2016 Sept Peace Journey Blog by David Less

Blog #9: Continuing to Reach Out With Hope

Tomorrow is the last day here in the Holy Land for Ghassan and me. Anna left yesterday as she had some presentations to make back in The States. We are trying to lay the foundations for the next iteration of the Abrahamic Reunion here in Israel and Palestine and around the world.

Here, the cooperation and communication among all groups of people is incredibly necessary as it is really lacking. Every community, religious and cultural, is separated from the other. Many don’t realize this was not always the case. In the Middle East Christians, Muslims, Jews and Druze used to live in the same villages and cities quite harmoniously. The hospitality that is still so much a part of the Middle Eastern culture had people joyously celebrating the holidays and feasts of the other. So many of the older people that are native here remember a time when this was so.

Was everything idyllic without problems? Of course not but the level of enmity we see today was not present. When the other was your neighbor, your friend, your helper in time of need it was difficult to project on them the negativity so common today. Instead of asking what happened our question must be what can be done going forward?

As always, blame is not the answer. Pointing fingers at the other and proving it is all their fault just creates more excuses for violence and separation. Many groups here used to be “peace” groups but some have given up, some became too bogged down in bureaucracy, and some are just political. By trying to use religion as a way we are making some progress. We are not limited to any one religion or one way of practicing any faith. We are searching for the heart connection, the miracle of collective faith as a means of opening doors and minds.

We in the AR are looking for those people who carry the light of hope rather than blame, who can facilitate real heartfelt encounters and remind people of our commonality rather than our differences. These people do exist and are moved to tears by meeting others who are sharing the same way. Sisters and brothers who, whatever be their outer faith, are willing to not just teach the acceptance of the other but to reach out in hope.

We had a lovely meeting with Abuna (Father) Nael of Nazareth, an ardent believer and supporter of the work we do. He is an Anglican priest who was born here and whose family lives here. He shared his ideas about bringing in the young people before they hear the negativity and pain. He already runs camps and meetings, cultural events and meals, to raise the consciousness of the young and remind the millennials of what is hoped for from their generation. His perfect idiomatic English is representative of his wisdom in the needs of the diverse cultures here. We are lucky he is with us.

And finally we met with Khalil Albaz and Sana Albaz, founding members of the Abrahamic Reunion and he is the Imam for the Bedouin community of Tel Sheva and widely respected in the large Israeli Bedouin community. Sana, with her classic Arab Bedouin profile, is an educator of young children and an ardent believer in religious harmony and peace in Israel that is so necessary. She is a powerful speaker and we all respect and appreciate her clear, critical thinking. There are well over 225,000 Bedouins in the Negev alone and they are well represented by Khalil in both religious and community matters. For me, the passion of these two for the work we are doing is a source of inspiration for us all. They are fierce in their dedication to peace. Khalil and Sana will be with Anna and Ghassan in Germany in November and I hope you get to meet them.

I have been here three weeks and it feels like a much longer stay. I know we must press on as we are beginning to see the fruits of fifteen years of planting seeds. We need help, both financial and volunteer work. We pay our coordinators in Israel and Palestine a ridiculously low salary and all other money goes directly to our work here. We are trying to grow globally and create groups of religious harmony in many countries. For those who have helped, deep gratitude. If you haven’t please give what you can. We are not an esoteric group and just speaking about us to your friends and family is another way to help.

Prayer and profound hope in the face of a very difficult situation are also wonderful ways to help.

Blog #8 from David Less: Beyond Blame & Scorn

Yesterday there was more violence in Israel and Palestine. The story goes on, and the pain and confusion seem to create numbness rather than awareness. A segment of the Palestinian population campaigns against “normalization” of relationships with the government of Israel. It seems from my perspective, that the acceptance of violence and enmity has become the norm. Blame and scorn on all sides have created an artificial reality that is accepted as if that is what life really is. This must be changed. As I am writing this an alarm on someone’s phone is vainly trying to awaken them. The metaphor to life here is too obvious. Religion and religious leaders still have some influence here. The people we are privileged to know and work with here are part of the awakening. In their quiet way they are working with the young future leaders and citizens. Daily I realize that we have been so blessed to know and befriend these local heroes who have grown beyond blame and internal dogma.

