In this 21st century we are immersed in a whirlwind of advances not only scientific and technological, but also historical, social, cultural and religious, where the Hebrew population that constitutes part of the modern world, has been reconfigured in terms of its past experiences, present and future in relation to their origin as Jews, from a more cosmopolitan perspective.
Thus, the people of Israel in the diaspora have been reshaping themselves towards a new, more open citizenship that has become in some countries a model of tolerance, empathy and cooperation, being the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and in turn facing anti-Semitism old and new. Consequently, today we can recognize ourselves as intercultural beyond time, place and tradition, both externally and internally of Judaism itself in a continuous evolution of our idiosyncrasy and faith.
In this way, it is essential to preserve a feeling of unity with our culture as the foundation of the roots of the tree of life, by belonging to and inheriting an idiosyncrasy governed by the Mosaic Law that has managed to survive a series of persecutions, pogroms and autos de faith for centuries.
All Jews around the planet have to find ourselves more united than ever in this new conjuncture of development and expansion of being there in the world. Because today dehumanization prevails and the lack of cooperative empathy that should be kept alien to our hearts, since as Semites we are representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and at the same time of a single faith that is manifested either as an expression of respect towards Hashem if you are religious or in trust before the Essence of the Cosmos as Breath and Origin of the Universe if you are a secular Jew, although both positions are the representation of the very Unity of everything that exists.
Therefore, being descendants of an ancestral heritage that was embodied in the Torah as testimony and practice of the origins of this life in its total splendor and greatness 5782 years ago, today we are the reflection of the constant human transformation of everything they lived. What is expressed together with a Talmudic hermeneutic that throughout the centuries has discussed and argued in a critical, reflective and deliberative way, the birth of its narratives, parables and legends from an analysis and study made by the Hebrew wises of Babylon and Eretz Israel, which leads us in this time of change to rethink many questions about what it means to believe or not in G-d.
In view of the above, it is very gratifying for me on this trip to Germany to have known and shared in the Kehilá in Dresden the testimony and teachings of empathy, tolerance, solidarity, compassion and cooperation promoted by Rabbi Akiva Weingarten. And in particular to have the opportunity to participate in a Shabbat in community with all my brothers and sisters of so many different denominations where they opened the doors to my ancestral culture by offering me all the affection and cordiality that should characterize a Jewish congregation anywhere in the world.
Because it is from the modern rabbinical proposal of Weingarten that it is possible to assume with compassion and dialogical intelligence, the disconnection and abandonment in which many Jews called “deserters” find themselves, who have detached themselves from the practices of traditional Judaism only for accepting that times can change, although not our historical identity.
My respects and regards to Rabbi Akiva Weingarten for the great work of rethinking Judaism beyond the orthodox from a cordial reason and solidarity responsibility with being a Jew in the diaspora and where the verb becomes flesh in front of all those brothers and sisters who call at their door, when other portals of Judaism have been closed to them and where they are sheltered, fed and consoled in the universal love that must prevail over humanity as the origin of the same Universe.
In that way, being Rabbi Akiva is the expression of the love of G-d that is housed in our spirit through tolerance and respect that we all must have towards our neighbor, regardless of who he is, as stipulated in the Torah in Leviticus 19:18 because you must love your neighbor as yourself.
So it is not only preaching but action that would transform our Nation…
Until next Shabbat. Toda Raba.
(Special for Diariojudio.com).
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