There’s an
old story about two famous rabbis arguing over which is the most important
verse in the Torah, the cornerstone text of Jewish life. One of the two asserts that it is Leviticus
19.18: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” The other of the two insists
that it is Genesis 10.1: “These are the generations of the sons of Noah.”
On the surface, it would seem obvious
that the first rabbi had it right. How
can one come up with a more profound principle than “love your neighbour as
yourself?” How can ‘these are the
generations of the sons of Noah” even compete?
But the second rabbi pointed out that “your
neighbour” in Leviticus, in Hebrew re’echa, means “your kinsman.” Love for one’s kinsman is, in itself, not
such a profound concept. That is, until
you see some dysfunctional families…but that’s another talk, for another day!
But “these are the generations of the
sons of Noah” is a key principle, probably the most important in the Torah. Because “these are the generations” appears
after the flood that destroyed all of humanity save Noah, his wife, his three
sons, and their wives. In other words,
all but one family. And “these are the
generations” is the preamble to the how the repopulation of the earth was begun
by this one family. Its message is
clear; all who dwell on earth after the Flood, descend from one family. In other words, all of humanity today is
one family. In other words, when we
read “love your kinsman as yourself,” it is only profound because “these
are the generations” has already established that all of humanity are
your kinsmen.
When we contemplate this, when we
understand that each and every human being alive on the earth is inter-related,
that is a life-changing revelation. Once
we’ve absorbed this, how can we ever see humanity in the same way again? How can we ever react to a total stranger in
distress the same way? How can we ever
think of another man as just another person who happens to inhabit the same
planet, or the same country, or the same city?
In this context, the teachings of
Sathya Sai Baba, celebrated by our hosts here at this event tonight, take on a
new authority. The Torah is an ancient text
that was written down some 3,000 years ago but based on oral traditions that
were already perhaps a thousand years in existence. It is, as I mentioned, the cornerstone text of
the Jewish tradition. But it also forms
the beginning of the scriptures of the Christian faith. And it is incorporated in the sacred
literature of Islam. Our Eastern cousins
do not include the text in their own sacred literature. But their own literature includes narratives
that sometimes parallel those in the Torah.
This book and its content is therefore, important to much of humanity. So the Sathya Sai is walking on pretty solid
ground when he teaches, in the third of his ten principles: Recognise humanity as one family – treat everyone
as a family member – love all. These
are more than just nice words expressing a nice sentiment. This is a principle taught by the most
ancient sacred texts, and not just in one particular faith tradition.
In this context, the words become an
urgent call to action. A call to
re-think the boundaries that we construct, which conspire to divide us. Or at the very least, to learn that the
boundaries are not impermeable.
Because we represent different
cultures. We speak different languages
and cling to different sets of traditions. Those traditions include the ordinary and the
sacred. But they are all important,
because they define who we are. They
provide us with an anchor in the raging tide that is life. These traditions are part of us. They provide the beauty of our lives. Without them, humanity begins to become just
an amorphous blob. Therefore, the second
of the Sathya Sai’s principles stands out:
Respect all religions equally. My religion is my own particular culture’s
response to the important questions of life. Just as your religion is the response of your
particular culture. Together and with
all others, they constitute the incredible tapestry that is the reaching of men
and women for connection with the Holy.
In this sense, perhaps the boundaries
that divide us into different cultures, different language groups, different
religions, are not in and of themselves bad. Perhaps their message is an imperative to
transcend the boundaries in learning about our neighbour’s unique context just
as we would like our neighbour to grasp our context. In that sense, a distillation of the central
themes that are common to the different religious faiths on earth is a profound
gift. Religious faith in itself is a
gift. And the knowledge that the various
faiths are nothing but the response of different cultures, to the same urgings,
is also a gift.
My own religious faith, Judaism, is a
sublime gift to me. It provides the
narrative of the reaching of a certain family of humanity, towards to Sacred. It provides the beauty that gives me the
motivation to soldier on through life. It
provides the chain of doctrines and practices that bring true meaning to my
life, and that of my fellow Jews. It is
for members of that family, the Jews, whether by birth of by adoption. It is not a universal answer for all of
humanity. And yet…it incorporates wisdom
that other religious faiths have apprehended through their own sacred
traditions and the literature that those traditions spawned. In that sense, Judaism is for me what
Christianity is for the Christian, Islam is for the Muslim, Buddhism is for the
Buddhist, Hinduism if for the Hindu, Bahai’ism is for the Bahai. And so forth.
Each of us is privileged to experience the joy that our respective
faiths bring us. And each of us is
privileged to recognise that there are common threads that bind our respective
faiths together. Just as there is a common
thread that binds humanity together. “These
are the generations of Noah” is perhaps, on the surface, just a preamble to a genealogy. But in its essence, it is much more than
that. It is no less than the principle,
which gives me the motivation to recognise each man as my brother, each woman
as my sister. And what could be more
important than that?
No comments:
Post a Comment