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As Jews we are always marking anniversaries. The annual cycle of festivals includes so many commemorative days, not least harat olam, ‘the birthday of the world’, on Rosh Hashanah, the 1st of Tishri. During the 20th Century, four new dates were added to our calendar of remembrance: Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day (27th Nissan), Yom Hazikaron (4th Iyyar), the day set aside for remembering Israel’s losses since 1948, Yom Ha’atzma’ut (5th Iyyar), Israel Independence Day, and Yom Yerushalayim (28th Iyyar), marking the reunification of Jerusalem following the Six Day War in 1967. How many new dates will we be adding during the 21st Century? The 20th Century: A century of Jewish death; and also a century of Jewish renewal, including not only the establishment of the State of Israel, but also the development of the Progressive movement, the revival of Chabad Chasidism, the re-birth of Jewish life in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and the feminist transformation of Judaism. And yet, still, at the dawn of the 21st Century, the tragic continuation of a conflict that goes back, perhaps, forty centuries, to the time of our first ancestors, Abraham and Sarah. At Rosh Hashanah, we read the Torah narratives concerning the birth of Isaac, the expulsion of Sarah’s servant, Hagar and Abraham’s eldest son, Ishmael, and the binding of Isaac (Genesis 21 and 22). At the end of this month, we will turn to these stories again, when we read the parashah, Vayera. Isn’t it about time that we began to learn some lessons from these tales? Just as Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father (Chayyei Sarah, Genesis 25:9), hasn’t the time come, particularly following a year marked by so many funerals, for the grieving descendants of Isaac and Ishmael to meet and recognise the sibling bond we share? Following the Erev Sukkot service at BHPS, Vivien Lichtenstein and Ahlam Akram of the Israeli Palestinian Coalition for Peace, addressed the question, ‘What needs to happen to achieve peace?’ On Tuesday October 29th (7.30pm) Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, and a leading progressive Jewish voice in the United States, will lead a session at BHPS on the theme of ‘Healing Israel and Palestine.’ Of course, the task of healing centres on Israelis and Palestinians in Israel and nascent Palestine, but Diaspora Jews and Diaspora Palestinians – both Muslims and Christians – are part of the healing process. We all need to make a beginning. Perhaps, in the not-too-distant future, both peoples will be able to add a new date to our calendars – a Day of Peace and Reconciliation. We can but hope and take our first steps. © Rabbi
Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah |
