Living Prayer

Dear One,

Recently, it was my honor to be invited to write something for the Albert and Amelia Ferst Interfaith Center newsletter.  I was to keep in mind the theme of finding light in the darkness.  The rest was up to me.  I am happy to share with you what made its way into words…

Living Prayer 

As I get older, I realize that there are so many ways to pray.  I can pray in the traditional ways I have been taught.  I can pray in the way I speak to a stranger in a store.  Through my daily actions —even the most seemingly ordinary, I can embody Love.  This does not mean acting “holy,” and certainly not holier than thou.  We are Love’s voice in the world.  Love’s hands.  Love’s touch of kindness.  We are Love’s ears as we listen to each other with compassion. 

I am deeply inspired by a group in Israel-Palestine that is praying by listening. Parents Circle—Family Forum was formed by bereaved Israelis and Palestinians who have lost children, parents, and siblings in this longstanding conflict.  They come together to courageously share and listen to each other’s experiences.  In this way, they embody a living prayer for peace in the region. 

During the group’s recent online gathering, Holding Onto Humanity, a Palestinian mother who lost her five-month-old baby, and an Israeli sister who lost her cherished brother, shared about their terrible losses and about what brought them to join this group. I wept listening, reminded of how I felt listening to Black mothers speak during South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  Tears rose also when I participated in a vigil hosted by the Parents Circle in which hundreds from all over the globe joined virtual hands and surrounded the region in light. 

Our tears of grief are also prayers.

I grew up the daughter of Holocaust survivors.  Since a girl, I have asked myself what I would have done if I had been alive then.  How would I have acted if I had been in a concentration camp?  A German citizen?  An American?  I remember crying myself to sleep in my early teens, imagining being in a camp, hoping that I would have shared my bread. 

Now, here I am.  Not there where a war is raging and taking so many lives.  I am privileged to walk safely under blue, bomb-free skies.  And I am asking what can I do?

After my initial shock on October 7 and in the days following, which included making my way through the minefield of my own trauma triggers, I came to what for me is the only choice. I am choosing to believe in and stand for the possibility of the peaceful coexistence for these two peoples on their shared land. 

I am praying with every cell of my being for peace.  I pray for the healing of the old and new traumas being activated, which I believe to be at the root of the ongoing violence.  I pray with my eyes closed, wrapped in a prayer shawl.  I pray on social media by trying to choose words rooted in compassion.  I hear a child’s laughter and my prayers rush from my heart for all children suffering war. I pray in whatever small way I can to be an instrument of peace.

Some judge my choice as naïve, even dangerous. I understand their fear. 

But for me, the only sustainable choice is faith in the power of Love.  May Love embrace all who live on this land, and open the paths to peace for Israelis, Palestinians, and others in our global family.   I pray for amazing grace to make the impossible possible—as real as olive trees.

Shalom.  Salaam. 

As I am preparing this Harvesting Love Letter for you, it is still Chanukah, the Festival of Lights.  I created the image below after the first candle of eight was lit.   You see two candles because there is one that kindles the others each night.

JUST RELEASED ON AUDIBLE!
(click on the image above for link to Audible)

Soon available on iTunes, via libraries, and other audiobook venues

“Tuzman’s memoir is a treasure. Profoundly moving. The daughter of holocaust survivors transforms painful memory into a triumph of empathy, an epiphany of love. Her vignettes read like poetry, gems of sympathy, understanding, resistance. Angels on the Clothesline conjures a dream state of love for children and their wisdom. Can break the hardest heart wide open.”

~Raffi Cavoukian, singer, author, founder of Raffi Foundation For Child Honouring

G'Mar Chatima Tova

I close with this customary greeting whose literal meaning is: "a good final sealing."  I will add to that:  May you know the love of which you are made.  What better than to know this? 

With gratitude,
Ani