Interreligious Relations

(Rabbi Arthur Waskow for The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, & Sarah)

On Tuesday, January 20, 2009, a new President will be inaugurated and begin to work with a new Congress. The day before, Monday January 19, is Martin Luther King's Birthday.

The Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership and The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah have undertaken to initiate an effort to make this extraordinary confluence of dates into a moment of transformation.

We propose that on January 19-20, religious and ethical communities and congregations around the country take part in public actions intended to point America toward fulfilling Dr. King’s vision.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah Bin Abdul Al-Aziz Al Saud of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

At the inauguration ceremony of the World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid-- Spain.
13/7/1429 (Since the Hegira); 16/7/2008 (of the common era)

In the name of God, most merciful, most compassionate

Praise be to God Almighty, who revealed in his holy book: "O mankind! We have created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other\ Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you."

A Report by Rabbi Arthur Waskow and Rabbi Phyllis Berman *
July 18, 2009

The Madrid Global Interfaith Dialogue:

Dear Friends,

The two of us took part in a three-day Global Interfaith Conference initiated by the King of Saudi Arabia and sponsored by the World Muslim League.

Far beyond the frou-frou of shaking hands with two kings in a Spanish royal palace – Abdullah of Arabia and Juan Carlos of Spain, who acted as host -- the gathering is itself an important breakthrough in this work, a clarification of how far there is yet to go, and a signal that even within the conference itself, the organizers were willing to begin correcting some shortcomings when the participants pointed them out.

May 1, 2008 is Yom HaShoah (the Day of Remembrance of the Nazi Holocaust), observed one day earlier in the Jewish calendar than usual, because of not wanting to observe it on Friday as Shabbat is coming into the world.

It seems especially fitting to use as the Mourners Kaddish for today a rendition in Aramaic, Hebrew, and English of the MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR AND VIOLENCE that we at The Shalom Center have developed.(See three paragraphs below). Though it is of course a Jewish prayer, we offer the interpretive English translation below, in the hope it may be spiritually helpful for many people of many other traditions as well.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Today (March 21, 2008) is a strange day in the dance of sun, moon, and earth that make up the Christian and Jewish calendars.

For Christians, it is Good Friday -- the remembrance of how the Roman Empire tortured to death a great and troublesome Rabbi, and the foreshadowing of how just three days later the Rabbi was reborn into life, and there began the process by which he came to be understood as God's Own Self.

For Jews, it is Purim -- a festival of pun and paradox, in which the central text is a parody of history, telling the story of how a courageous woman and her uncle chose civil disobedience to save their people from a genocide - and won. How a pompous, stupid king is bamboozled by an ambitious, arrogant , and genocidal Prime Minister -- one might almost say, Vice-President. How everything is turned topsy-turvy, so that the gallows where a Jewish leader was to be hanged becomes the death-place of their tormentor. How God never appears in this story that might seem miraculous.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

When you live in a country that for a week has been transfixed by the furious denunciations of America by Pastor Jeremiah Wright and furious denunciations of Pastor Jeremiah by much of America --

-- it is startling to read the original Jeremiah -- especially when his own furious denunciations of his own country are emblazoned for the special sacred Prophetic reading the same week.

(In Jewish tradition, on each Shabbat is read a portion of the Torah [the "Five Books of Moses"] and a Prophetic passage chosen long ago by the rabbis to underline or sometimes confront the message of the Torah portion.)

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow,
Director of The Shalom Center

The Shalom Center by law may not, and doesn't, choose between candidates in an election. But there is no legal, ethical, or moral bar to our denouncing the use of religious slurs and slanders when they are used against any candidate. Or more than one, as is the case right now in American politics.

Indeed, we are morally REQUIRED to condemn such slanders. And so are all of us. To say it NOW, before slander casts its vote against decency and ALL America loses the Presidential election.

During the present Presidential campaign, slurs against the religious beliefs of at least two candidates -- Barack Obama and Mitt Romney -- became widespread.

DO WE HAVE CLEAN HANDS?
By Dan Shallman

** The Obama slurs and the 'empathy deficit' **

Los Angeles Jewish Journal
February 1, 2008

Last Sunday, to mark the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Senator
Barack Obama delivered a courageous sermon at King's Ebenezer Baptist
Church in Atlanta.

Notably, after recalling our country's dismal treatment of
African-Americans throughout much of our history, Obama challenged his own
community to acknowledge the intolerance and anti-Semitism in its midst.
In so doing, he has challenged all of us -- Jews included -- to look deep
inside our own hearts and minds to break down the barriers that divide

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow*

On Tuesday, October 23, I was called by Old South Church of Boston: where the Boston Tea Party was planned. Now it is a strong, big, wealthy, and widely respected congregation with a young, vigorous head pastor. (More about her and the church later.)

The church called me because a Jewish speaker they had invited and had accepted to speak on the coming Sunday, October 28, had just canceled -- because the official Jewish institutions of Boston were unhappy with the church's decision to host a conference to be held by Sabeel, a Palestinian Christian organization that was bringing Archbishop Tutu of South Africa, Nobel peace laureate, as keynote speaker. The church was inviting me to replace the drop-out speaker. But they explained to me that if I accepted I would probably meet a cauldron of anger and criticism from the Jewish institutional officialdom of Boston.

Dear friends,

For a YouTube video about the Muslim-Jewish event described here, see --
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EPdZ3hizUS0

Sometimes the earth on which we stand begins to shake, uncontrollably. We can respond with measured concern, even fear, and reach out for help to each other; or we can respond with panic and rage against anyone we think might be responsible for the earthquake. We can try to grab on to some "immovable" strong point - or we can learn to dance, with each other, in the earthquake.

Recently, some parts of the "official" established American Jewish organizational structure have been feeling they are living in a totally unexpected earthquake (see below for its description), and some have responded with panic, lashing out at some imagined "cause."