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We are now in the second week of Advent, burning a candle for peace alongside a candle for hope. Peace will be the theme running through all this week’s offerings. Today I bring you a poem called Taking Sides written just a few weeks ago by Rabbi Irwin Keller. It reminds me of the much-loved lines by Rumi: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” We are living in such polarised times, almost all of us feeding ourselves on a diet of the opinions we already hold. The war in Israel-Palestine seems to have forced many to take a side, and if we have refused to do so, that has sometimes felt problematic too. I have been tremendously moved by those who have tried to understand this conflict from both sides. Loving your enemy may seem an unreasonable demand given current hostilities, but unless we are at least curious about positions we don’t hold, then we seem destined to remain stuck forever in enmity. Seeing things from another perspective is never easy and increasingly not even encouraged, so I am grateful for people who pause before taking sides, and even more grateful for people, like Irwin Keller, who invite us to think there may be other options altogether. Keller is a progressive American rabbi, a devoted student of the Torah, a former drag queen and a passionate advocate for gay rights. He’s warm, funny, free-spirited and fearless. And I think he offers just the kind of spiritual leadership our divisive times call for.
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