April 2016 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
Essays From the Margin
by Luis N. Rivera-Pagan - CASCADE BOOKS. Eugene, Oregon
“Living” Faith
I was born into a second generation American Jewish family, that was loosely connected to tradition and synagogue. Unions and FDR and civil rights were dinner table topics in the multi-generational kosher household. Spring brought a large family seder and fall included three days in synagogue. My parents and grandparents were scrupulously honest in all of their personal and business dealings. Politics and religion blended in daily life in conscious and sometime unconscious ways.
My formal religious education began at age seven. The liberal traditions of the institution, the rabbi and the prayer book that my parents affiliated with affirmed my home experiences. Every service ended with a prayer with a final line that envisioned a unified and perfected world where all people would affirm the unity of God and a world where all humanity would be at peace. The Torah portion that I read at my Bar Mitzvah included the verse that is inscribed on the Liberty Bell: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to its inhabitants” (Leviticus 25:10). I was delighted in the coming together of Torah and American history and my thirteen year naiveté allowed me to think that both traditions were truly caring about the well-being of every person. (NB. I have no memory of any discussion about the rules of slave ownership or the xenophobia that appear in this Torah chapter.)
The lynching of Emmet Till; the deep silence of so much of the world as European Jewry was systemically annihilated; the bombing of Hiroshima; the presence of slavery in ‘sacred text’ led me to read and think more carefully. I learned that every religion had similar visions of a perfected world and that these visions could sometimes lead to persecution of the “other”, especially when faith and state became one! In this brief collection of essays Rivera-Pagan informs and challenges the reader to consider the abuses that have and in some places still are being perpetrated in the name of religion.
Luis N. Rivera-Pagan(1.) reflects on the interaction of religion and social political behavior in different historical periods in Essays From the Margin. The opening essay begins with a description of Bartolomeo de las Casas (16th century Dominican, priest in the New World). De las Casas wrote about the exploitation and de-humanization of the indigenous population of Mexico and the Indies. He decried the failure of the priests to attempt to learn the native languages and the pervasive cruelty perpetrated in the name of the Spanish Crown and the Church.
The subsequent chapters focus on war and its special impact on women, post-colonial observations from the Caribbean; a discussion of liberation theology’s origins and ideas; a theological and social overview of diaspora and displacement of people at various time in history. The final view chapter, “Reading the Hebrew Bible in Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” is a powerful description of the plight of the Palestinian people since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and in the even more troubling actions of the Israeli government since 1967. Chapter 6 (p. 104) opens with a quote from Amos Elon:
“The Bible …. unlike the books of other ancient peoples, was ... the literature of a minor, remote people - and not the literature of its rulers, but of its critics. The scribes and the prophets of Jerusalem refused to accept the world as it was. They invented the literature of political dissent and, with it, the literature of hope.”
My connection with the Catholic Peace Fellowship was created by our shared commitment to our respective faith traditions and to a shared understanding of those traditions that pushed us to actively work to make our faith and politics work together for humanity. It pushed us to the margins! We must refuse to accept the world as it is as the prophets did. The many Fridays
that we stood in silent vigil outside of the Israeli Consul’s office was an effort in the prophetic tradition. To create a world where every person is respected and treated as an image of God.
Rivera-Pagan cites the following poem by Adrienne Rich in his preface to this book. I have chosen to conclude with that poem.
We are a small and lonely human race Showing no sign of mastering solitude Out on this stony planet that we farm. The most that we can do for one another
Is let our blunders and our blind mischances Argue a certain brusque abrupt compassion.
We might as well be truthful.
Adrienne Rich – “Stepping Backward”
Cy Swartz
Cy and Lois are founders of Bubbies and Zaydes (Grandparents) for Peace in the Middle East
Luis Nicolas Rivera –
Pagan was born in San Juan Puerto Rico, on December 5, 1942. He earned his MA & PhD at Yale University; held a chair at Princeton University until his retirement in 2007. He now holds the chair of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico.