So I just got back from Kol Nidrei services…and before that another life-changing experience with the community at the Islamic Center in NYU -- I joined the last part of the Friday services…prayers and Koran reading, so elevating even if you dont understand Arabic (and the longing minor chords so like some nigunim…traditional Sephardic melodies). Maryum Khaja was my hostess and guide again, so thoughtful. The young idealistic imam Khalid Latif -- with his beautiful, intellectual wife and lively toddler - kindly invited me to share a bit with the group. I felt shy but … just spoke from my heart about why I was there…my own journey watching the invasion of Gaza…my certainty that I was witnessing a genocide…my having spoken out then finding a community of people around the world who wanted to talk about peace -- beyond peace -- and my wish to not go into Yom Kippur with this pile of bodies as I put it -- unwitnessed, in a room in my collective house essentially. That I wanted to dedicate my fast to the 500 lost children of Gaza and to their families and that I had asked to be taken in to stand in prayer with some Muslim community -- and that Lena of NYU had replied, and here we were. I just expressed gratitude for having been so warmly welcomed into their special celebration and thankfulness for their kindness. What I did not quite say but I wish I had found a way to, was that I was so sorry. I am afraid though if I had said those words I would have wept and not been able to continue. I wish I could convey the feeling in the room as we were talking together. Men and women were seated separately -- that was quite comfortable and familiar to me from orthodox Jewish services -- but they were both equally present, and we were simply -- together, listening and talking and thinking. And -- I cant explain it --- there was this extraordinary stillness and tenderness in the room. It wasnt a tenderness of me toward them or this community toward me (though they were so kind) -- it was more like -- a spiritual presence of tenderness that was bigger than any of us, that was embracing us because we were willing to truly meet one another. I had said in my post long ago that I wanted no better religion than to stand with my neighbor in trouble and not deny his suffering or her suffering. And in the room there was….something you could really swear an allegiance to, better than any religion -- almost outside of ourselves. Just truth, and just kindness was in the room, from every direction. It wasnt artificial and it wasnt role-playing, that terribly exhausting thing that so often happens between Muslims and Jews. It was just -- the immense power of pure human kindness. And I am not sorry for wanting that more than any religion - - it is better. Then I was fed delicious Thai food…and went off to Kol Nidrei -- with warm invitations to my whole family to come back anytime, which I will. I would love to return the hospitality. I hope we will be as kind. This really was the most meaningful Yom Kippur ever. This time when I read in Yom Kippur services about how I had transgressed over the last year -- not met my promises…gone astray -- closed my heart -- I did feel that I had actually done something, even a very small thing, meaningful and integrative around those words -- which would otherwise, given what we have been through together this year, been…just words. Eiid Mubarak, and for tomorrow, gmar hativah tovah.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 03:46:05 +0000
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