ago! The oppression
that exists in some countries stems from government-based dictatorship
or local cultural traditions that supersede Islamic teachings. Again,
it is not Islam, but those people, who perpetrate those horrors.
FROM THE QURAN:
Abraham, Hagar and baby Ishmael set
off on a journey. For days and nights they traveled, until they finally
arrived at a barren valley in the desert of the Arabian peninsula.
It was a desolate place with no vegetation and no water. There they
stopped, and Abraham gave Hagar their remaining provisions of food and
water. Surprised, Hagar asked, "Will you leave us here then?" Abraham
made no reply. Once again, Hagar asked him if he would leave them in
this place, and again Abraham made no response. She then realized that
Abraham must be following a divine command and she asked him, "Did God
command you to leave us here alone?" Abraham replied that such was
the case, and Hagar declared, "We have God with us, no harm will come
to us." And so, Hagar and Ishmael were left alone in this barren valley.
ELLEN: From the TORAH
Early next morning Abraham took some
bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He placed them over
her shoulder, together with the child, and sent her away. And she wandered
about in the wilderness of Beer-Sheva. When the water was gone from
the skin, she left the child under one of the bushes, ad went and sat
down at a distance, a bowshot away; for she thought, "Let me not look
on as the child dies." And sitting thus afar, she burst into tears.
ELLEN: So Abraham leaves them alone
with their fear and sorrow. "God told me to" isn't enough of a reason,
although both our texts see it that way. Abraham has the power to change
minds, even God's mind. So why does he go along, allowing Sarah to
act on her worst fear and animosity? Why is he so passive in this story,
too? Who is Abraham now?
This year we are the ones left alone
with our fear and sorrow. And nowhere is that fear and sorrow focused
more than in Israel and Palestine. This may be the toughest thing we
have to face together. We are both connected to the place, the land
- ha-aretz, Jews say. I lived there for nearly a year when I
began rabbinic school, in 1986 and '87. I was back early in 2000.
So things were peaceful when I was there, and I have had to learn what
was going on with Palestinians at those times, when it wasn't peaceful
for them.
DEBBIE: I have never been there. For
me, Israel is the place of the holy sites of Islam, and the source of
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That is sacred ground - it's God's
place.
ELLEN: And what of it as a Jewish state?
Do you think of it like that? How?
DEBBIE: Israel and Palestine are wounds
we as Jews and Arabs share. Israel today is a state that I feel does
not encompass the Jewish moral values taught in Judaism. I pray that
one day it will exemplify what I respect and admire about Judaism. For
example, I understand that in Judaism race or other individual factors
are a matter of no consequence, it is a matter of how you live your
life and what you do, rather than your origin that counts. I know of
the emphasis against mistreating the stranger, that is, not discriminating
against or oppressing someone because he/she is different. There's a
verse [Ellen says it's from the Mishnah] that goes something like this:
"How can one claim 'my blood is redder than yours,' when we all have
the same parentage?"
I wonder if there is a divide between
Judaism and Israel as it is now. Last year, I helped create a series
of workshops for Muslim youth, with a few Jews and Christians participating.
At the end, they created a mural about their hopes for the future.
On the mural was the Star of David. One of the young men who helped
with the project said that a few of the children felt very comfortable
acknowledging Judaism through the Star of David, but not the Israeli
flag. One of the boys said he sees the flag as an oppressive symbol,
but sees the Star of David as a religious symbol that in Islam must
be respected and honored, because the Jews are the people of the Book.
It's amazing that children can distinguish between the religion, the
people, and the political situation, while adults have a hard seeing
the difference. Gandhi talked about it; Mandela and ML King also: There
can only be real forgiveness when we can separate the people from the
political structures that we live within.
ELLEN: Sometimes it is hard to make
such distinctions, and we may not always want to. Judaism is not just
a religion, any more than Islam is just a religion. We Jews are also
a people, struggling with our political situation and our connections
as people. When I work with people toward conversion to Judaism, we
always have at least one conversation about their relationship with
Jews they don't feel related to. Often that means very Orthodox people
they see on the subway, or fundamentalist Israeli settlers they read
about in the paper. And I say, "It may be that they feel like distant
cousins whom you'd never want in your house. But they are cousins, and
you must remember that." Pirke Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, says
it this way: Kol Yisrael arevim zeh la-zeh - every Jew is mixed
up with, responsible for every other.
