Here's the opening:
We are entering
the Jewish High Holidays. A period of reflection, of repentance, of returning
to God. In Hebrew we call it 'teshuvah'.
Built in to the
Jewish religious calendar is the assumption that every year we will lose our
spiritual way and will need to find a way back to all that is Sacred.
That period of 'returning' begins with the Jewish New Year and culminates with
Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) ten days later. It is not only a time of
individual repentance, it is a time of Jewish communal contrition.
But what happens
when we enter the New Year of 5776 (September 13th) and realise that the Jewish Sacred is itself lost and wandering?
In past centuries and millennia it was easy to define the Jewish
Sacred.
God was sacred. So much so, that even his name could not be
spoken or written.
God's creation, and in particular human life, was sacred. We all
held within us the spark of the Divine.
The Holy of
Holies, the inner sanctuary
of the Tabernacle where God dwelt during the Children of Israel's forty
years in the desert, was sacred.
The inner sanctuary of the First Temple where the tablets of stone
containing the Ten Commandments were kept, was sacred.
The Torah, with its commandments for building and maintaining a
God centred, just society in the Land of Israel, was sacred.
The rabbinic commentaries that helped us to interpret the Law and
apply it in places far away from The Land of Israel, were sacred.
As Jews dispersed, the sacredness of Time replaced the sacredness
of Land as we made holy the Sabbath and the annual cycle of festivals, liturgy
and prayer.
Righteous acts were sacred as we fulfilled the commandments to
protect the weakest and most vulnerable among us.
But what is Sacred for Jews today? And is it worthy of holiness?
Confronting the Modern Jewish Sacred
I've just returned from two weeks travelling around Israel and
the West Bank with my family. We met
with Jewish Israelis as well as Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim.
As we travelled, listened and talked, the Modern Jewish Sacred
revealed itself to us....
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