Three “Rabbis” including author Dr. Rabbi Tirzah Firestone and Gabor Mate, the Canadian-based, Hungarian-born medical doctor and now spiritual healer, delved into the Jewish dilemma in a way that is fully inclusive and relevant to all.
Having being brought into this perspective by Gabor Mate’s work especially the feature film “The Wisdom Of Trauma“, and now Rabbi Firestones book “Wounds Into Wisdom“, we get a glimpse into a possible way forward through the fractures of our age when we step away from the zero-sum game of retribution and retributive justice, into the investigation of our trauma.
By replacing the judgmental question “What have you done?” with the investigative “What happened to you?”, and acknowledging the shared nature of human trauma, starting with ourselves, we enter a way of holding our problems that is different to an ideologically-based clash of incompatible ideas.
Two particularly Jewish traits mentioned in the talk are chosen-ness and victimhood, and Rabbi Firestone addresses these in such a way that anyone, even the “non-Jew” (i.e. the majority us) can relate to and find useful.
This line of dialog and conversation is I believe, our way forward at this very dark time when conflicts imagined and real, spiritual and material, near and far, relentlessly dominate our spaces, and refuge seems very remote.
I encourage all to listen to this universal wisdom and see how it might apply not only to questions of Muslim-Jewish or Interfaith relations, but far more broadly as well. If one person can truly countenance their trauma or the trauma of their inherited history, then anyone who is willing can as well.
“Human possibility is almost infinite. So I don’t have to believe in hope: I know the possibilities.”
Gabor Mate https://youtu.be/0w0yspGi7TU?t=2385
Sound and Silence 