Repairer of the Breach?

This week I am still thinking about the House of Abraham and the almost impossible breach of these traditions as physically manifest in the conflict in Jerusalem.  I thought it was fitting that the scripture in the Lectionary picked up where my sister left off last week, in Isaiah 58.

Isaiah 58: 9f

If you remove the yoke from among you,

the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

then your light shall rise in the darkness

and your gloom be like the noonday. 

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Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to live in. 

Nowhere in the world do the foundations of so many generations contain so much shared, and so much conflicted, meaning and history than in Jerusalem, and there is nowhere that is so much in need of a repairer of the breach and restorer of the streets to LIVE in, not die in.  The city, in all our traditions, is a place of holy ground and a physical location close to the divine presence.  Yet it is a place where the buildings of one generation arise on the ruins of another, and supplant, sometimes by war or rebellion, one sense of the holy with an opposing tradition.  It is a place where the physical presence of the holy has become a stumbling occasion for even the members of the same tradition, who can't decide who is worthy to maintain a particular site and so allow it to deteriorate while arguing about jurisdiction. 

Perhaps those foundations we need to raise up are not the buildings themselves, however holy they are to our traditions, but those foundations that were destroyed by our original human breaches?  I believe this prescription we are called to fulfill can repair the breach back even so far as Cain with Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, the sons of Jacob, even to Peter and Paul, the 1st century Jews with the early Christians, and the misunderstandings of Islam with Judaism and Christianity.  And what is called of us?  Simply to stop repressing, stop maligning, stop pointing fingers, cease from speaking evil, treat each other with compassion and empathy, and look out for others and their needs even as I look out for my own.  It appears that to address these issues of deep theological and historical divide, all I have is a simplistic solution not much different that the "golden rule."  But, isn't that EXACTLY what it takes? 

We can not heal by agreeing.  As one of the lecturers I heard at Chautauqua last week [Ori Soltes; Georgetown U] reminded us multiple times that "None of us was there."  We have nothing other than our deepest held convictions to convince us of the "rightness" of our point of view, but we each have deepest held convictions that are different from each other.  None of us was there -- there are no objective, conclusive proofs to convince anyone who does not already believe that we are right.  We have generations of coerced and forced conversions to demonstrate the folly of insisting on "rightness" in the absence of conviction.  So if we cannot, with reason, hope to ever agree, how can we heal but through respect, empathy and even love for the other despite our not being able to see eye to eye? 

Having true empathy for another involves being able to step aside from my own perspective and convictions and feel what the Other feels from their own perspective.  It sounds dangerous and is dangerous.  I cannot, I believe, feel from the other's perspective and come back to myself unchanged.  But, that danger may be the thing I have to face in order to be a "repairer of the breach."  In the Buddhist tradition, a person who achieves enlightenment completely merges with the ultimate reality, losing identity as a separate entity in the ultimate reality which is non-self and perfect unity.  But,  a person can delay ultimate enlightenment and become a Bodhisattva, a person who is near enlightenment (or, some say, has already obtained it) but who delays ultimate sublimation into non-self to help other sentient beings realize their own enlightenment. 

I believe a similar type of empathy, a culture of Abrahamic Bodhisattvas, is needed, even required, from us in healing the relations between our three traditions (and our several political entities that are tied up in the problem).  It is possible to enter into the world of the other and yet retain my own identity; and without doing this how can I hope to know what is the truth, to avoid speaking evil or being thoughtlessly insulting, and to understand and attempt to meet the other's needs? I can't insist that anyone else enter into my world, and if I wait to enter theirs until I see that they are ready to commit to the same path, when will any healing ever get started?  If I believe it is right, I have to get started whether or not there is any to come with me, and whether or not I see any chance of success. 

I want to be a healer of the breach.  I want streets restored where we ALL can live in peace and mutual understanding.  I want us all to see and celebrate the common foundations of our most deeply held beliefs, even though they have diverged.  There is so much pain today, and so much more destined for tomorrow unless we act now to counter it.  I believe this passage gives us the only prescription with any hope to cure the disease.