This past week, I returned from Israel, where I was one of the spiritual guides on a women’s trip through Jewish Community Partners. Last Friday morning, we drove through Haifa to stop at the stunning Bahai Gardens. Our tour guide, Shari, shared a story about Haifa as a paragon of Israeli coexistence. She told us that she was in conversation with one of the university leaders in Haifa, and asked them how it was that Haifa is a home to Jews, Muslims, and Christians all in the same neighborhoods. How is it that in other cities, these groups live in silos, but in Haifa, they work together, get along together, and live together seamlessly? He responded, “no one holy ever came to Haifa. No Abraham, no Jesus, no Muhammad. Because no one holy ever came here there’s no fighting, we can all just live here in peace.” He responded to her in jest, but I have been thinking about how much this statement can teach us.
Sometimes we are so connected to the holiness of an ancient figure, and not the holiness of those around us. We allow ourselves to pull away from our current reality, only focusing on the past, and it keeps us from seeing the human beings in front of us as individuals we can create holiness with, people we can live with, in peace.
I stood outside in the shade of our tour bus as we finished our time at the Bahai gardens, and I sang a children’s song to Lavi. “Hayom yom Shishi, Hayom yom shishi” (today is Friday, today is Friday). Eiad, our bus driver (who is Arab), waiting next to me, didn’t miss a beat and came in to fill in the next phrase of the song, “machar Shabbat, machar Shabbat” (tomorrow is Shabbat, tomorrow is Shabbat). How beautiful this moment was, a simple children’s song, sung together by an Arab and a Jew, excited about Shabbat.
We must figure out how to take the holy narratives we’ve inherited and transform them to connect to people as people.
The great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai wrote, “Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. “You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head.” “But he’s moving, he’s moving!” I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, “You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.”
Whether we are in Israel or Memphis, let’s find ways that we can keep seeing people for who they are, let's find ways to build holy communities.
