We are wondering if anyone has participated in a community where fear, amidst diverse beliefs, has been met with valuable tools of healing and cooperation. We are attempting to teach and further explore healthy community dynamics in Daughters Of Abraham meetings and through this blog.
Historically in the U.S. Christian churches were often a refuge for immigrants seeking familiar ethnic communities.
The same is true even today for Islam in the United States. More generally, globally, communal prayer (and some readings of the Quran) require a group.
Similarly, in Judaism, there are specific prayers, including the prayer for the dead, which require a group. This group, called a minyan, must number at least 10 adult Jews. Exogamy, or the custom of marrying outside the family, is a challenge in small Jewish communities because everyone feels like cousins. Being Jewish is interesting because it is both a religion and ethnicity. Therefore anyone can join the religion. (There is a lovely Midrash about joining.) However, once born Jewish one never can really leave.
Young people are quick to see the disparity between what is lifted up as sacred guidance from our Scriptures and what is being acted out between individuals. If one mixes up the letters of sacred one can type scared or scarred. Are we scared and scarred from communal wounds?
'Why is it that nothing ever gets done at these meetings?'
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