Rev. Daniel Aqleh is an evangelical Palestinian minister living in Bethlehem. He is a champion of human rights for all peoples of this area. His passion is infectious and his evangelical coloring is apparent when he speaks of peace for all and an opportunity for connection with God for all. In his master’s thesis he proposed a program of working with young people in small groups populated by other young people of the same faith and culture and after some training sessions in true dialogue bringing the groups together. It seems such an obvious formula but it is not being done as far as we see. We are trying now to get funding for this program and hope to begin starting pilot groups in February and eventually starting groups all over Israel and Palestine. Daniel is the Abrahamic Reunion’s coordinator in Palestine.

We had a lovely lunch and meeting with Father Russ McDougall, the Catholic priest who is the rector of the Tantur Ecumenical center in Jerusalem. This place has hosted the AR for many of our interfaith events and has been a place of healing and comfort for us as we continue with our work here. Fr. Russ’s support, guidance and insight into the ecumenical workings in Jerusalem have been deeply helpful but his light filled heart is the great gift for us all.

Please keep us in your prayers and send good thoughts. The work here can be heavy and we really feel the support of so many people who are not physically with us. We are truly grateful and feel so fortunate to be able to do this work.

Blog #7: A Vision for Peace In The Holy Land

Rabbi Yakov Nagen has a vision for peace in the Holy  Land. He is an orthodox rabbi, a teacher in a yeshiva, a settler, and a man with a true, loving, pure heart. From the outset some of those qualities seem contradictory but that is the nature of life here in Israel and Palestine. Rabbi Nagen is also a dedicated member of the Abrahamic Reunion using his religious foundation to envision peace here. He recognizes the reality of the two cultures but uses the common areas between Arabs and Jews to craft this vision.

Reb Nagen sees a confederation similar to the European Union, where both states would maintain their autonomy, individuality and core identity yet join together when the benefit for both would be helpful. Imagine two circles next to each other with an are of overlap in the center. The overlapping area would be the areas of commonality that would provide both a buffer to each other and an area where relationships could be fostered. What this plan offers is an opportunity to envision something greater than the two states while at the same time offering respect to both cultures. What he is suggesting is really a process not an end. Really a place to begin which seems so lacking in the maelstrom of conflicting ideas, cultures and opinions that makes up the Holy Land. The area that is the natural place to begin is also the place of controversy; religion.

Haddasah Froman, wife of the great prophet of peace Reb Menachem Froman whose presence is so sorely missed, is continuing his great legacy of honoring the great wisdom found in the three religions of Abraham and using that wisdom to promote peace and hope. One of Haddasah’s projects is to teach Israeli soldiers when they begin their military training some truths about Islam and Palestinians. She shares a very human and loving perspective that hopefully penetrates the hearts of these young men and women so their actions in the field will be both compassionate and wise. The list of other projects Hadassah is involved in is extensive and includes teachings for leaders of the government and the military. She also teaches young students in Israel in conjunction with some great Palestinian Muslim leaders to show an example of harmony.

It is psychicly exhausting to be here right now as there is a disconnect between the inner desire of the souls of so many on opposite sides of the issues and the outer expressions and actions. We are trying to simultaneously build bridges and take down walls, a difficult combination.

I see so much material progress in both areas, so much worldly success but inwardly the need to connect with the divine is not being cultivated. The religion of the compassionate heart is longing to be embraced here.

With love and blessings from the Holy Land,

David Less

BLOG #6: “A Global Human Family”

Yesterday we went north from Nazareth and visited a Melkite Christian school in Rame, Israel and its director, Dr. Jiries Mansour, a solid bedrock member of the Abrahamic Reunion. The school, supported by the Israeli government and the Roman Catholic Church, has well over 700 Israeli Arab students: Christian, Muslim and Druze. The school begins with kindergarten and ends with high school. Although quite modern with extensive labs and digital environment it still has the atmosphere of an ancient holy place. The education here is recognized as at the top level, the facility is beautiful and functional, but what I found most heart warming was the theme of compassion that ran as a thread throughout the school.

