| Subject: Love Your Neighbour |
Author:
Giovanna
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Date Posted: 08:33:18 12/22/02 Sun
In reply to:
Giovanna
's message, "Interfaith Encounter Association Report" on 23:06:48 11/23/02 Sat
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself!
*******************************
Nearly 100 people attended the Love Your Neighbor as Yourself retreat,
organized by the Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA) and funded by the
United States Institute of Peace (USIP), in the Palm Beach Hotel in Acre
on Wednesday and Thursday, 18-19 December 2002. They were Jews, Muslims,
Christians and Druze, men and women, younger and older, religious and
non-religious, from all walks of life. For two days they were intensively
engaged in deep and sincere conversations with each other, learned about
each others beliefs and found their common humanity. Finally they decided
to establish an on-going dialogue group in the West Galilee area. The
retreat was also a part of an academic research by Dr. Ben Mollov of Bar
Ilan University, a research that studies the effectiveness of interfaith
encounter in opening the hearts towards each other.
The opening session was led by Sheikh Muhammad Kiwan, Chair of IEAs board
and Imam of Majd El Krum. Sheikh Kiwan quoted, as a leading theme, the
Arab parable about how every stick alone can be easily broken but when
many sticks are together it is impossible to break them. After that he
invited the Chief Rabbi of Acre, Rabbi Yosef Yashar, who expressed his
excitement about this conference that represents the hope to restore the
inter-religious harmony that prevailed in Acre, build it on solid
foundations and further develop it. Rabbi Yashar called for follow up
activities and for taking personal responsibility on the bringing of real
peace and for doing so through our religions and cultures. Then Sheikh
Mowafaq Tarif, the Spiritual Leader of the Druze Community in Israel,
stated that religious leaders have the responsibility to act in the
society in order to build true peace and thanked for the opportunity this
conference gave him to do so himself and help fulfill Isaiahs prophecy
that a nation will no longer fight another nation. Fr. Geries Qasis,
Leader of the Greek-Orthodox community in Jdeide, quoted Jesus who said
that only those who do good DIDS will enter the Heavenly Kingdom. In the
story about the good Samaritan, the one who is close to God is the poor,
less educated Samaritan who treated the wounded person and not the honored
well-versed priest. Mr. Muhammad Kinaan, Head of Council of Majd El Krum,
underlined the importance of the message of human dignity, which is common
to all religions, to the building of the society, and called upon the
media to actively take positive role in this process. The representative
of the Mayor of Acre, Mr. Elias Hadad, conveyed the apologies of the
Mayor, who could not attend as he was abroad, welcomed the conference in
his name and said that this conference, as well as the IEA in general, are
like the moon who lights the darkness. Concluded the greetings part
Sr. Carmela Faruggia, Vice-Chair of IEAs board who wished us all that in
the end of the retreat we will truly understand what Love Your Neighbor as
Yourself really means and fully realize it.
After this session, as after every presentation, participants divided into
small groups in which they introduced themselves through Appreciative
Inquiry interviews and discussed the issues that came up in the words of
greeting and the Jewish presentation. The first day concluded with a
social evening that was started by the Ud of Jamal and continued till
midnight with songs and tunes from the different traditions.
The second day started with Fr. Dr. George Khoury, Member of IEAs board
and President of the Greek-Catholic Religious Court, who presented the
Christian perspective. Fr. Khoury stressed that the love to the other is
the basis of the Christian faith and that only through the love of the
other we can love God. He further emphasized that this is true for ANY
other Christian or not, and that many examples can be found in the New
Testament for these ideas. As a preparation for the following small groups
discussion he explained the details of the Good Samaritan story.
After the discussion and break we were blessed by a non-verbal
contribution made by Ilan who played in his harmonica in a moving way a
tune to open our hearts. Afterward, Sheikh Kiwan said that all the words
of Rabbi Yashar, Fr. Qasis and Fr. Khoury are identical in
Islam. Therefore, he put the focus in his presentation on the concept of
Love. In Hebrew the addition of only one line changes the word enemy into
the word lover. This is an illustration to how easy it is to develop love
WHEN we meet: first we get to know each other, second we become closer,
third we develop love between us and finally we become much stronger. He
also emphasized that this conference is both developing love and is a
result of love of people who worked to organize it and of people who made
the effort to come and participate.
The final presentation was given by the Druze Sheikh Jamil Hatib of Beit
Jan who maintained that the different human faces are a manifestation of
the greatness of God and that of all the beautiful things in the world the
most beautiful are the results of interaction and encounter between
humans.
In the concluding session many participants expressed their appreciation
to the organization and the approach and stressed the value of the human
encounter, how much they cherished the encounters they had during this
retreat, and their desire to continue and meet and to encourage others to
do the same.
An immediate outcome of this retreat was the creation of a West Galilee
Branch of the IEA. Its next meeting will take place on 30 January 2003
between 15:00-18:30, in A-Sallam School in Majd El Krum.
Finally, we want to take again this opportunity and wish our Christian
friends Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Yours,
Yehuda
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Interfaith Encounter Association
P.O.Box 3814, Jerusalem 91037, Israel
Phone: +972-2-6510520
Fax: +972-2-6510557
Website: www.interfaith-encounter.org
Yehuda Stolov, Director
E-mail: msyuda@mscc.huji.ac.il
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