It was a great experience to go to the Lecture given by this year’s Templeton Prize Winner, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, in St Andrews University.
‘Not in God’s Name’ is of course a subject which matters to me – since I spent much of my life living with degrees of religiously-motivated violence. The lecture was full of the almost throwaway lines which are entirely memorable – ‘wars are won with weapons – peace is won with ideas’ I’m working my way through the book at present. He has an extraordinary ability to encapsulate in a very few words the biggest changes in human society. And he provides the most comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism which you could imagine – that it is not so much about the Jews as a sign that a society is about to break apart.
I was glad to be there .. I should have put this up sooner!
Herrenvolk.
From the corner of my eye
I can almost see
in a recess of my mind
something dark is watching me
Moving in shadows
but not caused by light
emanating darkness
Held at the gate
by the keeper of the keys
kept in quarantine like a disease
Endlessly pacing
the confines of it’s cell
Glaring defiantly
with the venom of hell
Here is
The accuser of my soul
the robber of my peace
Here is
The hand of iron
fashioned in a cross
fashioned to deceive
Here is
The God of racial supremacy
the master of the master race
the destroyer of worlds
And from you where can I flee
to the highest mountain or the deep blue sea
I will take you there with me.
I offer this as a comment and ask that it may not appear
should you consider it inappropriate.