CLAL Special Features
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Jewish Public Forum Seminar:
“What Is Religion For?”
November 19, 2001
Pre-Seminar
Response
“What Is Religion For?”
By Ruth Messinger
Since
September 11th there has been an outpouring of public concern not only for the
victims, but for everyone affected by the tragedy. Many
people have shed some of their rhinoceros skin, reached out to care for others, been open
about their own anxieties and worked to create new senses of community, some of them
religious. Professionally, we at American
Jewish World Service have found people more interested in understanding what happened,
more concerned with America’s role in the world, more affirmative about the role of
their faith communities in helping them deal with the realities of life today.
At the
same time, I am aware of others who are proclaiming the overwhelming presence of evil,
shutting out the world and retreating to their own cocoons.
Often this is accompanied by an attack on the other and the stranger and a
condemnation of other faiths or all faiths as being fundamentalist and therefore
dangerous.
I am very
concerned about how we react to this second group who are being damaged themselves and
sowing damaging and potentially dangerous policies and strategies for our future. But I am even more interested to understand why it
takes a crisis as earth-shattering and destabilizing as this one to unleash public
expressions of caring, to bring people together and help them build community. What should we be doing to support these
assertions of faith and caring and build on them for a strong future?
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