We sat with Jiries for a few hours discussing the Abrahamic Reunion and what the future role it could play both in the Holy Land and around the world. When asked what he would like to create he responded clearly with an idea that he had obviously envisioning for a while. He wanted to build a school to teach peace with students of all religions of the Holy Land attending and getting to know each other, studying together and learning the truth found in each other’s way of life. He felt so strongly about this idea that for a moment sitting there I saw it in my minds eye as if it had been there for a decade already.

He was excited about the goals of the Abrahamic Reunion and was optimistic about attaining them if we have the support of friends outside of Israel as well as within. The support needed was not just financial but more importantly energetic, creative and visionary.

We left the school just as Jiries was leaving for Romania where he was going to assess a university there as a place for him to receive his second PhD. What moved me so deeply was the realization of what a real family we have become and the thought that one global human family is not a dream but a necessity.

We left Rame and drove to Faradis, a peaceful Arab town which is the home of Ibtisam Mahameed and her dear husband Subkhi. He was obviously in deep physical pain and it turned out he had a kidney stone and was waiting to see us before going to the hospital. The idea of him staying in his painful condition so that he could visit with us for a while instead of immediately going to the hospital was not something that fits with our western model. Love can be expressed in so many ways. We had a beautiful visit not discussing the AR but instead just enjoying the company and love we share with each other. We will go back another day to discuss the projects and how best to continue working together but we needed the visit to honor the love we share as the foundation for our work. Ibtisam is a great community leader, protector of the rights of women and advocate of religious harmony but as we sat together and shared how our families are and the many small details discussed with friends the true importance of what we had built over the last fifteen years was so heartwarmingly apparent.

We didn’t come here over so many years to teach but instead to learn and we have never been disappointed.

“Inviting Angels”: Peace Journey Day 5 Blog

Blog #5

 Yesterday was a Muslim holiday celebrating the sacrifice of Ishmael by his father, Abraham. In our Judeo-Christian culture we speak about the sacrifice of Isaac, not his brother Ishmael. We then find this fundamental disagreement built in from 1500 years ago. Who is right? Perhaps the stories are prophetic tellings of what was to come. If we see these stories symbolically both Isaac and Ishmael are being sacrificed today. Where is the angel who comes at the last moment to save the victims of God’s testing and teaching.

In the midst of the feast day yesterday the atmosphere suddenly changed and we learned of another shooting, another murder, happening close to where we are staying in the home of our dear friend, Ghassan Manasra and his family. In this digital era events are known almost as they are happening. Ghassan was being visited by some Israeli Jewish philosophers and scholars. They all said guns are readily available here and violence follows the instruments of violence.

The sadness of the shooting left a pale over the rest of the day but somehow Abed Manasra and his wife Issra made some incredibly soulful music and we all cried and gave thanks for each other and the incredible human capacity to transform pain.

The angel who will come from God and transform the sacrifice is waiting for an invitation. Abraham invited the angel to come in his hour of need. Our challenge is to find a way to create a real invitation today. We are trying to create that by sacrificing our concepts of right and wrong and crafting the real invitation for peace from our tears and pain. By sharing and listening to the other our soul, our internal angel, is creating peace, a peace that passes understanding.

BLOG #4 – Sept 11th, 2016

Yesterday during a four-hour meeting with Eliyahu Maclean, a founder of the Abrahamic Reunion, and a director of our Holy Land programs, I was struck so deeply by the dangers presented by a desire to help without understanding complex cultural and religious differences. Perhaps the USA is learning this difficult lesson from Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria, to name a few. Of course the desire to help can be most helpful and charitable but it must be accompanied by an unfettered ego not bound by self-interest, even noble self-interest, and a strong desire and ability to listen. This is the primary reason why political processes take so long and are often so ineffective.

