Bulletin June 2013 Sivan-Tamuz 5773 Vol. 62, No. 9 Established 1858
The Dalai Lama and the Jews ON MAY 9TH, RABBI CAHANA SERVED ON AN INTERFAITH PANEL ON SPIRITUALITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT WITH HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA There is a long-told apocryphal story about the leader of Tibetan Buddhism and the Jewish people. In 1989, so the story goes, just before being awarded the Nobel Peace prize, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama asked for a meeting with Jewish leaders at a Buddhist monastery near New York City. The spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people, who was living now in exile, wanted to learn how the Jewish people had survived nearly 2,000 years of Diaspora. The conversation continued with a delegation of eight rabbis and scholars who journeyed to Dharamsala in the Himalayan foothills of Northern India. Here the Dalai Lama and his guests pondered questions ranging from Divine Providence to the external pressures of Anti-Semitism. The Jews experienced the calm and deeply inquiring mind of the Dalai Lama, while he undoubtedly experienced some of the dynamics and diversity of Jewish inquiry. Last month, I was privileged to participate in a program sponsored by one of the oldest Buddhist colleges in America, Maitripa College here in Portland. The president of the college, Yangsi Rinpoche, invited me to have the great honor of serving on an interfaith panel with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In a public forum at the University of Portland, before 5,000 people, we discussed “Spirituality and the Environment” from a variety of faith perspectives. During the afternoon, I had a few moments to meet with the Dalai Lama – again, a great honor. We discussed our shared interest in the interface between religion and science. At one point, I asked him about the story of his meeting with the Jews. True? “Absolutely!” he exclaimed with his characteristic enthusiasm.
By Rabbi Michael Z. Cahana
I understand him to mean that Judaism’s genius has been to put our attention to the transmission of tradition through our home rituals. We moved from a people who brought sacrifices to the Temple on a single hilltop in Jerusalem to a people where every family table, every family meal is a center of ritual and Jewish experience. It is not the individual whom we put at the center. It is family. This has served us remarkably through times of joy and times of difficulty in our rich history, and it continues to do so. But “family” is a word that continues to take on new meaning. We define it in many different ways. And our homes are not always easy or sufficient places to transmit Jewish values. This is where the synagogue comes in. It is the synagogue’s mission to support our families in all their different configurations, included those who are alone. It is the synagogue’s mission to bring Jewish experiences into our lives and keep Judaism meaningful and relevant throughout our lives. The synagogue is where we celebrate our highlights and moments of our deepest sorrow, all in a Jewish context. We learn all our lives and we experience Judaism all our lives. The synagogue is where we meet clergy who inspire and friends who share our values, connections which make our lives meaningful and are shared throughout the generations.
“So what did you learn?” I asked.
Together we experience and perpetuate the secret of Jewish longevity.
“Your secret is: family,” he said definitively.
So says the Dalai Lama.
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