Sabbath Satori

Stefan and John.
author: Lewis Randa, Life Experience School.

by Stefan Schindler

“Do we want to preserve the traditions – the history, prayers, rituals, and faith – which make Judaism distinctive, or do we want to become just a bunch of ethicists?” An ethicist advocates virtue, and the rabbi’s question was rhetorical. Now stay with me here; this is not complex.

Sabbath is the Hebrew holy day, beginning on Friday evening and extending through Saturday. Satori is a Japanese Buddhist word for enlightenment. One Saturday morning long ago, when I was still a child and attending a religious instruction class at our local temple, I had a mini-enlightenment.

I was only 12, and I found the Sabbath morning class inspirational. It was intellectually stimulating in a way that school was not. That morning, the rabbi’s question struck a chord. The name of that chord is irony. A Jewish education is ironic because, at its best, it’s Socratic: it teaches one to doubt and inquire. The same is true of Buddhism.

I was too shy to voice my response to the rabbi’s challenge; besides, he was on a roll. But I have always remembered that moment. Adding a retrospective flavor, here’s what I thought:

Although my mother was a Christian, she converted to Judaism to please my father. During the process of her conversion, my mother asked the rabbi if there was a conflict in being both Christian and Jewish. She wanted to convert, but she also wanted to keep her Christian values.

The rabbi responded that ethics is the heart of the Torah; therefore, at the deepest, most important level, there is no conflict. He told the story of the Hebrew sage who was asked to summarize the Torah, standing on one leg. So the sage stood on one leg and replied very simply: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

And so, dear rabbi, on this glorious Sabbath morning for which I do give thanks, kindly allow me to say: I would much rather have a world of ethicists, committed to peace and the Golden Rule, than a world of religious rivalry and strife. Religious distinctiveness has its beauty, but it also contributes, tragically, to what Hegel calls “the slaughter-bench of history.”

I would, therefore, gladly abandon all religious difference in favor of – and here comes irony again – a postreligious world committed to what the Dalai Lama calls “a common religion of kindness.”

After all, isn’t what all religions have in common more important than how they differ?

And at the heart of all religions, is there not a common urge, prayer, and path to the Peaceable Kingdom on earth?

 

The Golden Rule: Eleven World Religions (and New Commentary)

Memorial engraving of the first ‘World Day of Prayer for Peace’ in Assisi (1986), with Pope John Paul II hosting religious leaders from around the world. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: User:Chris Light

By Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D

  “If you seek justice, choose for others what you would choose for yourself.” (Baha’i)

 “One should seek for others the happiness one derives for one self.”  (Buddhism)

 “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” (Christianity)

 “What you do not want done to yourself, do not unto others.”  (Confucianism)

 “Do naught to others which if done to thee would cause pain.”  (Hinduism) 

“No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Islam)

  “We should . . . refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear   undesirable to us if inflicted upon ourselves.”   (Jainism)

“What is hurtful to yourself, do not do to our fellow man.” (Judaism)

 “As thou deemest thyself, so deem others.” (Sikkhism)

  “To those who are good to me, I am also good; and to those who are not good to me, I am also good.  And thus all get to be good.”  (Taoism)

   “Do as you would be done by.”  (Zoroastrianism)

It is indeed ironic, tragic in fact, that the Golden Rule is considered an essential truth of world religions, and yet is abandoned by religions in favor of self-serving social and political goals keeping people apart, separate, and disconnected. As has been said by wise voices: “There is no other.”

Apparently, the mere presence of alternative beliefs confronts people and religions with an experienced threat to their beliefs, diminishing the value of their beliefs, because there is an alternative.

“How can you say this?” they claim, “when I know fervently in my heart and mind, and, because of everything I have been told, my view is the only right view. ”

“Now I must try to inform you of your errors, even if I must use force and violence.  It is for your sake I do this, so you may know the truths I know and believe. My God is more powerful than your god.”

There is no easy answer to this paradoxical behavior, rooted as it is in complex historical, cultural, political, and economic reasons. Perhaps, a first step is for an individual to say:

“Peace begins with me! I will practice non-violence, and offer healing to all in need. I will constantly ask forgiveness for the acts I committed bringing sorrow and grief to others.”

Humility is required!  There is healing in apology. Individuals, groups, and nations can forgive, and can apologize, and with these acts can find “Truth” in the Golden Rule, and a new sense of identity and purpose in these acts.

As Vaclav Havel noted: “Perhaps it was always there, and our selfishness prevented us from seeing it and knowing it.”

Special appreciation to an old friend, Stephen Blessman, for his knowledge of the Golden Rule in world religions.

October, 2017