Theos-Talk Archives (October 2002 Message tt00096)

This poem was sent to Sam in the Westbank, on Yom Kippur.

A poem from a Jewish friend, Keren, on the Day of Atonement T'shuvah*

For A Nation
God forgive us
for hostility toward those we perceive to be not like ourselves;
for judging the powerless contemptible - though it was we who rendered them
so;
for believing that we are better, more deserving, and even entitled, because
our own suffering has been so great.
God forgive us
for turning our pain into a grisly weapon with which we torment others;
for perpetuating the poisonous cycle - from abused to abuser;
for despising the stranger, the refugee, the homeless - for forgetting that
we have been all of these.
God forgive us for the thousands we have displaced and discounted;
for the land we have confiscated and the homes we have demolished;
for the trees we have uprooted, and the water withheld; for the hearts, and
bones, and promises we have broken; for the hatred we have engendered.
God forgive us
for invoking your name to justify revenge and ethnic cleansing;
for citing Security to legitimize murder and torture;
for exploiting the Holocaust to defend doing to others what has been done to
us.
God forgive us
for the blinders we so carefully fabricate to hide our eyes from the
humanity of the people we call enemy;
the same whom history records as kin.

God forgive us
for euphemisms, Orwellian doublespeak, and outright lies;
for hiring high-powered firms to sell myths of innocence and righteousness;
for seeking a face lift for our image instead of atonement for our soul.
May God forgive us.
May those we have so terribly wronged forgive us.
*Repentance
ŠKeren Batiyov, 2002