What can we do in the Abrahamic Reunion is to reduce the chance that our helping doesn’t produce the opposite effect. What is the over-arching ego trap we must not fall into and how can we practice the level of listening needed for compassionate success? I’ve so often learned here that the spaces, the unspoken places in conversation often contain more valuable information than what is communicated overtly. Pir Vilayat Khan often spoke and wrote about that which transpires through that which appears and this is the rare talent that must be applied here. Many can hear the outer and act on the information but the mystic, the lover, the truly compassionate one can hear the inner voice of the other. Again and again we see the misunderstandings created by not being able to communicate or hear the real message behind the words.

Can we learn to listen in this way? It seems to require great discipline and love. Our personal ego structure has often trained us to be protective and armored. But to truly help we need to not weigh the balance of our needs and goals with that of the other but strive to know what will create real balance and harmony. This is not a mental process alone but an intuitive awareness that can only be developed in one’s feeling faculties. Not a blind sentimentality that so often turns the desire to help into a morass of confusion but the clear heart developed by real meditation, prayer, and constantly questioning our own motivations and impulses.

This is the true peace-making and it requires a training not easily available. It can be taught but it simultaneously must be caught. We are beginning to see an additional role for the Abrahamic Reunion beyond the need to overcome separation. Because of our combined role as facilitator of peace through the means of religion we can also create venues where the potential peace bringers of the future can learn to both listen and learn how to help in ways that bring about lasting healing rather than chaos.

This level of peace bringer has existed in human history when the needs of humanity demanded. Certainly today, when we see chaotic responses to our environmental and societal problems, we must begin to teach this kind of helpfulness that is capable of actually bringing peace.

BLOG #3 – Sept 10th, 2016

Yesterday we spent hours with a very wise man, a peacemaker, in a village in northern Israel. We spoke at length about the need in all of humanity for the feeling of peace and security. This conversation helped me to understand the emphasis Jewish Israelis place on security. Imagine a 4000 year quest for this feeling. Imagine how it is passed on in the DNA of many generations. How the need to constantly look over our shoulder becomes so much a part of consciousness that its presence becomes invisible.

The seeking of peace is not a peaceful process. Although living in a house is much more comfortable and secure than living in the open, the building of a house is quite stressful.

In this place where so many civilizations have come and gone, where so many prophets have walked, the building of a house of peace is stressful. There are traditions that are rooted so far in the past no one remembers the origin or the cause and yet these traditions mold the actions and reactions of the present. And in the present, in our desire for peace we forget the peaceful times, the decades and even centuries, when Muslims and Jews lived as a family in peace. Were there problems? Of course, there are always problems. These problems become the obstacles for building the house and the overcoming of these problems ultimately creates a beautiful house of peace.

I asked some of the wise ones here this question: If peace came today in Israel and Palestine would Israeli Arabs move to Palestine? Would Palestinians really come back to Israel? The answer to both questions was no. there would be no vast migrations or shifts, no great outer change at all  I realized if there would be no geographic change why the enmity and fear that is so present today. Almost everyone here is imagining what peace would be like in their mind based on the traumas of the past. The peace people are imagining is a fantasy, a caricature of peace. The real peace that must come will be filled with problems and difficulties but it will ultimately prevail. It must be based on love and the real desire to recognize that we are connected to the other and we can choose to have a peaceful connection with problems or an attempt to maintain a disconnect with much greater and more destructive problems.

The difficulties here are not unique to the Holy Land although everyone wants to believe that. Stripped of cultural conditioning the problems here are universal. That being said, if we can create peace here it will rekindle hope in so many other places.

I really don’t know why humans have a dark side but we are being invited to evolve. After seven decades of self reflection I really don’t know why I have my sometimes long moments of forgetting my source which is love. The act of procreation is even called “making love”. Can humanity make love? I hope so.

