We ended yesterday’s DM with this question for pondering:
How is humanity today, how are we today, doing in expressing our divine nobility by way of compassion and justice? What is holding us back?
I share here some Good News that tells of humanity’s nobility that is found in our power for compassion and justice. And in our capacity to choose to seek understanding of others over vengeance.
Recently, over 150 rabbis and rabbinic students in America signed a petition for a Ceasefire in Gaza and called upon people everywhere to appeal to their congresspeople to do the same.
Their statement speaks from a place of common humanity. It begins this way:
We are Rabbis and Rabbinical students and at this moment of great moral reckoning, we are speaking out with one voice. Those of us grieving both Israeli and Palestinian loved ones this week know there is no military solution to our horror. We know that many Jews in our communities are feeling confused, afraid, and despairing over the events that began on October 7th.
Together with Jews in Israel, we are in deep grief over the 1400 Israelites who were brutally killed by Hamas. We are terrified for the over 200 Israeli hostages—adults, children and infants—who remain in captivity.
However, the US and Israeli governments are using our grief to justify genocidal violence directed against the people of Gaza.
According to Defense for Children Internationals, the Israeli military is killing one child in Gaza every 15 minutes…..In the fact of this terrifying violence we say no!….Torah should be a source of life not death.
This honest and brave stance shows a way forward. The signers call upon “all Americans” to pursue this path and to write their congressional representatives to do the same. God bless them.
For the full declaration, click HERE.
See Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.
Banner Image: “Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East” rally in Berlin to commemorate the forcible evacuation of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Zionist militias in 1948. With Berlin banning all such commemorative events, the 5/20/2023 rally was violently broken up by the police. Photo by Matthias Berg on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
How does this declaration affect you? How does it bear witness to the “better angels of our nature” that Abraham Lincoln spoke of and that we have been meditating on in discussing humanity’s royal personhood?
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
3 thoughts on “Good News of Human Nobility & Compassion from 150 Rabbis”
Thank you, Rabbi Matthew.
Thank you DM Team for the two videos in to day’s DM! Around the world we are praying for Peace, Love, Compassion, and Justice in Palestine for our Palestinian and Jewish sisters and brothers! World leaders, including the U.S., should pressure the Israeli government to stop the destructive bombing and invasion of Palestine to begin peaceful negotiations and the formation of a stable and just Palestinian state for its people.
The video interview of Rabbi Yisroel David Weiss is especially enlightening and compassionate about “Zionism is not the same as Judaism.” Most people probably don’t know the history of Jewish and Moslem people and communities living together in Peace in Palestine in the past, based on the True Spirit of Love, Justice, and Mercy in their respective religions of the same Compassionate Source and Creator….
Thank you Matthew for both videos. Governments must start working for peace instead of war. I wish every person could see the video of Rabbi Yisroel David Weiss. Pray