Strong and soothing words of Obama and of Rabbi Tarfon
Posted on Oct 24th by William in Uncategorized
In the wake of BNP leader Nick Griffin’s appearance on mainstream TV and with the criticisms of hardcore Zionists ringing in my ears I’m finally reading Barack Obama’s 1994 book Dreams of my father. It’s powerful, beautifully written and more relevant than I realised:
“The underlying struggle…between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that bind us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty towards those not like us – is the struggle set forth, on a miniature scale, in this book.”
Count me in with the former. The Americans may have picked the right leader of the free world.
Meanwhile Anna mails me Rabbi Tarfon’s words in the Mishnah: “You are not obliged to complete the task, but neither are you free to give it up”. To learn a bit more about the best in Judaic spiritual tradition might be a wonderful side-effect of getting into this concern about the mistreatment of farmers in the West Bank.
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