Witnesses of Mercy for Peace and Reconciliation

24 hank you very much Your Excellency Faisal Bin Muaammar. I would like to open with a reflection (in keeping with the opening words we heard from HH Pope Francis this morning and the comments made now by Profes- sor Abu-Nimer) regarding the meaning of the word we translate into English as “mercy”. The common use of the word tends to reflect a men- tality which I think is more Greek than Semitic. The word misericordia essentially means pity from the heart and pity is not a relationship of mutual respect, but to some extent reflects, if you like, a power imbalance. The Hebrew word, the Arabic word, and indeed the Aramaic word, all come from the root rachem , rahama . Whether it be rachma in Arabic, or rachamim – the plural of the word in Hebrew, or rachmana in Aramaic – they all derive from the root word meaning “womb”, and in the womb life is nurtured. The concept is not just one of manifesting maternal compassion, but of nurturing, the giving of life’s positive energy. Thus what we translate inadequately in the English language and other Western languages as “mercy”, has its root in this Semitic idea. And perhaps there are similar parallels in other religious cultures and languages, reflecting the notion that there is a far more powerful force and imperative in life than simply that of pity of the heart. In the Hebrew Bible there are two main names for God which are seen as reflecting His two essential divine attributes. The one name is viewed as denoting God’s transcendence, and that name is Elohim – which has its obvious parallels within the other Semitic languages. God as Creator of the Universe is the Source of its abso- lute natural laws which we disregard at our peril. In this regard, He is the transcendent Judge of All and thus the name Elohim is understood as denoting the attribute of divine justice. But in addition to God being transcend- ent, the Semitic religious mind, which again may be paralleled elsewhere in the world, brilliantly understood the divine power of mercy and its immanence in our uni- verse. God is to be found in our lives; and the word that is used to describe this immanent presence of the divine in our lives is the Tetragrammaton, the name made up of the four letters Y, H, W, H. According to Jewish tra- dition this name was only pronounced in the Temple on the holiest day of the year, and since the Temple was destroyed two thousand years ago, observant Jews do not try to pronounce the name and instead use the word Adonai , which actually means “my Lord”. However while the literal meaning of the Tetragram- maton has to do with existence itself, it is understood in Jewish tradition as reflecting the divine attribute of mercy. It reflects the nurturing life force, the divine pres- ence in our lives. God is the creator of the universe, its physical and moral laws – its commandments – and there are inevita- ble consequences to their disregard, as the Bible describes so graphically. Indeed because, as stated in Ecclesiastes: “There is not a man on earth who does only good and does not sin,” we would all be condemned by our fail- ures. But Judaism teaches that the divine attribute of mercy is greater and overwhelms the divine attribute of justice, reflecting God’s bounteous love and grace. There’s another beautiful word in the Hebrew lan- guage, chesed , which can’t be translated adequately into English. Arguably the best meaning we can render in Eng- lish is “gratuitous love”. Overwhelmingly, it is referred to in the Hebrew Bible together with mercy – chesed verahamim – reflecting God’s unlimited grace that is the expression of His mercy that cleanses us from our sins when our contrition is sincere. A related wonderful concept in Judaism, derived from the Hebrew Bible, is that of teshuvah , inadequately trans- lated as “repentance”. However it comes from the Hebrew root, shuv , meaning to return. The idea is founded on the perception of the human person as created inherently goodly and godly and that fundamentally, deep down, “The ways of peace expounded in the Talmud are the ways of mercy, compassion and forgiveness” Chief Rabbi David Rosen T THE FOUNDAT IONS OF MERCY