All Rise

On the eve of the inauguration of a disastrous president of the divided states, my mother took me to see a 7th-Day Adventist gospel choir at a South American synagogue in Miami. The largely African-American choir and their crack band blew the roof off the joint. In Hebrew.

As they clapped and swayed and soared on stage, the synagogue’s ecstatic cantor led the prayers: running up-and-down the aisles, belting out a sizzling smorgasbord of Judeao-Christian greatest hits, prayer shawl flying. This hyperventilating rabbi (a dead-ringer for a Latino Bernie Sanders) was over the moon. I think I can speak for the sky-high congregation when I say: we sing the same song. Music rocks the soul. Spirits unite, become one.

It was healing, on that terrible day, my agnosticism eclipsed.

The rabbi grabbed the mic and sermonized about the joy of bringing people of different religions and cultures together and the vital importance of building bridges to peace, and I was digging it, feeling all the feels, until – he brought up Israel and pledged the congregation’s eternal support. I’m not sure it extended to governmental policies towards the Palestinian people, or not, but, all too often it does. I thought of my Palestinian friends, and my heart cried. I have Israeli friends, too.

Trauma breeds trauma, on both sides of every wall. Division between people starts early, triggered by the legacy of learned hatred, violence and fear, while the power of love is stomped on or ignored. Like many of us, I grew up being told only one side of a story. That is why I have always sought out and seek the other, why I want to hear your story, your song, why I want to tell you mine.

What’s mine is yours, and yours is mine.

Last weekend’s anti-human, Muslim ban in the USA and the ensuing massacre of six Muslim men by a white-nationalist in Quebec city underlines that every effort of this toxic American administration to divide and conquer is a monumental call to bring us together to overcome it. The history of the refugee and the fascist, the song of the slave and the master, the unyielding struggle for love, peace and healing– are the stories of our world.

All rise.

Amazing Grace was written by John Newton (1725–1807), a white slave-trader-turned-clergyman. In it, he wrote that no matter the sins committed, it is possible to be forgiven and redeemed. Read more of the fascinating story of a song, here. 

All Rise is on Huffington Post, right here.

Main page featured photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo of the Chicago Tribune.

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