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Dear friends,
Peace, salam, shalom in a world that feels... undone, in the abyss, and out of harmony.
So many of us have hearts torn open, broken and breaking.
For all of us who have a connection to Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, indeed all of us who have hearts, the … what shall we even call it?.... War? Conflict? Genocide? Pain? Agony? in Palestine/Israel is heart-wrenching.
75 years of Palestinian dispossession and ethnic cleansing
40+ years of Occupation
Hamas’ Murder of 1400 Jews, and reigniting of a collective Jewish trauma
Hamas holding hostage of 200 Israelis,
Israel’s Murder of 1500 Palestinian babies
Israel’s Murder of thousands of Palestinian civilians, and the deepening of a trauma that has been ongoing for decades
Israel’s bombardment of a Christian hospital, killing 500 civilians
Israel’s bombardment of mosques, of churches, of schools
Israel’s displacement of over a million Palestinians, human beings, in Gaza, “the world’s largest open-air prison,” and denying them food, water, electricity, and medical supplies.
All of this taking place in as contested of a public discourse as we have seen since 9/11, with dubious images and stories, hasbara, and spin, with inflamed rhetoric that generates much more heat than light.
Where is the heart?
Where is humanity?
What does love have to say in a time like this?
How do we pray when the heart is not at peace?
Friends, I would love to tell you that I have ready answers, and we will gather this weekend to share it with you. I do not. I don’t know that any of us do. All we know is that innocent lives are being lost, that pain and anger are running amok, that there is pain everywhere, *and* that pain and suffering and oppression are not symmetric.
Here is what I would love to do: to invite all of you to a gathering this Saturday October 21st, at 3 pm EST (different than our usual gathering), to share a conversation and reflect on how to hold two truths together: First, that each and every single life is sacred, each and every single life is precious, and each and every single life contains the breath of God; that it includes Jewish lives in Israel and Muslim Palestinian lives and Christian Palestinian lives in Israel, occupied West Bank, and occupied Gaza.
And second, that the “conflict” in Palestine/Israel is not, and has not been, a “fight”, a “war”, or a “struggle.” There is a context, and the unavoidable context recognized by every significant human rights organization is simple: an illegal and immoral Occupation. No human being would ever willingly choose to live under the dehumanizing condition that Palestinians have been forced to live under for decades. The Occupation robs Palestinians of their God-given dignity, and robs Israelis of their full humanity. For those of us in the United States (also true of Canada, and much of the EU), we are not innocent bystanders, but directly involved in enabling this injustice financially, militarily, and politically.
Join us on Saturday at 3 pm EST for a conversation with a commitment both to dignity of every single life, and a concurrent commitment to upholding justice in a deeply unjust context.
We have been going through the stories of the Prophets in our monthly gathering. This month we were scheduled to talk about Solomon (Sulayman), whose legacy is of course tied up with Jerusalem. We will also turn to all of us who see ourselves as the heirs to Solomon to see what wisdom he has to offer us in this age of pain and injustice.
The session on Saturday October 21st, 3 pm EST, is open all of the friends here, regardless of whether you have previously signed up for the Chai, Love, and Prayer sessions. Please use this zoom link: https://duke.zoom.us/j/9547747704
We will hold a conversation, followed by a small group conversation, and end with invoking Divine Names.
See you Saturday at 3 pm EST, insha’allah.
Aspiring for peace, rooted in love, committed to justice,
Omid
P.s. Please note that this gathering is at 3 pm EST (not the usual 2 pm EST), and that we have a new link listed above.
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