With love and blessings from the Holy Land,

David Less

Read David’s Previous 2016 September Peace Journey Blogs

BLOG #2 – Sept 9th, 2016

Yesterday we spent the whole day in the northern part of Palestine meeting with two of the coordinators of the Abrahamic Reunion. The feeling in Palestine is both very different than Israel but also very similar. As we drove through I was reminded once again of the beauty of both of these powerful lands and the depth of history, ancient and modern to be felt in the Holy Land. My mind says of course there is this history but feeling it in my cells and heart is a very different experience.

 

I was thinking this Palestine is the land of Goliath and the Palestinians, (the Philistines), have been getting bad press ever since David hit his mark. Over and over, every Palestinian I spoke to urged me quite strongly to tell the world, “we are not terrorists, we are not murderers. Don’t judge six million people based on the actions of a few”. I was surprised at the consistency of one other message from so many.”our land is under occupation and it is amazing there is not more frustration”. From the Israeli point of view any act of violence is not acceptable and certainly I understand and agree with this point of view also. So the separation continues. How can there be peace when the model is separation. Jewish Israelis are not allowed to go into Palestine. Palestinians have great difficulty entering Israel. Its not just the physical wall that separates it’s the psychological one that is even more powerful.

 

I am living in a house in Israel now with a family that has been stabbed, shot at, their dwelling destroyed and still live in fear that this could be repeated at any moment and the reality is that it could happen. As I write this I can imagine the reader asking who did the violence so we can understand or even subconsciously blame. That thinking creates more confusion and hurt. The whole situation is to blame. There must be a real process begun not a political charade on all sides. With all due respect I’m not sure the politicians want peace. The peacemakers must make peace in themselves and then one person at a time. The peacemaker is confronting deep and confused energy and she or he must learn the art of inner peace as well as the conceptual outer so the process can begin. Finding the chink in the armor of confrontation and separateness. This is our work.

 

With love and blessings from the Holy Land,

David Less

 

BLOG #1 – Sept 8th, 2016

Yesterday we had the privilege to visit with the elder statesman of the peace movement in Israel. Elias Jabbour is a seventh generation practitioner of “sulha”,the traditional peacemaking formula of the middle east. He is in his eighties and has been a friend and advisor for the last sixteen years. Elias is a Melkite Christian Arab with a deep love for humanity and a keen insight into the problems of the day in Israel and Palestine. He does not blame or accuse, does not speak negatively or allow any personal suffering to color his views.

 

As we ate a delicious lunch prepared by his elegant wife Hayam, he began to expound on the need of the day. As I write this it sounds so banal but the experience of hearing his words was both deeply moving and a reminder as to the purpose of our work. He said the obvious in a manner that caused it to go deeper than the mind. What is lacking in Israel and the world is love. Our work is primarily creating arenas where the love inherent in every human being can be rekindled and emerge with its natural power. Love, he said, is more powerful than the atomic bomb. It is the most powerful and valuable of our natural resources.

 

Then he spoke on the two fundamental principles of a peacemaker. Firstly, a peacemaker must never get angry. Anger clouds the natural wisdom and compassion in a human being. In anger we lose the clear inspiration that is the key to making peace. Secondly, the peacemaker must never give up.  He shared the story of a village feud that took thirty years to be settled and it was settled due to the perseverance of the peacemaker. We must never give up hope.

 

The lessons seem so simple and yet how many days do we live where nothing angers us? Can we, like Elias, control our thoughts and speech to remove negativity in the midst of a situation that so entices the negative? Can we truly not give up but plod ahead through the mud of doubt, fear, exhaustion and trauma around us and find the primal ground of inner and outer peace and share that with our fellow human family? These are the challenges we must confront and overcome. This is not an easy discipline. Peace is precious and cannot come without the discipline and the desire to make it a reality.

 

Today the peacemaker must be both an individual and part of a greater whole. We need each other to create the vision and model of a peaceful society. Our work is often lonely when we forget this but so healing when we are part of a team making peace. I am grateful for the support, love and prayers I feel from so many around the world at this time. I’m deeply thankful for this and feel I represent so many in my journey here.

 

With love and blessings from the Holy Land,

 

David Less