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The World Will be Built through Kindness | Intelligence that is Love

The Western Wall, called Wailing Wall, in Jerusalem stands nearly 1000 feet from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, yet a tragic gulf separates the two holy places. The Lithuanian Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas thought that this separation could be bridged only through a constant and stubborn will to rediscover the common roots.

This is what happened in May 2005 during the four-day Jewish-Christian Symposium that the Focolare convened in Castelgandolfo, Italy. “We felt the shekinah (presence of God) among us,” said one Israeli who attended, Aliza Ring.

Fifty Jews and sixty Christians came from around the world—Israel, the United States, Argentina, Mexico and several European countries. Humbly ready to listen and to learn, each participant revealed a similar passion for dialogue. Many of the Jewish presenters began with “Shalom,” while their Christian counterparts echoed them with “Peace be with you.” Their greetings conveyed a profound relationship stemming from their common roots. Everyone recalled John Paul II’s regard for the Jewish people when, during his historic visit to the synagogue of Rome on April 13, 1986, he addressed them as “elder brothers and sisters.” At Castelgandolfo, Argentinean Rabbi Abraham Skorka noted, “We are your elder brothers but you Christians are not our ‘younger brothers.’ We are all simply brothers and sisters.”

The Chosen People

“In meeting together with you, we recognize that we are meeting with an Israel that is alive, that is on its stupendous, joyful and painful journey. The Israel of the past is certainly a precious witness that ‘the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable’ (Rm 11:29) and we hope that you feel you are meeting with the community of Jesus that has its own history going back with faithfulness to its roots.” With these words Professor Giuseppe M. Zanghi, editor of the journal “Nuova Umanita” (New Humanity) and co-director with Natalia Dallapiccola of the Focolare Center for Interreligious Dialogue, opened the symposium. During casual encounters in the corridors and in the garden outside, or during meals together, the program offered moments of authentic dialogue in a style characteristic of all Focolare symposia. The road to successful dialogue, in fact, is to “listen to one another with intelligence that is love,” Zanghi explained.

Chiara Lubich, who was not able to attend in person, sent a heartfelt message. “What can be more authentic in our symposium than to live with that spirit expressed in the First Testament and asked by Jesus Christ as the first commandment to Christians: love of God and love of neighbor? I hope that you will not only be able to deepen, but also to experience and build this reality.” She then extended her greetings to all participants and especially “to Rabbi Bemporad who had the initial idea for this Symposium; to Rabbi Rosen with whom we have a long-standing rapport; to our dear friend Tullia Zevi.” She also sent special greetings to the many representatives from Argentina “with whom I already experienced in 1998 what it means to not only abolish hate, but to experience love, mutual love, being the one people of God together.”

The Focolare founder also had videotaped a talk, “Union with God,” for the symposium. In her introduction to the video, Natalia Dallapiccola discussed love and suffering in Christian thought. “Love of God and neighbor,” she said, “cannot happen without meeting and overcoming suffering ... We Christians encounter Jesus crucified and forsaken, the perfect model of suffering accepted and loved out of love of God and neighbor.”

Zanghi followed the video with his discussion, “God as Love in the Thought of Chiara Lubich.” Commenting on his talk, Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz, executive director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., said: “Having personally met Chiara Lubich, I realized how she is on a different level, and how she wants to bring us there. When faced with the horrors of the war, she had to choose between the way of hatred and the way of love. She chose the way of love, and we can all see what she has accomplished. What a blessing to be a part of such an extraordinary gathering that stimulated our minds and thoughts.”

In other sessions, Jewish and Christian scholars addressed related issues (see box) in dual presentations. Whether their topics were spiritual or theological, sociological or exegetical, each speaker displayed openness in listening and readiness to welcome the other as a gift.

Mutual Understanding

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, reviewed the “amazing” developments in recent years in Jewish-Christian dialogue. He recalled the contributions of many figures, including John XXIII, Cardinal Augustin Bea, Rome’s Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff, as well as the conciliatory gestures of John Paul II. He outlined the three challenges facing those engaged in Jewish-Christian dialogue: “We must do everything possible to get to know one another, to deepen theological research in each other’s faith and to cooperate in efforts to alleviate poverty and uphold the values of life and the family.” In a moving moment of his address, the cardinal explained how, little by little, he had come to understand the importance of the “Land” for Jews as an essential element of their identity.

Notwithstanding the diversity of opinions, no one felt the need to speak about gaps to be filled or prejudices to be erased. During the symposium gaps and prejudices vanished, replaced by the lived experience of mutual love. Aurora University Professor Ronald Ramer, one of two Jewish academics and four rabbis who represented the U.S., told Chicago’s The Beacon News: “What I came away with was the awareness of how easy it was for participants to ‘empty themselves’ of the artificial boundaries that classify and divide us; how natural and easy it was to affirm the common links that serve as the source of our collective responsibility for one another.”

At the Vatican

The meeting reached its apex in St. Peter’s Square during a general audience with Benedict XVI, who greeted the participants personally. When speaking with him, Rabbi Ehrenkranz told him they were from the Focolare and were bringing him Chiara Lubich’s greetings, at which the Pope responded, “Send her my regards.” Expressing his deep gratitude for their presence the Pope entrusted himself and his ministry to their prayers. In turn, the Jewish representatives appreciated his attentive relationship with his “elder brothers.”

Right afterwards, the visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome marked a strong moment. In the temple Rabbi Abraham Skorka from Buenos Aires led a brief and incisive prayer in Hebrew, invoking God’s blessing on the Pope, as they had promised him in Saint Peter’s, and on the Focolare Movement. “The meeting with him,” the Jewish representatives wrote, “who humbly got up and came to greet us one by one while we, Jews and Christians, were singing ‘Shalom,’ and the prayerful moment we spent at the Synagogue, marked us with fire—a fire that will enlighten our actions and increase our ability to love.”

“The spirit of love and of brotherhood which reigns among us,” said Brussels’ Chief Rabbi Albert Guigui, “has transcended the oceans which separate us, the language barrier which divides us, the prejudices that exist in us, and has given way to friendship and brotherhood.”