An Imam and Rabbi Teaching & Demonstrating Compassion, continued

Yesterday we shared good news from the program All Things Considered that invited an Imam and a rabbi to interact on the current war in Gaza and Israel. 

When asked what they wanted to say to each other, this was their response:

Rabbi Brous: I will say to you, Imam Herbert, I’m holding you and your community, your beloveds in your mosque and their families in Gaza in my heart and in my prayers.  And I know that there is a better way for humanity that we can walk together toward peace, dignity and justice for all people.  And I really appreciate you as a partner in that work. Thank you.

Imam Herbert: I share the same sentiment. For me, I think one of the most profound things that I heard you say that really, really stuck out to me, rabbi, was you mentioned that the real enemies of this are not the Jews or the Israelis or the Palestinians.  It’s those people who have decided that violence is the only answer.  And that really, really stuck with me.  That this shows that there actually is a way to have a conversation.

I am very moved by this conversation, yesterday’s and today’s.  They speak to what we have been meditating on for several days, that humanity is capable of listening, of understanding, of speaking truth with one another and looking for common ground.  In short, we are capable of compassion and working out of our commonality, our shared interdependence, our shared joys and our shared sorrows. 

It is good news to hear that sermons on Fridays in mosques and on Saturdays in synagogues and hopefully on Sundays in churches speak to this bottom line of what it means to be human.  And what it means to survive and thrive as humans and carry on as humans. 

Compassion is the only way.  War is obsolete—and so, so, so deja vu.

*Karen Zamora, Sarah Handel, Ari Shapiro, “A rabbi and imam on how they’re counseling their communities.” NPR, All Things Considered.

See Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion. 

And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.

Banner Image: “Compassion and Solidarity.” A Jewish man holds a Palestinian flag at a 2014 London protest of Israeli lethal force against unarmed Palestinian protesters. Photo by Alisdare Hickson on Flickr.

Queries for Contemplation

What do you derive from listening to this Imam and this rabbi interact at this fraught time in the Middle East?  Would you like to hear more of this kind of interaction between faith leaders?

Recommended Reading

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics