Oasis of Peace weekend

I missed part of the Interfaith conference due to the Big Billionaire Boss in from the States and my having to work that Friday morning. I confronted the Professor just before the meetings asking him for permission to leave earlier than the rest of the staff. By 11:30 am I was out. We took our Son along, thinking it is good for him to see Palestinians and Israelis behave nicely towards one another. A good education is necessary for an almost 13-year-old kid. I met a Belgian woman on one of my Saturday expeditions 2 weeks ago, who e-mailed me that she wanted to attend this conference, but there was no more room at the guest house. I figured since Son is sharing our room and since the rooms have 4 beds, and since we won't be having sex that weekend because of Young Son in our room, I told her she can stay with us.

We made it just in time for lunch, mealtime being Hubby's favorite part of the conference. My good friends, Eliyahu and Michael were there, which made me so happy because I knew we'd have even livelier conversations going on. Everyone commented on my straight hair. "You look so Californian" said Eliyahu. Yes, this is my "shiksa" look - I told him.

We returned to a short presentation on the Christian view of "love your neighbor as yourself" which was the theme for the weekend and Michael did a meditation with us in order to answer questions such as - how does one remove hate from one's heart. So we closed our eyes, imagined someone we love, people we love, things we love, and then imagined people/things that hurt us and brought them into our heart through this meditation. We then did a bit of yoga with some of the young Palestinians joining us - with the others watching - making light fun of their buddies who did join in.

When the Sabbath began, and the Jews had their evening prayer session, Eliyahu pulled the men in to dance. I was happy the Son was there to witness some joy between Israelis and Palestinians. Hamdan, from Bethelehem, sat next to me. He looked worried, looking at Eliyahu standing up and reading from a 400-page prayer book.

"He will read the WHOLE book?" he asked me, trying not to sound horrified.

No, don't worry - that book has prayers for the morning, afternoon, evening and Sabbath, and New Moon and other assorted ones - all combined in that book.

We danced some more after dinner, this time the Palestinians brought in their own music and I brought them my belly dance belts and scarves, which all the young men promptly put on, among happy whoops and hollers. My Israeli Arab friends from Sakhnin invited me and another girl for coffee in their room. But it wasn't only coffee. It was tea with sage, it was nuts from Al Quds, it was apples from Syria, oranges from here, and finally coffee. You can't say no to the hospitality so I ended up feeling so bloated, wondering how these women were so skinny. I excused myself after 2 cups of coffee, figuring I'll never sleep anyways, now that I'm caffeined up for the night.

It was too cold for meditating at the Meditation dome but we all walked there in the darkness. I was thinking to myself how wonderful it was that we trusted one another in the pitch blackness of the night - and in that isolated spot in the village where there was no electricity and no light in the dome. If "all of them" were murderers -which is what so many Israelis/Americans/Jews think - then weren't we putting our lives on the line, going into such a dark and isolated place with "them"? I'm sure they were probably thinking the same of us - especially of Michael, wearing a knitted kippah - a trademark of the "settler" look. We sang "Peace Will Come Upon Us" in Hebrew, a popular Israeli song and loved the way the acoustics echoed. It seemed like a prayer.

I had a talk with a young Orthodox Jewish student about the similarities/parallels between Buddhism and Chassidic Judaism - how in Buddhism there is no beginning and in Chassidic Judaism, God is known as "Ein Sof" - having no end. He told me to get the book The Jew and the Lotus - about rabbis that went to visit the Dalai Llama upon his invite - because he wanted to know from them how Jews survived in exile for 2,000 years, being that the Tibetan Buddhists were also in that same situation now and said that they invited the Dalai Lama for the upcoming Sulha in September 2005.

I then wanted to hear about my friend's Eyal's experiences - and he tells me about this crazy place in the desert, where they meditate and practice a form of Buddhist Judaism. And where this Jewish "guru" took off his clothes and blew the shofar during Yom Kippur services. I quickly told Hubby about this, thinking he may be interested in checking them out too.

In our discussions - Michael said that if you HATE evil - the "hate" part is what should not be and is what causes even more evil. But if you embrace or LOVE evil -it will no longer be that evil thing. He pointed out in the Hebrew spelling of the word Neighbor that it had the word "evil" in it. So if you are instructed to love your neighbor as yourself, you must learn to love evil too. A difficult concept.

In our group we spoke about car accidents being the result of not loving your neighbor - not yielding to the other - car accidents being the number one cause of death in this country, more than the casualties of our conflict.

At the end, we held hands and formed a circle and shared what we got from this weekend. Most of us wanted to "spread the word" that yes - it is possible for us to get along, despite the popular thinking in both our groups that "it'll never happen in a million years." The Son ended up playing card games and football with the young Palestinian men. I hope he tells his teachers. Eliyahu said he knew now that people not only want peace but are HUNGRY for peace and that is what he will now share with others.

On the way back home, our Son told our startled passengers that his "dad thought the food was shit". But I do believe all in all it was a positive experience and was grateful that I had the opportunity and blessing to share this with another member of my family.