| This Sunday, we will join together with our local friends of many different faiths here in our own TBS sanctuary for our Annual “Interfaith Thanksgiving Service.” (Please see below for details and to rsvp). We will gather as one people, no matter our religious affiliation, our political affiliation, our race, our gender, our sexual orientation, or our national origin.
We will gather together in compassion, community and courage. We will stand shoulder to shoulder in this sacred space to show that we are one united people with one heart. We will stand united for love, united for peace, justice, and equality for all. We will stand united against antisemitism, united against racism,and united against injustice of any type. We will stand united in our pledge that together we will work to make our broken world whole.
We hope our encounters with the Divine and with each other will lift us up, inspire us to be better people, will elevate our everyday actions and help us to see the Divine spark in one another. We will pray together, sing together, share some food together, building bonds of friendship, community, trust, and support. When we gather in this setting, we elevate our relationships to a level of “k’dushah – holiness” and we bring God into our midst.
Each of our faith traditions shares a conviction in the full humanity of every person. Each of us believes that to be human is to be created in the image of the Divine we call by many names: among them God, Allah, Spirit. When we fail to see the Divine in one another, we diminish our own humanity. The biblical imperative to “love your neighbor” knows no religious, political or national boundaries. Our common interest in security is only undermined when we allow fear to dismantle the very principles we all hold so dear.
Your presence on Sunday will be so meaningful, because it reinforces the notion of friendship and the notion of “love your neighbor.” We are modeling the notion that each of our Scriptures calls upon us to “love your neighbor as yourself” and “to welcome both the neighbor and the stranger, just as we have been welcomed.”
When we join together in our diversity on Sunday, we hope we will affirm our commitment for making our fractured community whole. We hope that by standing together we will rebuild trust and faith in one another. We will teach our children that God’s presence is found inside each and every one of us, no matter the color of our skin, our religious belief, our sexual orientation, gender identity, political affiliation. We are all the same inside – we are one heart, beating loud and strong. We hope and pray that we can join hands and stand together for the sake of a better world. By doing so, we can build a sanctuary of peace, freedom, justice and goodness, for all men, women and children.
Tonight, during our Shabbat service, we will conclude – as we do every week – with the “Alaynu” prayer. This hearkens to a time in the future when all will be perfect in the world, when all will be right, when hatred will be gone and “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall there be war any more.” Our prayers will be meaningless however, unless we do something to bring them to fruition: how will we make freedom’s bell ring out? What will we do to ensure that wholeness and peace will prosper in our world?
How can we take this notion of “Alaynu” with us into our Interfaith Thanksgiving Service on Sunday, so that we, as an interfaith community of faith, help others understand that each of us prays to the same one God? That the ideas expressed by “Alaynu” are core to each of our different faith groups?
We know that we are stronger together. We know that together we can work to educate ourselves and our children to eliminate ignorance, to break down barriers of hatred, to eliminate the scourge of hatred and xenophopia so that anti-Semitism and racism will no longer afflict this beautiful place we call home.
The Koran teaches: “We have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another.” In our Jewish tradition, we will recite in our prayerbook, Mishkan T’filah, this evening “There is no way to get from here to there except by joining hands and marching together.” (Pg. 157, CCAR).
We pray that the many religions and cultures of the world find common ground so we can march together hand-in-hand. We will work to restore harmony – in our families, schools, and communities – and supplant a world of much division, violence and despair. We will sow seeds of peace.
In these times of turmoil, terror and conflict, and in all places where people are searching for righteousness and struggling for safety, we will sow seeds of love.
We commit to work together to break down the walls of language and culture, race and gender, wealth and poverty, theological and political differences that separate us and cause enmity between us. We will build bridges: bridges founded on love, respect and understanding where all are welcomed at the table. Amen.
Shabbat Shalom! |