So I must acknowledge that Ariel Sharon
and Israeli settlers are my cousins, even when I think that at best
they make one wrong decision after another. I abhor targeted assassinations.
The wall Israel is building is walling people in, creating ghettos,
another abhorrence for Jews, for whom the ghetto was created. The bulldozing
of houses is terrible, punishing an entire extended family for what
one son or daughter has done. Checkpoints, incursions, the list goes
on. And I write letters and send money to peace groups and am thinking
about how to get over there this year - maybe we'll go together, Debbie.
And I grieve as well as rage: Especially since I remember well riding
buses in Jerusalem and sitting in cafes there and in Tel Aviv, I can
only feel that a part of me is murdered when a murderer explodes in
a bus or café or university. Those killed are my people too. Do you
feel that way? Are they your people, the suicide bombers? And the
ones killed by Israel, are they?
DEBBIE: For me, any child killed is
a child killed regardless of their faith or ethnic background. The
killing of innocents of all ages on both sides tears my inner soul to
pieces. And the poor soldiers who are forced into the
violence pay the price by losing their lives. The tactics of suicide bombings go against every
teaching in Islam that I love and cherish because it is forbidden to
take the lives of others as well as your own life. Your life and the
lives of others are sacred in God's eyes.
Many people in the Arab and Muslim communities
look at me like I'm crazy. They feel that I am not sympathetic to "the
cause" because I denounce suicide bombings. But what is their end?
Is there peace? Will there be a Palestinian state? I work to change
people's minds, especially among young people. Sometimes I think adults'
minds can't be changed. But I am a teacher of children and youth, so
that is often where I put my energy. Like Hagar, I try to save a child.
ELLEN, From the TORAH:
God heard the cry of the boy, and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him." The God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and let the boy drink. God was with the boy and he grew up; he dwelt in the wilderness and became a bowman. He lived in the of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
[Genesis 21:1-21]
ELLEN:
God has heeded the cry of the boy
where he I,
ba-asher hu sham in Hebrew A midrash says that "Where he is"
means he will be judged according to the actions he is doing now and
not what he may do in the future. The angels asked God, "Master of
the Universe, will You provide a well for one whose descendants will
at one time kill your children?" God asked them, "What is he right
now, righteous or wicked?" They replied, "Righteous." God said, "According
to his present deeds will I judge him."
In a roundtable discussion about Israel
earlier this year, the poet and activist Irena Klepfisz said, "I used
to think we had to really study history," to move forward in thinking
and acting about Israel. Now, she said, "I'm beginning to think that
history is really screwing us up." Too much looking at the past, too
much looking at the future. What did happen once, or what may happen
yet keeps us from judging what is happening now. Some of what is happening
now is terrible, and must change. But some is hopeful, and we can't
forget: 10,000 people marched in Tel Aviv last week for peace, and
against Sharon's policies.
We must have hope, or we will die in
the desert of violence and cynicism.
DEBBIE, From the QURAN:
The heat was fierce and there was
no shelter under which they could take refuge. Before long their provisions
began to run low, and in desperation Hagar started looking for some
water. Leaving Ishmael sitting on the ground, she ran to the top of
a small hill called al-Safa, hoping to see some sign of travelers who
might be passing by and who would help them. There were none to be
seen. Hagar went down to comfort Ishmael and then climbed up another
hill, al-Marwa, in the hope of finding some help. Again she was disappointed.
From al-Marwa she ran to al-Safa, and then back to al-Marwa again.
Seven times she climbed these hills and each time she saw nothing.
Finally, when she returned to Ishmael, he was too weak to even cry.
With great sorrow, Hagar bent down to pick him up, when lo and behold
a spring gushed forth from under his feet! Hagar thanked God for saving
them and gave her son some water to drink.
It was not long before passing caravans noticed that birds had begun to gather in the barren valley where a spring of water now gushed. Soon travelers took to halting there and gradually people began to settle in this place. They called their little town Bakka, or Mecca. It was in this very town that, many years later, the prophet Muhammed was born from the descendants of Ishmael and where he began preaching the message of Islam.
ELLEN: Rabbi Ben Hollander reminds
us that there was no miracle in this story. God did not
provide Hagar a well or spring of water. Rather, she opened
her eyes in a new way. She lifts her son up, first, and then sees the
water. What do we have to lift up, care for, or move out of the way
before we can see new ways of life and hope?
The Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai wrote
An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite mountain I am searching
for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
both in their temporary failure.
Our voices meet above the Sultan's Pool
in the valley between us. Neither of us wants
the child or the goat to get caught in the wheels
of the terrible Had Gadya machine.
Afterwards we found them among the bushes
And our voices came back inside us,
laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat or a son
has always been the beginning
of a new religion in these mountains.
Maybe we do need to forget history, start
a new religion. In our new religion, Sarah and Hagar would be friends,
or lovers, planning to have a child together, or two children, each
loved, cared for. There would be laughter
and listening, Yitzhak, Yishma-el. But Abraham would have
left already on a different journey.
For now, maybe what we can start to do is teach our children. Here at Kolot Chayeinu, we have a chart of the Arabic alphabet, and someone came to teach the kids the letters. We have talked about what goes on in Israel and Palestine. Last spring, in a retreat about Israel, they participated in a mock checkpoint and also had to decide if they would serve in the Israeli army and what they would do about scarcity of water there. This year they started school by singing Od yavo Shalom Aleinu - Peace will yet come to us and to everyone, Shalom, Salaam. They also learn about the joys of Israel, joys I hope they will one day be able to see and experience.
DEBBIE: For the Muslim youth, I will
continue as I have in the past to expose them to events and conferences
that exemplify coexistence. I will never forget the look one of the
girls had on her face when I took her with me to a Women in Black vigil.
She was shocked to see Jewish men and women who cared about the Palestinian
cause. Or the time two boys and my daughter heard Jeff Halperin, a
Jew; speak at Columbia University against the demolition of homes in
Palestine. And the time they went to B'nai Jeshurun to hear the Bereaved
Palestinian and Israeli parents share their pain. Events such as these
have helped the kids see New York and even Israeli Jews from another
light. They now know there are many who are acknowledging their pain
and thus they too have developed empathy for civilians killed in Israel.
I remember girls crying while watching the documentary "Promises" and
later blaming the adults for all the pain and havoc that exists in Palestine
and Israel.
ELLEN: In the mural project, you asked
the kids at the Muslim Youth Center to express their hope for the future.
My hope for the future is that the Israeli flag will not be stained
with the blood of Jews or Palestinians, and will not be seen by us or
by Muslim youth in Brooklyn as a sign of oppression. My hope for the
future is that children in Israeli and Palestinian schools will learn
each others' history as clearly as it can be told, and will not be taught
to demonize the other. My hope for the future is that all New York children
will one day know enough about the Jews and the Buddhists and the Muslims
that they won't mix us up. And my hope for the future is that one
day we will be mixed up - arevim zeh ba-zeh -- we will
live as neighbors, colleagues, learners, and friends, sharing our common
culture and learning of our differences, responsible for each other:
Yad b Yad, yed b yed, hand in hand.
DEBBIE: My hope for the future is that
Jews and Arabs/Muslims can reunite to bury the hurtful past we've shared,
as did Isaac and Ishmael when they came together to bury their father
Abraham. I hope for this in my lifetime. My hope for the future is
that we continue efforts such as this to educate our communities about
one another's culture and traditions.
DEBBIE: AN ENDING PRAYER IN ARABIC AND ENGLISH -- These are prayers that were said by Abraham when making peace with his decision to remove Hagar and Ishmael.
ELLEN: AN ENDING PRAYER IN HEBREW AND
IN ENGLISH - the Hebrew is in a book.
Be it Thy will
To annul wars and the shedding of blood from the universe,
And to extend a peace, great and wondrous, in the universe.
"Nor again shall one people raise the sword against another
and they shall learn war no more."
But let all residents of earth recognize and know the innermost truth:
that we are not come into this world for quarrel and division,
nor for hate and jealousy, contrariness and bloodshed;
but we are come into this world
Thee to recognize and know,
be Thou blessed forever.
-- ascribed to Nahman of Bratslav, includes
Isaiah 2:4. Version in Language of Faith, edited by Nahum
Glatzer
Copyright 2003 Rabbi Ellen Lippmann
