we come here to say good-bye and thank you for the many years you dedicated your life to world peace and to the reconciliation of enmity between people and resolution of misunderstandings and bitterness.
Pirkei Avos 4:16
Rabbi Yaakov would say: This world is comparable to the antechamber before the World to Come. Prepare yourself in the antechamber, so that you may enter the banquet hall. http://www.chabad.org/library/article.as... Chabad.org
from: Crossing the Threshold of Hope by His Holiness John Paul II Alfred A Knopf, Canada 1994 pp95-97, 100
The words from the Declaration Nostra Aetate represent a turning point. The Council says: "The Church of Christ, in fact, recognizes that according to the divine mystery of salvation the origins of the Church's faith and election are already found in the Patriarchs, Moses, and the Pophets... the Church, then, can neither forget that it received he revelation of the Old Testament through the people whom God, in his ineffable mercy, made the Ancient Covenant, nor can the Church forget that it draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots of the Gentiles... Therefore, since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is so great, this Sacred Council recommends and promotes a mutual understanding and respect, which can be obtained above all through biblical study and fraternal discussion" (Nostra Aetate 4)
The words of the Council's Declaration reflect the experience of many people, both Jews and Christians. They reflect my personal experience as well, from the very first years of my life in my hometown. I remember, above all, the Wadowice elementary school, where at least a fourth of the pupils in my class were Jewish. I should mention my friendship at the school with one of them, Jerzy Kluger-a friendship that has lasted from my school days to the present. I can vividly remember the Jews who gathered every Saturdy at the synagogue behind our school. Both religious groups, Catholics and Jews, were united. I presume by the awareness that they prayed to the same God. Despite the different languages, prayers in the church and in the synagogue were based to a considerable degree on the same texts.
Then came the Second World War, with its concentration camps and systematic extermination. First and foremost, the sons and daughters of the Jewish nation were condemned for no other reason than that they were Jewish. Even if only indirectly, whoever lived in Poland at that time came in contact with this reality.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Mary C. Legg's The Torah topic, please visit the Discussions page.