AYF-News> Wake up call

[ayf@xxxxxxx]

What follows was forwarded to us from a former
Peace Corps volunteer in Benin. 
 
It is from Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom
Center, and it is worth reading.

>>

In 1984, when the nuclear arms race was in 
speed-up mode, The Shalom Center built a 
sukkah between the White House and the 
Soviet Embassy in Washington.

We focused on the line from the evening 
prayers - "Ufros alenu sukkat shlomekha" -- 
"Spread over all of us Your sukkah of shalom."

And we asked, "Why a  sukkah?" -- Why does 
the  prayer plead to God for a "sukkah of shalom" 
rather than God's  "tent" or "house"  or "palace" 
of peace?

Because the sukkah is just a hut, the most 
vulnerable of houses.  Vulnerable in time, where 
it lasts for only a week each year.  Vulnerable in 
space, where its roof must be not only leafy but 
leaky -- letting in the starlight, and gusts of 
wind and rain.

For much of our lives we try to achieve peace and 
safety by building with steel and concrete and 
toughness. Pyramids, air raid shelters, Pentagons, 
World Trade Centers.  Hardening what might be targets 
and, like Pharaoh, hardening our hearts against what 
is foreign to us.

But the sukkah comes to remind us:  We are in truth 
all vulnerable. If "a hard rain gonna fall," it will 
fall on all of us.

Americans have felt invulnerable. The oceans, our 
wealth, our military power have made up what seemed 
an invulnerable shield.

We may have begun feeling uncomfortable in the 
nuclear age, but no harm came to us. Yet yesterday 
the ancient truth came home: We all live in a sukkah.

Not only the targets of attack but also the 
instruments of attack were among our proudest 
possessions: the sleek transcontinental airliners. 
They availed us nothing. Worse than nothing.

Even the greatest oceans do not shield us; even 
the mightiest buildings do not shield us; even the 
wealthiest balance sheets and the most powerful
weapons do not shield us.

There are only wispy walls and leaky roofs between 
us.

The planet is in fact one interwoven web of life. 
I MUST love my neighbor as I do myself, because my 
neighbor and myself are interwoven. If I hate my 
neighbor, the hatred will recoil upon me.

What is the lesson, when we learn that we -- all 
of us -- live in a sukkah?

How do we make such a vulnerable house into a place 
of shalom, of peace and security and harmony and 
wholeness?

The lesson is that only a world where we all 
recognize our vulnerability can become a world where 
all communities feel responsible to all other 
communities. And only such a world can prevent such 
acts of rage and murder.

If I treat my neighbor's pain and grief as foreign, 
I will end up suffering when my neighbor's pain and 
grief curdle into rage.

But if I realize that in simple fact the walls 
between us are full of holes, I can reach through 
them in compassion and connection.

Suspicion about the perpetrators of this act of 
infamy has fallen upon some groups that espouse a 
tortured version of Islam. Whether or not this turns 
out to be so, America must open its heart and mind 
to the pain and grief of those in the Arab and 
Muslim worlds who feel excluded, denied, unheard,
disempowered, defeated.

This does not mean ignoring or forgiving whoever 
wrought such bloodiness. Their violence must be 
halted, their rage must be calmed -- and the pain
behind them must be heard and addressed.

Instead of entering upon a "war of civilizations," 
we must pursue a planetary peace.


Shalom, Arthur

 

Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Director, The Shalom Center

-- 
African Youth Foundation
Keldenicher str. 89
D-50389 Wesseling

Tel: 0049 175 517 9953
Fax: 0049 1212 510 323 700

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