This morning, Rabbi Miriam Lorie joined BBC Radio 2's Pause for thought.
Full script as follows:
After a nail biting few days, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire deal. So many hopes and dreams, and yes, also many fears, are heaped onto this moment.
For millions of people in a land fiercely loved by all, this means a halt to fifteen months of destruction, loss, displacement, sirens, and constant fear. And in the very week that we Jews around the world read in the Torah, of Moses saying to Pharoah
“let my people go”,
we pray that all captives will, as agreed, be set free.
Now, I yearn for rebuilding, healing and a time of peace. It might be a cold peace at first, with deep wounds still open on both sides, but cold peace is a start.
And for us here in the UK, this affects us too. It is a conflict which so many people here feel passionately about. I once heard a bereaved Israeli mother and a bereaved Palestinian father speak together. One of the most powerful things they said (and there were many) was that it doesn’t help them when people export their conflict around the world. So I hope that in this moment in the UK, we are able to import some peace.
Psalm 34 contains the powerful words
“ask for peace, and pursue it”.
The double language is not just poetic, but makes the point that we need to be active in bringing peace about.
And the Talmud has a beautiful section dedicated to peace. We are instructed to love peace, pursue peace, give the greeting of peace and respond with peace. Peace, Shalom, is one of the names of God.
And Shalom is so close to Salam, the Arabic word for peace. Two sibling languages, so close, that they could almost hug.
I don’t know what the future will hold, but yesterday’s news is a step in the right direction. Over here I'll be “asking for peace and trying to pursue it”.
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