First i must thank you, the people of the Beyt Tikkun community, for the invitation to be with you during these High Holy Days and also for the splendid spirit and warmth with which you have welcomed me to your community and to the Bay Area. I am grateful to you for making me feel at home!
I cannot talk with you in this context without also naming the deep tension that I experience in doing so as a follower of that extraordinary first-century Jewish teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. I am painfully aware that my faith forbearers, throughout history and still today, have brutalized and murdered yours. I am particularly aware because I am situated in the Lutheran heritage, and Martin Luther’s violent writings against Jewish people are some of the most vitriolic anti-Semitic writings the world has known. They added fuel to the Holocaust.
Learning of that...
