Dear friends and members of the Fellowship,
Our Palm Sunday
(April 13) speaker, Rabbi David Kunin, from the Jewish Community Center, spoke
enthusiastically and with many details about the Passover and his Jewish faith
and Judaic history.He spoke of himself (an American who arrived with his family
from a position in Edmonton, Canada last fall) as a Conservative--keeping close
in practice and daily life to the many commandments from the Torah and
tradition-- but socially and philosophically more radical
than many Conservative Jews.
The wealth of
detail and nuances he gave us required a much more careful recorder than I, but
let me share one comment about the great (most important in the year) Jewish
festival of Passover, which developed from
spring agricultural festivals in north Africa (Egypt) and the near East
when this was a time of wheat harvest and new lambs.
Passover (and the Seder meal) starts April 14th this
year.
I was struck by
his teaching that Passover for him was less a celebration of the special
chosen-ness of the people of Israel than a call to action to everyone to be
involved in our societies and actively work to set ourselves, indeed all
people, free >> whether from
actual slavery or our enslavement to
materialism. He spoke for example of the two midwives who are said to have
saved the first borns in the Jewish families (the last plague on the Egyptians
before the Pharaoh agreed to set the Israelites free--although he tried to
renege and sent his army after them only
to have all his troops perish when the sea closed over them). They might even
have been non-Jews and yet they are revered in Jewish tradition for courageously acting.
Next MEETING Sunday May 11, from 1:00
>>>Movie and discussion "Inside Hana's
Suitcase."
How do we teach the next generation about the Holocaust?
(Note: Advance tickets from Peggy required)
Sunday June 8, International House 3:00
Our own Mary
Donovan will lead us in some rousing Unitarian related songs at the beginning
of the meeting.
Speaker:
Tom Eskildsen,
long term Japanese resident, will talk about the history and problems of
Buddhist villagers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts area of overwhelmingly Muslim Bangladesh, and what he
and the organization he helped to found >>JUMMAnet are doing. How can one
person make a difference in the face of religious persecution?
Save July 13 for our annual potluck which will also be
a farewell party for Merry Levering and Mary Donovan.
Peggy Kanada, moderator
