Sitting Together in Unity - November 26, 2009 (From www.reverbnation.com/larry karol blog)

November 26, 2009

I recently officiated at the funeral of a congregant who had been one of the leaders in Dover (New Hampshire) Cooperative Ministries, a group of lay leaders from local congregations who support interreligious programs that promote understanding and helping agencies (a food pantry, an assistance fund and a kitchen the offers a hot meal daily to people in need). I am currently the convener of the local clergy group, the Dover Area Religious Leaders Association. I have always thought that this work is central to what I do, because it brings people of different faiths and backgrounds together to share beliefs and ideas in a way that creates familiarity where their otherwise could be misunderstanding and suspicion.
Our organizations sponsor a Community Thanksgiving Service each year on the Sunday preceding Thanksgiving. I have participated in this type of service since 1984, my first year as rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka, Kansas. I am honored to continue this type of communal participation as rabbi of Temple Israel in Dover, New Hampshire. The service in Dover this year was dedicated to the memory of the congregant (Lorraine Goren) who died in late October.
As I was getting ready to lead my Temple singers in a rehearsal of the song we planned to sing at the service, I was thinking about the service in relation to Psalm 133, which begins with a very familiar biblical text: "How good and how pleasant it is when people dwell together in unity." It continues with imagery that expresses a longing for the divided kingdom - Israel in the north and Judah in the south - to one day reunite. That did not happen, but the desire echoes throughout the generations with the many musical settings of the first line of this Psalm.
Yet, I was thinking about the Psalm and about what my congregant Lorraine and many other volunteers and clergy have tried to do in interfaith work - to build bridges to understanding to preclude the possibity of division. Less that an hour before the service began, I scribble down these lyrics:
How good and how pleasant it is when we sit together
How good and how pleasant it is - Hinei Mah Tov U-mah na-eem
Are we destined to live in a house divided?
How can we see clearly what makes us united?
When we feel the ties that bind us,
Love and understanding will find us.

I quickly worked out the melody, and sang the song at the service, less that two hours after the song had been completed. It was one of those moments when I felt like more of a "conduit" than the originating songwriter. One of my congregants said later that it was "a God thing." Whatever it was, it is an expression of a hope that we can overcome divisions in our communities and in the world and see what we hold in common in a way that we will be able to cooperate in our attempts to make this a better world.

I will post the song in the near future!